Last movie watched...

[Professor Bear]

It's no Darby O'Gill and the Little People, that's for sure.

[Professor Bear]

On principle, I bought The 25th Reich as it has robot Nazi spiders in it, but I seem to have made a terrible mistake somehow even though my logic is clearly not at fault.  This is a dreadful film, but it's that particular kind of dreadful that only comes with poor decision-making on the part of the makers and bad story decisions being made that culminate with a redneck being transformed into a giant robot Nazi spider and then bum-raping a closeted Jewish soldier and you can practically hear the arguments already for proclaiming this as high art rather than turgid juvenile shit: "it has levels because the soldier is a gay jew and he is being gay raped by a Nazi because it's satire and irony because it is also a Nazi raping a American soldier but also a man who hates gays having gay rape on a gaylol."  The rest of it looks almost there, with some interesting character setup with the movie star doing his stint in the army as was popular at the time* and a dodgy secret mission to capture escaped CGI panthers in the Aussie outback, but the acting isn't quite there and the script fumbles pretty much everything and the flat direction never lets you get past that.  The scenery is nice, but that's about it, really.
I never thought this day would come, but I am seriously telling other people that a film with giant robot Nazi spiders in it is not very good.  Thanks a fucking bunch, 25th Reich.


* though the actor is far too old to be playing a movie star doing a stint in the US military as once you hit the mid-30s the USG usually classed public figures as unfit for service, and the bloke here seems to be late 40s.

[Richmond Clements]

Dredd.

[Spaceghost]

Dredd.

HA HA HA HAAAAAA! ME TOO!!!! DREDD! HA HA HAAAAAAAAA!


(still on a high...)

[Jim_Campbell]

Fucking fuck you, you fucking bunch of fucking fucks.

Cheers

Jim

(Not fucking jealous, at fucking all. Oh, no.)

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

I could have gone and seen it if I wanted. I just didn't because ...y'know....I'm too cool for school

[HdE]

Fucking fuck you, you fucking bunch of fucking fucks.

More! More!

[Professor Bear]

Bastards.

[Mudcrab]

Yeah, fuck you! Get out of this thread! 

[HdE]

Now now, lads - it's only entertaining when Jim does it.

[Spikes]

Dredd!! 

Oops, sorry - Ill re-post this bit in about six days or so, 


Mr Postman delivered the Apocalypse Now/Hearts of Darkness 3 disc boxset yesterday, so ive been working my way through that. I wont review the film, as i expect pretty much everyone has seen it by now.
The films look and sound spot on, though ive never really cared for the Redux version, and the Hearts of Darkness Doc is always worth revisiting. Some nice extra's and finally the films are in their correct aspect ratio. Cheap enough now on Amazon, so well worthwhile tracking down.

[Professor Bear]

I wasn't going to watch the Expendables because it didn't really appeal to me as a longtime fan of the action movie - it was clearly a star vehicle rather than an action flick in the mold of Gunmen (yes, I know), and those tend not to be very memorable action films and occasionally muddled in their execution, but I read - somewhere - that there was a tremendously gay subtext in it, and paired with the presence of reliable action flick workhorse Gary Daniels I was intrigued enough to give it a gander.
The much-anticipated gay subtext is sadly nonexistent and Expendables is actually one of the least gay action movies I've ever seen,* even with Mickey Rourke's flamboyant appearance and Sylvester Stallone's laughable attempts to appear like a regular Joe, as it's essentially one long bro fist - the film even ends with one - and a deliberate acknowledgement that it's okay to be a bloke and love your mates without accusing each other of being fags.  Statham's character especially goes through the stereotypical action male tropes of beating up an abusive boyfriend and playing the white knight to faithless ho Charisma Carpenter, but his actions and dialogue betray that he's genuinely hurt emotionally and that he struggles with feelings of self-worth in the aftermath of seeing his poorly-tended relationship crumble before him rather than just feeling angry and action-movie betrayed.  Like Stallone's Barney Ross and Mickey Rourke's Tool, Statham's Lee Christmas is struggling to define what he wants in life and coming to the conclusion that he wants genuine emotional investment in people and roots of his own before he ends up like bonkers team-mate Gunner (Dolph Lundgren), desensitised to the violence he inflicts and unable to recognise friends in the people around him.  Even Jet Li's Yin Yang is having worries about where he's going and the general message is that this is okay, that it's okay to want to hang out and be dudes without being assholes into the bargain, that guys are allowed to be people, to be human beings and to actually have a feeling.
In many ways, this is iconoclastic ground for the action movie to cover, as pretty much every character of note is obsessed with legacy and/or getting old rather than remaining some sort of panto caricature forever, even the walking leer that is Eric Roberts, and it's telling that near the end Ross takes a single bullet and goes down and that he gets his ass kicked by a younger man rather than bulls his way through and comes out on top.  This is the action movie in mid-life crisis, and while I think this is appropriate for something where all the actors with the exception of Statham and Li look roughly a million years old and is great as plot backdrop, it doesn't make me want to rewatch the film any time soon as it takes up 90 percent of the running time.
It does not have a lot of action in it, and what's there is not as good as it could be.  For a start, did someone actually think it was a good idea to have some blokes dressed in black having a fistfight in a darkened hallway as a setpiece?  I had no idea who was fighting who at some points, but when I figured it out I did see what they were originally planning: Stallone/Austin pairing off for wrestling because neither were really up for the martial arts stuff, while that was left to Li/Statham/Daniels, and in theory that's good stuff, but in practice it didn't set the screen on fire, which is odd because the latter three actors have enough experience between them of onscreen martial arts that I was surprised at how much of it was no-selling punches and kicks.  It takes an age to get going - about 40 minutes in before the second action scene - after a pretty brief opening scrap, and is roughly four decent action setpieces over the guts of two hours.  It is not great as an action flick, as feared, though the character work is definately welcome.
I'd give it a cautious recommendation for a one-off watch, but mention that it's about 10/15 minutes too long.  The sequel is apparently more action-friendly to the point of parody, but I'd be lying if i said I would watch it for any reason other than to see Jean Claude Van Damme playing a bad guy called Jean Villain...


* Which really takes some doing seeing as it has Statham and Lundgren in the cast.

[Eric Plumrose]

I somehow managed to enjoy THE EXPENDABLES in its pre-cut cinema version but that probably has a lot to with the kick I get from watching pensioners BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF PEOPLE without any obvious use of stunt doubles. THE EXPENDABLES PART DEUX, however, really does descend into parody. Painfully so, oh ho, when Arnolt quips:

"Who's gonna turn up next? Rambo?"

[NapalmKev]

The Running Man was on Telly last night. Not the greatest of films but not a complete turd either. Not a patch on the book though, I think I new adaption closer to the source material is in order!

Cheers

[Bat King]

Dredd.

Dredd.

HA HA HA HAAAAAA! ME TOO!!!! DREDD! HA HA HAAAAAAAAA!


(still on a high...)

Dredd!! 

Oops, sorry - Ill re-post this bit in about six days or so, 


...

Yup, Dredd.