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The Sixth Day

An Arnie actioner, involving cloning. Not exactly a well regarded example of his fare.

But, y’know? Watched in isolation it’s pretty good. Yes it’s more of the same from the Austrian Oak, but it’s well done.

The tech level is particularly well realised. Fancy, but kinda real feeling. Like what we see is a natural progression of what they had.

Definitely worth a watch.

Spiderman: a cross the spiderverse

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!"

The Last Action Hero

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.

Expendables 4

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”.

*currency conversion correct at time of typing.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The Last Action Hero
...

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.

Tia Carrere?

You’re thinking of True Lies?

True Lies is merely alright. Last Action Hero is brilliant. Sadly, it was completely misunderstood when it came out, just like Hudson Hawk.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Tia Carrere?

You’re thinking of True Lies?

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.

The Last Action Hero got savaged by critics. Even the Simpsons dunked on it.

Equalizer 2

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.

The Horrible Histories movie.

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.

ccs wrote:

 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.

ccs wrote:

 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.

Nope

Jordan Peele knocks it out the park again.

I’m gonna spoiler the next bit despite this not being terribly new, because the plot is one best viewed with minimal knowledge.



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.

I looked him up earlier and listened to East Bount and Down. It is a toe-tapper.

 Sigur wrote:
I looked him up earlier and listened to East Bount and Down. It is a toe-tapper.

You ought to listen to 'She Got the Gold Mine (I Got the Shaft)' in my post above and 'Amos Moses' below:


He also wrote and recorded 'Guitar Man', best known as the cover by Elvis Presley.

That's pretty impressive.The things people do.

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.

I have seen that movie.

 Easy E wrote:
I have seen that movie.

So what's your impression?

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.

Meg 2, The Trench

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.

Highlander 4.

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.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

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.

The Amazing Maurice

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.

I looked Trail of the Screaming Forehead up, and it was made in 2007. So it might actually not be bad... interesting. Maybe I can find it.