Feast of Film

Homer does it again, this time in a big way when he pollutes Springfield 's water supply, causing the EPA to encase the towen in a gigantic dome. The Simpsons family escape from the angry mob, but return to save the town. Sound like it could have been done in a 30-minute episode? I think Matt Groening , James L. Brooks and David Silverman could have done more with this movie. The plot: See above. In summary: While the plot and characters are as thin as a Kate Moss on coke, the graphics did get a bit of a boost, which is the least they could have done. Homer says it at the beginning, "I can't believe we're paying to watch something we could see on TV for free! If you ask me, everyone in this theater is a big sucker! Especially, you!" The Casablanca comparison: Honestly, I would have thought that they would have given me something to hang this on, but there's just not enough in The Simpsons Movie to do anything with. The rating: 5 out of 10. Simpsons fan

Bruce Willis shows why he is the last great action hero in this probably last iteration of the Die Hard series. Don't expect any computer generated graphics here. The plot: Detective John McClane is assigned to pick up computer hacker Matthew Farrell ( Justin Long , of PC vs Mac ad fame). Just as he arrives someone tries to kill Farrell, and thus ensues a cyber attack on the US by an angry ex-NSA computer expert. Naturally, it's up to McClane and sidekick Farrell to save the day. The film spans significant amounts of territory over its rollercoaster ride, rather than the rather restricted locales of the previous Die Hards, but the action is as intense as ever. The familiar plot aspects, motives and so on are all there. The only thing absent is McClane's usual rivalry with local or federal authorities - for once, all the cops are on the same side. The summary: Director Len Wiseman delivers an action-packed Die Hard movie that harks back to the original and provides an

Kate Winslet , Cameron Diaz , Jack Black and Jude Law form an interesting and at times delightful ensemble in this light romantic comedy.  The plot: Amanda Wood (Diaz) is an overworked, emotionless Hollywood trailer guru (she owns a company that makes the trailers for movies). After breaking up with her boyfriend ( Edward Burns ), she decides at the spur of the moment to take a vacation - she goes onto a web site that specialises in house swaps. There she sees and decides on a small cottage in the Cotswolds owned by Iris (Kate Winslet), a marriage columnist with The Telegraph . Iris is aching to get away for a while after the man she has been in love with for 3 years announces that he is marrying someone else; she jumps at the change to swap with Amanda and jet out to sunny LA. After spending 6 hours in the Cotswolds in Iris's cottage, around 1AM, Amanda decides it is a huge mistake and decides to head home just about the time that a drunk Graham (Jude Law) starts knocking on th

The toy-driven cartoon of the 1980s, Transformers makes it to the big screen with an earth-shattering force. I haven't been wowed this much in years, and Optimus and pals are the key to the mayhem. The plot: "Before time began, there was... the cube. We know not where it comes from, only that it holds the power to create worlds and fill them... with life. That is how our race was born. For a time we had lived in harmony, but like all great power, some wanted it for good..." Thus narrateth Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen - from the original TV series). It turns out that teenager Sam Witwicky's ( Shia LeBeouf ) grandfather strayed across the cube in the Arctic and had the coordinates scratched in Transformer code on his spectacles. Sam's now trying to sell them on eBay so that he can afford to buy a car (who turns out to be the Autobot Bumblebee). Skipping on a bit, the Transformers also surf the web and eBay and it's a race between the Autobots and Dece

The History Boys was meant to be a British school version of Dead Poets Society , except its Robin Williams character doesn't quite create the same magic, being a fat, old paedophile. The plot: Director Nicholas Hytner and writer Alan Bennett introduce us to a group of clearly gifted boys at a lower class British secondary school in the 1980s. The students of the 'special' class have all qualified to sit for admission to Oxford or Cambridge. The Principal, thirsting for success, hires a young gun teacher to teach them how to pass the exam. This flies in the face of the established academic staff, particularly the fat, old paedophile, who believes in knowledge and education for their own sake. The central plot revolves around the struggle between the new and old methods of teaching and goal setting - do you want to know the facts on the test paper or do you want to be a well-rounded human being? The sadness of the loss of innocence that the students face when being taugh

The last ride of the Italian Stallion seems more of an attempt to recapture the thrill of his first run around the track. While it doesn't succeed, it was worth it just to make this the last volume of the series. The plot: Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) is 60, running a restaurant named after his late wife Adrian, and stuck in the past. He visits Adrian's grave so regularly that he keeps a folding chair in the tree near her headstone. The old neighbourhood has run down, the store where she used to work is empty and the ice rink where they first skated and kissed has been demolished. Then along comes a TV show that runs a computer simulation that claims that the young Rocky would beat the crap out of the current champ, now more than 30 years his junior. The current champ (can't remember his name and won't bother to look it up) isn't impressed by this and his manager convinces him to agree to an exhibition fight with Rocky in order to boost his image. Apparently he is s

Not so wild, but worth $7.60. The plot: Four 40-something friends hit the road to recover a bit of adventure in their unexciting lives. Doug Madsen ( Tim Allen ), Woody Stevens ( John Travolta ), Bobby Davis ( Martin Lawrence ) and Dudley Frank ( William H. Macy ) are bored, crashing, hen-pecked or geeky (respectively) and decide to head of on a week-long road trip on their bikes - hogs. They fancy themselves to be bikers and in their 'Wild Hogs' jackets (sown by Doug's wife, Kelly ( Jill Hennessey )) they ride off on adventure. There are a couple of minor incidents involving camping, a gay motorcycle cop and skinny-dipping. But the real trouble starts when the Wild Hogs decide to stop in and get a drink at a real biker bar run by the Del Fuegos, whose leader, Jack ( Ray Liotta ), takes an instant dislike to them. After a bit of an altercation that results in the biker bar being blown up, the Del Fuegos set their sites on the Hogs, who stop in the inoffensive and ill-prote

The latest in the Bond line-up, Casino Royale is yet another of the prequels that are set in today's world. While I'm generally not a fan of rewriting a character to make him seem brand new - see for example the attempt to set up Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan in the film of Tom Clancy's novel Sum of All Fears - this attempt succeeds masterfully in allowing Daniel Craig to re-engineer Bond as much closer to that Fleming character seen so fleetingly in Sean Connery's original performance as Bond in Dr. No . This film certainly shouldn't be confused with the 1967 comedy starring David Niven. Daniel Crag crafts a nasty yet vulnerable Bond - almost a sheep in wolf's clothing, perhaps more like a ram. The plot: Fresh out on the streets, Bond is out to make a name for himself. Apparently it takes 2 kills to get the much revered '00' - and we see Bond rack his 2 up in the first few minutes. The rest of the film substantially increased the body count - if they had