Last movie watched...

[radiator]

Monsters University.

Enjoyed it - it's mid-tier Pixar stuff - if you were ranking all the Pixar films in a list of quality it would be around the middle, and - as a prequel - it's forever destined to be a side-note to the original Monsters Inc (which it inevitably leans on heavily, and it doesn't really work as a standalone film in it's own right).

There's some nice character bits, some ingenious creative flourishes (the 'scare tactics/theory' is brilliantly realised) and some great gags - but a fair bit of the humour didn't quite land for me. The setting doesn't really lend itself to action and incident, so I could imagine most kids would get a little bored. It looks drop dead stunning though, as you'd expect.

The short that ran before it - Blue Umbrella - is notable mainly for it's visuals which are truly incredible - it's a departure for Pixar, striving for (and coming eerily close to) photorealism. It's understated and is imitially promising, but the story quickly becomes overly cutesy and trite. Not one of their best all in all.

[Theblazeuk]

followed by some eco-freeze drama with a bloke with pointy teeth in The Colony.

I like the premise of the blog and the reviews, even if I clearly don't share your opinions on many a movie (The Burbs is alot of fun in my book). However the definite article movies may not be limited to dreck but it certainly seems to include a lot of it... would like to see a The Thing (original) The Thing (prequel) comparison go on there a la the Crazies.

[Rog69]

Oblivion.

It passed a couple of hours and meant I could use tom Cruise to divert the wife's attention away from celebrity masterchef so it wasn't a total loss, but my god, what a load of bollocks.

What I don't understand is [spoiler]why this big alien artificial intelligence Dairlylea triangle in space thing went to all the trouble of cloning people to maintain the drones, it must had some pretty impressive resources to blow up the moon and then build all of those sea sucking machines to begin with. Why not just build a fuck-ton of drones instead of building not quite enough and going to the trouble of making clones and furnishing them with a luxury apartment and a fake back story, only to not give them enough resources to do the job anyway.[/spoiler]

[Professor Bear]

I wanted to like The Colony because of the interesting premise and setting, but so much of it is just aggressively banal and/or insultingly trite, like the voice-over that over-explains things that are stated a few minutes later in clumsy dialogue between characters as the film-makers literally did not trust their audience to wait three minutes to know what was going on and so added a VO to narrate the premise into abstraction while also going an about how ice is cold but the loneliness of not being able to kiss a girl or hug your mum is even colder or some equally juvenile shit like that.
It teeters on the edge of at the very least being a cult classic, but the utter lack of faith the makers have in their audience just fosters ill-will towards it on my part, not helped by my wanting to shout "oh no, just fuck off, just fuck the fuck off my screen and show me something - anything - else other than this Hollyoaks shit" every time the male-model lead gets kissy-face with his dishwater fuck-buddy, although I did think it hilarious that at one point someone just nuts him rather than listen to his dialogue.  I'm not sure how cannibal monsters know their way around a place they've never been in before better than those that have lived there for years, either, or how the big freeze the entire film hinges around fails to affect that place where all the people have stopped working on any machine which creates heat, but that's the kind of film this is: one cliche clunks into place after another without any underlying objective or subjective logic to tie it all together, a massive waste of time and effort for makers and viewers both, because leaving aside what a lousy story it is, the actual production standards are pretty good, and a lot of it reminds me of Ghosts Of Mars, which though unpopular with many I do really enjoy to watch now and again.
So yeah, The Colony is a film that Ghosts of Mars fans thinks is a waste of your time.  That's where it sets the bar.

[Buttonman]

followed by some eco-freeze drama with a bloke with pointy teeth in The Colony.

I like the premise of the blog and the reviews, even if I clearly don't share your opinions on many a movie (The Burbs is alot of fun in my book). However the definite article movies may not be limited to dreck but it certainly seems to include a lot of it... would like to see a The Thing (original) The Thing (prequel) comparison go on there a la the Crazies.

Thanks for your comments - I'm glad you don't agree with all my reviews as I'd have youwn as a mental if you did!

I try to veer away from the big ticket definite articles like 'The Shining', 'The Fly' and 'The Fog' - everyone has seen these - the plan is to dredge up some 'lost' classics or recent stuff like 'The Colony'. I also did a 'Willard' then and now double with the new one controvertially winning!

[I, Cosh]

How would you file The Wank?

[Sideshow Bob]

How would you file The Wank?

Started off quite briskly with a lot of promise, full of imagination and a fairly 'robust' storyline.....Eventually after some 'cack handed' directorial manipulation,  deteriorated into a complete mess !!....Enjoyable for all that and satisfying,  and well worth repeated viewings......But not as good as the original......

Cheers

[Buttonman]

How would you file The Wank?

Well I'd probably say were more of an aquaintence than a friend but a solid bloke all round.

'The Wolverine' was a recent near trifecta with the definite article, an almost 'W' and a Creature Feature all in one.

[TordelBack]

Expendables 2.  Really enjoyed the first one for what it was, but while it has its moments the sequel was just all over the place.  It's a fine line between fandulgent silliness and tired-looking actors parroting their catchphrases until the running time is up, and this film is far across it.  Also couldn't shake the feeling that the climax takes place in an airport lobby because the cast were flying in from their private islands and this way they didn't have to unpack. 

Maybe it's like a cheap safari, and now we've ticked the Big Five off our lists we can move on and look at something more interesting for E3?

[Charlie boy]

look at something more interesting for E3?

You've got it, pal- Nic Cage is said to be in it! Looks like I may actually pay to see an Expendables film on the big screen! And Mel Gibson is rumoured to be the potential villain.

[Hawkmumbler]

Sadly Wesley Snipes will also be in it.

[Recrewt]

Yeah, you're not exactly expecting a Kubrick masterpiece from the Expendables but they still fail to deliver on the low expectations.  They don't really excel as action movies but then they take themselves a little too seriously to be just for laughs.

I don't hate them they are just instantly forgettable.  I saw Ex 2 a few months ago and can barely remember much about it, although I do think that Van Damme was quite fun in it as the baddie.

[radiator]

Can't stand The Expendables. Only saw the first one - against my will - and thought it was complete and utter shite. Reminded me more of awful 1990s straight to video action films than actually good action films.

There's more to a good action movie than just blood and explosions, believe it or not.

[Professor Bear]

"Straight to video" is not quite the insult you think it is, if only because American Ninja 2 is a better film than Expendables 2 and it's a pity they didn't make any more American Ninja movies after that*.
In the rental stores that have now largely died out (as a physical environment), there wasn't any way to tell the difference between blockbusters and some film Chuck Norris had run up in a quarry**, so as long as you just had a movie on the shelves you stood just as good a chance of making money as the guys who made Indy Jones or Star Wars (which the producers of King Solomon's Mines and Battle Beyond the Stars can attest to).  The logic was the same as the b-reel pictures of the 1930s-1970s, which was then applied to STV, then STDVD, and now STNetflix - once your audience got it into their head to watch a movie, they all look the same in their native rental/sales environment.
There's a telling interview with the head honcho of the Asylum where he admits it doesn't matter if people even watch his films: http://www.psmag.com/culture/escapes-from-the-asylum-60701/ but a couple of years after Terminator 2 came out, Chuck Norris was promoting some piece of crap at a karate tournament somewhere and the Guardian or whoever did what was clearly supposed to be an ironic interview with him only for him to come across as a savvy b-movie entrepreneur who knew his market and his fans, and he cited the likes of Roger Corman and William Castle as his predecessors in the b-movie arena where movies made profits rather than headlines.  I'm paraphrasing, but one apt quote was something like "Terminator 2 is a very successful action movie that has yet to turn a profit, but not one of my movies has made a loss."  STV was a powerful and lucrative market in its time - which was right up until affordable broadband became the norm a couple of years ago but now Netflix has taken up the slack - and many a career was made there, as attested by the roster of actors on the Expendables cast (and the careers of Jack Nicholson, Francis Ford Coppola, James Cameron, and so on).

But as to your broader thesis that the Expendables movies were shite, you are absolutely correct. I find fault with your research, but your conclusions are sound.


*  THEY DID NOT MAKE ANY AMERICAN NINJA MOVIES AFTER AMERICAN NINJA 2.
**  This is not to denigrate Quarry Warriors in any way, or its lower-budget sequels Empty Warehouse Arena and Some Offices At Night Fighters.

[radiator]

"Straight to video" is not quite the insult you think it is

No, I think it is. You've done little to change my opinion. Just because something makes money from gullible or ignorant browsers doesn't mean it has any artistic merit.