Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Don’t do it.

My reaction to Section 31 was uncharacteristically visceral. My usual easygoing, “I’m sure I’ll find something to like” approach failed me.

It’s awful. It has no redeeming qualities.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Don’t do it.

My reaction to Section 31 was uncharacteristically visceral. My usual easygoing, “I’m sure I’ll find something to like” approach failed me.

It’s awful. It has no redeeming qualities.

Thanks for the save.

Any recommendations? Nothing sad. I can be sad for free. Why pay for a film to make me sad?

Something with John Cena? He’s usually reliable for a chuckle.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Something with John Cena? He’s usually reliable for a chuckle.

Like The Marine? That has Robert Patrick (X-Files, The Unit, Terminator 2) as the villain.

I can't think of any other movie he's done right now... off to IMDB!

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Don’t do it.

My reaction to Section 31 was uncharacteristically visceral. My usual easygoing, “I’m sure I’ll find something to like” approach failed me.

It’s awful. It has no redeeming qualities.

Thanks for the save.

Any recommendations? Nothing sad. I can be sad for free. Why pay for a film to make me sad?

Because some films which make you sad are really good. By ourselves we can be sad and dull, with films that make us sad we got a reason and at least had some external impulse. Of course Section 31 is rubbish though. I have not seen it, but all signs point to it (and I draw some stinky, self-congratulatory satisfaction from that, I have to say.)

Haven't watched the Marine (well, not 1 and 2 at least ). I like The Wall with John Cena. That one was interesting. Or just go watch some Billy Wilder comedy. Can't go wrong with that.
If you're dead-set on watching John Cena for "lulz"-purposes I wouldn't suggest watching a comedy film that stars him. Watch the build-up to some big wrestling match. He's good at that.

Class of 1999

Follow up to Class of 1984, which I think I’ve seen. That’s also on Prime so I’ll probably follow up with that.

This is a slightly odd film. Essentially, law and order has broken down in the USA. School kids are out of control. So a High School agrees to host three cyborg teachers. Who start to go ‘Nanners and kill students.

And it’s not as camp as it sounds, but somehow isn’t played entirely straight. And yes it’s sort of a Terminator knock-off.

I saw this for 13 bucks today and didn't buy it... because.... reasons.

It looks perfect for someone we all know who enjoys these films to watch and report on how amazing it was...



Yes that's Randy Couture, Denise Richards and Cuba Gooding, Jr.

Pretty sure I’ve watched that. Wasn’t particularly good.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Class of 1999

Follow up to Class of 1984, which I think I’ve seen. That’s also on Prime so I’ll probably follow up with that.

This is a slightly odd film. Essentially, law and order has broken down in the USA. School kids are out of control. So a High School agrees to host three cyborg teachers. Who start to go ‘Nanners and kill students.

And it’s not as camp as it sounds, but somehow isn’t played entirely straight. And yes it’s sort of a Terminator knock-off.

I remember that one.
I loved the idea that all the kids were these violent, feral thugs but they still went to school every day.

Happy Hell Night

Supernatural Slasher from 1991, a joint Canadian and Yugoslavian effort. Distractingly, a fair few voices seem to be dubbed over, but only in certain scenes.

Atmospherically it’s pretty much par for the course. But the plot is very silly indeed, involving a possibly possessed priest, and bits and pieces nicked from much better movies.

On the upside, a bunch of obnoxious Frat Boys have a really bad time.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Happy Hell Night

Supernatural Slasher from 1991, a joint Canadian and Yugoslavian effort. Distractingly, a fair few voices seem to be dubbed over, but only in certain scenes.

Atmospherically it’s pretty much par for the course. But the plot is very silly indeed, involving a possibly possessed priest, and bits and pieces nicked from much better movies.

On the upside, a bunch of obnoxious Frat Boys have a really bad time.

I hope it's the Canadians they dubbed over.

Oh wait! It’s a young Jorja Fox out of office of CSI Something.

At least one person’s career escaped this intact.

This is an odd one. It’s not a badly made film, it’s just not particularly competent. The gore and kills are fun, and as I said the atmosphere is pretty much fine. But the editing is all over the shop, and there’s moments it feels like two, maybe three films stitched together.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Luther The Geek

In which a kid exposed to a Freakshow Geek at a young age, and lost his teeth as a result of an accident, goes ‘Nanners, replacing his lost gnashes with metal ones…and goes around biting people’s heads off once he’s grown up.

Goes to Pris, gets released 20 years ago, and then off to Head Biting.

Though even with steel falsies, surely it’s gonna take a long time for a human to bite another human’s head off, right?

For a while now, I’ve been desperately trying to find a film I saw once, and only had a dim memory of.

Something about a Freakshow, with a Hermapahrodite and a Three Armed Dwarf. I saw it during the age of Ceefax, whilst mindlessly channel hopping late one night. I figured it was some artsyfartsy thing on Channel 4. But last night, having watched Freakshow adjacent Luther The Geek, I suddenly remembered the Dwarf was played by Deep Roy.

To Google I flew! And bingo. I identified it.

Artsyfartsy my bottom. It’s not that at all. Ifs kinda the polar opposite, being Howling VI - The Freaks

Which is on Prime, and really not worth the bother.

Greyhound

Tom Hanks is a Destroyer captain hunting submarines. The film is laser focused on Tom Hanks giving orders and those orders being carried out, with very little in the way of sub plots or character development. Hanks does a decent enough job and oceans are still battlefields, but I doubt I'd rewatch this over any number of other, better naval warfare films.

7/10 Good


For a John Cena rec, I really liked Peacemaker. Lots of lowbrow humor, a decent amount of action and a great message. Robert Patrick is also a villain in this one.

My take-aways: John Cena as Peacemaker is very good. This is HIS role. The people around him are ....alright when interacting with Peacemaker, but I'm rather weary of character pointing out another characters' wrongdoings, as a sort of laugh track for people who can't tell right from wrong or something. The green dude from that show is everything that is wrong with film/tv comedy. I assume that's all based on a comicbook, and that's why they didn't go for depicting actual neonazis, but neonazis with slightly different logos and such?

One of the highlights for me was the police dude from Charmed playing the police dude and the eagle looked amazing. I also liked Robert Patrick's hairdo.

The Toolbox Murders

1979, previously banned in the UK as a video nasty. I’m quietly impressed. It starts off as a gory slasher with gratuitous nudity. Then takes a sharp turn into an oddly interesting psychological thriller.

Some of the scenes with the Loony and his Kidnapped victim are oddly touching, and pretty well acted. Just the right mix of tender and creepy. Overall a pretty decent horror flick.

The House on Sorority Row

Not quite what I was expecting! Prologue shows something odd going on with a birth. Fast forward to the film’s present, and during a prank gone wrong, the House Mother of our Sorority Girls is killed….or was she? Because someone is now bumping off our girls, one by one. Is it the House Mother? Is it one of the girls? Is it someone else?

And it spins out the murders and the mystery pretty nicely overall, if not exactly with anything original.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And now for something, completely different.

Shane Meadow’s Dead Man’s Shoes

Paddy Considine stars as a lad home from the army, and soon taking revenge upon the drug dealers that had taken advantage of his mentally disabled brother.

Those familiar with Meadow’s work will immediately recognise his overall style here. A certain juxtaposition of suburban decay and beauty. Delving into the lives of the economically disadvantaged, and the trials they face on a daily basis. Without glamourising or overly dramatising anything.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And even more differenter?

Transformers One

Right. I’ll be blunt.

Paramount has joined Warner Bros in needing to answer, and sharpish, why they’re so utterly inept at live action takes on their comic book/80’s kids stuff, yet can turn out such near impeccable animated fare.

Because this ace. It’s got pace. It’s got punch. There are some nice little call backs here and there, but nudge and wink, not DO Y’REMEMBER, D’YOU? REMEMBER, EH, EH, WE DIDN’T BOTHER WITH PLOT, JUST REMEMBER, EH? WHEN Y’WERE LIKKLE IN NINETEEN EIGHTIES AND IT MADE Y’FEEL BETTER ABOUT YER BRASS HAND

Heck, I’m just going off my knowledge and love for G1. And I’m fairly sure there’s stuff in there for Beastwars and other bits and bobs.\

Cracking voice cast too.

Get this through your eyeholes into your brain meat and makes yersel’ happy, yeah?

Went to the theater today to see Captain America: Brave New World, and enjoyed it for the most part.

Was a little upset that Ms. Haas got to be in the movie and they didn't mention her superhero character at all: Sabra. I was sure Disney was going to change her outfit (her comic book costume has a Star of David front and center).

There were a lot of set ups that just didn't seem to go anywhere. It was good to see Liv Tyler again.

The Last Starighter

I’d have dearly loved to have seen on the big screen for the first time, but sadly I’m just a bit too young for that.

But what a damned near perfect bit of kid friendly sci-fi. Well, maybe not with the head melting scene, but that was usually cut when televised in the UK.

It’s more than just a ‘me can do a Star Wars too’ knock-off, despite clear influences in its DNA. Its overall plot is solid, and novel. And given how drone warfare has evolved, and features controls familiar to any gamer, possibly kinda prophetic in its own way.

The CGI is of course early, but does the job well enough. Whilst I’d dearly love to see some crazy fan recreate them using modern technology, that feeling doesn’t extend to the film makers who should really just leave it be, as it’s of cinematic historical value. And for my money, did it better than Tron. Much better.

Just absolutely fabulous stuff, with a great cast to boot. Even the kid brother who is absolutely the right kind of slightly annoying.

If you’ve not seen it, or you’ve kids say, 8 and up*, now is the time to correct that oversight in your movie viewing habits.

Go on. GIT!

*head melting scene again. But you’ll of course know your kids best in that regard.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The Last Starighter

I’d have dearly loved to have seen on the big screen for the first time, but sadly I’m just a bit too young for that.

But what a damned near perfect bit of kid friendly sci-fi. Well, maybe not with the head melting scene, but that was usually cut when televised in the UK.

It’s more than just a ‘me can do a Star Wars too’ knock-off, despite clear influences in its DNA. Its overall plot is solid, and novel. And given how drone warfare has evolved, and features controls familiar to any gamer, possibly kinda prophetic in its own way.

The CGI is of course early, but does the job well enough. Whilst I’d dearly love to see some crazy fan recreate them using modern technology, that feeling doesn’t extend to the film makers who should really just leave it be, as it’s of cinematic historical value. And for my money, did it better than Tron. Much better.

Just absolutely fabulous stuff, with a great cast to boot. Even the kid brother who is absolutely the right kind of slightly annoying.

If you’ve not seen it, or you’ve kids say, 8 and up*, now is the time to correct that oversight in your movie viewing habits.

Go on. GIT!

*head melting scene again. But you’ll of course know your kids best in that regard.

Ready for part 2?

If it’s really coming, yes.

They will change the title of the first one to the second to last starfighter.

The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Loony Tunes Movie

This one is pretty special. It gets off to a bit of a slow start that feels a bit more like Ren & Stimpy than Loony Tunes, but once things really get rolling it doesn't let up until the end. Probably more of a homage to classic sci-fi shlock than Loony Tunes, it does a great job of capturing the vibe of when the 1950 reruns were on Nickelodeon.

Grindhouse

The Tarantino/Rodriquez double feature of carefully and deliberately crafted trash. Comprised of Planet Terror (I’ve seen it once) and Deathproof (which I’ve seen enough times to remember the plot).

If these gent’s shtick is your thing? Still an awful lot to enjoy here, especially presented in its original double header format.

A bunch of the spoof trailers have also become movies in their own rights - Machete, Hobo with a Shotgun to name but two I’ve seen. And there are others which eventually became Real Movies, but I’ll need to finish watching to know which I’ve definitely seen.

Grindhouse was disappointing in the theaters, not because it was bad but because it started so strongly as a loving parody/homage and then followed that up with Death Proof. I can almost imagine the misunderstanding:

Rodrigues: “We’re making fun of those boring old schlocky trash movies?”

Tarantino: “Yes, we’re recreating boring old schlocky trash movies.”

The best description I’ve read of Death Proof was:
Four Tarantinos played by different women Tarantino in a bar for 40 minutes. Then Kurt Russel gets to act.

Doctor Who:- The Movie

The Eighth Doctors one and only proper outing.

I haven't seen this one since it originally aired, and my opinion of it has improved a bit.
At the time I think it was just too different from the show I knew, but now it feels very much like your average Nu-Who Christmas special.

It's still not amazing by any means, but if you haven't seen it since the 90's, and you still like Dr. Who, it's worth a watch.

Alien:- Romulus

A plucky gang of 20-somethings attempt to escape their capitalist overlords by looting a derelict space station.

A real return to the franchise's roots and in doing so it's easily the best one since Aliens, the characters don't act like complete morons and there's no attempts to inject a lot of unnecessary lore into proceedings.
Rook does come off a bit overly CGI'ed at times, but that's probably my only real nitpick.

I’d agree on Rook. I think they’ve gone in an retweaked since the cinema release though.

Even so? He’s messed up already, so they could (should?) have used that to make the face more mucked up, giving the CGI an easier time of it.

What I do like is how thought out the overall plot and perils are. Our heroes do sensible things for sensible reasons throughout. Even the Pulse Rifle having auto-aim makes sense. After all, they’re there to be used by scientists, against potentially the nastiest killer the galaxy has ever seen.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
What I do like is how thought out the overall plot and perils are. Our heroes do sensible things for sensible reasons throughout. Even the Pulse Rifle having auto-aim makes sense. After all, they’re there to be used by scientists, against potentially the nastiest killer the galaxy has ever seen.

Yep, they even make seem like a reasonable, if desperate, choice. It's a far cry from the absolute boneheads in Alien:- Covenant.

The Gorge

Two soldiers guard a mysterious gorge, will the isolation draw them closer together?

When the film actually gets around to exploring the gorge, it's quite entertaining, if a little silly. Sitting through an hour of two troubled souls striking up a long distance relationship is not.

 aku-chan wrote:


Alien:- Romulus

A plucky gang of 20-somethings attempt to escape their capitalist overlords by looting a derelict space station.

A real return to the franchise's roots and in doing so it's easily the best one since Aliens, the characters don't act like complete morons and there's no attempts to inject a lot of unnecessary lore into proceedings.
Rook does come off a bit overly CGI'ed at times, but that's probably my only real nitpick.

What I really like is that we very much know that this is a group of young-adults who mostly just lost their parental figures in life and are doing things on their own. Even when they make bad choices they are very sensible choices for characters in their situation, age and experiences and so forth. It's really like those early films where you can see the bad choices ahead of time but also see that they seem very logical for the characters in the setting at the time.

Honestly I consider it the true 5th Alien film after the original 3 and the fanservice Alien 4 - which was a bit ropey on the science front but gave us some really awesome moments and very active aliens and such.

Beau is Afraid

The film that goes balls-out.


Ostensibly this film is about anxiety-wreck Beau’s Odyssey to his mother’s home, in which everything goes wrong and everyone is messed up. But really it’s a Frankenstein of vignettes about neuroses and paranoia that becomes less and less hinged as the film goes on.

First of all, this is not a film that “makes sense” or “has a coherent story”. Like Eraserhead, Beau is Afraid is less about the plot or characters than the feelings it evokes. And like Eraserhead, it has some spectacularly disturbing scenes. If you have a dark sense of humor and can see it with some likeminded friends, you’ll have a lot of fun. If you want something more grounded than bananas, move along.

I think I loved it.

Slaughterhouse Rock

Devo! Toni Basil! The Nineteeeeeeeeeen Eeeeeeeeighties! In a sort of Nightbreed/Elm Street Mash Up of fun weirdness.

Just a big ol’ slice of MTV B-Movie daftness. And very much of its time. Which suits me fine.