Rev Stan's film blog

Stan's film round up for May

Timing is getting a little better on these now. May was a bumper month with nine films getting the Stanley cash, well eight because Pirates 4 was a private screening.

Overall it was a better month than April for me with an average Stan rating of 60.22% and hopefully a sign that the post-Oscar malaise is over or I am choosing better films or that there just wasn't a Beastly film to drag things down.

Anyway, here is my top three:

1. Third Star 89% (surely a contender for the top 10 of the year?)

2. Farewell 71%

3. Win Win 63%

As I said at the beginning, there wasn't a Beastly but there was  Pirates 4 which got 38% and claims the ignoble honour of being the worst film in May.

But how did the critics rates the films I saw? Well they didn't agree with my top choice but it was pretty close otherwise:

1. Win Win 86%

2 Farewell 80.5%

3. Hanna 68.5%

We agreed on worst film although the average critics rating for Pirates was marginally higher at 42%.

June is already shaping up to be an interesting month with two films already scoring over 80%. I've got the next week off and plan to have a bit of a film fest and I'm quietly confident it's going to be a good month.

Rev Stan's film round up for April

(OK so it's now June but I got a bit behind...)

I think I peaked too soon in January. The average rating per film, like our economy, continues to slide and is now 58.5% although that is still equivalent to a high three stars so I'm not panicking about my choice of films/quality of offer just yet.

The usually showery month also picked up the lowest scoring film of the year so far: Beastly which I rated 35%. I don't want to predict that it won't have the dubious honour of being my worst film of the year but it is going to take some beating. Although I was a lot kinder than the critics as it got an aggregated review rating of 16% on Rotten Tomatoes. Ouch.

But enough of the bad, there were still some highlights in April namely the Colin Morgan-starring film Island, proving once again that you don't need a big budget to make an interesting and enjoyable film. Of course big budget films can be enjoyable too and Thor took second place. So here are my top three (or four as there is a tie for third place):

1. Island 79%

2. Thor 62%

=3.Essential Killing 59%

=3. Source Code 59%

Quite a few of the films I've seen haven't been rated on Metacritic yet so I'm going by Rotten Tomatoes only for the average critics rating of the films I've seen:

1. Thor 94%

2. Source Code 90%

3. Essential Killing 89%

The critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes gave Red Riding Hood the lowest rating which surprises me as it's a much more rounded film than Beastly. The average for the month was on a par with mine at 59.86%

I can already tell you that May was an interesting month with one film getting equivalent to a five star review but I still got one film to review so I won't say any more for now.

 

 

 

 

January films in numbers and looking forward to Feb

It being on the cusp of Oscar month, January is equivalent of a supermarket sweep - too much choice and too little time.

Fortunately my handful of trips to the London film festival last October has helped narrow the field but there was still far more celluloid being projected onto the silverscreen than I could possibly get my bottom in front of. From what I have manage to see the cinematic year has got off to such a roaring start I fear the next 11 months will be slightly underwhelming.

This year I've turned all nerdy and in addition to my reviews I've set up a spread sheet so I can put the film scores through the number cruncher. My lowest scoring film for January (I only saw a modest five) still came in at 65% but the top slot is going to be hard to beat:

My top three films:

1. The King's Speech 95%
2. Biutiful 90%
3. 127 Hours 75%

Top three films I've seen by average Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic score (UK box office takings)

1. The King's Speech 91% (£5.1m)
2. 127 Hours 88% (£6.6m)
3. Biutiful* 83.5% (-)

Not much disparity there, not convinced that will continue though.

Coming up in February I'm looking forward to: True Grit, Rabbit Hole, Brighton Rock (if I decide to see it again), Never Let Me Go, I am Number Four and Howl.

If you want to see what is coming up and where it will be showing I've just found this great site called www.launchingfilms.com

* Biutiful was only released on 28 Jan so box office figures not yet available