Saturday 2 November 2013

Rob at the Movies!

Are we back? We're back

Well, you may not believe it... you may wander round in a daze thinking it's not real, that giraffes with propeller helmets is more of a realistic idea... but you better believe it, this blog is back back back baby! I could make a million excuses, but the simple answer is I started typing a new blog very similar to what this one will be about back in October/ November 2011 but then I lost it when the computer crashed and for a while I clinged onto hope that I would retrieve it... then time just got away with me and it was a case of waiting to make the effort to get back in the game... so finally I am making the conscious effort to get this blog up and running again, if anything then to get my movie critic skills working at a faster speed and provide a service to those who want a insight into my life and my movie knowledge. So here it is, and as with all blogs in the past... there's probably going to be a load of waffle before we get to the subject at hand...


So given it's been a whole two years since the last blog surfaced and blew all your minds (or more likely entertained mildly) it stands to reason that a lot has happened since then... well this is true and then again maybe not. Back in October 2011 when I first started the concept for this particular blog subject, I was starting work at Countrywide Surveyors in Warrington town centre, where I did some admin work... it was a nice little place and I enjoyed my time there (nice to work in a town centre because when you have an hour for lunch you can get loads of shopping done not to mention a good range of places to get lunch from, pure bliss!) until unfortunately the place closed in May of last year (2012) and I found myself looking for work again. I briefly found a placement doing Admin at the NHS in Ince, but that only lasted about four days before I got made redundant in a record amount of time... impressive I know! I then did my job seeking thing again until last November when I interviewed and got accepted for a job at a new place in Pemberton called Redrock which deals with scanning files into the computer system, very much like what I've done before for the NHS. I've worked there since and it's perfectly OK for now, but definitely not a long term thing in terms of jobs that I'd want to do professionally... but I sense a greater job opportunity should be round the corner I just need to pursue it and see where I go from here.

On more awesome levels, the past two years has been a hot bed of utter wonder and delight when it comes to all the wonderful sexy and cool people I've come to know as true friends and legends... to happily list even just a handful, you have Pete (simply just the man, the dude... the top guy, one of the funniest and coolest guys you could ever meet), Bekkie (mad as a box of frogs but just so so lovely), Laura and Jamie (not just a utterly kick ass cool and awesome pairing, but very funny and Laura is just an utter legend with her make up skills and the things she's helped me to do in trying out new looks has really helped me uncover a side of myself that I always wanted to unleash but never had the opportunity... simply these guys are amazing!), Katie (the red haired delight who is simply amazing and a delight to see every time I get the chance), Sophielia (another make up expert but is simply kick ass and also happens to have the greatest voice in music ever, it would make your face melt!), Phil (a hilarious genius who makes awesome videos and is simply so very witty and awesome), Zoe (utterly beautiful and a sardonic delight), and I could genuinely go on and on and on... but I'd never get anything done so here's a quick quick list: Robyn, Steph, Francis, Maff, Hannah, Adam, Bekie, Quill, Louise, Scottish Dayv, Bliss, Mark, Charlotte, Scott, Jay, Alistair, Emily, Bernie, Nicole, Becca and Sam, Jack and Ros, Gavin, Lisa, Anthony, and so many more... these last two years have been blissful thanks to these guys! From picnics and makeovers to awesome cinema trips... this is what life is about and I'm so blessed to have all these guys and more in my life....


Two Years of Cinema!

And since it's been a wholesome and crazy two years since I last typed words that you read and thought 'hmm that's interesting' (this is open to debate) there has been oh so many amazing movies to discuss... so I'll just discuss more or less every single one vaguely a few months at a time starting from October 2011 and going right through to what's out this month and the rest of the year.

Firstly a quick TV update... a lot of the shows that were still going strong back then are still going and still enjoyable (Glee, True Blood, Boardwalk Empire, Mad Men, Walking Dead, Homeland) and a few have had solid finales (Fringe, Chuck, House) and there's a handful of great new shows too (The Newsroom, Sleepy Hollow, Elementary)... so all is better than ever in TV land, and I've not even started the wonder that apparently is Breaking Bad, so stay tuned on that!

Back in the days of October of the year 2011, there was a range of films but only a few were of real note... Johnny English Reborn hit big and was a fun romp for the family whilst The Lion King made a big 3D comeback, Real Steel showed you can do decent robot punch 'em ups whilst Don't Be Afraid of the Dark was a excellent spooky chiller and Tintin was a big brash adventure romp... then November rolled in and gave us... not much really, 50/50 was great and the first half of the Twilight finale hit big and was alright, Tower Heist was passable fun, and Arthur Christmas was an early whiff of festive magic from Aardman, whilst In Time was an overlooked cracker of a sci-fi thriller but as well as Moneyball, My Week with Marilyn and Take Shelter, that was it really in terms of notable fare.


December rolled around, and with it brought some of the year's best movies... from Martin Scorcese's family masterpiece Hugo, a real love letter to cinema and the best 3D I've seen in a film to date.... via the wonderful Puss in Boots and the pretty solid remake of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, not to mention the terrific Sherlock Holmes sequel Game of Shadows and a pretty decent remake/ prequel to The Thing... and things rounded off fantastically with the superb Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol which was a absolute treat on IMAX.

Then the new year rolled in and with it the sublime silent masterpiece that was The Artist... as well as Oscar hopefuls The Descendants and War Horse before heading into February via the terrific superhero subversion of Chronicle... there was old style fun in Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, dark chuckles in Young Adult, and one of the funnest most lovely and awesome movies that ever came out in the form of The Muppets, who came back into prominence with a big bang!


So far so pretty good, but round rolled the Spring of 2012... and whilst John Carter was big old fashioned fun, it apparently only made an impact in how everyone was ready to pounce on it and start going mental over the fact it wasn't the biggest movie ever made... I went to a IMAX screening and there was an OK turn out so when you read headlines saying 'No one sees John Carter' or 'everyone stays away from John Carter' you just sit and think 'Well no, it's just they wanted more money' because to be fair, a good amount of people saw it, it's just that it needed so much more box office to succeed, placing impossible expectations on it, ditto this Summer's Lone Ranger, again not perfect but perfectly fun and yet unfairly maligned... saying that, Lone Ranger is for the most part, all over the place but once it gets to the finale, it can't be bettered. March did also bring a whole bunch of fun movies, from the again perhaps harshly slammed This Means War, which I really enjoyed... through to the simply hilarious and wonderful 21 Jump Street (Channing Tatum joining people I didn't care for suddenly on the list of 'he's actually pretty damn awesome') and Hunger Games, a solid enough adaptation of a simply amazing book... as well as Aardman's supremely daft The Pirates, which is just golden. April was light on the ground, but two films made up for that in spades.... Cabin in the Woods, a fantastically savvy and crazy horror movie in the Scream vein with one heck of a finale and of course, Marvel's big finale to all their movies, The Avengers! Which had everything you needed in a film... it was outrageously funny, dramatic, chilling, explosive and supreme fun from start to finish... just one of the best films in years!















Summer was well and truly under way... and it continued in nuanced style I guess, May was full of solid fare with few stand outs, notable exceptions being The Raid, a blistering action epic which was simply knock out, and the sublime Wes Anderson romance Moonrise Kingdom. You had a 3D re-release for Disney's master class Beauty and the Beast, the American Pie had a Reunion which was terrific fun... Depp and Burton united once more for fun Dark Shadows, and Jason Statham played it Safe for a enjoyable action thriller, whilst Sacha Baron Cohen did his usual routine with a bit less realism in The Dictator with pretty funny results, whilst the Men in Black came back for a third round which was much better than hoped for.

Flying into June, Prometheus had audiences gasping to see it and discover it's secrets with a majority coming away a tad angry... to be fair, it was never going to live up to the hype but it's a interesting and intelligent sci-fi film with a fair share of flaws but that still manages to be pretty good. Snow White and the Hunstmen looked nice, but was overall very so so, Jaws made a welcome return to the big screen, Red Lights was intriguing but ultimately failed to live up to the promise that the director showed with Buried, and Rock of Ages was huge cheesy fun with Tom Cruise simply killing it as the big bad rock star, re igniting a slight crush I never knew I had. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter was what it promised, dumb fun that tries to be serious at points but should be just taken as popcorn, and The Five Year Engagement was one of the year's best comedies... a romantic comedy for everyone, and as July began... Spider-Man returned, and whilst the villain was a bit weak... everything was so terrific it kinda balanced it out, with Andrew Garfield proving the Peter Parker we'd all been waiting for....


July saw a nice and fun documentary about Katy Perry that followed her on tour (a tour that I saw her on, so when they mentioned Liverpool I got a bit excited) and went a bit in depth about her background and life... there was another Ice Age film which won't change the world but provided a fun outing for me and my nephew, whereas The Lorax was similar, innocuous family fun with a message. The big news was the conclusion to Chris Nolan's Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises which while probably the weakest of the few, was every bit the masterpiece you'd expect.... just astounding, with the IMAX scenes just thrashing any competition it ever would had.

August was very tepid for a Summer month... Ted was a terrific comedy, very rude and crude but very very funny and pretty genius at points, like a live action Family Guy style would be, and Berberian Sound Studio was a chilling thriller with a terrific Toby Jones... but otherwise, it was all very so so unfortunately... The Expendables II had fun moments and Brave was solid enough Pixar, but Bourne Legacy and Total Recall were both pretty lame, whilst The Watch was fun but not that memorable. September proved better as Dredd made his big comeback in a terrific action thriller that pulled absolutely no punches and Lawless was a sublime crime thriller with a terrific cast that also didn't like to pull a punch or two. Paranorman was one of the year's best animations and Premium Rush was a top notch thriller with Joseph Gordon Levitt on fine form... and speaking of Joe, the sublime Looper was a future sci-fi classic with Bruce Willis never better in a terrific tale of time travel and murder.


October proved the strongest month of the pack.... even if Taken 2 was a more silly copy of the first film with a lot of toned down tones to secure a younger rating. You had animated treats such as Madagascar: Europe's Most Wanted and Frankenweenie plus the fun Hotel Transylvania... there was the clever and witty comedy drama Ruby Sparks, and the simply beautiful The Perks of Being a Wallflower which perfectly captured the trauma and beauty of youth with a stunning soundtrack to boot... and best of all, James Bond 007 made a hell of a comeback with Skyfall, not only one of the best James Bond movies but one of the best action blockbusters in some years and the year's strongest film.... simply an unmissable delight.

The cold nights of November came soon enough and with them a collected shrug of shoulders for the first section, Skyfall was reigning supreme and nothing was around to prove competition... not for long though, as Ben Affleck's corker of a Oscar winner Argo showed up and was just every bit as good as you've heard, whilst The Master proved like There will be Blood to be a tricky bit of Paul Anderson magic, not for everyone but if you surrender to it, you will be captivated and struck. End of Watch was better than expected, both thrilling and dramatic... whilst Gambit was a lot more fun than you'd believe from the negative press. Nativity 2 was festive fluff, and Silver Linings Playbook is exactly as electric as you'd expect from the Oscar nominated cast, whilst Sightseers was a dark British delight. Rise of the Guardians meanwhile, proves that Dreamworks continue to make oh so many fantastic animated gems... with a great heroic tale that fuses festive delight with dark adventure origins... such a treat!


December rolled around and things got a lot colder, as they are want to do... but thankfully Seven Psychopaths warmed things up with a witty and twisted tale that refused to play by the rules and proved a divisive but delightful treat, and of course, the first part of the Hobbit movies hit and was as wonderful as you could hope for from a first part... big in scale, with humour and action yet a sense of incompleteness... thankfully the second part looks so good, and the wait is almost over! December also managed to give us the cracking Cruise action fest Jack Reacher, the beautiful fable of Life of Pi (one of the small number of films that proves 3D still has a place) and the terrific musical comedy Pitch Perfect, aca scuse me?

January of the year of 2013 came around nicely with all the freezing cold and snow that it entails, and with it came a bunch of stellar knockout movies! Arnie came back with the fantastically fun and wacky The Last Stand, there was the enjoyable action romp Gangster Squad, Spielberg's presidential epic Lincoln with a knockout turn from Daniel Day Lewis, plus Kathryn Bigelow's terrific war thriller Zero Dark Thirty... plus the two big guns, musical masterpiece Les Miserables, with a terrific cast throughout (yes including the untouchable Russell Crowe, who is just terrific!) and some wonderful music and drama... and Quentin Tarantino flew back in with the magnificent Django Unchained, a terrific tale of revenge with cracking turns from Leo Dicaprio and Samuel.L.Jackson.


February started to get a little less cold if still snowy, but the films were pretty damn good fun... on the lesser side, Robert Zemeckis made his live action comeback with Flight which boasted a great turn by Denzel Washington but overall the film was less than I hoped it could be, whilst A Good Day to Die Hard was simply terrible and should be ashamed of itself. Plus Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters was passable trash but little else. On the better side, Warm Bodies was a sweet and witty take on the zombie genre with charming leads and a mix of action and witty humour... and Cloud Atlas was possibly the year's most intriguing prospect... a stunning cast all playing multiple roles over a very long sprawling and fascinating story... certainly not one for everyone, but everyone still needs to see it to make their own mind up as it is essential viewing as an audacious experiment in movie making. This is 40 meanwhile was a solid spin off from Knocked Up, which isn't quite as uniformly excellent as that movie was, but is good fun with a great cast and is certainly well worth checking out, mainly because any film with Paul Rudd, Chris O'Dowd and John Lithgow all in the same film is a must!

The must-see movie of the month though was Wreck it Ralph, Disney's Toy Story-like take on video game characters... which managed to very funny, very charming, very heart warming and very fun and remains one of my favourite's of the year and is up there with Tangled in the how much I love it stakes! Which takes us through to the warmer but still chilly month of March and it's varied delights which range from the generic but fun likes of GI Joe: Retaliation via the heart warming and delightful Robot and Frank as well as Danny Boyle's terrificly twisty thriller Trance and the thrilling hi jinks of Bryan Singer's Jack the Giant Slayer which matched Lord of the Rings style thrills with Princess Bride style spills, whilst Jim Carrey stole the show in underrated magician's comedy Burt Wonderstone. The big one for March though was Sam Raimi's wonderful prequel to the Wizard's adventures in Oz: The Great and Powerful, which was a fantastic fun family adventure with the usual creepy Raimi touches and a terrific cast of fun faces, plus the 3D was top notch which is always a welcome relief.


Easter came around and the weather brightened slightly, though in April the movies weren't that bright... sure there was Iron Man III, which proved the best of the three and was just terrific from start to finish and benefitted from the masterful Shane Black taking the reins of the franchise and injecting some great dialogue and dynamic plot turns to one of the year's biggest and best blockbusters. Not only that, but one of the year's finest movies came along with Derek Cianfrance's powerful drama The Place Beyond the Pines, boasting masterful turns from both Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper as well as a great dramatic story that spans the years and lives of it's characters... it's a real treat and well worth checking out. Otherwise all we had in April was the visually rich but a bit predictable Tom Cruise Sci-Fi Oblivion, the lesser of the White House attack movies in Olympus has Fallen which was fun but a bit hollow... and then we flew into May where we encountered the fun frolics of Epic, yet more fantastically fun races and chases in Fast and Furious Six, the finale of the comedy series that was The Hangover (Part III) which proved to be more enjoyable and funny than it's predecessors despite reviews and views that said otherwise... and the month's main attraction was J.J Abram's returning for another round at the Star Trek universe with Into Darkness... which was a fantastic blockbuster full of thrills and spills, if never quite being as solid as the first terrific installment proved to be...


Finally this year's Summer months arrived and with them a few more solid movies... and thankfully nothing I saw was less than solid. It says something when probably the weakest of the movies I saw was Despicable Me 2 which was fun and funny but nothing to how much I love the first movie. Blockbusters proved worth the wait as World War Z bucked all expectation I had that it'd be a complete mis fire and turned out to be not only very exciting and pretty chilling but also just a really darn great film in general... whilst Man of Steel brought Superman back in major style... the film has a ton of problems, majorly that whilst the dramatic heft of the movie (the slow character moments) are truly well done and really hit the heartstrings, when the film descends into a ton of action it becomes an incoherent mess at times which is a true shame, as the performances and the effects are never less than top notch and it makes a great effort to bring the legend up to date for our times in a realistic manor ala Dark Knight. If you want a really great fun time though, This is the End was the perfect ticket as Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill and a whole host of other favourite comedy faces faced the apocalypse by hiding at James Francos house... it was very very funny from start to finish, boasted a stellar cast with a whole load of surprise cameos and even managed to be spooky and action packed at points too, a real treat!

The main month of the Summer was as always July, and again there was some good and some not as great movies flying around... thankfully all pretty darn good in some way or other! Now You See Me had a terrific cast in a fun and exciting tale of magicians and heists that is great fun until a stupid last minute twist almost undoes it all by being very very unbelievable. There was a truly great Pixar prequel with Monsters University, which managed to be both very very funny throughout and yet still make you care about the characters and the story they went through... there was the finale of the Cornetto trilogy as Edgar Wright guided Nick Frost and Simon Pegg to The World's End which again was incredibly funny but also dark and poignant too, one of my absolute favourites of this year... and Hugh Jackman returned as The Wolverine is a terrifically enjoyable comic book thriller which managed to spend a good deal of time on the character and drama yet still deliver the good's action wise even if a silly finale proved unnecessary. Pacific Rim though is the year's finest blockbuster... you have Guillermo del Toro making giant robots and giant monsters smack each other to pieces, what's not to love?


August finally arrived and man was it a mixed month for movies, a relief frankly because I was spending a fantastic two weeks in the sunny US of A having a whale of a time travelling around, seeing the sights and eating lots! There was the sequel to RED (RED 2 funnily enough) which was throwaway fun with a fine cast and plenty of fun action, there was Elysium which was Neill Blomkamp's follow up to District 9 which never quite scaled the heights of that classic but was a pretty solid sci-fi drama throughout, with a great story and a great lead in Matt Damon, full of great ideas and great sequences if not overall a classic in the same way. Kick Ass 2 meanwhile was a massive disapointment given how awesome the first movie turned out, the characters are still fun and aspects are enjoyable but it's a really pale shadow of a great first movie. The Lone Ranger meanwhile was a bit all over the place but an admirable attempt to make a great Western blockbuster, and whilst it drags for the mid section, once it gets going at the finale it's pretty unbeatable in the fun action stakes, whilst the cast are all having a lot of fun.

There was three truly tremendous pieces of fun cinema on offer in August though... We're the Millers (which I saw in a lovely little old style American theatre) was a terrifically funny little road movie with a decent Jennifer Aniston turn for once as well as a great little cast of familiar trustworthy comedic faces all on fine form, especially the great Nick Offerman who is well known as the wonderful Ron Swanson on Parks and Recreation as well as a funny cameo from Ed Helms as a not very sinister drugs lord. The Way Way Back is a truly lovely coming of age tale set during an American summer and one boy's tale of growing up and gaining confidence during that Summer... again it features a host of great faces, notably a terrifically fun Sam Rockwell and a rare mean turn from Steve Carrell... and is just utterly lovely and charming. Pick of the pack though was the big screen debut for one Alan Partridge in Alpha Papa, one of the funniest movies to ever come across in a long while and gloriously enjoyable from start to finish with a deft spin on a classic plot contrivance and a terrific soundtrack to go along with it... a ha indeed!


Riddick was enjoyable enough and Vin Diesel proved the man once more in the role whilst RIPD was actually pretty fun if pretty stupid, and Rush proved a terrific biopic even for those who don't like racing that much. September though was all about two movies both of which were just terrific from top to bottom. About Time arrived at the start of September, and a new Richard Curtis movie is always anticipated in equal measure to the scepticism that surrounds it. Thankfully I fall on the side of getting excited, as Curtis movies are always pretty funny and make you feel all nice and lovely to boot, and About Time is a terrific romantic comedy that also doubles as a drama about appreciating your parents while they are around, it's loveably funny and really moving when it needs to be as well as copying Groundhog Day to good effect while never coming off bad for it.

There's nothing better than a terrific blockbuster, a movie that entertains thoroughly and can be cheesy and goofy while still being a blast from start to finish, it can be touching if needed and it can be very very funny even whilst supposing to be a big action movie.... White House Down does it all! Channing Tatum surprises once more by being a charming and funny presence in the Bruce Willis role of what is essentially Die Hard in the White House, whilst everyone from Jamie Foxx as the President and Richard Jenkins as one of the Secretarie's, through to James Woods and Jason Clarke on baddie duties are all having a ball and having fun.... more blockbuster's should be like WHD, it takes you back to the late 90's and films like The Rock, Face Off and Con Air... proper explosive and funny fun... something October's Escape Plan manages pretty well too, as Sly and Arnie bicker in Prison and try to escape.



October and we're bang up to date, two years on from the last blog and another bunch of decent movies... from the fun tunes of Sunshine on Leith, Dexter Fletcher's musical based on the songs of The Proclaimers, via the daft action of Machete Kills, a completely bonkers action fest that suddenly jumps into sci-fi at the end as Mel Gibson turns into Hugo Drax and Machete becomes James Bond in a hilarious remake of Moonraker, through to the terrific high sea thrills of Captain Phillips, as Paul Greengrass and Tom Hanks team up to tell the true story of the American captain whose tanker vessel was boarded by Somali pirates and the tense trials that followed, truly tense and terrific, it's well worth seeing. Oh and Turbo was alright I guess, fun premise but a very ho hum tale in the end. One of my favourite things though was the sequel to one of my favourite animated movies of the last few years (saying that it was around 4 years ago so more than a few) Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and though not many sequels are quite on 100% par with their predecessor (Hello Despicable Me) this came awfully close to being as mentally funny and imaginative, with a ton load of food puns, colorful ideas and characters, and just being really funny and charming from start to finish... it's just terrific fun and such a joy to enjoy!


As for the rest of the year? Well, there's no need to venture in 2014 just yet but suffice to say a lot of similar big movies will be heading this way plus some old favourites... but for the rest of 2013, there's a few big treats still in store, just this week sees the return of Thor in The Dark World, by the time you read this I may have seen it, and I'll say it's fantastic because it's pretty inevitable from what I've heard. November sees a variety of treats from Ridley Scott's dark thriller The Counsellor with a stellar cast and a gritty crime story via Joseph Gordon Levitt's comedy drama directorial debut Don Jon, the science fiction thriller extravaganza that is the critically adored US box office smash Gravity, the horror remake of Carrie with the terrific Chloe Grace Moretz, James Franco and Jason Statham face off in thriller Homefront, Disney return with wintery animation Frozen, Harry Hill makes his big screen debut in, well Harry Hill the Movie; there's the Spike Lee remake of classic Korean thriller Old Boy, and Ben Stiller tries for kudos in comedy drama epic The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

The biggest of the big though are a few lovely delights heading your way.... there's the inevitable second part of The Hobbit series, which is The Desolation of Smaug, which will see Bilbo and the band of dwarves reach the lair of the nefarious dragon Smaug to reclaim the gold and get into a whole host of scrapes, that reaches the good old UK on Friday December 13th so be ready... a bit earlier than that, on November 21st sees the return of Katniss and Peeta as events and revolution spiral and conspire to take them back into the arena to once again fend for their lives in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, expect all the excitement and drama you had in the first installment only bigger and bolder as the franchise takes flight and gets a bigger budget and bigger stars.


What could be more exciting than a biopic than involves the character of Walt Disney? Only the fact that Tom Hanks is playing the great man and that the story revolves around the creation of Mary Poppins, one of the most wonderful movies ever made! The lovely Emma Thompson will be playing the role of author P.L Travers in the story of her life as her book Mary Poppins is to be into a movie, and the trials she faces as she meets with Walt Disney to adapt the novel... early word is terrific and I really can't wait to see the final result when it hits these shores on November 29th. Best of all, Ron Burgundy is back! On December 20th, Ron Champ Brick and Brian return to the big screen for ton more laughs and improvised madness in Anchorman: The Legend Continues... with a whole host of new faces and a new setting as the team witness and indulge in the start of 24 hour news, excitement is high to fall madly in love with the Channel 4 News Team once more....

And that catches things up, for Movies and TV and a bit of my life in general... I've waffled so long that this will now be a two part blog... suffice to add in the past week whilst typing I've had a ton of awesome parties that I've attended which involved dressing up as David Bowie, something I'm so chuffed and thrilled by it's kinda unspeakable, plus I got to be a pretty hot red head too at some point... the greatest thing about this time of year is getting to dress up in all manner of awesome costumes, and it's something I simply love doing!

So anyway, please stay tuned later in the week to find out about something very very spooky.....


You stay classy, Planet Earth