Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:You’re probably almost certainly not wondering why I didn’t include this in the first bit. Well, that’s because simply put, I’m just not as familiar with this one.
You disgust me. Go on.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Now as ever, and for clarity, I’ve never read the books, and don’t particularly intend to.
You disgust me. Go on.
All kidding aside I think you're spot on about not making the different House's soldiers have strong distinct visual styles. As for the soundtrack:
Spoiler:
BWAAAAAAAAM. BWAAAAAAAM
Rob Zombie, for better or worse, has one style and one style only. Sometimes it works though most of the time I would say it doesn't, but you can usually tell it is a Zombie film so I appreciate that at least he isn't generic.
This time? This time it’s Dinosaurs. In a Valley. In old Mexico. A secret previously known only to *checks notes*….Gypsies, and horrifically stereotypical ones at that. At least until some Cowboys find it, and decide to go there to get new attractions for their faltering Wild West Show.
Naturally after one of them gets eaten off an Allosaurus, the eponymous Gwangi. To be honest he sodding deserved it, having immediately prior lanced a Styrocasaurus which had up until that point, been doing a solid job of engaging and distracting Gwangi. The tit.
They all leg it, get out the valley, promptly all fall of their horses for drama. Gwangi follows, gets knocked out, and taken to the Wild West Show.
With entirely predictable results. Spesh after the dwarf Gypsy unlocks Gwangi’s cage, and is promptly eaten (there’s gratitude for you).
Gwangi then gets into it with a Stop Motion Elephant and has another meal. He’s gonna be a Fatty at this rate, the prehistoric glutton.
Anyways, townsfolk run into the big Church, then out the back door. Our hero locks himself, the woman and the Annoying kid in the church. Maybe figuring a calming psalm or two will bore Gwangi into submission. Then he burns the church down. Sacrilege and ecological crimes in one. Nice.
Gwangi becomes extinct all over again, and presumably our heroes learn nothing, and are probably gonna get their heads kicked in for burning down the Church and endangering everyone’s lives in the first place with their reckless behaviour.
So. Yeah. Harryhausen’s masterful works aside? Really not much to see here. Spesh as only two humans get ate off a Dinosaur. Though I’m pretty sure the Pteranadon was trying to dry hump it’s prey. Skip to 1:30 to see what I mean.
I haven't seen The Valley of Gwangi for decades. I have a fondness for it, probably born out of nostalgia for something I saw as a child. If I saw it again I'd probably have a different opinion. I can't remember too much. A tiny horse and Gwangi being finished off in a burning church (that's how to deal with a borderline extinct creature Chris Packam! Or maybe not). I remember feeling sorry for the poor allosaurus. I read somewhere that Ray Harryhausen wasn't that enmoured with his own work with this one.
I think it leans too much into Western for me, which is a genre I’ve never had an appreciation for.
In a way, it’s a pretty by-the-numbers King Kong clone. Indeed, the guy that made King Kong was the original driving force behind it, before he passed away.
It just lacks charm. The stop motion bits remain value for money. But they are wasted in the overall context.
Re: the Die Hard films.
Among the many quality attributes, the stand out for me is Willis' portrayal of a guy who wishes the bad guys would go away because they're making life too difficult and nobody wants to listen to him. This lines up with Doc's analysis that he's not a Shwarzenegger character. He's not storming through the bushes roaring his war cry, and when he walks into the room most people wish that he would rather go away than save the day.
In the first he throws someone out of the building with the "welcome to the party, pal" to get attention and in the second he's ignored until he fires a magazine full of blanks in a crowded room. I can't recall if he does something similar in the third, but the consistent theme of an exasperated Johnny nobody saving the day was one of the strengths of the early films.
In the third and fourth he’s more listened to, as his reputation stands for itself. And we get pretty different movies as a result.
I’m just on 4.0 right now, and it’s fairly enjoyable. A bit more out-there than its predecessors, but nothing we can’t put down to One-Upmanship of sequelitis.
Lovely legal thriller, which is a bit on the kookie/wacky side of things starring Gene Hackman (as the grand puppet master who's all about jury manipulation, utilizing rather crude and scummy tools), Dustin Hoffman (as the lawyer of the wife who sues a big arms company after the shooting of her husband), John Cusack as jury person#9, Rachel Weisz as his girlfriend, Bruce Davidson (as the arms company lawyer, Bruce McGill as judge and so on. Great cast of character actors. Hackman has this little command post in an abandoned building across the street from the court, where him and a bunch of computer nerds (led by Pollux Troy IIRC) and his PA follow the going-ons in the courtroom via cameras in the defence lawyer's glasses. An early reminder that people who wear glasses with integrated cameras are complete tools who make life miserable for everybody.
From that situation develops a nice little intrigue thing back and forth with a very, very smart premise.
I enjoy the film when ever I see it. The moral lines aren't quite as clearly drawn as you'd think for most of the film, so it's much easier to cheer the goodies and dislike the baddies. There are several interesting characters in the jury itself as well, most of them character actors/"that guy'"s from all the 90s films.
Watch It. It's not perfect, but it's very enjoyable, not the least due to the great cast.
Strange World Disney kinda shoved this one out with minimal fanfare (I certainly don't remember seeing any trailers or anything for it), which is a shame as it's not a bad movie.
Yes, the whole concept doesn't really make sense if you think about it, but it's a solidly entertaining movie.
Also tried watching the live-action version of City Hunter but only made it about 30 minutes in (Grumpy Old Man Me doesn't like Jackie Chan movies as much as Teenage Me did), was rather impressed that it actually managed to be more cartoony than the anime version though.
Nic Cage stars in this high concept, highly stylised horror thriller. And he goes Full Nic Cage.
This is partly psychedelic horror, part revenge thriller. So far it’s like those weird Indy 60’s-80’s low budget schlock. But done really, really well. Cage is absolutely in his element here.
Suffice to say if Cage isn’t your cup of tea, you’ll hate this. But I’m loving it.
Watched the Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar this afternoon.
Which I figure I'm putting it in this thread because it's a short film.
Always love Wes Anderson and this is no exception. Very enjoyable eye catching style. Burpsnort Clumphouse managed to be not irritating and did quite a good job.
Watched Ghostbusters Afterlife last night. The first two acts were great. Interesting and fun characters, a bit of fan service. The. The third act kicks in and someone on the writing/production team bottled it and decided that something new here would be waaaay too much to ask… It was Definately fun and the set pieces were impressive enough, but it just lost the initiative toward the end.
Another sweet, easy watch movie. This stars Ben Kingsley, a lonely old man from a small town who is just developing the symptoms of Alzheimer's. His son no longer stays in touch due to his erratic behaviour and his daughter is clearly frustrated but still cares.
He lives in a huge, fairly isolated house on his own and his day is spent mostly lobbying the town council and watching CSI.
One night a UFO crashes in his back garden and an alien crawls out. Of course, nobody believes him....
This is a very easy going, gentle film and is more about getting old than it is a sci-fi movie but obviously has sci-fi elements.
I enjoyed it but maybe that's because I am also getting old and could sympathise with the characters.
A lesser know, and perhaps forgotten, 80’s high school comedy drama.
Kind of nerdy kid ends up on the Wrong Side of the new kid at school. A new kid with quite the reputation for being Hat Stand.
We follow our protagonist over the day, as we creep closer to 3 o’clock and his scheduled fight with Buddy.
The comedy aspect of this is low key. More “FML” type mishaps for our protagonist (Jerry, his name is Jerry) throughout the day, including an over zealous school security guard, a faculty unwilling to listen to him, and the building excitement across the student body for the coming fight.
It is quite brutal though when it comes to the violence.
What here is enjoyable. The cast are fine, the plot is perfectly serviceable. But its tone is…odd. As I said the comedy is low-key, so someone looking for a John Hughes romp is going to be sorely disappointed. And there’s not enough in terms of action for those seeking something properly fighty, like Karate Kid.
Cursory Google shows it was a box office bomb, and I’m gonna lay that at the feet of it’s unusual tone.
It's pleasantly surprising that this series is as enjoyable as it is. I had an expectation that at some point the show would be derailed into unspeakable stupidity but this never happened. In fact the whole lot was a rather sensible and rational take on a typically daft soft sci-fi premise. What inspiration the films take from their sources' (I assume) young-adult-fated-romance-love-triangle ickiness is rather tastefully kept minimal and adds to the plot rather than dominating it.
High points for me included almost everyone behaving sensibly and within reason throughout, and then the consequences of those actions were reasonable enough. To isolate a single point, in the second movie a minor character does something that made me think "well, they're going to make him pay for that and if I were them I'd do it at exactly this point". And the film went and did it, exactly how I thought they would. The only troubling part was that his action was so obvious that it seemed stupid to do it, until we get to the third film and then the sacrifice is rationally explained. Have we fallen so far that I have to praise movies for not being actively stupid?
There are some minor quibbles. The main actor is not my cup of tea. There's plenty of times where she gets to show emotion and seldom do I feel moved. It's made worse for her when in the third film Natalie Dormer is introduced and, with a minor character and no interesting lines to speak of, gives a side-by-side demonstration of what someone with real acting chops can do.
I didn't find any of the films nailed their finale particularly well, for various reasons, and the last two films really should have been a single film as there simply isn't enough interesting material and what there is has been stretched paper thin.
But, I can honestly say that this bloke the wrong side of 40 would recommend this series as an enjoyable diversion.
Hunger Games is great, though I personally didn't think there was anything wrong with the lead. Jennifer Lawrence is awesome in pretty much everything she does.
‘Tis the season to be spooky, fa la la la la, la la aaaaaaaargh!
Yes folks as we approach the most wonderful time of the year, it’s back to Spooky Movies.
And this one? It’s ropey, but fun, and with a pretty stellar cast. It’s incredibly early 00’s but for me that adds to the charm. There is gore, there is violence, there’s even some Rude Bits*, but it’s not gross out with any of it.
It’s played pretty straight, and that’s to its benefit. No post-ironic drivel. Just a ghost move made as a straight ghost movie.
Up for free on Prime right now, I’d recommend giving it a watch.
80’s Nostalgia Modern Day Time Travel Slasher Thriller.
This is a pretty groovy flick! Lifts elements from your traditional 80’s slashers, bits from Scream, bits from Back to the Future, with a side of “hey, 80’s nostalgia is in”.
But it’s blended these things to an absolute tee. Tongue firmly in cheek, it delivers on each element confidently, and is definitely worth a move night watch.
1980 vigilante thriller in the mould of Death Wish, but done by Troma. But whilst evidentially a Troma film, this isn’t a Troma Movie.
And it’s really quite good! The action is solid, and not especially lurid. The acting is fine, plot more or less holds up. And it ensures we empathise with our hero, and feel like the baddies are getting a long overdue comeuppance.
80’s Nostalgia Modern Day Time Travel Slasher Thriller.
This is a pretty groovy flick! Lifts elements from your traditional 80’s slashers, bits from Scream, bits from Back to the Future, with a side of “hey, 80’s nostalgia is in”.
But it’s blended these things to an absolute tee. Tongue firmly in cheek, it delivers on each element confidently, and is definitely worth a move night watch.
Just don't think about the time travel issues or timing in general
More horror! This time involving a psychotic Sloth on a revenge fuelled rampage.
No.
Really.
This is mental. But in a mostly good way. It’d set in a Sorority, where the Sloth (Alpha) is adopted at the house mascot. Alpha then goes on a wee killing rampage.
There’s a lot of odd stuff. Like constant screen overlays showing each characters social media follower count, but I’m not entirely sure why.
But overall it’s pretty fun!
Automatically Appended Next Post: Dakka I need your assistance.
There’s a film I could’ve sworn was a Sinbad flick, but apparently it isn’t.
It’s the same sort of setting. The main memory I have is of the Princess/Damsel type character being abducted each night, having sleep walked into a gilded cage, carried by a stop motion animated giant Vulture type bird.
It’s definitely a movie made somewhere in the 60’s or 70’s. And not knowing what it is, is driving me nuts.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: We just watched that. It really holds up, especially the Medusa scene.
heck yes. And Calibos, with the mix of make-up/mask/prosthetics and stop motion still is very effective as a scary baddie.
Right, how come I never watched Six String Samurai (1998) before? I was looking for either of the documentaries on Streets of Fire (Rumble on the Lot and Shotguns and Six-Strings). Couldn't find either, but I did find Six String Samurai. And watched it, and liked it a lot. What a fun film to look at, what a fun film to listen to. If this had been made 15 years later I'd probably dislike it a lot, but then if it had been made 15 years later it would have been very different.
It's a post-apocalyptic USA, there's been an atomic war, Russia turned the US into a wasteland (and vice versa, most probably), so everybody is stuck in 1957, but with lots of dirt on them. The Six-String Samuari has to get to Lost Vegas to play a gig and become the new King Elvis of the city, but DEATH is on his heels. And that's it really.
It's very low-budget, even though it cost 20million dollars in 1998. I guess that there are a few things which make it look cheaper than it actually is, like the ADR'd dialogue (assumedly because 90% of the film takes place in a windy desert) and because it pays hommage to a lot of 50s sci-fi stuff I think. There must be a ton more references to the history of US rock&rock music and guitar playing, many of which go over my head because that's stuff I don't know as much about as I should.
The guy who plays the Six-String Samurai Buddy was an excellent pick for the role, because he's a martial arts fella and does a great job at all the actiony things. The kid was way un-annoying, which isn't typical for a 1990s US film production.
That's a film I can not help appreciating endlessly, despite all the stuff that's less than perfect about it. Watch It. (it's on youtube. Don't worry about the distortion in the beginning; that isn't a thing to mislead copyright algorithms, that's a stylistic choice for the first 2 minutes or so of the film)
There I was looking for documentaries about the greatest Rock & Roll Fable ever made and ran into the greatest Post-apocalyptic Rock&Roll action film of all time.
edit: oh, and last night I watched about half of Hard Rain. Plot and all of that aside, the whole set design is pretty amazing. Imagine how they'd do that nowadays. Also: Not sure I've ever seen Betty White in a feature film aside from this one.
I saw the trailer for Six String Samurai back in ‘97 or ‘98, downloaded it on my computer. I waited for the movie, but never saw any ads on TV or in the papers, nor any reviews. I figured it was just one of those fake trailers made by fans. Now that I know it’s real I’ll have to find it.
Yeah, it seems like it had a bit of a rough development, but very interesting indeed. Made a trailer on no budget to shop it around, then got 2 million dollars from an upstart film publisher, and went on to make the film with a no-budget-mentality on everything, but convinced that they have to shoot in Death Valley. They had whole crews take off due to the rough shooting, had some people go down with heat strokes, etc. It was shown at festivals, got rave reviews from indie people. Less great reviews from more basic critics, and it only got a very, very limited release in cinemas in the US, and went straight to video/dvd elsewhere as far as I read.
It seems to be a unique thing, that film. I really enjoyed it though. I like a bit of the old rock&roll music. And the 90s. And things which aren't boring. Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaPP00uNkNI
Where was Jeffrey Falcon when they did the Max Payne film!?
Gotta watch a Friday the 13th film on Friday the 13th, right? I went with Friday the 13th (2009). It was fine. The lack of anything remotely new or interesting is balanced against a mostly likable cast of hapless teenagers. Jason is suitably menacing. Hard to imagine a more average movie.
I didn't think of watching Friday the 13th for Friday the 13th but I did binge Rose Red after learning it as on Hulu.
Old miniseries based on Haunting of Hill House from King and Spielberg. Development hell project but it has a certain charm to it. Very much akin to the myriad of King adaptations from the 80s and 90s.
If your into that sort of cheesy horror it can be a fun nostalgia trip but I'd hesitate to call it good.
Sigur, did they say why they had to film in Death Valley? It’s bizarre when there are similar deserts right next door that aren’t deadly hot, like “Star Wars Canyon”, Alabama Hills, and not too far away, Vazquez Rocks. Was Death Valley part of the story?
Thanks for the link, though! Hopefully I’ll get a chance to watch it tomorrow afternoon.
As said earlier I wasn't able to watch Friday the 13th on Friday the 13th because it got rained out but will be leaving shortly to see them (part 2 and 3) tonight. Sadly they can't do the 3D version of 3 but it will still be a fun time.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Sigur, did they say why they had to film in Death Valley? It’s bizarre when there are similar deserts right next door that aren’t deadly hot, like “Star Wars Canyon”, Alabama Hills, and not too far away, Vazquez Rocks. Was Death Valley part of the story?
Thanks for the link, though! Hopefully I’ll get a chance to watch it tomorrow afternoon.
I have no idea. It sounds like one of the last places on earth where I'd wanna shoot a film. IIRCaccording to the article I read the filmmakers said they went there (unburdened by stuff like a script) because any direction you aim the camera there you get a beautiful shot. Maybe it was just a very "dedicated filmmaker" thing they felt they had to do, or it's just part of the sales pitch for the trailer.
Between Saturday and Sunday the Drive-In changed the screen showing the Friday the 13th films to the Taylor Swift concert film so I didn't get to see them again. The breadth and width of my sorrow is uncalculable but if I had to I would give it about a four.
I watched the last third of The House that Jack Built, because it was on TV last night.
I think that according to reviews I got the best part of the film. It was rather impressive and scary and a bit funny and darned cool in the very end. Matt Dylan can look eerily like a 50/50 mix of Jim Carrey and Willem Dafoe.
Sigur wrote: Right, how come I never watched Six String Samurai (1998) before?
I was looking for either of the documentaries on Streets of Fire (Rumble on the Lot and Shotguns and Six-Strings). Couldn't find either, but I did find Six String Samurai. And watched it, and liked it a lot. What a fun film to look at, what a fun film to listen to. If this had been made 15 years later I'd probably dislike it a lot, but then if it had been made 15 years later it would have been very different.
You can probably add that if the movie had been made fifteen years later, it would have been too late to inspire (a part of) Fallout New Vegas. Which I have every reason to believe that it did.
It's a really fun movie. Especially if you like Fallout, I'd say you shouldn't give Six-String Samurai a miss any more than A Boy and His Dog.
I’m about halfway through Six String Samurai and loving it. It’s a great example of how style and passion can more than make up for a low budget.
I don’t think it was all filmed in Death Valley, though. Some of it looks like Palm Springs, and the areas north of Joshua Tree. Fantastic use of location so far.
The story of a black Corsair, carrier pilot in the US Navy during the Korean war.
I would say it is surprisingly flat. A good performance by the main lead, but the script just wasn't there. The action scenes are also surprisingly tepid too.
For warbird fans, you get to see some loving shots of F4F Bearcats, Corsairs, A-1 Skyraiders, and a Mig-15. A surprisingly short list really.
Slumber Party Massacre II
Why did I watch this? I was sick, that's why.
80's cheese, but not good in anyway, shape or form.
@Geifer: Oh yes, I'm rather sure it did inspire Fallout to some degree. Must have.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: I’m about halfway through Six String Samurai and loving it. It’s a great example of how style and passion can more than make up for a low budget.
I don’t think it was all filmed in Death Valley, though. Some of it looks like Palm Springs, and the areas north of Joshua Tree. Fantastic use of location so far.
Yeah, it's a pretty rad film. I was rather positive you'd like it. Funny thing i just realized days later: Buddy's dialogue especially sounding way ADR'd may be to make him sound like a dubbed samurai.
edit: Oh, last night I witnessed a proper abomination: A TV version of Demolition Man (we all love demolition man, don't we. And it's eery how prophetic that film is ), cut to fit the "FSK12" mold (comparable to PG13, maybe a bit harsher). The cut is a few years old, done by a German private tv channel. It's just horrifying. They cut like 6 minutes from the film. I've seen Demolition Man a few times, and it threw me each time. Okay, I get that maybe they cut the eye thing, but in many cases they cut absurdly tame stuff like the virtual sex images in Stallone's head. They just put the things on their heads, Bullock tells Stallone to relax, cut, Stallone tears the thing from his head, asking what's going on. And in many other cases the cuts are way hard and disorienting and it's all a very traumatic experience to be honest.
Tried watching The Bad Guys last night, but didn't get more than 10 minutes into it.
Thought it was going to be similar to Zootopia, but a small gang of anthropomorphised animals being uncatchable criminals in an, apparently, mostly human world caused my brain to rebel.
Don't know if it gets explained later on, but it was just too much nonsense for me.
Astronauts on the ISS pick up samples of stuff taken from mars, discover a single-celled alien organism and want to make it do stuff.
Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds and others are playing astronauts. Ryan Reynolds annoyed me a little, because he was Ryan Reynoldsing around, "referencing" ReAnimator, calling himself a "nerd". There are so few eligable professions to be depicted as adults left; astronauts should be among them. I'm not against the obligatory "sitting around a table, being human" scenes, but when we're looking at a first contact thing with alien life and such it's not the right moment.
Anyway. The actors do a perfectly fine job. Gyllenhaal works alright, refraining from grimacing, being more dweeby and not the commander. Overall I liked the characters alright.
Overall it's a perfectly OK space alien thriller. Cool to see a film taking place on the ISS; I know so little about it (apart from the fact that it's really cool) that the depiction worked great for me, and the film basically all happening in zero G is also very cool.
Spoiler:
The alien looks pretty cool very early on and proper icky in the very end, but for the most part it looks a bit too much like a CGI thing. It's not annoying or taking you out of the film, but it could have felt a bit more visceral I think. I really liked the "weightiness" of it in some scenes thuogh. When it grabs stuff and such.
In terms of logic, I'm sure there's lots of problems. The alien climbing around on the hull of the space station was a bit ..surprising. It's pretty cold out there, it's pretty hard to maneuvre out there, surely pressure would do things to it, and it was established early on that it needs oxygen. Oh well.
The kills are pretty gnarly by the way, without being all too gratuitous.
The ending is right out of the sci-fi alien in space thriller textbook, but it's okay.
A perfectly OK film, that. Watch It, if you wanna see a tense sci-fi space film. Probably more enjoyable if you aren't all too familiar with the genre. I liked the 'realistic' setting.
On its own it was.... ok.
But since I paid for it I found it slightly below average.
If you don't ever see it? You won't have missed anything.
If you are inclined to see it though? Wait for it to come onto your streaming service of choice & save yourself the price of the tkt.
I watched The Pyramid, (2014). It was okay, a pretty standard lost in a pyramid film. It hit all the expected elements of a mummies curse idea, with an interesting deist twist. Unfortunately, it really portrayed archaeologists as loose cannons- like the sorts who make decisions drunk and drugged up college students shouldn't. If you ignore their stated archaeologists vocation, and treat it as a bunch of college students who got dumped in a pyramid, you'll enjoy it more. Not too shabby.
I have a guilty pleasure love for found footage horror movies and The Pyramid is one I rather enjoy. Yes, it's a movie with all the cliches but oh well.
The weirdest thing about that one is that it's only found footage like 50% of the time? The other 50% it's just a regular low-budget horror flick. So that was weird.
I hope you like a bit of magical realism with your small town murder shows. Reminded me a bit of It, Stranger Things and Stand By Me. A kid's on bicycles vibes, but everyone is much older.
Okay enough, but not a great ending.
Ready Player One This movie has some ideas, and then makes it all kinda' okayish.
This must have cost a ton just for all the IP alone.
Saw the latest Turtles film. It was quite fun and well done. A good take on the turtles as a whole though Mikey felt like they really missed the mark compared to the others. Overall I absolutely enjoyed it, but it was pretty disposable. A solid 3/5.
LordofHats wrote: ...
The weirdest thing about that one is that it's only found footage like 50% of the time? The other 50% it's just a regular low-budget horror flick. So that was weird.
Now that's an interesting choice on the producers' part.
LordofHats wrote: ...
The weirdest thing about that one is that it's only found footage like 50% of the time? The other 50% it's just a regular low-budget horror flick. So that was weird.
Now that's an interesting choice on the producers' part.
I found it kind of refreshing in its own way. I’m a bit burned out on Found Footage, because the sub genre’s noise to signal ratio is predominantly noise. Even Blair Witch is….really dull, more notorious for being novel and popularising found footage than actually being particularly good. It kind of feels like if you’re incompetent at film making, and can’t frame or light a scene, just call the resulting debacle “found footage” and folk will watch it.
This is a fabulously well put together movie. There isn't much about this film that isn't great. Story, characters, stylistic direction, blend of comedy and sentimentality. It's easily one of the best films I've seen recently.
Easy E wrote: It is impossible to recapture the hype and aura that surrounded Blair Witch at the time.
Without that context.... yeah.... it is a suck film.
I remember being in school and we were lunging around in front of the classroom for drawing class and some of my classmates talked about how scary that film was. I've never seen it myself to be honest. But then again I never watched many horror films except for a phase around the time everybody's got their horror phase, I suppose. And I may be at the age at which you get a bit more squeamish again.
Without the marketing hype, it’s just an aimless, scriptless, plotless film which I fear was nothing but marketing hype.
Then again, I am one of those weirdos that when told I’ll enjoy something, I probably won’t. I dunno why.
It’s the same for anything that overly advertised. For instance, I understand Wall-E is a very, very good movie. Yet in the run up to its release, it felt like it was everywhere. Utterly inescapable.
But then, I am known for…erm…rather unique tastes in media.
Blair Witch however? Just utter, utter bobbins.
I think I’d actually rather watch overly rehearsed YouTube “big film trailer” reaction videos. You know the ones. Yes. Those ones. Where it’s abundantly clear it’s stage managed and carefully rehearsed, because the coming debacle displays reactions and emotions hitherto unknown to mankind outside of Stage School Kids. And not the good stage school kids. The crap ones. The ones that can’t control their eyebrows, and are coming to a travelling school theatre troop worryingly close to your kids soon, to be ignored and ridiculed by youngsters across the land.
It worked on me. I was at university at the time, and had trouble sleeping for a week after watching it on release. The scene at the very end would just keep intruding itself into my thoughts and freaking me out. It’s like Paranormal Investigations. That still tries to eat back into my thoughts about 15 years after I last watched it…
I’m just not that well wired for that kind of thing methinks
Wall-E though. Probably the best most evocative storytelling that has ever been done, especially the first 20 minutes or so
I won't say it is a bad film but it definitely wasn't for me. Saw it with friends when it came out and all the city dwellers and non-campers thought it was quite scary whereas I found it to be a tedious chore to sit through.
This is a raunchy, R-rated road-trip movie about four friends traveling to China and getting into all kinds of trouble. There were some big laughs sprinkled throughout, except for the sentimental part of the ending. It was decent. I’d recommend it for fans of Bridesmaids or Girl’s Trip, that kind of movie.
Ahtman wrote: I won't say it is a bad film but it definitely wasn't for me. Saw it with friends when it came out and all the city dwellers and non-campers thought it was quite scary whereas I found it to be a tedious chore to sit through.
This is similar to my experience, although I didn't bother with the movie until it was on TV. It just falls apart if you can't buy into the setup of people getting lost in the woods and freaking out over it.
The "lost in the woods" thing is great, but I don't think it translates to UK experience as well. I mean small children yes, but we just don't have woods that are big enough for vaguely rational adults to get lost in
Not so much "follow the river" as "follow the noise of traffic"
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Also, who heading out into the wilderness doesn’t take something as basic as a compass with them?
I mean... famous British actors, for one.
I know you folks don't have real wilderness (I got to see a Welsh 'nature preserve' where all the trees were (re)planted in straight lines, which was just surreal), but we have semi-regular news segments about idiots lost on a hike, and have to be rescued in increasingly bizarre circumstances. Went on a hike 2 miles from home, slid down a slope and broke a leg is just a thing that happens.
We cut down all our trees to make the Royal Navy, to the point where a formal government body needed to be set up to make sure that we would have any trees in the future...
Spoiler:
Basically everything in the UK is replanted managed forests (barring very few, rather small ancient forests).
Our wildernesses tend to be more moorland and mountains. Yes you can get lost in wilderness just not in forests, so unless there is massive cloud cover, the sense of enclosure and lack of visibility isn't there
Didn't care much for Blair Witch myself, even at the height of its popularity. Doesn't help that someone stumbled in drunk and made a scene during the ending of the film when I saw it. I've always heard that makes the film "worth it" but I've never felt the need to sit back through it and find out.
LunarSol wrote: Didn't care much for Blair Witch myself, even at the height of its popularity. Doesn't help that someone stumbled in drunk and made a scene during the ending of the film when I saw it. ...
Well, at least you have a rather individual memory of the thing. Maybe that's worth even more than being able to say "ya, the ending was propa good like".
I thought the forest in Blair Witch has some supernatural properties that made it worse. Wasn’t the stream flowing in a big circle or something like that? Then there was the invasions of their camp site every night, which is scary whether it’s a witch leaving bloody twigs by your tent or a mortal stranger. I feel like saying Blair With isn’t scary because you spend time in the wilderness is like saying Cujo isn’t scary because you’re good with dogs.
And that’s leaving aside other dangers, like bears, mountain lions, elk, moose and coyotes. Most Americans aren’t going to have the woodcraft to avoid these threats with confidence.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Also, who heading out into the wilderness doesn’t take something as basic as a compass with them?
Stupid (ok, also inexperienced) people. Wich is why they get lost....
In mountainous terrain you can still get lost even with a compass. You can know exactly which direction the car is, and even the distance, but if you can’t see your footprints or any identifiable marks to backtrack, you can have a hard time telling which branch of a narrow defile takes you back and which takes you deeper. That’s one reason why going off trail can be so dangerous even for prepared hikers.
LunarSol wrote: Didn't care much for Blair Witch myself, even at the height of its popularity. Doesn't help that someone stumbled in drunk and made a scene during the ending of the film when I saw it. ...
Well, at least you have a rather individual memory of the thing. Maybe that's worth even more than being able to say "ya, the ending was propa good like".
We had someone throw up just after the final shot of the film. At first we thought it was a splatter sound in the movie, but then it happened again during the credits. The worst part is it splashed all over my brother’s shoes.
The 2023 version. Henceforth to be known as the crap version.
Kind of a prequel in terms of its plot, but not actually a prequel. This deals with the kids taking over the town rather than the original story of adults bumbling into A Situation.
What a boring, dull film. Made all the worse because a prequel of sorts has so much potential.
And it’s all the worse because our antagonist kids are so young. And they don’t even have shooters. Yet nobody just sort of…beats them up.
Not that I’m an advocate for punching downward in general. But if a prepubescent wee scrote is coming at me with a farming implement, I can’t see me (as an avowed and self confessed wuss) having a great deal of trouble sorting them out, and giving them what-five* up the bracket.
Kids are kind of inherently weedy. Yet not even the older kids try so much as giving them a slap.
Also the main kid just isn’t anywhere near as creepy as Isaac was (is, I guess) in the original. Which is a big old problem, because they’ve replaced Isaac with a wee girl maybe 12 at the most. And not at all intimidating.
Even the gore lame, and understated.
It does however star Bruce Spence. And promptly wastes his many talents. Which is a cinematic crime in itself.
*it’s like what for, but more.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Wait it gets worse. So much worse.
Not only does it confirm He Who Walks actually does an exist? But He Who Walks exists as a crappy CGI monster.
The short story confirms He Who Walks Behind the Rows exists. It’s a pretty good story, though. I tried to watch the first movie once, but checked out halfway through.
Still, one of the great Stephen King stories to reference on road trips, along with Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut.
Vincent Price gets to ham it up in a proto-Saw. Also has Diana Rigg!
One over-the-top fencing scene so that is a +1. However, I am not sure I can really recommend it.
Oh, that sounds like something I should look up.
I switched through tv channels last night.
.) Found out I can't watch Punisher:Warzone dubbed any more. On the plus side: Wayne Knight has the most macho German dub voice on this one.
.) Mortal Kombat 2 still isn't very good. .) Watched the last few minutes of the The Hills Have Eyes remake. Which I saw at the cinema at the time and did NOT care for.
However, given how these are the films which were on tv as I turned it on means that not everything is lost.
I think I also saw some other things, but I can't quite recall.
It’s hard to explain this in a PG Friendly way, and to be honest being a Horror, probably best not to comment on the overall plot. Well. A competent horror. I’ll spoil crap horror to spare the time and minds of others.
Jemima Rooper and Kate Dickie star in this folk horror movie. And….it’s pretty entertaining in a disturbing way.
On the extreme off chance you’re into 2000AD deepcuts, this has rural shades of Cradlegrave. Which is a good thing.
Performances are solid, and there’s a good amount of atmosphere and tension.
If you’re in the UK, like creepy horror and have Disney+? Give this a whirl. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Starring Gerard Butler. This is an odd fish. It’s a thriller, involving a plane making an emergency landing, and a rebel army trying to hold the passengers hostage. And it plays out like someone was carrying the scripts for Miracle on the Hudson and Rambo, dropped them and managed to muddle up the pages.
Whilst not dire? At no point did I feel like I particularly cared about any of the characters, because it never really bothers to tell us anything about them. And so I’m afraid this is pretty forgettable. Certainly I have no particular scene to recommend. Except perhaps where the weasely Scrote rebel who thinks having a gun makes him a man cops one in the coconut. That was pretty fun.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Wishmaster
Well. What to make of this. Because it’s genuine mixed bag.
The plot is thin, but mostly fine. And it has some genuinely solid moments. Mostly based in Djinn type shenanigans.
Frustratingly, whilst fun throughout? It’s just so uneven. The Djinn could have been on the same par as Pinhead, but the performance isn’t match by the script. And everyone bar the Djinn is just sort of phoning it in.
But I don’t want a do-over. No mulligan here. It’s pretty ropey, but the central premise and villain still carry it just far enough over the line.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III - Turtles In Time
Ah the much maligned third cinematic outing for the heroes in a half shell. First saw this probably close to 30 years ago, on a Ferry over to Belgium.
Not a great film, but by and large it is pretty entertaining. The plot is very silly, but still a welcome break from Shredder and his goons. Importantly, the fights remain nicely choreographed.
The non-turtle costumes are really solid, and it’s clear where the majority of the budget went. Confusingly though, the Turtle costumes, particularly the heads, were a major step backwards in terms of quality.
But it’s most massively let down by its uneven and wonky tone. And that I just didn’t really care about the none-turtle characters. Like. At all.
One for the completist or the curious. And probably not quite as poor as it’s reputation, but still a bit crap all the same.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Terminus
A 1987 Mad Max 2 clone from France and Germany. It stars Karen Allen, Duke Leto Atredies, and that wee kid from Robocop 2.
Plot is that, because reasons, a sport has been invented which involves driving a truck across country to the “Terminus”, and not letting anyone stop you.
The lead truck (not that we see any competitors for the most part) is called Monster, and has AI. And a very concerning latex mouth in the dashboard for talking to its driver. Which is like a disturbing KITT - with extra “sass”
A very strange film, this. Some bits are genuinely laughable. Other bits are really rather good. I think I’d describe it as an ambitious, but not quite competent low budget flick. Certainly I’ve seen far worse, and this is for my money just on the right side of watchable without irony,
Five Nights at Freddy's, as my son is a huge fan of the franchise. Myself, I'm aware of it, but mostly ignorant beyond 'evil(er) Chuck-E Cheese'. It was a really solid PG13 horror movie. Likable chronic loser protagonist, reasonable plot twist, and Matthew Lillard! It's a very good time, and safe to watch with your young teens.
If you enjoyed Willy's Wonderland, but wished it was more of an Evil Dead, than an Army of Darkness, then this is the film for you.!
My wife likes this one better than from hell. Way less bloody of a film, less grim so I get it.
It's kinda fun I think. I enjoy seeing locations that I believe I have seen before in Highlander the series. Actually that was the best bit for me in one of the last Bond movies as well.
This movie is about a book co written with Satin but there are three copies. Our lead character is employed to discover if one of them is a forgery by some kind of bizllionaire Satin enthusiast.
Gods of Egypt Your mention of Gerard Butler reminded me I watched this. If you judge it as a knock-off of the more recent Clash of the Titans flick, it manages to hang with that film, but be worse. Gerard Butler and the lady who played Elektra in the Daredevil TV show are the stand outs.
What's that you say? The new Clash of the Titans was not very good? Yet, I think this one is worse?
My wife likes this one better than from hell. Way less bloody of a film, less grim so I get it.
It's kinda fun I think. I enjoy seeing locations that I believe I have seen before in Highlander the series. Actually that was the best bit for me in one of the last Bond movies as well.
This movie is about a book co written with Satin but there are three copies. Our lead character is employed to discover if one of them is a forgery by some kind of bizllionaire Satin enthusiast.
Love the 9th gate. That's one I can watch over and over. From Hell on the otherhand I tried to watch once, but actually fell asleep, which is somethign that very rarely happens.
Of Gods of Egypt I only know the trailer, and that was WAY enough for me. I also have yet to see a Gerard Butler film I like.
The X is for 10. Even though this is the 8th film entitled Saw, the latter two being Jigsaw (prequel, and cack) and Spiral (spin-off/reboot attempt. Is alright I guess, but pretty forgettable).
Now needless to say, if Saw isn’t your thing? Nowt to see here.
But, if like me you’re a fan, even of the later increasingly poor efforts, and particularly the earlier rather good ones? This I would say is a return to form.
This is another stab at a….prequel, I guess. Or like, Saw 3.5 or something as whilst I’m not sure exactly where it slots in, John Kramer is alive, and this clearly isn’t his first rodeo.
Speaking of John? We spend a lot more time with him in this one. And for me, it’s to the movie’s distinct benefit. As it’s more stripped down, back to basics of the original solid entries.
I got it on Amazon Home Premiere, which was admittedly an expensive option at £20, but I’m not regretting it.
My son turned twelve and hadn’t seen it yet. It’s one of those movies best enjoyed by twelve year olds. Still a fun time for grown ups, if not as funny as we remember it being.
Freddy’s Dead
He wanted to see a Nightmare on Elm Street movie, and this was the least disturbing one I can think of. Freddy Krueger has gone full ham by the start of the film, and most of the older character actors know what film they’re in. The editing is surprisingly disjointed, like more distracting and awkward than seeing Roseanne and Tom Arnold cameo together.
Let’s face it, just from that you’ve already made up your mind about this flick!
Automatically Appended Next Post: Renegades - 2022
A British stab at a Geri-action movie. And it’s not terribly good,
Lee Majors stars, but gets bumped off as the plot catalyst.
Soundtrack is crap. Tension is non-existent. The pacing is off. The dialogue is diabolical. The performances worse than phoned in. The editing is dreadful. Just everything about this movie is god awful. The baddies are described as a gang that have muscled their way in over all of London. All….maybe a dozen, certainly less than twenty, of them. And they’re all singularly incompetent at being menacing and deadly.
Even Seagal’s lasted cinematic seepage is better than this utter dreck.
However, compulsory points awarded due to Danny Trejo. And you always, always get points for Trejo.
Midway (2019) I thought this was released much earlier. More like 2015/16. Okay, I'll admit that I only saw the last third or so, but I feel like that's the best way of watching this film. Still felt long enough.
That battle scene the last third of the film is is rather good. I mean I know diddly-squat about WW2 in the Pacific, so for me it looked sufficiently OK. Sure, there's several rather Hollywood shots. The whole film seems rather Hollywood. The funny thing is though that it somehow subverts conventions by being incredibly old-fashioned. Rather wooden men in pilot suits flying around in airplanes, all showed either via dashcam aimed at the face, dashcam looking down crosshairs or wide shots, showing airplanes flying from above. That gives the film a kinda interesting feel. I mean from what I saw it felt like one of the old big lumbering Hollywood war films.
Sure, there was one pretty meaningless scene doing the compulsory "show ladies in period dresses sit in very clean houses, looking sorrowful" amidst the battle (I assume that there were more scenes of that before in the film; glad I didn't see that). Much less meaningless - several cuts to the Japanese admiral and his staff, as well as a bunch of scenes showing the going-ons on the Japanese vessels. That was cool. All of those are in Japanese with subtitles.
We're at a funny point with these sort of scenes right now, aren't we. The convention seems to be to show these scenes just like that. Respectful representation of The Others (from the Hollywood point of view), BUT speaking in subtitles. In terms of the whole representation thing it's more 'correct', but maybe a point could be made that - at least in dubbed versions of the film - having them talk in English as well would be a more healthy way of doing it? Sure, there's practical hurdles with that in the original English audio (and with certain interrogation scenes and such), but for any other language version you might just as well have the Japanese (and Chinese) characters talk the respective language of the whole film. Would give a more universalist feel to the thing. Just a little thing that crossed my mind as a theoretical little thing.
Anyway, it's a pretty good battle scene, probably espcially so for the people who are into WW2 pacific naval and aerial combat. And for a war film, it's not bad (again, the part I saw. I'm sure the first two thirds are full of annoying stuff).
Take it or Leave It, unless you're into the above things, in which case, don't dismiss it, but do watch the battle scenes.
And I said, "What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?"
She said, "I think I remember the film
And as I recall, I think we both kinda liked it"
And I said, "Well, that's the one thing we've got"
So as I was searching for reasons not to cancel Paramount+ now that I am caught up with Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Wow.
Daring, daring subject matter for 1961, incredible performances by Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard (I had to check if that was really Hannibal from the A-Team) marred a bit by Andy Rooney as very stereotypical Japanese guy.
And I finally found out what the heck the title means seeing as Tiffany's is a jewelry store and not a cafe...
I watched this yesterday but skipped forward here and there because it's over 2 hours.
It has a lot more story than the first one which doesn't bother me but it is also a little tedious.
The blood and guts this go round seem very thick and messy and not just like red water but down right nasty. I'd just seen the teaser trailer for Terrifier 3 on Reddit so I decided to watch this one again. I'm really looking forward to Terrifier 3 "Art does Christmas".
Side note having tried reddit now.. I hate it.
A perfectly fine little film. If you have seen the other Branaugh Poirot films, then more of the same here. If you are into this sort of film, it is well made, well acted, and well done.
Michelle Yeoh has a great time delivering her big monologue.
A rather grisly opening death as well.
My knowledge of Ancient History and Xenophon actually had a pay-off in this film!
A perfectly fine comedy product. The actors all seemed to be having fun together. Owen Wilson is a treat. Rosario Dawson had more to do than stand with her arms crossed. There were some decent spooky scenes and a few good laughs.
There was also a LOT of product placement, and only a couple were placed in decent jokes to make them less blatant. Some of them are so hamfisted that they become an awkward joke in themselves. Also, Owen Wilson will probably never have to pay for fast food again in his life.
The ending is rough. It tries to go big when the strength of the film is the claustrophobic relationship of the characters. And the pacing is all off. This film needed a steely-eyed editor to kill the director’s darlings.
All that chatter about a Highlander reboot got me to watch Highlander again this evening.
I really enjoy this movie.
It's just fun. I think the final fight is one of the best in movies due to the Kurgin. He gets a look on his face that says this is it. The fight I have been looking for all of my life.
The swordfights may not be the best but most movie sword fights kinda aren't so it's not really an issue for me.
I definitely recommend a rewatch for anyone who hasn't seen it in a while.
And I said, "What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?"
She said, "I think I remember the film
And as I recall, I think we both kinda liked it"
And I said, "Well, that's the one thing we've got"
So as I was searching for reasons not to cancel Paramount+ now that I am caught up with Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Wow.
Daring, daring subject matter for 1961, incredible performances by Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard (I had to check if that was really Hannibal from the A-Team) marred a bit by Andy Rooney as very stereotypical Japanese guy.
And I finally found out what the heck the title means seeing as Tiffany's is a jewelry store and not a cafe...
This song is one I will never not enjoy.
The film I also just saw last year or so for the first time, and it rocks.
warhead01 wrote: All that chatter about a Highlander reboot got me to watch Highlander again this evening.
I really enjoy this movie.
It's just fun. I think the final fight is one of the best in movies due to the Kurgin. He gets a look on his face that says this is it. The fight I have been looking for all of my life.
The swordfights may not be the best but most movie sword fights kinda aren't so it's not really an issue for me.
I definitely recommend a rewatch for anyone who hasn't seen it in a while.
You can definitively see how a reboot would make it more polished. Equally how it could all go wrong...
I liked the scenes through history the best... If they made them into most period accurate with shocking social views and show highlanders having problems being anachronistic that would be cool.
Pretty great documentary about Cape Cod communities dealing with the aftermath of a youngster being killed by a Great White Shark, as well as the general upheaval in the fishing community and the environmental changes happening on their doorstep.
Really enjoyed it, Recommend. Learned some new things too, like seal vocalizations sounding so eery.
Spoilered for those that don’t have Max or want to know more:
Spoiler:
First thought was that its pretty even handed in how it allows multiple viewpoints and opinions like most good documentaries. Never felt like it had an agenda, other then showcasing disagreements within a larger community. At times we join in on the adventures of a passionate group of shark conservationists who tag and track shark activity for everyone’s safety, human and animal.
Towards the end, a virologist also stars studying how animals moving south collide with animals moving north and what that might mean for virus transmission. Pretty funny scene where they apprehend a seal and swab its nose to detect viruses. Once they get off the hoodwinked seal it just lays there looking directly at the camera like “Tf just happened?!”.
Some local folks blame aspects of the 50 year old Marine Animal Protection Act thats allowed seal populations to grow unchecked, which then kills fish populations and the seals attract sharks. Others can see the writing on the wall in regards to climate change and how its forcing ecosystems to perish or migrate. All of them seem to be coming to terms with the fact that its the new reality for these coastal communities that used the area for their livelihood.
Clint Eastwood is a no-nonsense, hard-as-they-come, veteran US marines man, but kinda retired from active duty and takes on training some US marines scout platoon of slackers.
This one's an interesting one. Eastwood is perfect in the role, the dialogue has been praised. The slackers are even kinda likeable in a way, and there's some odd depth to Eastwood's character than the film would probably require. All in all that film was much more fun and less objectionable from a general human perspective than I remembered.
And then they go on to liberate Grenada! I never liked that ending, even when I was a wee'un and saw the film the first time.
But anyway. I think it's one of the more fun "marines" films and for the time remarkably layered. Eastwood is great to watch. Watch It, if you like that sort of stuff. Watch it, if you like male torsos too. Otherwise, take it or leave it. But that goes for any genre film, right?
I had always liked when he shot at his trainee's with the Ak-47 while they were unaware on a road march or some sort. Told them to remember how it sounds so they could distinguish their weapons fire from the ubiquitous weapon used by seemingly all of America's adversaries.
I had always liked when he shot at his trainee's with the Ak-47 while they were unaware on a road march or some sort. Told them to remember how it sounds so they could distinguish their weapons fire from the ubiquitous weapon used by seemingly all of America's adversaries.
Yeah, took me back to the days of learning counter-strike 1.5.
A fairly generic superhero movie, but I enjoyed it, thought it was better than the first one at least (I wasn't as enamoured with that one as the rest of the world seemed to be, thought it tried too hard to be funny and quirky).
It was a decent action/fantasy film. If it had been released without the baggage of DC and decades of superhero movies, it would have been better regarded.
Starring Not-Very-Good-Actress-Turned-Entirely-Average-Model-Turned-Really-Not-Anywhere-Near-Good-Singer Jennifer “J-Lo” Lopez, before she started to seriously get on my pip, phoning in a crap performance in this crap monster movie.
Basically bunch of people decide to go find a Mahoosive Anaconda for reasons not exactly explained well. Only for John Voight to have read the script and decided the best thing would be if they all got put out of their misery.
Also stars Eric Stoltz (wasted in this), Kari Wurher (remember her!) Ice Cube, and Owen Wilson.
This movie is abysmal. The set is so generic, you don’t get a senses the boat has actually travelled. It lacks any and all tension. At no point did I find myself giving a fig about any of the human characters. At all.
However, Frank Welker is in it, doing the noises for the Anaconda. I love Frank Welker, me. He’s ace. I’m just disappointed he didn’t give the Danger Noodle a proper voice like the Smart Gremlin out of Gremlins 2.
Danny Trejo is also in it. But, without his moustache, and he’s killed off in the opening scenes. So as the exception that proves the rule? No Points For Casting Danny Trejo In This One.
There is one good line though, where John Voight is bonked on the head with a golf club. “Arsehole in one”. That tickled me.
Before he was fired, Craig Kilborn was the host of the Daily Show when it came out. He spent the whole interview with a male star of Anaconda asking about the size of Jennifer Lopez’s badonkadonk. Classy guy, that Craig.
That is literally all I remember about Anaconda, and I think I saw it twice.
Tell that to the middle aged women who threw their backs out trying to imitate her moves at the Super Bowl halftime show with Shakira.
Just because she’s not for you or me doesn’t mean she’s not an icon. Beyoncé is somehow considered one, so who even knows what makes someone iconic.
If money can be made from them, right?
I'm okay with Mrs.Lopez. I once saw a film with her in which she's in some sort of family band, and she's the stand-out. She was good in that. And I'll always have fun watching U-Turn and her craziness in that film. Even in later stuff (I once saw Wedding Planner a few years ago) she's alright considering the circumstances.
The much maligned third entry and notable box office bomb of the series, which itself is kind of a spin off from Night of the Living Dead.
Whilst still not a great film, I’d say it’s not only better than its reputation, but was somewhat ahead of its time. Rather than spoofing the genre as its predecessor has, it instead presents the zombies as almost sympathetic. It at least tries to deal with themes the genre doesn’t, and kind of serves as a template for Resident Evil (the stupidity of using Zombies as bio-weapons)
Whilst the plot doesn’t quite succeed, it did come frustratingly close. The makeup and effects are really solid though.
Overall it’s certainly worth watching if you’re a fan of the genre and it’s dubious history.
I only watched the sequels once and it's been ages, but I remember that at the time I thought 2 was just bad. 3 was better because it returned some of the fun. 4 was somehow worse again, though I don't remember how or why. 5 was better again. Bonus points for the name Rave to the Grave.
None of them live up to the first movie, but I suppose there are worse zombie movies out there.
Fiiiiiinally sat down to watch this. And it’s really rather good! Not at all what I was expecting. I can certainly see its influence on that Wolverine film with the flashbacks and showing Connor’s life experiences. It does a decent job of exploring his isolation as an immortal.
The soundtrack is of course fantastic. Can’t whack a bit of Queen.
I think the biggest compliment I can give it is despite being made in 1984? It really doesn’t feel 80’s, instead having something of a timeless feel.
Definitely enjoying this one. And I think maybe Highlander 2 next.
Oh you underestimate my tolerance for Awful Films!
I know I’ve seen bits of it before (some kind of red shieldy thing, because the environment is screwed, Ramirez not being ded, but then being ded to stop spinny blade things).
Automatically Appended Next Post: Anyways, back to praising Highlander.
The Kurgan is an excellent villain. Clearly some influences from Terminator, and Clancy Brown is chewing the scenery with gusto.
This is also a great film for cinematography. Variety of colour palettes, and skilled use of real world locations. The fights are well choreographed and suitably cinematic.
Which version? The US or UK theatrical release where the Immortals are aliens from the planet Zeist? Or the Renegade version or the Special Edition which does away with the alien plot line altogether and certain scenes were removed and others added back in and entire sequences of events were changed?
Directed by David Fincher and starring Michael Fassbender The Killer is about a professional assassin and is a very paced film focusing more on the practical elements of the job. The first fifteen minutes is the character spending days waiting for his target and monologuing about the precautions and preparations he has to undertake. "My recent costume is a German tourist. No one remembers German tourists." Each "chapter" follows the same pattern of the Killer investigating to find his target then putting a plan into motion. It is the kind of movie where the characters don't get names but instead are The Killer, The Brute, The Lawyer, and so on. Not Fincher's best but still very good, overall.
It would have been nice to see in a theater but I don't think any near me had it, or if they did it was just one week then gone, which is standard for Netflix. They don't want you going to the theater, after all.
Gonna try to check that out this weekend, looks right up my alley. Love me some Hitman games and the previews made it look like the Hitman movie that we should've received.
A black comedy, starring Uma Thurman, Samuel L Jackson and Joe Manganiello star.
Plot outline. Hitman finds himself the darling of the art world, after his handler starts using a gallery to launder money.
Can’t say much more without ruining things, but I rather enjoyed this.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The Torture Chamber of Dr Sadism
Not exactly the sort of name you’d think anyone would award a Doctorate to, but here we are. And it’s a moot point, as there is no Dr Sadism. Our villain is Count “Legally Distinct so sod off” Regula. Which to be honest is more suggestive of a toff particularly keen on maintaining a healthy amount of fibre in his diet.
1970’s West German crack at The Pit and the Pendulum, via Hammer. Christopher Lee stars as Count Regula, and is pretty much the only cast member I’ve ever heard of.
I’ve seen many better Hammerseque films, but also have seen quite a few considerably worse. For its era it’s really pretty tame with very little in the way of death or blood and that. But I love the sets The castle for example has art in the style of Heironymous Bosch painted on the walls, and none of it looks particularly wooden. Low budget yes, but not bad low budget.
Main weakness for me would be a general lack of atmosphere, which I think isn’t helped by a dodgy score. The odd synth refrain, but that’s about it.
Probably one for Hammer Horror aficionados only I’m afraid. Certainly there’s not a huge amount here for the casual movie viewer to properly appreciate.
Directed by David Fincher and starring Michael Fassbender The Killer is about a professional assassin and is a very paced film focusing more on the practical elements of the job. The first fifteen minutes is the character spending days waiting for his target and monologuing about the precautions and preparations he has to undertake. "My recent costume is a German tourist. No one remembers German tourists." Each "chapter" follows the same pattern of the Killer investigating to find his target then putting a plan into motion. It is the kind of movie where the characters don't get names but instead are The Killer, The Brute, The Lawyer, and so on. Not Fincher's best but still very good, overall.
It would have been nice to see in a theater but I don't think any near me had it, or if they did it was just one week then gone, which is standard for Netflix. They don't want you going to the theater, after all.
Watched the Adam Driver movie 65 this evening while sorting a bunch of vintage Skaven.
It was.... extremely boring. I'm glad I never got around to seeing it in the theatre this summer.
Driver is the pilot of a spaceship that gets hit by asteroid bits & crashes on a habitable enough planet. Wich is promptly 100% revealed to be Earth 65M years ago.
The only other survivor of the crash is a little girl who speaks a different language than drivers character.
Together they spend the next hour or so of screen time trekking through forested mountain terrain trying to get to an escape pod that also survived - while dodging dinosaurs.
For the finale? They fight a TRex thing, both survive, and escape Earth just as the dino-killing comet nukes the planet behind them. The End.
Unless you really want to see 1 scene near the end where a Trex gets its skin boiled off as it gets caught in an erupting geyser? Just skip this thing.
If you’ve read my wibblings in the past, you might recall that traditionally I struggle to appreciate anime. But every so often I like to challenge my preconception by watching some.
Akira and Ghibli stuff I greatly enjoy. And Ghost in the Shell looks set to join them.
Despite featuring future tech, it has the same timeless quality as Batman the Animated Series, thanks to not ever being shiny and chrome. That I feel is the hallmark of a good future dystopia, where the perks and benefits of better technology aren’t equally distributed amongst society, and so for many, life goes on as it has for decades, if not centuries.
This also benefits from a really good dub. Little to no “oooohhhh” as the mouth movements don’t match a direct Japanese to English translation, with voice actors able to emote, not just sort of rattling through their lines.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Anonymous Animals
A film in which in certain areas animals are now people but with animal heads. And seem to herd and farm smelly hoomans for meats.
Unfortunately, the film makers seem to have lost their script. And the tension. And the point.
I’m almost certain this is meant to be a Vegan “hOw WoUlD yOu LiKe It” thought provoker.
If you liked the movie, check out Stand Alone Complex. 2 seasons of very good scifi, which shockingly predicted a fair few problems society would deal with 20 years late (now).
It’s one of the better Freddy movies. The antagonist therapist is a memorable villain. And this one introduces the “andale” lady and her catchphrase.
Blue Beetle
We wanted to like this one, but oof. The family are drawn too quickly and too broadly, coming cross as stereotypes that border on obnoxious. And they’re the best part of the movie. Susan Sarandon does a great job as “character you want to see get punched”.
Unfortunately, every “bad guy” change of heart felt telegraphed due to their last name or country of origin, making the film feel more like a tired exploitation flick than a modern superhero story. Even Meteor Man let the Golden Lords stay bad at the end. At least it didn’t go full Romeo Must Die and name Sarandon’s character Rivka Rothschild Kord or something.
Directed by David Fincher and starring Michael Fassbender The Killer is about a professional assassin and is a very paced film focusing more on the practical elements of the job. The first fifteen minutes is the character spending days waiting for his target and monologuing about the precautions and preparations he has to undertake. "My recent costume is a German tourist. No one remembers German tourists." Each "chapter" follows the same pattern of the Killer investigating to find his target then putting a plan into motion. It is the kind of movie where the characters don't get names but instead are The Killer, The Brute, The Lawyer, and so on. Not Fincher's best but still very good, overall.
It would have been nice to see in a theater but I don't think any near me had it, or if they did it was just one week then gone, which is standard for Netflix. They don't want you going to the theater, after all.
Solid recommendation. I enjoyed this movie.
It's almost a ninja movie for the real world. All of the real challenges a hit man has to overcome now to do a job and several over the counter solutions to those problems.
I enjoyed the fight with the dog owner in his home. Dude came off as an monster in that fight. It sold how dangerous he was. Good "pro wrestling" by which I mean physical storytelling. The first escape was well done too.
We wanted to like this one, but oof. The family are drawn too quickly and too broadly, coming cross as stereotypes that border on obnoxious. And they’re the best part of the movie. Susan Sarandon does a great job as “character you want to see get punched”.
Yeah, the family was as close to Skids and Mudflaps, of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen infamy, level cringe as I have seen in awhile.
In which naughty burglars get more than they anticipated when invading a blind veteran’s home.
The naughty burglars are all quite young. And for the life of me, I don’t know why the other two hang around with the tallest one. He’s a total doofus. In our opening “oooer, they are awful!” scene? Blonde Girl and Shaven Headed Guy are mostly business. Get in, pinch stuff of value, get out. Tall Bloke? Oh I’m not actually going to steal owt. I’m just going to smash things and then wee on the floor.
Though Blonde Girl does change her top whilst stealing, and then lay on the bed. I too have long hair, and let me tell you, us humans shed. So, between her and the other doofus weeing on the floor? Way to leave DNA evidence.
Kind of like the Wet Bandits. Only somehow much, much dumber.
Tall Guy is basically just a total tool, and I can’t wait for him to get his comeuppance. Oh, apparently he’s called “Money”. Which frankly, tells you everything you need to know about him.
To be fair I don't think the guy who kidnapped a woman and is keeping her tied up in the basement and has impregnated her with his sperm to make a new daughter is going to call the cops to have forensics collect DNA.
They’re interesting premises, but the sequel just didn’t land for me.
Another of those “I know I’ve seen it, but couldn’t tell you a bloody thing about it”, which frankly is a pretty damning indictment.
I think “Money” annoys me so much because he’s such a lazy stereotype. Wannabe gangster talking “all hip”, whilst being a paper tiger the second anyone stands up to him. His entire purpose seems to be “total phallus the audience want to see jobbed”.
Oh yeah, forgot about that. Still weird they tried to make the Lang's character into a hero in the sequel.
I don’t believe that they ever planned on a sequel when they wrote the first film and then when it did well enough that the studio wanted the second film they may have dictated that their star be a little more likeable.
An Adam Sandler movie where Adam Sandler and Bill Burr play a talking iguana and a talking turtle. It’s …surprisingly decent. Some jokes land pretty hard, the characters are mostly likeable, the writing is coherent and not just cynical garbage, the lessons the characters learn are mostly good. I’d rank it higher than You Are So Not Invited and Hubie Halloween, although that is admittedly faint praise. If you’re looking for an animated kids movie, you could do a lot worse.
An 80's classic I hadn't seen until now.
It's surprisingly good considering there's not all that much to the film, I think it's all down to Mel Gibson and Danny Glover really nailing the whole mismatched buddy cop thing.
An 80's classic I hadn't seen until now.
It's surprisingly good considering there's not all that much to the film, I think it's all down to Mel Gibson and Danny Glover really nailing the whole mismatched buddy cop thing.
IMO, it was the movie that sort of "started" the mismatched buddy cop movie genre. Sure, there'd been buddy cop movies before, but the 2 parts of the cops were generally fairly similar. Lethal weapon turned that on its head by making the 2 mains quite dissimilar from each other.
It worked so well that there's been a number of movies since that have tried to capture that.
Yeah, certainly took it to new levels and made the format really, really popular for years to come. What I like about Lethal Weapon is that it's a christmas film, but barely tells us.
I had forgotten I had seen this before, but the movie’s image on Max looked awesome and so I clicked.
A stacked cast of Chris Hemsworth, Tom Holland, Cillian Murphy, Brendan Gleeson and more familiar faces in this story of survival on the seas in what inspired the novel Moby Dick. Kind of an uneven movie. Wish they had spent more time getting to know the crew, so that when the behemoth bull sperm whale kills a great deal of them, its a bit more jarring.
Found myself rooting for the whales to be honest. That industry was so cruel.
Possibly also known as Dragon Ball Ultimate Edition.
Look. I’ll be straight with you. Whilst aware of DBZ via cultural osmosis, I really don’t know a huge amount about the series. But this 1991 movie, unlicensed and unofficial, Taiwan effort popped up on my Prime recommended, and I just had to give it a shot.
So what follows isn’t a particularly informed opinion, and I can’t say if it’s true to the lore.
Initial impressions? Suprisingly Not Cack. The costumes and effects are nothing if not competent. And hey, I can tell who Goku and Gohan are. Or at least who’s meant to be them. Even the 1991 CGI is….surprisingly alright!
Definite Power Rangers vibe though. Now I consider that a good thing, but will of course let you be informed by that as you see fit.
Anyways, off to watch the rest and will sum up later.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Some good and bad.
Good
This is a pretty older kid safe slice of Kung Fu. Better than Power Rangers. Only older kid safe due to some language being dodgy (for instance, one character is a perv, and refers to another as a Segs Maniac. Pretty sure a quick re dubbing would sort that out though!
This definitely had a budget behind it. Not a massive one, but it is there and it is noticable.
It is genuinely funny. Goofy, yes. But actually funny.
[b]Bad[/i]
There’s a moment where a fight cuts to “Reboot” style CGI. For no readily discernible reason. It doesn’t last long, but it’s definitely jarring, not least because the actual Kung Fu is otherwise perfectly competent.
That. Sodding. Sidekick Parrot. Kids might love it, I loathe it. Like Alpha-5 bred with T-Bob, and someone extracted all charisma from it.
The dubbed script keeps changing Eastwood to Westwood.
The unlicensed knock off is an inspired way to introduce yourself to Dragonball; I salute you.
If you want a quick*, fun way to experience Dragonball Z, I highly, highly recommend Dragonball Z Abridged on YouTube. The first two or three episodes are awkward and edgy as they find their style, but the series really elevates once they reach Namek, and their Cell saga is better than the original.
They did a few “stand alone” movies for Dragonball Z Abridged, but there are so many running gags** that I’m not sure if they’re a good place to start.
*Okay, there are 60 episodes, so not that quick. But at about 10 minutes they fly by.
**Some of the most notable are Gohan’s inability to DODGE, Future Trunks not knowing things, death being a minor inconvenience, and former demon Piccolo being more of a father than Goku. The Broly movie and the Android 13 movie are some of their funniest work.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: The Broly movie and the Android 13 movie are some of their funniest work.
The Dead Zone and World's Strongest abridged too.
Fortunately most of the series running gags are either unique to the series or come from memes (over 9000) that even non-fans probably know about. What few deep cut jokes they make are so deep even knowing about DBZ wouldn't help. Stuff like their various jokes and sly references to different dubs of the show are so obscure I didn't know about them until Kaiser Neko or Lanipator explained them in commentary.
Most of them are still funny just because they are amusing, even if you don't know the joke.
What they did with The World’s Strongest was brilliant. As a subversion of the DBZ formula, I don’t know how accessible it would be to newbies.
As someone who grew up with the Japanese version, I love their jokes about how cool-yet-unpronounceable the special attacks are and how lame they become when translated.
Hey look! It’s Rocky The Karate Kick-boxer IV! Or at least it desperately wants to be.
You want standard 1980’s not-very-good martial arts? With a training montage? And Jean Claude Van Damme!
You got it! Not that Jean Claude is in much of it, but he is playing the villain. Or at least the villain’s main henchman. I dunno. It’s not clear and frankly I don’t particularly care.
Now, if bin raking the leavings of other, far superior movies wasn’t enough? We gots ourselves some unsanctioned grave robbing! Because our hero is instructed by, and I kid you not…the ghost of Bruce Lee. A character portrayed by a not very good look-a-like.
There are however some sort of redeeming features. They by no means outweigh the awful but the fight scenes aren’t entirely awful. And there’s an out of the blue surprisingly half decent break dancing/body popping scene.
In summary? Not a dead loss, but not something I’d ever recommend unless I really, really wanted to annoy someone.
I'd never heard that title, so I had to look it up and realized that that one's Karate Tiger, as it's called 'round here. A classic, which I, as I have to admit, never seen.
The Franco-German culture tv channel recently aired a biography on JCVD. Interesting stuff.
Last night I watched a total of 5 seconds of Hereditary, but got too scared and watched half of the Matrix (good) and all of Deep Blue Sea (less good) instead.
I do like watching cash-in knock-offs, because they serve as useful context for understanding why you can’t just take bits from a successful and popular movie, and expect success. And in doing so, understand why some, such as Karate Kid, end up head and shoulders above their competitors and impersonators.
Absolutely, And it's especially interesting with such sub-genres which emerge and are rather hot for a while. Bloodsport-style films are just such a fun genre, but there are some bad ones as well. Same with Barbarian films and such. Odd little occurances.
DBZ is a major reason I struggle with Anime in general.
Around…2001-2002? My mates were obsessed with it. And it’s all they’d watch. All I saw was maybe a few seconds of actual dialogue, with several minutes of yelling and powering up. Endlessly powering up.
And my tastes have never really recovered from that.
Please note I’m not saying DBZ or its franchise am therefore a big smelly nappy full of Jared Leto. Just that it’s not for me.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Anyways! Adventures in seemingly lesser known if the transfer is anything to go by Kung Foolery!
Shootfighter
Evil wicked bad “fight until someone has done a ded” underground martial arts are doing a real! And naturally the hero is ‘Murican!
So far? This is not bad at all. Not great. But far from crap. The fights are genuinely really well choreographed. Never mind the plot. Nobody is here for the plot. The fights are decent enough.
But bonus points? It’s Bolo Yeung!
Triple Score Bonus Points? Bolo Yeung is one of the good guys! Yeah. Now you understand the triple score!
Possible bonus points? The knobhead villains of Karate Kid also star! With the sensei once again being a villainous knobend.
Yeah, DBZ Abridged is…abridged. 90% of the yelling and powering up is removed, with (well-written) humor added. The characters and plots are more fleshed out, with efficiency.
A few years late to the party, just watched Tenet. It had some neat ideas, but was ultimately hard to follow due to the ever increasing trend of quiet dialogue with loud music in the background.
It also came across as a film that was trying to be far more clever that it actually is. It was delivering the story with a deliberate obtuse slant in the hope that it would give it more.
Still enjoyable, and would be better I think if I could hear what people were saying.
Around…2001-2002? My mates were obsessed with it. And it’s all they’d watch. All I saw was maybe a few seconds of actual dialogue, with several minutes of yelling and powering up. Endlessly powering up.
And my tastes have never really recovered from that.
Please note I’m not saying DBZ or its franchise am therefore a big smelly nappy full of Jared Leto. Just that it’s not for me.
Despite the time it took to make an animated series back in the days before everything was done by computer, the series that were based on manga often ran out of material while waiting for the manga creator(s) to catch up. So instead of shutting down production, a lot of the animation studios created whole seasons of non-canon filler material because if you're off the air, you're out of the viewer's mind. Dragon Ball sort of got around this by padding the episodes like they did. It was either have a lot of yelling and powering up or switching to a completely different storyline for the next sixty or so episode.
This was a good, suspenseful horror movie. It suffers a bit from John Carter syndrome, but still an enjoyable watch.
Freddy Vs Jason
This is a good Freddy movie, a good Jason movie, and a good action-horror movie.
@Halloween: Noah Wyle wasn't even in that film!
@Freddy vs. Jason: This actually was the first Freddy (AND Jason!) film I ever saw I think. And in cinema. At the time I didn't like it a whole lot (because I was a bit stuck-up then concerning US genre films. As you are at that age, I suppose), but over time and having watched a lot more US genre films - especially of that time! - I'm a-okay with watching it.
Have you been watching their original shorts, like Yamcha Strikes Out or the HIFL sequence? Those are solid with some fantastic sniping between Freeza and Cell.
I totally get the complaints about this, the writing is pretty terrible in places as is the CGI, and I hate how much of a nerdy loser they made Barry Allen.
Despite that, I still found it a fun and entertaining movie.
It's a real shame they brought back the Keaton Batman for this though, instead of a Batman Beyond movie.
The show also has really clever dumb humor. One of my favorite exchanges is Trunks asking why Goku chose to
Move the fight to the arctic and Goku’s confused “but you have a jacket.” Then, when they’re getting their asses kicked, “Trunks, your jacket is weighing you down!”
And everything they did with TJ and the Wombat was hilarious.
The commentary and the videos about the editing process are really instructive. I need to find their videos on voice acting.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, they have the absolute best in-video advertisements on YouTube. Their recent Surfshark ad done as an espionage thriller is a more exhilarating ride than most actual espionage thrillers.
In a touching romantic comedy about a Lion in Australia adopted by a Kangaroo after its Joey sadly passes away.
No of course not. IT’S FISTICUFFS! And being Jean Claude Van Damme, Footicuffs. Probably with the odd headbutt here and there.
Not that it really matters because no one is here for it? Plot is JCVD’s brother is in the USA, and is burned to death in a drug deal gone wrong. JCVD is in the French Foreign Legion, until he finds out about his bro, deserts the desert, and sneaks into the USA. Funding his travels with underground Street Fights.
This may be Guile’s spinoff back story. Who knows, who cares. We’re here for the Facey-Kicky and this very much delivers!
Van Damme - out of all the action guys (possibly next to stallone) - is probably the best actor. You can see that in the early (well, earlier) films and in the more recent ones. Lionheart is perfectly nice.
Speaking of van Damme in the Foreign Legion: Legionaire is also alright. It may sound like a silly idea, and the film is slightly daft, but it's got its heart in the right place and gets rather touching in the end.
So around all your Double Teams and your Hard Targets and your Infernos (one of my favourites, I won't tire to say), there's a sort of bracket of good stuff there.
I mean the earlier Segal films are also much better than what came later (and muuuuuuuuuuch better than what came after that), but van Damme's a cut above Segal, in every regard.
Easy E wrote: Lionheart was better than it has any right to be.
I’d be very surprised if his Manager in the film wasn’t ad-libbing, because his dialogue and reactions really fill in for JCVD’s somewhat limited acting chops.
I mean, JCVD at least tries, and bless him hovers somewhere just below mediocre for those efforts.
But hey, given he wrote it? He clearly understands his limits. He can do excellent fight scenes, and delivers those. But unlike Stephen Seagull, doesn’t display the ego that suggests that alone will carry it. Also, Seagull is a crap on-screen fighter.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And there’s the ending.
What’s genuinely remarkable about a late 80’s early 90’s fisticuffs flick?
JCVD does it all for…family. He doesn’t win the lady at the end. It’s not a revenge kill flick. It’s really bizarrely wholesome, where his sole motivation is to see and then provide for his niece and sister-in-law.
Not a leg over. Just…family.
You know what? This is going on my Christmas Movie list, because the main character’s motivations, if not his “smack your face out the back of your head” methods, are entirely wholesome.
Also there’s probably some film school ponce argument that whether he stayed with the Foreign Legion or pod-shotted people in underground street fighting he’s still risking his life for a noble cause.
Yeah, I guess at that point these films had a bit of a broader audience in mind than the very self-aware, very cheap 90s action films which only catered to a male 12-22 / 50+ audience.
Men in War (1957)
Black and white war film sat in the then very present Korean War, based on a novel from 1947 about the then very present second world war.
It's a bit of a March of the Ten Thousand story, in which a US platoon - fresh from a horrible battle - have to make it back to friendly lines. Morale is low, the platoon leader tries to get some order back into his men. On the way they pick up Sergeant Montana, who is driving his colonel (great figure. Shell-shocked, mute, tied to the passenger seat of their jeep) back to friendly lines and preferrably away from the war for good.
The platoon leader forces Montana to stay with the platoon, so they can use the jeep to transport equipment. Montana and the platoon leader butt heads about many things.
It's a very, very interesting film, and I think that interesting films about the Korean war are kinda rare. Especially in how it depicts the US military. Obviously, they didn't get ANYTHING (but trouble, zoinks!) from the US military for this film, and it shows in most places. The film looks ratcher cheap and some of the acting is questionable. Last night I watched the german dubbed version of the film (which is okay), which kinda underlined the oddity of the Montana character. He's a proper veteran like and a cynical SoB and all of that, but he's also a bulky fella and maybe not the best actor in the world. He gave me very strong "wrestler acting in a film" vibes. In fact, the whole character and appearance reminded me a lot of what Eddie Kingston's persona would be like in that film.
Anyway, for what it is, and from what time it is, it's an interesting war film. Watch It, if that's your cup of tea.
Naturally it’s never going to be noted as a work of high art….but it is loads of fun!
Stars Cory Feldman and Vanessa Angel, chewing the scenery like they’ve not eaten in days.
Best thing? The production team clearly knew this was straight to video, and embraced it. And so we end up with an admittedly ropey movie that doesn’t care it’s ropey. Or utterly tasteless.
Still funny. Still a classic. Watch it with a young person who’s never seen it before, if possible.
Conan the Barbarian
This is also a classic. It’s amazing how effectively they used simple in-camera effects and editing tricks, at least compared to modern big budget blockbusters. The production value is fantastic, the violence brutal and visceral, and the dash of the fantasy element hits with maximum impact. And the Basil Poledouris score brings real excitement to the film.
The Evil Dead
Excellent use of suspense, a living camera effect, and buckets of blood. I wasn’t expecting some of the more disgusting non-blood squoosh effects. Reminds me why I loved Fangoria.
Probably the best offering from Shudder that I’ve seen in some time, and a great addition to possession horror films.
Pretty twisted horror tale that starts off very hardcore and never really lets up. Some wild, gory imagery that fans of the newer Evil Dead movies might like. Its an Argentine production, so in spanish with subtitles so reading is required.
Starring Matthew McConaughey, Steve Zahn and Penelope Cruz.
An early 2000’s failed franchise starter, based on a book from a series of books about Dirk Pitt.
Whilst this didn’t really find its audience, it’s not without its charms. Bit of Bond, sliver of National Treasure and a pinch of Indiana Jones. Perhaps a hint of MacGuyver.
Our heroes are maritime treasure hunters, and seemingly pretty good at their job. The MacGuffin here is a Civil War Ironclad filled with treasure which somehow got to…*checks notes* Nigeria. And there’s a B Plot about Evil Industrialist poisoning the water because Profits.
Ultimately a somewhat far fetched plot, which just misses out on a solid enough execution to be a classic bit of cinema daftness.
Finale is oddly 40K though, with a centuries old cannon being in miraculous working order to blow up the bad guy.
For me, there’s definitely room for more such MacGuffin lead swashbucklers.
And whilst every decade has something to offer from that genre, it doesn’t feel like it’s particularly well represented.
Maybe they’re just so inherently formulaic it’s difficult to find enough variety to churn them out in quantity and quality, without your own efforts blurring into one with each other and even competitors?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Fantastic New Worlds: A Handmade Puppet Dreams Collection
Produced by Heather Henson’s IBEX Puppetry, a collection of short films very much in her father’s footsteps.
If like me you’re a sucker for fantasy puppetry, this is going to be right up your street. And at a fairly short 1h 15m, pretty ideal family watching. Perhaps particularly ideal for a comfy sofa watch on a dreech winter’s eve.
Rather than a standard portmanteau of separate shorts with an arcing narrative, this looks to have been a series, but on Amazon is done as a single film.
Which see my comment above about comfy sofa watch on a dreech winter’s eve? Could be ideal “one more show before bedtime” type viewing.
OH GOD I WAS WRONG! This is not really for kids! Some segments, yes. Others? Aaaaabsolutely not.
To give some perspective, Sahara was 2005.
The first two Mummy movies were 1999 and 2001, National treasure 2004 and first two Tomb Raiders 2001 and 2003. I'm sure the screenplay had been kicking around for yonks and you absolutely can't blame them for thinking this was the perfect time to try it.
Shame for them it didn't work out, but judging by the few Cussler books I was encouraged by others to read, I don't think culture as a whole has missed out on anything noteworthy.
Easy E wrote: Well, Clive Cussler has literally written hundreds of Dirk Pitt adventure stories.
Well, no. There are 27. Some were 'co-authored' by his son, and the last few written by his son alone. His other books have a variety of co-authors that became solo authors.
Like James Patterson or Tom Clancy, 'Cussler' became a brand for a publishing house, with minimal to no contribution from the name at the top of the cover. (Which is, at this point, part of the title, not an auhor credit. Though Patterson is still alive and smart enough to write the first chapter to keep the writing credit, then let his co-author deal with fleshing out the rest of the outline).
Still funny. Still a classic. Watch it with a young person who’s never seen it before, if possible.
Conan the Barbarian
This is also a classic. It’s amazing how effectively they used simple in-camera effects and editing tricks, at least compared to modern big budget blockbusters. The production value is fantastic, the violence brutal and visceral, and the dash of the fantasy element hits with maximum impact. And the Basil Poledouris score brings real excitement to the film.
The Evil Dead
Excellent use of suspense, a living camera effect, and buckets of blood. I wasn’t expecting some of the more disgusting non-blood squoosh effects. Reminds me why I loved Fangoria.
They were three different nights. I just tend to wait until I have enough to say before I post.
The funny thing is that the effects that wowed my son the most were some of the easiest and oldest to pull off, such as Thulsa Doom turning a snake into an arrow by lowering his hand with the snake out of frame for a second and pulling the prop up into frame.
Easy E wrote: Well, Clive Cussler has literally written hundreds of Dirk Pitt adventure stories.
Well, no. There are 27. Some were 'co-authored' by his son, and the last few written by his son alone. His other books have a variety of co-authors that became solo authors.
Like James Patterson or Tom Clancy, 'Cussler' became a brand for a publishing house, with minimal to no contribution from the name at the top of the cover. (Which is, at this point, part of the title, not an auhor credit. Though Patterson is still alive and smart enough to write the first chapter to keep the writing credit, then let his co-author deal with fleshing out the rest of the outline).
Since we are taking my "literally" literally in my quote. 27 is a lot of books, and could be a lot of movies. Not all his books are even about Dirk Pitt, some are just NUMA stories or the folks that were going to replace Dirk, Al and the NUMA gang (whose names escape me).
That said, you are spot on. It is mostly just a brand name now for the publishing house and other people are writing them. Still, not bad for old Clive to still get some $$$ out of the deal and not write any books!
A pretty good film but, for me at least, it suffers from the same problem the Nolan Batman trilogy did, it just takes itself far too seriously. I like my cape flicks to be a bit more "cartoony" for want of a better term.
Hopefully he gets a bit better at fighting in the sequel too, dude relies way too much on his body armour.
OK I’ll admit this is gonna be a hard sell for me. I’m very oddly picky about animation, and can be entirely turned off by character design.
And this looks to be in the vein of Thundercats Ho which sucked.
But hey, it’s a freebie on Prime, so the only thing I have to lose is time. And if you’ve read my previous TV and movie related wibbling? I’m more than willing to spend/waste watching utter dreck.
And as ever, I am entirely open to this actually being good.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Yeah OK. An hour in and I’m absolutely loving this. To the point was I unfortunate enough to have had kids, I’d make this a Chrimbo staple.
But as I don’t? It’s still gonna be a Chrimbo staple.
O. M. G. what a movie. Now, it's not so much a Kaiju movie as it is a human movie, and an excellent anti-war piece. Like, if you somehow miss those tones in the movie, are you even watching it?
And, I don't mean they have actors with signs saying "down with war" or anything so in your face as that. The basic thematic elements in play, the scenes and acting, the story all convey what the creators are wanting.
I can't say I left the theater wanting to go straight back in and watch it again. . . but it's definitely gonna get purchased as soon as its available on other media
The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec (2010)
Luc Besson-directed action-adventure comedy film starring Louise Bourgoin as the titular character, sat in 1912.
It's a rare thing, this film. A family-friendly adventure film with loads of comedy. And it doesn't even suck. In fact it's incredibly charming. Quite over the top (based on a comicbook), featuring a ton of cartoonish side characters and a really strong and endearing lead. Yes, the film is too long and it's sort of meandering, but it's alright because there's not a ton of exhausting action to look at all the time and it's a really good looking film in any sense. That Luc Besson knows how to shoot a film. It can get quite silly, but it's entertaining to watch the heroine trying to get stuff done.
Watch It. Perfect Sunday afternoon film for all the family, although it is long.
You have not experienced the Archies until you have seen them in the original Klingon. Or Hindi. Whichever.
So the classic Archie characters are transplanted to the Indian Hill Station founded by Sir John Riverdale and other than ~half the movie being in Hindi it could totally be a 60s Hollywood musical.
I loved it, the kids loved it, we all loved it, it's good clean fun.
I got talked into watching this by my housemate and was pleasantly surprised (although it's a tad over-long and could have lost about 30 minutes).
Couple with 2 kids decide last minute to book a getaway out of the city and rent a house near the beach. Whilst staying at the house external factors mean the house's owners (or are they...?) turn up late at night with a request to spend the night as their own travel arrangements have been affected.
What ensues is a tense encounter with neither family trusting the other, all the while something is going on outside that nobody understands.....
The external factors, although resolved to a fair conclusion, are not the main part of the story here, It's about how the best and worst elements of humanity show up in a crisis and how distrustful we are as human beings and how reliant we are on our electronic devices.
I went into this with low expectations but it actually kept me engaged, the drip feed of what's going on "outside" was well done and there are some great performances and some great camera work. There's one bit I thought daft
Spoiler:
the self drive cars going berserk
but overall this exceeded my expectations (which admittedly were low to begin with). Definitely worth a watch if you have a couple of hours spare.
Del Torro does a film noir. I think, but am not 100% sure; that this is a remake of something made a long, long time ago. No idea how it matchs up.
A man with a checkered past runs away and joins the circus. There he learns some skills at Mentalism. This leads to film noir shenanigans as he is soon in way over his head, but is too stubborn to know it.
Cate Blanchette absolutely kills in this one. Bradley Cooper puts on an acting show too. There are a lot of "That-Person" moments in it. However, the story is a bit too drawn out, predictable, and slow moving.
Danger Close The Australian We Were Soldiers, as it recounts the battle of Long Tan. A pretty typical war movie, with a lot of bad things happening.
Easy E wrote: ...
Danger Close The Australian We Were Soldiers, as it recounts the battle of Long Tan. A pretty typical war movie, with a lot of bad things happening.
I hope to see that some day. For a good while now I've been meaning to do New Zealanders in 15mm for Vietnam.
I came in about halfway through, and that felt just about right. Some fun carnage. Some enjoyably silly character acting. A bit of heart. A decent B movie.
Violent Night
Die Hard with Santa. The film manages to fit in a lot of nods or homages to other Christmas classics and a few heartwarming moments in the midst of all the messily creative violence.
A new Christmas classic.
A Muppet Christmas Carol
We started this as a palate cleanser after the splatter fest of Violent Night, but we only made it 20 minutes in before we had to stop. My wife found the muppets too disturbing. More disturbing than Santa killing 5 guys with a sharpened candy cane.
I still think Rizzo is the best, so I’ll finish it with my son when she’s not home.
We started this as a palate cleanser after the splatter fest of Violent Night, but we only made it 20 minutes in before we had to stop. My wife found the muppets too disturbing. More disturbing than Santa killing 5 guys with a sharpened candy cane.
I still think Rizzo is the best, so I’ll finish it with my son when she’s not home.
~
I’m not gonna spell it out for you. So I’ll let Dolly do the honours.
"How would the bookkeepers like to be unemployed?"
"Heatwave! This is my island in the sun."
"Light the lamp, not the rat"
Christmas Carol is deliciously quotable and benefits from Caine playing it as straight as he can. In Treasure Island, Tim Curry is game but I don't think he nails that magic of the Muppets. In the Muppet Show we see Kermit always playing the straight act to the lunacy going on around him (and he continues this in Carol) but the gravitas oozing from Caine really makes this one.
Side note: want to hear something funny? Google Whiter Shade of Pale sung to the tune of the theme to the Muppets Show.
I watched Predator 2 for for first time in a long while. Really good, innit. And the correct choice of setting, characters, themes, etc. for a sequel to one of the most over-the-top action films.
I have to agree with the general opinion I've seen.
It's not a bad movie, but it's 10-12 years too late to really stand out as a superhero film. It basically just shuffles all the greatest hits of all the other good superhero films (mostly Spiderman and Iron man and Antman) into one movie.
And I guess that's okay but only that.
I gotta say I don't get the praise for the family. I find basically all of them obnoxious walking cliches. Like the writers just collected all the supporting cast members from the past decade and threw them all together and let them just cringe from the cringe depths of the cringe ocean to the cringe peaks of the cringe mountains.
That’s pretty similar to our experience with Blue Beetle. Except the family at least had a couple actors with screen charisma compared to hero protagonist and love interest. And Susan Sarandon vamping it up was fun to watch.
@Mad Doc Grotsnik
I find her muppet phobia endearing. We can watch bloody mayhem and she’s fine, but try to throw on Labyrinth and look out! I had to show the boy that one when she wasn’t home.
Weirdly enough, he has developed a revulsion towards chibi proportioned cartoons and toys.
@Bobtheinquisitor: Okay, the chibi stuff I understand. It's so weird. But it's a thing one gets accustomed to over time I think, which is probably the creepiest aspect about it.
@aku-chan: Oh, but Excalibur's style hits hard. I only saw it for the first time this year, and it rather rocks. From Beijing with Love I think I saw a long time ago, but what I recall from it very much is in line with your assessment conerning the humour.
Well, last night I watched Stille Reserven (2016). Austrian/Swiss/German co-produced sci-fi film. I heard about it when it came out, winning jury prices at festivals, I tried to watch it once, but found the premise too creepy to carry on. Sadly there is no English version that I know of, but the DVD has English subtitles. And in this case I could absolutely see this work with subtitles, because this film makes next to no use of dialects. It's all very correct, talk-as-written, 'artificial' German.
Anyway, it takes place at some point in the near future in Vienna. The premise is that one all-encompassing insurace company offers (on top of the usual stuff) 'death insurance'. It works like that (if I got it right) 82% of people are dirt poor and in debt; the insurance company basically takes away their right to die. If they die and have debt to pay off they get reanimated and put in a vegetative state to 'work off' their debt as data storage, being harvested for replacement parts, as surrogate mothers for rich people or being milked for their experience/brain activity/etc. if they were smart/successful people. It's rarely spelled out directly, and nobody really knows, but the general notion is that it's not a nice state to be in. Rich people are offered 'death insurance' by the insurance company to make sure they don't befall this fate.
We follow the top insurance broker who struggles a bit with his standing in the company, then there's things with a lady who's an activist against the whole thing, and they plan something to stop it all, and it goes on from there.
The film looks amazing and at no point there's a crack in that fassade. It's very stylish throughout and got some cool shots. It reminded me of Equilibrium in that regard, or maybe Dark City. The whole thing looks rather noir as well, come to think of it. There even is smoking in a bar and so on. Pretty cool.
The story itself maybe takes a bend or two too many and plays out not especially surprising at that (which always is a bit of a bad combination), but it's exciting enough to keep you invested, if only for the grimness of the situation looming over everyone and how much is at stake.
I'm aware that this is somehting one outside the DACH region would probably never see unless they seeked it out, but either way - Watch It, if you wanna see a stylish, grim, sci-fi noir film with a scary premise.
Sounds similar to a David J Schow story where poor people are reanimated to pay off their debts with labor, and suicide is no escape: each reanimation geometrically increases their debt.
As a nerd of a certain undisclosed vintage? This was probably my first brush with a kinda fun film that was a travesty of its source material. And as a kid, I was largely ambivalent toward it.
As an adult? It’s not entirely devoid of charm. The villains are pretty great, even if a lot of the time it feels lime our heroes really cannot be arsed with the whole thing. And given its budget, the costumes and effects are still pretty decent to this day.
Overall retrospect? If shown to a kid otherwise unknowing of its source material, I reckon it’s got a lot to offer. For those of us more jaded, at least Courteney Cox gets a manky leg off Skeletor, which someone makes up for the travesty that was Friends, a 10 season crap-com based off a single joke which wasn’t funny in the first place. Also, Teela was a fox.
Neither my wife nor my son were familiar with the cartoon, but they both enjoyed the movie. It’s silly in an enjoyable way. Now I really want to show them the live action Super Mario Brothers movie.
Automatically Appended Next Post: As for Friends, it’s the kind of show that isn’t funny until you get to know the characters, and even then is more of a comforting parasocial presence than laugh out loud funny.
Rebel Moon Part One : A Child of Fire Netflix 2023
I thought it was decent overall. Not top tier cinema, but an enjoyable enough sci-fi/fantasy flick. As brainless as the current superhero and Star Wars/Trek offerings with some fun action and visuals. Music was pretty epic at times, too. I’ll probably watch again when I want some noise while painting.
Don’t regret watching it, nor do I understand the hate its getting from critics. Maybe now that I’ve watched it, I’ll read some of the criticism to see what they felt they saw in this movie and how they break it down. Always open to new thoughts and opinions, myself.
Needed less gunplay and more of their version of the lightsaber though. Just fully embrace that it was supposed to be some sort of Star Wars story and let the laser swords loose.
Spoiler:
The “Jimmy” robot coming out of the wheat field at the end with the weird headress was… something.
And now I feel like when/if the Amazon 40K stuff comes out we’ll be bombarded with “ThEy StOle iT FrOm ReBeL MOooon”.
A Christmas slice of semi-action nonsense starring David Harbour as Santa.
It’s kind of a silly take on Die Hard, and pretty bloody enjoyable! With its tongue so far in its cheek it can taste the wall paper, it’s something B-Movies have often tried, but never quite got right. Until now.
A classic comedy starring Steve Martin and John Candy. It’s a Thanksgiving movie, but works equally well as a Christmas movie. There’s a lot of swearing (in one scene especially), but it’s otherwise family friendly and heartwarming.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
While my age means I find Bueller more of a self-satisfied bully than a hero, it also means I better appreciate the writing and the craft of the film. And the soundtrack is perfection.
A Christmas slice of semi-action nonsense starring David Harbour as Santa.
It’s kind of a silly take on Die Hard, and pretty bloody enjoyable! With its tongue so far in its cheek it can taste the wall paper, it’s something B-Movies have often tried, but never quite got right. Until now.
I wouldn’t call it semi-action. The film has a gratifying number of creative kills, and an Elm Street’s volume of blood.
The terrorists were also Die Hard levels of memorable hench. Well done all around.
Also, it instantly gets +5 points for John Leguizamo.
And + infinite points for correctly using Slade’s “Merry Xmas Everybody” over the credits. Because it’s the greatest Christmas song that has or ever will be written.
Slade's christmas song is indeed supergood. I also liked how they sang it in the Office christmas special. Wholesome.
Now as for Masters of the Universe - it's something I should like, but don't. It feels dark, lacking humour or action and feels 'small'. The super mario film is just a sad mess, and not a fun one. Also, I'm not overly fond on license cash-in hollywood films. Not much point to them, is there.
Friends on the other hand (and all of this may make me sound like the broadest, most boring person in the world for not liking the early 90s genre b-film stinkers, but the hit sitcom ) is really good. Might be a low bar, but watching friends on stream a few years ago made me realize how unnecessary and uninteresting How I Met Your Mother was. Anyway, Friends, along with Frasier and Seinfeld, is the trinity of 90s tv sitcoms. I re-watch those endlessly.
Last night I watched Hard Ticket to Hawaii on TV. Which is a great sentence to be able to say, but also I watched the German dubbed version for the first time, which is something off the bucket list, I suppose?
That reminds me that last week I watched Space Truckers, starring Dennis Hopper, Stephen Dorff, "Norm!" and the lady with the interesting face. Debi Mazar. This film and the way it looks probably could only have been made in 1996. It's rather bad. As far as Dennis-Hopper-at-his-low films go, i'd rather watch that than the Super Mario Brothers film though.
And to round off my ramblings, I dreamt of Dennis Franz tonight. Just for a very short moment we were sitting across a table, I told him how much of a fan I was of his work in NYPD Blue. He seemed genuinely pleased, and that was it. Merry christmas, everyone.
After spending ages dealing with plot line instigation that would be perfunctory in a run of the mill film, we eventually get to the exposition which explains what the big problem is and how it ties to our hero. The framework for the adventure is finally set and I can get invested in what's going on and I'm excited for the story we have just been introduced to. Sadly this is about twenty minutes before the end of this film and I'm thinking that this whole film has been an utter waste as I don't care about the long slog this film has been and I wanted to watch a film with the rest of that story instead.
Lots of cool art, direction and script, but don't kid yourself that this film is necessary. It isn't. They could have wrapped up the entirety of this film within twenty minutes of the start of the next film - and if given the choice, that is the film I would have wanted to watch. This is filler. It's content. Pernicious, blue-balling clickbait designed to keep you subscribed to the media provider. I invite you to disagree and I'm happy if you enjoyed it, but for me this film has no value beyond "franchise!"
Much maligned upon release, this has genuinely aged like a fine wine.
To see Arnie so willingly spoof himself and his career is fantastic. Charles Dance steals every scene he’s in and somehow delivers solid acting, whilst leaving teeth marks in the scenery.
In retrospect I wonder if it was just too ahead of its time. I mean, spoofs of popular genres have been solid at least since Airplane! But this might be first time the star of such a film was the top billing of that genre, and still making successful films in that genre.
Just a wonderfully and willingly daft film, with an awful lot to enjoy for the modern viewer.
Watch it. Watch it. Drop what you’re doing (unless that involves carrying a child, dinner or pet, in which case gently put them down) and get this on your tellybox. It’s ace.
The series keeping the 80/90’s big dumb action flick arrives for a fourth entry. A fourth entry I wasn’t aware of until this thread, and didn’t really expect given the third one sucked.
But here we are. And I’m happy to say it’s found its soul again. And it’s so good, even Curtis “39 Pence*” Jackson isn’t particularly irritating, despite being another in a long line of not-very-good-rappers turned really-quite-awful-actors.
Its tongue is back in its cheek somewhat. And we get some beautiful action scenes. Which let’s face it is all anyone is really here for.
Also. Tony Jaa! I bloody love Tony Jaa. He’s amazing. And if you don’t like Tony Jaa, there’s a bin of there in which you can secrete yourself and your factually wrong opinion on a purely objective issue. That issue being “Tony Jaa is great”.
It's alright. And then you add Tia Carrere and it's alright, and moments are really good.
And if you don’t like Tony Jaa, there’s a bin of there in which you can secrete yourself and your factually wrong opinion on a purely objective issue. That issue being “Tony Jaa is great”.
Damn straight!
I watched a large chunk of American Ninja 2. It's way sillier than I remembered.
Sorry, you're absolutely right of course. My christmas eve brain got that wrong. I prefer True Lies over Last Action Hero to be honest. The spoofery is alright in the first 15 minutes, but maybe to me the main detractor is the big budget and top stars and so on. Although the actual story isn't too bad. I have to admit though (now that I looked up when it was released) that it probably kinda was a bit of a trailblazer, seeing how it was released on 1993. I thought it was a 1996 film or something.
Didn't really pick up on Last Action Hero being misunderstood then. IIRC it was taken for what it is and was called "alright". Hudson Hawk on the other hand is a pretty wild affair. It's a cartoon. Probably got worse critiques though.
Bought the Equalizer Trilogy as a digital release.
So…..here we go!
The Equalizer
Not especially like the original TV show, in which McCall fell somewhere between the A-Team and Death Wish.
Denzel Washington stars, so you know you’re in for at absolute worst a reasonably decent movie. And it’s definitely better than that.
Washington’s McCall is pretty cold hearted when doing his killing. Calm, collected. No quips, and no wasted energy. And….I for one appreciate that. It’s different, and isn’t just trying to be any number of other similar vigilante movies.
The finale in the Hardware Store is pretty superb. Home turf advantage, use of the environment and its bounty of potentially deadly weapons. Only irksome bit is the final jobbing, on account I’m pretty sure nail guns don’t achieve that sort of range, or velocity. But it’s still cool so we’ll let it slide.
Overall, I think I still prefer the premise of the original show, where McCall has an ad in a paper, and is essentially a 1-800-RIP-THEIR-NADS-OFF service. But this film has plenty going for it all the same, and it’s just about close enough to the source to make the use of the name make sense.
This time, it’s personal! More of the same, but not in a bad way. Another perfectly competent and nicely restrained action film, where nobody is dive double handed shooting or firing indiscriminately.
It’s super cheap in terms of writing and plot, but my god. The cameos! It’s a Roman era affair and they brought Derek Jacobi in to play Claudius. For a 5 minute piece where he vomits all over someone’s shoes before he Gets poisoned by a feather. Nick Frost is front and centre as well. However the costumes and sets are absolutely glorious. The benefits of being able to nick whatever is left over from other BBC productions in the same way the Carry On films scavenged such amazing stuff for second rate smut comedies
It’s terrible, and yet compelling viewing to see what they wheel out next
BobtheInquisitor wrote: The Last Action Hero got savaged by critics. Even the Simpsons dunked on it.
So what?
Who cares what the critics thought of something 30 years ago.
That was how the conversation was unfolding. A lot of cult classics are remembered not just for how they’ve held up and found an audience, but for how much the audience and the critics at the time didn’t get them. There’s a whole meme about movies Siskel and Ebert Got Wrong.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: The Last Action Hero got savaged by critics. Even the Simpsons dunked on it.
So what?
Who cares what the critics thought of something 30 years ago.
When talking about how something has changed or evolved over time, like attitudes toward a movie, you kind of need to know the starting point. While they wouldn't necessarily agree with the criticism of the time historians and people who study film tend to care about what was written thirty years ago.
I’m gonna spoiler the next bit despite this not being terribly new, because the plot is one best viewed with minimal knowledge.
Spoiler:
Starts out as a sci-fi UFO movie, with strange goings on going on over a Californian Ranch. Such as items falling from the sky, electrical blackouts and others.
The plot is carefully paced, as our protagonists slowly, carefully piece things together, and come up with a plan based on their observations
And along the way? It becomes a Creature Feature. A creature feature touching on one of my favourite tinfoil but not that crazy hypothesis, that unknown lifeforms may lurk in our upper atmosphere.
This is a very, very well made film. The case are superb, the pacing is excellent. The plot is novel, if an evolution of films that came before.
Long may Jordan Peele continue to thrill us with his movies.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: The Last Action Hero got savaged by critics. Even the Simpsons dunked on it.
Just looked through the German-language critiques I could find from the time and they seemed cautiously positive. Didn't know it was talked about so negatively in the US.
Smokey and the Bandit III (1983)
I just familiarized myself with these films recently. Watched the first ....2 I think a while ago, and I have to say that I found them OK, the first one more so than the second. Burt Reynolds is charming, Sally Fields is a great foil for him and it's just such an alien world to dive into. It feels like watching a sci-fi film, learning about the world and so on, but without all the silly names (well...) and the silly masks and effects (well...). After having watched the third now I read some critics' voices on the films, and one of them was cited on rotten tomatoes, saying that this sort of film wouldn't be made nowadays and will never be made again. Not because of political correctness, but just because it's such a product of its time. Which I'm inclined to agree with. Not saying that this is good or bad, it just is. And that's very satisfying. Because Hollywood can conjure up iteration of "all too smooth, digital, slick action comedy fantasy comicbook film #223" at any point, but this weird sort of film stays where it is and won't bother us any more.
Anyway, the third one from the series kinda sucks. First off, it's got less "Bandit" than Expandables 4 got Stallone. It's all about Smokey, ie Buford T. Justice, the sheriff, who doesn't like retirement. For some reason (and this sounds metaphysically much more interesting than it plays out) Bandit's trucker friend Snowman dresses up as Bandit and drives his iconic car...somewhere. To do something for the big politician guy with the little politician guy and Justice is after him, and there's a lots of pretty tame chases and lots of ramps and roadside set pieces which aren't very funny (but at least there's some nudity).
It's all very silly and kinda boring. I chuckled once when the policemen drove the police car in a stripped-from-everything state (the car, not the men), and I'm not even sure why I did. In the end Burt Reynolds actually appears in a sort of vision: The policeman imagines talking to Bandit, who's willing to turn himself in. But in a surprisingly good turn of events both realize that they need each other as a raison d'être and the policeman gives Bandit a head start for the next (endless) chase.
Don't Watch. It's an experiment in "how to do a star-driven film with the antagonist and all the minor characters present, but not the star", but it's not interesting.
Also watched Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001) again for the first time since I watched it at the cinema. I forgot how long and somewhat messy this film is. But it's also great looking, has great atmosphere and has Vincent Cassel in (to me) one of his defining roles. Cool film, but it is long. Directed by Christophe Gans who seems to be a cool cat. His filmography thus far: Crying Freeman, Brotherhood of the Wolf, Silent Hill (the one with Sean Bean and the burning and barbed wire tentacle monster in the end) and Beauty and the Beast (French one from 2014). This guy knows how to do atmosphere.
I'm a fan of Jerry Reed in his day job as a singer and songwriter. He also wrote and performed the song "East Bound and Down" from the film's soundtrack.
Speaking of which - I don't do anything except painting dark elves, so I watched A Karate Christmas Miracle (2019). Just so nobody can say I don't watch new films, and the title kinda intrigued me. And I gotta watch at least one christmas film, right?
So this film is available on youtube, Mubi, Amazon Prime(?), Plex, etc. It's about a boy whose father disappeared at a mass shooting at a cinema where he was supposed to give a speech against gun violence. But then a clown came in and shot everybody. The boy has visions of his father being alive, and makes a list of 12 things to do until christmas, and when he achieves them his father will return. One of the things (among reciting the US presidents and knowing countries in Europe) is becoming a self-taught black belt in karate.
His mom - so the plot synopsis tells us - is a sophisticated (meh. so-so.) workaholic (we rarely see her work) go-getter who has little time for her son. However, she's probably the highlight of the film, mostly because she carries the whole thing, along with wacky law professor / psychic who shares the son's visions and is contacted by the mother because of that.
So that's the set-up of this remarkable film. It's very, very cheaply made, the man who produced the film (his 30th or so within 20 years of filmmaking. He also writes a ton of novels, but also books on law, because he is or used to be a judge in America). His real-life son plays the boy in the film (who also plays the main role in A Wrestling Christmas Miracle, released a year after A Karate Christmas Miracle), and he wrote the screen play. And he plays the boy's father. It's one of those films. This one could become a cult film, but I have the vague idea that these don't really happen any more since anybody can shoot a digital film now. It is a cut above total crap though, mainly due to the actresses playing the mother and the law professor (the former being a young actress who's been in things as side characters, the latter having been in genre things like the killer tomatoes remake). I liked them in their scenes together. Especially later in the film they got a scene together which gets rather emotional, and despite the kinda silly dialogue and the silly situation, both do a good job at evoking emotions.
The most baffling thing about the whole affair must be the boy's cinema vision scenes, some of which star Eric Roberts. These are rambling affairs which have little to do with anything and after a little reading on the internet I found someone'e review on IMDB in which he explained that these scenes were from a 2012 film by the same producer about the Aurora cinema shooting. Which makes sense, because of the killer clown and a girl named Aurora and so on. It's a little bit spooky, but mostly because of the complete desorientation of the viewer. Later on there's a scene in which the boy from our film gives the man from the visions a phone call and they exchange the insane, disjointed dialogue. I'm pretty sure they wrote the boy's dialogue around the footage they had of the man on the phone. It really is remarkable.
One of my favourite Community episodes is the one in which Chang becomes famous for a line in a commercial and moves to Hollywood and Abed still has a few snippets of Chang's from a cop film they were shooting at the time and they build a sci-fi film around those few snippets. This film reminded me a lot of that episode. I could write on and on about this film, because there's so much stuff which just leaves you with question marks over your head, but I'll better get to the obvious Don't Watch. It's a very cheap, kinda insane film. It makes a mockery of the fine sport of Karah-tay, and despite an okay performance of the leading lady and a rather nice performance under silly circumstances by kookie Law Professor / Psychic, it's just no good.
HOWEVER, if you're after something different... this is it. I honestly think that the story between the two women was rather okay, if they'd left out the whole stuff about the boy's karate and the visions and the killer clown. It would have been a sort of "lady's husband gets shot, instead of processing the loss and getting help she buries herself in her career, she meets this other lady hwo might be psychic who's also got problems (not a too bad arc really, even though it's a bit unmotivated in the end), who through their friendship and the whole "he might be alive?" stuff helps her process the loss.". Oh well.
It was the end of last year, so I am pretty fuzzy on it. I watch a lot of Holiday movies.
The title is the coolest thing about this movie. It was a low budget affair. That said, the film-makers clearly wanted to make this movie and were trying their best. This was not a tongue-in-cheek effort. They put all they had on that screen, IIRC.
Gotta love a big, dumb monster movie, and this definitely delivers.
Do not expect realistic science. Do not expect a masterpiece. Embrace the silliness. Embrace the nonsense. Because it’s not big. It’s not clever. But it sure is fun.
Also, the monster CGI is perfectly well done. Whilst I would prefer some practical, I’ll take this because they’ve clearly cared enough to make it decent.
It's just not good. I would say Highlander 2 is better in that at least the dialog was more involved and the big bad was more fun to watch.
Conner and Duncan seemed like they were reading off two different scripts for a completely different movie.
Oh, and Joe is there for some bit part of a reason and true to form he shoots and kills a watcher gone bad. Methos is just there for a bit part paycheck. He adds next to nothing but does have a clever line about things not turning out well, He may have been the only person to have read the whole script.... a weird 4th wall break if ever there wasn't one.
I really enjoyed it. Big and flashy with some nice set pieces. The de-aging of Ford mostly avoids the uncanny valley, and the sets and costumes are glorious.
I would set it up with Last Crusade for enjoyment. Certainly the events within are no more far fetched than each other
I saw that it appears to have bombed at the box office, but don’t let that dissuade you from some thoroughly enjoyable hokum.
Definitely one of the better Discworld adaptations, it managed to do a decent job at capturing that Pratchett-ness that's so hard to transfer from the books (It probably helped that it was a children's book in the first place).
Dungeons and Dragons:- Honour Amongst Thieves
A bit over long, but I really enjoyed it (Although I suspect most of the D&D references went over my head). Pity it was apparently a bit of a flop, would have very much been interested in a follow-up film or two.
That D&D film is really enjoyable. Like yourself, I’m not massively familiar with the game itself. Whilst I recognised some of the beasties, like yourself I’m sure a bunch of stuff went unnoticed by me.
That for me is the film’s strength though. You don’t need a deep or even superficial understanding of the source material to enjoy it. Which I guess is the grail of movie adaptations,
Automatically Appended Next Post: Dug Up
Low budget redneck Zombie comedy.
This is ticking all my boxes. The plot is tongue in cheek, as are the performances. The Zombie makeup is basic but genuinely effective. Not quite The Walking Dead, but convincing enough for its budget.
Importantly, the cast aren’t just phoning it in. Nobody in danger of worrying the Oscars, natch. But every man jack of them are clearly game, and not taking it too seriously. Even the dialogue has some effort put into it. Not to mention some early entirely gratuitous norks wobbling about.
It’s everything I love about low budget horror.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Trail of the Screaming Forehead
No. Really. I’m not making this up. I’m nowhere near this creative.
A lovingly made spoof of 50’s B-Movie sci-fi nonsense. Not just in the topic (alien killer foreheads from outer space), but the overall directorial styles. Not just “har har har old films am the crap” spoof. This is clearly by a team who love their ropey sci-fi B-Movies.
There are shades of Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace in the script and performances. It’s cheesy. The dialogue is laughable. But it’s all deliberate. Not someone writing a crap script because they’re crap at script writing. Oh no. This is akin to Les Dawson playing the Piano badly, but in a way could only be done by someone who is a genuinely good pianist.
It’s a deeply silly film, but purposefully so. I consider it an unironic gem of lo-fi film making.
Automatically Appended Next Post: A Knight’s Tale
Pretty sure I’ve wiffled, wibbled and wafted about this this before.
But talk about a film which, by all rights, should’ve been a great big steaming pile, but somehow turned out magnificent.
The trailers were particularly bad, showing the modern music in a historical setting in the worst possible light, and demonstrating none of the sheer charisma of our cast.
Much as I think I could’ve stomached a sequel or spin off, I’m glad it didn’t happen. Because instead we have this oddity of perfection.
This is a peculiar film as there isn't much of a story to talk about. In fact, as a film I think it's a complete failure. But I don't think the producers or director were looking for a traditional film and in many regards they succeeded. It's fast, unconstrained and never eases up - almost like it's designed for the modern phenomenon of breaking a larger production into bite size pieces that can be endlessly re-memed.
There's a long list of famous actors doing the usual job of being incompetent at voice acting roles (even Jack Black with all his experience is uninteresting). Chris Pratt does a commendable job as the lead and the key line of "Here we go" is delivered flawlessly by Anya Taylor Joy (or is that my Anya bias showing again?).
I think if I were in my pre-teens I'd love this film, so I think it is a successful production. It's just not interesting as a traditional film.
Much as I sometimes groan at your entertainment selections Doc, I'm pretty sure we're of the same generation and this is one delightful piece of cinematic silliness. What elevates it is the unrestrained, sincere performances by all the cast. A film that is far better than it has any right to be.
Pretty much perfection. Definitely a classic for very good reason.
But my absolute favourite thing? Rufus plays a critical part, but mostly leaves our boys to it. He doesn’t coach them on history. He doesn’t tell them what their redeeming presentation is gonna be.
Oh no. Like a good educator? He gives our heroes access to the resources they need to make their own learning fun. The show is of their own devising. Having gathered the historical figures, it’s Bill and Ted who figure out how to carry the day.
One of the better spoof movies of the early 2000’s. And like Airplane! it does work better if you’ve seen what it’s spoofing. That being said, it still works as a goofball comedy.
There are some gross out scenes, but being mixed into sight gags and a decent comedy script it’s not reliant on them, unlike weaker efforts in this genre. Also bonus points for some top notch cameos.
Oh, but negative points awarded for involving Good Charlotte. Who are about as punk as my dear departed granny. And she always voted for Thatcher.
Didn't know what it was going to be about and it was pretty fresh. A lot of tension when you realise it's not a type of film where all characters must get a good ending. A superficial but flavourful glance at different cultures. All in all a pretty depressing (as it is about serious consequences of stupid decisions) but intense movie. Worth watching if in proper mood.
Didn't know what it was going to be about and it was pretty fresh. A lot of tension when you realise it's not a type of film where all characters must get a good ending. A superficial but flavourful glance at different cultures. All in all a pretty depressing (as it is about serious consequences of stupid decisions) but intense movie. Worth watching if in proper mood.
Yeah, Babel was pretty cool. The sort of film you don't necessarily put on, but which should be watched, because it actually stays in your memory and (despite it not having the greatest of stories or anything) feels like it's of a bit more value than other things.
Speaking of value or the lack thereof - right now i'm watching Valerian. In little bits, one at a time. Because I'm not very interested in the story, but the film looks really, really, really good. Recently I've become more of a fan of Luc Besson and what he does than before.
I don't know why I waited so long to watch this one. Excellent, precise storytelling, beautiful cinematography and visuals (locations, costumes etc.). A pleasure to watch.
Also a must-watch for anyone building a Bretonnian army right now, especially a grimdark one
For all the flashy fight scenes I’m not really that engaged with this one. It’s basically picked out the high points of the first three and smooshed them together just because they can. Wacky assassin world politics. A helpful pupper with a taste for person bits. An overly long drawn out fight in a wacky glass case room. Cartoonish armoured bad guys that need some proper doing.
The fight scenes are now totally outlandish and flabby. The martial arts look stilted and overly choreographed. The Arc de Triumph scene is actively annoying. Mr Reeves just looks tired all the time.
I’ve still got about an hour to go in the run time and it’s all much of a muchness.
The first one was tightly focussed and a breath of fresh air. Hopefully 4 is the death rattle and some other story can get some space to breathe.
I have to say I'm content with the only John Wick film remaining the only John Wick film. Good fun. Beautiful in its simplicity. Nothing more than what it is and exactly what it needed to be with no sequels worth worrying about.
A perfect example of a movie that doesn't need sequels and is best with out them.
So as not to disrupt my thread criticising its predecessor?
Alien vs Predator: Requiem
Screw you, I genuinely enjoy this movie. Its flaws are many (oh god the lighting!), but in terms of what I wanted from an AvP movie? This delivers.
It’s pulpy. It’s schlocky. It dumb. But unlike AvP, the Predator isn’t dumb.
The inevitable human factor works better for me, because they’re all just Us. Standard, average, smelly Hoomans going about their day and night, only to run afoul of incredibly deadly beings from another world have a jolly good punch up.
The single biggest flaw here is the lighting. Yes. Alien and Aliens both employed dusky tones and poor lighting to strong effect - mostly to keep a sense of mystique about the Xenomorph. And I don’t think aiming for that was itself a mistake. The trouble here? I can’t see bugger all. The shadows are too deep. The darkness is too inky. I what were probably really nicely choreographed scenes? It’s all wasted because the camera barely penetrates the incessant gloom. I will praise the locations though. Alien movies work best with a claustrophobic arena. Be it a space ship or a sealed habitation. And so the initial bit is set in sewers. Overly dark sewers yes. But I’ll accept them as a real-world proxy of a Xenomorph’s preferred environment and nesting site.
But make no mistake. This film was kinda bold. From a pre-pubescent kid getting Facehugged, and temporarily becoming the world’s youngest father, to seeing a senior Predator clean up the crime scene and kick all shades of Xenomorph tail. It at least tried some new things. It also showed that even our modern day firearms can and will ruin a Xenomorphs day, which is why an uncontrolled swarm of them is so terrifying.
Also? In terms of hybrids, the Predalien may look a bit crap, from what little they let us see of it in the murk. But it’d still head and shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toast, above the god awful look of the Hybrid out of Alien Ressurrection.
Apart from Ressurrection’s face. That was genuinely creepy and very expressive. It’s just….the rest that was crap.
Looking at the reviews cited on Wikipedia? There’s one I particularly agree with, and that where it’s described ratings wise as deserving the B in B-Movie.
Not as good as the first one, it's a bit over long, kinda fizzles out at the end and Black Panthers replacement doesn't really work for me (I get why they didn't recast T'Challa, but I think there were better characters to take up the mantle).
However, I thought it was still pretty good, I particularly liked the re-jig of Namor and his people, not sure why the Internet thinks so poorly of it.
It is an odd film. There’s a decent amount of really cool stuff going on. And not only was it made during the Pandemic, but of course had lost its lead actor, someone who was incredibly charismatic.
Whilst flawed (I really don’t like the submarine fight, but the Namor v Shuri was solid), it’s still a masterpiece of salvaging something.
Watched that last night! A comet is about to hit the earth and wipe it all out, we follow Steve Carell over the last month of humanity. At some point he teams up with one of his neighbors' girlfriend (Keira Knightley) and they go on a quest together to get to a place each they want to get to.
What the film does great is how it depicts how people react to the news that the world is ending, especially in the insurance firm where Carell's character works. I have to admit that I loudly claimed my dissatisfaction when the leading lady turned out to be Keira Knightley. I find her irritating. First film I saw her in was the excellent The Hole. She fit that role in there really well. Anyway, they do her up and write her as likeable as possible. Getting dangerously close to manic pixie dream girl though at times, maybe even crossing the line here and there. But she's a good foil for Carell's character. Both are a bit over the top, because after all the whole premise is a little construed. But anyway, it works for a film, and I'm perfectly okay with a construed premise.
The film is a bit road tripp-y and set piece-y, and nowadays this would have been turned into a tv show and rather boring or annoying. Who knows.
Steve Carell around 2010 was a real gift to hollywood. Because that place seems to be rather struggling with finding dudes who work as an everyman, are still charismatic enough to carry a film and have that indie-appeal. Because Steve Buscemi was booked to comedies or too indie and William H.Macy was showing his age. Paul Giamatti wasn't pretty enough, and Brendan Frasier was still burnt. Seth Rogen and his pals all were too boyish and too happy.
Things I did not like specifially:
Spoiler:
.) That bloody montage at the beach. Maybe people who live by the sea get that, but I found it rather unbearable and unnecessary and felt out of place. .) I just don't like Keira Knightley very much. And they work SO hard to make her lovable to the audience. And she almost is. But when we first see her run by in an early scene I was hoping it would be Rachel Weisz or Winona Ryder.
Things I specifically liked:
Spoiler:
.) The atmosphere for the first third of the film is really cool. Especially people carrying on with their everyday lives as fewer and fewer people come to work or the great scene in which the one upper-middle management guy in Carell's firm calls in a meeting to sell employees on stepping up as the new CFO since the original one just killed himself. Just three or so people show up: Carell, who just sits there disaffected, a guy next to him mumbling how everything is futile anyway and a lady who just silently sobs throughout the scene. Great stuff. .) keeping the whole looting and rioting to a minimum. I know, it would be a big thing and would happen instantly, but the US is in such a state (I'm being told) that I just don't want to see it in a film. .) I also really like the little things, how people do stuff they otherwise couldn't before. Like the Karen character (who was a perfectly nice lady. No idea why Carell didn't like her.) coming to the party, wearing everything she ever wanted to wear. That whole party was rather good. Not only because it stared Connie Briton [always good], but also because of how they do all these silly upper middle-class American things they wouldn't ordinarily do. .) The step-father turns out to be the guy with the plane. That I liked, because it made the whole trip to his make sense. .) The ending was sweet. It makes little sense, but I can be got with a "she got off the plane" ending and it just ends nicely.
Anyway the film is perfectly nice which leaves you with a positive feeling. And the concept of the film gets you thinking.
Watch It. The actors keep this film afloat pretty well.
As I understand your mater familias once did vouchsafe to the Vicar? That’s quite a mouthful.
And it’s a low/zero budget Zombie type flick. In which like, fragments of the sun or a meteor or a comet land in London, and those caught outside at the time mutate into crazy mental Zombie type things.
So far? It’s actually quite good. For its budget. There is some needless CGI (not the impacts and background stuff afire, but fighter jets and helicopters) which admittedly does look fine. But the actors are clearly going with it, and for it. And the director clearly has some idea of how to make a horror film have impact.
I’ve seen far lazier efforts made with more of a budget, let’s put it that way. And what we get is genuinely entertaining. Not brilliant. Not groundbreaking. But entertaining and competent enough.
There is a reliance on existing abandoned office blocks and that as an environment, which with boarded up windows suggests a longer period of “everything’s gone wrong”. But with budget film making, I’ll wilfully ignore that unintended impact.
If low/no budget horror is your thing, and you enjoyed the 28 Later movies? I say give this a shot.
Aye, it's nice to find a low/zero budget film and finding joy in it. Better than watching a blockbuster film and finding it "not as bad as you'd think".
I watched The Graduate last night. First time in a good while since I saw it in full. It's such a fun film. The way so many of these shots are engineered just jumps off the screen and adds to the impression of youth and a certain carelessness about film making even though it tells such a human story.
Yes, it can be critizised from a 2024 standpoint (but that's always such a boring and simplistic exercise, isn't it), but the impression how this film is a timeless story about people seeking their place in the world and just having no idea what/who they are what what/who they're supposed to do is just so much stronger than some low-level critique that usually only serves to cloud the look at what things are actually about.
Honestly I loved it. It's so silly and over the top and so very very fun. None of the science makes any sense no matter how much they try to convince you it does with toss off lines, the bad guys are terrible, and the overall plot is borderline wear a padded helmet. And yet for all that it's a really really fun movie. Jetski harpooning of giant sharks, super death tadpoles, a KRAKEN. You can also just feel the main group had fun making it (not any of the villains, they're all drab trash).
Comically so actually. Like literally, whole scenes are lifted near word for word from Aliens! The only thing that's even remotely different is zombies instead of aliens and surprisingly it's not that different.
Didn't watch a film! I met with peeps to watch the third season of Occupied (a show I really enjoyed in the past. I'm aware that the third season probably is worse than the second, which wasn't as good as the first, but I like the show so I'll watch it). Instead we ended up watching the first episode of an adult cartoon show called Pluto (seems very good and - despite being new - even looks rather nice). It's no Netflix. Interesting show.
Comically so actually. Like literally, whole scenes are lifted near word for word from Aliens! The only thing that's even remotely different is zombies instead of aliens and surprisingly it's not that different.
Hey, I know that movie!
Also, hey, I know that movie!
A couple of things. Whatever else you might say about the movie, it's got a good script.
It's interesting that for a movie made in this century, stylistically there is a lot that hearkens back to Italian horror movies of the 80s and late 70s. You can tell it's a modern movie, not the least because it's filmed in HD, but a lot of its character is reminiscent of traditional Italian movie style. Dub included.
For a zombie movie, especially one made fairly recently, it's remarkable that there aren't just shuffling zombies, but that the movie is largely consistent about the zombies being slow throughout. Definitely worth noting. A lot of low budget zombie movies don't manage to stay the course in a similar fashion.
If there's something about the movie that stands out negatively, it's that it has a few scenes in slow motion that would make Zack Snyder proud. Aside from that, it's a pretty worthwhile zombie movie if you're into the lower budget, and specifically Italian variety, of the genre.
A note on the Aliens ripoff, it feels a lot more natural than Shocking Dark, which does the same thing (plus some Terminator for good measure). Sure, scenes and dialogue are lifted one for one, but here it integrates pretty decently into the zombie scenario.
Bonus points for pretty decent make-up and effects.
A bunch of Tom Selleck westerns on one of the cable stations.
By the looks of Selleck & some of the other actors I'd say from the late 90s/early 2ks.
Sorry, couldn't tell you the titles as I keep missing them while painting away on Legion Imperialis stuff (and I don't care enough to look them up).
Overall? Pretty average fair.
Two of them were so similar that I could've sworn i was (half) watching 1 movie. It wasn't until his character was addressed by a different name I realized things had changed while I was in the kitchen for a few minutes....
), cut to fit the "FSK12" mold (comparable to PG13, maybe a bit harsher). The cut is a few years old, done by a German private tv channel. It's just horrifying. They cut like 6 minutes from the film. I've seen Demolition Man a few times, and it threw me each time. Okay, I get that maybe they cut the eye thing, but in many cases they cut absurdly tame stuff like the virtual sex images in Stallone's head. They just put the things on their heads, Bullock tells Stallone to relax, cut, Stallone tears the thing from his head, asking what's going on. And in many other cases the cuts are way hard and disorienting and it's all a very traumatic experience to be honest. 
