Films You Have Watched

[Nu-Eclipse]

Over the weekend I re-watched Talk Radio, Oliver Stone's underrated 1988 film adaptation of Eric Bogosian's 1987 stage play, partly based on the 1984 killing of American radio "shock-jock" Alan Berg.

Fascinating for its time when you contextualise it in terms of Berg's murder and the rise of shock-jock DJs in American radio at the time (Howard Stern, Don Imus, etc.). Bogosian has the starring role here as he did in the original play and his presence is arresting on-screen with it. Supporting cast also solid, with the likes of John C. McGinley and Alec Baldwin amongst it.

Well worth a watch.

[fallenangle]

A Quiet Place - Part II to call it by its full name turned out to be pretty good mainly because it felt like little more than a continuation of the first film.

Not quite the same level of tension and emotional engagement but enough jump scares and jeopardy to season the watch yet not too many for it to have become ineffective.

Definitely worth seeing if you enjoyed the original.

[Neon Ignition]

Porky's
The next '81 era film we've reached and there are one or two good moments in it but man, it has aged and in a very... awkward way.

[Atticus]

Oof, I've been swimming in the 80s VHS waters too thanks to an amazing release from Arrow: Enter the Video Store: Empire of Screams. This collects 5 gems from Empire International Pictures along with an 80 page book designed like a video magazine, an Arrow video membership card and loads of postcards and posters and stuff. The whole thing is full of 80s video store nostalgia and love. Hoping the title of the set implies there will be more 'Enter the Video Store' reseases too.

I've watched three oif the five films so far, stating with ...

The Dungeonmaster. What a great starting point. It kind of makes no sense at all but it's brill. There are three cuts of the film, including a pre-release version entitled Ragewar with added nudity. I thought the added context might prove invaluable so chose this version. It's about a computer programmer who has a mad talking computer whom his girlfriend isn't too keen on. He also has like glasses that can control stuff. Then him and his girlfriend get sucked into a realm with an evil overlord ... she is taken captive and he has to complete tasks to win her back. Brilliant.

Then Dolls. This one is made by Stuart Gordon of Re-Animator and From Beyond fame. It's good fun ... with peeps breaking down near a big old house where an old toymaker and his wife live. And the house is full of dolls. Everywhere. Loads of them. The stop motion is great but I was hoping for a bit more blood and gore.

Then Cellar Dweller. Like the other two I hadn't seen this one either, though I remember seeing the cover loads of times. It's got a proper Tales from the Crypt vibe ... especially based around the work of a horror comic illustrator and creator of the Cellar Dweller comic book. The funny thing about this one is the setting: a strange art academy in the middle of nowhere. Again, great fun ... though I'd say I had a better time with the other two.

Only Arena and Robot Jox to go.

[wakka]

I really love how these labels have gone from strength to strength. This is such a great idea for a box set. Thanks for the impressions!

[CMcK]

I’d buy a Robot Jox / Crash N Burn box set. So bad but so good.

[Neon Ignition]

Not watched but noticed that in August some cinemas will be showing Enter the Dragon and 2001: A Space Odyssey for each films 50th Anniversary

[wakka]

I rewatched Mission Impossible: Fallout last night as an aide memoire before seeing Dead Reckoning Part 1 this weekend.

That is such a good film. It totally delivers and I feel like the fact that the series continues to break new ground and do new stuff six entries in and yet be consistent with the earlier part of the franchise is really rare. It is a little bit too long and the screenplay is patchy - several exchanges, and the main villain, are yawn-inducing clichéd spy folderol - but overall it totally works.

The stunt sequences are just extraordinary and totally outclass anything else out there. When you compare what Fallout does with the videogame cutscene level fluff delivered by something like Skyscraper or The Meg, it's just out there on its own. The motorbike chase in Paris, the HALO jump and, most especially, the climactic helicopter chase and clifftop fight are absolutely brilliantly done. I feel like it proper channels classic Hong Kong stunt cinema but with the budget turned up to 11.

I love the traditional Mission Impossible reversals using masks and trickery to fool both the audience and characters in the scene, too. So much fun. Like a magic trick.

[fallenangle]

^ Yes, agree.

I rewatched MI: Fallout a few days ago as part of C4 Film 4's recent MI 'fest'. I'm not a great fan of the series but that's a good action film by any measure.

[QualityChimp]

[MENTION=4034]Atticus[/MENTION], that VHS boxset looks really cool!

I've got tickets for M:I Dead Reckoning on Saturday, yay!
Agree, I love the series and recently rewatched them, but am tempted to watch the last 3 again as they're just so good.

Particularly love the bit in Fallout where Hunt is being chased by the cops on his motorbike in Paris and they finally catch him as he limps away from the crashed bike, then falls backwards and disappears.
Camera moves to reveal the Seine is below, then cuts to the M:I crew on a boat, wordlesslly acknowledging each other whilst the excellent M:I theme with just the parade drums plays.

Bonus fact:
In Morse code, M is _ _ and I is ..
DASH DASH DOT DOT DASH DASH DOT DOT
(can you hear the theme in your head now?!)

[fuse]

Waltz with Bashir was about to be delisted so I put aside the time for it. It's an animated film that sits somewhere between a dramatisation and a documentary, concentrating on the 1982 Lebanon war but notably told from the perspective of former Israeli soldiers navigating a haze of PTSD and repressed memories as they try and piece together their proximity to the civilian massacres that unfolded during the conflict. On one hand it's a harrowing thing to learn about, but it also feels like the fancy rotoscope animation and the Max Richter soundtrack distance you from what happened, which is a weirdly uncomfortable position to be in when you're not even being told the story from the real victim's perspective in the first place.

[wakka]

Waltz with Bashir wasn't as good as I wanted it to be. Long time I've seen it now but I remember finding it a little bit disappointing.

I watched Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1.

The Christopher McQuarrie MIs really keep the quality super high. I'm not sure if I'd say this is necessarily better than Fallout, but it's at least on par. Superb stuntwork - the marquee one with the motorbike is just, chef kiss - and despite a massive runtime of nearly three hours, there's hardly a moment's break from the tension.

Bad stuff? When the dialogue aims for a serious tone, it's the usual hokey claptrap. Fist fights between Hunt and baddies are slightly sapped of tension by the fact that we have never seen the dude lose one of these. And some Russians in a submarine inexplicably speak English to each other.

But this is all just nitpicking. It's huge fun and a tour de force of contemporary action filmmaking. No one does blockbuster stunts like the MI team. It's legit.

See it in IMAX if you can - just like with Rogue Nation and Fallout, for the big action sequences the aspect ratio opens out to a wall-filling 1.43:1 and it's truly immersive (and, in this one, vertigo-inducing).

[Neon Ignition]

The Eyewitness
No word of a lie, for much of the first half of the film we thought this was going to be about William Hurt's lead being a creepy obsessive stalker of Sigourney Weaver's newcaster. But no, we're supposed to root for and find endearing his predatory approach to sliding into her life and bedsheets... *shudder*. The plot instead focusing on him lying about seeing a murder and getting caught up in events. Not great but the big name cast kept us onboard till the end.

Heavy Metal
I can see why this has its cult fanbase but... it's awful

Scanners
This was alright, it starts fairly strong but loses steam the longer it runs for with another film once again having an unlikeable lead and telepathy a little too focused on causing migraines than anything that clever.

Insidious: The Red Door
In effect, this latest entry reopens the door *badum-tish* to the cast of the first two films. It just about gets by but you learn absolutely nothing new and it feels budget constrained with everyone sidelined to focus on Dalton and his father who spend most of the runtime seperated, the demon neither explained still after five films or wrapped up making this a little bit of a filler film for more.

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One
Rewatches will settle this one but I think this circles the peak of the franchise, it largely solves the wonky plotting of the franchise by instead fixing the pacing. It never feels like it lets up despite the runtime being long which makes it feel breezy and enjoyable rather than a tad bogged down like Rogue Nation felt at times. Building itself up an impressive cast too.

[wakka]

Eyewitness doesn't really land and isn't a great film but I find it a little bit of an interesting curio.

Speaking of films which aren't great and don't really land I watched M3GAN.

I've got to say, I don't really understand the critical praise that was heaped on this one. I guess critics went in with exceptionally low expectations - Child's Play's reputation far exceeds its actual quality, and this is probably a better film than that one.

It's a typically easy watching Wan-iverse horror, tailored for teens and snackable enough for home viewing on a dull Monday evening, but there just isn't much there to hold onto. The pacing is pedestrian and I wanted the film to go much further and get much wackier than it did.

I don't mean the PG-13 nature of the violence, necessarily, which drew criticism from some quarters, but more the predictability of proceedings. About half the film is setup, which is surprising considering the basically routine plot structure, and the final third fails to deliver as satisfying a climax as it could have.

->Open Spoiler<-

We're teased that there'll be an Apple style unveiling of M3GAN, where there seemed ample opportunity for her to go haywire and cause serious mayhem on-stage and off that's then broadcast across the globe. But then she just goes home instead and we get a fight inside the house. Which was a little bit of a letdown.

Plus, the film really didn't deliver on the subplot of the guy stealing the designs for M3GAN. Would've been cool if M3GAN had finally been defeated then we see thousands of them cloned in a factory in China, ready to be sold as toys.

[Lebowski]

We sat and watched Zach Snyders Army of the Dead over the weekend its a film id been meaning to watch but was put off by the running time and the bad reviews, i was craving a cheesy zombie film so i thought why not. spoilers ahead, its an old crap film i wont spoiler tag this post so be warned.

The films set up is about millions of dollars being in a vault under Vegas that's waiting their for someone to take it, The only issue being is Vegas is a walled off city swarming with zombies. Part zombie film part Vegas heist its a pretty fun set up. We start the film with an ultra strong zombie escaping a military convoy who at the start of the film is able to withstand a squad of soldiers with semi automatic riffles making you think that he's some sort of super zombie impervious to bullets with how much he's shot at the start. super zombie and some zombie soliders moves down into Vegas and infects the entire town. skip to present day, the military walls off vegas and is going to nuke it as part of a 4th of July celebration.

A wealthy business man recruits Dave Bautista to get his money out before its disintegrated "que getting a team together montage" the cast is all tropes, Ex Soilder tough guy, safe cracker nerd who cant fight or shoot, tough sassy guide who's had multiple excursions into zombie infested Vegas, greedy guy who wants money, and shady double cross guy who's up to no good.

Upon entering the city we find out that the zombies have some sort of hierarchy and will let you move through the city if you offer them a sacrifice. The main super zombie now has a zombie wife who is pregnant and he uses a spear a horse and has Armour, we also have zombies that can do martial arts and uses weapons Its all very much a break form the norm of shambling undead as they all seem to have super human strength and speed. Their pretty much just left alone to start with until double cross guy kills queen zombie and puts her head in a bag, starting a full scale attack.

It's no suprise here that they all the spares in the squad come to grizzly ends due to not being able to get past their faults, yeah go back for the money when theirs, swams of zombies in the safe. Yeah double cross your team while your at the heart of zombie territory as running off on your own always ends up well in these films. The fact that half the cast could of made it out at the end if they had got on the helicopter as soon as they got to the roof is massively annoying. "get on the helicopter you morons you didn't see the main bad guy die and theirs a nuke about to land on your head in minutes you ****ing muppets" like clock work the bad guy is on the roof and running at the helicopter as its lifting off,

What surprised me the most was the main zombie gets his head blown off with a single bullet something that a squad of soldiers failed to do at the start of the film??? it would have made more sense for him to be knocked out the helicopter and shown to be disintegrated by the nuke but nope one shot to the head did it from a hand gun.

The biggest plot hole seems to be double cross guy, he gets the thing he wants pretty early on and on and pretty near the way out to the city, he could of left his job complete with the zombies going crazy everywhere. Nope he goes to the vault with the others and then double crosses them to their face by trying to lock them in the basement and telling them his boss wants a live zombie head not money. It makes zero sense for him to be there and not to have left the city already. they have a circlar saw and instead of cutting through the flimsy lock or the grate above them they cut through a concrete wall.

That about sums it up a pointless film and a bizzare mess of tropes plot holes and ideas that don't really go anywhere or even make sense.