Ramblings of a Disorientated Mind

Year: 2006
Genre: Fantasy/ Drama/ Horror
Language: Spanish with English subtitles

This is the story of a young girl, Ophelia, and her pregnant mother who travel to live in a rural area of Spain with the mother’s new Nazi husband. Ophelia’s new Father doesn’t seem to care much for her or her mother, only the child growing inside the mother. Ophelia uses fairy stories to escape the horrible world she lives in, and descends, with the help of an imaginary faun, into a much darker one.

This film is reminiscent of the Brothers Grimm style of fairy story, rather than what we are use to today, and actually quite scary in some places. I wouldn’t recommend taking children to see it. Aside from that, it was a very beautiful film, well acted by Ivana Baquero [Ophelia], and quite sad towards the end.

I didn’t enjoy this film because it was so sad, but I would watch it again, because it’s very well done.

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Year: 1996
Genre: Action/ Fantasy/ Adventure

Dragonheart is the story of the last Dragon, Draco, and Bowen, a knight disillusioned when the boy he taught to be benevolent becomes king and a tyrant. Tired of chasing each other and always ending up at stalemate Bowen and Draco team up to scam villagers by Bowen ‘killing’ Draco. However when a young woman, Kara, turns up she convinces both Bowen and Draco to aid her in taking back the kingdom from the tyrannical King.

I sort of liked this. It was a nice happy film and a Scottish accented dragon is highly amusing, but the premise and characters were pretty mediocre over all.

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Year: 2006
Genre: Espionage/ Action

Casino Royal is the latest James Bond film, staring Daniel Craig as the 6th Bond. This is Bond’s first mission as a double-oh agent, and he has to stop a banker from winning a high stakes poker game and using the winnings to fund a terrorist organisation.

I really, really enjoyed this Bond film. It’s one of the better Bond films in recent times, and Daniel Craig is a refreshing change from Pierce Brosnan, more of a return to Sean Connery’s Bond. There isn’t really much more to say except it was simple and the more thrilling for it’s simplicity.

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Year: 2006
Genre: Comedy/ romance

This is the story of Harold Crick, an IRS agent who starts hearing a voice narrating exactly what he’s doing and thinking, and seems to be dictating his life to some extent. This is also the story of Kay Eiffel, a rather neurotic and reclusive writer, who is writing her latest novel about a man named Harold Crick. And she intends to kill him.

This is a good film. I think I enjoyed it more for the neurotic writer, than for the romance between Harold and Ana Pascal, a baker Harold is Auditing. I think this film is particularity appropriate since it was aired at the end of November – National Novel Writing Month. In all an amusing film.

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Year: 2006
Genre: Animated/ Children

Flushed Away is the latest film from Aardman Animations, and is their first full CGI film. It follows the adventures of Roddy the Mouse as he gets flushed down the loo by an unwelcome house guest, and his escapades in getting back home only to find thats not really what he wants.

This film is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a really long time. I was laughing so hard, I almost wet myself. Admittedly, Flushed Away take the piss out of several other films, and the general premise is cliché, but the characterization and jokes are so good that it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to say it’s not for Yanks, but I think you have to understand at least a little about the British national psyche to understand some of the references. This film is probably more suitable for older children, as younger kids won’t get the jokes, but this is an awesome family film.

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Year: 2006
Genre: Sci-Fi/ Romance/ Other

The Fountain is three stories wound together all focusing, somehow, on the existence of a tree that can cure all ills and grant immortality.

The main story follows Tomas Creo, a cancer research scientist who, on a whim, injects a cancerous monkey with a sample from some tree in South America, and his wife Izzy who has cancer and is writing a book as her last act.
That’s where the second story comes in. It’s the time of the Spanish inquisition, and Spain has heard from the Mayan people it’s busy subjugating about a tree that grants eternal life, so the Queen sends her most trusted conquistador to retrieve the sap of the tree for that he and she can live forever.
Interspersed between these two stories is a man [possibly Tom] and the tree floating through space, headed towards a dying star.

I found this film to be very sad, but I still enjoyed it somewhat. It was a little more ‘artsy’ and philosophical than I go for usually, and I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone who likes their plots spelled out for them, since you never really get why the man is taking the tree to the dying star, although throughout the film there is the sense of death being an act of creation. However the score, acting and special effects are beautiful.

Overall this was a little too obscure for me, but it wasn’t too bad.

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Year: 2006
Genre: Animated/ Children

Happy feet is about a tap-dancing penguin who grows up as a pariah because all the other penguins sing. His differences lead him to meet other types of penguin and finally ends up at the penguin exhibition at Seaworld in Florida, where his tap-dancing means the world decides to stop trawling in the antarctic.

This film is okay. Some of the song and dance numbers are good, and the baby penguins are perfectly done [and sickeningly cute], but overall this is definitely a film for children, with the perfect happy ending. I enjoyed it as a little escapist diversion, but I’m glad I didn’t pay to see it and I probably wouldn’t watch again.

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