Croydon Guardian: Blogs

Mark Foker reviews the latest movies.

CORALINE

Coraline is based on Neil Gaiman’s 2002 international best-selling book and his story has been brought to life on the screen by "The Nightmare Before Christmas" director Henry Selick. “No surely you mean Tim Burton” I hear you say. Although Tim Burton wrote and produced “The Nightmare Before Christmas” Henry Selick deserves the credit for introducing us to some marvelous stop-motion animation. “Coraline” has this similar quality and is the first high definition, stop-motion animated feature to be shot in 3-D.

FOKER'S MOVIE REVIEW - FAST & FURIOUS

I felt like a bit of an imposter attending the preview of number 4 in the series without having seen 1, 2,or 3 and clearly even the media audience I was with were obviously big fans as many whooped and wooed all the way through. All I knew was that it was bound to involve plenty of cars racing, chasing and crashing.

THE BOAT THAT ROCKED

For those of you who have managed to miss all the recent hype surrounding this new Richard Curtis movie, I’ll fill you in.

FOKER'S DVD REVIEW - GHOST TOWN

Now I have to admit this review could have been a little biased as I am a big fan of Ricky Gervais. I also worry a little bit about him getting typecast as the ‘novelty Brit that has become fashionable to have in your next movie’.

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

‘SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE’ 4 Stars Is there really anyone out there who hasn’t seen this film yet?

ROLE MODELS

Danny (Paul Rudd) and Wheeler (Seann William Scott) work together for an energy drink company and they tour local schools in their Minotaur branded 4 x 4. Danny is the suited front man preaching that ‘drugs are bad Mmmokay!’ but sells the virtues of Minotaur energy health drink while Wheeler prances around dressed in the Minotaur suit.

WALL-E

I’m sure that this DVD found its way into many Christmas sacks this festive season. WALL-E is another visually stunning story from the house of Pixar. Directed & written by Andrew Stanton who was also responsible for ‘Finding Nemo’. This is a very clever and heart warming film, full of humour, friendship, hope and even romance.

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL

I think that everyone knows by now that this film is a remake of the 1951 Sci-Fi classic of the same name. I say classic but I’m sure that there’s an awful lot of people who had never heard of ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ prior to this latest version.

Foker's Movie Review ‘Changeling’ - Five stars

I had seen the trailers on TV for this movie and also read an article about the actual events that took place. However, I was not sure what to expect from Clint Eastwood’s screen adaptation. I can sum it up thus…Brilliant, emotional, powerful and somewhat disturbing.

QUANTUM OF SOLACE

I made a trip out to the Odeon Kingston on the opening night of ‘Quantum of Solace’ specifically to review this film. However, I think that most reviews are probably academic, as I noticed that the opening weekend broke all UK box office records.