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The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982)
A cult horror classic, this film is a great example of why such films should focus on suspense and psychological horror rather than physical, in your face shocks - although it can be argued that this has both. The film deals with paranoia as a science research crew begin to fear for their lives as they discover they are under attack from a shape shifting monster. Although the characters are quite shallow and forgettable, I felt that unlike some horrors, this was okay for the plot. Kurt Russell gives an enjoyable performance and the final scene leaves you attempting to piece together what you have just seen, and closer viewings reveal that the monster and the way it operates are extremely cleverly written. In one scene I actually jumped too, which is not an often occurrence these days with predictable horror films, the blood test scene which was built up brilliantly.
Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, 1971)
Possibly Eastwood's most well known film as an actor, my first proper viewing had been a long awaited one. Eastwood works great as an action star set on delivering his own personal justice to the 'Scorpio' killer, a role different from his work with Leone, but also similar in a lot of ways, we watch this cool, collected and extremely likeable character assert his masculinity through enjoyable violence. The ending is very well known and often quoted, and was as great as I hoped it to be, despite Eastwood's characters political views (he finds himself in trouble with the police/legal system) not matching my own, Siegel does a great job in making them highly enjoyable to watch.
Blades of Glory (Josh Gordon & Will Speck, 2007)
A comedy film that is pretty much what you would expect from Will Ferrell and Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite), although I must say this is one of the better 'dumb comedies' I have seen and it did surpass my expectations at times. It is very stupid at times, but provides a decent number of laughs, a decent effort that will probably please a lot more people than me.
American Reunion (John Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg, 2012)
I am not the biggest fan of the American Pie films, I never really watched them when I was a that young (Probably watched the first when I was about 15) so I didn't find myself enjoying some of the more teenage orientated scenes as well as I would of if I was younger, although it is meant to be a kind of fun 'coming of age/leaving school' type film, it didn't do too much for me apart from a few scenes which were genuinely really funny. I do not though think that this is the weakest of the series, and fans of the original will surely like it, but I set here now attempting to write a paragraph about it and I find myself remembering barely anything of note to write about.
Little Nicky (Steven Brill, 2000)
I am not a big Sandler fan, which puts me probably in the majority here, but I would not say I hate him. I had been told that this along with Happy Gilmore (not seen) was one of his more enjoyable older films, however now watching it I can only disagree. I know comedies like this are supposed to be silly, but this was just really strange and made even more bizarre by some of the actors that appear in it. I love Harvey Keitel and like Patricia Arquette (for True Romance, at least) and Rhys Ifans (a fellow Welshman) well enough, but they couldn't stop this from being a poor film. Keitel looks like he is having fun, but I have no idea why he would do something like this, unless he just wanted to to do just that, have fun with something different (I recall Al Pacino recently appeared in Jack and Jill too). Quentin Tarantino's small character is even more bizarre, I could not help but laugh at his scenes.
L.A. Confidential (Curtis Hanson, 1997)
A film that is a fantastic reminder of why I love films, a love letter to film noir but a very respectable one in itself, the film oozes style and has some great performances that makes it a top viewing experience. Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe (who would have guessed two Neighbours stars would be such great actors here) are great in their contrasting good cop, bad cop roles, then there's lots of other top performances from the likes of Kevin Spacey, Kim Basinger (who looks nothing like 44), Danny DeVito and James Cromwell. In true noir style, the film excels in all the right departs, direction, cinematography, sound and perhaps most importantly script.
Natural Born Killers (Oliver Stone, 1994)
This film is a hell of a ride, and it had me hooked from the opening scene, one of my favourites in the film as we see Stone/Richardson beautifully construct a scene using various different shots and photography styles to create a highly energetic, hyper scene where we are introduced to the film's main characters, Mickey and Mallory. There are a few things I don't understand about people who complain about this film, the first is complaints about violence, I am honestly going to say I do not think this film was very violent. Sure it deals with a lot of blood/violent scenes but the killings are never explicitly shown in detail and it was never difficult to watch for me. The second is the complaint about its satirical (or not) nature with Stone coming under some criticism for his removal of Tarantino's original comedic elements, turning the film into violent entertainment that it is supposed to mock, I don't get this because all the way through I found the film to be a comedy, it is about as over the top as you could get, its in your face stupid at times, but that's what makes it such a great experience. I loved Robert Downey Jr.'s hilarious character for the film's second half, some of the ending prison scenes are also brilliant.
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