Paul (2011)

[**1/2 stars / *****]

Aliens crash landing on earth...correction, aliens appearing exclusively in the United States of America, people with a exceptionally good talent for yelling out mothers and sisters running about, until a leader gives a motivational talk on universal brotherhood (keep those nuclear weapons aside, for now) and an unlikely hero packing aliens to their own outer-space hell with a good smack to their obviously better evolved buttocks...

Hollywood film makers have drained every lemon drop cosmos squeeze out of hostile aliens and end of the world scenarios in countless expensive action dramas. 

E.T. call home 
So Paul, a goofy science-fiction road trip comedy comes as a relief, kind of. 

Despite the irrelevance, abuses barfing up as comedy, there is good Area 51 friendly air blowing, thanks to the Simon Pegg - Nick Frost duo making light of playing geeks who are visiting all the famous UFO US hot spots and end up encountering a on-the-run, smooth talking, hitchhiker-like-shorts-wearing, cigarette-spouting, healing-powered alien named Paul (Seth Rogen-voiced) instead. 

Alien movie lovers rejoice 
Pegg and Frost are exactly the guys you would want to hang out with a friendly alien who needs to get back to his planet far far away, with a little help from his dude friends. 

If you love every kind of alien movie out there, you will like the fun references, especially the suggestion that Steven Spielberg consulted Paul on alien authenticity for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and gasp at the lovely short climax cameo by an alien-movie regular.

Paul movie review  
Director Greg Mottola keeps Paul running with its spoofy, reference-filled vibes, as it goes overboard and raunchy, like so many other commercial Hollywood movies featuring sexually gross jokes, just for the heck of it. 

It takes the earthly comedy talents of Pegg, Frost, Rogen and Kristen Wiig to suit up for this just-a-cut-above-average one-time ride. 

The Close Encounters of a Third Kind (1977) replication finale sums up Paul, it doesn't tickle out the laughs but keeps the smiles coming.     

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

[**** stars / *****] 

Private Joker/Private J.T. Davis: 

Are those live rounds?

Leonard Lawrence/Pvt. Gomer Pyle: 

Seven-six-two millimeter, full metal jacket.

Full Metal Jacket (1987), before stumbling into the hell-infested battlefields of Vietnam, begins with a relentless Marine Corps training regime depiction that tells more about what war does to ordinary, simple, vulnerable young men, than the movie's latter half.

The indoctrination, humiliation, loss of self-esteem, and the breaking down of a sane mind brings home what was terribly wrong with sending US soldiers to Vietnam. The sheer madness of it all.  

Full Metal Jacket story 
Private Leonard "Gomer Pyle" Lawrence (Vincent D'Onofrio) stands for the end of innocence and free will. Leonard is weak-minded and faces the savage hammer-like authority of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (Lee Ermey) at the Marine Corps training center.

Private/Sergeant J. T. "Joker" Davis (Matthew Modine) tries to help Leonard, but is soon forced to abandon him, as Hartman starts punishing the entire batch for Leonard's mistakes.

This initial 40-minute havoc is cinema at its tense, harrowing best. The rest of the movie doesn't pale in comparison to the first part, but you never forget Leonard, his demented face hovering like a ghost over the nightmarish barbarism and cruelty of war.   

    
Full Metal Jacket review 
Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece is an uncomfortable but gritty watch, a stand-out war movie on the futility and stupidity of killing another human being.

(A full metal jacket is a kind of bullet used by the military. The bullet has a soft center, usually lead, and is encased by a harder metal.) 

Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015)

[**** stars / *****] 

How inventive can you get in a animation flick based on a TV series setup that involves a farmer, his farm, his dog, his sheep and not a line of understandable dialogue? 

Shaun the Sheep Movie is yet another LOL display of creative brilliance by the furry people at Aardman Animations and directors Mark Burton, Richard Starzak.   

Shaun the Sheep Movie story  
Shaun, the intelligent sheep of the herd, plans to take a break from the xerox-like farm routine, setting off a chain of events that lands all farm creatures and the farmer in the big city. 

It's up to Shaun to get everyone safe back home now, but somebody suffers a memory loss, making things worse!

Classic British comedy 
No kidding, the Shaun the Sheep Movie is animation comedy of the Charlie Chaplin silent-movie gold standard, the magic is in the lively visuals, universal human-like expressions, identifiable situations, memorable characters and fresh gags, and most of it is incredible. 

Friendship, loyalty, intelligence, courage, companionship are qualities that are embedded into the story without underlining any of it, and the laughs just keep bleating about!

Aardman Animations on the roll!
Clearly, the makers share a herded, grazing passion for making a clean funny animated movie for all ages. I can't recommend this movie enough for kids and adults alike.

The only possible drawback - the limited family audience canvas keeps proceedings sane, going naughtier or deeper is out of bounds, but I had so much fun during this woolly 84-minute joyride, can't grumble about anything at all! I had a baa...baa...blast!  

Two thumbs up!