I watched my DVD of the Devils Business last night after I returned home from Taken 2, and while it was one of my favourite films of last year I must say that the intimacy of watching it at home brings something extra to the experience. Highly recommended! |
last few films watched... WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU'RE EXPECTING Good balance of comedy and drama let down by not concentrating on the one story that should have been more prominent in the film, if you can stomach Cameron Diaz and Elizabeth Banks, it's worth a look. WHITE LIGHTNING Burt Reynolds takes on Ned Beatty's corrupt sheriff in this pretty cool 70s action film full of car chases and gun fights. Great soundtrack too. SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT A lot lighter than White Lightning and a lot of fun, Burt Reynolds plays the bandit and the film is full of dry whit, good car chases and man that TransAm is a sweet car. DOG SOLDIERS Really good Werewolf flick with a very british sense of humour, some brilliant gore scenes and some great directing, never tire of this flick and love the score too. TAKEN 2 Olivier Megaton brings all the trappings that made Columbiana and Transporter 3 crap to Taken 2, Neeson is good as usual but the film feels more like a parody of the first film. Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen have written a very lazy run of the mill action film and should be ashamed of themselves. The characters do epically dumb things and the film just comes across as stupid. Nothing compared to the first film. AVP: ALIENS VS PREDATOR I actually really like this film, it's fun, exciting and links with the Alien and predator franchises well. I found it alot more entertaining than Prometheus, it's just straight up sci-fi horror for me and very enjoyable. SAINTS & SOLDIERS: AIRBORNE CREED A beautifully shot WW2 drama from the director of the brilliant Saints And Soldiers. Is a bit confusing with Corbin Allred playing a different character in this compared to the first film, but a brilliant achievement. Not as good as the first but certainly one of the best indie war movies you're probably ever going to see. THE DICTATOR After truly hating Borat and Bruno, i was apprehensive about this film, but my expectations were smashed, This one of the funniest films i've seen in a very long time. BLADE RUNNER: THE FINAL CUT Ridley Scott's Cyberpunk masterpiece is a massive achievement in production design and has a very dreamlike quality. Some wonderful performances from all of the cast especially Rutger Hauer and Harrison Ford. |
Last night I watched the BD of Dracula(1931), even though I had planned on saving the set til Halloween. It looked and sounded fantastic, really glad I forked out for the set now. Going to watch Frankenstein later tonight I think |
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The AV quality is astonishingly good and I couldn't believe how 'recent' the new restored HD encoding makes the films look and sound. |
John Dies at the End Another London Film Festival film, this time the midnight matinee (or 11.15pm to be precise) screening of John Dies at the End from director Don Coscarelli (Phantasm/ Bubba Ho-Tep). For those who don't know it, the story is a comedy horror revolving around two slacker types turned ghostbusters who start seeing creatures after injesting a curious drug known as "Soy Sauce". Enjoyed it, but I'd gone in with diminished expectations. I'm a HUGE fan of the book and figured there's no way they would be able to cram the book's content in, especially with a limited budget. But although there's huge chunks of the book missing, this is still a relatively entertaining stab; the clunky stop-motion and CGI common to Coscarelli's films adding a certain charm, and the leads are likable enough. I'm certainly interested to see it again now my initial curiosity has been sated, and can imagine it becoming a minor cult hit. A nice surprise was Coscarelli showing up to introduce the film and sticking round to chat to fans afterwards. In a brief Q&A, he was asked if he'd be filming the book's sequel, This Book is full of Spiders, to which he said it completely depends on how well John Dies performs. I can't see it happening myself, especially with the trouble of getting Bubba Nosferatu off the ground - which he also talked about, with initial plans to cast Paul Giamatti (who is in John Dies) opposite Bruce Campbell (who pulled out). A fun film, but read the book first. It's excellent! John Dies at the End - Trailer Oficial - YouTube http://filmpulse.net/wp-content/uplo...at-the-End.jpg |
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I just don't get Taken at all. I saw the film when it came out and I thought it was instantly forgettable, I can't remember a single thing from that film. And at least two lads from work were going to see the sequel this w/end and these guys would not have been in a cinema in 10 or 15 years... |
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Watched the Blu yesterday of the original Halloween. Can't understand why there was a bit of criticism about this release, as i found the pq absolutely stunning. |
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Horrible Bosses |
Doctor Who: The TV Movie (1995): Filled in the whole left by series 7 last night be re-watching this as part of the Revisitations box set. McGann is still sadly underused as the Doctor (Get him back for the 50th anniversery I say!) but Eric Robert's as the Master is truely horrible. The companions are vanilla at best and the setting is to American-trying-to-be-British for my taste. There's also 'THOSE LINE'S'. I don't need to disscuse these, do I? Over all, it's not as bad as I remember, but still prity terrible. Off to watch Ambassader's of Death now. :car: |
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For a low budget film the original was excellent. I'm going to seek this out now. If you like indie war films Pedro, i'd recommend The Bridge and Winter in Wartime as two excellent films. |
DOGMA i still think this is Kevin Smith's best and funniest film |
Night Train Murders, 1975. 8/10 Excision, 2012. 7/10 Murder Party, 2007. 5/10 |
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main reason why i would only buy my faves w/extras |
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Eric Roberts is amazing and was the only halfway decent thing in that tedious effort! |
Twelve Monkeys on blu. Mindblowing movie that I hadn't see since the 90's. Looking forward to the feature length making of that I haven't seen. The Men who stare at Goats. Really quirky and fun. |
Watched Haunted Mansion (1998) which was a pleasant surprise. I was expecting this late 90's Wong Jing produced horror to be shot on video (not!) and to be mainly funny (not really though there are some fun dialogues) so I went in with fairly low expectations... The movie slowly builds to a climax but luckily Anthony Wong keeps us entertained for a while until things really start to get creepy and even a bit nasty (think Possessed series and even The Rape After). Overall it's not bad at all (even pretty good for such a late 90's effort) but I wouldn't recommend it for a first excursion into HK horror. ;) Btw it seems the Universe dvd has an encoding error which stretches the image to 16:9 but I managed to correct this with the tv settings as this is a 4:3 presentation. I looked for a trailer but could only find this Japanese? tv? spot: 香港悪霊マãƒÂ³Ã£‚·ãƒÂ§Ã£ƒÂ³Ã¯Â¼ˆÃ ©Â¦™Ã¦Â¸Â¯Ã§Â¬Â¬Ã¤Â¸€Ã¥‡Â¶Ã¥Â®…) - YouTube |
Flattened by bastard ear infection. Anti-biotics not working, therefore only remaining course of action is to watch a massive pile of DVDs. Here are some I tried earlier: THE INNKEEPERS - Enjoyed, though perhaps not as much as HOTD. Similar approach, though - slow pile up of nuance and mood. As much a study of human loneliness as anything else - ghosts spring up as stand-ins for central character's terror of life. I liked the cryptic, off key exchanges between the players more than the jump scares, which felt a bit perfunctory. And that bit with the garbage bag - was that quite zen or do I need to get my temperature down? ZOMBIE DRILLER KILLER - Blind buy based on title alone. Why, though? Anything called 'Zombie Driller Killer' is bound to disappoint, surely? Not in this case, which is all the more gratifying given that the title is sort of accurate and yet the film itself is kind of opposite to what one might expect... OK, basically some killer in an orange jumpsuit is drilling people's heads and turning them into black tar spewing zombies. The father of one of the victims does some detective work and finds sinister weirdness going on in a chemical plant. Sounds like the same film you got bored of watching about five years ago? It's not at all - far from being yet another in the seemingly endless procession of zombies-by-numbers, this owes much more to the approach of eg 'I, Zombie'... it's grim, downbeat and serious. Well actually there's quite a bit of black humour, but never at the expense of a pervasive feeling of bleakness and sadness: a good portion of the movie is given to the father's efforts to support his zombiefied daughter, who is less a shuffling flesh eater than someone who seems desperately ill (well, 'cos they are). Disturbing, pretty original and well worth a viewing, probably better served by its former title 'Dark Souls'. The polar opposite of 'Zombie 108', this year's other interesting zombie flick. NIGHTMARE CITY - I always think this never gets enough credit. But I'm biased, it's one of my favourite ever Italian exploitation movies. I'm sure most people here have seen it or know about it so I won't go on about it except to say it never fails to entertain me with its eighties TV dance troupe routines, non-stop apocalyptic carnage, frequently perverse gore and frazzled zombies who just look like they're complete arseholes. I mean look at them, they're not just driven by instinct or a need for braaaiiinnnss, OK they drink a bit of blood but mainly they just seem to get off on chasing and murdering people. Anyway, hats off to Umberto for a movie I will likely never tire of. Now I must let my ear gently weep. |
Get well soon Frankie! ;) |
Hate ear infections, get well soon mate! Just finished watching disc number 2 of the Universal Monsters BD set, Frankenstein(1931), another fine looking and sounding film, they really don't make 'em like this anymore, an absolute classic that deserves a place in anybodies collection, be it in SD or HD. Debating whether or not to watch The Mummy next or skip right on ahead to Bride of Frankenstein :decision: |
The last ear infection I had was fantastic, apart from the pain of course. Every time I moved my head my conciousness would take a few seconds to catch up leaving me with a wonderful free floating experience. Frankie, have you tried Vic's spider in the ear cure all? |
THE CHANGELING (1980) - One of the great haunted house films along with THE HAUNTING (1963) and LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE (1973). The ending is barmy but spectacular and stylishly shot, as is the film on the whole. There's also a brilliant seance scene. Highly recommended. The optimum DVD sports a very decent transfer. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...eling_ver1.jpg Ps. Ear infections suck, spent most of my childhood dealing with them and still come back from time to time; you've got my sympathy! |
1 Attachment(s) Betrayal (2009) A moody, thought provoking, Second World War thriller from Norway, involving espionage and Nazi corruption. Former Aqua singer Lene Nystrom plays a nightclub singer who in reality is a British double agent. Stately of pace yet always interesting, with excellent acting and great photography, this joins Flame and Citron and Winter in Wartime at the top of the list of recent Scandinavian WW2 thrillers. |
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Sorry, I do whine about these things. Anyway, forgot to mention one of my faves of the year so far - BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW. If anybody likes early Cronenberg (as in 'Stereo') and the look and feel of 1983, then try to see this one. At the moment it's a prohibitively expensive import, but those interested should try looking on e-bay, where I got it for £15 inc p&p. It's a strange, in some places dialogueless semi-psychedelic drift though the treatment program of a young woman interned in some kind of New Age psychiatric research centre. It's hard to get a grip on what's actually going on as it's both very elliptical and fairly uneventful (in terms of action / dramatics)... more like film as a haze of images, textures and surfaces, although it's fair to say that it's closer to narrative cinema than a full on experimental work. Actually, one thing I found quite amusing was the end bit, where the film drops its po-faced attitude and almost threatens to morph into a slasher flick, but for the most part it's a trance inducing, zoned out fever dream. It kind of reminded me of what a sick humour free feature length episode of 'Jam' might be like if set in the early 80s with Chris Morris as a Dr Benway style psychiatrist... actually that's probably bollocks as far as comparisons go, but I really liked it and I hope it gets more of an audience. |
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Get better soon, I ended up with a urinary tract infection due to having to self catheterise thanks to all my various medical issues, not pleasant, but I found sitting back with a few films helped! Nightmare city is indeed fantastic, I always seem to come back to that movie time and time again! |
Had m' buddies over today. And we marathoned a bunch of movies! In this order Hello Marie Lou: Prom Night 2 (VHS) Rocktober Blood (VHS) Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (DVD) Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 (DVD) Red Heat (VHS)(Not the Arnold movie, the Linda Blair Women in Prison flick) |
The Outlaw Josey Wales Blu Ray I have lost count how many times i have watched this film. Its as amazing the last time as it is the first time you watch it. Its up there as one of the best films i have ever seen. This Blu Ray version looks great too. |
Dics number 3 of the Universal Monsters Blu Ray collection-The Mummy (1932). Another excellent transfer with good picture and sound quality. I'm planning on watching all the films before returning to each disc in turn for the extras, of which there's a fair bit to get through |
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