The next review is WILD!

I'm going to see this film on Wednesday so expect a review Thursday night.

Disney's A Christmas Carol REVIEW

With Christmas being driven down our throats from big supermarkets getting all their Christmas stock out before Halloween, sofa companies saying on adverts that they will have your sofa delivered in time for Christmas and everyone's favourite red trucks on the TV saying that "holidays are comin', holidays are comin'." So it's only fitting that Hollywood get a few films released to get us in the spirit of the season, and the film I am reviewing today certinally got me in the mood!

Today I am going to be reviewing Robert Zemeckis' take on the classic Charles Dickens story A Christmas Carol. I am a huge fan of the story and I have seen many versions of this story ranging from the George C. Scott version released in 1984; to the Muppet's Christmas Carol that will no doubt be on our TVs this Christmas. (Well I hope)

This was the first time I had seen a Zemeckis CG film as I haven't gotten round to seeing Polar Express. Before I get into the nitty gritty about the story let me just express my feelings about the CG in this film. I have to say this was the best CG work I had seen in a long time! Transformers is stunning but this was just amazing. The last time I was convinced that the characters were real people was when I watched Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within for the first time. The scenes with the Ghost of Christmas Present were bright and stunning to watch. This film was definatley using the CG to its full advantage.

Now to discuss the actual story of the film. This adaptation is very faithful to the original text and a lot of the lines of dialogue are word for word. I found myself at times mouthing the words along with the film. The only real noticeable addition to the film was a scene where Ebenezer is being chased by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. For some reason they decided to also make Ebenezer shrink but this was probably added so they could show off the 3D and CG working well together. Which it did. Another thing I noticed about this film is considering it has the Disney name on it, the film is very dark and creepy at times. I loved this because it kept it again very loyal to the original text, but at times this film wasn't a film for the young kids that were in the audience when I watched this.

The cast were absolutley fantastic with Jim Carey playing Ebenezer Scrooge, Ghost of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. Gary Oldman as Jacob Marley, Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tin (motion capture). Cary Elwes as Portly Gentleman #1, Dick Wilkins and Mad Fiddler. Colin Firth as Fred and Bob Hoskins as Mr. Fezziwig.

With a strong cast and fantastic CG animation this film is a fantastic addition to the list of Christmas Carol adaptations. When you watch this film you definatley get into the Christmas spitit and you'll suddenly grow to love seeing all the reminders of Christmas that TV shoves down your throat. I would highly recommend anyone to see this film, if you have young children maybe view it before them to make sure its not a little too scary for them.

Thanks for reading XD

My next review!

Sorry about the delay in reviews have been very busy latley. Here is the trailer for the next film I will be reviewing!

Paranormal Activity review

Hello everyone

Welcome to my first review on Blogspot! Today I am going to be reviewing Paranormal Activity, the basic idea of the film is a young couple are experiencing strange events in their house. So the man of the house buys a video camera and some sound equipment in the hopes of getting these strange events on tape. What you watch is the tape that was in the camera. Think Cloverfield and Blair Witch Project and you get the jist.

Hopefully you watched the trailer in my first blog so you all know what film I am talking about. I like the trailer, it's kinda cheesy with having the cameras in the cinema and showing people's reactions. It serves it's purpose though because if you see people screaming and stuff in the cinema then it makes you want to watch it. I first heared of this film in a news report on TV, I found out that it was yet another film that had the power of the internet to generate a buzz. Snakes on a Plane and Cloverfield are two other examples of how the internet buzz got these films talked about.

So after a very positive review from a friend of mine I decided to give it a watch. I knew I would already like the style of the film because unlike many people I enjoyed Blair Witch Project. The main critisim of that film was "You didn't see anything" but as many people know it's what you don't see that scares you. Everyone knows that when you are forced to use your imagination you think up the worst everytime. Reservior Dogs with the cutting of the ear is one scene that gets mentioned time after time. The shower scene in Psycho, people were shocked by the brutailty of that scene when it was first released. Even though that knife is nowhere near the woman's body, the audence's minds just pieced that part in.

I digress, where was I? Oh yes, so I decided to give it a watch and I liked it. I wouldn't say it's the scariest thing I've ever seen, but it kept me entertained for an hour and fourty. I must also mention that the version I saw was the original cut of the movie. From what I have read there are 2 versions of this movie and the main differences is the endings. I won't say what each ending is because it will give it all away. I will see the other version as soon as I can so I can compare the two versions. As I said before I liked the film but obviously there was a few problems with the film but on the whole I enjoyed it. There was one scene in the film where the man of the house (Mika) is reading a book in bed and he is talking about what he's reading. Then the camera changes to some shots of the different pages but his speach continues, it threw me off a little because this is meant to be a home video style film so it shouldn't have been edited that way. There was also a scene where the make-up was a little unconvincing but there was some good things in that scene that made up for it.

I don't think I could watch this film over and over but it definatley will be one I will watch from time to time. All in all it was a well made film that should keep a lot of people entertained from start to finish. My question now is what's next for the handheld camera genre that seems to be making it's mark in the film industry? In my opinion this genre works best with horror because if done properly it will make you believe that the video is real.

Thank you for reading and all comments are welcome.

First blog and introduction

Greeting Blogspotters!

First of all let me introduce myself, my name is Dan and my girlfriend suggested to me a while ago that I start a page on Blogspot. So after watching a film this evening (which I will be reviewing later on) I decided to create my Blogspot page. Just to let you all know the title of the whole page, which if you haven't guessed by now is "It's a Case of" comes from one of the many things I say on a day-to-day basis. So as a bit of fun while you are reading my blogs, see how many times I say "it's a case of", "at the end of the day", "basically", and "fair enough".

I plan to do various things on my page but mainly the page is going to be used as my place to write my film reviews. I try to always write them from a movie goer's point of view, not some pompus newspaper reviewer who thinks awful americanised remakes of british books is the best thing he's ever seen. Then goes on to say that an original gripping story is awful.

So all I really have to say now is thank you for taking the time to have a look at the page and I hope you like what you will read on here.

Dan

P.S Here is the trailer for the film I will be reviewing in my blog. ENJOY!