Film makers know a thing or two about emotions.

Well, good film makers do.

After all, good film make you laugh, cry, happy, sad, melancholic, lovey dovey, scared, excited ... usually not at the same time though.

When Pixar set out to make a film about two robots falling in love, they must have faced tough challenge. How do you make a machine lovable?

Well, it's not that hard ... the key is the eyes! Eyes are a dead give away of joy, sadness, fear etc. Oh wait, actually it's the eye brows. Without those it's actually pretty hard to tell how someone feels. Try shaving them off!

And Pixar have managed to squeeze Wall-E for all the awwwww emotions they can.

And they did it well.

Wall-E falling for EVE will make even the most hardened cynic go awwww.

Never believe the hype or you'll be sorely disappointed.

That's generally a good rule of thumb to follow for films.

But after sitting through Sex and the City the film, I couldn't help but wonder:

How do I get 3 hours of my life back?

Let's get this straight, I liked Sex and the City. I own the box set and have watched all the episodes.

But that's exactly it, it was episodes.

They were, as far as I remember, about the girl's friendships, love, hate, relationships, ups and downs that the pursuit of happiness brings.

Being fabulously dressed was a nice side to all of this. Or at least it seemed to me that way.

The film however is one product placement after another. The pursuit of happiness is not friendship or love, but a Louis Vuitton handbag.

Is that really how strong women want to be perceived. Yes of course they earn enough on their own, to buy it all themselves, but is that the ultimate goal?

Of course the film has a massive happy ending, but you could have easily cut out two thirds of it and ...

Oh wait, that would have been just another episode of Sex and the City.

For some reason the fabulous illusion works for one episode, but it loses it's shine after 60 minutes.

I'm sure millions of women disagree.

Almost three years ago I helped out film student friend of mine.

Freezing our asses off, we did three long shots (10 mins each, the entire film, no breaks) walking down Nerudova street from the Prague castle. We had basic direction, no script and most of it was improvised.

Here's the result:

I still remember when I crawled through the woods pretending to be an elite warrior set to rescue some poor soul from the clutches of evil!

My M16 (a large branch) in one hand and my high powered infra-red goggles (a broken ski mask) in the other, I carefully executed my one man army attack taking out one soldier (tree) after another.

It's funny how a child's fantasy can make you go "awwwww!" when talking about war and violence.

Son of Rambow manaages to remind you of just that in the most endearing way possible.

It's because the fantasy and imagination part is at the heart of the story, coupled with the trials of friendship, trying to be cool in the 1980s (boy that was hard) and family life not being compatible with your fantasies.

Garth Jennings does a superb job of showing all this through the lens of the little kid who is stifled by his religious, albeit loving mother, while living out his "war" fantasies in a little sketch book.

All in all, it makes you remember why being a child was so wonderful yet hard at the same time.

Go flying dog!

We all know that Hayden Christensen has about as much acting talent as dry loaf of bread. At least since we saw Star Wars Edpisode 2.

But another thing that Jumper confirmed was that, even though he's a pretty boy, he has ZERO chemistry with women!

It was bad enough with Natalie Portman (even though her acting back then was sub par as well), but with someone as hot as Rachel Bilson.

OK, it's a little difficult considering that her acting skills are limited to her character from the OC.

Coupled with a story that's pieced together like a lego house by an epileptic, it is only the special effects that save it from total disaster.

All in all, a pretty standard sci-fi, action flick, except that it's made worse by bad acting (even Sam L. Jackson couldn't save it), weak story line and inconsistencies galore.

What was that thing about Hayden's mother?

The Big Lebowski is probably one of my favourite films of all time.

Last month the world was celebrating the Dude aka Jeff Lebowski in the UK Lebowski Fest, where people show up in a bowling alley dressed up as one or many of the characters and ... well ... bowl.

Check out the pics.

I can't believe I missed the Jesus, multiple dudes, Johnny, Autobahn (who believe in nothing) and many others ...

Yay!

One of my favourite films has won the Oscar for the best foreign film!

"The Life of the Others" is a worthy recipient of this award.

Amazingly it's also the debut piece of director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.

Funny, but that genuinely makes me happy! Even though the film is quite sad and disturbing at times.

Every country that undergoes a revolution has to deal with its past.

Germany had to do it twice over the past 60 years. Once after World War II and once more after the fall of the Berlin wall.

Dealing with the communist past however, at least in the movies, and to some extent in TV, was often done with by making fun of those quaint little niggles that defined day to day life in the GDR.

Like the lack of Bananas, modern cars, liquid soap ... often referred to as Ostalgie.

All stuff that makes for great comedies like Good Bye Lenin or Sonnenallee.

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