Be Excellent To Each Other

Rebel Ridge on Netflix was pretty decent. It’s a bit Rambo (the original one) but it was interesting, had some good performances from everyone involved and kept me entertained for a couple of hours.

Pacifist Rambo, found it pretty unsatisfying tbh.

Last week Mrs W and I watched The Lavender Hill Mob. I told her that I'd never seen it from the beginning before, only from part way through.

It was about 30 minutes into it that I realised that it was The Lady Killers that I'd only seen part way through and I'd never seen the Lavender Hill Mob at all.

Memory is a Liam Neeson film. Man, he’s going full blown Bruce Willis now with some awful late career shit stains. It’s not terrible (hey, I didn’t turn it off this time) but, boy, there are some questionable performances here. The Mexican guy and the big baddie woman are absolutely fucking woeful. Liam’s stuttering needed a few more takes an’ all. It all smacks of a film where the director said “that’ll do, let’s move on”. Anyway, it was a film, but when Netflix said something by like “it’s like Momento!” In the description, don’t be fooled, cause it ain’t.

59 - All Fun and Games. One of the Stranger Things girls does her best in a messy horror film where a cursed knife makes people play childhood games but with a murderous angle. Sounded good on paper but it wasn't all that well executed. 2.5/5 (maybe generous).

60 - Bloody Hell. Brilliant horror comedy. Has loads of confidence and is absolutely batshit mental. 4.5/5

61 - Hostile Dimensions. Weird 10p indie film where a couple of documentary makers find a door that is a portal to parallel dimensions. It's sort of engaging but it's let down by bad production and even worse acting. It's a UK film so it doesn't feel like some trashy Sci-Fi Channel nonsense but it's just not all that good. 2/5 (but is probably a bit more enjoyable than that score suggests).

62 - Hell Hole. A fracking crew find a centuries old French soldier in the ground and he's still alive. Sort of. Basically this is an indie horror film that's basically The Thing but where people are completely aware of what's happening to them. The writing is actually pretty good and it's only let down by the occasionally poor bit of CGI. 4.5/5

63 - Omni Loop. Interesting little time loop mystery thing. It's so understated that you can't really classify it. It's a bit sci-fi, a bit drama, maybe a little dark comedy but it's sort of none of those. Good acting performances from the lead and the girl from The Bear (albeit essentially playing the exact same sort of character). I liked it but it meandered a lot and ultimately felt like a lot of time was wasted. A good 3.5/5 but not one I'll watch again.

Downsizing is one of those films that's been so low on my list for such a long time that it would have been little surprise if I never got round to it. However, the 'leaving nextflix soon' label nudged my evening ennui just enough to click a button or two. The film started off like it was going to be a quirky comedy, then went a bit into awkward social commentary, then the end was some shit about a world ending event or whatever, like I even really cared.

Christoph Waltz turns up part way through, and his character was fun to watch.

Honestly, the concept sounded neat but it felt wasted. It wasn't a bad film but it felt like a bit of a 'nothing' film.

Christoph Waltz is an odd one for me. I used to think he was good but then he did some shitty adverts. Some mobile game. And suddenly it broke the spell and I suddenly thought he was shit. The next thing he was in was a Bond thing and he was shit in that. Suddenly his whole acting style felt like a schtick.

Same thing happened with Idris Elba. Everyone was going on about how great he was but I wasn't ever super convinced. But then he did some Sky adverts where he was banging on about boxsets in his strongest cockney accent. Hang on! Is he shit? I think he might be shit! And then he did Pacific Rim 2 and it's like 'yes! He is shit!'

Kevin Bacon is in danger of going the same way. I think I still rate him for his previous films but I just think of him as the broadband advert guy. You put him in a film now and I'll just be thinking of that bullshit advert where a family land a plane from their house.

Oooh... while I feel that I dislike those statements I also cant really disagree with them too much either. Sounds like a bit of over-exposure is risky and I'm sure there are other examples too.

Idris has been in some dross, but I think he's pretty good when in a well-suited role. He was a solid fit as the voice of Knuckles, which I wasn't expecting, so I think he isn't shit.

Idris Elba was great in Luther and that thing that we watched where he was in America doing naughty things, something to do with police and drugs. I can't remember much as I honestly find his appearance so distracting that I wasn't paying much attention to what was going on.

The Wire, is probably the one you are thinking of.

It is.

He was pretty good in The Wire but I hated his character in it.

Like all his mates were 'we gotta sell this crack!' and he's all like 'spreadsheets, brother!'

Nah, I love that. Sexy nerd bad boy.

You can't take Lotus Notes on a conspiracy

64 - Wolfs. Pitt v Clooney in this battle of the fixers. With those two leads you know it'll be full of smugness and plenty of jokes about getting old but this felt like a proper old school movie and was really enjoyable. 4/5

65 - Oddity. Creepy psychic horror which definitely had a sense of menace throughout and a few decent scares. The idea wasn't bad either. I felt a bit let down by how it went and because it's SO ENGLISH, it felt a bit like a play. Pretty good though. 3.5/5

Went to watch "The Substance" at the flicks the other night.

It's a kind of black comedy horror movie, and despite my usual misgivings about horror movies, I really enjoyed this one. The third act goes absolutely batshit crazy and has a couple of scenes that will make all but the most stoic of watchers wince (I'm not good with "body horror", but there was only one scene that I had to look away from, involving )

It might be one of Demi Moore's greatest performances, and I've never seen Margaret Qualley in anything before but she was just as good!

I wanted to watch The Substance but it's already disappeared from my local cinema. One for the high seas when it inevitably arrives.

Smile 2 hits the cinemas in October.

First one proper cacked me up so I'm looking forward to watching it. At home. Under a blanket.

66 - Deadpool and Wolverine. The action was great, nearly all the humour landed and it was a good time. The story was sort of bollocks though and the 'void' setting was a bit tedious. A solid 4/5.

More fims, in a rough order of viewing (and I forgot where I'd got up to with posting about the Tranformers movies so I had to scroll back a bit).

Transformers Age of Extinction The first one with Marky Mark and without Shia LaShia. I can't remember why he wan't in them anymore, and the story of the films didn't seem to really care. Anyway, this one was pretty standard fare really, big CGI clanky robots shooting and punching each other. This is the film where part way through the dinobots show up and wreck shit. An fact, a lot of shit gets wrecked. I find that the plot makes sense as I am following the film, but not long afterwards I have forgotten the detail and find that it doesn't make much sense any more. Quite enjoyable.

Johnny English: reborn not as silly as I was expecting, it was a good fun family movie, and the lovely Rosamund Pike and Gillian Anderson were in it and they are just, well, lovely really. I enjoyed this far more than I thought I would.

Transformers One at the cinema - the kids loved this, I thought it was really good although at times it felt almost painfully modern with the Marvel style sassy humour. I enjoyed seeing the relationship (and breakdown) of the robots that became Optimus and Megatron. A high mark in the series.

Transformers the last knight The second one with Mark Marky and this time they acknowledge that Shia's not in it anymore by showing a picture of him and then basically going 'yeah whatever' and moving on. The story was relatively exciting although it seemed like there was a lot of people-y scenes that went on a bit too long without a giant robot shooting or punching someting, or a big gap between explosions. There were some funny bits (even if they came from naughty words or gestures).

I don't know why they bothered to introduce the decpticon crew by name and with a little 'splash' name on the screen when they got unceremoniously wiped out just a few moments later.

Anthony Hopkins seemed to enjoy the absurdity of it all and hammed it up. I'm very fond of the Hound and Bumblebee characters. Josh Duhamel has nice hair. It did seem a bit long (the film, not Josh's hair).

Remember when I said that after the film, some of the details escape me and I end up a bit unsure of what actually happened? Of course you do, it was just few awkward sentences ago, so here are some examples of what I mean, from this film: where did the dinobots go? Grimlock appeared for some light humour, then a super brief appearance to destroy some cars, then sort of disappeared off screen again. Why weren't they in the big fight at the end? Where did Optimus find the big dragon thing? We've seen transformers on earth at various times in history, but which Transformers were on earth in the beginning, and then medieval times, and then those ones that were in the desert making the tomb to hide the matrix of leadership? Something about the moon and a spaceship, I don't know.

When did Bumblebee learn to completely dismantle himself and re-assemble? What was all that about him being in WWII? Why does Optimus have a cool energy axe and a laser-hook thing in some films but not others? How come Bumblebee couldn't talk, until at the end he could, then seemed like he couldn't again?

This leaves, I think, one last film in the series.





I'm not good with that sort of thing either, so that's a nope from me... although who am I kidding, this was never likely to end up on my list anyways.

I particularly dislike eye or hand injuries, like shrapnel or stabbing.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes was pretty ace I reckon. It looked reet good too, especially since it was, like, 99% computer graphics. I’m surprised it didn’t get more attention when it came out but maybe Avatar was still around, maybe, I dunno. Anyway, the story wasn’t great but it held my attention and the characters were interesting. And boy did it look nice. Although I was a bit confused by the timeline cause trees were growing on skyscrapers and … actually I can’t remember the other films that well … hang on, how long to apes live for … anyway, it was confusing, but might have been set many years after the ape from the first films death.

67 - Scare Package. A decent portmanteau that stretches it's clearly meagre budget enough to put together a fun mix of stories with lots of practical gore work. Had seen it before but watched it as I was about to watch the sequel. 4/5

68 - The Killer's Game. Dave Bautista as a hitman in this over the top action film. He plays it entirely straight while everyone else plays it for laughs. I thought it was brilliant fun with lots of slick and clever kills. I'm a total mark for hitman films that do that sort of thing. Weird that Bautista gets to be an actor when he looks like a Nigel Farage frog man on steroids. 4/5

69 - Scare Package II: Rad Chad's Revenge. In the same vein as the first one with lots of silliness and fun gore effects. This one tries to do the meta-horror thing and references lots of other films, especially Saw, quite well. Enjoyable. 4/5

70 - VHS Beyond. The sixth film in a pretty rubbish series of horror portmanteaus. Amazingly though, this was a total banger with lots of brilliantly executed stories. Only really let down by the linking story but even that wasn't bad. 4.5/5

71 - Spin the Bottle. Blaverage horror film which should be awful for several reasons (the star is a 10p Bill Skarsgard-a-like, the cast of 10p Cobra Kai archetypes, the kid from Die Hard 4 who looks like Anthony Kiedis but is now a dad cop in this and the girl from Final Destination 1 and 2 being criminally underused) but sort of holds together quite well. You never need to see it twice (probably not even one) but it could have been a lot worse and the acting was actually okay. 2.5/5

72 - We Are Zombies. The low budget affects every part of this but you know how all zombie films are basically the same? Well, this one isn't. It's a very different take and entirely played for laughs and it squeezes a lot out of that concept. 3.5/5

73 - The Day After Tomorrow. The 2004 Dennis Quaid vs ice film. It came up on TV and my wife absolutely loves it so we watched it yet again. It's good. Feels like a proper blockbuster and young Jake Gyllenhall does well. It's a shame that the weather doesn't get more prominence. There's not enough direct peril. That's why they throw in those shitty CGI wolves. But it's a good film. 3.5/5

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts was the final instalment for us. Initially I was confused as it was set in 1994 and seemed to feature characters that we have seen before but are for some reason different, and the timelines all don't seem to match up, and the last two films had dinobots in them already, and I was wondering when Marky MarkBurgers would appear and then I realised that it's set in the general 'Transformers universe' and that none of that other shit really matters when there are big cgi robots to clank and bang into each other, and things to explode.

Overall, I quite enjoyed the film and my son really enjoyed a film with Mirage in it, although I also think that's quite enough Transformers for me for now.

The current animated film is very good. You may as well do that too.

Yep - we saw that one at the cinema while the kids were on school holidays recently. We all enjoyed it.

74 - Transformers One. We were post-bday shopping in Manchester and decided to take in a film. Wife wasn't up for Smile 2 or Terrifier 3, both of which I'd be very much up for, but TF1 was in 3D and I used to like 3D stuff a lot. Anyway, film was okay. I liked the story but thought the art style was a bit too basic and childish. Also, the action sequences were really hard to follow. Not sure if 2D would improve that but I suspect not as the 3D was very weak. It had heart though. 3.5/5

I watch films and ask What’s Up With Dat?

Terrifier: brutal gore fest that’s so 80’s you’ll be saying What’s up with dat when you realise it was made in 2018. Ultra gory with old school practical effects that are quite fun if you’re into that. It’s a bit torture-porn for everyone else. At 90 minutes it’s a quick blast of gory horror nonsense.

Terrifier 2: Thr elongated run time of 2 hours and 18 minutes will have you saying Whats up with dat as you sit twiddling your thumbs waiting for the gore to start. When it does, it doesn’t disappoint, if you’re looking for more Terrifier’s shock horror. Everything in between is utterly boring bollocks as they attempt to get you invested in the “story” and “characters”. I’d say it was overall worse than the original by some margin but it has some murders that are absolutely nasty shit.

Boy Kills World: it’s a sort of Hunger Games world meets The Raid 2 (that crazy Thai dude is in it). The violence, gunplay and martial arts are all top notch. It’s got some genuinely funny moments too. There’s a few bits that brought it down for me, but generally this rated pretty highly for me. Well worth a look.

I'm enjoying What's up with dat?

Boy Kills World appears to be missing an WUWD? though.

What's up with dat?

Oh. Weird. I actually watched Boy Kills World last month but somehow missed it on here (it was between Devil and All Fun and Games).

I liked it enough to give it a 4 out of 5 on Letterboxd.

"Decently mental action film with some amazing fight choreography and a fine performance from Bill Skarsgard.

It shows that he might have done okay in a Crow remake (not that there ever should have been one) if it hadn't been written by, and for, absolute ponces."

This sounds very appealing, will be going on my list.

The final WUWD was in you all along

Ooh I wondered what that was *picks at anus*

I think the powers that be wanted Despicable Me 4 to be a sort of swan song of sorts but, I dunno, I enjoyed the first three a fair bit, but this was a bit meh. The Mega Minions were underused as well despite thinking the minions are, for the most part, fucking irritating.

Then I watched Poor Things. If you ever wanted to see Emma Stones tits and finger herself at the dinner table then, well, this has you covered. And Emma not so covered! AMIRITE. The film is fucking mental mind and will have you saying What’s Up With Dat!? I liked it, by the way. The visuals are astonishing and the film, characters and story are like an abstract painting.

Deadpool3: Ryan and Friends is two hours of gibberish yet despite this is hugely enjoyable.

I watched The Terminator last night and it's still massively tense. The transition from model terminator to real life Arnie is seamless.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, why’s it so shit? Like, seriously terrible boring big stinking poop hole shit. I hated everything about it. The villain doesn’t even make his presence until 1 hour and 20 minutes into a film that’s only like an hour and fifty minutes. The characters I disliked. Bill Murray looks like he could become a ghost anytime now. The dialogue is awful. The quips are terrible. The story is trash. Paul Rudd is surprisingly not very good either. It’s all script problems throughout, if you ask me. But even then there’s some terrible bits, like when the bad guy shoots a floor of ice at the ghostbusters and the old fuckers are just stepping out of the way with no urgency. Just an awful idea from conception.

It's by far the best one.

Just seen “The Wild Robot” at the cinema (though it’s also on the high seas) and it’s great fun. Would highly recommend to kids of all ages.

75 - Brothers. Peter Dinklage steals the show in a white trash crime comedy. Film is let down by getting a bit too daft. 3.5/5

76 - Stream. Four psychopaths kill guests in a hotel in increasingly elaborate ways for points. Decent practical effects but let down by dismal acting, despite having some respected horror actors show up in it. 3/5

This is one of those films I can watch over and over again.

We're a sucker for a franchise, in case you didn't notice, so after watching all eleventy Transformers films we decided the next family slog would be through the Harry Potter films. We had made a start on these about 4 or so years ago, but stopped after (I think) the third one as they were getting thematically quite dark and the kids were still little.

So, now it's time to start again, to go back to where it all began with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. It's a nice film, child like wonder and excitement. Some of the acting is dreadful but we can look past that. I've always had quite a fondness for this film.

The info box said the film came out in 2001, which felt like a surprisingly long time ago now (I didn't think it was that long ago, I still remember what a cultural phenom all of this stuff was, before the unpleasantness etc).

77 - The Crow. The original one. Man, this is such an important film to me. I was 20 when it came out and I worked next to a cinema. So I ended up going to see it seven times. I've never done anything like that with any other film. It was just the perfect mix. I was a huge Bruce Lee fan, I was a huge Cure fan. Anyway, it had probably been 5+ years since I last watched it so it was interesting to see if it'd hold up or not. It really does though. Sure there are aspects to the film that have dated visually - the clearly miniaturised city, the sometimes ropey CGI - but the action is great, the film has a ton of heart and Brandon Lee's performance is just perfection. Weirdly, I felt myself choking up a few times during the film. There's such a sense of loss to the whole thing. Anyway, in my mind it's a 5/5 and I'll fight anyone who says it isn't. 5/5.

78 - Terrifier 3. It's so weird seeing this series get a proper cinema release and a budget. I've been watching Art the Clown since he showed up in a portmanteau called All Hallow's Eve. As with Terrifier 2 this one is a mix of '80s silliness with just a ton of practical effects gore. It's definitely a bit much. To me though this series is just like watching something like Friday the 13th but without the pesky '80s censorship. As for the gore, I don't really see it as horror and more like a magic trick. Anyway, yeah. It's mental. 4/5

Venom: fuck it, will this do? Is an unholy mess. But I still enjoyed it, despite regularly shrugging at why something was happening. I think because the cast is pretty good, especially Tom Hardy. It made me laugh a few times. And not just at a bored teen whose facial expression could speak for us all. Yes, teen, why oh why?

I watched a film! And it too starred Tom Hardy.

It was called The Bike Riders, which is perhaps one of the worst names for a film in recent memory.

About a motorcycle gang, their rise and fall.

It has an incredible cast. Tom Hardy (yes we know), Jodie Comer, Michael Shannon, Austin Butler.

But it’s so much less than the sum of its parts. Found it very hard to care about anyone, we were being asked to care about the fortunes of a biker gang far me than felt reasonable (and I loved Sons of Anarchy, as awful as they all were). I will say Shannon and Comer both put in sterling efforts, very much stole the show.

Perhaps I was too squiffy on the plane to follow it, but it screeched to a resounding meh of a halt for me.

I really enjoyed that. Jodie Comer in particular was excellent.

Yeah I quite liked it too.

The only film I am interested in watching right now is RED ONE. https://youtu.be/8pIxnwkRvWs



I love an absolutely insane Christmas movie, and I am ALL IN for this one.


EDIT: needs watching alongside this for best effect, I reckon. viewtopic.php?style=26&p=1085606#p1085606

EDIT THE SECOND: I use the same phrase a lot when talking about ridiculous Christmas films, it seems.

Oh, we'll be watching that!