What have you watched recently? 3D!

'Goodfellas'

Based on Nicolas Pileggi's book 'Wiseguy', about mafia mobster Henry Hill, Martin Scorsese's 1990 classic is probably the best film he's made, although 'Taxi Driver' and 'Raging Bull' are only a couple of mm's behind.

Even if the film is more a series of vignettes, rather than a solid whole, it doesn't stop the story from developing in an easily digestible manner, and while characters can come and go (hello Christopher Soprano!), their brief screen presence is largely satisfying enough. In any case, if Scorsese had tried to film all of Hill's story, the movie would have ended up 8 hours long and as it stands, there were many script rewrites to get it to where it ended up.

But there isn't a second of flab on the screen and each scene plays out superbly, in no short credit to Thelma Schoonmaker's brilliant editing. It's in no doubt aided by a cast that is absolutely perfect for their roles too, with some of them never being better. DeNiro's Jimmy Conway (based on the real life Jimmy Burke) provides a great anchor to Ray Liotta's central performance of Henry Hill and Paul Sorvino's Paulie Cicero (real life Paul Vario) is suitably dead eyed and cold. But, for many, it's the wild and unpredictable Tommy DeVito (based on Tommy DeSimone and a career best Joe Pesci) who remains the film's most memorable, and volatile, character.

The film is jam packed with classic tunes, too, that provide excellent grounding for the timeline. As the story spans the passage of time from the 50's to the 80's, Scorsese's carefully chosen tracks date the era nicely and the songs are a bit of a character themselves.

As you'd imagine, the film is laced with casual violence, but its never gratuitous and seeing these thugs in action is undeniably fascinating.

10/10


'Her'

Joachim Phoenix's mopey Theodore Twombly, works as a kind of proxy letter writer in some obscure, undisclosed, company. He has recently broken up with his wife and is awaiting their divorce, which has made him even more depressed than usual and his life seems to be a pretty miserable existence at the juncture we are introduced to him.

One day he buys a new operating system that the seller promises will learn, adapt and evolve. He chooses a female voice, which calls herself Samantha, to act as a vocal interface of sorts. But soon he finds out that it is much, much, more and over time he begins to fall in love with it.

Set in a wholly believable and not too distant future, Spike Jonze's 'Her' sounds like it would be a twee and hokey "romance". But, it throws up a lot more insights on the nature of love, the role that vocal communication plays in relationships, break ups, technology and our increasing reliance on it for our daily lives. It's kind of faintly disturbing, too, in a "get under the skin" fashion and the smart use of Scarlett Johansson's lovely, broken, voice is a wonderful move, which makes Twombly's unnatural love interest all the more convincing and less far fetched as it might sound on a first impression.

And even if I was, all the way through the film, thinking that Twombly was an insufferable derp, I still felt gutted for him when the bloody computer tells him that she's being doing the dirty, of sorts, and dumps him to bugger off on her own way. Luckily, for Twombly, it's implied that good old friend (and recently dumped herself) Amy Adams will be there to provide a possible real romance in the future.

8/10


'Halloween'

The 2018 "rebootle" that seeks to destroy the multiple sequels that spawned after John Carpenter's smash hit 1978 slasher is a bit of a damp squib, it has to be said. While not terrible, it's completely pedestrian and contains absolutely nothing we haven't seen before from the genre.

Although beginning stupidly, it settles down into a fairly well acted piece, with Jaime Lee Curtis taking the honours in her reprisal of the permanently tormented Laurie Strode, rendered here as a grannie that's spent decades preparing for Michael Myer's inevitable return. It's all so obvious what's going to happen in the film and there is nothing new at all here for anyone familiar with Carpenter's film, or slashers in general.

2018's lazily titled 'Halloween' is effective enough, if largely harmless, but it does have a good bit of fat that needed better trimming in the editing room. Everything to do with Laurie's daughter is just so unnecessary and I ended up feeling that it would have been better to merely focus on the relationship between Grandmother and Granddaughter, without the pauses to focus on her boring offspring's tedious middle class life. There are a some other scenes, too, that leave you wondering why they were included and there is also an atrocious "twist" that really never needed to exist.

The movie also misses Carpenter's touch and Dean Cundy's instantly recognisable cinematography too. It's all filmed in a very perfunctory, if perfectly fine, manner. Not that a slasher film has to be anything but serviceable and respectful to the tropes of its, admittedly, tired genre. But, there's nothing stand out about Blumhouse's 'Halloween' and while I couldn't care less about every sequel from 'Halloween IV' onwards, I have to admit to being mildly irked about its destruction of 'Halloween II', which I've always liked. The wonderfully bizarre 'Halloween III' still exists in its own universe of course and we can all be...er...thankful? for that, I guess.

6/10

'Inside No.9'

The very definition of a mixed bag, 'Inside No.9' runs the gamut of smart, funny, scary and boring all in the space of 6 episodes. Written and performed (mostly) by two of 'The League of Gentlemen', Reece Sheersmith and Steve Pemberton, the TV show is a sort of "anything goes" type of free imagination, where the viewer really doesn't know what an episode will bring. This can, obviously, be a good thing and a bad thing and, in fairness, series one of 'Inside No.9' is mostly good. But, there were moments I was checking my watch - The Understudy - and at least one entire episode - Last Gasp - that lost me altogether.

On the plus side, there are a couple of episodes that are very good, such as the well written Tom & Gerri and A Quiet Night in. Also, as you would expect from members of 'The League of Gentlemen', there's a level of creepiness in a couple of episodes too, with The Harrowing ending with some pretty scary visuals.

Over all, it's well worth a watch and I'll be throwing on the second series soon enough.

8/10

Pacific Rim Job 2 - Acting, plot line, dialogue - lame. Held my interest for 20 minutes, then it was background noise.

'Inside No. 9' series 2 - 4

Prompted by a pretty good first series, I burned through the entire show as it currently stands and it comes off as a largely well written one, with a few bumpy intervals here and there, which I suppose is to be expected in a TV show that's a completely different thing each week.

Sheersmith and Pemberton's scripts are usually interesting and rarely dull, but it does happen on occasion. But, in general, 'Inside No. 9' is an excellent example of its kind and when it's good, it's great, with a number of standout episodes, like The 12 Days of Christine, Cold Comfort, The Riddle of the Sphinx, Diddle Diddle Dumpling, Private View, Bernie Clifton's Dressing Room, Once Removed, To Have and to Hold and Tempting Fate.

Here and there, like the first series, the quality slips and one or two relatively duff entries can raise their head, like Nana's Party, Seance Time, The Bill and Empty Orchestra which, while interesting enough ideas, don't live up to the better stories that the pair can come up with. But, there's really only been two episodes that didn't do anything at all for me, Last Gasp and the aforementioned Empty Orchestra.

As a show, though, 'Inside No. 9' contains more entertaining ideas in its 24 current 30 minute episodes - 26 if you include the specials - than a lot of other TV fare.


Series 2 - 7/10

Series 3 - 7/10

Series 4 - 9/10

Watched Roma last night.

Well, I say watched it. Stopped after the hour mark, tripe. Wil' boring.

Sometimes I can't understand rave reviews for what I see as bad films. Then again perhaps I'm a philistine. Hated Moonlight too.


On the other hand, went to see the Spider verse film today. Really surprised, it was excellent.

Don't like spoilers....go away...

'Bird Box'

A surprisingly decent Sandra Bullock vehicle from Netflix that sees her as a somewhat implausible mid 50's mum to be that goes through an indistinct end of times scenario, where the exact cause of that end is refreshingly kept vague. Simply put, if you see this...whatever...you want to kill yourself, which leads to a pretty efficient elimination of much of mankind. Unless, of course you're blind or already a psycho, in which case, you have an advantage over everyone else. I guess blind psychos would be the top of the food chain now? People without these "advantages" have to go around with blindfolds on while outside and seal up their windows when inside.

It's a fairly simple premise and doesn't need any more expansion than what we get in the film, which is split, in a way, between a "now" section and a "then" section. This is an ok approach, but it has the adverse effect of sealing the fate of nearly every other character, except for Bullock and the two children were are introduced to her with, unfortunately.

Elsewhere, there's a nice, but obvious, turn from John Malkovich as the bog standard "bad old white guy". An irritating, but never horrible, 2nd mum to be role from Danielle Macdonald and a creepy act from 50 Cent lookalike, Trevante Rhodes, whose smoochie efforts just come across as insincere and uncomfortable.

'Bird Box' is not anything truly excellent or world beating and it is over long at 2 hours. But, it's a perfectly fine end of the world film that'll please the apocalypse types to some degree.

7/10

"211" (2018) on Netflix

While on a routine patrol, an ageing cop (Cage), his partner and their ride-along get caught in a standoff with a band of former mercenaries robbing a bank.

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Dwayne Cameron, Michael Rainey Jr...



Another unrateable dog's dinner but one that needs to be seen to be believed. There's just so much wrong with this movie from the unbelievably bad camera work and editing, continuity, plot, dialogue.....

As an example, at one point Cage is outside the bank in his cop car and reverses away from the building for a long distance only to end up virtually outside the door again where he crashes the car. Then he blazes away with a non-issue handgun at the building which he knows to be full of hostages. In another scene, Cage and one of the baddies approach one another this time blazing away with assault rifles but failing to hit anything until Cage gets a flesh wound in the ankle!

The bank robbers are supposedly ex.US army special forces types but their only plan of escape is to run out the front of the bank into the waiting police cordon.

In another bit of nonsense, a female Interpol agent wanders about flashing her ID card at various US policeman who wave her on to crime scenes like her ID is something that a patrolman they would see every day....

The best reverse cliché that I have seen in a long time is when the bank manager tells the chief robber to shoot him - and he does. You couldn't make it up but unfortunately, somebody did.

Set in the US but filmed in Bulgaria - presumably because it was cheap - this is a train wreck which you may wish to avoid.

Decuc500 wrote: »

Dark Age

An Ozploitation movie from the 80’s about a huge man eating crocodile terrorising an Australian community.
A ranger and two aborigine men try to capture the animal to transport it back to its remote, natural habitat.
It’s part monster movie, part conservation drama and the real villains turn out to be the gun toting, beer guzzling poachers who want to kill the animal.
It’s very much influenced by Jaws and stands alongside other classic Aussie killer animal movies from the time like Razorback and Long Weekend.

Oh wow. It's been years since I've seen that. Always remember having a big effect on young me.

'Hawk the Slayer'

A film that proves the so bad it's good rule in a far more real way than the likes of those rubbishy SYFY 'Mega Shark vs...' or 'Sharknado' films, which are deliberately designed to be awful, despite reasonable budgets.

Almost beyond belief, 'Hawk the Slayer' was written and filmed as a serious fantasy story, albeit one that's seemingly scribbled by a rabid 'Dungeons and Dragons' obsessive. Although, I use the word "story" in the loosest possible terms as there isn't much story to it. Without getting into too much detail, it involves two feuding brothers, magic stones, giants, elves, treasure and an all female religious order that the bad guys torment.

Undeniably, it holds a certain fascination and there's a very real entertainment value. But it's, without a doubt, a bone fide guilty pleasure. Part of which is looking out for the laundry list of British character actors that turn up along the way. Watch out for Roy Kinnear, Bernard Bresslaw, Warren Clarke, Patrick Magee, Harry Andrews and the cutting room floor Jabba the Hutt, Declan Mulholland, who all turn up to get a few shillings to pay their mortgage.

The highlight of the film, if one could call it that, is Jack Palance who brings an enormous side of ham, but devours every piece of scenery there is. Offsetting a terribly bland, but at the time obligatory-for-the-US Market American lead (John Terry), Palance plays Hawk's malevolent brother Voltan. He's clearly having a whale of a time though and provides the bulk of the dubious satisfaction that the film allows. There's one or two of the cast that are trying their best, like Victor Meldrew's wife, Annette Crosbie, and the recently deceased William Morgan Shepard. But, most of the others are just having a laugh and why not.

The soundtrack, too, is a weird mixed bag that seems to channel Jeff Wayne's 'War of the Worlds'. Composed by veteran Hammer composer, Harry Robertson, it rarely matches any of the visuals but adds to the whole experience nonetheless and deserves a mention.

The director, Terry Marcel, puts in a shift, but it's never more than pedestrian. Tellingly, his next film was 'Prisoners of the Lost Universe'. So, if you've had the pleasure of that film, you'll get an idea of what 'Hawk the Slayer' has in store...vibe wise anyway. Marcel always threatened to do a sequel to the 1980 film, but never managed to rustle up the moolah. Perhaps thankfully.

'Hawk the Slayer' could never be seriously considered as a good film, but if you in the right mood it's very amusing and passes by harmlessly. It has a great how was this even made quality and even if you won't laugh out loud at it, you'll probably have a grin on your face.

pixelburp wrote: »

I had heard this film mentioned before - I think in the context of post Star Wars knock-offs - so had to look up the trailer. It's no 'Krull'! :P

No, but there is a connection. Bernard Bresslaw plays giant in both.

"In a Valley of Violence" (2016) on Netflix



Excellent old style western with a difference - can't say much more without giving away the plot. Stars Ethan Hawke, John Travolta. Give it a lash you won't be disappointed. 8/10

Bad times at the El Royale

Nice Cohen brothers feel to this one easily 8/10 film, story hooks you from the start and just keeps expanding. Really well fleshed out characters.


The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, 8/10, I would nearly give it 10 but although it was great the pacing dragged a couple of times, I know the reason and effect it had on the whole film in context but the story of the thespian just dragged a bit.

Gwynplaine wrote: »

Watched 3 movies today.
Death Wish. Was surprisingly good, though it'd be rubbish. Bruce is getting on a bit, but he still has it.
The night eats the world. Very enjoyable. I liked it. A different type of zombie film.
IO. Had to turn it off after 40 minutes. Very slow, nothing happening in it.

Death Wish was rubbish, it was like an ad from the pro gun lobby.

"Our Kind of Traitor" (2016) Netflix



Based on a John le Carré thriller.

A Russian mobster seeks asylum for himself and his family in England in return for which he will provide details of corruption at the highest level of the British establishment.

Stars Ewan McGregor, Stellan Skarsgård and Damian Lewis.

Well worth staying awake until the end. 7/10