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Would have rented King Kong Lives, but somebody didn’t return it.

Seems it’s a Rights issue and studios feeling the squeeze.

But also? It’s already a sprawling franchise of wildly varying quality and tone.

It’s true horror films tend to do well at the Box Office, mostly due to very modest budgets meaning even a slight breakthrough is going to deliver fat old profits. But if you’re having to negotiate rights, that takes time and salary costs, and adds further fingers to the pie when it’s cash o’clock, so even a decent hit can see your side’s profits eroded.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I don’t think I’ve liked Wahlberg in anything since The Big Hit.

Be fair, he was very in The Departed for about 2 minutes and owned every second of his screen time.
Looking through his film history the only other film of his I'd highly recommend is Deep water Horizon, but again that would be in spite of rather than because of Whalberg.

Robin Hood prince of thieves - 1991

Hadn't seen this in years so why not.
I still remember having seen this in theaters as a kid.

I enjoyed this a lot less than I thought I would. Frankly the peasants and the soldiers disgusted me as did the corrupt and cowardly bishop, or what ever he was. . I'm puzzled as to why that is.

Alan Rickman looked like he was having a really good time as the Sheriff. He was really hamming it up and that was still fun.

Morgan Freeman's Azeem was a quite good character. I noted that the dialog was sparse at best but his lines were well picked getting the most from the least.

Over all there's not really a lot of dialog in this movie.

Lastly Michael Wincott, always fun to watch him play one of those horrible personality types. He was good in this movie playing such a heel. ( I think I like him best in The Count of Monte Cristo out of all of his roles. )

An enjoyable film, but one which will forever irk me for its bizarre geography.

White Cliffs of Dover? Fair enough. I live in the next town over, and it’s the shortest sea crossing between Britain and France. Then off to Nottingham, on account that’s where Sherwood is (well, is now. Sherwood Forest was huge historically. So away to the Midlands.

Via….erm….Hadrian’s Wall. In the north.

For my money, do check out Robin of Sherwood if you can. It’s from the 80’s and redefined the legend, and was a real influence on Prince of Thieves.

Then, for more contemporary Sherwood Shenanigans? The truly sublime Maid Marian and her Merry Men.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Would have rented King Kong Lives, but somebody didn’t return it.

*Slow clap*

I also saw The Big Hit, in the cinema.... possibly twice.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
An enjoyable film, but one which will forever irk me for its bizarre geography.

White Cliffs of Dover? Fair enough. I live in the next town over, and it’s the shortest sea crossing between Britain and France. Then off to Nottingham, on account that’s where Sherwood is (well, is now. Sherwood Forest was huge historically. So away to the Midlands.

Via….erm….Hadrian’s Wall. In the north.

For my money, do check out Robin of Sherwood if you can. It’s from the 80’s and redefined the legend, and was a real influence on Prince of Thieves.

Then, for more contemporary Sherwood Shenanigans? The truly sublime Maid Marian and her Merry Men.

The only thing I spotted was Kevin Costner's boot soles. As he's going into the rocky river area. Later at the hanging all the peasants have what look like more correct shoes soles but I would suspect even those aren't quite right.

 Easy E wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Would have rented King Kong Lives, but somebody didn’t return it.

*Slow clap*

I also saw The Big Hit, in the cinema.... possibly twice.

I saw it in the cinema and later recorded it off TV. And I had a China Chow picture for my desktop background for half a year. We’re all young once.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
Ip Man is a really cool movie. everything in the film just sort of works. the acting is all great, the historical time period is portrayed really well, the music is fantastic, and, of course, the action is incredible. i'm not much of an action movie person but this definitely has me wanting to watch more

I remember the action being incredible. I should show this to my son.

inspired by Ip Man, i checked out The Raid, and... wow that's not a good movie. it completely lacks in characterization or development, and it has a lot of unfortunate political implications (a copraganda action movie that treats its evil gang members as being more like zombies than humans). the fighting was good, of course, but if all i want is good fights, i'll go watch pro wrestling or mma or something like that

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
inspired by Ip Man, i checked out The Raid, and... wow that's not a good movie. it completely lacks in characterization or development, and it has a lot of unfortunate political implications (a copraganda action movie that treats its evil gang members as being more like zombies than humans). the fighting was good, of course, but if all i want is good fights, i'll go watch pro wrestling or mma or something like that

That’s good to know. I remember someone on Dakka always bringing up the Raid whenever someone mentioned Dredd, as the superior film.



The Howling

My son is really into werewolves, but I refuse to show him American Werewolf in London until he’s a few years older. So I thought The Howling would be a good compromise movie. Turns out I only remembered half of what happens…

The Howling starts with a news reporter meeting a serial killer in the grimy 70’s-New-York-sleaze part of Los Angeles. In a porno booth. That’s showing a possible snuff film. Let’s just fast forward a bit here…

Anyway, the film really starts to get going about halfway through when the reporter and her husband realize their new age cabin retreat is a werewolf colony. Whoopsie.

Everything in the second half is excellent. The effects, the building dread, the set up for the climactic scenes, and the final shot are all classic. The werewolf effects are top tier and worth the watch on their own. The first half is a drag, but really captures that late 70’s early 80’s feel.

If you enjoy werewolves at all, this is a must watch.

Tell me you’ve seen Dog Soldiers? For me, it’s hands down the greatest Werewolf movie ever made.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Tell me you’ve seen Dog Soldiers? For me, it’s hands down the greatest Werewolf movie ever made.

Multiple times. I love Dog Soldiers. But to me it’s more of an action movie than a werewolf movie, closer to Underworld in my ranking than something like AWIL or The Howling. I plan to show it to my son after he sees Aliens.

And I place the werewolves in Dog Soldiers, great as they are, below the werewolf designs of AWIL, The Howling, Werewolf The Series, and even Bad Moon.

just watched Final Destination. i went in with really low expectations, but once i realized the film was a total comedy, i had a blast with it. a bunch of points where i started cackling aloud. it's not on the level of horror comedy classics like House, Evil Dead 2, or One Cut of the Dead, but it's still a fun time

The Dungeonmaster (AKA Ragewar)

A sort of low budget, fantasy take on Tron. A tech wiz gets challenged by an evil wizard in a series of contests to see if the new magic of technology is better than the old fashioned kind.
It's pretty silly and kinda fizzles out at the end, but it does have some quirky, 80's B-movie charm.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I don’t think I’ve liked Wahlberg in anything since The Big Hit.

I'm fairly certain I've seen that film. It very much looks like a film I've seen.


Anyway, have you seen Date Night? A pretty throw-away film, but Wahlberg was funny in it.

Date night is awesome

He really should put a shirt on.

 Sigur wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I don’t think I’ve liked Wahlberg in anything since The Big Hit.

I'm fairly certain I've seen that film. It very much looks like a film I've seen.


Anyway, have you seen Date Night? A pretty throw-away film, but Wahlberg was funny in it.

Oh right, he never wears a shirt. I forgot that movie existed.

Yeah, Wahlberg's role was funny in that one. But I guess it's just because it probably was written around Wahlberg rather than Wahlberg "becoming" that role.

I watched Blackkklansman (2017). It's an OK film that just goes on without having incredibly memorable stuff in it. The leading actors work well (never quite sure if I'm okay with Adam Driver, but it was that time when he was in everything), and for some reason I always enjoy seeing Topher Grace on film. Now as for John David Washington - is he good? I think this is the first film I've seen him in as a leading actor, and after having seen the film I remembered somebody on a podcast saying that he never quite clicks for them as a leading man. He sure knows how to look at a camera and play a straight man, and that very much was the role in this film. So I'm not quite sure if he's a bit boring or just adapted to the role.

I'm The ending is rather interesting. And THEN Spike Lee gets out the footage of the BLM things and Trump and MAGA people that people-driving-cars-into-others, and all of that was pretty effective. And it made me realize that you can't just take things back once they've happened and once the bar for how officials communicate and how people react to things and treat others and gak they say has been lowered so much it's really hard to raise it again. And the frankly dangerous people constantly working on lowerig bars and inhibitions and the standards of civilization.

Junior

In which Arnie ends up pregnant thanks to Danny De Vito.

Whilst not as good as Twins? This is still a perfectly charming and gentle comedy.

Fast Charlie

Another old man action hero outmurderising the disrespectful whipper snappers. I have a soft spot for Pierce Brosnan, so it was entirely watchable.

A rather nice Easter egg moment with what looks like a Walther

Watch if you have a spare bit of time, but it doesn’t really bring anything new to the table, and is entirely missable.

Jurassic Park 2, The Lost World

Anytime you think Jurassic World is crap (and it’s fairly crap to be fair) just remember this utter turd exists.

So turd, it has Vince Vaughn playing…erm…Vince Vaughn, just for a change.

Not even Jeff Goldblum can save this utter, utter dreck. Which features characters that could only be more stupid if their entire plan was to stick their todger in a T-Rex’s gob to see what would happen.

The Foreigner on Netflix

Jackie Chan being the old pro and showing the young whippersnappers what's what.

Being from Mr Chan, I was expecting some kind of light hearted japes. This is not that kind of film.

Serious and tense from the get go. Slightly twisty and interesting. Much better showing from Mr Brosnan than my last film of his from earlier today

Not to be watched if you are at low ebb as the backdrop is entirely tragic, but a really great action thriller.

 Flinty wrote:
The Shooter with Mark Wahlberg.

Just so dumb. This is the most scenery chewing I’ve seen from bad guys for a while. Not in a frothing at the mouth, although there is a bit of that as well, but just so generically bad. There were a few places where I had to restrain myself from shouting “he’s behind you!”.

Creepy love at first major medical procedure side line. Magical foresight and home made super weapons. Extremely overplayed “great guy loner gun enthusiast against the deep state” storyline.

And Mr Wahlberg just mumbles his way through all of his lines.

I mean it’s not terrible, but it would have been better if it was. Can’t recommend due to its utter blandness.

It has the critical flaw that the only reason for the plot is that the bad guys conceived of an overly elaborate evil plan that neither needed to involve an outsider, nor was improved by trying to kill him.

Like if they'd just sat back and said/done nothing and not tried some contrived scheme, they'd probably have gotten away with it.

Hero is such a cool movie. watching those other martial arts movies got me in a mood to rewatch it, and wow does this hold up. it's stunning in every sense, with incredible direction, color design, acting, etc. i won't hesitate to say that this is my favorite martial arts movie

Freelance
This is a much better rom-com/adventure movie than the similar Lost City. A good in-between movie to watch with the wife, BUT there is some splatter-y violence in a few parts.

Jumanji 2: The Next Level
Perfectly serviceable sequel to the surprisingly good Jumanji re-make. Funny to see the Rock/Danny DeVito and Glover/Hart try to imitate each other. The plot is ropey as all heck and the "moral" is heavy-handed.

Hero is amazing. I think I still prefer Crouching tiger, Hidden Dragon out of that surge of Chinese movies that came out close together.

Just saw The Flash on a plane. There were fleeting moments in a what was a fairly rotten movie. Some of those the fan service stuff (Keaton, the Elfman Batman theme) and the concept they were always going to lose, but the writing in general was awful.

MarkNorfolk wrote:
Hero is amazing. I think I still prefer Crouching tiger, Hidden Dragon out of that surge of Chinese movies that came out close together.

funnily enough, i'll be watching that one next! i'm really looking forward to it, after having heard so much praise for it

MarkNorfolk wrote:
...
Just saw The Flash on a plane.....

Enough is enough! I've had it with this mommajubblin' Flash on this mommajubblin' plane!


Yeah, I also prefer Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon over Hero. Hero was cool, but it already had all that ....well, heroic stuff seeping in. Tiger&Dragon was just nicer, Hero was a bit loud.

Current epic Chinese films are just insane.


Re-watching the John Milius documentary on youtube again. Lots of stressfull (and entirely needlessly so!) things going on, so retiring to one's happy place is a good idea. I think I watched some film last night, but - no, wait, I do remember. I watched Raw Deal (1986), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's really not good. Which is weird, because it's a 1986 Schwarzenegger film, but it just isn't very good. The German title is "The City Shark", surely based on City Cobra which was released the same year (and which I happened to watch party recently as well!), but I think that Cobra - whilst being also rather vapid - is more entertaining than Raw Deal.

Knowing

Nic Cage horror thriller supernatural mystery flick.

Nic Cage, via his son’s schools’ time capsule comes into possession of a list of numbers, which had been buried in said time capsule for 50 years.

Nic Cage realises the numbers have significance, and relate the date, geolocation and death toll of disasters. Including those yet to come. But nothing as to what is going to happen.

This is, if nothing else, an interesting premise, and Nic Cage is pretty restrained. And the first (I’m assuming it’s the first) disaster yet to come was pretty impressive, with some neat tricks by the film makers to slightly wrong foot us. Like the good, smart rug pulls I really appreciate.

It’s kind of in the same vein as Final Destination, of knowing something is gonna happen, but not what, and being powerless to stop it.

I thought Knowing was really well done, right up until the ending. I’m not saying the ending was or wasn’t well done, but it made me so angry. It retroactively made a lot of the good parts of the film into cheesy bad parts.