Until a couple of weeks ago I thought that the word Quagmire was a surname. That's what happens when you start taking Family Guy too seriously. Well, it turns out that quagmire is a word which means:-

1. soft miry land that shakes or yields under the foot
2. a difficult, precarious, or entrapping position

Talking about Family Guy related matter. Check out this clip from the new series. It's an absolute pearl!

Once (3 stars) - Once is an amateur shot, Oscar winning (2008) musical shot in Dublin. If you've ever visited Dublin you’ll easily recognise most of the spots where the film was shot. I think the film portrays life as a young immigrant in Dublin quite well. Apart from that though there aren't many other reasons to watch the movie. The music is kind of ok, but it's enough if hear the Oscar winning song on myspace. I found the plot a bit lame and quite anti-romantic, but then the movie wasn't plot oriented.

Ratatouille (4 stars) - A cute relaxing Pixar movie about a rat who likes cooking. Apart from the usual high standard Pixar got us used to, the story can be enjoyed by kids at a simple level, and by adults at a higher level.

My neighbour totoro (4.5 stars) - Brilliant anime. This is probably the equivalent of beauty and beast, or the lion king for Asians, everyone saw it. The movie is directed by Japan’s most famous animator Hayao Miyazaki (who also did Lupin III, Spirited). The movie is about 2 young sisters who find a strange new world, similar to Alice in Wonderland, with cute furry magical creatures. Great stuff!

Lost in translation (2.5 stars) - I had very high expectations for this movie, but was left disappointed by the story. I liked the portrayal of Japanese culture and customs in the film, which was very evident and consistent with what I read about Japan till now. The film is about culture shock, which admittedly is very difficult to capture on film. However, I think that this aspect was dampened by the subplot of potential romance between Scarlet Johansson and Bill Murray. This might be an Oscar worthy movie, but maybe not an enjoyable one.

The Dark Knight (5 stars) - I honestly can't remember the last time I gave 5 stars to a movie, but probably it was fight club. This movie is just fantastic. Class! Perfect! I can keep going on and on with superlatives, but I think you got the drift. If you're unsure about it because it's a batman movie, don't be. True batman can fly just a bit, but his super powers are very limited compared to other superheroes. This could have easily been a fast paced, high tech, highly polished action movie with no super powers. Not entirely unlike a James Bond on steroids. There are super cars, super bikes, great action sequences, plot twists, ethical dilemmas, what more can you pack in 2.5 hrs of film. Probably nothing!

It's always sunny in Philadelphia! This series is good, and by good I mean really really really good. It's about a group of 4 friends in their late 20s who run an unsuccessful Irish bar in Philadelphia (duh!). This series has a wicked sense of humour and it takes the piss out of topics like racism, abortion, guns, disable people, etc. You get the idea. Very unclean fun ... just my type of humour! I restrained myself to watch the first series over two days but it was very difficult.

Before the Devil Knows You're dead (Review), directed by Sidney Lumet, starts with a widescreen view of Andy’s (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) (Andy) buttocks swaying at the rhythm of some doggy style sex with Gina (Marisa Tomei). The next scene takes us to the day of the robbery, a robbery the two brothers, Andy and Hank (Ethan Hawke) planned on a diamond shop. That's just about the first 5 minutes of the 2 hour movie, but it's as far as I will go with the plot without spoiling it for you.

The film explores the robber’s family interpersonal relationships and how each family member deals with the chaos of the situation at hand. And there’s loads of chaos going on. It's a combination of choosing the wrong thing to do at the wrong time, and Murphy's Law acting at full force, which makes the whole situation messier than a witch’s cauldron. Each of the 4 main characters has his own way of dealing with the situation, but none of them does anything to make life simpler. The subtitle of the film could be "A portrait of dysfunctional family".

Lumet (83 years old) uses a sequence of flashbacks to tell the story and keep you gripping the sofa with your fingernails with suspense. The flashbacks are only a week long at most, so they are used in an artistic way rather than being required, but this gives a nice twist to the direction of the storytelling.

You know that American movie feel-good feeling? There's nothing like that in this movie. The first word that comes to mind when thinking about the movie is 'sick'. In this case it doesn't mean bad, but it can be potentially disturbing for some people. It's the sort of movie that no matter how twisted and abnormal you feel, at the end of the film your life feels very normal. 4.5/5

I'm not a big fan of Bond movies but I must say that I enjoyed Casino Royale (review). Despite the length of the film the movie keeps flowing and doesn't drag and isn't full of long action sequences. The only longish chase in fact is at the start of the film in Madagascar. This scene opens with a cock-style-fight between a cobra and a mongoose an idea I found amusing, even though somebody forgot that there are no Cobras living in Madagascar. Poetical licence granted anyway.

I think Daniel Craig managed to play a great Bond. In this first bond book by Fleming bond is just promoted to a double-0 and his fineness hasn't yet developed to its full glory. I liked the way Craig played his arrogant egocentric character which still managed to melt the bond girls. Actually this time Bond almost built a relationship with Vesper (Eva Green).

The only pity with the bond girls was that there weren't any blonds. You can barely see the face of the only blond in the movie. Catarina Murino then just appears for about 5 minutes and dies and the rest is all Eva Green. I admit I didn’t quite fancy Green from the magazine pictures but in the movie she develops quite a likeable character.

Rating 3.5/5

Update: If this news is true Cohen should be shot

As everybody I met recently knew about this movie, I'll start by explaining the rating. Borat (review) is a funny film, a very funny film. But it is over hyped. I think it isn't worth all the fuss people made about it. It's a good movie but you don't need to pull your hair out if you miss it at the cinema. That said if you want to go to the cinema the trailers they showed didn't offer any interesting alternatives so for that reason you might as well go and watch Borat. Rating 3.5/5

Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen) is a journalist in Kazakhstan who got an assignment to go to the US to learn the American way of life to suggest improvements for Kazakhstan. Watch the trailer at the official Website.The film starts in Kazakhstan with Borat introducing the village people including the village rapist, the 4th classified prostitute whom he French kisses and later introduces as his sister, his wife who promises to cut off his pole if he misbehaves in the US, and some other villagers. The way Borat speaks is the most defining characteristic of Cohen and I'm sure that I'm going to hear somebody speaking 'Borat's English' very soon.

The introduction gives you a taste of the humour you're to expect from the film. It's full of explicit language, sexual references, and brutal culture bashing. The film is offensive an in the offensiveness lies most of its humour. The only part I thought was insulting was the introduction which portrayed Kazakhstan badly, but that's because I've got a soft spot for these countries. This only lasted for the first five minutes of the film, because the rest of the film has absolutely nothing to do with Kazakhstan.

Borat travels to New York to start the documentary. He starts by stressing his uncivilised nature by thinking that the hotel lift is his hotel room and washing his face with toilet water. Then he settles on the bed to watch TV and from a rerun of Baywatch he learns about Pamela Anderson, who has the ass of a 7 year old, and decides that he wants to marry her. The news that his wife died is greeted with a high-five, and off he goes from New York to California to find Pamela. During the road trip through America, Borat meets people from different sub-cultures like the feminists, the black gangs, a traditional American dinner and the Jews. The Jews are given the worst treatment of them all, and I found the gag of the shape shifters hilarious.

Enough said about the jokes not to spoil the fun. The film is full of jokes and I don't think there is a minute that passes without a joke being made. The good thing about the jokes is that they're fast jokes and they end the minute they start so they don't get long winded.

It's been some time since I've enjoyed the movies even more so when you consider that the last film I watched, The History Boys, stimulated my homophobic glands as no other film has ever done before. The comeback to the cinema could hardly have been any better when last Friday I went to watch The Departed (review - 93%) directed by Martin Scorsese.

The story is set in South Boston where mobster Frank Costello (Jack Nicolson) is the most wanted criminal by the local police force. A team of police lead by Ellerby (Alec Baldwin) set upon the tracks of Costello and amongst them there is Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) who as a child grew in graces of Costello, and now is a mole in the police force for his old mentor. Billy Costigan (Leonardo Di Caprio) is the other hot-shot who graduated with Sullivan however because of his dirty family history, he is sent as an undercover agent with Costello's gang to incriminate the Irish mob leader.

As the main actors settle in their respective roles the two cross each other's paths without knowing the identity of the respective opponent, and the plot soon turns into a race of who'll manage to outwit the other. This keeps the suspense of the film sky-high while the two struggle with the psychological consequences of their chosen paths, and a shared girlfriend Madolyn (Vera Farminga).

While the cast is great and all the actors are outstanding I couldn't help thinking that Di Caprio's role would have been better suited for somebody else. Without taking anything of his performance, which is arguably the best one in the film, I think his face is too babyish for the role of tough undercover agent.

What I liked most about the film was that it's not the usual gangster film with gangs shooting each other. The idea of two rats on either side of the playing field is so good that you'd wish that you were the one who came up with it. Towards the end there are a couple of twists peaking in the elevator where the whole situation is resolved. I didn't find a boring minute from the 149 that make the film and I think this film well deserves a rating of 90%+ on rotten tomatoes. 4/5 stars.