Last movie watched...

[strontium_dog_90]

From Paris With Love

Fucking stupid. A bit like a Steven Segal film but without Steven Segal. John Travolta looked like one of those things where Ant and Dec dress up in prostetics to fool people.

Tango and Cash

Great fun with some very entertaining swearing and Jack Palance eating up the scenery.
My favourite bits are the mouse versions of Tango and Cash which the villain uses as a visual aid to explain his plans for revenge and the 'English' villain with a hilarious accent who says things like' Piss off you fucking sods!'

You've actually made me want to watch that now!

Just watched Punisher: War Zone - mostly to see if it was as bad as everyone makes out.

It was. Though I did think a few times that the guy playing Punisher might have made a passable Dredd if Karl Urban hadn't already donned the helmet.

[Professor Bear]

Tango and Cash

Great fun with some very entertaining swearing and Jack Palance eating up the scenery.
My favourite bits are the mouse versions of Tango and Cash which the villain uses as a visual aid to explain his plans for revenge and the 'English' villain with a hilarious accent who says things like' Piss off you fucking sods!'

The much-missed Brion James, who was in EVERY low budget action movie you loved in your childhood, usually playing a hissable panto villain of some form.

[Spikes]

Boogie Night - Ive finally got my arse into gear and updated to Blu-Ray (what twisted my arm was HMV having an offer on at that moment - five Blu-Rays discs for £30), and this film just looks fantastic. And a decent load of extras as well. Top,  .

[SmallBlueThing]

Right then, as I've said many times, I really have no time at all for "action movies". You know how your granny views "video nasties"?- that's what I think of films like Die Hard or Commando. And like your granny, I've not even seen them. As a kid I watched one or two- notably the Rambo films, Cobra, maybe a Missing In Action and Total Recall... but they never did anything for me whatsoever. While my friends were getting all excited because Schwarzenegger had True Lies or Red Dawn coming out, or Jackie Chan had another cheap, shitty martial arts epic hitting vhs or whatever, I was more interested in what Lucio Fulci was up to, or whether the latest Phantasm was going to cinema or video. In short, sweaty muscley men with their shirts off, spunking bullets at each other, was not then and is not now, my thing.

So, anyway, last night I watched The Expendables. I confess, the thinking here was simple:

I quite liked Rambo (the most recent one) and I like Sylvester Stallone anyway, grud help me. He makes me laugh and I feel kind of defensive towards him, as he comes in for a lot of stick and I get the feeling he can't defend himself. Rocky's a good film, and I've always found his Judge Dredd film amusing. This new Dredd movie is out in a couple of weeks and it looks to be mostly an action film. Despite stating time and again I have no interest in seeing it at the cinema and will wait til bargain bin dvd, I found Alex wossname's long and involved Q&A thingy with The Board to be massively enjoyable, full of heart, and the single piece of promotion that has come closest to making me think I'd maybe like to see it after all. I'd better watch a modern action film quick, to see if I can derive any entertainment from the genre at all, before I go see Dredd, hate it and react to the form of delivery rather than the film itself. Which would be wrong. The Expendables has Stallone and a whole bunch of Action Men in it, and is loved by people who like these types of things, I'll watch that.

So.

It was okay. I wasn't once, ever, engaged with the story. I had literally no idea who anyone was- except Stallone, Willis, Statham (who was much better than I expected), Roberts and Rourke. The rest of the goodies and baddies, who I assume were all played by famous action stars, were all unknown to me. The General/ Dictator man looked disconcertingly like John Thompson from the Fast Show, which made me snigger throughout, and when the big shooty and explodey sequences started everything was cut so fast I couldn't make out what was going on at all, so went out to make a cup of tea.

My wife and I spent the entirety of the film discussing Mickey Rourke's new face and hair, and just how gay Eric Roberts is. And also why Stallone is now looking like Leatherface wearing the peeled face of a drag queen. And why Schwarzenegger looks like a fat old lady. The homoerotic "undertones" (and really, they weren't really "under" anything were they?) were of the "slap you round the face" variety- my personal favourite being the uncomfortable scene in which Arnie enters a church like a bride silhouetted against bright light, walks up the aisle to be married to Sylvester Stallone  by the reverend Bruce Willis, the happy couple are asked if they will "suck each other's dicks"- illiciting the best camp reaction shot since Charles Haughtrey in a toilet in Carry On Screaming- they verbally josh with each other, Arnie offers Sly a big fat cigar and offers to take him out for a meal, and then dumps him- literally at the alter. Just to reinforce it, a scene or two later (and after a sequence at customs shot exactly like a similar sequence in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein for some bizarre reason), the woman destined to be Stallone's too-young love interest is introduced... coming through double doors and silhouetted like a bride against white light... exactly the same as Arnie was. The poetry was remarkable.

So- did I enjoy it? Well, yes. It was very camp, was over fast and made me chuckle. Did it make me want to rush out and catch the second one at the cinema? No. But I will buy it when it hits dvd- and I won't wait til bargain bucket this time. The Expendables cost me four pounds. I'll go up to seven for Expendables 2.

SBT

[I, Cosh]

The Expendables has Stallone and a whole bunch of Action Men in it, and is loved by people who like these types of things, I'll watch that.

Small point of order. Speaking as someone who likes these types of things, you are proceeding from a false premise here. Most people managed to get through the film due to a residual affection for some of the stars but as an action film it's pretty poor.

[radiator]

Yeah, that's the thing about Expendables - it just wasn't a very good action film. It was dull and ponderous, rather than fun, and it was badly written, but not in a good way. Believe it or not, there's more to Die Hard and The Terminator than just the action scenes, which Expendables failed to grasp.

[judgefloyd]

damn, and I was hanging out for Expendables 2, having not seen the first one.  May see it anyway, what with being an optimist and all.

I'm part way through a Swedish fillum called The Cellist.  It's a Henning Mankel police procedural in which a group of extremely methodical painstaking Swedish dudes who never get upset patiently take on some dead hard evil Russian drug smuggling types who will stop at nothing to....well, I'm not sure what because I haven't finished yet.  It's good anyway.  It's serendipitous because I recorded it whilst trying to record some French movie or other. 

oh and my son and heir and I just watched Addams Family Values, which was good fun.  Not genius (the 'revenge of the nerds' bit was a strain), but good Saturday night stuff and better than Expendables by the sounds of things.

[Professor Bear]

While my friends were getting all excited because Schwarzenegger had True Lies or Red Dawn coming out, or Jackie Chan had another cheap, shitty martial arts epic hitting vhs or whatever, I was more interested in what Lucio Fulci was up to, or whether the latest Phantasm was going to cinema or video. In short, sweaty muscley men with their shirts off, spunking bullets at each other, was not then and is not now, my thing.

Small world!  When I was a child, I was a snob too.

Carry On Columbus, which I watched because I seem to be watching a lot of Carry On movies of late and thought I'd try the last gasp of the once-great franchise that gave us Babs Windsor holding her tits and yelping as Sid James went hahaha with that sinister laugh of his.  Columbus is actually okay as a Carry On film, and as such a lot of criticisms are defused from the off: if it looks cheap, unconvincing, badly acted, poorly-written, and seems to have been shot in less than a fortnight on the same three sound stages, it is a Carry On film - what were you expecting, exactly?  I know there are purists who insist that it isn't the same if you cast new actors in the roles just because the old ones are dead, but this was alright, with even Julian Clary doing alright by utilising the panto camp he made a career of sending up in a mostly unthreatening manner.  That's the story of this film all the way, it's unthreatening because there's no blackface or slapstick rape attempts like in the old films so a lot of people were turned off and didn't realise it was a matinee flick for kids to watch on a saturday trip to the cinema, and I don't think it gets the credit it deserves for realising that the Carry On movies were still on heavy rotation on British tv screens still dominated by four analogue channels and the television and films of twenty years earlier, but that is clearly where this film is coming from, with some really obvious jokes like "what's that powder?" not turning out to be the expected drug jokes but groan-worthy and anachronistic references to the spice trade.
It also has Larry Miller, a much-underrated character actor who sadly seems to only get cast as sneering middle managers these days, but he's great as the leader of the "Indians", here portrayed as loud, New Jersey-accented guidos who trade only for guns and wine and things turn out as you might expect.  Some decent jokes, some terrible jokes, but the hit/miss ratio is above average for a Carry On outing and there's less of the contempt for the working classes that typified a lot of CO as the cast and writers got older and became more conservative - if anything, Columbus is... well, it's got Burt Kwok in it and you know how that usually ends so I'm hesitant to say "politically correct", but there's something achingly right-on and liberal-smug about the way the Native Americans take the invading whites to the cleaners and only suffer for it when they develop an uncontrolled gun culture BECAUSE CAPITALISM IS EVIL.
Jim Dale is a treasure, though -  decades away from it and he snaps right back to that gurning, exaggerated clumsiness and gormless overacting like he was doing it the day before.  My only criticism is that he's so damned free of guile as ever that when he's fleecing people or trying to be a bastard it's impossible to take him seriously.  Which I suppose is the point.

[Keef Monkey]

I do really like that scene in The Expendables where Stallone and Rourke do some emoting, neither of them able to move their faces at all. When Stallone cries it's like someone's pouring water through a rubber mask.

[radiator]

Urgh. The Expendables should have been a knowing, camp 'getting the team back together for one last job' kinda film, couldn't believe there was all that emo crap in there. Ludicrous.

[Dandontdare]

I think SBT has reached a peak in his bizarro-universe of taste in movies. Expendables was loathed by most action fans; and to compare the mighty Jackie Chan (Cheap? Shitty? Wash your mouth out!) with the maker of "Don't Murder a Duckling" (yes, I had to google him) is just farcical.

As for me, inspired by the other thread, I bought Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle on DVD. Only watched the former so far - absolutely bonkers, with some hilarious set pieces. Loved the epilogue scene where everyone has learnt the ways of Shaolin, with the flying sword-wielding hedge cutter and the commuters leaping through the top window of the bus. I'll be watching the other one tonight.

[SmallBlueThing]

Oh dear- i didnt realise claiming the expendables to be popular would have so many of you ripping your shirts off, rasslin' in the dirt and growing enormous moustaches like 'stone cold' steve austin. To find out whether the expendables was well thought of i merely:
A) looked at its box office take in comparison with other action films and found it to be much more successful,
And B) asked real people who i know personally, ALL OF WHOM said it was "brilliant!", and of those who were girls, three claimed it to be "one of their favourite films ever".

It was, as i say, okay. The scene mentioned where stallone and rourke emote without moving their faces, i found particularly amusing for the fact rourke was sitting looking in a makeup mirror like a haggard old drag queen preparing for one last show. That, and his name being 'Tools'. First name 'Jenny', i suppose?

Stallone is an underrated director- and im sure all this blatant homoerotism was intentional. He didnt, as far as im aware, go that route with (cont)

[SmallBlueThing]

(cont) his fourth Rambo- which while being a far better film than the expendables, lacked the allround clout of being such a blatant crowd-pleasing pisstake.

Anyway, tonight's feature is 'Grave Encounters'- of which i know nothing, other than its a cheapo 'found footage' supernatural thing, like 'paranormal activity' et al, and both the wife and i love those. And it cost me £1.99, so saving me £8 off the price of 'The Devil Inside' or whatever it's called.

And if there's one genre i cant stand, even more so than action fims, it's martial arts!

SBT

[Frank]

My wife and I spent the entirety of the film discussing Mickey Rourke's new face and hair, and just how gay Eric Roberts is. And also why Stallone is now looking like Leatherface wearing the peeled face of a drag queen. And why Schwarzenegger looks like a fat old lady. The homoerotic "undertones" (and really, they weren't really "under" anything were they?) were of the "slap you round the face" variety- my personal favourite being the uncomfortable scene in which Arnie enters a church like a bride silhouetted against bright light, walks up the aisle to be married to Sylvester Stallone  by the reverend Bruce Willis, the happy couple are asked if they will "suck each other's dicks"- illiciting the best camp reaction shot since Charles Haughtrey in a toilet in Carry On Screaming- they verbally josh with each other, Arnie offers Sly a big fat cigar and offers to take him out for a meal, and then dumps him- literally at the alter. Just to reinforce it, a scene or two later (and after a sequence at customs shot exactly like a similar sequence in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein for some bizarre reason), the woman destined to be Stallone's too-young love interest is introduced... coming through double doors and silhouetted like a bride against white light... exactly the same as Arnie was. The poetry was remarkable.

The scene mentioned where stallone and rourke emote without moving their faces, i found particularly amusing for the fact rourke was sitting looking in a makeup mirror like a haggard old drag queen preparing for one last show. That, and his name being 'Tools'. First name 'Jenny', i suppose?

This is fucking brilliant, SBT. I sat through that tired piece of shit without finding anything of interest whatsoever, but you've made me want to go back and subject the whole thing to a queer reading. I love your fond reappraisals of horror classics, but I think you should open up a sideline in producing scandalous readings of genres and specific films that have become either sacred cows or critical Aunt Sallys.

The fruits of George Lucas and Peter Jackson are obvious candidates, but people are as frighteningly uptight and serious about films by Ridley Scott and Clint Eastwood, as they are reflexively dismissive of Michael Bay or something like John Carter. Stepping outside your comfort zone appears to turbo charge your critical faculties and ability to wind up your fellow boarders.

[Professor Bear]

I could make myself sound like a right tit by arguing that one dead-in-the-water trashy genre (action) is more important than another (zombies), but I like to think I have more sense than that, just like I like to think I have more sense than to insult the tastes of other forum users using accusations of homoeroticism.  I thought we were all adults here?

Besides, action films aren't homoerotic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N7pjAo8PtI