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Storm Warning (DVD)
by GentleGenius
RELEASED: 2007, Cert. 18
RUNNING TIME: Approx. 86 mins
DIRECTOR: Jamie Banks
PRODUCER: Gary Hamilton
SCREENPLAY: Everett De Roche
MUSIC: Jamie Blanks
MAIN CAST:-
Nadia Fares as Pia
Robert Taylor as Rob
David Lyons as Jimmy
Mathew Wilkinson ... as Brett
John Brumpton as Poppy
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FILM ONLY REVIEW
Rob and his French wife Pia go on a fishing trip. Bad weather is looming overhead, and as a storm threatens, Rob decides it might be a good idea to take the boat through the mangrove area. When their boat becomes damaged, they wander through the mangrove on foot, spotting a ramshackle old collection of sheds and a house, all of which appear to be abandoned. Rob and Pia enter the house as they find the door is unlocked, to be met with utter squalor inside, yet they are hoping to find a phone inside so they can call for help.
What Rob and Pia didn't bargain for was two brothers Jimmy and Brett, who live in the old house with their father, returning from wherever they'd been.
Immediately, Jimmy and Brett begin a campaign of torment and harassment towards Rob and Pia, the couple's plight worsening when the father, Poppy, puts in an appearance.
From then onwards, Rob and Pia have to rely on their wits and inventiveness to save themselves from the decidedly nutty backwoods father and two sons.
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Although I appreciate the scene has to be set and a film has to be made, I was a bit irritated with Rob and Pia for setting sail, when it was obvious the weather was about to take a turn for the worse. Would anybody sensible risk a fishing trip in a remote area of Australia's mangrove swamp when the thunderstorm from hell was imminent?
From reading various summaries and précis of Storm Warning, one might believe, as I initially did, that the film is yet another in a whole host of films which are about teens lost somewhere, and encountering something or someone harmful which they have to pit their wits against. However, Rob and Pia aren't teenagers, and the plight they find themselves in is a little different from the norm.
With one or two minor exceptions, I usually find Australian horror/psycho-chiller/slasher type movies to be very well-made and entertaining....Storm Warning is no exception, although from the situational aspect, the Aussies have done similar before.
Jimmy, Brett and dad Poppy make it more than clear that Rob and Pia certainly aren't welcome at their remote, squalid dwelling in the middle of nowhere, and the father/two sons trio are totally off their trolleys, appearing to live on a diet of mainly alcohol, with a few ruined egg meals thrown in here and there. They also have a huge plantation of marijuana plants growing in one of their sheds. The violence contained within the film borders the extreme here and there, but I have seen worse. Also, some of the tactics used by Pia when she realises she is going to be raped are I suppose fairly novel, resulting in a couple of scenes which would make any men who watch this film extremely uncomfortable. I will leave that part to your imagination, and whatever you envisage, will be a little different from what actually does happen.
I found the acting by all the main cast members to be first class, particularly that of David Lyons as the creepy, snarling Jimmy. Lyons gave a very good performance, to the point where he almost managed to scare the hell out of me. The dialogue is also very good, particularly Jimmy's lines....and he delivers them with a very sardonic, chilling manner.
The whole atmosphere of Storm Warning is one of squalor. The inside of the house the three madmen share is appalling...filthy beyond anybody's expectations or imagination. Various pointers towards unusual sexual practices are scattered around, such as the settee which, if you look closely enough, you will spot that it is a blow-up rubber doll. During one part of Storm Warning, Poppy and Brett are watching a hardcore porn film on their TV....and although you aren't shown the action, it is obvious what the movie is about, by the sounds.
As gory, bloody, gruesome and in some parts sickening that Storm Warning is, I couldn't help raising a smile here and there....one or two minor events even made me laugh, which - and I do accept that I have a very black sense of humour - made me believe that those scenes weren't intended to be taken seriously, perhaps being the direction/production team's grotesquely tongue-in-cheek comedic offering.
The music to Storm Warning is all synthesized, and although I found it enhanced the chilling atmosphere very well, it was a little too loud in parts for me. Some of it is fairly tuneful, with the remainder being abstract noises, created and appropriately placed in order to hike up the disturbing atmosphere.
Overall, this is yet another instance where the Australians prove that they are good at knocking up a decent, low-budget horror/slasher film. It is a bit of a gore-fest, but as said above I have seen worse recently and I sincerely believe that much of what happens on the screen isn't intended to be taken seriously. The quality of the acting does add an uncomfortable touch of realism, and I guess after watching this film, one is left with the feeling that if lost in the outback or in the mangrove in a storm, it's probably best to try and head homewards rather than take shelter in what at first appears to be an abandoned building.....better still, check out the weather forecast before embarking on the trip.
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At the time of writing, Storm Warning can be purchased from Amazon as follows:-
New: from £3.48 to £10.45
Used: from £3.49 to £10.45
Collectible: only one copy currently available @ £6.95 (appears to be used)
Some items on Amazon are available for free delivery within the UK, but where this doesn't apply, a £1.26 charge should be added to the above figures.
Thanks for reading!
~~ Also published on Ciao under my CelticSoulSister user name ~~
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Life of Pi (DVD)
by CosmicLove
Film only review :)
My fiancé saw this film with some of his friends from work last year during the Christmas period and said that it was brilliant and he really enjoyed it. We were planning to go and see it together more recently but when our son was ill we decided not to go after all.
Recently while I was ... browsing through the films available on my television package I saw that it had been added onto there and for around £3.99 for 48 hour rental I thought it'd definitely be worth watching. Ben decided that he wasn't bothered about watching the film again and as its quite a long one (over 2 hours) I was understanding of this, so I ended up watching it with two of my friends who hadn't seen it before.
We were all very excited and we turned off the lights, turned up the volume and curled up on the sofa, expecting to be amazed. Unfortunately the amazement never came, instead boredom. The film is NOT what I was expecting at all! This is going to sound silly for people who have seen it, but I was expecting it to be almost like Avatar - heavily CGI'd, set in a mythical place etc. That being said though I'd only seen the trailers and hadn't bothered to read the plot or any reviews.
My fiancé describes the film as philosophical, but apart from a few small scenes I found it boring. The film is about a man (Pi) who grew up in India with his older brother, mum and dad and his parents bought a zoo. The film follows him through his childhood for a good length of time which had some attempted humour in there but I didn't find any of it funny. I did like the scene with the lion & the goat but I found the whole maths class/girlfriend etc scenes quite unnesecary.
That being said, I can understand why the scenes were there - so that we could obviously get to know Pi's personality and obviously it would be even more boring if the whole film was just set at sea. The film finally starts to gee up a little when Pi's mother and father decide that the family should move to Canada and sell the zoo animals. They go onto a boat (which for some reason is full of Japanese fishermen) and take the animals with them. I liked the scene where Pi was asking his dad why he was giving the animals sedatives and it showed his caring side.
The fact that Pi is really caring (he describes him self as a 'skinny vegetarian boy') makes him really likeable and I had sympathy for him when things started to go wrong. He ends up stranded in a life boat with Orange Juice the orangatan, a hyena and a zebra. Oh.. and Richard Parker, the adult Bengal tiger. Richard Parker was captured as a cub by a hunter. The hunter named him thirsty, but the paper work got mixed up so the tiger was sent off with the information about the hunter and the name stuck. Before long only Richard Parker and Pi remain on the boat, and this is where I'll end my description of the plot as I don't want to spoil it for anyone!
The CGI in this film is good - there are some stunning, magical scenes and the picture is really clear, however at times things didn't look very realistic at all, specifically the meerkats in the island scene (in my opinion). I also found the accent of the main character and his family a little hard to understand at times. The acting was alright, but nothing outstanding which might sound a bit harsh but it is just my opinion.The ending was a shocker, and upon re-watching a certain scene I understood and felt really emotional. The ending was the best bit for me (and the scenes with the gorgeous looking author character were pretty nice too!) and I wouldn't watch it again as I think I'd die of boredom!
Three out of five stars.
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Iron Man 3 (DVD)
by JoelM
Personally I couldn't wait for this to be released. Avengers was alright but had not been enough! Didn't get to see it straight away because of work issues but I did see it on the 5th of May. Was not disappointed let me tell you that!
The film was 130 minutes long
Main cast:
Robert Downey, Jr. (Tony Stark,Iron ... Man)
-Very impressed, normal over the top charismatic self. Great performance as always
Gwyneth Paltrow (Pepper Potts)
- Not too impacted by her, she was there but that was about it.
Don Cheadle (Col. James "Rhodey" Rhodes / Iron Patriot)
-Great character, as always. Can be humorous at just the right time.
Guy Pearce (Aldrich Killan)
-Nice twist associated, very impressed. Great performance
Rebecca Hall (Dr. Maya Hansen)
-Don't see that much of her, only at important intervals, meh. Not really decided. Better than Gwyneth but that's not saying too much.
Jon Favreau (Happy Hogan)
-Funny character, impressed. Short lived, empathy felt even so. Well acted.
Ben Kingsley (The Mandarin)
-Nice twist associated, very impressed.
As with many movies nowadays there was a choice of 3D and 2D I personally hate 3D after seeing clash of the titans in 3D absolutely hated it, ruined the experience for me. So as you can guess I saw this in 2D, some of us split up and they saw the 3D version. Again mixed views.
The story is nothing to jump out your seat for, Stark threatens a terrorist that has been blowing buildings up and killing people. This obviously angers said terrorist and he attacks Stark's home. A chain of event lead up from this which are quite forgettable apart from the pleasant surprises along the way such as with the mandarin played by Ben Kingsley. Saying that I did not get bored at any point it always kept me thinking what other twist could they pull. The ending was very impacting but nothing special, nice to see but not surprising quite generic for this type of film. After the credits had rolled there is a scene with Dr. Bruce Banner where Stark was explaining all we had seen and Banner fell asleep, was a very funny scene that not many saw because they had left by that point. I knew that something would happen this is why we stayed to the very end.
All the 'main' characters from the previous movies are in this with a few additions. Such as the mandarin he is the villain in this title. An aspect of this will be very surprising and humorous. Another thing I liked them doing was renaming 'War Machine' to 'Iron Patriot' because it was a 'nicer' term that war machine, was a funny and nice addition (this is the character played by Don Cheadle) Re-hashing is something that may have been done here with the characters but I did not care or seem to notice until after when I had thought about what I was watching. It grabbed you, kept you guessing and I was certainly not bored at any point. I did like the play on Stark's anxiety it was a clever move, the boy was a nice addition to the film also. Acted brilliantly. The soundtrack was also great.
All in all it does have cracks in the full picture. But these are made up for in a big way. I enjoyed the film thoroughly, especially the many intense scenes. I would definitely recommend this film. Any Iron Man fan (would have already seen it!) but will be impressed. To any newcomers you will not be lost from the start.
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