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There are movie review sites all over the Internet, for the most part they offer only rambling nonsensical reviews by either obnoxious kids who think they know everything there is to know about everything, or by overpaid self-important men with their heads up their arses, and as much intelligence in those heads as there is in fore mentioned little boys I
won't say my reviews will be unbiased or objective because that'd be
lying, and because that's not what watching films is about, it's about
how you feel about the film, how it makes you feel |
Diary
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Reviews
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0-9 2001 a space odyssey - Stanley Kubrick - 1968 There's about an hour of some monkeys throwing stuff, then about an hour of some dull men in a spaceship, they all read and think, and then when the computer tries to kill them all the remaining survivor goes into space in a little pod and has a weird acid trip. FIN Aside from the middle section - which is interminably dull - there is no real narrative to speak of, just some very very long shots of nothing much in particular. The only reason it was popular when it was released is that everyone watching it was fucked on hallucinogens - the only way to scrape enjoyment from the film. Put harrison ford and some puppets in it and replace the long empty shots with space battles and you've got yourself a movie 2/10 Top of 0-9 Top of page 28 days later - Danny Boyle - 2002 A virus - which turns people into brainless flesh-eating zombies - has been released in London and most of those who haven't been infected or eaten have evacuated the country. A few survivors try to reach safety at an army base though on arriving the army men rather than being their salvation attempt to either rape or murder them, so the lead character kills them all in various horrific ways. Then they are all saved and live happily ever after the end. FIN A lot of similarities have been drawn between this film and the resident evil series, and to a number of previous zombie films, but that to me seems a little irrelevant. The film does what it does in a fairly original and entertaining way and despite the occasional weak plot the film is still very enjoyable; it won't make you think but it might make you feel a bit, and scream at the TV and spray spittle about; you want the assorted few to survive and you want the army men to be eaten to death by a mad screaming zombie. Enjoyable entertainment, done very very well and very impressive if you accept it for what it is; an adrenaline and blood fueled horror adventure. Expect much more and you may be disappointed 8/10 Top of 0-9 Top of page A Above Suspicion - Steven Schachter - 1994 A policeman loses the use of his legs and decides to kill himself. Then he finds out that his evil wife is cheating on him with his own brother. He shoots them both dead and makes it look like they were trying to kill him for life insurance money. A detective who is suspicious of the man investigates him and ends up losing his job over it. The policeman lives happily ever after with his kid, the end Christopher reeve acting the part of a man who can't use his legs, hmmmm. It's not a bad detectivey thriller thing, it twists about a bit and the acting's good, specifically Joe Mantegna. The story pissed me off a bit though because reeve got away with it and the detective who didn't believe him lost his job, I wanted the anti-hero guy to loose and the evil good-guy to win, I wanted to see them give reeve the chair (electric rather than wheel). Oh and William H Macy was in it which means it's good, and I think he wrote it too sans cape, sans legs 5/10 Top of A Top of page Apocalypse Now - Francis Ford Coppola - 1979 Martin sheen spends six hours on a boat talking to himself, then he kills some fat guy, the end I know people go on about the MTV generation and short attention spans and other shit but I'm sorry this film is just long dull and boring. There is some superb acting, filmwork, directing, sound and all those other things that make a good film, but there's also about an hour of dead weight on the film that lets it all down I could edit this down to an hour, then it'd be a fantastic film 6/10 Top of A Top of page Armageddon - Michael Bay - 1998 A big meteor thing is going to destroy the world. They try to stop it and fail a few times, then they fly up to it and fill it with explosives. The world is saved bar half of Europe which is decimated but no one cares because it's an American film. This film is a bit long but it's quite enjoyable. All the actors involved make a reasonable effort to live up to their titles and there's lots of cheering and emotions and stuff. I did really quite like it, sorry if that makes me a bad person but it made me cry at the end and I fucking love Steve buscemi, he's great in this. I think the reason it has mass appeal is there's lots of aspects to it namely action, adventure, romance, sci-fi, class, family and all the rest of the human interest stuff Big lovely epic with lots of stars and plot, stroke its thighs 7/10 Top of A Top of page B Battle Royale - Kinji Fukasaku - 2000 A class of Japanese school children are put on a small abandoned island and given three days to kill each other, there must be only one survivor or all left will be killed. They try to band together and reject the game but paranoia gets the better of them and brutal slayings ensue. In the end there are three survivors who cheat the game and escape to kill the game's evil creator, another dies and the last two wader of for a fugitive's life together the premise is very nice, and appealing to most dysfunctional teenage boys who have - like myself - felt the urge to kill their class mates. It's a good study of human behavior (see stupidity) in extreme situations and it's also very entertaining. For some the subtitles may be irritating but once you get into the film you can pretty much guess what they're saying. Black comedy, romance, loss, violence, suspense, mystery, a happy ending that still manages to be downbeat and girls in school uniforms, it couldn't be more Japanese if it tried. Very good, watch it. 9/10 Top of B Top of page Brighton Rock - John Boulting - 1947 A man from a gang kills someone, a waitress is the only witness so he convinces her he loves her and then marries her to shut her up, then he kills some other guy. Not wanting to go to prison he convinces the woman to agree to a suicide pact with him whereby if the police catch him they both kill themselves. Another woman who knows about him tracks them down and alerts the police. Feeble wife woman chucks Attenborough's gun into the sea and cowers a bit, then he leaps into the sea and drowns. This film is old, from back when the world was still black and white. I really liked it, it hasn't really dated. The story was great, as was the acting, and I liked the way the woman was sticking by him because she loved him, it was like her love for him blinded her to the fact that he was a bastard. She was very good, and Richard Attenborough was impressively unfeeling and cruel. Watch it having a scar on your face alerts viewers to the fact that you are evil, as does repeatedly pushing people down flights of stairs. 7/10 Top of B Top of page Brubaker - Stuart Rosenberg - 1980 The new warden of a prison goes undercover as a prisoner to see the corruption and brutality for himself. He goes around stepping on toes being a maverick and making big changes towards humanitarianism. He finds out that there are murder victims buried on prison land and that the prison board people are covering it up, he tries to expose it and gets fired as a result The ending was somewhat downbeat, "the man" beat the liberal nice guy and all the good work at the prison was undone. This ending made it seem like a true story, as did the repeated claims before and after that it was indeed a true story. Less convincing was the bit at the end of the credits which stated that 'any similarities with persons living or dead is purely coincidental.' I think it was trying to be realistic and gritty or something but it was just a bit of a let down. But no it was good though, I enjoyed it. It did the twisty turny bits and there was some action and tension and drama and intrigue and stuff. It was often difficult to tell who was on what side though, and the ending blew. It's got that mute black guy out of live and let die in It, you know, the one who inflates to the size of a transit van and then explodes. 7/10 Top of B Top of page C Cube - Vincenzo Natali - 1997 A group of people wake up inside an empty room, on each face of the cube room is a door leading to other rooms, making up a huge cube of thousands of identical rooms, some of the rooms kill you in horrific ways. The people walk around the cubes arguing and those who aren't mangled by the traps kill each other. It's very simple, the set is just one small empty room and nothing much really happens. The characters are confusing in that they seem to change personality at will and the acting is quite poor. It's an interesting film though and the strange orwellian conspiracy theories are good brain fodder. As sci-fi goes it's not at all bad and has become a bit of a cult film. Enjoyable and interesting. It's kind of...captivating, because it's so fascinating to watch It unfold. It makes you want an explanation and solution but then refuses to give one the best character's are worth and the autistic guy. Worth is a miserable tramp man who just mopes around and reminds me of myself, the autistic guy pisses everywhere and makes 'blaah!' noises, now that's acting 8/10 Top of C Top of page D Donnie Darko - Richard Kelley - 2001 Some stuff happens, Donnie seems a bit mad then something peculiar happens to do with time travel, then lots of black names scroll down the screen and everyone looks confused Great film. Convoluted nonsense, after a couple of viewings It starts to make sense, after about 4 you understand the film enough to realise that the whole time stuff is a daft paradox which would never work and the narrative becomes gibberish. That said It is a very good film, the directing and camera work and acting and script etc. are all great. It's very funny and the studies of the characters are perfect. It's kind of independent with lots of unknowns which is noteworthy. I think it's best not to think of It as a literal narrative film and more as symbolic or something, just because that way you can forgive the film most things and just enjoy It 'smurfs don't fuck' 8/10 Top of D Top of page E Easy Rider - Dennis Hopper - 1969 Three middle-aged blokes drive a very very long way on bikes. They take some drugs and rant shit for a bit, then evil rednecks kill them all I quite liked this film, It was a nice study of people, not much happened in It so you could concentrate on the messed up characters. Technically quite impressive and directorially good, the quiet in the end scene for example, rather than dramatic music, and the acting was suitably manic. I think it's supposed to be about spiritual freedom and the oppression of the scared middle of the road people but It ends up more of a drug odyssey 60's hippy drug fueled surreality, very trippy, like a grittier more realistic version of fear and loathing in Las Vegas 6/10 Top of E Top of page F Fargo - Joel and Ethan Coen - 1996 A man arranges to have his wife kidnapped so that he can collect millions in ransom money from her wealthy father, and the kidnappers......shoot a lot of people. the exchange goes wrong, everyone ends up either dead or in prison ahhhh steve buscemi, i want his babies. and william H macy's too come to that. Very popular with critics and audiences, it normally ends up in the top ten of the various greatest film charts. It's very well directed and acted, and all round a pretty fucking good film. you wouldn't want to watch it much more than once though. Very violent but very stylish with it, it's just.....good, i mean i can't think of anything wrong with it to criticise. H macy is funny, sneaking away from the police, and the random scene with the crying chinese man is hillarious because it doesn't fit in the film "i so lonely!" know that bit when he pulls the police man in through the car window, you know, after he's pulled them over and there's a woman in their boot, and he shoots him in the top of his head and blood and brains spray everywhere like a fountain......i came when i saw that...... 9/10 Top of F Top of page Forbidden Planet - Fred M. Wilcox - 1956 A man and his daughter live on a planet which was once inhabited by an advanced alien race who died out mysteriously. When some space army chaps arrive to look for them a strange monster tries to kill them. They work out that the monster is the physical incarnation of the doctor man's subconscious wishes to be rid of the men and he has to kill himself to save his daughter's life. The first big budget Hollywood sci-fi, this is very cheesy and lurid but quite clever and enjoyable. Bearing in mind it's age it's not dated that badly and it's quite obvious that It was an influence for a lot of later works, including star trek and the robot from which the forbidden planet robot was lifted. All in all a pretty good film, in fact far better than most of the sci-fi made since. Watch It Leslie neilsen of the naked gun films before his hair went white. 8/10 Top of F Top of page The Frighteners - Peter Jackson - 1996 a man who can see ghosts runs an exorcism scam with two amiable specters, then the ghost of a serial killer starts killing people and the psychic is the only person who can see it, so he....kills it up ahhhhh I love this film. I love Michael J fox, I want to have his babies. It's an odd film because it's a kind of family slapstick comedy but with gore and brutal slayings mixed in, which can't be bad. It's clever and fun and has lots of.....levels and aspects, like authority and love and murder and psychology and family and corruption etc., plus it has cowboy necrophillia which I frankly can't get enough of. Comedy slayings the most impressive bad guy of all film bad guys and my beloved darling midget mister fox, ahhhhh 9/10 Top of F Top of page G Gandhi -
Richard Attenborough - 1982 H Halloween - John Carpenter - 1978 A small boy kills his sister and is put in an asylum. He escapes as an adult and potters around a bit looking mysterious, then he tries to kill some middle aged bint but fails when he is scared off by Donald pleasance, hurray! The original slasher horror from which the others succeeding It took their lead. It's quite creepy and unnerving with it's eerie music and dark shots from funny angles. It's pretty good though by today's standards it's fairly tame which means It gets shelved as some kind of old classic to be admired but not really watched. Only about two people die and there's no blood, what's going on!? I WANT MY FUCKING MONEY BACK! oh and I'm not bothering to review Halloweens 2 through 7 on principle 6/10 Top of H Top of page I J Top of J Top of page K Top of K Top of page L Top of L Top of page M M.A.S.H - Robert Altman - 1970 A group of people in an army hospital camp get up to......*shrug* zany antics This isn't at all a bad film, it's very dark and surreal and the directing, camera work and sound are fantastic. I didn't like the story much though, It was misogynistic and lazy, and for a comedy It wasn't that funny carry on camping set in a warzone 3/10 Top of M Top of page N Top of N Top of page O Top of O Top of page P Pale Rider - Clint Eastwood - 1985 As in every Clint Eastwood film a mysterious stranger (Eastwood) strolls into a town, kills some bandits, and then rides off into the sunset/mountains The shoot out stuff is very good, very well done, including the origin of the 'shooting at someone's feet to make them dance' bit. The big dumb guy is good, and clint's as mysterious as he ever gets. Yeah I liked It, as westerns go It was pretty good, the mother/daughter/Clint love triangle was a bit sad though, *sniff* Clint Eastwood looks a bit like how my dad would look if you fired him from a cannon into a tree 6/10 Top of P Top of page Phantoms - Joe Chappelle - 1998 A whole town vanishes. Some people go to investigate and weird spooky shit happens, army people arrive (and die) and then they kill It with science. The survivors (three out of about 500) live happily ever after It seems critics and film goers alike have something against this film. The original novel and also screenplay were written by horror writer Dean Koontz who writes in the same vein as Steven King. I really enjoyed It, It was the kind of film than genuinely scares me, were corpses disappear from their body-bags and then are suddenly behind you. Creepy. The acting was pretty good too, especially Liev Schreiber (cotton weary in scream) who was manic and evil both before and after death. It was a bit like a cronenberg film and It scared me, plus the special effects were very good. Watch It! creepy horror, watch when you're tired 8/10 Top of P Top of page Q Top of Q Top of page R Top of R Top of page S The Shining - Stanley Kubrick - 1980 A family look after an isolated hotel in the mountains while It is shut for the winter. The psychic son foresees danger and the alcoholic dad goes mad and starts talking to ghosts, then he tries to kill his irritatingly feeble wife and mad child. He's lead into the blizzard outside and freezes to death. A rare example of Kubrick doing a good job; this is very eerie and atmospheric, visually and in terms of the sound It is very effective. As usual the size of Jack Nichelson's ego causes him to be a little too manic and the believability suffers. The story doesn't move quite right, in stead of the events happening gradually there's nothing at all for an hour and a half and then lots crammed into a small space, so jack goes from being a bit odd to being demented in a split second, It makes you feel like you've missed a chapter in a very big book speaking of books...the book was better, read that instead, or at least first 7/10 Top of S Top of page T Titanic - James Cameron - 1997 Lots of people are on a really big boat, two of them fall in love. The boat hits an iceberg and everyone dies. I remember I saw this one at the cinema. It was some years ago now and I was only young, and I remember quite liking It The acting's okay if a little theatrical (see hammy) and it's quite well done. It's long but doesn't seem to be so when you watch It It's very soppy, think Jane Austen on a cruise liner, but it's pleasant if you like that sort of thing. Not bad at all but you won't want to watch It much more than once The funniest bit is when the boat tips up and people fall to their deaths. They hit metal things as they fall and make bwoing noises and bounce through the air 8/10 Top of T Top of page Twelve Monkeys - Terry Gilliam - 1995 A disease has wiped out 95% of the population. Bruce Willis is sent back in time to find out what happened and he...runs about a bit Bruce willis acting for a change is nice, although playing a confused moron doesn't seem to be very hard work for him. I love Gilliam and I love this film; It's clever and very well done and the first time I saw It It made me cry. Fantastic sci-fi, watch It "I just got attacked by a coked up whore and a fucking crazy dentist!" 10/10 Top of T Top of page U Top of U Top of page V Virus - John Bruno - 1999 Some salvagey people find an abandoned military ship and decide to sail it home and sell it back to the Russians, but an electronic alien thing makes robots that kill them all. Then the ship explodes and it finishes that was easily one of the top twenty most stupid films I've ever seen, and that's saying something. The special effects were really really good but the story was retarded. It's basically the alien story done over, yet again, but with robots instead. Also Donald Sutherland is shit, and Jamie lee Curtis looks like a twelve year old boy, and she can't act. The black guy going nuts and running around Rambo style was fun 3/10 Top of V Top of page W Top of W Top of page X Top of X Top of page Y Top of Y Top of page Z Top of Z Top of page |