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[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the more recent one)]

Odd, I found V/H/S 2 a huge improvement on the first film, and the Gareth Evans suicide cult story only got better for me the more ludicrous it became. It was like the energy of The Raid applied to horror, loved it. Different strokes!

Have been ill with the cold so watched (and rewatched) some stuff at the weekend.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the more recent one) - Avoided this because it looked like a real stinker, and maybe my low expectations helped because we actually got a few laughs and thrills out of it. Appreciated how over the top 'live action cartoon' it was, surprisingly fun.

Predator - Obviously a rewatch, found the trilogy cheap on blu-ray so was time to revisit it. Looks great (aside from a couple of shots where the source footage clearly wasn't up to snuff so there's a jarring brief drop in image quality) and is still a fantastic film. Can't really fault it actually, still an amazingly cool movie.

And then I went straight onto Predator 2, which I've always thought was massively underrated. Moving it to the city is a great idea and makes for some amazing images and sequences and also makes for quite a different film to the first which is admirable. It wears some influences on its sleeve (there are some strong whiffs of Robocop here and there and the meat warehouse set-piece is clearly them trying to replicate Aliens (but it works!) and you sometimes wonder if Danny Glover's character was originally supposed to be played by someone with the physique of Schwarzenegger (there's a line where Danny Boy says 'even YOU couldn't lift a body up there!' when it looks like Glover would get out of breath lifting himself up some stairs), but it holds up really, really well and I loved it.

And then Lucy, which is an odd and silly film but also quite a fun one I found. Went in expecting it to be a bit of a generic action revenge thing (Johanssen gets powers and then just shoots/telepaths her way to the boss, the end) but it's actually a lot quirkier than that. A bit messy and not brilliant by any means, but a fun way to pass a tight 90mins.

I'm also firmly in the No Mans Sky - Meh, New Pang - Hell Yes! camp.

In the same boat, have had X Wing for a few months (even got a couple of expansions over xmas) and have only managed one game! And that was using the 'simple' rules in the first half of the book, haven't started using any of the more advanced rules yet.

After the Carcassonne evening being so enjoyable I'm hoping I can finally convince Mrs Monkey into a regular board game evening - she enjoys them but it can be tough to drag her off the couch and away from the TV on weeknights when she's knackered, Carcassonne was quick and fun enough that it's reignited her interest in them so must capitalize on that and get some X Wing in there!

That's two votes for Ong Bak then, I'll get it on the watchlist. Thanks for the recommendation!

Really liking the look of this, and it's building the intrigue nicely. Heard a rumor (seemingly starting with a reddit post from someone who saw one of the screenings) that the film was finished and screened under a different title for studio bods over a year ago and that the decision to connect it to Cloverfield was made sometime after that, which is interesting. Going by the trailers I'd got the impression any link will be superfluous, with whatever the threat is just being the macguffin as Jim said. Reckon it could be really interesting, looking forward to it.

We took your advice radiator, played Carcassonne without the farmers or the rivers rules. Meant we could get up and running and get to grips with it fast which was great. Was a lot of fun, particularly liked how quick it is to set-up and get through a game as it means it'll see a lot more use than some of the (still great but) more long-winded games we have.

Did you just play with two people? While it does work, it becomes much more interesting with the addition of a third.

Only two players yeah, now that we know what we're doing it'll be fun to break out with a bigger group. Would imagine the scoring gets way more interesting the more players you have.

We took your advice radiator, played Carcassonne without the farmers or the rivers rules. Meant we could get up and running and get to grips with it fast which was great. Was a lot of fun, particularly liked how quick it is to set-up and get through a game as it means it'll see a lot more use than some of the (still great but) more long-winded games we have.

[Insurgent]

Watched Insurgent which was serviceable enough as a throwaway adventure thingy to pass a Saturday night, and I found myself getting quite into it despite knowing it was all a bit naff really. That review also applies to Divergent and I'm assuming will apply to the rest of the series.

Have ordered the XCOM board game (I wasn't going to buy any more games this year, but managed to get a great deal on it through work so would have been silly not to), it looks very swish and very cool. Hopefully I'll be better at it than I am at the videogame because I suuuuuuuuck at that.

Having a bit of a board game night with the missus tonight because she hasn't had a chance to get her Carcassonne out of the box yet and wants to give it a spin. Have only played the videogame version but at least that means we'll have a rough idea what's going on! Hoping to squeeze in a game of Pandemic Legacy too if time allows. Board games are great.

It's nice that Videogaiden have board game reviews in their new series, always really enjoyed Rab Florence's board game reviews online so is a nice addition - https://youtu.be/ecVDzKzLrhk?t=917

18th April apparently! I almost pre-ordered, but oddly there's no 3D Bluray and that's what I'm after. Odd that it's not listed so am suspicious that it'll appear down the line, holding off.

3D disc out for Xmas apparently!

Disney are short of dosh, so they need us to buy it twice! 

Ah good to know! I can wait until then. Maybe.

18th April apparently! I almost pre-ordered, but oddly there's no 3D Bluray and that's what I'm after. Odd that it's not listed so am suspicious that it'll appear down the line, holding off.

Stuart Lee's Comedy Vehicle is back tonight, and so is Videogaiden! Although Videogaiden is iplayer only or online or something.

There's definitely some great stuff out there, Ghost In The Shell Standalone Complex is easily one of my favorite sci-fi series of all time (animated or not). I still buy some Manga releases occasionally but been a while since I was blown away by something. I really wish they'd give Cyber City Oedo 808 a blu-ray release because I loved that. In fact, if they could re-release the titles they did under their Cyberpunk Collection banner I'd be very happy (Cyber City, Genocyber and A.D. Police).

[The Wave]

Was at Frightfest Glasgow on Saturday (had to miss the Friday annoyingly!) and saw some good stuff (and some not so good stuff).

The Wave - Really tense Norwegian disaster movie. Seen Hollywood do this sort of thing a million times but this was the most effective I can remember, probably because it really took its time to develop attachments to the characters before the destruction starts, I genuinely gave a crap what happened to these people!

Southbound - Really liked this, it's an anthology movie with a horror Twilight Zone vibe, where stories bleed into the next. A lot of very cool, and varied ideas. Liked the idea of the radio announcer, gave it a good Night Springs atmosphere.

SPL2: A Time For Consequences - Actually the first proper Tony Jaa movie I've seen (other than the last Fast & Furious), my main takeaway was that he really, really liked elbowing people in the head. He does it a thousand times! The fight scenes are incredibly elaborate in this, but nowhere near as readable as something like The Raid, loads of fast cuts spoiling the view of the action. Thought the story was very over-baked too, it took itself very seriously for the bulk and felt a bit dreary when people weren't being punched. The last showdown is really over the top and cartoonish and brilliant fun, made me wish it had all been so riotous. Noticed two directors were credited (director of action and director of story) so maybe that lead to that jarring element.

The Other Side of The Door - This really didn't work for me. The story is essentially Pet Semetary relocated to India, and feels like just another generic, slick studio horror film that's still stuck trying to emulate J-horror tropes and ideas. So many of the scares are of the 'person's face warped by CGI while a loud noise plays' variety that US commercial horror is so obsessed with. Really not good, although it didn't seem to go down too badly so will probably do well.

Baskin - Jings. This is mental. It's a surreal Turkish art horror, with a nicely Lynchian nightmare logic, incredible atmosphere, fantastic music and really disturbing and haunting visuals. This one will be a cult classic, and probably the most memorable film of the day.

Martyrs (remake) - The original is such an intense watch that I don't think I'll ever go back to it, but it stuck in my mind for weeks afterwards and it's rare something lingers that much. Still not totally sure how I feel about it, but it's certainly incredibly powerful. This is none of those things, a real botch job that's weaker in every way. A lot has been changed to sanitize it and make it more palatable, and those changes misfire terribly and rob it of the gut punch that made the film special. Even when it's faithful it does a much worse job of conveying story and ideas, so those things just don't come off the way they should. The ending to Martyrs is stuck in my head for life, the ending to this actually got guffaws from several people. It would be a real shame if someone stumbled on this instead of the original, really poor.

The Devil's Candy - The new film from the guy who made The Loved Ones, which I loved, so had high hopes for it and it didn't disappoint. There are one or two ideas in it that could have been more developed but other than that it looks incredible, the character work is fantastic (again, I really cared about these people and that makes an amazing difference to how effective something like this is) and while it's dark as hell when it needs to be it's also got a great sense of fun. This and Baskin were my top picks!

I adore Mass Effect, my favorite sci-fi universe hands down. 2 was definitely my favourite (and also my favourite game of all time if I'm honest).

3 I still loved because the combat never got old for me and by that point I was so absorbed in the characters and the world that I was mainly in it for the story, but it definitely wasn't as great as 2.