Last movie watched...

[I, Cosh]

Delayed post from last Tuesday:

Saw the deeply silly Premium Rush this evening. Joseph Gordon Levitt (who was in Batman on Monday night) is a cycle courier who picks up the wrong  package and has to contend with the guys who want it back. Obviously, couriers are the sort of people that even other cyclists hate. Add in the fact that he's one of these "steel frame, fixed gear" arseholes and he has to work twice as hard to get us on his side. It's not entirely successful in its attempts to make dangerous cycling look cool like a car chase or parkour but there's a certain excitement in the chase sequences and one extended freestyle routine which we could have done with more of. I found myself grinning enthusiastically throughout. Partly from the action on screen and partly from thinking how I would drop the fucker on the next climb.

The drama is determinedly low key too but the three leads are reasonably engaging and ride well together. Worth giving a spin.

Shockingly, I found The Expendables 2 reasonably enjoyable too. In some ways better by far than its predecessor; in others even more irritating.

The good first. The action scenes are all filmed much more clearly than in the first film; van Damme makes for a good villain (but isn't in it nearly enough); Michelle Yeoh is a pretty good replacement for Jet Li and her presence leads to a classic "grudging respect between unwanted allies"; the Expendables still go around in a seaplane.

The bad. Lundgren's character goes from dangerously on-edge (and dead) in the first one to comic relief; not enough van Damme; continued lack of expendability; not enough van Damme. The thing that really sinks this one is far too much knowing humour and jokes reliant on the bigger stars' real personae. I could live with an "I'll be back" but having the whole cast standing around making "Chuck Norris is so hard that.." quips is more than I can take.

Comes back to expectation though. I didn't expect great things from the first one but I still hoped and it didn't deliver. With this I was just interested to see what they did with it and, despite the caveats, was pleasantly surprised.

[I, Cosh]

District 9 very nearly lived up to the hype I've been hearing since it was released. A good mixture of Starship Troopers (unsubtle but still amusing satire and gore), Alien Nation  and The Office (well, the main guy is meant to be a David Brent style twat, isn't he?) that also delivers a surprisingly effective chase thriller plot.
On top of all that, I have a mate called Christopher Johnston who will forever more be referred to as  "you facking prawn."


Another watchable B-grade action film from the seemingly inexhaustible Luc Besson production line; Colombiana was alright if you like that sort of thing. This one revisits the super-hot assassin revenge fantasy sub-genre with Zoe Saldana from out of The Losers making a decent stab at the lead role which does entail a modicum of smart planning and sneaking around in between shooting massive guns in a state of deshabille.

Besson seems to dig up Europop video directors at roughly the same rate as he churns out scripts. I wasn't impressed  with Olivier Megaton's first effort – Transporter 3 – but this, while retaining an unpleasantly slick veneer seems a step in the right direction. I'm interested to see what way he goes with Taken 2.

[Professor Bear]

Walked out on Dark Shadows.  An insufferable film.

edit: Literally.

[JamesC]

Walked out on Dark Shadows.  An insufferable film.

edit: Literally.

What did you expect? It's Tim Burton trying to be funny again!

[Radbacker]

hmmnn, i think my Crapo-filter is broken again I quite liked Darkshadows, not sure why i must have been drunk or something.

Watched Meeting Evil (i think thats what it was called) on the weekend, not a bad thriller with Samuel Jackson and Luke Wilson (horribly miscast).  Jackson is a serial killer/hitman (its never clear and tries to go the confusion route at the end) who's targeted/accepted a contract on Wilsons character, Jackson is one horrible evil dude in it and puts wilson through the ringer.  The end is brave but not very satisfying.  Then tried to watch some exorsist thing, pure crap borrowing from a million better movies, supposedly based on a true story but fromj what i can tell the true story is just some crazy bitch killing people not demons involved.

CU Radbacker

[Professor Bear]

Every character was trying far, far too hard to be quirky and I just wanted to punch or strangle every one of them, though fair play to the Hitgirl lass for landing a gig where she got to lounge around on sofas glaring at the audience/director with a look of contempt on her face while going "tch".

[PsychoGoatee]

Michelle Yeoh is a pretty good replacement for Jet Li and her presence leads to a classic "grudging respect between unwanted allies"; the Expendables still go around in a seaplane.

Just for the record, that wasn't Michelle Yeoh, it's an actress named Yu Nan. Agreed it's a fun action flick, Van Damme is too fun as the villain Jean Vilain.

My latest watched movie is Dredd of course, perfect future crime movie, nailed it. Seeing it again today too.

[JUDGE BURNS]

PARANORMAN....with the kids .  I quite enjoyed it. Some bits scared the sh*t out of my youngest sprog.
Well worth a viewing. 8/10

[I, Cosh]

Michelle Yeoh is a pretty good replacement for Jet Li and her presence leads to a classic "grudging respect between unwanted allies"; the Expendables still go around in a seaplane.

Just for the record, that wasn't Michelle Yeoh, it's an actress named Yu Nan. Agreed it's a fun action flick, Van Damme is too fun as the villain Jean Vilain.

Blimey. Now I look like even more of a tit than before!

[PsychoGoatee]

Blimey. Now I look like even more of a tit than before!

Tits are good, people like tits. 

[NapalmKev]

Resident evil Retribution: I thought I'd watch it purely because I moan a lot about this particular series and I wanted to see if there was any improvement. Absolutely dire film with barely any plot and crap acting. There was about 5 mins I thought were ok involving 2 big bastards with axes which was visually quite good but added nothing to the overall 'story'.

Distinctly crap on too many levels!

Cheers 

[Hoagy]

Resident evil Retribution: I thought I'd watch it purely because I moan a lot about this particular series and I wanted to see if there was any improvement. Absolutely dire film with barely any plot and crap acting. There was about 5 mins I thought were ok involving 2 big bastards with axes which was visually quite good but added nothing to the overall 'story'.

Distinctly crap on too many levels!

Cheers 

Did you watch the R.E. Damnation one Kev? It's the animated one just out on DVD.

[NapalmKev]

Did you watch the R.E. Damnation one Kev? It's the animated one just out on DVD.

Not seen it yet mate. I've seen the first animated one they made which I actually preferred to the Live action versions. I'll check Damnation out when I get the chance.

Cheers 

[Professor Bear]

John Carter, which I enjoyed a damn sight more without the 3D and at home, though super-sharp blu-ray picture seems to be a drawback as some of the FX look a bit more ropey than I remember.  Still a slight story, and the baldy blokes seem to just ponce about facilitating a nebulous agenda instead of what seems like perfectly good drama between the various factions playing itself out over the course of the film, but an enjoyable romp all the same, He-Man cosplay aside.

[SmallBlueThing]

CHILDREN OF THE CORN (original, not sequel nor remake)

I'd not seen this in twenty years, and was keen to see how it stood up. It's a long time since those long summer holidays when my mate and i would rent this endlessly on vhs til we knew it backwards, and malachi and isaac were watchwords in terror far more potent than freddy and jason.

In truth, it's not very good. But that didnt stop both my boys sitting wide-eyed throughout (bela adorably covered his eyes with both hands when he thought something nasty was about to happen) and declaring it "awesome!" afterwards. Both reckoned malachi and isaac to be "really creepy", which made me very happy indeed.

There's nothing particularly frightening within- the gore i remember proved to be largely invented by my brain- but the scenes of the nebraskan corn blowing in the wind still have an eerie charm. It's a very childlike film, and i think aimed very definitely at a young audience- which renders its bbfc '18' laughable (12A would be reasonable)

(cont)