http://films.redbudbookclub.info Films fit for royalty Sun, 14 Sep 2008 10:37:52 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Wow. Meg Ryan. Annette Bening. Candice Bergen. Carrie Fisher. Debra Messing. Bette Midler. Eva Mendes. Jada Pinkett Smith. Cloris Leachman. This should have been a fantastic film. This should have been groundbreaking. This should have been the film ... http://films.redbudbookclub.info/2008/09/14/the-women/ Following so closely on the amazing Ratatouille, Flushed Away, and Wall-E, these two animated tales failed to live up to my expectations. Don't get me wrong, they weren't unwatchable. The actual animation was fine, but that's to be expected these days. The voice acting was fine, from ... http://films.redbudbookclub.info/2008/09/14/mediocrity-alert/ Pixar's story of a very low-born culinary artiste debuts on my list at #4 all-time favorite movies (right after Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were Rabbit, Flushed Away, and Wall-E). As with the aforementioned, a talented cast combines with flawless animation and a saucy script to ... http://films.redbudbookclub.info/2008/09/14/ratatouille/ The Truth is out there, by all accounts, and so are the aliens. So don’t expect to find any in here. For about the first half of the film I found myself waiting for the investigators to uncover the extraterrestrial connection to the mystery, but at a certain point you ... http://films.redbudbookclub.info/2008/08/19/x-files-i-want-to-believe/ As discussed in our review of Hancock, a sprinkling of real-world grit is fairly commonplace in a superhero movie these days and while Batman Begins did a fair job of that, attributing the hero's abilities to a spell of martial arts training and providing a Batmobile so obviously a development ... http://films.redbudbookclub.info/2008/08/19/the-dark-knight/ You know how it is, when they suck you in by putting all the best bits in the trailer, so that when you get to see the movie you find there's nothing very much left in there to surprise you. And when the movie feels like it wasn't a whole ... http://films.redbudbookclub.info/2008/08/19/hancock/ Ideally, I should have reviewed Prince Caspian directly after I'd seen it. There's been quite a lot of metaphorical water under the figurative bridge since then and for all the wonders and marvels on offer in the film, looking back I can't say that I find it all that memorable. ... http://films.redbudbookclub.info/2008/08/15/prince-caspian/ Ever since Toy Story, our cinema screens have been awash with pixel-perfect CGI animations and usually I get the feeling they just replace one set of cutesy characters with another - swap penguins for pandas, zoo animals for woodland critters, toys for cars etc and you're good to go. So ... http://films.redbudbookclub.info/2008/08/15/wall-e/ The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, the third installment of the Mummy series, joins a more mature Rick "Ricochet" and Evelyn O'Connell, uneasy in retirement and secretly longing for the excitement of their younger days. Unfortunately, they don't look any older, and it is difficult to believe 20-year-old ... http://films.redbudbookclub.info/2008/08/14/the-mummy-tomb-of-the-dragon-emperor/ I didn't want to watch Flushed Away. Until the word "Aardman" flashed on the screen. Then I knew I had been wrong to prejudge the film (I had thought from the title it was one of those well-past-marginal animated films that could only amuse toddlers of less-than-average intelligence) ... http://films.redbudbookclub.info/2008/08/05/flushed-away/