I very rarely listen to commentaries, but I have heard his one for Arrow's The Car was abysmal.

Sounds like a moderator to avoid then. :nod:

Really Bad!

In CW's defence though, the director of The Car seemed very reluctant to speak, when asked about a specific scene the director repeatedly replied "i thnk the scene speaks for itself" and other similar comments, not too helpful on a commentary track.

Raze (2013)

Kidnapped women are forced to fight to the death for the amusement of the rich starring Zoe Bell.

Not exactly original but by god its brutal - I loved it :lol:

Try listening to his rather cheeky Island Of Death comm. Manners cost nowt etc.;)

I still think the best commentary track is the one Tom Savini & Chris Stavrakis did for the cut UK DVD of Dawn of the Dead, or Kurt Russell & John Carpenter's Thing commentary :nod:

The Rollerball remake was worse - LL Cool J was definitely watching a different film to me - he was very excited watching it ( especially when he was on screen)

THE BLACK TORMENT

Sir Richard Fordyke returns to his estate with his new wife, only to be confronted with tales of visions of the ghost of his dead first wife and a spate of murders seemingly caused by Sir Richard himself.
I really like this movie and, having only ever seen it on a previous dark and murky dvd, this Blu ray from Odeon is nothing short of a revelation. It looks wonderful.
Sadly there is no reversable sleeve to get rid of that pile of kak that passes for a cover, but I guess you can't have everything.
An excellent spooky gothic horror. Recommended.

It is, but that's hardly Calum's fault. Elliot Silverstein was in no mood to talk about anything, let alone the film and, even though Calum was doing his best, you could tell he would have had more fun and more productive experience hitting himself repeatedly on the hand with a hammer.

http://mondo-esoterica.net/title_img...iant/title.jpg

Ending my sword & sorcery fest with a something a bit more fun.

A rather odd film, it feels like it started life as an attempt to make a really accurate version of the Prince Valiant comics, with most of the storyline and characters deriving from Hal Foster's original and some beautiful comic book transitions. Then someone else decided to make it a Conan inspired sword and sorcery film, bringing in elaborate sets, silly costumes and strange magical powers, while desperately trying to retain a family safe rating.

Apparently the production was rather messy and the director claims several key scenes were edited out - certainly it does feel to have lost some gore as a few deaths cut away very quickly and there is no nudity at all, despite a promising hareem sequence, but it is pretty enjoyable, thanks in no small part to the epic supporting cast, featuring Thomas Kretschmann, Udo Keir, Edward Fox, Joanna Lumley, Warwick Davis, Ron Perlman and Walter Gotell.

A full review with pictures - Prince Valiant review (1997)

Does anyone know why this absent on video in the UK and USA, I had to import a Swedish DVD to watch this.

Kite

It's shite.

John Wick I really liked this. It has absolutely nothing original to add and was riddled with cliche's, but it was brutal, exciting action almost from beginning to end. Reeves was perfect for a role that effectively required him to be nothing more than an emotionless automaton on the rampage. Probably his best film for some time and my favourite action film of 2015 (so far).

I'm still waiting on a cinema release. Since seeing the trailer, I decided that this needed to be seen on the big screen.

I noticed this was released on DVD/blu-ray in the US yesterday. It opened here in Germany last weekend. I agree its probably a film that is a likely to be a more visceral experience on the big screen

We have to wait until the end of April.:rant:

Quite an exhaustive review Mac.;)

But accurate.

It drained the life and enthusiasm from me. It feels like a film that was made simply because they had to (probably because original director David R. Ellis died before making it). There's no passion from anyone. The lead actress mopes about and Sam Jackson practically leaves every scene yawning. When a film delivers a boring performance from Mr. "YES THEY DESERVE TO DIE AND I HOPE THEY BURN IN HELL!!!", you know the script is lacking something serious.

But it's the film's look that killed me. It's set in a post-economic crash world and the filmmakers think the way to convey that is by dirtying up some extras, put a few holes in walls and slap a sickly green-brown filter over every scene. Imagine green-brown for 90 minutes. Ugh!

And because the filmmakers saw District 13, they included some random moments of parkour - complete with ear-shatteringly crap dubstep. Wretched stuff.

Even the film's potential sleaze and violence is drab. The head explosions are nowhere as awesome as Scanners, Hellraiser 3 or Raiders of the Lost Ark. They're more like somebody popped some bubblegum. Even the sound effect sounded like a quick, wet fart.

Did you ever see the original anime? Its subject matter (such as underage rape) is likely to offend but it was a stylish, fast paced affair that allowed time for its characters to develop. Plus, there is an action sequence set in bathroom that is one of the best committed to film.

The live-action remake's equivalent is a boring, cover-shoot affair. No pizzazz or flair - just standard cover-shooting. The most exciting moment was when my cat walked across the screen. Honest to God, could they not have her shoot the urinals and use the water to slide across the room and gun down the baddies?

Seriously, Kite is shite.

Thief.

Sets the style and tone for Director Michael Mann's subsequent films. Precise framing of beautifully composed shots, methodical attention to detail including an almost forensic examination of the criminal acts. A lead character who is both a dedicated perfectionist at his field while at the same time flawed in almost every other aspect of his life and an ambient/rock soundtrack, here from Tangerine dream. Thief is an excellent movie from beginning to end and Arrows Blu-ray is excellent.


Ginger clown.

Seriously, is it possible to NOT want to watch a film with this title. Its apparently the first Hungarian horror movie to be shot in 3D (and then released to DVD with no 3D) A bunch of kids in the 80's decide to head to an abandoned and cursed theme park only to find a bunch of odd, foul mouthed puppets with celebrity voices are lurking about killing folk. I'm not even joking about the celebrity voices by the way, Tim Curry voices the clown (who isn't ginger, more a glowing eyed fish creature) we also get sean young, Brad Dourif and Lance Henrikson providing voices!
Ginger Clown is a f&*%$g odd film to say the least. Tonally it feels like some cheap kids film. It's incredibly juvenile throughout, however, theres loads of swearing and violence as well. Its sort of like a late 80's early to mid 90's full moon picture made by people who are smoking the finest LSD laced Hashish know to humanity. I paid 99p for it in a charity shop, glad I did :lol:

Until now I've always held off watching remake of RoboCop .
But last night I thought sod it I see how rubbish it is it was worse so bad I'll never give it a 2nd watch .it was totally dull and boring to the Max. I almost turned off several times .
Not a single person in the film had any character appeal couldn't care less who lived or died . think it was one of those cases where there seemed more interested in the special effects and making the film look furuturistic than actual making a film .
Murphy character was about as interesting as washing the dishes.
Even as a stand alone film and not a remake the film was still terrible, it one of those film that's a prime example for a arguement against remakes which is a shame because not all remakes are as awful as this .

Cough Spoiler much??
Was looking forward to this.

CARNAGE ROAD: THE LEGEND OF QUILTFACE - I sometimes ask myself what I really get out of watching these kind of films. By 'these kind of films' I mean movies which look like they've been dragged through dirt and left to fester in the depths of some cinematic septic tank before being translated into third generation camcorder footage. The lowest of the low, the most abject of the abject... the 'shot on video' faction, back when that term had a meaning, brought us some epic stylessness, and I guess that's what I'm looking for when I watch the likes of 'Quiltface'. Basically a slasher flick with an arch-dude who isn't afraid to present his supposedly 'actual' face as a rubbish special effect, 'Quiltface' offers nothing new, but it does hit enough of those dysfunctional highs to endear itself to me... these being, in this case, the male lead's increasingly hysterical performance, the fact that whoever made it obviously only had access to one death scene sound effect , the last minute swerve into 'buddies from 'Nam' territory, the killer's cool mask. All of which come wrapped in poorly shot and edited AV. A real charmer if you go for this kind of thing, which I do.

LAS VEGAS BLOODBATH - Despite the best efforts of Arrow, 88 Films and various other dedicated horror boutiques, some movies will NEVER EVER make it onto Blu-Ray. I think the world, and those movies themselves, are better off for this. Like 'Quiltface', LVB is a difficult to fathom oddity from the yesteryear of grotty SOV. Who makes stuff like this anymore? Who made it back then? For what reasons? We can all understand the fan-boy enthusiasm of a Nathan Schiff, but did anyone ever expect to make any money out of something like this? Certainly, you wouldn't use it as your Hollywood calling card. Anyway, needless to say, I love LVB. I love the way it sets up its stall with what feels like a ten minute static shot of a guy on the phone which is just SLIGHTLY lopsided. I love the way that, after a preamble involving a bit of HG Lewis type gore, we get to the real meat of the piece - an hour of seemingly improvised, verite style scenes of female wrestlers chatting in someone's front room. I guarantee that if by this point you resist the urge to turn off your player and reconfigure your copy of LVB into an ashtray, you'll be mesmerised as a reward. It gets better - LVB's slimy killer (who might have a mullet, can't remember), bursts into lady wrestler's hangout and rips the foetus out of someone's stomach. Cue a bit more gore before end. As numbing as it is enthralling, 'Las Vagas Bloodbath' is an indie-gutter masterpiece and deserves a blighted hall of fame all to itself.

When i read this title it was like a hammer blow to the stomach. One of the finest examples of Pendulum Pictures chiq.

I immediately leapt for my Decrepit Pit of Nightmares box set with the intention of watching one of them this evening.

*Nosferatu@Cult Labs - I wouldn't go near this sort of thing if i were you. ;)

Sorry if I wrote any spoilers but I'm not sure what I spoilt.

I have it unwatched too in a 6 film slasher set I picked up for the mind numbing excellence that is Blood Massacre.

'Blood Massacre' is wicked, maybe DD's best after 'Nightbeast'. After you recommended it ages ago I got hold of that six disc set, which is of course where 'Las Vegas Bloodbath' hails from.

Decrepit Pit of Nightmares is a 50 movie set.

As well as Las Vegas Bloodbath there are such classics as Before i Die, Blood Sucking Babes From Burbank, Catholic Ghoulgirls, Toe Tags (excellent) and Suburban Sasquatch.

I've watched all 50 over the years and there are some real goodies among them such as the aforementioned Toe Tags and also Terror Toons. Unfortunately the majority all blend into one maelstrom of zero budget hell. :crutch:

Duly noted. However, morbid curiosity now makes it seem extremely interesting!

Shogun Assassin

WOW :shocked:

10/10

:clap:

Fair enough. Just a wee word at the top will suffice....;)

Not at all. And as for The Car, yeah, the commentary wasn't the best, but if people actually listened to it (instead of blaming Calum), you'd see how the director was awkward, forgetful (although that's probably down to age), and seemed to have no clue what the point of a commentsary was. So to be fair, It's a wonder Calum managed to coax any info from him.

http://mondo-esoterica.net/title_img...0Bug/title.jpg

Okay, a five part Alistair MacLean review series for the upcoming week. Starting with this forgotten 1965 film. Certainly one of MacLean's best books and very well adapted into a film, there are a few changes - the setting is moved to America for instance, but they are harmless, although the change to the ending is worse and makes it a little confusing.

Available as an MOD disc from MGM in the US, I reviewed the old Swedish disc which by all accounts is about the same quality-wise - an OAR, anamorphic transfer with minimal damage, but noticable interlacing on the transfer. Watchable but could be better.

Full review - The Satan Bug.

Milk (2012)

9/10.

:clap:

The Doll (1973)

One of the episodes of the Dario Argento produced Door into Darkness, about a patient who escapes from a psychiatric hospital whom the police are desperate to track down before they harm anyone in the outside world.

The Doll is an enjoyable episode starring Robert Hoffman. Although it's a fairly straightforward tale it is quite disjointed to the point of perhaps being a little unnerving. Not everything is as it seems and one death in a clothing factory although bloodless, is extremely effective thanks to director Mario Foglietti's decidedly strange camera techniques.

A thriller that really engages the brain matter. Recommended.

When I saw a Q&A feature hosted by him, he was just constantly itching to butt in and ask questions rather than letting the guests speak, and I found him really irritating, just saying!

Adam Curtis's Bitter Lake (2015)

Absolutely ESSENTIAL viewing for anyone with even the slightest interest in politics and current affairs.

Catch it on IPlayer while you still can, The BBC is too chicken to put it on live TV.

:clap:

10/10.

Hopefully no North Korean sleepers frequent the labs because I spent yesterday afternoon at a secret cinema location in the centre of Bremen watching The Interview which was mildly entertaining but not really to the taste of my sense of humour.

Written and directed by Alex Garland, the man perhaps best known for writing the Danny Boyle films 28 Days Later and Sunshine, Ex Machina marks his directorial debut. After taking over editing responsibilities on Dredd (which he also scripted), it was only a matter of time before he sat in the director's chair and, with the aforementioned Sunshine and Dredd under his belt and currently writing the screenplay for the long-awaited (and long delayed) Halo film, it was probably the most logical step for his first film to be in the science-fiction genre. As he describes it, Ex Machina is set ten minutes in the future and begins in the headquarters of Bluebook, the world's biggest and most powerful search engine, where 24-year-old coder Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) wins a competition to spend a week in the Alaskan press retreat belonging to Nathan (Oscar Isaac), the company's reclusive CEO and creator.

After a lengthy helicopter flight, Caleb is greeted at the front door by an automated system which photographs him and issues a key card, which allows him access to the property. Once inside, he walks around the huge property and eventually meets Nathan, who is busy working out due to being hungover from excess drinking the night before, who explains the key card is a way of avoiding confusion because Caleb will be allowed to go into any room it opens, but any room it doesn't is strictly off-limits. After signing the lengthy nondisclosure agreement presented to him by Nathan, Caleb is asked if he knows what the 'Turing test' is, and, when he Caleb correctly answers it is when a human communicates with a computer and doesn't know it is a computer, he realises Nathan has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) system and is there to be the 'human component' in the Turing test.

Nathan asks Caleb to treat him as a friend, occasionally talking about anything except work and just get drunk together, but the relationship is a bit strained, perhaps due to Nathan spending so much time alone in the massive house with only Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno), a Japanese assistant who apparently does not speak any English, helping to maintain the exceptional level of secrecy, for company. The only other entity in the house is Ava (Alicia Vikander), the AI system. She – Nathan gave her a gender and sexuality – is mostly robotic in appearance, but her face seemingly has synthetic skin, lips and eyes, enabling Caleb to interact with her as he would with another human being, albeit one who is confined to one room in the house.

From here, the film is interspersed with titles, beginning with 'Ava: Session 1', and continuing as the day's progress and Caleb meets and analyses 'her', determining her level of consciousness and to what extent she is fully sentient. After the first session, he is debriefed by Nathan, who wants to know how Caleb feels, rather than what he thinks, and their (occasionally strained) conversations involve Caleb's emotions and theoretical aspects of the programme, such as an analogy with a computer chess program and whether it knows it is playing chess and what chess is, rather than whether how good it is at playing the game.

As they spend more time together, Caleb begins to develop feelings for Ava, which appear to be reciprocated, and grows more distant from Nathan, whose drinking and short temper is very different to the fascinating and beautiful Ava, who even puts on some clothes to appear more human to her new companion. During one of the sessions, there is a power cut and the cameras go down and, knowing Nathan can't see or hear them, Ava tells Caleb he isn't his friend and can't be trusted. This completely changed the dynamics of the various relationships, causing Caleb to watch what he says around Nathan and spend more time watching Ava on the television in his bedroom. Due to the increasingly cryptic exchanges with Nathan and thinks he observes around the house, including Nathan berating Kyoko for spilling some wine, he becomes closer to Ava and even begins to question his own humanity.

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The last year has been an extremely good for science-fiction, with Jonathan Glazer's brilliant and critically acclaimed Under the Skin, Wally Pfister's splendidly ambitious, but flawed, Transcendence and Christopher Nolan's extraordinary Interstellar. As a directorial debut, this is extremely impressive and shows Alex Garland's talent isn't just limited to screenwriting. He is helped by superb performances by the entire cast, with Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac and Alicia Vikander, all continuing in the fine vein of form they demonstrated in such films as Frank, The Two Faces of January and Testament of Youth, respectively, in 2014. Vikander, with perhaps the most challenging of the three roles, again shows why she is one of the best young actress is currently working. There aren't any accent problems here as there were in the Vera Brittain biopic, where her Swedish accent occasionally crept through, and her nine years of ballet training allows her to perfect the movement of Ava's android body. With his pitch perfect performance, Isaac shows why he is one to watch and is likely to be an actor who commands major roles from big-name directors in the next few years.

The film is beautifully photographed by Rob Hardy, whose use of colour gives both a contemporary and futuristic feel and gives the exterior and interior scenes the tension demanded by the screenplay and Mark Day's spot-on editing. My review would be remiss without mentioning incredible work done by Milk Visual Effects and Double Negative; the glimpses you see of Ava in the teaser trailer are even more stunning on the big screen and there are other, lengthy, sequences later in the film which I won't mention here. Furthermore, Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury's score (Salisbury of Portishead fame) perfectly complements the visuals and I'll look into buying it when the CD is released later this month.

Along with the aforementioned films, it is encouraging to see filmmakers take risks and make ambitious projects which treated the audience as intelligent adults who like to be challenged, watching something which introduces big concepts, philosophical debates and real-world issues. Alex Garland, as mentioned earlier, said this was set in the near future as people would be shocked, but not surprised, if Apple or Google announced they had created an AI system in the same way Nathan had by using Bluebook.

Ex Machina is a thought-provoking, stylish and gripping sci-fi film, easily the best debut in the genre since Duncan Jones made Moon, which should stand up to repeated viewings and which, along with Under the Skin, Transcendence and Interstellar, shows there is a market for cerebral science-fiction in multiplex cinemas.

Ex Machina Official Teaser Trailer #1 (2015) - Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson Movie HD - YouTube

Great review mate, i really want to see this, looks good.:)
I know this was a mistake, but it made me laugh -

'Once inside, he walks around the huge property and eventually meets Nathan, who is busy working out due to being come over from excess drinking the night before, '

:pound:

Duly amended – thanks for the spot!

You should watch it at the cinema if you can – the visuals and sound, even for a fairly intimate film, are extremely impressive and will be so much better there than in your living room.