2 Days in New York (2012)

I'd seen 2 Days in Paris (2007) but didn't remember or realise this was the sequel until after the film, trying to figure out where I'd seen Julie Delpy before. The first film I now vaguely remember she took her New York Jewish boyfriend to Paris to meet her family and he was horrified to find out she had slept with practically every man in France. I thought he was good but could do better.
In this follow-up by writer/director/star Delpy, she has a new partner (Chris Rock) who is horrified to find out her family are douchebags when they come to stay. The thing is that it wasn't just her family who were ghastly, she was just as bad, and like the Jewish boyfriend in the first film, radio show host boyfriend is much better off without her, for fucksake, she cost him an interview with Obama! Not her badly behaved family, HER.
This is one of those cutesy quirky culture-clash films that you're supposed to like, Julie Delpy must be exactly like her character, self-centred and lacking empathy and humility to not understand that a woman like that is not charming or funny.
It's a cold day in hell when Chris Rock is the least bad thing in a film.

The Five Year Engagement (2012)

Oh god why!? Is it tradition?! Why do me and Lauren see such terrible films?! At least we went bowling, had a cheap Frankie and Benny's lunch and went to Toys R Us too. This film was so bloody awful and over-long. He should have opened a god damn restaurant himself! It was his own fault that he hated his life, NO SYMPATHY. Best bit; serious conversation between Emily Blunt and Trudy from Mad Men done through Elmo and Cookie Monster toys and voices.

Lesbian Vampire Killers (2009)

Total shite.

The lesbians never even made out! They just writhed around each other! How is that lesbianism!?

Lauren and I felt it our duty as Paul McGann fans to see this rubbish, and yes, when Paul's in it he is good. He even managed to make us laugh! Unlike the film's comedy duo Gavin and Smithy, who were both appallingly bad... I mean, we knew it was going to be shit, and we were both glad it was such a failure because, coupled with Cordon and Horne the worst sketch show ever fumbled together, it cemented the fact that they are just not funny. It made it plain that all the good bits of Gavin and Stacey are obviously written by Ruth Jones.

But why, Paul? Why?

Severance (2006)

Right, I've decided that with films I do like, for example the French film I just reviewed, I'll try and be nice and polite and not give anything away, you'll have to watch the whole film to really appreciate that closing scene I mentioned. BUT with films I absolutely hated and have been giving me nightmares ever since I saw them, I will give away absolutely everything so you NEVER have to see them...

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Severance, or as I like to call it 'Watch all your favourite British character actors getting brutally and unfunnily masacred.'

I'd seen the dvd box in the Video Emporium several times, stuck on the cover a review from I don't know which badly informed paper boasted 'Funniest British Comedy Horror since Shaun of the Dead!' I expect I was drawn in by the fact that Toby Stephens and Tim McInnerny were on the cover, as well as the cute one who was not Fennella Woolgar in He Knew he Was Right who tries to marry nerdy and cringy vicar David Tennant before Doctor Who fame, yes, I like her.

The whole set-up confused me; why was this weapons distribution company going paint-balling in Eastern Europe anyway? Why not go somewhere closer to home? Why did any of the characters work in a weapons distribution company?! Every single one of them was actually quite nice and mild-mannered, and the lead drug-addicted wanker, how the hell did he get a job there?! Who interviewed these employees?!

I saw this film two weeks ago and the image of Tim McInnerny standing on that land mine has haunted me since, I have had frequent nightmares about Toby Stephens being decapitated and recently I dreamt Christian Bale stabbed pencils through my eyes- but I think that was unconnected as he's not in this hellish film. I want to know where the supposed comedy was. I can only remember one small laugh and that was as Toby Stephen's decapitated head smiled smugly at his body after earlier (when no actual horror had happened yet) insisting that decapitation was not humane as Marie-Antoinette stayed concious for three minutes after the chop and saw her own headless corpse. Yeah! That's it! That's the funny!! What's funny about someone's leg being repeatedly caught in a bear trap!? In Shaun of The Dead reactions to the horror were amusing and exagerated, the reactions to the horror in this were disturbing and real and therefore NOT FUNNY!

I admit there was another point I think I laughed but it wasn't an intended funny moment, it was just Tim McInnerny standing on a step addressing the rest of the employees, I laughed because it reminded me of that episode of FUNNY historical sitcom Blackadder where Percy addresses (ironically) the execution staff. "They're gone, Percy." "Ah, team? Team?"