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A plot obviously. There were good parts of this film, mostly involving Robert Downey Jr. (Weird Science) and Woody Harrelson (Doc Hollywood), but they didn't add up to anything particularly impressive plot-wise. I think the basic idea—an undercover investigator assigned to observe himself thanks to technology that protects investigators' identities—had more potential than was realised here.

But like I said, it has a few entertaining scenes. And I loved the visual style, a cartoon look generated by rotoscoping the live action film.

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Some people bought T-shirts for Snakes on a Plane. But I realised that the whole point of the movie is the grassroots fan support. So I made my own T-shirt.

The back reads:

Ezekiel 25:17 The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by MOTHERFUCKIN' SNAKES

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Good news for fans of South Park, Team America and BASEketball. Trey Parker and Matt Stone are working on two new movies: a highschool comedy (you know how much I love them) called My All-American and something called Giant Monsters Attack Japan! which I assume is some sort of girly romantic comedy.

Even stranger news is that Matt Stone appears to have cut his hair. I hope that wasn't the source of all his powers. Not that that would really matter much. We all know he's Ben Affleck to Parker's Matt Damon.

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Title: Snakes on a Plane

Genre: Horror/Action/Thriller/Snakes on a Plane

Plot synopsis: Snakes on a Plane

Watching Snakes on a Plane was without a doubt the most fun I've ever had in a cinema. I don't even know how to begin describing its awesomeness. There's nothing left to say. It's about snakes. On a plane. That's it. If you don't already love it then you won't love the film. But if you do love it, well then the film goes so far beyond what I expected in living up to its name.

It's two hours of utterly shameless pandering to the audience. Everything you want to see is in the film. "I hope it bites her on the... Ow! It bit her right on the...!" Of course it helped that the whole audience was completely behind the movie, cheering every one-liner and whooping at every gory snake bite. We had audience participation of a level perfectly suited to a movie that has relied so much on its fan base thus far.

If the SoaP phenomenon is something you want to be a part of you have to see it soon before the hardcore fans start to disappear from the cinemas leaving you to watch it on your own. It just won't be the same.

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You may remember my glowing praise of little-known indy flick, Brick, back in May. In case you're interested it's still sitting comfortably in the top spot for best film of the year. Then again Garden State happily wandered along in that spot for most of last year and finally came in with shameful shameful bronze in my Top 5 for that year, so you never can tell.

A hypothetical reader who's paying altogether too much attention and who really should go and find something better to do might note that, since I noted Dirty Rotten Scoundrels as my favourite Steve Martin movie, I'm obviously a fan of the con-man genre. Like I said, that hypothetical reader is way too interested in my opinions on movies. Leaving that aside, let's put film-of-the-year-so-far and really-great-genre together and see what we come up with.

Well if it isn't the promise of a con-man movie from Brick writer/director Rian Johnson. Awesome! And despite Brick's success he's staying independent so that he doesn't have to sacrifice control of the film to a studio. (By the way, if you're wondering what effect removing full creative control from a visionary film-maker has on a movie, compare Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Serenity. Urgh.)

I just really don't have any interest right now in doing studio work or being a director for hire or doing other people's material or selling my material for other people to do. Right now I've got a couple of stories in my head and I want to be able to tell them in my own way. I want to be able to make my own movies.

It's still a long way away, not planned for release until 2008, but The Brothers Bloom is going to sit prominently on my movies to look forward to list in the mean time.

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The major complaint that I read about this movie before going to see it was that it starts and ends well but slows down too much in the middle. Let me just say right now that the people who made this complaint obviously didn't watch the film. That "slow" bit in the middle is the film. The other bits are just the setup and the payoff. There are absolutely no pacing problems with Cars as long as you realise that it's not a racing movie.

What it is is a reflection on what we may be losing out on as our lives get busier and the world gets faster. It's designed to slow you down and allow you to reflect on what's really important. Now, being 23, what's really important to me generally doesn't include small middle-American towns past their prime.

I think the whole quiet remembrance of golden days past is likely to alienate some of Cars' younger viewers (although, as usual for Pixar, the very young are amply catered for). But even though I found the ideal of tranquillity it presented to be, well, less than ideal, the film made such a good job of presenting itself that it really didn't matter.

Jokes were fewer than in previous Pixar movies. Don't expect a Toy Story level of hilarity. There are still some moments that elicited a laugh or two from me.

Overall, and here's where it becomes blindingly obvious that I wasn't born to do film reviews, I would have difficulty saying exactly why I liked this movie so much. There's honestly not an awful lot that I can point to and say "that's why I liked it." Owen Wilson is among the reasons. As is the extraordinarily high-quality animation (which continues to wow me even having seen Pixar out-do themselves so many times before.) Throughout the film I was aware that it had been made by very talented people at the top of their game, and that at no point in the years of its development had anyone ever said "that's good enough, let's go home." I think that really shows in the finished product.

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Like you, I grew up being told that if I have nothing nice to say I shouldn't say anything at all.

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I didn't get around to reviewing this before I headed off to Millstreet last week for the European Juggling Convention. I guess you've all since seen it so I don't expect a review would be particularly enlightening at this point. Anyway I expect that approximately everyone was planning to see this film and nothing I can say is going to change that.

The simple fact is that the two coolest elements any movie can contain right now are Johnny Depp and pirates. Captain Jack Sparrow is the icon of this decade and anyone who regards this particular cultural bandwagon as optional is sadly removing themselves from society for the foreseeable future (i.e., until the next in the series manages against all the odds to be a disappointment, at which point those people will gloat at length while everyone else moves silently onwards and tries to forget the whole thing).

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Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart), lobbyist for the American tobacco industry, a fast- and smooth-talking professional arguer, goes to hollywood to improve smoking's image and at the same time tries to protect his industry from an ambitious anti-smoking senator who wants to put a skull and crossbones on every packet of cigarettes. He represents an industry that kills 1200 people a day, a fact which he presents with pride to his fellow MODs (merchants of death), the representatives of the alcohol and firearms industries whose death tolls are (for them) disappointingly smaller. And this seemingly amoral yuppie is a character that the audience is supposed to like. Thank You for Smoking has a premise that should guarantee a good movie.

And yet it doesn't entirely live up to its potential. I have to confess that I can't quite tell what it was about the film that wasn't up to scratch for me. Not terribly helpful in a review, I know, but that's the way it is. There is one particularly bad actor, Cameron Bright (Leech in X-Men 3) who plays Naylor's son, but I don't think he really had that much of a negative impact on the film despite his "I'm reading this off a teleprompter, badly" delivery. I suspect that it's just a case of too-high expectations on my part. Thankfully that's not something you should have to deal with now that I've told you it's not that good.

I'll be fair; it isn't actually bad. It's actually quite good, and still in my top five new movies from this year so far. There are a few great scenes and a number of very entertaining supporting characters. It just never goes beyond what the trailer presents. There's nothing in the whole film funnier than Rob Lowe's "thank God we invented the, you know, whatever device" to explain the fact that cigarettes don't explode in an all-oxygen environment in sci-fi movies.

If the concept appeals to you then you probably won't be let down, but you won't be wowed either. On the other hand if the premise leaves you cold then there's no reason to think that the film will do anything to change your mind.

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I've been sitting here with my laptop for the last few hours, and every time I get my browser's tab count down to one there's something new in Bloglines for me to look at. This can be an almost unending process sometimes, so I've pushed that temptation aside in order to get this review written. I want to have made at least some cursory observations about Hard Candy while it's still on general release.

I want to start by saying that it was a very good film. The subject matter—a fourteen-year-old girl (Ellen Page, X-Men 3) who's brought home by a thirty-something paedophile (Patrick Wilson, The Phanton of the Opera apparently) turns the tables on him and goes a little psycho—might sound heavy. But it's actually very entertaining. This isn't one of those depressing or preachy "issues" films that people watch out of a misplaced sense of moral duty. It's slick, stylish and well paced. Every part of it is of an unusually polished quality.

The film's visuals are very artsy. Several shots or even whole scenes look like thay started life as music videos or car ads. Almost the whole film is cast in a subdued blue, except for Page's Little Red Riding Hood hoody (clearly she's the Little Red Riding Hood from Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes). It just plain looks cool. Not that it's all style and no substance. The visual design is clearly in service of the mood, with the colour, for example, reflecting the artificiality of the situation that Page's character has engineered. But mainly it just looks cool.

Everything is in close up or extreme close up, always giving the viewer the opportunity to get as much from the actors' performances as was put in. Which is a lot. Wilson is excellent. But Page is astounding. I was honestly a little scared by how well she played that role. When I raved about her being the best thing in X-Men 3 I didn't realise she was that good. For a seventeen-year-old (as she was at the time of filming) to carry the majority of such a performance-driven film so well is really very impressive.

There were moments when I suspected I was being preached at. There's one scene that has Page sermonising almost directly to the camera. But overall, in retrospect, there doesn't appear to be any siding with either character. So you'll be relieved to know that you're not expected to take the side of either the paedophile or the torturer. Incidentally, I read an interview with Page that suggested that she completely agreed with her character's position. If I ever get the opportunity to meet her I'll make sure to wear a cup. And to mix my own drink.

With all of this said, you won't be surprised that I recommend that you see Hard Candy. However, you might want to bear the following in mind. Guys, you know when you see someone else getting hit in the balls and you can almost feel it yourself? Well in that regard, Hard Candy is the most disturbing film for a man to watch since Springfield Film Festival winner Football in the Groin. One guy actually left the cinema during what I will only describe as a crucial scene. You don't see anything but, let's face it, you don't really have to. Painful viewing. But totally worth it.

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