Cinepub

Moved!

2009-07-11T03:40:00.000-07:00

Cinepub has moved here!

Wolverine Review

2009-05-27T13:21:00.000-07:00

Star Trek Review

2009-05-24T03:39:00.000-07:00

Mad Max: Children Of The Apocalypse Trailer

2009-05-15T19:07:00.000-07:00

Max faces his toughest challenge yet in Children Of The Apocalypse (aka what happens when I stay in on a Friday night instead of going out drinking.)

Review: JCVD

2009-05-10T02:38:00.000-07:00

Six TV Shows That Are More Than Worth A Watch Before You Die.

2009-05-08T23:06:00.000-07:00

The summer blockbuster season is upon us and before long we shall all be sick and tired of movies. Well, probably not but I’ve spent so long now worrying about things such as Deadpool and just how ridiculously big Devastator will be that I needed to back off from it all for a moment. So I decided to visit with that other great visual medium of our age, Television.

Before Television there were only the dark times and man was a brutish, violent creature I assume, without the flickering glow of the screen to keep him from going on extreme rampages of rape and pillage. Finally, TV was invented by the baby Jesus and finally the world was saved from it’s self. Who wanted to slaughter their neighbours when you could watch 14 different TV shows involving celebrity chefs in cook off contests? Who could be bothered to set fire to cows when home makeover shows could be watched literally anytime during the day or night? That’s right, no one. No one in their right mind.

With that in mind, let us take a look then at some of the greatest TV shows that have graced that flickering screen in recent years. The rules are simple. The show must have completely run it’s course, so there will be no appearances by Dexter, Heroes or Ramsay‘s Kitchen Nightmares, and the series must be available to purchase on DVD. With that in mind, let us begin.

6) The X-Files

There was a time when I was not the Sceptic I now consider myself to be. In fact, I was quite the opposite ready to believe any paranormal nonsense that I heard about without stopping to consider the evidence. Some of that, in part at least, probably had to do with the X-Files. It turned a generation of kids and adults into crazy conspiracy nuts, at least until the show started to go downhill.

You simply couldn’t escape the paranormal when this show was at it’s height. Every other week there was a new documentary exposing the “truth” behind the 1947 Roswell incident with real actual footage of an alien autopsy or a startling exposé about how man never went to the moon. In other words, we had become uncritical, unreasoned believers in practically everything and only now is the tide beginning to turn again with scepticism becoming more and more acceptable, though admittedly as long as the internet remains a paradise for the paranormal believers to gather and spread misinformation, we shall have a long way to go.

So you’d think, considering all the damage it is partially responsible for, that I would hate this show. In truth, however, I love this show. Ok, so the later seasons where David Duchovny and even Gillian Anderson leave are weak but you have to remember the good old days. Episodes such as Home, a truly chilling episode in which Mulder and Scully have to investigate a rural inbred family regarding the murder of a baby. Or Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose, a humorous episode which sees the two agents consulting psychic Clyde Bruckman regarding a serial killer. The X-files often managed to achieve a good mixture of terror and humour.

In general, I always preferred the so-called Monster of the Week episodes to the mythology episodes in which Mulder and Scully would have to deal with an unexplained case that would begin and end within one episode. The monsters they had to investigate included such creatures as the sewer dwelling, parasitic Flukeman, the elastic limbed, liver-eating Toombs and the death fetishist, serial killer, Donald Pfaster . These episodes tended to be more fun, almost Scooby Doo-esque, compared to the long, complicated and often confusing aspects of the alien conspiracy storyline.

Overall if you’ve never seen the X-Files or just haven’t seen them for a while, I’d definetly recommend giving them a re-watch, in particular the earlier seasons.

5) Spaced/Black Books

When it came to deciding between these two shows, I decided I couldn’t. Now it’s possibly breaking one of the rules as there’s always rumours that there will be a new series of Spaced or a special or some such thing but it’s been long enough for me to just say fuck it.

So what makes these series so great? Well, Spaced is the definitive comedy series for those of us obsessed with what has been dubbed pop culture and Black Books is fantastically surreal and manages to do great things with a cast of essentially three characters.

Spaced tells the story of Tim and Daisy, two people in their early thirties who suddenly find themselves in need of a place to stay. They manage to get one by lying to the alcoholic landlady, Marsha, and pretending that they’re a professional couple. The building is also occupied by Brian, an artist with a penchant for the quirky, who paints the entire emotional range as exhibited in a brilliantly shot sequence. The rest of the cast is filled out by Mike, Tim’s best friend who’s more than a little obsessed with the military, and Twist, Daisy’s best friend who’s more than a little obsessed with fashion.

Every episode of Spaced is filled with constant film references, be it Tim’s nemesis, Dwayne quoting Darth Maul (Incidentally Dwayne is played by Peter Serafinowicz, who voiced Maul in Episode 1) or a practically shot for shot re-enactment of the death of Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction. Seriously if you love film and you’ve never seen Spaced, what the fuck is wrong with you, you fucking fucktard. Fuck. Especially if you love Star Wars.

I could go on and on about Spaced for the remainder of this article so I’d better stop myself now and talk about Black Books. This series is centred around a bookshop called, coincidentally enough, Black Books. The shop is run by the eternally pissed Bernard Black, a man who loves wine and despises people. He’s helped in this commercial endeavour by his enthusiastic employee Manny Bianco, who is genuinely outgoing and helpful. The cast is rounded out by Fran Katzenjammer, Bernard’s oldest and possibly only friend, who runs a shop next door which seems to sell nothing but pointless crap.

The series is wonderfully surreal yet not obtusely so allowing pretty much anyone to find something to love about it. The storylines are generally grounded in reality but it’s the quirkiness that these storylines are dealt that make it awesome. For example, in one episode Bernard finds himself locked out of his shop/home for a cold, rainy night. He spends all of his money on a film ticket and some popcorn. Fran is unable to help him and so he wanders the streets, ending up in a porn shop just to stand by the radiator for a while before being kicked out and eventually taking a job in a fast food restaurant until the rain has passed. Meanwhile Manny finds himself locked in side the shop with only some absinthe and dead bees for sustenance. Awesome.

4) Planet Earth

Earth. It’s where we all live, for the time being at least, and apparently we share this planet with other living things called animals. Planet Earth is a series which deals with these things. Now, in my mind this is the definitive general nature documentary. What I mean by this is that this is the best documentary to give an overview of the natural world. Others may dig in and focus on a more central topic, such as Life in Cold Blood, Attenborough’s documentary specifically dealing with reptiles and amphibians.

Speaking of David Attenborough, he narrates this documentary and really, who else would you want other than the legend himself? Well, apparently in America, his narration was replaced with Sigourney Weaver. Really? Hell, I like Sigourney Weaver as an actress but you’re going to replace David Attenborough with her? I wouldn’t put David as Ripley in Aliens and I wouldn’t let Sigourney narrate a nature documentary when you could have Attenborough.

Anyway, the series is notable for a number of things never before seen on television. Like humpback whales being shown to blow bubbles out of their blow holes in order to corral fish into a manageable ball in order to devour them and chimps killing and eating one of there own in one of those disturbing scene which chills you to the bone just because of the freaky similarity between us and them. Perhaps one of the most fascinating scenes involves a pride of desperately hungry lions who hunt and kill an elephant at the dead of night. The whole thing is shot on a night vision camera which just makes the whole thing seem incredibly eerie.

Seriously, the series is an amazing achievement in documented the creatures that inhabit this planet with us, showing us behaviours that sometimes shock and amaze. The whole thing is filmed beautifully and, though I already own it on DVD, since getting a Blu-Ray player and an HD-TV I’m seriously considering getting the series on Blu-Ray. Watch it!

3) Father Ted

Ah, what can you say about Father Ted? The eccentric Irish comedy has gone down in history as one the greatest fecking comedies known to mankind. The series concerns the misadventures of three catholic priests living in a parochial house on the desolate wasteland that is Craggy Island. Ted is a man who dreams of fame and fortune and getting off of the godforsaken island and never seems to achieve any of these things. He’s accompanied in most of his exploits by Dougal, a man with the intelligence of something of very little intelligence, and Father Jack, an alcoholic who’s vocabulary is limited, for the most part, to drink, feck and girls.

The show lasted for three seasons and seemed to get funny with each and every episode. Such highlights include meeting Richard Wilson of One Foot in the Grave fame and tormenting him endlessly with his catchphrase of “I don’t believe it.”, Ted being mistaken for a racist by the local Chinese community, an incredible parody of Night of the Living Dead and of course, the Christmas episode involving a fantastic parody of war films. Speaking of which, one of the actors from the next series in the list makes a cameo appearance in that very episode. Also, it’s incredibly difficult to talk about Father Ted. It really just needs to be watched.

2) Rome

Roman society is often regarded highly, as some sort of pinnacle of civilisation in an otherwise uncivilised ancient world and whilst it’s true that we owe much to the Romans, sometimes we need to reminded that the distance of history often puts a shine on things. Too often we see documentaries detailing the wonders of Rome, their great battles, glorious leaders and architectural accomplishments. The brutality of their world also comes up, generally when discussing the gladiatorial battles of the arena.

Thank the Gods below then for Rome, an historical drama set in the ancient world. Is it one hundred percent historically accurate? No of course not but it’s as damn fucking close as a fictionalised account of the events leading up to, during and after Caesar’s reign can possibly get. The series splits it’s focus between two sets of main characters who occasionally cross paths. There are the nobles as represented by Caesar, his friends, family and enemies and these provide most of the political intrigue and betrayal within the series. The second group are the commoners, the main characters being Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo and the various people they interact with. Vorenus and Pullo are actually based loosely on two soldiers of the same name who are mentioned in Caesar’s ‘The Conquest Of Gaul’, his account of the Gallic wars.

The series touches on a number of historical events, tweaking them occasionally for the sake of plot but always in a brilliant and interesting way. We see such things as Caesar marching on Rome with his army, the leader’s assassination and the love affair between Cleopatra and Mark Antony. Despite all of this massive moments in history, it’s the characters which really drive the plot forward. From the manipulative Atiia of the Julii to the tough but naïve Titus Pullo, it’s these greatly written and acted characters that really bring the ancient world of Rome to life.

A warning though, Rome is not for the squeamish or easily offended. It doesn’t hold back in it’s portrayal of ancient Rome as a violent and sexually charged place. There’s many a scene of horrific violence or a master fucking his slave. The language is a sound to behear as well, with many a proclamation of such wonderful phrases as “By Juno’s cunt!” or “I fuck Concord in the arse!” So if you’re a goddamn pussy who can’t handle violence, sex and swearing then I really can’t recommend this for you, otherwise you have no fucking excuse.

1) Battlestar Galactica

Anyone who’s had a conversation with me since I’ve watched this series shouldn’t be surprised at it’s placement at the top of this list. There is absolutely no way that I can even hope to describe the balls out awesome that is this television show. It contains everything I could possibly ask for in televisual entertainment. Political intrigue, realistic personal relationships, robots and kick ass space battles.

In the pilot mini-series shit is kicked up a notch right from the beginning. The humans, who inhabit the twelve colonies all named for our star signs, is reduced to a fraction of it’s population during a devastating attack by the robotic Cylons and so from the outset we are presented with our heroes and villains. Or at least we would be if things in Battlestar Galactica were as simple as that. In actual fact there are several times throughout the entirety of the series where your perception of what is good and right is challenged. Not only that but it deals with a lot of really rather heavy subjects such as terrorism, religion and whether or not being alive is defined purely in biological terms,

Like Rome, these heady subjects are dealt with whilst focusing on the characters within the story. Even though the plot concerns itself mostly with the possible extinction of the human race, it is the people (and robots) who find themselves within this situation and how they deal with it that really pushes the story forward. There is the stoic, yet completely untrusting of anything mechanical, captain Adama, played by the fantastic Edward James Almos, the Cylon Number Six who’s fascinated by living things, Starbuck, a tough Viper pilot who also has incredible emotional depth, and my personal favourite character, Gaius Baltar, the scientist who bears at least some responsibility for his species predicament and is primarily concerned with his own personal survival. The cast is quite large yet every character seems to be incredibly well defined.

Damnit, there’s so much to say about this damn series and yet not enough time for me to sit here and write it all. Also my wrists are beginning to hurt a little bit, Stupid wrists, so let’s just cram in a few other things that make this series awesome. The shots in space are filmed as if they were being shot by a cameraman with a handy cam and all of the sound is provided from within the ships themselves not ignoring space by actually living up to the fact that there’s no damn sound in space. The special effects are awesome, from people being sucked into space to the non-human looking Cylons, though sometimes they do seem a little too CGI-ish. Also the last episode made me cry, not so much because the ending was sad, though it was, but more because that was it, I would no longer get to spend anytime with these characters. It was truly moving.

So there you go. Six TV shows to entertain yourself with as you while away the hours waiting for the impending icy-cold grip of the reaper around your heart. Enjoy!

Cinepub Presents: No Budget Theatre: Jurassic Park Preview

2009-04-21T05:00:00.000-07:00

It's time for Cinepub to get in on the sweet, sweet remake business. The finished product will be quite different to this. This is just to give you a teeny, tiny taste of the idea of the thing.

The Passion Of The Christ Review

2009-04-16T05:27:00.000-07:00

Ok, so my special late Easter review, The Passion Of The Christ! Um, if you're a Christian, you might be a bit offended. Sorry. (These to videos will be replaced by one once it's finished processing.)

Cool As Ice Solo Video Review: Part 4

2009-04-07T08:35:00.000-07:00

Oh god, it just won't end...

Trailerz: The Z makes it cool, Part 1.

2009-04-06T00:34:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s been a while since I wrote anything and also a while since I just sat back and watched some trailers so while getting caught up on them, I thought I might as well write about a few of them as well. Let’s join me, won’t you?

Taking Woodstock:

Anything about Woodstock is automatically interesting to me and the fact that Demetri Martin stars just sweetens the pot. I think he’s a genuinely funny guy and hopefully he’ll really bring something to this film. Other stars include Emile Hirsch, aka the dude who played that stupid dude who went of and died in the woods in that awesome movie Into The Wild, and Liev Schreiber, Shakespearean actor and portrayer of Sabretooth. My only major concern with this one is that it could end up a little more Waynestock than it does Woodstock but it does look interesting with it’s unique approach to the behind-the-scenes aspects of the festival. It is expected limited release is August 14th.

Drag Me To Hell:

Yes Sam Raimi’s stepped away from Spider-Man long enough to bring us the story of a bank employee suffering from a gypsy curse. Now as of late I’ve been a little burned out on horror films, I just never seem to get a break from them, but damnit Sam’s gotten me interested again. Even more surprising coz I’m more a slasher kind of guy than a straight up supernatural-horror kinda guy but this trailer has me genuinely excited. It’s kind of, well, impossible to tell for sure really but since this a Sam Raimi film, I’m sure there’ll be a healthy smattering of humour too. Good stuff for sure. It’s set to be released on May 29.

The People Vs. George Lucas:

I remember hearing about this a while ago and not being sure what to think about it. On the one hand, George Lucas gave us the original trilogy. On the other hand he gave us the prequel trilogy and Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Alien Plot Contrivance. And of course, there’s the whole Han shot first issue to deal with. Seriously, what would people think if an artist suddenly stormed into an art gallery, after years of letting his work hang completed in a gallery, and began changing it using the excuse “Oh well, we have better paint nowadays, watch me improve this!”
Anyway, I’ll be very interested to see how this film goes and besides, any film with a song about George Lucas raping your childhood has got to be a little bit fun. As far as I know, there’s no definite release date yet.

Infestation:

Well, in my opinion, this is fairly cool looking. Low budget comedy horror with giant bugs that seem to have the power to turn people into giant bug Zombies. Pure mindless fun, probably a good film to have a few beers while watching. I’ve heard some people criticise the special effects but I can’t see that much wrong with them and besides, do you remember how awesome the CGI was in the Evil Dead trilogy? Exactly. Now, this isn’t going to be as good as those films but like I said just a good one to turn your brain off and get drunk to, I reckon. Expect it later this year.

G-Force:

Oh god, did that Guinea Pig just say "Holla!"? The only thing that's great about guinea pigs is that fucked up squeaking nosie they make. You're going to take that away and make them ethnic stereotypes? Seriously, what the fuck is the world coming to...
And why do these movies always have stupid fucking "Hey look, I'm an animal" jokes like that fucking worm joke with the mole. There are intelligent ways to write shit like that. Doesn't have to be largely pun based. Fuckers.
And there's only one fly who hangs with kick-ass rodents and that's Zipper from Chip N' Dale: Rescue Rangers. Mother Fuckers. But hey, I’m well with that dude at the end. This is a horrible crime against nature. This rodent pellet gets squeezed out on July 24th.

Big Man Japan:

God Bless You Japan. May 15th.

Laterz.

Cool As Ice Solo Video Review: Part 3

2009-03-25T04:15:00.000-07:00

Finally! Part 3 is here and I spend a little too much time on a minor montage sequence...

Top Ten Podcasts

2009-03-14T11:57:00.000-07:00

Well, I decided it’s time for something a bit different today. I just can’t be bothered to watch a movie today, especially considering Battlestar Galactica Season 1 just came through the door. Awesome. So, while I work my way through that I’ve decided to do something which ties into movies tangentially, because most of them are about movies. Yes, podcasts have revolutionised the way I, at least, entertain myself. It’s because of them, perhaps, that I need to be entertained at all times. If nothing’s happening my brain feels like it’s starting to fade until I can find something to occupy myself with.

So here is a list of my ten favourite podcasts. If you have iTunes, and honestly who doesn’t these days, I order you to download them immediately.

10. Remember When

Hosted by Parris and Jay, Remember When is an erratically updated pod cast taking a look back at the entertainment of yesteryear. It’s a fun listen with segments like “Great Movies Jay Has Never Seen,” in which Parris has Jay watch a classic film he’s never seen before and then review it for the next weeks show. Generally it turns that Jay, much to Parris’s dismay doesn’t enjoy the film. It’s all good stuff. Especially worthy of note is their six episode specials regarding the Star Wars series.

9. The 10th Wonder Heroes Podcast

Ah, Heroes. It’s one of my favourite TV shows and so it’s only natural that a pod cast dedicated to it should appear on this list. Hosted by Graham Hancock and Derek Russell, the show is about everything Heroes and Heroes-related. There are generally two shows a week, one being a live recording directly after the show has played in the US, in which the pair give their reactions to the episode they have just watched and another later in the week which deals with all the news, spoilers and other such things that surround any major TV series. Don’t worry though, the spoilers happen at the end of the show and so can easily be ignored if you don’t want the show ruined for you.

8. Hometown Tales

I may be a sceptic but I still like hearing tales of the supernatural and Hometown Tales delivers that in a refreshingly level-headed manner. And what’s more is that the supernatural isn’t their main focus, they’re more concerned with tales of local legends, hence the name, and that can deal with anything from a local haunted house to a famous local sandwich. Brian and Gene cover it all in a straight forward yet often humorous way. In fact, this podcast is probably the first one I listened to and it’ll probably be on my ipod for as long as they decide to make episodes.

7. Filmspotting

Filmspotting, hosted by Adam Kempenaar and Matty Robinson, is a more cerebral approach to film than Cinepub can offer and it really is a quality film pod cast. There are usually at least a couple of reviews per episode and a Top 5 list, because, hey, if there’s one thing we geeks love it’s a list. I’ve never understood what mystical power a list holds over us but I certainly love them. Anyway, they also have other features such as marathons which is a multi-episode topic during which the hosts watch various films with a common theme and then review them. It’s really good for finding out about older films you’ve never heard of as well as some smaller indie films which might not get much press.

6.The Skeptics Guide To The Universe

Another stalwart of my ipod for as long as I can remember, the SGU promises to be your escape to reality and it delivers. It takes a scientifically sound yet also often humorous look at the ridiculous claims that people make throughout the week and reports and comments on them. The show, hosted by Steve Novella, Bob Novella, Jay Novella, Evan Bernstein and Rebecca Watson (And formerly by Perry DeAngelis until his tragic death in 2007), often has interviews with a variety of different sceptical personalities such as James Randi or Mythbusters’ own Adam Savage. The show also has a number of regular features such as ‘Science or Fiction’ in which Steve challenges the Skeptical rogues to guess which two news stories are true and which is fictional as well as the newest feature ‘Who’s That Noisy?’ In which the rogues challenge the listeners to guess who or what made the specially selected sound.

5. (Cool) Shite On The Tube

Cool Shite is awesome for a number of reasons. One is the sheer scope of their geekery. They review films, cartoon, television series and, more recently, sound tracks whilst also delivering at least one show a week dedicated to news and listener mail. The review shows generally focus on one topic which is discussed throughout the episode, though tangents are frequent, particularly at the opening of the show. At the end of the review, the subject is given a rating ranging from Shite minus all the way to Cool plus with Meh in the middle to denote something so unrelentingly bland that you can’t even say you hated it. Also they’re Australian and that’s fun. Good times.

4. Film Junk

Film Junk is hosted by Sean Dwyer, Jay Cheel and Greg Gaspari with occasional appearances from the Pilkington-esque Reed Farrington and is separated into many different segments normally beginning with a run down of the weeks news, followed by one or two reviews of current features and finishing with trailer trash, a look at recently released trailers. The whole show is hilarious and yet they still manage to keep on track most of the time and each episode is packed with a wealth of information. Also they’re Canadian and that’s fun. Good times.

3. Simply Syndicated

Simply Syndicated is a pod cast network with a myriad of shows such as The Definitive Word, …Or Do You Think That’s Just Bollocks and the flagship Movies You Should See. Simply Hear is all of their shows on one feed. I recommend it heartily as practically every show is worth a listen, even Make It So, the Star Trek show. Now, I’m not a major fan of Star Trek, only really liking the original series and some Next Generation, even when talking about later series Make It So is fun. Movies You Should See has really opened my eyes to some movies I otherwise wouldn’t heard of, including one of my personal favourites, Save The Green Planet. There are many hosts, as there are many shows but the one constant through most of them is Rich Smith, the Godfather of the Simply Syndicated universe and he is awesome. I salute him.

2. Smodcast

From the people that brought you Jay and Silent Bob and Zack and Miri comes Smodcast, a show hosted by Kevin Smith and (usually) Scott Mosier. There is no real fixed topic here, they generally just shoot the shit. Occasionally they’ll talk about the movie business but they’re just as likely to be talking about fisting dolphins and the still living decapitated heads of dogs. It’s all good fun and on occasion listening to it has caused me to burst out into laughter in public places. You have been warned.

1. The Bugle

The Bugles is the audio newspaper for a visual world hosted by Andy Zaltzman in London and John Oliver in New York. They cover the weeks news stories that most affect our great nations with tongues firmly in cheeks. Their own cheeks, not each others. I assume. There have been a number of features throughout the show’s history, most of which have since been discontinued, such as the Audio Cryptic Crossword during for which Andy would give one clue a week and, upon it’s completion John was heard to remark “I see the glorious history of the ‘Audio Cryptic Crossword’ as I see the glorious history of the Third Reich—a terrible idea that was rammed down peoples throats for far too long.”
There was also ‘Hotties From History’ during which listeners would send in suggestions for long dead people for inclusion in a pin up calendar including such suggestions as Joanna The Mad and the Toba eruption. When the feature finally came to an end, Andy and John began receiving (humorous) death threats. Ah, what fun. Seriously it’s a good show. Download it.

Well, that’s it for now. Hope you enjoyed that and maybe I helped you find something new to while away the pointless, pointless minutes, days and years leading up to the sweet release of death. Come back tomorrow for something hopefully a little more movie related. Laterz.

Audio Review: Watchmen

2009-03-13T10:57:00.000-07:00

Yes, just me reading out my review that I wrote for the Watchmen. Was just gonna leave this on YouTube but fuck it, might as well post it here as well.

Review: Watchmen

2009-03-11T00:39:00.000-07:00

Read a review once: Man goes to movie. Movie is Batman and Robin. Makes him depressed. Makes life seem harsh and cruel. Makes him feel alone in neon world where what lies ahead is bat-nipples and ice puns. Reviewer said “Treatment is simple. Great film Watchmen is in town tonight. Go and see it. That should pick you up.” Man looks confused. Says “But, reviewer… Who watches the Watchmen?” Bad joke. Everybody boo. Throw fruit on stage. Curtains.

I went into this film ready to hate it. I went there ready to be pissed off that there was no squid, pissed off that it wasn’t exactly like the graphic novel. So did I hate it? Was I pissed off? Well, the answer is no. In fact, I really, really enjoyed it. Is it as good as the graphic novel? Of course not. You’re talking about adapting something that could be around 6 hours long and making it palatable for an average movie going audience. I mean seriously, what film is better than the book that proceeded it? Jaws? Well, yeah, OK Jaws. But still most of the time the books are always better than the films, so why is it that the Watchmen film is getting such harsh treatment from film critics and embittered fan-boys alike? As far as adaptations go, this is one of the more faithful ones I’ve ever seen. Hell, Jaws was less faithful to it’s source material and did people complain about that? No, because Jaws can do no wrong! Hmmm, seem to keep getting sidetracked here.

My point is you have to learn to separate the artistic formats. One is a film, destined for mass production and produced by a mass of people. The other is a comic, also made for mass production but there’s a smaller number of people involved in it’s creation, in this case just four, writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons, colourist John Higgins and editor Len Wein, though it could be argued that when it comes down to it this is really Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons baby. Anyway back to my point, a comic book can afford to be long. It can afford to explore certain things that a movie cannot because there’s no real restriction for how long it can last and, especially in the case of the Watchmen, there’s a much smaller creative team in charge of everything. A contained creative environment like this in which only a few people have to keep track of exactly what is going on can branch out into ways that a large production like a movie, with any changes having to be run by everyone, simply can’t afford to. Sacrifices have to be made. And in this case the sacrifices which didn’t seem to hurt the film at all. Sure, some people will say “Well then, if it couldn’t have been perfect the film shouldn’t have been made at all!” And you know what, person who says that, you’re a dick. The film has been made and you’re going to let your dogged loyalty to an item which is in no way effected by this movies existence blind you to the fact that it’s an entertaining film? Well, bully for you.

Now, is this film for everyone? Probably not. For the action seeker, there are some scenes of hyper-violent brawls but for the most part it’s a murder mystery that centres around the heroes thoughts and feelings rather than their ability to kick ass. I will say this though, I felt that the fighting scenes are among the weaker things in this film. The martial arts employed do look good and certainly wouldn’t be out of place in something like the Dark Knight but in a film about superheroes who are retired, for the most part, it just doesn’t seem right, especially from Night Owl II and The Comedian. It also seemed to me that it could give the impression that these people have super strength. It’d be understandable that they could be stronger than your average person but some of the stunts they pull here are perhaps just a bit too much.

So what about the characters? Are they well represented here? Well for the most part, I thought that the actors did a pretty good job. I’ve heard some complaints about Malin Akerman as Silk Spectre II but I can’t really comment without seeing the film again. I guess that means her performance just kinda breezed by me which, I suppose, says something. Someone whose performance didn’t just breeze by me, however, was that of Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the Comedian. He manages the difficult task of bringing a despicable character who you just can’t quite hate to the screen. When it comes to stealing the show, however, it’s Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach who really shines. He was my favourite character in the book and I’m glad that Haley really seemed to get him down. Even his voice was pretty much how I had heard Rorschach’s voice in my head when reading it. The fact that he was the only actor who’d read it before being cast probably really helped.

Perhaps the biggest challenge in terms of main characters was Dr. Manhattan, played by Billy Crudup. Not only do you have to create a glowing, blue god in image but you also have to give the impression that the character can see the past, present and future all at once and you have to convey the impression that he’s losing his touch with humanity. Overall, I don’t think I can fault Crudup’s performance. I think he managed to give Manhattan just the right amount of detachment without severing the link fully with his human past as was required. If I had to complain about anything with Dr. Manhattan, it’d be the effects used to bring him to life. There are times when the character touches another person, such as when shaking hands, that something about it just seems a little off, a little shaky. The same can be said when Manhattan is talking. There’s just something about the movement of his lips which just took me out of the movie a little. Then there is the issue of the good Doctor’s cock. Yes, I couldn’t go the whole review without mentioning it, so let’s just get it over with. The fact that Manhattan walks around so… freely, as it were, is just another way of showing his further detachment from human societal norms. However, I did feel that it was a little over used and sometimes just a little too lovingly animated. I didn’t really have a major problem with it but once more, it’s just something that can take you out of the movie a little.

Another thing which seems to have divided people about Watchmen is the choice of music. Now, I loved it, but then again I seemed to love every damn song that’s in that movie, even ‘99 Luftballons’, so I may be just a little biased. Still whatever you feel about the music in this film, you must admit that the opening with Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’ and the funeral scene with Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘The Sounds of Silence’ are awesome.

So that’s it for now. Hope to maybe do a group review of this in the pub at some point where we’ll go over a few more of the topics raised in criticism and praise of this film in a little more detail with a lot more booze. Until then, I’ll leave you with this: This movie could have been made by Fox. Have you seen the pictures of Deadpool from that Wolverine movie? Have you? What the fuck Fox?!? What the fuck have you done to my precious Merc With a Mouth?!? I curse and renounce you Fox and everything you stand for! Fuck you Fox! Fuck You! Ahem. Sorry about that. Laterz.

Review: Osamu Tezuka’s Metropolis

2009-03-10T12:08:00.000-07:00

Anime and I have a long, complicated past. There have been times when I have been quite a fan and times when I don’t care for it all that much. Generally, the older I get, the more I seem to dislike the genre. I can still respect the classics but as for sitting down and watching an anime series, well that’s pretty much out of the question these days. But why? What is it that causes this ever growing dislike for Japanese animation? Well, I guess the most obvious thing that turns me against it is the pacing. It seems to me as though anime can go for a very long time without much happening. Now, when something actiony does happen it’s generally very well done but for some reason, down time in an anime seems to last a life time and the juxtaposition between the two is often quite jarring. Hell, this even affects such greats as Akira. Perhaps it’s not so much a criticism of the genre, maybe it’s my fault. Maybe not.

Another favourite to pick on when it comes to anime is the voice acting, but I’m not going to dwell on this too much. In my opinion it’s pretty much like anything else, you get the good and the bad. There is the extra problem of course of English voice actors having to cram or elongate a sentence to fit it into a characters open mouth which can sometimes lead to a somewhat stilted performance, especially with the insertion of English lines which seem to be irrelevant or overstate a point just because a characters mouth is moving, but I think you’ve got to cut them some slack there.

Sometimes however, it just gets it right, such as in this 2001 film inspired by Osamu Tezuka’s manga, Metropolis, a manga which I have never read. The central character of it is apparently based on a still from the 1927 movie of the same name, a movie which I have also not seen. This should be interesting. Spoilers ahead, bitches. Seriously, I can’t review this film with talking about, perhaps even showing the ending. It’s splendiferous.

Set in Metropolis, which looks like a 1930s American city but with robots and zeppelins, at a time when there is apparently conflict between robots and their human masters. Robots, it seems have progressed to a stage where there artificial intelligence is practically comparable to humans but they lack the same rights as humans, are forbidden to travel between the four zones that Metropolis is divided into and are forbidden from taking on human names.

The films opens with a city-wide celebration because the Ziggurat has been completed. Sweet, I’ve been looking forward to Ziggurat completion for some time! What? What’s the Ziggurat, you ask? Well, its… Well it’s not explained yet. But it’s complete so shut the fuck up and drink! Woo! Celebrate! The party is soon crashed, however, by a robot protestor who has left his assigned zone and, as such, is gunned down by the apparently twelve years old antagonist of the picture, Rock. We soon find out that Rock is a Marduk, an organisation designed to protect the citizens of Metropolis from law-breaking ’bots. He’s also the adopted son of Duke Red (though Duke really seems to hate the kid), the most influential citizen in all of Metropolis, designer of the Ziggurat and dude who really, really misses his dead daughter. So much so that he has commissioned a robot replica to be built.

Meanwhile, a Japanese detective by the name of Shunsaku Ban and his nephew Kenichi arrive in Metropolis on the trail of alleged human organ trafficker Dr. Laughton, who just so happens to be the man hired by Duke Red to build his new robot daughter. The police are far to busy trying to control all the hubbub surrounding the Ziggurat celebrations so Shunsaku is assigned a robot detective to help find the doctor. He’s kinda like Inspector Gadget but without the personality. Oh, and he doesn’t screw up all the time. Not entirely sure he has gadgets either. Hmm, Ok so he’s not like Inspector Gadget, he’s just a robot detective.

Anyway, the three head into Zone 1, the zone beneath the city where, at that very moment, Duke Red is visiting Laughton in order to check up on his ‘bot-daughters progress. Rock watches from above as Duke seems to fawn over the incomplete robot and, deciding when the robot is finished his father will never have time for him again, decides to shoot Laughton. The bad doc’s lab explodes, activating and apparently finishing the robot, Tima, and the subsequent fire attracts the attention of Shunsaku, Kenichi and Inspector Not-Gadget which leads to Kenichi rescuing Tima from the fire but also getting separated from his uncle and the boring, gadgetless detective. During their time together alone, Kenichi teaches Tima the basic concepts of humanity and such, as well as meeting a chirping recycle-bot.

Meanwhile, Duke Red tries out the Ziggurat which it turns out to be a sun-spot causing super weapon, the testing of which causes some robots on the surface of Metropolis to go bat-shit crazy. This of coure means that the Marduks have to shoot the shit out of them. Since the Ziggurat was tested without permission and because it seems as though the Ziggurat will massively change the political scope of the city, the mayor and the president decide it is time to arrest Duke Red.

As his uncle and Inspector Boredom work on the hunch that Rock killed Laughton, Kenichi and Tima are being hunted by Rock. They manage to evade him and encounter Atlas, the leader of an anti-robot movement made up largely of workers who have lost their jobs to the increasing mechanisation of the city. When their rations are put on hold during the Ziggurat celebration, they decide to start a revolution beginning with killing off Mr. Gadgetless, the robot detective helping Shunsaku. The president and the mayor are assassinated and Duke Red takes control, the military squashing the rebellion and eventually Tima falls into Duke Red’s hands and it turns out she isn’t just a replacement daughter. She is destined to sit on the throne of the Ziggurat and become the weapon’s control device.

Suddenly Rock shoots Tima, causing a wound which makes her realise her own artificial nature and angers her enough that she joins with the Ziggurat, using it for her own desire to begin a world-wide robot revolution and orders the annihilation of the human race. The robots attack mankind until Kenichi manages to separate Tima from her throne, trying to help her regain all he had taught her about being human even as she tries to kill him. Meanwhile the robots attempt to kill Duke Red. In an effort to save his father, Rock pushes the button to activate the weapon but instead causes it to overload, leading to this scene:

Metropolis I can't stop loving you
Uploaded by Marceau84

Fuck yeah, I love this scene. It’s reminiscent of the ending of Dr. Strangelove, a touching song playing over the scene of total devestation. Hell yeahs. Anyway, it seems as though Kenichi finally reminds Tima that she once believed herself to be human and what that meant but as she realises this she falls to her apparent death.

The next morning Kenichi helps the robot casualties whilst searching for Tima, finding various parts of her. He then joins his uncle in evacuating Metropolis with humans and robots in a giant plan-like thing. The final shot, however, is of a radio playing music. When it finishes, Tima’s voice can be heard coming across it saying “Who Am I?” suggesting that if her thoughts are still being broadcast then she may be, for want of a better word, alive.

So there you have it. Metropolis. A truly wonderful film with a wonderful ending. The art is crisp, clean and melded perfectly with CGI. The characters seem to be faithful to, I can’t say the manga because I’ve never read it, but Osamu Tezuka’s style. I don’t the pacing to be a major issue in it like I do in many, many anime films and, though there are a few awkward dialogue moments there aren’t nearly enough to detract from the overall greatness of this movie and if you do find it to distracting, the DVD version comes with the original Japanese and subtitles. Lovely Jubbly.

The film also has an amazing soundtrack. Not only does it feature Ray Charles’ “I Can’t Stop Loving You.” during that climactic scene, it also has some fantastic Jazz throughout. And who doesn’t love robots and jazz? Well probably that wanker robot detective without any gadgets but everyone else loves them. Awesome.

So now that I’ve finally started writing shit again, come back tomorrow for something else. Maybe a review of Watchmen, maybe another Top 10 list. Maybe something completely different. Who knows? I haven’t decided yet. Laterz.

Top 10 Films That Influenced Me As A Youngling: Part 2

2009-02-27T09:28:00.000-08:00

Yes I’ve finally returned with the second part of this list. Sorry it took me so long, it’s been a weird week. So without further ado, let’s get into it. Remember E.T. and Star Wars are taken as given.

5. Transformers

Yes, the original Transformers cartoon movie, set in the futuristic world of 2005! Alright, It seemed like along way away when the film was released in 1986. The film opens with the reveal of Unicron, a planet eating mother-fucker who, appropriately enough, eats a planet inhabited by robots. Unicron, of course, was the last film role of Orson Welles. Yes, Citizen fucking Cane ended his life by voicing a gigantic planet eating robot. Not only that but Leonard Nemoy also shows up, as does Eric Idle!
There are, however, two things that this film is largely remembered for. The first is the soundtrack which features a Weird Al song ‘Dare To Be Stupid’ but more importantly Stan Bush’s ‘The Touch.’ Is the song terrible? Yes, terribly awesome! Let’s have a listen:

The other thing that this film is known for is the relentless robot slaughter that takes place on screen. Many, many Transformers die, especially during the film’s first battle when the Decepticons attack the Autobots base one Earth. Why was there so much robotic carnage? Well, it was so they could clear out the old cast, introduce new characters and have a whole host of new toys to sell!

There is one death in particular which stands out, of course. Robot God himself, Optimus “The Christ” Prime lays down his life so that other Autobots might live to fight the good fight another day. There is no way to describe how it feels to see Prime die when you are a child, especially so damn early in the film. And what’s worse? Optimus’s final act as the Autobot leader is to hand the Matrix of Leadership to Ultra Magnus who is a total fuck up. So we’re left with the impression that Prime has shit judgement. I guess I can give him a pass since he was dying at the time but still… So there’s the influence, the first time I remember feeling terrible about the death of a fictional character.

4. The Goonies

Hey You Guys! Fuck yeah, The Goonies. Action, adventure, pirates! What more could you want from a children’s film? Well, lots more and the Goonies has it all. The story revolves around a group of children trying to find the treasure of One Eyed Willy so that they can save their homes. Throw in a crime family with a deformed son and you’ve got a recipe for success.

Is it me or were children’s films of the 80s a little more risqué than the stuff you see today? This film has references to sex and drugs, the characters swear and there are times when it genuinely seems as though the kids could die. I noticed the same thing in the Explorers and other 80s kids films such as D.A.R.Y.L. and even E.T. Elliott gets wasted for fuck’s sake.

There is so much I remember about this film that it’s almost impossible for me to write about it. The truffle shuffle, Mikey’s moment ‘alone’ with One Eyed Willy, Data’s gadgets, Corey Feldman being a cool motherfucker, Josh Brolin riding a girls bike, Sloth, Chunk’s breaking down during his lengthy confession… Fucking hell, every damn frame of this film is gold.

3. Gremlins 2

I saw the original Gremlins when I was probably around 6. Too young, perhaps, but I loved it. The violence was so over the top and crazy that I don’t think I was really scared by it. It seemed almost like watching a live action cartoon. So if that was the reaction my young mind had to the first film, the second one took that and ramped it up to eleven.

Now I know some people are going to say that Gremlins 2 is inferior to the first film and to those people I say shut your goddamn whore mouths. I saw this film at just the right time for it be forever ingrained in my mind as the better of the two. There’s so much I love here. The genetically mutated gremlins, in particular the Brain Gremlin, voiced by Tony Randall, who is one of my favourite movie characters of all time with one of my favourite quotes:

“Now bear in mind, none of us has been in New York before. There are the Broadway shows - We’ll have to find out how to get tickets. There’s also a lot of street crime but I believe we can watch that for free.”

He is the epitome of what a gremlin with intelligence should be, a bizarre creature with a warped view of what civilisation should be. There’s also poor old Spike, born as a mogwai with a mohawk meaning he’s destined to be the leader of the Gremlins but this role is kinda usurped by Brain Gremlin so Spike ends up as a spider hybrid instead.

The violence is even more over the top and cartoonish than the first instalment and the whole thing is just a little more than tongue-in-cheek, with self-referential gags throughout, including Leonard Maltin with a review of the original film. Fuck, I’ve knackered myself just thinking about this film. It’s awesome.

2. Jurassic Park

1993 saw the release of three major films involving dinosaurs. One, We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story, would be largely forgotten about. The second would be despised and reviled for years to come, Super Mario Bros. and the third would be Jurassic Park.

Now, it’s a well known fact boys love dinosaurs but perhaps I more than most. Christ, when I was a kid I wanted to be a palaeontologist. I even had a favourite palaeontologist in the form of Bob Bakker. He has an awesome beard and a character based on him appeared in the sequel, The Lost World. I had toy dinosaurs all around my room. My carpet had dinosaur footprints in it. I loved every damn dinosaur thing that came my way, Denver The Last Dinosaur, Dink The Littlest Dinosaur, The Land Before Time and Dinoriders (which clearly had the best quality dinosaur toys.) It was all awesome, so when Jurassic Park came along, what choice did I have but to love it?

Dinosaurs were brought to life in a way they never had before. Gone were the days of bits of cardboard being stuck to lizards, stop motion animation and men in giant rubber suits (sorry Godzilla). These things looked like living, breathing animals. People say that the effects look a little dated nowadays but I can’t see it. Every time I watch it, I watch it with a child’s eyes. The sense of wonder and amazement I felt as a child at seeing a T-Rex attacking a couple of cars it still there with me today. What more can I say? It’s one of the few films that just makes me feel like a kid again.

1. Jaws

Iconic music. Iconic characters. An iconic monster. This film was my favourite when I was a kid and it’s probably my favourite now. I often have a hard time trying to decide which is my favourite film but it turns out if I’m thinking about long and hard than this is definitely it. Simple as that.

The film simply ramps up the tension with every scene by employing a technique, familiar in later films, in which you have a killer which you don’t see until fairly close to the end of the film, most of the time the action is seen through the shark’s eyes as he stalks his prey, the tension highlighted by John Williams simple but awesome Jaws theme. It doesn’t pull any punches either, with both a dog and a kid getting killed. This leaves you with the feeling that everyone is a potential meal for the great white menace.

Now many horror films, and I was technically consider Jaws a horror film, have an iconic killer but the rest of the characters are essentially cardboard cut-out stereotypes. Not so in Jaws. You have Chief Brody, the good cop who knows the score but who no one will listen to. He’s also shit scared of water. There’s also Matt Hooper, shark expert and of course Quint. Quint is without a doubt in my top three movie characters off all time. He’s the one who was most in danger of being a stereotype, just your typical salty sea-dog type but he has just enough back story and personality to make him stand out from the crowd.

And god, there are so many great scenes in this film. When the shark comes up when Brody’s chumming to the simple scene where Sean is copying his father‘s actions. Fuck, the scene where Ben Gardner’s head bobs out of his boat still makes me jump and I’ve seen this film a thousand times. But the scene that really stands out, in my opinion one of the greatest scenes in cinema is this:

Fucking Ay.

So there you have it. The list is finished. But come back soon for more reviews, lists and articles. Laterz.

fear nd lothing drunk xperimnt

2009-02-20T17:35:00.000-08:00

Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas: A Tribute Review

On the 20th of February, 2005, Hunter Stockton Thompson died of a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head. By the time, it could be argued, he had grown to be more legend than man. A note was found near his body which read:

“No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun - for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your age. Relax - This won’t hurt.”

Hunter had accomplished much in his life. He had become a great journalist, chronicling many a sporting event and presidential campaign. He had unsuccessfully run for Sheriff in the town of Aspen and he had become a documenter of the American way of life. Be it Hell’s Angels rallies, the Kentucky Derby or the bright lights and dark corners of Las Vegas, Thompson managed to view the world in a way that most other journalists couldn’t because of his unique brand of Gonzo journalism, a technique developed mainly out of desperation and looming headlines. Far easier to simply write up your first person notes and fax them to a magazine than try and write an objective story when the deadline is a few hours away.

Four years have passed since that time and since I attempt to write movie reviews, I figured it would be time to review Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I had considered reviewing Gonzo: The Life and Works of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson but I haven’t watched it enough times yet for me to fully appreciate it which is not some I can say for Fear and Loathing. If anything I’ve watched it too many damn times, if such a thing were possible. There was a time when I could probably quote pretty much the whole movie, and found myself doing it again as I watched this film this morning. So grab a bottle of that devil ether and an American flag and join me on a search for the American Dream. After all, if anything’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.

Oh god, where to begin with this film? Well, how about somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert? Yes, that seems good. So that’s where the film opens, just as the drugs begin to take hold. Oh god, I have a feeling this is pretty much how this review is gonna go. Maybe a plot synopsis isn’t the best way to go about this. Best to leave it for now, get drunk and come back to it.
Ok so I’m back nowe and fuck this. Shh h for a minute. I need to finish of tjis beer. This is so fucking asllu fucking srupifdstupid.. I don’t knbow why I even tried to make tis good. In memory of hunter im gone.look I typed this fuck rhe stupidity. Who else is gonna come out and misspell domeone? Noone becasi I. Im gonna nmpost this tuo cvinepub. Fuck were stupid. Re.

Top 10 Films That Influenced Me As A Youngling: Part 1

2009-02-19T08:38:00.000-08:00

The films you watch as a child will probably go some way to influencing your choice of movies as an adult. Sure, your tastes may refine as you get older. Some art house films may make their way into your collection, the odd underground hit or perhaps a foreign film or two but chances are that if you watched a lot of films of a particular type as a child, you will generally enjoy those kinds of films when you grow up. By the way, some films should just be taken as a given such as E.T. and Star Wars,

So what films then have most influenced my modern preference of cinema viewing? Let’s look, won’t we?

10: Son Of Godzilla

Yeah, that’s right. Son of Godzilla. Admittedly one of the weaker films in the series starring the king of the giant rubber monsters, the G-Man himself but I loved this movie as a kid. It’s got giant praying mantises, a giant spider, a baby Godzilla and glorious bad dubbing. Now I’m generally a subtitles man but fuck it, if I’m watching a Godzilla film, I want bad dubbing! The story revolves around the birth of the big dude’s son, Minilla, and his development. There’s another story revolving some Japanese meteorologists but who cares what the people are doing? Fuck ‘em.
There are some great moments in this film, most of which revolve around Godzilla being mildly abusive towards his son. Ah, giant reptile child abuse. It’s what I live for. There are some fun moments such as Minilla jumping over his dad’s tail whilst he’s sleeping, the baby’s attempt at breathing nuclear fire resulting in nothing but nuclear smoke rings and a few nice moments in which Godzilla protects his son from attacks from mantises and the spider. The ending is also bitter sweet as the monsters island home is covered with a blanket of snow, and Godzilla is shown protecting Minilla from the cold as they go into hibernation.
So this film is the reason that I love Godzilla films. All of them. Well, except for that one Godzilla film. Ugh. You know the one I mean.
One final note about this film. I once saw a poster for it and the tagline read thusly: “Have You Ever Seen A Monster Hatch From A Monster Egg? No? You Will!” Awesome.

9. Short Circuit

I love robots. I love Dr. Pepper. Therefore I love Short Circuit. It’s one of those films that seems to have moulded my life in tiny little ways that I often don’t realise. I’ll sometimes just yell out the word “Input!” whilst reading, so it’s a good thing I generally read while I’m by myself, sometimes I’ll yell “Disassemble!” in a terrified manner, I say the name Stephanie in an odd manner and I can only sing “More Than A Woman” in the style of Number 5.

So what’s the film about? Do I really have to explain it? Fine. It’s about a military robot, Number 5, who gets struck by lightning and comes all to life and that. He escapes from his military compound and goes off about town learning about what it means to be alive and what it means to die. Of course a remake is now in the works and I was one of those people who wasn’t that bothered by the whole remake thing. Sure I wanted to see more original things coming from Hollywood but it’s not like they could possibly detract from the originals at all? Could they? Of course, that was how I felt before the Friday the 13th debacle. I refuse to finish my reviews of the original films simply because I saw that damn film.

8. Dark Crystal

Hell yeah! Puppets are good, Muppets are awesome and this film is rife with them. Not your typical fuzzy animal fare mind you. Rather horrible, freakish nightmare creatures that are based on vultures. Ugh, the Skeksis used to freak me the fuck out when I was a kid, in fact only two things probably freaked me out more, the father alien in Mac and Me and the Child Catcher in Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang. Oh god, I think I’m gonna be sick. Why do you taunt me nightmare monsters from my youth?

Still, the freakishness of the Skeksis is counteracted by the greatness of the UrRu because they look a bit like anthropomorphised giant ground sloths and giant ground sloths are awesome. As for the Gelflings, well, them I can take or leave. They just leave pretty much no impression on me whatsoever.

So what was the influence that Dark Crystal had on me? Well I guess it gave me an appreciation for the fantasy genre and for epic movies in general. As far as I know I hadn’t really seen many films with the kind of scope that this film had, maybe The Neverending Story but I can barely remember that movie at all, and the fact that it was all done with puppetry makes it even more impressive.

7. Explorers

For years I couldn’t remember what this film was called. It was on a video which was full of movie taped for me, simply called “Jamie’s Tape.” So when it came time for me to buy it, I was faced with a bit of a dilemma. The video was up in the loft and I sure as hell wasn’t going to go up there and find it. So I searched and I searched the internet and finally, I found it. It was awesome.

The film is about three kids who build a spaceship after one of them has a surrealistic dream giving them instructions. The spaceship takes them deep into outer space where they meet two aliens obsessed with television. One of the aliens, Wak, seems to enjoy imitating Earth broadcasts such as Bugs Bunny and Mr. Ed. It’s all very fun until a larger ship attacks the aliens. They boys are told it’s space Pirates and warned that they should leave but they soon discover it’s actually the aliens father, reprimanding them for stealing one of the family cars. It’s an all round great sci-fi adventure film and definitely went some way towards my love of sci-fi today. One last interesting fact is that it was the first feature film for both River Phoenix and Ethan Hawke.

6. Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory

This film is the greatness. A surrealistic mind fuck through a chocolate wonders cape, the eponymous factory as owned by Sir William Wonka. From shrinking corridors to fizzy lifting drinks, everything in this film elicits a response of wonderment and sometimes flat out, bat shit crazy terror. I’m thinking of one scene in particular. Let’s take a look:

Did you see that crazy shit? Woah, a chicken got it’s head all chopped off! And that dude with the millipede crawling across his face. That was pretty weird, eh? It would, of course, all just be a random collection of images if not for Gene Wilder’s fantastic, increasingly hysterical singing. Let’s take a look at the lyrics for a minute:

Round the world and home again
That's the sailor's way
Faster faster, faster faster

There's no earthly way of knowing
Which direction we are going
There's no knowing where we're rowing
Or which way the river's flowing

Is it raining, is it snowing
Is a hurricane a-blowing

Not a speck of light is showing
So the danger must be growing
Are the fires of Hell a-glowing
Is the grisly reaper mowing

Yes, the danger must be growing
For the rowers keep on rowing
And they're certainly not showing
Any signs that they are slowing

Fuck me. That’s awesome.

Well this seems like a good time to take a break, part two will be up tomorrow. If you’re wondering why I’m not going into too much detail on some of these films, well, it’s because I plan to review them. Laterz.

Review: Tron

2009-02-18T09:54:00.000-08:00

I don’t know how I had gone through 24 years of my life, trying to watch as many cult classic films as possible without ever seeing Tron. I had known that the movie existed ever since I could think as an adult and yet I had just never found a way to see it. Still this film is so painfully up my alley that I just don’t understand how it could have taken me so long to see it.

Maybe I was put off by the special effects. Thinking about it, I probably wouldn’t have realised this film was out there until after I’d seen Jurassic Park and any special effects that came before that instantly seemed to pale in comparison.

So what’s the point of all this rambling? Well, I was just checking out amazon.co.uk, deciding which movies I should buy to add to the hallowed collection, a collection which contains the likes of David Attenborough’s Life Collection, The Lord Of The Rings Extended Edition Boxset and Masters of The Universe. So I made my choices, picking up Tropic Thunder, Knocked up and The Black Sabbath Story Part 2. I needed something more in order to get the price to a nice round figure and there I saw Tron: Twentieth Anniversary Edition for under a fiver and so I thought, why not?

Anyway the DVD’s arrived the next day and so I popped in Tron and began to watch. I was amazed. This wasn’t the movie I’d made up in my head at all. In my mind I had imagined Tron was about a few people who had gotten trapped in a computer game and most of it was made up of Light Cycle clashes. This plot I had made up for the movie may have been another reason as to why I hadn’t seen this film. The film was much, much better than I’d ever imagined. Spoilers Ahead.

The story concerns Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), computing genius and his attempts to expose Encom company head Ed Dillinger (David Warner) for taking credit for computer games he had designed and then firing him. Flynn’s repeated attempts to hack into Encom’s system is prevented by the company’s Master Control Program (Voiced by Warner) and after his latest attempt, MCP and Dillinger decide it’s best to shut down access to the system for software writing employees. This pisses off software designer Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner) and researcher Dr. Lora Baines (Cindy Morgan) and they decide to help Flynn break into Encom so he can try and take down Encom from the inside. MCP defends itself by zapping Flynn with an experimental laser and digitizes him, transporting him into the system.

It’s here that Flynn meets the sentient programs that inhabit the world of the computer network and finds that they are now at the mercy of the fascistic rule of MCP and his second in command Sark (also played by David Warner). He discovers that those programs who profess a belief in the Users, those who wrote them and brought them to life, are forced to fight for their lives in assorted video games such as the famous Light Cycle one. Flynn is taken to a holding pen to await his turn in the video game where he meets Tron (Boxleitner again) and Ram (Dan Shor). Tron is a high powered security program with orders from his user, Alan, to take down MCP and Ram is an accounting program.

The three are taken to the Light Cycle arena and manage to escape, with Sark’s forces in pursuit in digital tanks. The tanks manage to hit Flynn and Ram whilst Tron escapes. The tanks pursue Tron, assuming Flynn and Ram to be dead. Well, they ain’t. They hide out in the dumped remains of a video game vehicle named a Recogniser and Flynn discovers he has the ability to restore the thing to almost full working order. Then Ram dies which is fine because he’s a fairly boring auxiliary character at this point anyway. Goodbye Ram.

So Tron meets up with Yori (Cindy Morgan again) and they go to a temple like I/O Tower wherein Tron communicates with his user, Alan, who arms him with the code needed in order to take down MCP. Tron and Yori then head towards the MCP with Flynn eventually catching up to them and explaining that he is a User with special abilities. Yori and Flynn are captured by Sark whilst Tron manages to stow away on his ship. Sark is transporting some ‘religious nuts’ to MCP so that he can absorb their code into his programming and informs Yori and Flynn that they will be de-rezzed along with the ship after Sark and his prisoners have been departed. This begins to happen but Flynn manages to bring Yori back with his super User powers. Hooray!

Tron begins to fight Sark and is winning until MCP gives him unrivalled power and transforms him into Sarkzilla. Flynn leaps from the ship into the MCP, causing enough of a distraction for Tron to finally hurl his disc into it, thus destroying it. The world of the circuit boards slowly begins to return to normal and Flynn is returned to his home world. The next day Dillinger comes to work and realises that, not only is MCP offline but Flynn has obtained the information needed to take him down. The final scene shows us that all is well and Flynn is now the CEO of Encom. Huzzah!

So what have we learned? Well, for one Jeff Bridges is computer Jesus, a god who comes to save the computer world, takes on the body of a Program, performs miracles and ultimately sacrifices his earthly (or in this case computerly) body so that others may live. Flynn is cooler though because he has a glowing suit and a motorbike made of light. Yeah, take that Jesus! With your ridiculous sandals and donkey. You gonna outride a Light Cycle on a donkey? Huh? Are ya, Jesus? Pfft, where’s ya messiah now?

Overall the film is pretty awesome. The special effects may seem dated compared to today’s CGI fest but allow yourself to be taken back to that time. Spend a day playing Pong, Pac-man or Space Invaders before watching this film. Then you’ll be able to appreciate it for what it is. There are sequences in this film are essentially what people thought video games might look like if you took them from their 2-d world and could place them in the 3rd dimension and considering this is 1982, I’d say they did a damn fine job of creating a unique, interesting world based on a seemingly mundane looking thing such as a circuit board.

In closing I’d just like to say that this is a worthy addition to any DVD collection. I can see a small percentage of people maybe being bored with this as it can move a little slow at time, particularly before Flynn enters the computer world and when he is by himself, but I think most people will be able to stay on board.

The Vampire Double Feature: Let The Right One In and Twilight

2009-02-16T22:52:00.000-08:00

Ah, Vampires. I’ve always liked the undead, blood-sucking little bastards. Wow, Microsoft Word doesn’t recognise the word undead. That’s unexpected. Anyway, blood drinking monsters have existed for as long as civilisation but the suave, pale seducer that we know as the vampire today has only really been around since the 19th Century and is most famously portrayed in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula.
In this day and age, Vampires are not just some of the most popular movie monsters but also some of the silver screens most popular sympathetic characters. They symbolise the gift and curse of immortality, the inherent loneliness of living forever, the harsh truth behind the fantasy. They also represent a dark side to our sexuality, a very real, forbidden predatory nature with the act of penetration replaced with the biting of the neck and the drinking of the blood.
So with that in mind, let’s get into today’s two reviews, the 2008 Swedish language film, Let The Right One In and another 2008 film, this one in English, Twilight. Let’s begin with Let The Right One In.

Directed by Tomas Alfredson and based on the 2004 novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist of the same name, Let The Right One In, tells the tale of a 12 year old Swedish boy and his blossoming friendship with a 200 year old vampire.
Set in the 1980’s, Oskar is a young troubled boy, bullied at school, who spends his free time alone stabbing trees. It’s whilst doing this that he first meets Eli, someone who has recently moved into the area with a man who is apparently her father. She only comes out during the night and has an odd choice of clothing for the freezing cold weather.
Over time their friendship grows, cemented in the fact that they are both outsiders with no friends but each other. They begin communicating with each other by banging on the wall between their rooms when they can’t be outside together. Their relationship eventually reaches a point where Oskar decides to cement their relationship by cutting their palms and mixing their blood. At this point Eli cannot help herself and so her secret is revealed to Oskar.
This is about all I’m willing to reveal about the plot. I honestly cannot express how much you owe it to yourself to see this film. It manages to tell a sweet, romantic story between the mortal and the immortal, whilst balancing it perfectly with the acts of horrific gore that Eli must perpetrate in order to survive. It also touches on some of those familiar vampire themes mentioned earlier, particularly the loneliness of the immortal soul but it also manages to place equal emphasis on the loneliness of the mortal in this relationship as well.

And so to the second film in this double feature, Twilight, another vampire film based on a novel, this time the wildly popular 2005 first novel in the series of the same name and tells the tale of a seventeen year old American girl and her blossoming romance with a 108 year old vampire.
The story begins with Bella Swan moving from Arizona to Washington to live with her father since her mother and step-father are going on a bit of a road trip. At school she makes a few new friends and becomes interested in an apparently young man by the name of Edward Cullen. It seems at first that Edward is repulsed by Bella but a few days later he saves her life when she’s nearly hit by a van, apparently making use of super speed and super strength. A few days later Bella figures out Edwards secret.
In the sake of fairness I’m going to leave any revelations about the plot there, though this certainly isn’t a film you need to see in the same way as Let The Right One In. I was however surprised by it. I wanted so much to hate this film. It seems, though I consider my self politically liberal, when it comes to movie monsters I’m deeply, deeply conservative. I want my zombies slow and numerous, my werewolves to be vicious, instinct based killers and my vampires to be fanged and to worry a little more than sun burn if they go out in the daytime. And for the first part I did hate this movie. I felt cheated that after 45 minutes I’d seen more compost than blood and more dress shopping scenes than on screen kills. In fact most of the first half of the film seemed to be made up of awkward, furtive glances across a school cafeteria but in the second half of the film things pick up a little with an awesome special effects-laden baseball game and finally a little bit of violence.
Once more the main theme of this film is loneliness and accepting the fact that the immortal can find companionship in a human, but it also explores the relationship between the predatory nature of the vampires and how they regard humans, their prey, which I thought was a nice touch.
Overall I have to say I did enjoy Twilight. I’d definitely recommend it for a rental when it comes out on DVD and depending on the special features, I might even consider adding it to my collection. I mean, hell, I own The Super Mario Bros. movie on DVD and I don’t enjoy that at all.

Friday The 13th Month: Part 2

2009-02-05T02:04:00.000-08:00

My video about the second film in the Friday the 13th series.

Top 10 Films That Make Me Cry

2009-02-03T06:18:00.000-08:00

Jamie here. If there’s one thing I’ve come to realise over the years it’s that I’m a fucking pussy when it comes to even the slightest bit of emotion in a film, especially in recent years. I dunno what it is but the slightest sad thing happens and I’m blubbering like a bitch. In that spirit then is this, a list of my top 10 films guaranteed to make me cry. Warning: this list will contain spoilers and where available I’ve tried to show the scenes in question in video form.

10: Toy Story

Perhaps an odd choice but it’s one specific scene in particular. Buzz is determined to fly in order to prove to himself that he can fly and that he is not a toy whilst Randy Newman’s song “I Will Go Sailing No More” plays in the background. The mixture of determination and ultimate realisation combined with that song just tugs at my heart strings.

9: Home Alone

This may be the movie I have seen more times that any other in my entire life. At family Christmas gatherings it always seems to be on at some point plus it’s a particular favourite of certain family members so it’s just as likely to be on at any time of the year. What scene makes me cry? Well, the final one of course, when his mum comes back. If it doesn’t affect you then you’ve got a heart of fucking stone.

8: The Lives Of Others

The scene in which Christa-Maria, believing she had just stabbed her lover Georg in the back in exchange for her own safety decides to take her own life rather than live with guilt of what she has done. The saddest thing? The incriminating evidence had just been removed by the sympathetic agent who had been sent to spy on them.

7: The Lion King
Ah the Lion King. Truly one of the Disney classics and further proof that Disney hates parents. Seriously how many parents have died or are already dead within Disney films? So yes the scene here is, of course, the death of Simba’s father, Mufasa, and the fact that Simba blames himself. Heartbreaking.

6: Brokeback Mountain

Yes, the controversial film about two bisexual cowboys who fall in love. Leave your hang ups at the door and just fucking watch it. It’s an amazing film with a fantastic cast and it’s roles like thos that truly highlight what a great hole Heath Ledger’s death left us with, though his accents a tad dodgy in this. The film that gets the waterworks going? The last scene after Jake has been gay bashed to death when Ennis does up the shirt he retrieves from Jack’s house and is left to reminisce. It’s a simple, quiet and touching moment.

5: Lilo and Stitch

My penultimate animated entry on this list and my personal favourite Disney film. Not sure why exactly. Maybe because it’s quite different from many of the others, maybe it’s the Elvis soundtrack or maybe it’s just the way it touched me. There are several moments in this film that bring me to tears but the biggest one must be the scene that follows when Stitch decides to leave and everyone is feeling thoroughly sad.

4: The Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King

There’s only one scene really that gets me in this film. It’s the scene where the Men of Gondor ride to almost certain death as Pippin sings a song for the seemingly uncaring steward of Gondor as he feast greedily. Wow.

3. Forrest Gump

Now I’ve made fun of this film quite a few times in my life, mainly due to the phrase “Magic Legs”. It’s just a damn funny thing to say. And while this film is indeed quite funny, it can also be quite touching and never quite so much as when Forrest is saying goodbye to Jenny.

2. Batman Begins

I don’t think I’ve ever seen the murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents portrayed so poignantly. From the lead up, the murders themselves and the aftermath, everything in these scenes is perfect for really getting at the love and respect Bruce had for his parents, particularly his father and just goes to explain his clearly damaged psyche a little more. Most heartbreaking of all is when Bruce breaks into tears whilst blaming himself.

1. E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial

Really? Would anyone ever choose anything else?

Honorary Television List

Whilst making this list, I was reminded of a few things from television that had affected me over the years. Here they are in no particular order… except the best is at the end.

Extras - Big Brother Speech

I dunno what it is exactly about this scene that gets me going. Maybe it’s the fact that I was hammered having drunk an entire bottle of Baileys before watching it but I spent the night rewinding and rewatching this scene over and over again.

Futurama - The Luck Of The Fryrish

During the episode Fry is under the assumption that his brother had stolen his lucky 7 leaf clover and his name when he had gone missing. At the end of the episode it is revealed that he had actually named his son after him in one of the most moving scenes ever animated and the best use of “Don’t You Forget About Me” by Simple Minds ever.

Scrubs - My Lunch

Dr. Cox orders transplants for three patients when a supply comes in. Unfortunately the organs are infected with rabies resulting in the disease being passed on to the three patients. For two of the patients, it’s not such as they would have died either way but the third could have waited another month for a transplant and Cox finally loses it. From the music to the acting, everything is perfect.

Scrubs - My Screw Up

In this episode, Dr. Cox’s best friend, and former brother in law, Ben experiences a re-emergence of his cancer. For the most of the episode it seems as though it finally went back into remission until this final scene where it becomes clear Dr. Cox has been living in denial.

Blackadder - Goodbyeee

Wow. This is it. The ultimate saddest ending of anything. Can’t help but notice that all of these have come from comedies. Strange that, maybe that’s why they are so affecting. These scenes are the opposite of what you normally expect from these programs.

Friday The 13th Month: Part 1

2009-02-02T23:31:00.000-08:00

My video about the first Friday the 13th film. Yeah it's a little shitty but my laptop kept fucking up, it was half 4 in the morning and I just wanted to get it done.

Review: My Bloody Valentine 3-D

2009-02-02T02:38:00.000-08:00

Hello readers, and welcome to the review of “My Bloody Valentine 3-D”, a simple story of romance, death, and an awesome five minute, full frontal sex scene that results in some big breasted blonde’s demise. The film’s starting credits begin with newspapers moving all over the place in 3-D, explaining a horrific accident that happened ten years ago in the little town of Harmony, leaving five men dead and put survivor Harry Warden into a coma; in my opinion, the best use of 3-D animation in the entire movie. One year later, on Valentine’s Day of course, Harry Warden unexpectedly awoke from his coma and went on a random killing spree; brutally murdering twenty-two people with a pickaxe before being killed himself.

Now a decade later, Tom Hanniger, the inexperienced miner who was responsible for the death’s of the five men and Warden’s coma, returns to Harmony on, you’ve guessed it, Valentine’s Day, still haunted by the deaths he caused. Subtle much? Hanniger, played by Supernatural star Jensen Ackles, is now dealing with his unresolved feelings for his ex-girlfriend Sarah (Jaime King), who is now married to his best mate Axel (Kerr Smith), the town’s sheriff and a killer sporting a miner’s mask and a pickaxe who is on the loose. Is Harry Warden back from the dead? Or is this a copycat killer? Either way, it’s not that interesting. It’s the 3-D deaths that make this ‘slasher’ film what it is, and they are stupidly grizzly.

The film does have some quality death scenes such as when the killer grabs one man and shoves a pickaxe up through his chin, yanking his weapon back which results in blood spattering to your left and a chunk of the guy’s chin flying to your right. Another one was when the killer swings the pickaxe into the back of a teenager’s head, which shows his eye on the end of the weapon as the pickaxe goes through his eye socket and comes out at you. But the most interesting part of the story has to be the ‘3-D Full-Frontal’.

The scene starts in a seedy hotel where a couple are having sex quite aggressively. The man climaxes, and then goes to leave, as you do, and grabs his jacket, switching off a camcorder he was using. Classy. The blonde starts shouting “I’m not a whore”, but the man chucks her some cash and laughs “You are now”. The man goes to get in his truck, with the blonde tailing him outside, stark naked, with a gun. The man opens his truck door and the killer smashes the pickaxe down into his head, leaving the blonde to run back to the hotel screaming her head off. She gets in and hides under the bed, leaving the killer to remove the duvet covers to reveal her, still naked, under the wire bed frame. She somehow manages to get up, using the bed frame as a shield, and backs into a corner of the room, trapping herself. Hilarious. The killer starts to pierce the wire frame, trying to get the blonde in the head with the pickaxe. After several attempts, the killer then realises what they’re doing wrong and then goes for the stomach, which they hit first time, leaving the blonde pinned to the wall, and you feeling horny after seeing a pair of 3-D breasts bounce around at you for the last five minutes. Nice.

Now, in small doses, the film isn’t half bad; but as a whole, it’s pretty poor. The script is good in places, but not enough to keep you interested. The actor’s did an okay job, but there just isn’t enough continuity for you to care about them when they start dying. The 3-D plotline is all this film has going for it, and even then it wasn’t always appropriate. Still, at least Director Patrick Lussier pulled off a tasteful sex scene. In 3-D. Which was awesome.

Cinepub Rating: Shandy (2 out of 5)

Review: The Day the Earth Stood Still

2009-02-01T02:11:00.000-08:00

Could this be the end of the world? Quite possibly, if you actually consider seeing this film. Hello, Chris here, and today is the day the earth stood still. By this, I mean either my watch was broken, or this film really did manage to last two hours. Two hours of a sour plot and bad script courtesy of Director Scott Derrickson and Screenplay Director David Scarpa. Unfortunately, my colleague, Jamie, was not available to review the film with me. And by ‘not available’ I mean he would rather watch ‘Batman and Robin’ if he was in the mood for epic fail.

Now, the story is about the arrival of intriguing alien named Klaatu played by the always-confused Keanu Reeves, armed with a smart suit he pilfered from a psychologist who tries to analyse him, resulting in said psychologists hilarious demise, and the English vocabulary of a household fridge. Klaatu describes himself as a “friend to the Earth” – an apparently simple statement, but one which the cast of this CGI mess realises will destroy them all. By being on “our planet”, a statement Klaatu does not take too kindly to, he triggers a cataclysmic wave of destruction while governments and random scientists race to unravel the mystery of what his intentions are. Now, call me stupid, but I think it’s pretty damn clear that he’s going to kill us all and take what is apparently “unrightfully ours.”

In the midst of it all, the lovely Jennifer Connelly plays Helen; a single mother who inadvertently has a young pain in the ass stepson, Jacob, who acts like a little shit all the time, and wants to kill the intruding alien, as his now dead father, who was in the army, also wanted to kill everything.
Now, I don’t really want to write any spoilers for this shite, but to be fair, I was actually falling asleep in the cinema whilst watching this, so here’s the reason that Keanu has decided to come to our planet in the first place, just in case you find yourself in the same scenario.

Keanu’s statement of being a “friend to the earth” is just another way of saying “You’re all fucked”. Because of the intoxicating fumes and gasses we have been letting off which have been destroying our atmosphere, we are slowly ‘killing’ the earth. That’s right, you’ve guessed it; this film is a really all about global warming. What kind of a fucking twist is that. Mr. Reeves has come to the conclusion that because of the damage we have done to the planet, he and his big robot dildo are going to wipe out all living things on the face of the earth, and start afresh; hence the line “If the earth dies, you die. If you die, the earth will live.” What a tool.

Now, if you still want anything to do with this ‘film’ it will cost you around £4 at the maximum. Don’t bother seeing it in the cinema. Wait until it becomes available on DVD at your local Blockbuster store and snap up a copy, which should be no more than £3.50. Take a stroll then to a nearby convenience store and purchase a pack of matches or a lighter, whatever works for you. When you make it home, take a can of deodorant, and proceed to spray the DVD, encasing it in the flammable liquid. Strike a match, destroy the copy, and do your part for Cinepub. Hell, that’s something I think is worth losing my rental membership for.

Cinepub Rating: This film ‘wank! (1 out of 5)

Cool As Ice Solo Video Review: Part 2

2009-01-19T04:08:00.000-08:00

Finally I've gotten round to doing part two. This section features Ice kicking ass, a boyfriend being a dick and the most disturbing thing ever comitted to film!

Review: Ils (Them)

2009-01-10T01:59:00.000-08:00

Lately I’ve been broadening my horizons, stepping outside the boundaries of my linguistic comfort zone and been watching some amazing foreign language films. From Spain’s REC to South Korea’s Save The Green Planet (which may have actually made it into my top 20 favourite films of all time), the world of people speaking words I can’t understand holds many sparkling cinematic gems.

Now as someone who has a certain fondness for horror films, it seems obvious that a good place to start with foreign language films would be those that fall into the horror genre. Sometimes this pays off, as with the aforementioned REC and sometimes it doesn’t, as with Japanese horror films in general. Don’t know why but I just can’t seem to get into them. Anyway today I’m feel like wearing onions round my neck, carrying a baguette and smoking incessantly so we’re off to France! Ha, Ha! Stereotypes are fun!

The French film in question is Ils, known in English speaking circles as Them, released in 2006. To be honest I don’t really want to spoil any of the scenes in this film by describing them in much detail because I feel like it would ruin it so I’ll just give you a general overview of the film. Clementine is a French teacher living in a large remote house in a rural area around Bucharest, Romania with her writer boyfriend, Lucas. One night they are subject to a home invasion by a number of mysterious, hoodie-wearing strangers and things just escalate from there.

Now, the film is described as being in the horror genre but I must admit, I wasn’t particularly scared by it. I’m not entirely sure why. Perhaps it was because reading the subtitles made it hard to concentrate on the scary action on screen but that didn’t seem to affect my terror levels during REC but after watching the film again, I think I realised what it was. Every moment that is set up to cause the viewer to jump is very, very obvious. Basically it seems as though each scare is telegraphed and so they just seemed ineffective to me. Maybe it’s because I’m jaded, seen too many attempts to make me jump in horror films in the past. On the other hand, I still jump whenever Ben Gardener’s head falls out of that boat in Jaws, so make of that what you will.

Now, because I didn’t find the film particularly scary, does that make it a bad film? Hell no. Once the action gets under way, the tension builds and builds to ridiculous degrees. As each unrelenting moment of panic passes, you find yourself empathising more and more with the two main characters and becoming more emotionally invested with their simple quest for survival. Yet despite all this escalating pressure this is still essentially a horror film without the horror and honestly I found it quite refreshing. It doesn’t go for the cheap torture gimmicks of most of the Saw films, no supernatural monsters and not one twisted serial killer. It’s pretty original and if you want to feel your heart rate increase to dangerous levels without shitting yourself with fear, I heartily recommend it.

Note: I watched the French film, Ils, with English subtitles. This trailer suggests that Them is dubbed into English. I don't know if that's true or if it was just for the trailer or what but in my opinion, original language with subtitles is always better.

Amazon Fucktard Theater 2: Fucktard Boogaloo

2008-12-27T13:44:00.000-08:00

Yes, it’s time once again too look at those people who haunt the dusty corners of Amazon.co.uk with their disturbingly odd taste in films. The kind of taste that makes Orson Welles cry, Stanley Kubrick tear his hair out and Daniel Day-Lewis drink your milkshake. Drink it all up. Sorry, just re-watched There Will Be Blood.

Anyway, let’s get into it. Vincent Salernitano asked me yesterday to find out what people said about Howard the Duck but I’ve decided to rewatch the film before I pass judgement on the people’s reviews so that will have to wait. Instead I’m going to do something a little different from yesterdays edition and do one in which I look at people who review good films with one star. Here’s Lou Almighty’s Pulp Fiction review to get us started:

“I'll never understand why this film walked away with all the awards it got and was so hyped. PULP FICTION does not live up to any such expectations. Supposedly cool it is just senseless banter most of the time, not really funny but utterly ridiculous, with sudden explosions of violence. If you're looking for a black comedy try THURSDAY - a supposed copy of the Tarantino-style, but far better than anything he made.”

Jesus fucking christ. Everything about this review screams of a person crying out for attention. From the pseudo-intellectual writing style to the recommendation of another film even though anyone with any sense has given up reading the review at this point. Guess I have no sense. Yes, as I think we all know, Pulp Fiction is just senseless banter punctuated with violence. It has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I’ll admit I’ve never seen Thursday so I can’t comment on that but I honestly get the feeling that whenever someone says something doesn’t live up to expectations over ten years after the film is released, there are part of that weird backlash crowd that hates something just because everyone else loves it.

Now on to a childhood classic, one that I think most people remember fondly, Steven Spielberg’s story of the Like-Christ-But-Better-Coz-He-Gets-Drunk alien, E.T. Ramsey Tupper writes:

“Spielberg making money out of making children cry isn't my idea of a good film. The special effects are terrible, even when it came out they looked ropey, but again it serves to fool children. I couldn't be happy about making my money from making kids cry, and then be able to sleep at night like Spielberg does. ET himself is a plasticy Mother Teresa without lippy on, Elliot is annoying as characters go and the whole alien thing is silly. Fire in the Sky is a better alien film than this.”

What the fuck, Ramsey? Have you no soul? No whimsy about you at all? E.T. is like a woman who didn’t wear lipstick without lipstick on? Also the title of this review is Alienist mushy moneymaker. Alienist? Does he mean it’s offensive to aliens? And he thinks the whole alien thing is silly? Seriously, it’s one of the few films where aliens aren’t trying to blow the shit out of us and not being destroyed by drunken pilots and computer viruses. Really, this whole review reads like it was written by someone who never watched the film, heard it made people cry and saw a picture of E.T. What a fucking idiot.

Ok, now a more modern film, recently released on DVD and Blu-Ray, the Dark Knight. Wether you thought the film went on too long or not, I don’t think you can really say it’s a bad film. But Mr. B Hurren disagrees. In a review titled, Utter pants!!! Totally Dissapointed, he writes:

“OK - This may seem harsh, and all due respect to the dead (Heath Ledger), but I found this to be absolute rubbish, I will not be watching this again.

OK, firstly, the good points: Both Ledger and Bale were excellent in their roles. I cannot fault how brilliantly acted the twisted joker character was, and the bat costume was better than Batman begins.

OK, the Bad:

1. The film was way too long.

2. The story structure was terrible. The hero didnt get the girl, infact Harvey Dent was so superior to Batman, it might as well have been called "Harvey Dark Knight!"

3. Who has ever given a dam for Commisioner Gordon? "Batman teams up with Commisioner Gordon to stop the Joker!" I mean come on! The only reason they made such a big deal about commisioner Gordon was because Gary Oldman no doubt wanted to feel "important!!"

4. Fancy using up the two most popular villains in the batman enterprise and wasting TWO FACE in a very pathetic 30 minute send off!

5. Batman ended up nowhere. There was not a scrap of progression. All his friends (like Morgan Freeman) left him, the girl who he loved died, and Batman was to be hunted forever more!!!

OVER ALL: Again, my condolences to the dead, but i really cant see how a sequel could be made from this. This film totally killed my interest in Batman. I mean, it's called the Dark knight, but there wasnt anything gritty or dark about him. Yes it was realistic, but the first fight scene was in a car park!! I mean what ever happened to the brilliant Tim Burton style 'gothic myst' and 'atmospheric darkness?' Or some thunder and rain effects? This film lacked any imagination.”

Oh, where to begin with this, let’s go point by point.

1. Ok, I know a lot of people feel this way but I disagree. Simple as that. Nothing to fucktarded yet.

2. The hero didn’t get the girl? Harvey Dent was superior? Well duh, dipshit. Harvey had to be a better example for the city than Batman in order for Bruce to have any hope of giving up the bat mantle and ending up with the girl. Then when the girl and the hope of Harvey’s saving the soul of the city are taken away, it makes the story that much more powerful.

3. Who ever gave a damn about Commissioner Gordon? Well I did, actually. He’s a vital part of this story especially considering that the Joker is so good at what he does, it does take all three heroes to capture him and even then it’s not enough.

4. Well, kinda agree here actually. Two-Face was kinda rushed. Of course if he’d been allowed to have more time to explore his story the film would have been longer and you’d have bitched further. As for the idea of keeping Two-Face’s story for the next film, well, maybe.

5. Batman ended up nowhere? He’s being hunted by his friend, another friend and his former love interest are both dead and it’s likely that Gotham City as a whole hates him. That’s a pretty big jump from a heroic figure.

OVER ALL: My condolences to the dead but I really can’t see how a sequel could be made from this? What the fuck does this mean? Is it referring to Heath Ledger’s death? What does that have to do with whether or not a sequel will be made? Make sense man!
You’re complaining that first fight scene was in a car park and you dislike the fact that it’s a more realistic approach? I suppose you’d prefer a fight in the sewers with hench-penguins and a giant rubber ducky. (Disclaimer: I like Batman Returns but come on…)

So there you have it. Fun times. See ya next time.

Amazon.co.uk Fucktard Theater

2008-12-26T14:13:00.001-08:00

Just a quick one today. Hope you all had a merry Christmas, happy Hanukah, bodacious Bodhi Day, stupendous Solstice, funky Festivus and a festive Festival of the birth of the Unconquered Sun and a happy new year to you all.

If there's one thing this festive time of year has taught me, it's that people are idiots. Well, I say taught me but I kinda knew that already, so let's just say it reinforced that opinion. Why? Well, I did most of my Christmas shopping online and, whilst just surfing around, I decided to see how people had reviewed certain films that are considered shit. Uber-shit.

So without further ado, I present to you:

Amazon.co.uk Fucktard Theatre!

Let’s begin by casting our mind back a few years to a piece of cinematic smegma known as Epic movie.
After awarding the film five stars, Andrew Walker writes:

“its a great film just like the airplane films but with films its great how thay put all the films together and captain jack is great with the spoof on dead mans chest great film good fun”

What can we learn from this review? Well it’s clear that Andy is an unconventional guy who doesn’t play by the rules of grammar. He lives on the edge, loving fast and dying young. Either that or he’s a fourteen year old who never learnt how to write at school. A quick glance at his profile page shows us that he has reviewed six items. Five of these receive five stars. Two of these are The Pirates of the Caribbean 3 (Standard and special edition). Another is the Pirates of the Caribbean DVD game. The third is the aforementioned Epic movie and the last is a book about how to play monopoly. Dunno where that one came from. None of these have reviews have any punctuation so at least the fucktard is consistent in his unprofessionalism. Oh and the last item was a different Pirate-based DVD game, to which he gave three stars.

Ok, lets move on to my personal favourite film of all time, Batman and Robin…. Sorry, shouldn’t even joke about that…. Caused my spleen to rupture. Anyway, the film has an average of two stars, which is one star too high if you ask me (and that’s only because you can’t give no stars on amazon). Still, two people had the balls to give this film five stars. Let’s see what they had to say.

“This film has a fantastic story line, which is never tiresome.” Claims A Customer (Didn’t even have the balls to use a username.) “The clarity on DVD is trully amazing, and the colours and music very stimulating. A dramatic film, which is sometimes too scarry in parts, for smaller children, but my 5 year old son Grant loves it.”

Well, this person is clearly a parent of some kind and I suggest that the authorities rescue poor Grant immediately. Seriously, this film has a fantastic storyline? What fucking planet is this fucking moron fucking from? Fuck! This person also seems to believe that when you add a y to the end of a word you must immediately double up on the letters in front of it. Trully? Scarry? Fucking idiot.

Next up we have Reviewer telling us Anal-Retentive people that we should all lighten up. Keep in mind that this review was written in February 2008. It’s very important when you get to the end.

“I really quite enjoyed this movie. Its completely over-the-top bravado impressed me. Be warned though, if you take Batman seriously then you shouldn't watch. But for the majority of us, the non-anally retentive people, then this movie is a lot of fun and well worth a rental.

The villains were very cool in this one, and we had FOUR!! Arnie got better as the film went on. He was a real hoot. Uma was totally over-the-top and crazy as Poison Ivy. She was funny and extremely hot! There was also Bane as Ivy's sidekick who was funny whenever he appeared even though (and probably because) nothing he said ever made any sense! Then there was Bane's creator, Dr Woodrue played by John Glover with probably the best performance of the film. I wish he could have been in more of it.

The heroes weren't so flash though. Alicia Silverstone was spunky as Batgirl but the title characters, Batman and Robin as played by Clooney and O'Donnell were pretty lame. Batman was made to say too many corny one-liners. This should have been left to the villains, it suits them. It definitely didn't suit Batman. Robin was just flat out annoying. Michael Gough as Alfred actually gives quite a good dramatic performance in amongst all the campiness, I'm not sure why he bothered.

The SFX were great. The weren't at all realistic which was the way it was intended to be you fools! The whole film is dazzling on the eyes, whether it be the sets or the aray of good looking actors and actresses. Too put together a film of this large of a scale is quite an achievement. Anyone who says that Schumacher isn't a good director, doesn't know anything about directing films.

This is definitely one of the best no-brainer films of recent years. To all you people who are pining for the miserable Burton Batmans, get stuffed. Burton made his two movies, if you like them so much, then go and watch THEM. Schumacher has now made his two films to appeal to a different audience. Now it's probably time to see what someone else will do with the franschise. I can't wait."

Ok, so where to begin with this fucking idiot? There’s his opinion that Michael Gough shouldn’t even have bothered acting during this film which is an interesting take on cinema I guess. The fact that since he’s waiting to see what someone else will do with the franchise he’s never heard of Batman Begins or the (at the time) upcoming The Dark Knight. Or maybe it’s the fact that he clearly prefers Schumacher’s entries into the series than Burton’s. Now, Burton’s films aren’t exactly great versions of the Batman story but they are good films whereas Schumacher has nothing going for him. I guess they could be good adaptations of the 60s TV Show but that’s about it.

What really get’s me about this though, is he paragraph about the villains. Arnie got better and better? Are you fucking kidding me? Do you think each ice pun was better than the last? Uma Thurman was hot? Well, maybe it’s not fair to judge his own personal opinion of women but I only ever thought she was fuckable in Pulp Fiction. And as for Bane. One, I’m fairly sure Bane didn’t speak at all in the film so I’m not sure where he got this idea of Bane’s hilarious nonsensical dialogue from. Secondly, Bane isn’t supposed to be funny. He’s meant to be smart AND strong. He broke Batman’s back for fucks sake! And as for even mentioning John Glover as a villain… Really? He’s just a plot device, intended to move the story from here to here. Fucking idiot.

Well, that was fun. Feel like doing it again sometime.

The True Meaning of Christmas

2008-12-24T07:47:00.000-08:00

With the rampant comercialisation of this festive time of year, it's often easy to forget just what Christmas is really all about. Why is Christmas is a question you will often hear gramatically challenged people in the street cry out in desperation as they waste money of the latet 'Jerk Me Off Elmo' or the 'Curse Like A Fucking Dockworker Furby'. Here then is the answer to that question... Well I guess technically it's more about the meaning of Eastr perhaps but still, it's a video I made some time ago and I'd like to share it once more a this jolly time of year.

The Cinepub First Annual Obligatory Xmas Season Top 10 Christmas Films That I Enjoy To Like!

2008-12-22T05:53:00.001-08:00

Well, it’s that time of year again. People are roasting their nuts on open fires, toy companies a greedily stroking their chins in manners befitting their evil geniusnous and children are pissing themselves in the laps of creepy strangers wearing false beards. Merry Christmas!

It seems as though this is a blog about films and as such I am pretty much required by law to do a list containing my favourite Christmas movies of all time. I managed to resist doing a list of scary films at Halloween but I’m afraid I just can’t fight the mainstream on this. I fear that if I do, my blogging licence will be revoked and I’ll be forced to go back to not making money doing other things and I can’t have that.

So let’s begin shall we?

10) Santa Claus: The Movie

Since my first Christmas I’m fairly sure I’ve seen this Saint Nick biopic every damn year. (Though that’s impossible as it was released a year after my first Christmas but I digress) The film begins with Santa Claus gaining magical powers for he is the chosen one. The film ends up with Dudley Moore playing an elf teaming up with John Lithgow playing an evil business tycoon for some reason. Awesome!

9) Ernest Saves Christmas

Ernest P. Worrell featured quite heavily in my early life for some reason. In particular I remember two films, Ernest Scared Stupid and Ernest Saves Christmas. Since I can’t put Ernest Scared Stupid on this list I’m gonna have to put Ernest Saves Christmas on this list. The film tells the story of Ernest’s mission to find a replacement for Santa who’s getting close to retirement. In no way is it a fantastic film but it ain’t The Santa Clause and that counts for something.

8) Home Alone

Another one from my childhood. For some reason I may have seen this film more than any other film that has ever or will ever exist. It just always happens to be on for some reason. Either my brothers watching it, my cousins watching it or someone else is watching it and, having nothing better to do, I end up watching it too. You know the plot. Hell, you’ve probably seen it a thousand times too.

7) The Muppet Christmas Carol

A telling of the Charles Dickens’ story starring the loveable cast of the Muppets and the loveable aged cockney, Michael Caine. Particular pieces of awesome: Statler and Waldorf as the ghosts of Marley and Marley, Kermit and Piggy as Mr and Mrs Cratchit and an awesome Ghost of Christmas Future. As long as Future looks enough like Death in a Christmas Carol movie then I’m sold.

6) How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

Yes, the animated TV special, not the one with Jim Carrey. Sprung forth from the surrealistic mind of Dr. Seuss and narrated by Boris Fucking Karloff. It’s the classic tale of a hairy green freak who wants to stop Whoville from enjoying Christmas only to have is heart grow three times that day. Man, I’m hungry for roast beast.

5) National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

It’s Christmas time at the Griswold’s and every body is coming to stay! Nothing goes smoothly, every little event working it’s way tirelessly and relentlessly to ruin Clark’s dream of a perfect Christmas. Every second of this film have things going from bad, to worse to uber-bad and it’s all very, very funny.

4) Scrooged

Another retelling of Dickens’ story, this time starring William Murray. This film modernizes the story as bastard television producer Francis attempts to make his own live version of the story only to have the events within it happen to him. As I said before as long as they have a good Ghost of Christmas Future I’m sold and in this film motherfucker is the Grim Reaper with a TV for a face. Awesome.

3) Lethal Weapon

It’s the greatest buddy cop movie ever made and also a damn good Christmas film. Ok so maybe it’s technically not a Christmas film but it’s set at Christmas time so it counts. Riggs is a cop with nothing to lose and Murtaugh is just getting’ too old for this shit. The film culminates with Riggs spending Christmas at the Murtaugh household so it definetly counts.

2) Die Hard

This is possibly the greatest action movie ever made and it’s a shame what the franchise has become but thankfully the knowledge that Die Hard 4.0 exists cannot take away from the awesome that is this film. I still feel tense watching certain parts of it, no matter how many times I watch it. This one also feels a lot more Christmassy than Lethal Weapon so it gets extra points for that.

1) Gremlins

Ah, what can I say about Gremlins that hasn’t already been said? Did you ever get a dog for Christmas? Then the dog got wet and more dogs sprouted out of his back? And then when the new dogs ate after midnight they turned into ravenous reptillian wolves? That’s kinda like this film but with mogwai and gremlins instead of dogs and wolves. There’s plenty of fun here as the titular characters just generally cause mayhem on Christmas night. They dress up as carolers, attack Santa Claus and kill an old woman! Ho, Ho, Ho Merry Christmas!

Cool As Ice Solo Video Review: Part 1

2008-12-19T09:32:00.000-08:00

In 1991 a film was made, a film so awesomely god awful that tackling it could not be done in ten minutes alone. I reckon I'm looking at a three parter here at least. Help.

I present "Cool As Ice: A Review"

Something I Finally Saw: Hancock

2008-12-07T22:51:00.000-08:00

Imagine a superhero movie within which the hero is an alcoholic cock who is hated by the masses. This is the basic premise of Hancock, a film which I finally got around to seeing. This concept is fairly original to films, not so much to comic books, and it is nice to see a superhero without any prior knowledge of his origin or back-story whatsoever.

Will Smith (of Fresh Prince fame) plays John Hancock, a homeless superhero who reluctantly saves a city that hates him with no real regard for the city itself. He flies whilst drunker than an aging prostitute trying to forget her existence and lands in a way which fucks the street up to shit. He throws cars around, smashing buildings and street signs and just generally does more harm than good. The city tries to prosecute him but how do you stop someone who can’t be stopped? You can’t. See, the answer was in the question. It’s whilst fucking up another rescue, resulting in a few trashed cars and one major fucked up train that Hancock saves Ray, a PR dude played by Jason Bateman, who sees an opportunity to turn Hancock’s public perception around and make him the hero that Ray knows he can be.

Under Ray’s advice, Hancock hands himself over to the police willingly and stays in prison in an effort to get himself off of the booze and let the people of Los Angeles see just how god-awful the city would be without him. The plan works and the chief of police calls Hancock for help when a small group of bandits take hostages and try to rob a bank. Hancock shows up and saves the day. Hooray! The end. Except it isn’t. There then comes a twist which brings the movie to a darker, grittier conclusion than the tone of the rest of the movie seems to imply. I imagine if the film had come out after “The Dark Knight” this theme would have been pervasive right the way through the film.

Now, a lot has been written about the films sudden tonal shift within the last third, mostly about how people didn’t really like it. They felt it didn’t particularly fit in with the rest of the film and to some extent I agree. It didn’t really fit in with the humorous nature of the rest of the film. This didn’t, however, affect my enjoyment of the film. I actually felt that it kind of improved it a little, making it something more than the superhero comedy it would have otherwise been. Need I remind you of My Super Ex-Girlfriend? I know some people liked it but fuck I thought that was shit. Honestly, Hancock was always gonna be better than that so the comparison isn’t particularly apt but I’m writing this not you so fuck off.

Another thing that I really loved about this movie is that Hancock’s origin is never really explained. Whilst they are necessary for the uninitiated, I am pretty fucking sick of fucking origin movies. The worst thing about Iron Man was that most of the damn film was him building different upgraded version of the suit. Well, that and the final battle was pretty lame. Anyway in Hancock, his origin is hinted at, implied but never explained outright. Awesome. The only potential problem is that a sequel has pretty much been confirmed and, now that Hancock has cleaned up his act, the only direction I can see them going in is him trying to discover his mysterious past! Ominous!

The first part of the film is honestly pretty damn funny. Hancock flying through the sky, bottle of whisky in hand with no disregard for public property is a fun sight to be sure and the interactions between Hancock, Ray, his wife (played by Charlize Theron) and Ray’s son are pretty great, especially the scene where Hancock is invited to their spaghetti madness dinner. Charlize Theron in particular is very good at showing her dislike for the drunken hero with the slightest of looks.

For me though, it really is the last part of the film which brings it all together, even though I know others will disagree. There are some heart-warming scenes between Hancock and the son and Will Smith does a great job of portraying a character who is clearly depressed because he’s the only one of his kind, compounded by the fact that he doesn’t know where the hell he came from.

There are some flaws, of course. There is a scene we’ve become all to familiar with in superhero movies wherein the hero takes on a character of equal or slightly heightened power to themselves but it doesn’t really go in the standard direction so it’s forgivable. Also a certain character’s (saying who would give to much away) unwillingness to help Hancock try and understand his past seems really strange considering they want him to leave them alone and he won’t until they try and help him. Confusing!

Overall though, Hancock is a pretty good film and definitely a nice addition to the current crop of recent superhero flicks.

Video Reviews: W. and Zack And Miri Make A Porno

2008-11-19T01:39:00.000-08:00

Here are the first two video reviews for Cinepub, W. and Zack And Miri Make A Porno. They're a little rough around the edges, the audio is a little out of sync, I think because my webcam is pretty shitty, but they're the first ones and so they can only get better.
Also I'm kinda embaressed that neither of us could remember who played Laura Bush. It was Elizabeth Banks, a.k.a Miri from Zack and Miri Make A Porno. Plan.
Anyway, please enjoy. Laterz.

W.

Cinepub: W.
by Twackius

Zack And Miri Make A Porno

Review: He Was A Quiet Man

2008-11-17T00:59:00.000-08:00

Bob Maconel (Christian Slater) is an office worker, a faceless drone in a sea of many. His cubicle is his prison, his supervisor is his tormentor and his moustache is shit. There is one ray of sunshine in his otherwise meaningless life, Vanessa Parks (Elisha Cuthbert) whose smile lights up the office. Sure, she doesn’t know his name and he certainly has no chance of ending up with her but that doesn’t matter that much because Bob won’t be around much longer for Bob has a plan.

Bob is sick of his life and the way others treat him and so he brings his gun in to work with plans to kill his five most hated co-workers before turning the gun on himself. Unfortunately he chickens out and upon returning home is immediately berated for his cowardice by his pet goldfish. Yes, it seems as though Bob’s mental health problems don’t stop at depression alone.

The next day Bob tries again and as he’s loading the bullets into the chamber he accidentally drops one. Whilst he searches on the floor for it, another co-worker suddenly shoots up the office. Bob stands and turns his gun on the assailant after they both notice that he has accidentally shot Vanessa in the spine. Bob is hailed as a hero and is instantly promoted to Vice President of Creative Thinking. Meanwhile he begins to develop a relationship with Vanessa who has become a quadriplegic due to the shooting.

It is from this twist of events that most of the films very, very dark humour is drawn. The remainder displays Bob pretty much becoming a fully fledged human being over night without ever fully managing to fulfil that role. Conversely, Vanessa, who had stepped on many and slept with more just to get where she was in the company, suddenly finds herself lost and helpless, isolated from the world which had once embraced her.

It is a funny film though, tinged as it is with darkness and despair, it’s never really laugh out loud funny. Perhaps the closest it ever comes to this is whenever Gene Shelby, President of the company, played brilliantly by William H. Macy is on screen. Some have said he was under used though I think he played as big a part as the story necessitated.

Christian Slater is also on form here, playing the mentally disturbed Bob with aplomb though he is helped by the make-up department which transforms him into a tired, balding office nobody. It really is the physical acting, though, which makes Slater’s performance shine. Bob never seems comfortable in his own skin, always wringing his hands or grasping his fingers.

Elisha Cuthbert is also fantastic as Vanessa, someone who seems determined to make her way in life even if that means asking someone else to end it for her. She’s paralysed for most of the film and so most of her emotion is displayed without any kind of body language, making the scenes where she’s trying to explain to Bob how she feels that much more touching as the acting is almost all in the eyes.

The rest of the cast is filled out ably by a host of other actors who I don’t recognise, though wikipedia informs me that one of the detectives in the film is played by one of the dudes in the Bohemian Rhapsody scene in Wayne’s World which is awesome. For the most part the rest of the cast are pretty much stereotypes. You’ve got your bullies, your office slut and your deranged janitor. All par for the course.

The last thing I will say about this film are the surreal elements, all brought on by Bob’s own psychosis. There is the aforementioned talking goldfish, a scene in which Bob imagines the office tower blowing up, hummingbirds flitting happily outside his home and the odd effect of the traffic around Bob zipping by him as he drives at normal speed amongst many, many others. They all serve to help the viewer emphasise with how Bob perceives his life and it works amazingly well. Especially the fish. He’s awesome. If you ever wanted to hear a fish say “Fuck ‘em” then this is the film for you. Seriously, that fish swears a lot.

The film does have a downside though and it’s called the last act. Everything seems to change at such a rapid, con fusing pace that it’s easy to lose track of exactly what drew you into this film in the first place until your left with an ending that feels kinda unsatisfying. That being said I feel as though you should at least rent this. Then if you enjoy it you can make it a permanent part of your collection.

Great Scenes From Bad Films, Part 8: Batman And Robin

2008-11-16T22:37:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since my last post but I've been suprisingly busy lately. Today we'll be looking something just a little notorious. I give you:

Well, here we go then. One of the greatest atrocities ever committed to film. Something so bad it killed not only the Batman franchise but comic book movies in general for several years. Was Batman Forever bad? Undoubtedly. But this? This is… Well watching this is akin to accidentally setting your genitalia on fire, then having someone piss on you to try and put the fire out but missing the fire and hitting you square in the face. That having failed they decide to stamp the fire out before giving up and leaving you there to die. It’s pretty fucking bad.

So what exactly do we have here? Well George Clooney dons the bat-mantle this time, with Anakin Skywalker playing Robin. What? Sorry, that’s Chris O’Donnell. Guess I was confused by his constant fucking whining.

The film opens to them gearing up for business. And oh, how they gear up for business with there new and improved muscle-toned and be-nippled outfits. Marvel at the fine craftsmanship on the ass crack! Revel in delight at the sight of the plastic six-pack! And gasp with joy at the sight of those bat-nipples! I’m sure it’s just the design Bruce Wayne had in mind when he decided that criminals were a superstitious lot that would fear the visage of a bat!

Anyway they eventually (and I do mean eventually, the Batmobile takes forever to emerge from it’s holding space in the Batcave) arrive at the scene of the crime where Mr. Freeze, played here by >shudder< Arnie, is trying to steal a Diamond from Gotham City’s Museum which seems to have all of it’s exhibits in one large neon room. Mr. Freeze makes a few ice puns, freezes Robin, grabs the diamond and escapes. It should be noted at this point that ice puns will feature regularly in this movie. Far, far to regularly. Also of note is the fact that Mr. Freeze is a scientist. A scientist who claims that dinosaurs were made extinct by the Ice Age. I know it’s just another throw away ice pun but it really fucking bothers me.

Meanwhile in South America, Uma Thurman is working for Daniel Clamp who has apparently become a scientist and moved to the Southern Hemisphere after having his tower wrecked by Gremlins. I guess it makes sense. It appears as though they have developed a formula called Venom though Clamp won’t tell Uma what it’s ultimate purpose is. She soon discovers by spying on him when he administers it to a puny convict who then becomes >sigh< Bane. Except it’s not fucking Bane! I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised since we’ve already seen not Batman and not Robin fight not Mr Freeze but it’s getting too fucking much now.

Daniel Clamp realises that Uma has been watching him and dumps some chemicals on her when she refuses to join him. He’s convinced she’s dead but of course she isn’t because what this film needs is one more shitty villain. Introducing Poison Ivy! She kills Clamp with her poisonous kiss, finds out Wayne Enterprises has been funding Clamps research and heads to Gotham City with Bane! It’s yawn inducing excitement!

Meanwhile Alfred is dying and his niece Barbara Wilson comes to visit from… England? I mean, that’s what she says but she certainly seems to have an accent that I’ve never heard in this country except for when talking to foreigners… specifically foreigners from America. Oh fuck… I don’t think I can make it through this… I think this film is actually beating me. We’ve already had the wrong version of several Batman characters but it looks as though we’re going to get not Batgirl as well… Sigh. I need a beer. I’ll be back in a minute so Chill Out!

There, I feel better. At a charity event, Ivy puts herself up for auction for a date after dancing seductively whilst dressed as an ape. God, how I wish that didn’t happen. Batman and Robin begin bidding wildly, Batman eventually winning because of his Bat Credit Card. His Bat Credit Card. Where do they send his fucking bills? They actually let a man who dresses as a fucking flying rat have a fucking credit card? FUCK! More Beer.

Right lets get through this. So Freeze interrupts the party, throws around more ice puns and steals another diamond. Batman catches him and Freeze ends up in jail. Ivy busts Freeze out of jail and they join forces with Ivy’s plan being to get Freeze to freeze the world, killing off humans and animals so only plants survive… For fucks sake! She’s supposed to be a scientist too! Yet she knows nothing about exactly what would be affected by freezing the Earth! Has she ever seen anything about the south pole? Does she know what lives there? Fucking penguins! Penguins and no fucking plants! MnnNmNn! More Beer!

No. Fuck it. I’m done. You wanna know how it ends, watch the damn thing yourselves. This film has caused me actual physical pain. My brain hurts and I think my bladder may be failing. Either way this film has left me needing serious surgery. And serious beer. Fuck, I think my eyes might be bleeding. This film makes me want to go out and hurt actual bats. I love bats but now if I ever come across one I am likely to force it to endure Saw-esque levels of torture like making it watch Batman and Robin.

I’m sorry… I tried, tried so hard but it was to much. I never should have tried to take this on alone. If you find this blog post please tell my parents I loved them. My final wish is that I be buried with my DVD collection except for Batman and Robin which is to be destroyed in an appropriate manner. I would suggest toxic waste but I fear the disc would do more damage to the waste than vice versa.

Oh and your scene for today isn’t just one but an entire collection of Arnie’s Ice puns… I’m so very, very sorry.

Great Scenes From Shit Films, Part 7: Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

2008-11-04T08:34:00.000-08:00

I love the Friday the 13th films to an almost psychotic degree but even I will admit that most of them are not good films. Fun films to be sure, but not good films. I’m not entirely sure exactly why I like them so much, there’s just something about the silent, plodding killer that I love so much. That and the sheer stupidity of the characters he kills. Perhaps my favourite example of this is in one of the earlier films. I’m not exactly sure which but I think it might be number two.

Whatever film it is doesn’t really matter, the scene is thus. Two characters are sitting downstairs playing a game, a boy and a girl. The boy is in a wheelchair. Take note of this because it’s very important. Any way, the two are flirting and generally having a good time when the girl decides to leave to change in a sexier pair of panties. While she’s away, Jason strikes killing the boy in the wheelchair. The girl returns and looks for the boy BY GOING UP THE FUCKING STAIRS! She leaves a boy in a wheelchair by himself and figures that he must be waiting UP THE FUCKING STAIRS for her. She is quickly despatched and frankly deserved it for her stupidity.

But we’re not here on Halloween to talk about whatever particular film in the series that was. We’re here to look at perhaps one of the worst films in the entire series, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, a film only really outshone in awful by part IX: Jason Goes To Hell. Christ, not even the messiah himself, Billy Dee Williams, could save that piece of shite. On to Jason taking Manhattan.

So part VIII begins, after a montage of the seedier side of New York, with Jason once more being resurrected and immediately sets about doing what he does best, despatching horny teens. Oh Jason, you loveable rogue! Is there a sexually adventurous teenager you won’t massacre? Anyway, it turns out ol’ Camp Crystal Lake is getting a little tired and played out for everyone’s favourite zombie serial killer. He wants to slay in the city that never sleeps! He hitches a ride on the cruise ship Lazarus bound for the Big Apple at… Crystal Lake harbour? I’m not entirely sure when Crystal Lake became connected to the sea but apparently it is. Hooray! Also aboard is Renee, a girl with a pen and a troubled past, and Sean, the ship captain’s son with a sexton and daddy issues. There are of course also your generic machete fodder. There’s 80’s rock chick JJ, film nerd Wayne who looks and sounds a bit like Matt Damon and Julius the boxer and two girls who do coke. There’s also high school teacher Charles who also happens to be Renee’s creepy uncle and Salty McSeadog (Actual character name may differ) who claims the ship is doomed.

So Renee has a few visions about drowning and the young Jason Voorhees, made worse when she falls overboard, Jason goes around ridding the world of a few pointless background characters and stereotypes and one of the cokeheads tries to seduce creepy uncle Charles whilst Wayne films in an effort to get out of handing in a biology paper. She is soon after taken out by Jason.

A storm hit’s the boat and Jason kills the ship’s captain and his first mate, making the journey that much more treacherous. Sean discovers his dad all dead and that and takes command through whining. It is now 40 minutes into the film and I’m guessing Jason killed the crew as he was pretty pissed off that it was taking them so long to get New York. He really wants to stray around the very heart of it. Salty McSeadog goes on about Jason Voorhees, claiming every one will die. He’s clearly a bottle o’ rum half-empty kinda guy. Anyway, Jason kills a few more folks including the other girl who does coke and Wayne. The rest of the gang decide to try and take Jason down, gathering as many weapons as they can. They fail and abandon ship, finally reaching New York and hour into the film with about half an hour left, Wow, Jason really has to tighten up his game if he wants to take Manhattan.

The survivors are captured by a New York street gang but are rescued when Jason shows up and begins killing the gang members. Has Jason finally changed his ways? Is he becoming the superhero we all knew he was deep down inside? No, he just loves killin’ folk. He’s been doing it for a while and sometimes hobbies are just impossible to give up.

Jason now hunts down Julius who decides to fight the big gut on top of a roof top in a scene which may or may not be at the end of this blog post. Ok, it will be. It’s great. Seriously. This one scene almost makes up for the rest of the movie for me. Julius’ determination, Jason standing there and taking it and it’s inevitable yet awesome conclusion make this film worth renting at least… though since I’m going to show you the scene, I wouldn’t bother. Nothing else is really worth seeing.
So from down here it’s all down hill. There’s a flashback in which Charles explains Jason drowned because he never learned to swim and that he’s still down there, ready to drag people down if they can’t swim. He then chucks her in the lake and tries to force her to learn, explaining her uninteresting back story of being afraid of water. Sean and Renee run off, leaving Charles to Jason’s capable hands. Jason drowns Charles, which I guess is supposed to be irony or karma or something.

Renee and Sean run to the subway, Jason chasing them and apparently not being that big of a shock to New Yorkers. Guess they have seen a lot what with giant gorilla attacks, alien invasions and all manner of things that’d make someone from a smaller town at least raise an eyebrow. Jason gets shocked on the subway track and our two, sigh, heroes are safe to explore New York. Except this is a Friday the 13th film and there are still 15 minutes left! Jason is still alive! I for one am surprised.

He chases them across what I think is Times Square where he freaks out some punk kids by lifting his mask. I for one am annoyed with Jason. Where’s the bloodshed, bro? Where’s the wanton slaughter? Has the franchise grown so tiresome that even you are bored of it all? No matter, Jason still has two more victims in his sights before he retires, moves to Florida and spends his last days playing Bingo.

They escape into the New York sewers, which makes perfect sense. If I had an unstoppable killing machine after me, I’d head into a dimly lit, underground maze. As they flee, they run into a sewage worker who explains that in ten minutes the sewers will be flooded with toxic waste, just like they are at every night at midnight… New Yorkers, is this true? If so, why? Is it to kill of all those alligators that live down there? Perhaps a mutant turtle eradication programme? If I may be so bold as to make a suggestion, maybe you wouldn’t have such a high ratio of mutated animals living in your sewers if you didn’t flush them with radioactive goop every night.

Anyway, Jason shows up and kills the sewage worker and is about to kill Sean when Renee attracts his attention with a flashlight. Apparently, Jason has the same mental capacity as the T-Rex from Jurassic Park, even though earlier he was seen to be working out elaborate ways to kill his victims bringing his intelligence level at least up to that of the Velociraptors in Jurassic Park 3. Renee runs away with Jason following, leaving Sean unconscious in a tunnel that is about to be flooded with toxic waste in a matter of minutes. Plan. She stumbles across a toxic waste barrel and throws it in Jason’s face. Seriously New York, is toxic waste really that big of an issue in your fair city that, not only must you flood your sewers with it on a nightly basis but you must also leave barrels of it lying around in aforementioned sewers? What The Fuck?

The toxic waste causes Jason to remove his mask, revealing his visage. It’s kinda hard to describe, something kind of like a cross between one of those old Madball things and a Garbage Pail Kid. If you’re too young to understand those references I’m sure the fount of all knowledge, Wikipedia will answer your questions. In my day we had to use real encyclopaedias and I can guarantee you that they didn’t have entries about old 80s toy lines. Anyway, here is a picture of Jason sans mask for your viewing pleasure:

As you can see it's pretty fucking terrible. Seriously fucking awful. Just plain shit. But it doesn’t stop there.

Renee comes back for Sean, they climb a ladder and leave Jason below as the, sigh, toxic waste begins to flood the sewers. As it does, Jason speaks. Yes, Jason speaks but only that, he sounds like someone trying to do a child’s voice but poorly. And what does Jason, who has been so silent for so long have to say to the world? “Mommy, don’t let me drown… mommy.” Well… that’s just great. I know it makes sense in the context of the series but still… It just… It’s just wrong. Jason then get’s hit by the toxic waste and is reverted back to his childhood form. Which makes no fucking sense but by this time you’ve been pretty much battered into submission by the films unrelenting stupidity and you just kind of accept it. And so Sean and Renee are free at last to go and be boring together. Whoop-de-fucking-doo. You know what, fuck it. Let’s just show you the last scene, courtesy of CampVoorhes.com. Consider it a Halloween bonus.

See! See what I mean! It fucking sucks! And what’s worse is it looks like Jason the child has a normal head. What the fuck is that about? Fucking hell!

Ugh. There you have it. So what have we learnt? Well, I personally have learnt that New York has a severe toxic waste problem that they can surely find better ways of solving than simply flushing it down the sewers. I’ve learnt that throwing your niece into a lake after telling her it’s haunted by a dead child is not the best way to teach her to swim. I’ve also learnt that, since most of this movie takes place on a fucking boat, it was severely wrongly titled. It should have been called something like Friday the 13th VIII: Avast Jason! Or Friday the 13th VIII: All Hands On Death! Or some such thing.

Let’s at least end things with a high note. I present to you, my favourite Friday the 13th death of all time, Jason Vs. Julius. Enjoy.

Great Scenes From Shit Films, Part 6: Pumaman

2008-11-04T08:31:00.000-08:00

Ok, I promise, tomorrow will not be a movie featured in MST3K. In fact, it’ll be a super awesome Halloween special edition of Great Scenes from Bad Films! Awesome. But Mari Nickl reminded of Pumaman and I just had to include it. It was another great Mike era episode and this film really deserved the MST3K treatment. Allow me to elaborate.

The film opens with a paragraph regaling us with the Aztec legend of a God descending from the heavens, fucking an Aztecette and fathering the first Pumaman. Next we see a giant sphere approaching Stonehenge… I think. I’m not entirely sure because I just don’t see how Stonehenge could possibly fit in to Aztec legend. Anyway it’s probably not important. The aliens bequeath a mask to mankind, declaring that the Pumaman will look after it and that. This is followed by the credits in which the film’s big name, Donald Pleasence, has his name spelt wrong as Donald Pleasance. Well done movie.

We then meet a blonde lady archaeologist, intensely studying the aforementioned golden mask in modern times. Donald Pleasence enters, looking for all the world like a hideous, bald dominatrix, and basically asks her “How’s shit?” She turns around and answers “Shit’s good but don’t desecrate this mask otherwise the Pumaman will fuck you up.” Donald decides not to heed this careful warning and uses the mask to take control of blonde lady archaeologist’s mind. Oh Donald, you funky, cheeky monkey.

Anyway, I guess my first major question arises here. Why the fuck did the aliens leave a mask that gave people the ability to control the minds of other people? And I thought that the Pumaman dynasty was supposed to guard it always. Why was it not passed down the Puma family line?

The next scene shows a man being tossed out of a window, a newspaper revealing it’s the fourth American to be killed in London that week. It turns out that the person behind these slayings is the hero of our story, Vadhino (I must interject here and point out that I’m not saying he’s the hero because he is ridding London of Americans. Hmmm, shouldn’t have used the word ridding there, just makes things sound worse. My point is no one should be killed in London. Except for Luxembourgers. You know what you did Luxembourg!) and his next target is the film’s side-kick character, palaeontologist Tony Farms.

Tony ‘senses’ danger whilst being yelled at by his boss when Vadhino appears, steals a bone and Tony gives chase. Vadhino suddenly grabs him and chucks him out the window. Way to sense danger there Tony! When Tony survives, Vadhino tells him he’s the Pumaman and runs away.

Tony then meets blone archaeologist lady, Jane, and they ‘flirt.’ She invites him to a party laid out by her father. Alas! She’s still being mind controlled by Donald! Gasp! It turns out he’s controlling Jane’s father as well!

As Tony’s getting ready for the party, Vadhino shows up again and gives Tony the lame plastic belt that allows him to access the powers of the Pumaman! Which confuses me as it’s already made clear that Tony can survive falls and see in the dark. We’re also lead to believe he can sense danger but… Anyway, Vadhino explains that he knows Tony’s father which also raises the question as to why he didn’t look up where Tony Farms was, rather than going around tossing Americans out of windows. Guess it’s a hobby or something.

At the party, Donald turns up with a few henchmen and begins to stir up trouble when they attack Tony. Tony beats a few up or dances violently with them, it’s hard to figure out exactly which. Vadhino shows up, tosses Tony the belt allowing him to fly through the air… like a puma. The belt also gives him the lamest superhero costume since Robin decided little green underwear was a great look.

And so Tony flies. The effects are astounding. You’ll gasp in wonderment as Tony flies at all manner of angles, especially apparent when he drops a henchman, You’ll scratch your head in amazement Tony glides through the air with all the grace of an Aardvark tossed out of a helicopter. It truly is a thing of beauty.

So Tony tries to find out where the mask is by entering a trance and walking through a wall… like a puma. Or at least he tries but fails. Because if there is one thing that you will learn about Pumaman it’s that he’s the living embodiment of epic fail.
Jesus this is going on for a while. Ok, to cut a long story short. Donald has an evil plan, Pumaman tries to stop it, fails but thankfully Vadhino saves the day by not being Pumaman. At the end of the film Vadhino, Pumaman and Jane go to Stonehenge, which seems to be in an area which is certainly not where Stonehenge actually is. Vadhino claims that the the protection of the Gods has not failed since the day is saved though I must heartily disagree. The day was nearly lost because the stupid fuckers left the mind control mask on Earth in the first place… Twats. Anyway, Jane and Pumaman kiss and it seems apparent that the patter of tiny puma paws can’t be too far away. Eww.

Ok, sorry about that synopsis. I was watching the MST3K version, trying to ignore the riffs and focus on the film and I just completely lost track and the will to live, so I guess I have to add the same warning that I added to the previous two MST3K-inspired entries, do not watch without Mike and the Bots. Seriously. I think my left arm is tingling and I’m certain I feel chest pains.

What’s left to be said about this film? Well, as mentioned the special effects are awesome, though not just the flying effects. When Donald is taking over someone’s mind, the film wobbles, like water being sucked into the mouth of a goldfish’s mouth. That’s an odd analogy and that’s how this film has effected me. I’m also not sure whether Pumaman can phase through walls or just break through them. The special effects are that ambiguous!

One last thing of note is the music. Pumaman’s theme is a touching little number that will cause many to hold their hand over their heart and shed a tear for the Aztec Puma man-God who came to Earth to save us all from the mask left here by the Aztec Puma God for some reason.

One last thing, Vadhino would later appear in the second ever episode of the A-Team and get pummelled by Mr T. Good on him.

Well I’m exhausted. Couldn’t actually find any clips from a pure copy of the movie so here is a compilation clip from the MST3K version. I’m doing you all a favour, really.

Great Scenes from Shit Films, Part 5: Hobgoblins. Share

2008-10-29T00:58:00.000-07:00

As with yesterdays entry into the hallowed halls of shit cinema fame, this entry came to my attention through the stellar work of the crew at Mystery Science Theater 3000. This film was in what is possibly my favourite of the Mike era episodes, in fact it would probably be my favourite of all episodes if not for Manos. Everything about this episode is great, the riffs, the host segments with classics like Crow’s ‘In Search Of…’ style programme about women to the cardboard cut-outs of the crew singing about Hobgoblins. One particular scene of note is the ‘interview’ with director Rick Sloane during the films end credits.

Still, this isn’t supposed to be about MST3K, it’s supposed to be about the movie itself. It’s about a number of small beasts from space who can make peoples fantasies come true with TERRIFYING consequences.

The film begins with an elderly security guard and his young helper doing a check of the old movie studios where they work. They go their separate ways and the younger of the two gentlemen opens a vault. Inside he suddenly finds himself on a stage where he begins… well I guess you’d kinda have to call it singing really. Suddenly he falls from the stage and dies. The older security guard, Mr McCreedy, discovers his body and shuts the vault door.

Our… well I guess you’d kinda have to call him hero really, Kevin takes the dead dude’s job so he can impress his frigid bitch of a girlfriend Amy because as every man knows, nothing impresses a woman more than taking a job which means you’d have to spend most of your nights away from them and most of your days sleeping. Good thinking Kevin.

After his first night he comes home and finds Amy hanging out with uber-slut Daphne and effeminate Kyle. Daphne is a classy kind a girl, wearing a condom in a packet around her neck and Kyle is a stylish fellow in his little red shorts. Amy is dressed like she doesn’t want to have sex with anything. Ever. Daphne’s boyfriend Nick, a soldier type, arrives later and challenges Kevin to a fight. The weapon of choice? Garden utensils! In what was rated as the most epic fight scene until Gladiator came along, Kevin and Nick duel it out for some time until Nick just manages to get the upper hand. Nick gets his reward by fucking Daphne in his van, whilst Amy takes the piss out of Kevin. In the background Nick’s van can be seen bouncing up and down with hilarious cartoon bouncing sound effects! Rick Sloane is a cinematic genius.

The next night Kevin chases a burglar into the vault that the dude had died in earlier unwittingly releasing the titular Hobgoblins! Oh Noes! WTF? I can has Cheeseburger?… Sorry, not sure what happened there. Anyway McCreedy provides the creatures back story and explains they can make people see what they most wish for though they do kinda accidentally kill them in the process. And so our mighty hero Kevin goes to stop the evil beings and save the friends that frankly no man deserves!

The Hobgoblins head straight for Kevin’s house, perhaps wanting to leave him a thank you note for freeing them after all this time or perhaps smelling Daphne’s rancid pheromones from miles away and they are just looking for an easy lay after such a long time in the vault. Either way they happen upon Kevin’s chums whilst they are…well I guess you’d kinda have to call it partying really. The hobgoblins manage to lure Daphne out of the house with an exact replica of Nick’s car horn. Having never met the man and having been locked in a movie vault, I can’t help but wonder how they know the sound of his horn or where and when they purchased such an item. Anyway, one of the hobgoblins tries to kill Daphne but she fights them off with a rake. Garden utensils would have made Lord of the Rings way more awesome.

Meanwhile, Kevin is calling a phone sex line, when he is told the woman he’s talking to is right outside. He takes her to the make-out spot of the city, with signs denoting where people should park depending on what kind of sexual activity they plan on engaging in. I’m sure the city council are very pleased with such a well organised make-out spot. The woman tries to push the car off of the make-out spot cliff with Nick still inside it until Kevin shows up and kills the hobgoblin generating the fantasy. The car still goes over the edge and the two characters are left standing there, watching the terrible fire which seems to have all the intensity of two torches being shone into the actor’s eyes.

Whilst this is going down, Amy heads to Club Scum to become a slutty, slutty stripper. (Point of interest: The man who plays Club Scum’s host would go on to voice Cosmo in the Fairly Odd Parents.) She demands to be degraded until Kevin and friends show up to kill the hobgoblins. The club is thrown into chaos and Nick begins to fantasize that he’s in combat. He manages to set himself on fire by jumping on a grenade… damn that’s stupid.

The surviving friends go to tell McCreedy that they’ve killed all the hobgoblins but Kevin is confronted by the burglar he chased before. A fight breaks out and Kevin wins, impressing Amy at last. Maybe now she will have sex with him. Good for them. But what’s this? The burglar has a gun! He’s going to shoot Kevin! Will he never get his end away? Thankfully McCreedy shoots the hobgoblin which is causing Kevin’s fantasy and the future conquest of Amy by Kevin seems assured. Kyle makes a move on Daphne who seems willing, probably because she’s a whore and not even little red shorts will put her off. Unfortunately for Kyle, Nick shows up covered in bandages. He and Daphne retire to the van which begins bouncing with those same cartoon sound effects and the future conquest of Kyle by Kyle’s hand seems assured.

The rest of the hobgoblins run into the vault and McCreedy blows up the studio, a plan the old man who spent his entire life guarding them for the sake of mankind must have really wished he’d thought up earlier. The End.

Well there you have it. Once more, as with yesterdays pick, I recommend you only watch this film with the appropriate MST3K riffs. Doing otherwise will release the hobgoblins. Oh an rest assure, the hobgoblins will ride again regardless with the soon to be released, direct-to-DVD sequel, Hobgoblins 2. Hooray!

So, what scene? Well there can only be one choice really. Enjoy.

Great Scenes from Shit Films, Part 4: Manos: The Hands of Fate

2008-10-28T00:55:00.000-07:00

Like most people out there who have seen Manos: The Hands of Fate (Translation: Hands: The Hands of Fate) I became aware of it through Mystery Science Theater 3000. The episode is held in high regard amongst the shows fans and rightly so. It is, after all, awesome. Some of my favourite riffs I heard in the shows history come from this episode, as do some of my favourite segments. Such a thing is only possible with the just the right film, and Manos is just such a film.

Every frame is such exquisite crap, that you just can't help but laugh. From the inexplicable scenes involving two teenagers making out to Torgo's chilling theme music, everything here is so ripe for a riffing that if MST3K hadn't done an episode with it then there would have been a public outcry... except that no one would have heard of the movie.

The plot then if it can indeed be called such. A family made up of husband Mike, wife Margaret, daughter Debbie and dog Peppy are travelling somewhere for some reason. Meanwhile two teenagers make out in a car until a cop tells them to piss off. The family reach a house and are greeted by every one's favourite satyr/housekeeper Torgo. He takes care of the place while the Master is away.
Mike asks Torgo is his family can spend the night at the house and, after a little hesitation, Torgo agrees.

Later that evening, Peppy runs outside the house and is later discovered as a corpse dog by Mike. Margaret wants to leave and Mike demands that Torgo put the luggage back in the car, which is a very rude way to treat someone who kindly let you stay in house even though he had reservations. What a bastard. It's not Torgo's fault they can't control their fucking dog. Torgo does as he's told before catching Margaret alone. He informs her that the Master wants her for a wife but he can't have her because Torgo wants her for himself. He then 'fondles' her in a way that demonstrates just why Torgo is considered a ladies man without equal.

Meanwhile, the two teenagers continue making out until being told to move on by the police again.

Now Debbie runs outside of the house and, rather than being found as a girl corpse, her parents find her with a big evil looking dog. When asked where the dog was found, she leads them to a chamber which contains the Master and several women (his wives) dressed in white nighties in an apparent cryogenic stasis, though without the cryogenic part.. The family run back to the house and try to find Torgo.

Torgo, though, has gone to the chamber himself where he does a little more fondling, this time of the Master's lovely ladies. That Torgo, what a lovable scamp! Torgo then knocks Mike out and ties him to a pole. Suddenly the Master and his wives awaken. They argue about the families fate, some wanting to kill 'em all, others wanting to keep the wife and daughter. The Master, however, has his own plans. He's pissed at how Torgo always seems to get more pussy, even though the Master has well loads of wives. So he decides he's going to sacrifice him to Manos! It should be pointed out at this point that the Master is wearing a fetching poncho with a hands motif. It's lovely. He leaves the chamber and the wives carry on arguing about the fate of the family which devolves into a wrestling match in the sand. A long one. Like several minutes long. It's really painful viewing at this point.

The Master finds Torgo and tells him he's going to be well dead. Torgo tries to fight but the Master puts him in a trance or something. Meanwhile one of the wives finds Mike and kisses and slaps him while he's unconscious but by this point of the film you will have given up hope that anything in life will ever make sense again. The Master brings Torgo to the tomb, puts him on a stone tablet whilst tying up one of the wives. The wives give Torgo a massage for some reason, the Master burns his hand and Torgo runs away, presumably to his death. He then kills the wife tied to the pole for good measure.

Mike wakes up and joins his family as they try to escape. Unfortunately they encounter a stock footage snake which impedes their progress. of course it's not like they are in a wide expanse of desert affording the option of walking around said snake and giving it a very wide berth so Mike decides to fire at the snake. This gunfire catches the attention of the policemen who shooed the teens who were making out so they go to investigate. These are clearly crack crime fighters as there investigation involves moving away from their car, staring into the darkness before giving up and going away. To Protect and Serve!

The family, unable to make their way through a maze of stock footage wildlife, decide to return to the house. It just makes sense. The Master attacks, Mike fires at him and the screen fades to black.

The next scene shows two women who are travelling somewhere for some reason. They reach a house and are greeted by every one's favourite human/housekeeper Mike. He takes care of the place while the Master is away. Next we see that Margaret and Debbie have joined the army of wives in stasis, which it pretty disgusting when you consider that Debbie is a little girl. Chris Hansen needs to take the Master's ass down a peg or two.

The credits are followed by the scariest scene in the entire film when the words 'The End?' flash up. That question marked has plagued any and all who have seen this film.

So there you have it, the 'plot' of Manos. Now for a few fun facts:

1) The camera used to shoot the film could only shoot for thirty seconds at a time and everything was filmed without sound. The voices were dubbed in later!

2)The film had a budget of $19,000!

3)The driving sequences at the beginning of the film were supposed to have the opening credits over them, but the director forgot to include them!

4)John Reynolds, who played Torgo, sustained permanent damage to his kneecaps because of the apparatus on them. He was constantly on painkillers up until his suicide, due to the injury he had from this movie. It's believed that his kneecaps were damaged due to the device being worn backwards... I'm sorry, that probably shouldn't have been included in the 'fun facts'. Let's move on.

This movie is among the very worst ever made. Simple as that. Plan 9 from Outer Space is awful, Hobgoblins is an abortion but in my opinion this film tops them all. If you have to see this film, and you have to, make sure you watch it with Joel and the Bots from MST3K. Doing otherwise is hazardous to your health.

As for the scene I've picked from this treasure trove of awful, I've decided upon Torgo charming the pants off of Margaret with his suave fondling. Enjoy.

DocuMental: Zoo

2008-10-22T00:19:00.000-07:00

Ok, I’ve been watching a hell of a lot of documentaries lately and so I shall review them. Wow, that was an awful opening sentence. Never mind, let us continue regardless. The world of documentaries has always fascinated me. I love fictional films, obviously, but there’s something different about a really great documentary. Unfortunately what I’m reviewing today is not a great documentary.

Zoo is a 2007 film directed by Robinson Devor. It concerns the 2005 death of Kenneth Pinyan, referred to in the film by his username ‘Mr Hands‘, a 45 year old man who was fucked to death by a stallion. That’s right, he was literally fucked to death by a horse. A horse fucked him, punctured his colon and he was dropped off at hospital by another horse fucker and died there of his injuries. The death resulted in the passing of a law which made it illegal to have sex with animals in Washington… I honestly can’t believe that this was legal in Washington until 2005. I now have a horrible feeling that Bill Clinton wasn’t the only one to engage in sexual discretions in the White House. After all, Nixon REALLY loved his dog Checkers but I digress.

Essentially the story goes that there was a farm in Washington owned by an old couple who loved there horses. They had a guy working there for them who also loved horses. He loved them, however, in a different way. The kind of way were you allow yourself to be mounted by said horses. He thought it would be fun to invite other people over to the farm who were also interested in such activities when ever the couple went away and so he did via the world wide web, mankind’s greatest invention when it comes to enabling deviant sexual behaviour. Hooray!

So people would come out the farm, have a few drinks, eat some food, watch TV and then go and get fucked by a horse. You know, just a regular night in with the lads. So anyway, one night Kenneth goes out, does the usual and starts to complain that he’s not feeling right. It soon becomes clear that something pretty bad has happened so one of the other guys dumps him at a hospital and drives off. Unfortunately for him, a number of CCTV cameras track his car and it’s journey. The media are soon flying over their farm in a helicopter, police are called in and religious folks try and save the animal fucker’s souls. The couple who actually own the farm are shown some footage of the actual manimal loving, and so unfortunately is the viewer, but no one is actually charged because at the time it’s not against the law.

That’s the story. In the film it’s almost exclusively told in recreations for obvious reasons. The problem that I have with the documentary, other than seeing the act on screen even if only fleeting glimpses, is that it’s told in some weird, experimental storytelling format, something the film has been praised for. It doesn’t seem to have any real structure until the last half of the film which made it really difficult to get into. The first half seems to just throw random parts of the story in, interviewing the woman who rescued the animal who caused the man’s death, a man explaining how he got into bestiality and several others, all just jumbled up together with no semblance of an order.

The worst thing though, the worst fucking thing, is that every scene seemed to be shot in slow motion. It’s like the ‘300’ of dude fucked to death by a horse movies. At least in three hundred there were times when this was kind of Ok. In this however scenes of people walking, running, watching TV and answering the phone are all in fucking slow motion and though the music in the film wasn’t particularly bad, it was not particularly great either. In fact, sometimes it made the scene seem even slower than they were already.

The strangest part of the film, and that really is a claim when talking about a film in which a man is fucked to death by a horse, comes at about half way through. Suddenly we’re introduced to a man, sitting on a stool in a white room who is just talking. It turns out that this man is one of the actors in the film. This really confused me for a second because I suddenly thought that maybe I’d been watching a documentary on the making of Zoo for 45 minutes. Maybe that explained why they hadn’t really touched on the story that I thought the film was actually about at this point, but no it turns out this man felt that he could somehow relate to this story because he once tried to help a drowning kid at a swimming pool and failed. I honestly didn’t fully understand the connection and still don’t now.

Oh, and to top it of they geld the horse who killed the dude. They castrate the fucking horse so that no one who is interested in having sex with it will come to try and adopt it. That’s just wrong in my books. How about they just don’t let anyone adopt the fucking horse and let it keep it’s tackle?

Overall, I just didn’t like this film. The strange story-telling style definitely had something to do with it. I just felt it was unnecessary and really detracted from whatever plot or point they were trying to get across. I guess ultimately I just was also kinda disappointed that this film wasn’t as funny as I felt a film about a man being fucked to death by a horse should’ve been. It was just kinda dark and disturbing.

Now, in honour of my favourite documentary, King Of Kong, I shall give each documentary a review out of five Kongs. Zoo receives 1 Kong out of 5. Now, if you don’t mind I must go muck out the stables.

Great Scenes from Shit Films, Part 3.

2008-10-21T23:16:00.000-07:00

Jaws is one of my favourite films of all time. It is awesome. Unfortunately sequels were made. Terrible, terrible sequels. Ok, 2 wasn’t so bad but 3 and 4 are awful. Jaws 4, aka Jaws: The Revenge, is easily one of the worst films of all time.

Martin Brody is dead. Ellen Brody visits her son, Michael, is working as a marine biologist… I think. It seems like an odd choice of employment for someone whose family has such a constant problem with sharks. His younger brother Sean is a cop or at least he was as he’s despatched by a shark fairly early on in the film, the event which prompts Ellen to visit Michael. She believes that the shark purposefully attacked Sean because it seems that she’s gone bat-shit crazy.

Whilst in the Carribean she meets and becomes romantically involved with Michael Caine, a man who clearly needed cash desperately at this stage in his career. There is clearly no other explanation for his appearing in this film. At some point Ellen’s granddaughter goes on a banana boat which is attacked by a shark. The granddaughter survives but she’s traumatised by the experience. Perhaps she’ll become a marine biologist.

Ellen goes to find the shark, which she believes is the same one that ate Sean because she’s gone bat-shit crazy. Michael Cain flies Michael and his friend Mario Van Peebles out to find herwhen the shark attacks the plane but they manage to get on the boat. Mario Van Peebles uses a little box that makes the shark jump out of the water. The shark attacks Mario Van Peebles and drags him under the water. It then resumes jumping out of the water, becuase it’s clearly gone bat-shit crazy and believes itself to be a dolphin. Ellen rams the boat into the shark, causing it… to… explode....for some reason. Ellen believes the curse of the shark is lifted and everyone lives happily ever after, except for Sean. Mario Van Peebles, on the other hand, survives though badly mauled.

The film is shit, makes no sense and makes me physically sick. So which scene will it be? The inexplicable death of the shark, a death that for some reason causes the shark to explode. It is awesome. Not only does the shark just blow up for no reason but they even have the gall to include scenes from the first, infinitely superior film. Enjoy.

Great Scenes From Shit Films, Part 2.

2008-10-09T11:00:00.000-07:00

In 1989 a strange creature was unleashed upon the world, a strange hybrid beast, not quite an advert, not quite a movie. It starred a young Christian Slater, a younger Fred Savage and that dude who’s in lots of things. You know the one I mean, whatshisname. Yeah, him. The “film” was called the Wizard and it’s best known for being the western world’s introduction to Super Mario Bros. 3, one of the best selling video games of all time.

I don’t think I need to tell you that it’s terrbile. Well, not terrible… fucking awful may be a better description. Filled with Nintendo games, Father/son bed sharing, the first appearance of a young Tobey Maguire and the odd paedophile joke thrown in for good measure, the film tells the unfollowable story of Jimmy, a little kid who is retarded in some way but is really good at Nintendo games like Rain Man if he was sponsored by a large Japanese electronics industry giant.

Something bad is going to happen to Jimmy for some reason and so his brother, Corey, breaks him out of the care home he lives in. Jimmy wants to go to California and to do that they need money so Corey decides to pit Jimmy against middle aged buisness men, who haunted the arcades back in the late 80s, for money. Jimmy wins, they get cash. They meet Haley, a street smart girl from a poor family and make their way across the USA.

Meanwhile Corey’s brother and father are trying to track them down as is Putnam, the villain/comic relief, a private investigator hired by Jimmy’s mother and step-father. God just writing this is making me angry. Blah Blah Blah, video game contest, blah blah blah, funky tie, blah blah Mario 3, blah blah blah Dinosaurs from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.

The important scene in this film is one in which the characters meet up with LUCAS! LUCAS! is the Nintendo God of his quiet desert town. He owns all the NES cartridges, is awesome at all of them and he has a secret weapon. Something so awesome that to gaze upon it is to break down in tears, shit your pants and know that there is a God, thy name is LUCAS! What is this holy Nintendo relic? The Power Glove, of course. With it LUCAS! shall surely crush all who dare defy him! It comes in a case with his fucking name on it! Seriously, how do you out-awesome that?

Now, if you’ve ever actually used the Power Glove you know it’s a total piece of shit, unresponsive in every regard of the word. Though it does apparently allow you to land the plane on Top Gun, something I failed to do as a kid with a normal controller. Still the fact that the Power Glove is played up so much in this singular scene makes it that much funnier. So enjoy and I do reccomend the actual film to be honest, I love the Wizard. It’s so bad.

Great Scenes From Shit Films, Part 1

2008-10-05T02:23:00.000-07:00

With the revelation that I do indeed own several hundred fucking awful films on DVD, not just Mac and Me, I’ve decided to do regular blog posts about them, or to be more specific, regular blog posts about great scenes within these otherwise reprehensible cinematic abortions.
So today, why not start off with that film I’d really rather forget I own, “Mac and Me”. First some background.

In 1982 Steven Spielberg released a little film called “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” (Slightly redundant if you ask me, but I guess no one is.) The film recieved rave reviews and launced the career of Drew Barrymore, eventually launching her into rehab by the age of 13 and finally launching her into her latest role as a chihuahua in the Disney film “Beverly Hills Chihuahua”
Deciding to cash in on the popularity of the film, Orion Pictures/McDonalds decided to release Mac and Me a mere six years later. The film follows a familiar plot and since I refuse to watch the film again, this synopsis is mostly from memory.

A family of aliens is living on the moon or Mars or somewhere, drinking strange liquids from beneath the planets/satellites surface with straws before getting sucked into a NASA probe and accidentally brought back to Earth. The youngest alien accidentally get seperated from the rest of his family and somehow ends up befriending a kid in a wheelchair, who I shall now refer to as Wheels. Wheels calls the alien Mac, apparently standing for Mysterious Alien Creature though I always feel as though there should be the word Big at the beginning of his name.

Mac then puts on a bear costume and dances in McDonalds before going to find the rest of his family with the help of Wheels and his brother, in a desert whilst eating McFlurry’s, except for Mac who can only drink Coca-Cola through a straw due to his disturbing blow up doll mouth configuration.

They find Mac’s family who are seriously dehydrated but thankfully some Coca-Cola sorts ‘em right out. I also think wind farms are important for some reason. Anyway, in a scene that really freaked me out as a child (And I admit I still have some trouble watching it today) the father alien gets a gun and starts shooting at shit for some reason. I’m not sure why this scared me so much, but I think it’s something to do with the father’s odd, shambling, writhing gait, like some kind of zombie made of snakes… Oh god, it’s horrific.

Anyway, everything is all sorted out and the aliens are officially made citizens of McDonald Land, I mean the United States of America, probably because the father was so pro-gun rights.

To sum up even quicker, the fucking film is an advert for McDonalds, Coca-Cola and various other commercial enterprises. The trailer even has Ronald McDonald in it. Seriously look it up.
The film is a travesty and actually causes a condition known as Sand Paper Lung, in which the sufferer, having lost the will to live, actually reconfigures their DNA, causing their lungs to transform into actual sand paper and as they breath, they slowly sand away their innards until no thing is left but a gaping hole in their chest.

Despite this there are two scenes which really stick out. The first is the afforementioned dancing in McDonalds scene, which I may feature in some future blog post. The second is the following scene, affectionally called “The Infamous Wheelchair Scene.” Enjoy!