Take Me Home Night - 2011 **

A ghastly rom-com. None of the characters are likeable, they all seem to have one purpose in life - to get drunk and go to parties (except for Anna Faris who is the biggest attention seeker ever and keeps going on about having a letter from Cambridge but not wanting to open it).
There is the usual big, unfunny bloke with curly hair who doesn't have any aim or goal in his life, and there is the typical suit-wearing 'I'm quietly intelligent yet also a complete snob' bloke too.
All romantic comedies, or even comedies full stop nowadays are filled with stereotypical characters, and it really annoys me. Also, the woman that one of the pathetic men is after (usually one from school/uni/work/the one that got away) is not only a total b**** but also not much to look at. There, that wraps up the film. Lots of drinking, doing drugs, trying to get off with women who are horrible, and soul searching about how pathetic life can be.
Not what you would call an uplifting film.
2 stars for 'Video Killed the Radio Star' at the beginning.

I've Loved You So Long - 2008 ** 1/2

I adore French films, because usually the characters are so complex and interesting that you are desperate to watch their progression throughout the film until the last scene.
Kristen Scott Thomas is a good actress, and I've enjoyed many of her films, but I was left utterly cold by 'I've Loved You So Long'. She plays a woman who has to come to terms with integrating herself back into society after being in prison for 15 years for a crime that is only made clear towards the end of the film. I don't complain lightly when I say that the entire movie is simply scene after scene of endless depressing talks, looks and thoughts between her and her sister. She seems completely unwilling to change her personality, and cannot understand why the few people who appear to be standing by her start feeling like they are being pushed away. When you find out the nature of her crime, you are even more angry at her character which is consistently vacuous and vacant throughout with no supposed regret or remorse. I really didn't enjoy this film, and it makes you feel so very depressed afterwards. There is no resolution, no moral, nothing except bleak despair. If you want to watch that may I suggest something brain-numbing like the Kardashians?!

I Hope they Serve Beer in Hell - 2009 *

Oh dear. When will they learn to not make comedies out of bestselling books. Apparently the book is hilarious, which is a good thing really because the film is not. If anything, it was very depressing and doesn't portray men in a good light at all. They are either totally sex-crazed to the point where they want to sleep with anything that moves or they have a massive problem with women full stop and slag them off mercilessly at every opportunity. Not exactly a comedy. Just a worrying journey into what happens when you drink too much beer and let your 'friends' organise your stag night.

Leaving Las Vegas - 1995 *

This is described as a romantic drama on Wikipedia. It certainly isn't romantic and it's more a mental disaster movie than a drama. Nicolas Cage gives a painful performance as a drunken waste of space who decides to go to Las Vegas to drink himself to death after he loses his wife and his job. Elisabeth Shue is the prostitute he meets and falls in love with who has her own problems too. Semi - autobiographical apparently. Bit disturbing and very depressing and bleak.

Cries and Whispers - 1972 **

What a disappointment. And very strange because this is the second colour Bergman film I've seen and the first was equally dark and unexciting.

On a contrast, all the black and white ones were amazing that I have seen so far. This film was based around illness, and infidelity, and negativity and so it's hardly something you might want to watch if you were hoping for something happy.

It has the same sad and melancholy tones as 'Autumn Sonata' (which was the other colour one I saw). Maybe his films are meant only for b&w.

I couldn't enjoy it, maybe for it's dreadfully depressing storyline.