Forwardcharm Movies
 

 

Latest News

07 / 12 / 2008
Fantasy Rally:
The final Fantasy Rally results are in - we have a winner! See how your team fared or see the Rally GB results.

05 / 11 / 2008
Review:
After the gruelling James Bond press junket tour, I bet Daniel Craig could use a Quantum of Solace.

23 / 10 / 2008
Review:
Brad Pitt steals the latest from the Coen brothers: Burn After Reading.

23 / 10 / 2008
Review:
Simon Pegg learns How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.

23 / 10 / 2008
Review:
Ben Stiller directs stars aplenty in Tropic Thunder.

12 / 10 / 2008
Review:
A few words on some recent movies: RocknRolla,
Death Race,
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army,
Space Chimps,
Stuck,
The Babysitters,
Starship Troopers 3: Marauder,
Son of Rambow,
Jack and Jill vs the World,
Made of Honor,
Meet Dave,
Doomsday,
Pathology.

15 / 08 / 2008
Review:
You can mess with Adam Sandler, but You Don't Mess with the Zohan.

15 / 08 / 2008
Review:
Mike Myers tickles some chakras in The Love Guru.

14 / 08 / 2008
Review:
Toot and come in, it's The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

14 / 08 / 2008
Review:
You can stop watching the skies now, it's The X Files: I Want to Believe.

31 / 07 / 2008
Review:
Batman Began and now continues in The Dark Knight.

24 / 07 / 2008
Review:
The Chronicles of Narnia continue with Prince Caspian.

23 / 07 / 2008
Review:
Pixar goes Short Circuit with Wall-E.

22 / 07 / 2008
Review:
Jules Verne never envisaged a 3D version of Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

09 / 07 / 2008
Review:
Jet Li and Jackie Chan team up in The Forbidden Kingdom.

09 / 07 / 2008
Review:
Will Smith keeps the streets safe and smelling of booze in Hancock.

09 / 07 / 2008
Review:
M Night Shyamalan's latest, The Happening.

09 / 07 / 2008
Review:
Spanish creepy-creepy The Orphanage.

09 / 07 / 2008
Review:
A quick catchup of movies that don't get the full treatment:
Be Kind Rewind,
Street Kings,
What Happens In Vegas,
Superhero Movie,
The Ruins and
Teeth.

08 / 07 / 2008
Review:
Bend that bullet Angelina! Wanted.

01 / 07 / 2008
Review:
Those cats were fast as lightning - Kung Fu Panda.

24 / 06 / 2008
Review:
Don't make Ed Norton angry - The Incredible Hulk.

24 / 06 / 2008
Review:
Carrie and Big's wedding, it can only be Sex and the City.

11 / 06 / 2008
Review:
Everyone's favourite pot-addicts are back in Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay.

04 / 06 / 2008
Review:
Harrison Ford returns in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

04 / 06 / 2008
Review:
Tube driver seeks suicidal man in Three and Out.

18 / 05 / 2008
Review:
CGI fantasy motor racing in Speed Racer.

18 / 05 / 2008
Review:
Your creases will fly away with Iron Man.

18 / 08 / 2005
Sudoku!
Have a go at the online Sudoku game.

Plenty more
See the rest of the reviews here.

 

Babel

Babel

Cast: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Adriana Barraza, Rinko Kikuchi, Gael Garcia Bernal, Elle Fanning.

Directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.

Story: Nothing to do with a translating fish, disappointingly.

Running Time: 2hrs 22 minutes.

UK Certificate 15.

 

Babel contains three separate stories, linked only by the merest thread. It sounds like it could be another Crash - but it's not in the same league. Still good though.

The old man farting on the bus eventually took its toll on Brad and Cate. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett kick things off as they travel around Morocco on their holidays, strained marriage in tow. When the bus gets shot, Cate is the unfortunate random recipient of the bullet, leaving them stranded in a tiny Moroccan village with a load of English TV actors (not really, they're fellow holidaymakers, but they're all recognisable from our small screens) and miles from any kind of medical assistance.

Meanwhile, their kids - at least I think that's who they are, it wasn't obvious - are being looked after by the nanny (thread two), who takes them to Mexico and then isn't allowed back across the border (oops) and on the other side of the world, the third thread sees Rinko Kikuchi as a deaf Japanese schoolgirl rebelling against her father after her mother's apparent suicide. The three stories don't tie together AT ALL, which is a major problem. It feels like we're watching three separate TV programmes, a bit at a time, and they all lack the emotional resonance that Crash has in spades.

Rinko Kikuchi indulging in an Uma Thurman complex. Despite unfavourable comparisons, however, Babel is actually very good. Both Rinko Kikuchi and Adriana Barraza have been nominated for Best Supporting Actress and the movie has been nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, and with editing and music nominations included, that's seven nominations in all, more than any other movie this year. It certainly deserves some of those, as it has some particularly moving scenes relating to the culprit of the Moroccan shooting, but I felt the other threads didn't have the chance to grow enough. This, for once, is a movie that could have carried a three hour running time - it's not often I feel a movie this long could have used more time. As for Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett - well they're good, but it has to be said they're just other performers here - the nobodies in the cast seemed that little bit more convincing.

Babel is a very good cultural movie, but not quite the masterpiece that some seem to think. There's plenty of story, but not all that much to think about, which is unusual - it's just a load of stuff that happens to people. Worth watching.

I enjoyed this film: 4/5

I think the average moviegoer will enjoy it: 4/5

Testosterone Satisfaction Rating: 3/5 - Rinko Kikuchi (actually 26) gets her "hairy monster" out (her words) on three separate occasions.

To enjoy this film you should: enjoy uncomplicated drama.

 

Babel was released in the UK on 19th January.

 

Your comments

The comments printed here are not necessarily the views of Forwardcharm!

 

Hi Jim

I have to say that this was one of the most depressing films I've seen for a long time - it keeps showing how things can go wrong and how meaningless everything is.

Maybe it was worse for me having to read the subtitles for half the film in Portuguese rather than in English - it's not until you live somewhere else where they subtitle the films rather than dub them that you realise how much of the film is in a different language! I suppose it's just as well I didn't choose to see Apocolypto!

Other films I've seen recently and enjoyed are Deja Vu which was surprisingly unlike what you were led to believe from the trailers, and The Prestige.

Cheerio!
Helen, Portugal