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@Easy E: I also led to a ton of bad comedies titled "Bad [x]" I think. Not sure if it was her last Hollywood film with a wider release. I think Sex Tape came after that one?

@Pacific: Aye, can't wait to watch it.


I just watched A Christmas Carol earlier tonight. The Patrick Steward version. As far as A Christmas Carol films go it's hard to stand out, and this one seems to be incredibly close to the book. Which is perfectly OK. It's a nice story, and Patrick Steward is able to carry this film well. Perfectly unoffensive, in my opinion the least creepy of the Christmas Carol films. Well made, but nothing outstanding.


Last night I watched The End of the World again. I really dig that film.Apart from the overblown ending I think it's right up there wish Shaun of the Dead; in terms of characters it's better, as a genre comedy it's not as funny, but it's really good.

Tremors: Shrieker Island, or as i want to call it


I've always had a soft spot for the franchise, and the original is probably one of my favorite movies of all time
story is pretty standard in that it can be boiled down to
feth, graboids, better call Burt
no Jamie Kennedy in this one, which I'm good with, something about him annoys me, so i spent the last two movies hoping he would get eaten
I like how they've updated the design of the monsters the last few movies, and this one got back much more to the old vibe of Its out there, but you don't see
it til it strikes

Finally, the idea of hunting the beasts on an island would make a hell of a one-shot for an rgp, something sci-fi but either low or no magic

Les Miserable

This was the one with Hugh Jackman, Russel Crowe, Amanda Seyfried, Helena Bonham Carter, Sasha Baron Cohen and Ann Hathaway.

The director really wanted to make this a different experience than seeing it at the play house. To do this, he made extensive use of close-ups and tight shots. This is something you would NEVER see on stage by the nature of the mediums. However, this technique really, really fails as the movie becomes static and boring despite the actors doing their best to "emote" at such close range.

The second option is that perhaps the director really hated the set designer and costumer. Despite being set in Paris in the early 19th Century, you would have a hard time telling! You never see anything beyond the actor's face for 95% of the film. It is a huge disservice to the material and work of the crew.

A huge disappointment. I almost fell asleep despite a talented cast. Russel Crowe can not sing either..... and his character maybe as Hugo made him; but he is completely unbelievable.

On the plus side, I did do some research on the June Rebellion of 1832 which is the setting for the film. I learned something new.


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 Sigur wrote:
@Easy E: I also led to a ton of bad comedies titled "Bad [x]" I think. Not sure if it was her last Hollywood film with a wider release. I think Sex Tape came after that one?

I actually think Bad Santa started that trend and this was one of the later "cash-ins" on that idea.

I would rather watch Bad Santa than this any day.

 Easy E wrote:
Les Miserable

This was the one with Hugh Jackman, Russel Crowe, Amanda Seyfried, Helena Bonham Carter, Sasha Baron Cohen and Ann Hathaway.

I watched a deconstruction of the singing on YouTube - it's long but it's far more interesting than the film itself.

https://youtu.be/1ikqU6G6Xgs

Was Tremors: Shrieker Island good? How does it compare to Tremors 2?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Was Tremors: Shrieker Island good? How does it compare to Tremors 2?

I found the movie enjoyable
I can't say I'd rate it as high as Tremors 2, but i certainly think its better then say 3 or 4
there are a few logic holes that i can recall, but nothing storybreaking (how is it people seem to forget the big wurms split into the smaller mobile beasties, especially given they killed a fething ton of them in major countries, given past movie events)
Given that its currently on nexflix, its worth watching at least the first few minutes to see what you think

 Easy E wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sigur wrote:
@Easy E: I also led to a ton of bad comedies titled "Bad [x]" I think. Not sure if it was her last Hollywood film with a wider release. I think Sex Tape came after that one?

I actually think Bad Santa started that trend and this was one of the later "cash-ins" on that idea.

I would rather watch Bad Santa than this any day.

Aye, good point there. And I found Bad Santa to be very 'meh' already.

Love Tremors. Never bothered with the sequels, because I hear they're much, much worse.

 Sigur wrote:

 Easy E wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sigur wrote:
@Easy E: I also led to a ton of bad comedies titled "Bad [x]" I think. Not sure if it was her last Hollywood film with a wider release. I think Sex Tape came after that one?

I actually think Bad Santa started that trend and this was one of the later "cash-ins" on that idea.

I would rather watch Bad Santa than this any day.

Aye, good point there. And I found Bad Santa to be very 'meh' already.

Love Tremors. Never bothered with the sequels, because I hear they're much, much worse.

Sex Tape.... I had totally forgotten about that.

I feel like these types of "late night" comedies and Rom-Coms have really suffered in the past few years due to the spiraling costs of making movies. It has just become much harder to make smaller and non-tentpole movies in the studio system now.

I thought Tremors 2 was every bit as fun as Tremors 1.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I thought Tremors 2 was every bit as fun as Tremors 1.

well, yea, the first two were the best two, though i feel the newer ones are gaining some decent momentum

Battle beyond the stars.

It was just on comet, and to my amazement they didn't blur or block cybil danning's b3wbz like some showings did.

This was a fun little star wars knockoff by roger corman with some decent acting talent and very low budget but high effort special effects for like 1981.

One thing I never noticed: Of all the mercenary ships it seems only the semi suicidal valkyrie's had an escape pod...

@Easy E: That may well be. Also - it's harder to make a comedy (and it's easier to fail I guess), than using that tried-and-tested formula they're applying to all the Disney blockbusters now. Bit of a shame really.

@Bobtheinquisitor: Dang, I may have to go watch tremors 2 then...



Over the past weeks I've been enjoying something quite out of the ordinary for me - an anime tv series. I felt like I needed to watch something 'new', so I searched Netflix for ANYTHING anime made before bloody 2004 (I'm not a fan of the abstract, overly clean, digital look of more modern things) and found Trigun. So I started watching it. Boy, I'm not used to watching anime any more. In my teens I watched Bubblegum Crisis (2032, because I have a soul), and of course I love it (because I have a soul and because the first scenes of the film basically reenact the first scenes of Streets of Fire, my favourite film). I also watched Neon Genesis Evangelion (and I loved it, because I have a soul, or SEELE, if you will, and because I was a male teenager during the late 1990s). Apart from that, of course the usual films, a bit some lighter tv shows such as dragonball or Dr.Slump, but never watched much more Anime any more since.

But I did enjoy Trigun a lot. Some stuff to get accustomed to, but in the end I really enjoyed the characters. Sympathetic characters. Of course there's a lot of silly stuff and it's getting all melodramatic at times, but it's got its heart in the right place, and it never gets too heavy. I can't dislike any of the main characters, in fact I like them. Recommended.

New Mutants

The very definition of 5/10. If this was MCU there's some elements that would be interesting for their wider implications, but as I believe this is essentially in a bubble of its own (little in joke there) then there's not a lot to recommend it, but not a lot that's flat-out bad, at least in execution, I have reservations over some of the concepts.

My God, this film has the most amazing Trivia section I have ever seen on IMDB.

Fitzcarraldo, one snippet "After a Peruvian logger was bitten by a deadly snake, he immediately cut off his own foot with a chainsaw to prevent the spread of the venom. Werner Herzog commented, "It was a good decision, he lived.""

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083946/trivia?ref_=tt_trv_trv

I need to watch it again but remember it being quite sedentary, other than Klaus Kinski acting every scene at 110% as though it's his last ever acting role and he is going to die immediately after they cut the take.

Tales From The Lodge (2019)

A real oddity this one. One would have thought a comedy horror anthology starrring and directed by people like Mackenzie Crook, Johnny Vegas and Sophie Thompson would have at least registered on the radar, but I had no idea this film existed until I tripped over it on Prime Video.

Basic premise is a group of old friends meeting up to scatter the ashes of one of their group at the lake where they drowned, while indulging the group tradition of telling scary stories to one another.

Large parts feel like they've been adapted from a stage play, which is likely down to the limited cast and location. Amusing without being laugh out loud funny, a bit creepy without really being all that scary. It benefits from a short runtime keeping things tight and experienced comic actors keeping the dialogue snappy.

That a twist is coming is obvious, probably even expected given the genre, but it wasn't the twist I expected (and frankly if you watch this and correctly guess it, I'll give you the money myself.)

Given its only about 90mins and a lot of us have spare time right now, I'd say it's worth a watch.

 Pacific wrote:
My God, this film has the most amazing Trivia section I have ever seen on IMDB.

Fitzcarraldo, one snippet "After a Peruvian logger was bitten by a deadly snake, he immediately cut off his own foot with a chainsaw to prevent the spread of the venom. Werner Herzog commented, "It was a good decision, he lived.""

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083946/trivia?ref_=tt_trv_trv

I need to watch it again but remember it being quite sedentary, other than Klaus Kinski acting every scene at 110% as though it's his last ever acting role and he is going to die immediately after they cut the take.

If you're a Kinski fan, have you see his 1985 movie "Creature", AKA "Titan find"? An in your face "alien" ripoff, with a respectful nod to the original "the thing" ,not too bad for an '85 movie with low budget. He's as over the top as usual. I looked for a clip of him from it on youtube but all i found was postings of the whole movie,l which is apparently dropped from copyright now.

Pacific Rim: Uprising.
I tuned in for a big fight scene, and I wanted to claw my eyes out.
So, you’ve got a robot and Godzilla-type chappy fighting each other, in a city that has clearly not been fully evacuated, if at all.
Huge skyscrapers are being destroyed every minute, causing millions upon millions in property damage and likely ruining the local economy for years to come.
The pilots of the mechs, instead of- for example- using manual controls to pilot them, are using (presumably finicky) holographic things. This seems like a silly system to use when it’s going to be being bashed about.

The Runaways

A biopic of the group in the title. They were an influential all-female rock band in the late 70's. You may have heard of them, as Joan Jett and Lita Ford are alumni of the band.

If you have seen ANY rock star bio-pics you know the model and storyline pretty well. However, this movies camera really loves to ogle the ladies and it feels way more like an extended music video than a movie.

All that being said, the performances are pretty solid from Dakota Fanning, Kristen Stewart, and Michael Shannon. Shannon is a hoot as the band's agent. Great stuff from him! You can also tell that playing Rock N' Roll music in a band is the most important thing in the world for Joan Jett, but not so much some of the other girls.

There is also a great scene where the agent is "preparing" the band to face male hecklers, so he has a bunch of kids throw garbage at them while they practice. Later, when performing at a house the crowd gets rowdy and starts throwing bottles and cans. The band casually knocks them back with their instruments while continuing to play, deflecting some into the thrower's face.

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
My God, this film has the most amazing Trivia section I have ever seen on IMDB.

Fitzcarraldo, one snippet "After a Peruvian logger was bitten by a deadly snake, he immediately cut off his own foot with a chainsaw to prevent the spread of the venom. Werner Herzog commented, "It was a good decision, he lived.""

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083946/trivia?ref_=tt_trv_trv

I need to watch it again but remember it being quite sedentary, other than Klaus Kinski acting every scene at 110% as though it's his last ever acting role and he is going to die immediately after they cut the take.

If you're a Kinski fan, have you see his 1985 movie "Creature", AKA "Titan find"? An in your face "alien" ripoff, with a respectful now to the original "the thing" ,not too bad for an '85 movie with low budget. He's as over the top as usual. I looked for a clip of him from it on youtube but all i found was postings of the whole movie,l which is apparently dropped from copyright now.

I've got a Werner Herzog boxset (nearly all Kinski films) but that isn't one of them - will check it out, thanks!

 Pacific wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
My God, this film has the most amazing Trivia section I have ever seen on IMDB.

Fitzcarraldo, one snippet "After a Peruvian logger was bitten by a deadly snake, he immediately cut off his own foot with a chainsaw to prevent the spread of the venom. Werner Herzog commented, "It was a good decision, he lived.""

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083946/trivia?ref_=tt_trv_trv

I need to watch it again but remember it being quite sedentary, other than Klaus Kinski acting every scene at 110% as though it's his last ever acting role and he is going to die immediately after they cut the take.

If you're a Kinski fan, have you see his 1985 movie "Creature", AKA "Titan find"? An in your face "alien" ripoff, with a respectful now to the original "the thing" ,not too bad for an '85 movie with low budget. He's as over the top as usual. I looked for a clip of him from it on youtube but all i found was postings of the whole movie,l which is apparently dropped from copyright now.

I've got a Werner Herzog boxset (nearly all Kinski films) but that isn't one of them - will check it out, thanks!

if you need a little inventive to check this movie out, here's a very spoilery review by brandon tenold, one of YTs better reviewers. He seems to dwell on kinski a lot in it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU0sxvcwU4I

Yeah, its spoilery but then again you can see a lot of it coming anyway.

Christmas Chronicles 2

To start with, the first one was no great shakes. However, it was nice to see more Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russel's righteous beard in this.

Other than that..... there is a lot going on, but not much worth talking about.





Sucker Punch
I have read a lot of hate on the internet for this film.... but I liked it.

The first 10-15 minutes where they wordlessly set-up Baby Dolls backstory is really well done piece of cinema. I was actually disappointed when character's actually started to talk.

Next, this is clearly a movie about mental illness. It is not so much subtext, as a clear theme. Sure, the movie wishes it was The Matrix; but for a multi-layered take on "what is reality" I was satisfied how it all tied together..

As the movie went on I found it more, and more interesting. The big "reveal" was not much of a reveal, but thematically important.

The biggest distraction was the "Dance Scenes" where we go into some ludicrous music video fight scenes with fantastic (in the unreal sense) set-ups and over-the-top everything. These actually distracted a bit from the main film and its point.

My biggest complaint is that ultimately Zach Snyder can not make a film that isn't about cynicism and nihilism. Sure, he tries to dress it up with some weak sauce "Uplifting Message" that doesn't even make sense when you consider the outcome of the film..... but whatever.

Finally, a lot of people complain about the obviously exploitative elements of the film. However, I think they were thematically necessary. Why? It is clear that Baby Doll has suffered from sexual, mental, and physical abuse from her stepfather. Frequently, victims of abuse manifest their trauma by oversexualization. To me, this a visual shorthand for the trauma our protagonist had gone through, and how she saw her "value" to the world from that trauma. Sure, I am probably over-thinking it.... but I felt it was thematically consistent. Maybe I am just a pig?

Ultimately, a movie that is worth considering and thinking about. That is more than I can say about a lot of other films.

Zardoz

What can be said about the film that seared this image into our minds?

(Spoilered to spare virgin eyes from the horror)


It is not a good film by any stretch. But it is an interesting one. For example just how many naked women can a film have and still be entirely unerotic?

One metric Showgirls?

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Zardoz

What can be said about the film that seared this image into our minds?

(Spoilered to spare virgin eyes from the horror)

Spoiler:

It is not a good film by any stretch. But it is an interesting one. For example just how many naked women can a film have and still be entirely unerotic?

Zardoz (Please never give away the deep meaning of the title, make people see it to get it.) gets a lot of flak for the line "The gun in good, the penis is evil."




Yeah, but try showing both on tv and see which one you get more grief over. And evewryone remembers connery in the dominatrix boots and orange diaper, but no one remembers him in the full bridal dress and veil.

BTW, a miniature zardoz head would make a great pieceof tabletop game terrain.

Surf Ninjas is free on YouTube. So, we watched it.

Imagine Jackie Chan style choreography and Masters of the Universe level production value with Leslie Nielsen and Rob Schneider at the peak of their declines. Watch it for Ernie Reyes Jr and Sr, Tone Loc, and some truly bizarre studio-note-driven plot devices.

Aye, back when I watched the Nostalgia Critic (as we all did, don't try to tell me you didn't ) I watched a "review" of his of that film. Doesn't look entirely enticing, despite it being on youtube.

Speaking of youtube, for years there's been a film I pretty closely associate with christmas, and that's Nobody's Fool from 1994. A late Paul Newman film for which he got an Oscar nomination IIRC. Just a film about people in the US. Great ensemble piece. Melancholic, funny, all the good stuff. Excellent acting. Highly recommended. AND comes with greek subtitles too! So what's not to love?




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Last night I zapped through tv channels and was met with a film which surprised me.

Dreamcatcher (2003)

Based on the Stephen King novel of the same name. Missed the beginning, so I was twice as confused as you'd be with this film anyway. It's about four childhood friends (Thomas Jane, Jason Lee [whom i ALWAYS mistake for Ryan Reynolds if he doesn't wear a beard], Timothy Olyphant, the guy from Life and Homeland with the small mouth) who get caught up in an alien invasion in [snowy forest area]. Morgan Freeman leads a tip top secret army unit who have been fending off alien attacks for decades, Tom Sizemore is his right-hand man.

Now that is a very interesting film. A very, very interesting film, constantly meandering between horror, sci-fi and Steven King film. Along with a very, very strong parodistic bent. And that makes the film charming. Also of course: The cast is pretty impressive, and they seem to have fun doing this film too.

The downside though is that this film is a huge mess. It works with future visions (all of the friends got magic powers in their childhood from a mentally challenged friend of theirs, because this is a Stephen King story), flashbacks to scenes before, childhood scenes, what's currently going on with other characters, and so on. I was not able to follow what's happening, but it certainly wasn't boring, because there was always stuff happening and somehow it kept me guessing what would happen next.

There's some hilarious stuff in there, some vaguely scary stuff, lots of splattery stuff and much confusing stuff. And in the end Tom Sizemore downs a helicopter gunship with a colt he got from John Wayne via Morgan Freeman.

I'm pretty sure this is a 'cult classic' with some people, because it's a pretty unique and entertaining thing, even though it's very long (2 hours I think) and confusing as heck. But it's got a killer cast, all of whom seeming to be really into it and having a good time. Especially so the guy from Life/Homeland, who's got some really fun scenes.

Take it or Leave it. Can't give it any other verdict.

I can not recall if Dreamcatcher was its own book, or a riff-off of Tommyknockers. Frankly, it does not matter at all.

Columbiana
Luc Besson helped script this Zoe Saldana (sp- Gamorra) vehicle/action movie.

There is nothing in this movie you have not seen before a million times. Well, except maybe an FBI agent referring to a US cars rear as a "Boot" and not a "trunk".

Despite it being super formulaic and totally predictable, it was fine. The main protagonist is not likable at all and I have really not been into this in my cinema lately.

Redemption

Jason Statham gets to act...... a little.

A war veteran that committed war crimes and went AWOL takes a summer to try and atone for his past crimes in the few ways he knows how.

I really enjoyed the Nun character as she was much more nuanced than most Nuns get to be. Plus, it is always good to see a film try to tackle PTS.

Nothing special, but I found it very watchable.

Fant4stic (2015)

I'll just let wiki speak for me

At the 36th Golden Raspberry Awards, it won in the categories for Worst Director, Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel and Worst Picture (the latter tied with Fifty Shades of Grey) and was also nominated for Worst Screen Combo and Worst Screenplay.

So, why did you watch it?