Few things are as pleasurable as watching a good movie.

However, there are a lot of movies out there - estimated at about half a million - and another 500-odd being produced every year, just by Hollywood.

The author has watched hundreds of hours of crap movies, so you don’t have to. He has also watched a few good ones. Short, succinct reviews of over 250 movies to help you choose what to watch on a cold winter’s night. Or a balmy summer’s night. Or day. In fact, whenever you want to watch a movie, curled up on the sofa with a loved one, or your wife or husband.

This book could save you ever having to say, ‘well that’s two hours of my life I won’t get back’.

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Love Actually

Has everyone seen this film? Is it everyone’s second favourite Christmas film (after It’s a Wonderful Life)? Shame on you. There are too many things wrong with the film for it to have that status. First the things that are right. Emma Thompson in her bedroom with her Joni Mitchell CD when she realises her husband maybe having an affair with his devilish secretary – that is a remarkable piece of acting and far too good for this film (and a Joni Mitchell CD is no bad present, certainly better than a necklace you will leave in drawer - so cheer up). Bill Nighy. Bits of Hugh Grant, except for that cringe inducing, jingoistic speech scuppering the ‘special relationship’ just because the President eyed up his bit of tottie. And I liked the Colin Firth relationship, ridiculous as it was, but that is maybe because it had faint echoes of how I met my wife and the language barriers we met.

What didn’t work? The porn actors, but only because those scenes are cut in Thailand and Singapore which is where I bought the DVD – I’ve never seen them. The creepy Keira Knightley stalker because it is creepy. She runs out into the snow to kiss him and tell him to hang on a moment, she’s going to dump her newly married, much more handsome, and better endowed (if urban myth has it) husband because he pervertedly films her. You just know she’ll be found in a rubbish skip cut into little bits. And the Laura Linney crush on her co-worker – I mean grow up for Christ’s sake.

But, there is a Christmas feel to the movie; a bit of snow, Jingle Bells in the background and a feeling everything will be alright in the end. Love is truly, all around. Even if it is sometimes creepy.

3/5 stars.

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Amélie

Amélie is a wonderful movie. Wonderful in that it makes you feel better about yourself, and remarkably, better about the world. It is the ultimate feel-good movie and boy do we need that feeling at the moment. It is clever, funny – I smiled throughout its two-hour running time and laughed out loud on several occasions – and its array of quirky and eccentric characters are a charm; even (especially) the bad tempered grocer. The scene where Amélie and Mathieu kiss for the first time is possibly the most erotic scene in all movies. One very tiny gripe, the subtitles are sometimes difficult to read against the background (the movie is in French and I only have a grade 4 CSE in Spanish) but everything else about the movie is perfect – the music, the cinematography, the acting, the script.

I want to go Amélie’s Café des 2 Moulins, sit by the window and order a kir. I am in love with Audrey Tautou and I am in love with this movie.

5/5 stars.

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