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SamusDrake wrote:
M3GAN 2.0

As M3GAN was a fun mix of Robocop and Childsplay, the sequel is M3GAN mixed with shades of T2:JD and Metropolis, and what a jolly good experience it is too. Thumbs up.

We’re seeing this next week, so I’m glad for this positive review.

If you liked the first one then you should be alright.

The Other Guys

Office pop!


This was a pretty funny action comedy. It wasn’t on the same level as an Airplane! or even an Anchorman, but was consistently amusing. Mark Wahlberg and Will Farrell are both great at playing dysfunctional, unlikeable jerks. They’re also the least acab of all the police officers portrayed. The film would make for a good This Aged Great episode.

If you like comedies where the humor comes from each character being a different flavor of stupid bastard, check it out.

To be honest, when Will Ferrell is portraying an unlikable jerk?

Is he even acting? Let alone portraying a distinct character?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
To be honest, when Will Ferrell is portraying an unlikable jerk?

Is he even acting? Let alone portraying a distinct character?

I mean, that’s [my] joke. Him and Wahlberg both have this issue with their performances.

From people who knew him in real life, it sounds like he’s actually a good person in real life who just plays that one type in everything. Word on Mark Wahlberg in real life is….quite different.

I just can’t with Mr Ferrel.

He does nothing Bill Murray hasn’t done. Except Bill Murray is actually funny with it.

Kinda like Alan Carr and Julian Clarey. Except when Julian Clarey did it being a gay man was actually controversial. And Julian Clarey played it with charm.

K-Pop Demon Hunters

I don't know that this is a show for me exactly, but I did find the premise hilarious. I rewatched the intro of the villains several times because it makes me laugh. "A demon boy band? What makes you think that will work?" Romantasy Demong King guy. If we can sell an entire genre of kinky fairy sex, demon boy band is completely marketable.

And i gotta say the heroines are all pretty likeable for just being quirky teenagers but to me their manager kind of steals every scene he is in.

It's a fun movie. It's not even my kind of movie at all but I still found myself enjoying it!

Karate Kid 1-3

Done the trilogy in a oner, as it does work as a single extended story.

What’s impressive here is that whilst there is a template to these movies? They don’t feel like your standard “same again” sequels. Each has a ton of character development, and keeps the underlying formula pretty fresh.

It’s also kinda amusing that despite getting the girl, LaRusso can never keep them.

Really fun little trilogy.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Karate Kid 1-3

Done the trilogy in a oner, as it does work as a single extended story.

What’s impressive here is that whilst there is a template to these movies? They don’t feel like your standard “same again” sequels. Each has a ton of character development, and keeps the underlying formula pretty fresh.

It’s also kinda amusing that despite getting the girl, LaRusso can never keep them.

Really fun little trilogy.

I'd like to see your thoughts on the Hilary Swank Karate Kid flick.

Not sure I want to see that one to be honest. Time will tell.

Now you just have to rewatch Kobra Kai.

Flow

The one with the cat.

This is a beautifully animated adventure story about a cat surviving a flash flood and making friends along the way. The animals are cute and behave like animals, with some exceptions as this is a Sci Fi or fantasy movie. The backgrounds are wonder inspiring. The animation style is soft edged and simply rendered and for some reason makes me think of Myst. My wife declared it “the cutest movie ever”.

Watch it.




Fantastic Four (2005)

The cheesy one that is fun and released.

It’s fun in a 2000’s superhero kind of way. The Commish and Captain America elevate the story. Doctor Doom feels more like the punchable douche trying to shut down a ski resort in an 80’s movie than a threatening villain, but that fit the tone of the film.

I hope the new movie coming out manages to be better.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Not sure I want to see that one to be honest. Time will tell.

It has Michael Ironside. And Hilary Swank. You might want to check it out.

Nothing But Trouble 1991

Dan Aykroyd directs and stars, story by his brother. Also stars Chevy Chase, John Candy and Demi Moore

A black comedy in the vein of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes.

It’s plenty bizarre, but I’ve loved it. It’s just daft and silly enough to carry the theme.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Nosferatu

It’s very stylish. Very very stylish.

But I’m afraid that doesn’t mean it’s terribly good. It’s not bad though. Just pretty average, outside of the gorgeous visuals.

The Sorcerers

Boris Karloff and Ian Ogilvy star in this low budget 1967 British horror/thriller.

Premise is an elderly professor/inventor and his wife use a cunning device on Ian Ogilvy, which let them feel what he feels, and control his actions. Only…the power gets too much for Mrs Professor, and she goes off the deep end wanting ever more thrills.

And it works. It really works. I think it could be taken as an allegory for drugs on the mind, as Ogilvy’s character becomes ever more unpredictable in behaviour, going from a suave, charming guy to a risk taking violent man. At least some of the time. I’ll be honest I might be reading things into it the writer didn’t intend, but it is still there.

If this was made today, I could see it going a bit torture prawn and overly shocking. But the stuff in this film (reckless driving, petty theft, getting into fights with his friend) start so innocuous, and then spiral.

It’s just really well made, and I think it could be described as a forgotten gem. Definitely, definitely give this a watch if you get the chance.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Nosferatu

It’s very stylish. Very very stylish.

But I’m afraid that doesn’t mean it’s terribly good. It’s not bad though. Just pretty average, outside of the gorgeous visuals.

I'm going to need you to be a bit more specific. Silent era Nosferatu(1922), Klaus Kinski Nosferatu (1979), or Skaarsgard hanging dong Nosferatu(2024)?

2024 one.


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The Curse of the Crimson Altar

Another Tigon offering from the Swinging Sixties. Good Gravy It’s Racy Mother! Drugs, booze, how’s your father, chips, dips, chains, whips.

The opening scene is really a bit much for a movie of such vintage, and took me entirely by surprise.

Stars Christopher Lee and Boris Karloff. Also Michael Gough as a Butler, a role he’d go on to play in Batman and Batman Returns.

Seems it wasn’t well reviewed when it first came out, but I’m greatly enjoying it. Which leaves part of me wondering if the contemporary reviews were extra sniffy because it’s quite racy for the era.


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Witchfinder General

A notorious one from Tigon, and a horror classic. What’s particularly impressive is that it (entirely accurately) paints Matthew Hopkins as little more than an opportunistic, sadistic scam artist.

This was the film that kicked off my interest in the era of Witch Hunts, and eventually lead me to read Hopkins’ own book, which is a frankly laughable attempt at apologetics for his nonsense and scam.

100% a must watch for horror fans.

Dracula vs Marvel - Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned. (1980)

Look. I had to gap-fill a Wild Warg Chieftain with milliput...and this randomly auto-played on Youtube. So it just happened, okay? Working with metal is a pain in the ass and I needed something in the background.

So yeah, ummm, Dracula visits Boston, whisks away a devil worshipper and they have a son, and there's this doberman who tracks down evil, and Satan is pissed with his loyal following...vampire hunters who are ****ing useless and they team up with the descendent of one of Draccy's love children and...its in Boston and other vamps are annoyed with playing second fiddle to him...God also has his own super hero, but that's giving too much away and its NOT who you think it is...sigh...

The silliness of Marvel mixed with the random antics of vintage anime...with fangs. I don't know how on god's green earth this ever became a thing but it is what it is and we have to deal with it.

So bad its fun and I might pop it on again at Halloween.

M3gan 2.0

“We’ve already discussed the appropriateness of Steven Seagal as a role model!”



First of all, the “Slay Queen” guy from the trailer isn’t in the movie. Looks like a few things from the trailer didn’t go into the movie. The movie is only about as campy as the first movie, unless you include genre shifts and genre-appropriate plot over complexity as camp, or cheese. Also, there’s at least one punchable Musk stand in.


The film is less Terminator 2 than it is a Mission Impossible parody meets Fast 5 with a healthy dollop of Upgrade. It’s also very funny and a little shmaltzy in parts. There’s some getting-the-crew-together heist energy, a couple dressing-up-to-infiltrate-the-party scenes, the unnecessary-stunt scene, some sleight of hand, etc.. Ivanna Sakhno plays a good villain.

I had a lot of fun.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Never really thought about Mission Impossible as I only saw the first one back in the 90s, and that was it. Otherwise it was the classic TV show which was pretty good as I remember it.

SamusDrake wrote:
Glad you enjoyed it!

Never really thought about Mission Impossible as I only saw the first one back in the 90s, and that was it. Otherwise it was the classic TV show which was pretty good as I remember it.

The overly-complex plot with a mcguffin, heist, dubious government agents and a double-cross feels like all spy thrillers these days. The totally pointless cliff jump gliding scene feels like a specific call out of the M:I franchise.

I bet they planned to use the old TV show theme if they could get the rights, just like they used the Knight Rider theme during the car chase.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Nosferatu

It’s very stylish. Very very stylish.

But I’m afraid that doesn’t mean it’s terribly good. It’s not bad though. Just pretty average, outside of the gorgeous visuals.

I'm going to need you to be a bit more specific. Silent era Nosferatu(1922), Klaus Kinski Nosferatu (1979), or Skaarsgard hanging dong Nosferatu(2024)?

while the particular book title escapes me at the moment, i recall an urban fantasy story i read where they talked about the silent era movie
the vampire was real, and being in the movie was a big breaking of all the laws, but he was so old and powerful and frankly scared the piss out
of basically everyone so he never got called out on it

By all accounts the man who played the vampire, Max Schreck, had a fairly standard career as an actor in Germany during that time. He did theater tours and appeared in some early silent films that were part of the German Expressionism movement. Perhaps the book you are thinking of was the inspiration for Shadow of the Vampire (2001), which is a fictional retelling of the production of Nosferatu with John Malkovich playing the director F.W. Murnau and William Defoe as Max Schreck/Count Orloff. In the film Max Schreck is shown as a weird guy who believes he is a vampire, which is why Murnau hires him, and as the production goes on people involved in the production keep getting disappearing, and at the end it is discovered he actually is a vampire.

Heads of State

Straight to Prime effort. Kinda spoofing “Has Fallen” type films, starring John Cena as the US President (a former film star) and Idris Elba as the UK Prime Minister (former solider and pretty ‘ard). The always reliable Paddy Considine is our central villain,

Whilst possibly not everyone’s cup of tea, with Cena and Elba in charge it’s hard not to like this film, daft and purposefully silly as it is.

It’s perfectly suited to Streaming. Which isn’t to say it’s Straight to Video quality. Just that happy place of Streaming.

If you enjoy Cena and/or Elba? Do give this a watch.


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Back on the Tigon train wiiiiiiiiith

The Haunted House of Horror from 1969. Big name here is Frankie Avalon.

Our swingin’ hip kids visit a rather dull party, and instead choose to sod off to explore an allegedly haunted mansion. That actually happened with me and my friends once.

The rest didn’t happen to us though, thankfully.

Apparently one of the roles was written for David Bowie, but the studio feared a clash with Frankie Avalon, and so it wasn’t to be.

Heads of State falls into the ever expanding trap of non-event movies: put it in theaters and it will bomb because everyone will wait for streaming, but put it directly on streaming and everyone will skip it because eww, straight to streaming movies suck.

Still worth a watch! Decent action going on, and there’s plenty of chemistry between Cena and Elba.


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The Beast In The Cellar

Something is out there, mauling soldiers and locals to death!

Is it an escaped Big Cat? Or is the brother of two seemingly harmless old dears, that’s been supposedly locked in the cellar for 30 years?

Well, it’s the latter, isn’t it! Still a pretty decent premise and a well done Tigon outing,

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Heads of State falls into the ever expanding trap of non-event movies: put it in theaters and it will bomb because everyone will wait for streaming, but put it directly on streaming and everyone will skip it because eww, straight to streaming movies suck.

The expectation that every film recoup its expenses opening weekend is kind of a new thing largely driven by internet ego. Generally speaking movies often didn't even make back their budget during the theatrical run and really turned a profit sold to TV and home media. I suspect the movie will do about what its makers hoped it would, which is probably a pretty modest return overall.

Not to mention overall merchandising.

"Merchandising! Where the real money is" - Yoghurt


It's true, a good film with good merch behind it can turn a huge profit.

So. Streaming films. This is direct to video rubbish, carried by one (or two) names to put on the cover, the rest is probably algorithm-generated.

I trust Cena and Elba - both are really good at what they do - to pull off such a thing, but it's still a sorry state of affairs. Both of them deserve better, and so do we. Amazon deserves worse.

Given that its the 4th of July, time to watch Independence Day again.

A bit hard-core on the "USA USA USA" but honestly one of my favourite films of all time.