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 Easy E wrote:
Unpopular opinion ahead! Warning!

Grease 2 is more fun than Grease.

I will get my coat.....

Funny you mention Grease as Xanadu was on the other night. It was absolutely awful, but strangely watchable.

Does anybody even really care deeply about Grease?

I'm thinking if I hold any 'unpopular opinions', but I don't think I do. I'l wholesome. Because of course we all know that every single Marvel film except Blade 1 and Punisher:Warzone are utter tosh. And Star Wars is in no better state than in 2000, there's just more of it.

Never watched Grease in its entirety, being honest. If it was ever on telly then we'd see whats on the "other side", as we used to put it.

Elf

Funny and sweet, this is a modern classic unless you hate Will Farrell.


A Day Without Santa Claus

The old creepy claymation movie that gave us Heat Miser and Cold Miser. It’s like a dull sermon you sit through to feel closer to the suffering of your ancestors.



Die Hard

Still one of the best Christmas movies ever made, and the bar against which all later action films are measured.

Troll.

Norwegian “monster” movie. Better than Mrs. GG and I were expecting. Maybe not award winning cinema but a decent enough movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiohkY_XQYQ

Not the one where Sonny Bono turns into a pea pod, then?

As an enjoyable way to pass an evening I can recommend another Norwegian kaiju movie from a few years back - Trollhunter.

"You never said you were a Christian. Oh sh*t we're all going to die!"

Vikings: Valhalla

Meh.

You know how seasons 1 and 2 of Vikings were fantastic and then the show just slowly went down hill with a plot that got so jumbled and wacky you not only didn't know what was happening half the time anymore but you couldn't care less?

This show basically starts there.

Just watch Vinland Saga. It's a million times better and I'm somewhat certain Valhalla's writers know it's better because this show is basically discount live action Vinland Saga. Even some of the character beats are outright identical.

And that's just the better half of the show about the Danish invasion of England.

The worse half involves conflict between Pagans and Christians in Norway and it's just a much less interesting plot and the writers know its less interesting because they spent very little time on it while wasting yours reminding you it exists.

I'm 44 Min into Dager of Kamui - 1985

I haven't watched this one in a few years.
I'm impressed by the ruthlessness' of the shinobi in their manipulation of out lead character Jubi. He was found as in infant and raised never knowing he was a token in the game for the shogunate. they let him live till the age of 12 only to kill his foster mother and sister to drive him into their arms, train him and send him off to complete the mission his father was suppose to have been working on.
They coerce him into killing his own father as an act of vengeance. He had no idea at the time. The Shinobi even slay everyone who knew him as a child and burn down that village. Just absolutely brutal, the lengths they go to to make things happen and keep secrets.

Ocean’s 11

A decent remake which manages to capture the feel of a Ratpack Heist movie.

Cast are engaging, plot is entertaining.

Ocean’s 12

Oh hi diminishing returns! You came quickly.

Ocean’s 13

Just watching it now. Reasonable chance it’ll be the second best in the series, given how dire Ocean’s 12 was. I shall see. It was crap.

The other night I had the grave misfortune to watch Mechanic: Resurrection. A bad 80's action tv/straight to video movie. Made in 2016. Mark's out of 10? -10

Their only excuse for them is that Michelle Yeoh, Tommy Lee Jones and Jessica Alba must have all needed their roofs retiling.

Statham movies: avoid at all costs.

Tremors: Shrieker Island

A step up from the Jamie Kennedy years, this film has a bigger budget and a seriously ambitious cinematographer. Like, “this movie feels like a movie” cinematography. Really, really cinematic.

The character acting is here, the effects are here, the script is decent, but… The editing. *sigh*. The fact that I kept noticing the editing means it is a problem. Editing should not be an impediment to the storytelling, yet here we are.

There are a few fresh kills in this, and a few distracting homages. (Or “homages” depending on how uncharitable you feel.). The big finale falls a little flat due to editing. The score also kind of gave away what was about to happen, too. On the plus side, there are lots of explosions and goo for the fans.


Another watchable Tremors movie.

Terrified (Aterrados.)

El sigh.

It's rare for me to venture into foreign films. Not because I'm snobby about it or anything, it's just when I'm watching at home it's all too easy to get distracted for a minute by a quick scroll on the phone and before you know it you've missed a major plot point and either forge ahead regardless or have to scroll back and rewatch from where you missed.

So consequently, a foreign language film that grabs my attention sufficiently to tackle this first worldiest of first world problems is a rare thing.

Hailing from Argentina, and not to be confused with anything related to Terrifier, this is a spin on the haunted house trope, by providing the viewer not one house but three on the same street to keep track of, all with slightly different tales to tell, but surely three different hauntings in the same street can't just be a coincidence?

That aside, we follow a fairly well trodden path. Things escalate until the authorities get involved, the authorities bring in specialists, things build to a head and then ultimately conclude.

So why bother with a largely formulaic film in a non native language? In short, some of the ideas on screen provide some of the creepiest images I've seen for a long time (shout out to under the bed man!) The hauntings are all varied and original in their idea and execution, strongly evocative of some of the best Japanese horrors, and that was enough to draw me in.

So why start with a sigh?

This film suffers from the worst case of "best bits in the trailer" I've ever seen. If you can go into this movie completely clean slated, there's much to recommend it, but if like me you discovered it from promotional material, significant amounts of the movie's impact is stolen, and you're left watching an at best competent haunted house movie where everything that elevates it has already been spoiled.

I think I've seen that as well. It had some really fantastic individual pieces for sure but I agree that as a full movie, it's kind of slanted a full movie. They never quite managed to string the individual scares together into a coherent plot as I recall.

There's barely three lines of dialogue from the professor lady before a jump scare derails the scene and we don't find out any more. I'd say the writers probably had an idea what was linking it all together, but a lousy job was done conveying it.

I just found

DIE HARD

On Disney+ UK.

Christmas is saved.

Writing Around the Christmas Tree

I don't mind a Lifetime Christmas movie at all, I can even enjoy them!

But, this one almost put me to sleep. It was no Starcrash, but it almost did what only The Specialist and my second viewing of Titanic have managed to do before!

 Easy E wrote:
Writing Around the Christmas Tree

I don't mind a Lifetime Christmas movie at all, I can even enjoy them!

But, this one almost put me to sleep. It was no Starcrash, but it almost did what only The Specialist and my second viewing of Titanic have managed to do before!

Of course you were bored with Titanic on the second watch; you already knew the big twist towards the end!

Flight of the Navigator

What a thoroughly bloody good wholesome film.

Released in 1986, with cutting edge CGI. The CGI is still better than some of the guff we get these days, and never used when a physical prop could do the job. Perfection

The ship set itself is wonderfully realised. Quite minimalist, but lots of greeblies to stop it being monotonous.

Favourite thing? Ship’s Computer downloads stuff from David’s brain. Accidentally downloads a bit of a human, and turns into a complete male chicken, if you catch my drift.

Also, one of the first, if not the first film I ever saw in the cinema at my own request. I remember Timmy Mallet (ask your parents, young’uns) reviewing on Wide Awake Club or perhaps Wacaday, and asking Mum if we could go see it. And she said yes!

If you’ve not seen it, not seen it in a while, or have Smols that haven’t seen it? Do your eyes, your brain and your endorphins a favour and get it watched. Like. Seriously. Tempting the internet I don’t know anyone with a bad word to say about this wonderful bit of fantasy cinema.

Watch it, or I’ll find your house and…and…and…..tut at you. Through the letterbox.

Confession time. I was never a big fan of this film. I actually found it boring, even as a child.

I much preferred The Last Starfighter or Battle Beyond the Stars when they were on my local UHF channel.

It’s not particularly action packed, true. But still a wonderful flight of fancy. A film with no particular point to make or tale to tell, but a wonderful bit of cinema all the same.

Next? Fred Savage and Judge Reinhold in the almost certainly not that well remembered Vice Versa, a movie Daddykins took me to see whilst on holiday in Harrogate.

I remember Vice Versa coming out just after the Dudley Moore/Kirk Cameron movie of the same stripe, Like Father Like Son. If I recall, Vice Versa was the better attempt.

As that the one with the crystal skull? For some reason it always reminded me of Vibes, the comedy-adventure with Jeff Goldblum, Cyndi Lauper and Peter Faulk. Loved that movie.



For Flight of the Navigator, apparently there was surprisingly little CGI. A lot of the effects that look like CGI, such as the flowing stairs, were done with older techniques, like stop motion and composited, reversed wax melting, stuff like that.

The Hobbit Trilogy (Extended Editions.)

Alright, I'm cheating a bit because I'm only half way through DoS, but the manner of extension is the same across all three, so I'm pulling the trigger early.

Although all three are some 30 minutes or so longer than the cinematic version, there's nothing that really be considered a new scene or sequence, it's 30s here, 2m there of extra dialogue or a slightly different shot. Certainly as someone who hasn't really watched the films since the cinema release, there's nothing that leaps off the screen as new, but there are moments that feel unfamiliar.

These aren't films that are going to be unfamiliar to many, so there's little point in reviewing the content, but is it worth the effort of watching the 9 or so hours of the extended editions?

In short, probably not.

That said though, if one were intent on watching the Hobbit Trilogy regardless, then this is the version that's probably worth seeking out. The films were probably torpedoed below the water line the day it was decided to stretch a book shorter than any single volume of LOTR into three films, and nothing here does anything to redeem that. But there are improvements that have softened my attitude to the movies. Firstly, and from my perspective probably most importantly, it isn't in 48 FPS. I hated the soap opera feel of the higher framerate in the cinema, and the removal of this plus the 3d element actually improves the look to my eye immeasurably. There's still some questionable moments where they seem to have managed to go backwards with more mature and sophisticated tech than when LOTR was filmed, but the whole affair looks a lot closer to the main trilogy, which is a big plus for me.

Secondly, and this is more an advantage to having all three movies together and at home than anything directly connected to the extension, there are elements running through the films that are far easier to track and appreciate for the casual viewer when watched closely together than when released a year apart. This is fundamentally a 9 hour story broken into three bits, after all, rather than a film with two sequels.

Finally, the extended elements don't detract from the film. While mostly subtle, and blink and you'll miss them in some cases, the extra bits and pieces only enhance the films, and at no point have I noticed anything jarring where we transition from cinematic to extended footage.

Because there's so much to ridicule in the trilogy, it's easy to forget there's quite a lot of good in there too. Once I'm done, I think I'm going to be a lot more positively disposed to these movies, and that alone is worth the time.

Good grief, as if the Hobbit movies weren't a hundred hours longer than they should have been, there's an extended version?

Seems to be a thing Jackson likes to do, there's a King Kong one too.

The weirdest thing to me is that in all of extended versions, there's maybe one scene that really really shouldn't been cut.

The goat cavalry. Because it's freaking awesome and because it explains where those goats came form in the finale act of movie that were all 'wtf where from' in the theatrical release.

The Bat

A film from 1959 featuring Vincent Price. It is a bit of a Crime story with a few horror elements that feels more like a cinema Serial made into a single movie. Interestingly enough, the main character is an older, middle aged woman as our True Detective!

It is pretty obvious who The Bat is, but it is 1959 so there you go. If you like watching old serials, than this is for you.

Wonder Woman 1984

Caaaaaaaaaaaaack.

Unintentional comedy high point.

“Hey Diana. What’s this?”

“Well Steve Rogers, sorry, Trevor. Steve Trevor. That’s my special plot armour. I may need that later. Who can tell?”

Nonsensical main villain motivation. I mean, we get he’s an insecure man dreaming of greatness. But….one wish and straight to pants on head wibble dibble snivvet Oooh Dr Parson’s What A Lovely Sideboard Insanity. Just. No.

It’s overly long, and doesn’t really bother telling us anything about the villain’s motivations until 2h 15m or so in.

High points overall though? Cheetah is a coherent villain. Pedro Pascal is acting his socks off.

Low points. Action scenes are crap. No sense of weight to anything. At all. Gal Gadot still unable to express any kind of emotion.

Total waste of time overall. I mean, Wishmaster did the whole “be careful what you wish for thing decades ago, were kind of crap, and still better than this tripe.

If they had ended the film shortly after the White House scene, it would be more fondly remembered. Cheetah was great there. Then her arc went off the plot.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Wonder Woman 1984

Caaaaaaaaaaaaack.

Unintentional comedy high point.

“Hey Diana. What’s this?”

“Well Steve Rogers, sorry, Trevor. Steve Trevor. That’s my special plot armour. I may need that later. Who can tell?”

Nonsensical main villain motivation. I mean, we get he’s an insecure man dreaming of greatness. But….one wish and straight to pants on head wibble dibble snivvet Oooh Dr Parson’s What A Lovely Sideboard Insanity. Just. No.

It’s overly long, and doesn’t really bother telling us anything about the villain’s motivations until 2h 15m or so in.

High points overall though? Cheetah is a coherent villain. Pedro Pascal is acting his socks off.

Low points. Action scenes are crap. No sense of weight to anything. At all. Gal Gadot still unable to express any kind of emotion.

Total waste of time overall. I mean, Wishmaster did the whole “be careful what you wish for thing decades ago, were kind of crap, and still better than this tripe.

You actually made it all the way to the end? You must have the patience of a Saint. I made it half an hour, maybe 40 minutes? It's such a dumpster fire.