Last movie watched...

[M.I.K.]

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

What do you think of Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton films? 'Cos that's what Jackie Chan films are, but with  more kicking and punching and sound and stuff.

[SmallBlueThing]

Oh i know all that, MIK, but i still dont like them. When i was at uni, i lived for several years with my bezzie mate, who was not only jackie chan's biggest fan (and yuen biao, samo hung, etc) but also very into kung fu himself- as a result he and i did  jeet kune do every week for too long. I understand how clever they are and all that- but they bore the tits off me and i will never watch another one as long as i live.

SBT

[SmallBlueThing]

GRAVE ENCOUNTERS (2011, the vicious brothers)

Every time i mention one of these 'found footage' horror films on here, i get shouted at for having 'bad taste'. Well, in case the message was unclear, i really dont care that others judge my filmic choices harshly. My wife and I watch quite a lot of these things; from the magnificent (the original, and best, 'ghost watch', 'blair witch' and the 'paranormal activity' series) to the most horrible of old bollocks, like 'the last broadcast'. Currently, there are a bunch of these newly out on dvd vying for my attention, and 'grave encounters' won because it was cheapest.

Glad it did, because- haha!- it scared the absolute crap out of us both.

There's a secret to this particular subgenre that involves not pushing the visual aspect too far, lest you engage the rational part of the audience's mind and they laugh rather than scream. Grave Encounters comes perilously close to falling on the wrong side of this line on several ocassions, and i confess to (cont)

[SmallBlueThing]

(cont) sniggering a few times when they tried too hard. It's also a bit too long, becomes a little obvious as it draws towards its conclusion, and is very reminiscent of some other film that we saw a few years ago about a mad doctor, but which i cant for the life of me remember the title of.

But- crucially, it's very frightening when it gets going, and manages to push some excellent fantastical ideas that nudge it further into the kind of psychological terror more usually found in 'the twilight zone'.

The plot? 'Most Haunted' lucks onto a real haunted location- an abandoned asylum- and things go badly wrong.

Look, if you dont like these things you wont like this. Yes, the digital effects only partially work- although one sequence is so bizarre it appears to have come in from another film entirely (as if the asylum has landed them in the 'day of the dead' trailer for a laugh) and as a result is one of those rare and beautiful scenes you have to run back to check you saw what you thought you did. (cont)

[SmallBlueThing]

(cont) and yes, if grainy black and white and green shaky footage and improvised dialogue somehow make you believe no skill has been demonstrated in its production, then it'll annoy you as much as the last one you moaned through. But hey-ho; here it goes immediately in the 'mockumentaries' section of the collection to be watched again sometime in the medium to near future.

SBT

[Dandontdare]

I have absolutely no problem with the genre - I adore the 30s Universal flicks, the Hammer and Amicus movies, Down of the Dead, The Omen, Exorcist, Elm St, Blair Witch, Shining, Wicker Man .. I could go on and on. And I thoroughly enjoy reading your your reviews, you have a wonderful turn of phrase.

It just seems like you have little quality control - you seem to love even the ones you describe as "horrible old bollocks"; and yet dismiss films like the Godfather as "crap" (apologies if that wasn't the exact word) and Jackie Chan's undeniably brilliantly made (and expensive) films as "cheap and shitty" - and then turn around and get sniffy about it all being a matter of taste. Pot-Kettle methinks. People wouldn't criticise your taste if you didn't spend so much time dismissing the opinions of everyone else on films that most people agree are classics. It goes back to the recurrent argument about reviewing strips and artists - say you don't like, it, but don't just say "it's shit" when it clearly isn't.

[Professor Bear]

My problem with found footage movies is that they don't seem to be evolving much as a genre and it took me a full minute to realise this was supposed to be a parody: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M7BN_Oim2Q

Jackie Chan's undeniably brilliantly made (and expensive) films

Expensive for Hong Kong, maybe...
HK films may be technically impressive and pushed back the boundaries of what was possible in cinema to the point that thirty years later they're still ripping off Police Story, but they look cheap as fuck, even more so than the gorno schlock SBT pretends to love so much (I know a man who secretly loves Will Smith movies when I see one) which can actually look even better the more they date and develop an anachronistic charm.  Aforementioned Police Story is still as impressive as ever on a level of sheer stunt lunacy, but fuck me it looks rough.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJACGJ_8CEs

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

'Stunt Lunacy' perfectly describes my favourite thing about Jackie Chan movies. This article from cracked.com describes his insanity pretty well.

One of my other favourite things about JC's movies is the Gag* Reel during the end credits. One of them (I can't remember the title of the movie) shows that he wasn't water-skiing behind that hovercraft using conventional water-skis, oh no. He was skiing on plastic bags wrapped around a plaster cast wrapped around his broken ankle.

*If you count people suffering violent injuries via their own misadventures to be gags

EDIT: It's from Rumble in the Bronx. The shot from 0:07 is the one were he actually breaks his leg.

[Professor Bear]

Yeah, he just had someone paint onto the cast on his broken so it looked like the shoe he was wearing on his other foot AND WENT BACK TO FILMING HIS KUNG FU MOVIE.  Shouldn't be surprising, though, as Armor Of God's blooper reel reveals the only way you'll keep the crazy bastard off the set is if he is physically incapable of getting to it.  And you know why?  Because he can't afford to stop shooting because no-one in Hong Kong would insure a Jackie Chan movie.
WHY IS THAT, JACKIE?

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

.... no-one in Hong Kong would insure a Jackie Chan movie.

And then someone in Hollywood flew him over to make movies with Chris Tucker. It's....it's almost like someone in Hollywood doesn't like Chris Tucker.

[SmallBlueThing]

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS

When this was "directed", did no one listen to the accents? It was impossible to watch without screaming "Why is Magneto suddenly Irish?!" half-way through. And for those of us in the room partially-familiar with the 'x-mythos' (er, me), without also screaming "why isn't Banshee Irish!?! And Moira McTaggart not Scottish?!"

All of this became so distracting- especially when Magneto completely lost it towards the end and started shouting all bejeezus and begorah- that i couldnt possibly tell you if it was any good or not. For everything that was entertaining and fun or nicely done dramatically, there was a another shot up kevin bacon's 'just give me the michael morbius role in spider-man 5' nose, another scene involving bacon's ill-defined 'powers', or his faceless band of cronies. As an aside, jason flemyng as that red nightcrawler bloke- is that from the comics, cos that was cool- but 'wind-man' or whoever that was; jeeeez, didnt he turn up in the first ghost rider movie? And as (cont)

[SmallBlueThing]

(cont) for emma frost- note to filmmakers: she's supposed to be beautiful and dangerously sexy, so if you do another one, recast the part, sharpish.

Anyway, for every good bit there was all that, and beast's hilarious fluffy makeup and bodysuit, the dubious lolitaporn introduction to mystique and the just sheer plodding length of the thing. Two hours? Felt like four.

But much of it was good- michael fassbender (when he remembered to do the accent) was excellent, as was blokey playing xavier. However, it never felt like the sixties at all, and the badly-misjudged wolverine cameo is what will stay with me longest, and actually made me briefly cross. No need for a "fuck" in an x-men movie, and im disappointed marvel let that go.

On the whole, as x-films go, not as good as the first three, but better than wolverine.

SBT

[darnmarr]

'The Great McGinty':

wasn't.

[Professor Bear]

the dubious lolitaporn introduction to mystique

Much as I will take any opportunity to bash on XMFC (see below), you're on your own with that one.

What always gets me about X-Men First Class is that it's a film where Charles spends the whole time telling Erik to forgive, yet then doesn't do just that himself when Erik is at a moral crossroads.  For some reason, we're supposed to side with the rich white guy and take it as read that he is always right, a man who uses his psychic powers to date-rape women and who adopts the moral high ground during his first meeting with a man who hunts Nazis.

[SuperSurfer]

Battle of Algiers. I've been looking out for it for years and recently found it in HMV in Westfield Shopping Centre of all places. It first came to my attention when I read that the US military studied it in order to understand the mindset of insurgents. A gripping, cruel film that's even handed in showing atrocities committed by both sides. No doubt the same events were more or less played out all over the world as empires crumbled following WWII and there are parallels with other conflicts today. Filmed in a documentary style with apparently only one professional actor (the French colonel). This meant that some of the dialogue had to be dubbed later. Brilliant.