Oldeuboi

Oldboy ★★
Add another country to my no-go list.
South Korean film about a bloke who gets kidnapped, held in isolation for 15 years and then released and given 5 days to find out who imprisoned him and why.
Darkly amusing in places but generally quite hard going.
Rated O for live octopus eating.

Ultimates

Marvel Avengers Assemble ★★★★

Leaving aside the insulting change in the title in case anyone was confused about a film with a green giant fighting gods who might be expecting Patrick Mcnee in a suit this is a surprisingly good effort.

The obvious qualifiers apply 'for a comic book film', 'for a hollywood blockbuster', 'for a 12A', 'for something aimed at the widest possible audience', 'for something with Captain America in it'.

Good action, witty script, less Captain America than you'd think and the best Hulk yet.

Hodejegerne

Headhunters ★★★★

Norwegian thriller about a seemingly successful small businessman who in order to fund his expensive house and out of his league wife has a sideline in stealing art.
Obviously things are going to go wrong but just how wrong is the main fun of the film. Just when you think it can't get any worse for him, it does, repeatedly.

Clever, funny and surprisingly brutal.

A Lemon Entry

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows ★★

Carbon copy of the first film.

Same ideas.

Same problems.

But with more explosions.

The previous one just about got away with pissing all over everything that made the Holmes character great.

In this one, the nonsensical plot, complete waste of decent actors (obvious exception Jude Law - he isn't a decent actor) and pointless wandering over Europe is just a bit too irritating to ignore.

Don't Get Carter

John Carter ★★
Tarzans less famous literary brother.19th century ex-soldier gets faxed to Mars and can jump really high.

I've always had a fondness for the John Carter stories probably because they were some of the first books I borrowed from the library, the ten year old me attracted to them due to their lurid 70s covers of four armed green martians.
This effort is just too clean, bloodless and boring to do justice to the books.
It's probably the fact that it does derive it's story from a hundred year old book that's its biggest problem apart from the length and the stupefyingly wooden acting. All the ideas have been seen before.

Skid Mark

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance ★

Impressively managed to be worse than my extremely low expectations.
No story, appalling acting, excruciatingly bad direction and unimaginative special effects.
How they managed to take a character whose head turns into a blazing skull and remove any sense of excitement or interest is quite an achievement.
Avoid at all costs.

Kari-gurashi no Arietti

Arrietty ★★★

Old school hand drawn animation from Studio Ghibli based on Mary Norton's Borrowers.

In terms of Ghibli adapatations of western stories it's more Tales from Earthsea than Howl's Moving Castle. 

Not directed by Hayao Miyazaki and with a bit too much Disney influence.