Be Excellent To Each Other

Thoroughly yawned of zombies but I'll be making time for this, looks horrifying:

Cor, yeah. That looks brilliant. Like the first few scenes of 28 Weeks Later without all the silly bullshit that comes after

I do struggle with the genre a lot. It's never about the zombies and always about the human drama which is never very interesting. And 99.9% of the time, these films end with all the humans getting overwhelmed anyway. There's usually a dickhead/redneck, an entitled rich person, an idiot who hides a bite and, worse, a pregnant woman so the humans never really have a chance.

I'll give this one a go as I liked the first third of the first one and I remember liking the second a bit. But I hope this one has some good ideas.

Well, that's piqued my interest.

The voiceover on that trailer is a specific reading of the poem "Boots" by Rudyard Kipling, which is used in US military bases for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training, because of the psychological effect it has on people who hear it.

It's probably the most notable part of the trailer to be fair. It's weirdly harrowing

Watched this tonight (it’s available to watch on Prime video now if you’re a member). We absolutely loved it. It’s so much fun, and a lot more family appropriate than I thought (some silly violence, no blood, a few swears (‘shit’ 3 or 4 times, and one cut off ‘what the fu—‘). Great fun, and all round silly.

99 - Venom: The Last Dance. A lot better than the second one in that it was actually enjoyable but, boy, did the terrible writing take me right out of it a bunch of times. All you want to see is Venom tearing things up but the film introduces a TERRIBLE plot device that means you don't get to see that for a big chunk of the film. And when he does come out, it's for a fucking dance sequence. Fuck off, film. But it was entertaining enough at times. 3/5

100 - Silver Streak. I fancied a bit of nostalgia and Silver Streak fits that bill. Gene Wilder is just superb in this as he is in everything. The film is great, if a little exhausting as it's just him getting constantly thrown off a train while trying to solve some sort of Columbo-esque crime. The final sequence still hits hard. The romance subplot is absolutely baffling though. 4/5

101 - Elevation. This is to breathing what Bird Box was to seeing and what A Quiet Place was to talking. The premise is good. Monsters have killed everybody who lives below 8000ft elevation. There are survivors up there but, of course, the lead guy has a liability kid who needs oxygen cartridges. It does a lot off-camera at first and you start thinking this is going to be a 10p budget film that only suggests things but it eventually opens up. I liked it more than all three Quiet Places combined, but then again I like most things more than that bullshit. Morena Baccarin is the standout in the film. Decent. 4/5

AND?

Red One was highly enjoyable

The Six Triple Eight on Netflix is good. A little known bit of WW2 history.

That... doesn't sound Christmassy

It's not even the slightest bit festive.

102 - Jingle All The Way. Being a bit Arnie fan, I avoided this until today. I never wanted to see it but it's almost Christmas, so why not. A tense first hour gives way to an over the top fun ending which isn't earned in the slightest. Odd film but fun at times. 3/5

Princes Switch 3: Had a subtitle

Triple clone threat from Hudgens as she plans and orchestrates a heist to nick back a piece of precious art so the Vatican doesn't know she lost it.

18/10

Neither myself or my offspring could get through Red One, gave up after two attempts.

Enjoyed Violent Night.

103 - National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Didn't like this much at all. It's like a sketch show that is just back to back laughless physical gags. Only scores this highly because I actually expected it to be more tense. 1.5/5

A Christmas Prince

I don't know how to feel about this one. 12/10 and 1,000 of those are due to the lady from izombie being in it, and a further 2,000 for her almost getting eaten by wolves.

104 - Red One. A fun bit of Christmas Day viewing that was a bit more fun and a bit less twee than the usual. Chris Evans is the real star of the show on this one but Dwayne Rock does a decent job too. I gave it 4.5 out of 5 on Letterboxd in the moment but outside of Xmas you could probably drop half a point or more.

Red One was pretty good; very modern and whizzy but lacking some of that charm when I compare it to say, Christmas Chronicles with Kurt Russell. Although I used to really like old Rocky Maivia I have to say I'm a little bit bored by him now. Not because of anything wrong as such, maybe just more from an oversaturation or overexposure.

A Boy Called Christmas was a sweet film, enjoyably focussed rather than being some big world-scale thing. I liked this far more than I was expecting.

Carry-On No, not a new instalment of the Carry On films we all know and 'love', instead this is an airport based action thriller about a BAD THING being SNUCK onto a PLANE by a BAD GUY. It reminded me a bit of some of the 80s/90s action films in the way that it was full of implausible moments but the hero still somehow saves the day (spoilers, but also come on, what were you expecting). I enjoyed this for what it was; simple but entertaining and I enjoyed Jason Bateman's performance as the baddie.

Had you seen this before? I think this one is a lot weaker than the Vacation and European Vacation films but there's still a few moments that I'm really fond of. I don't think it's aged well so there's a heavy dollop of nostalgia in my feelings for this film.

105 - Trapped Inn. A US cycling team go to Europe to train at elevation. However, people start disappearing. I'll give the premise a C. However, almost immediately we get some terrible green screen work. That gets worse. Effects get an F. The acting is mostly awful apart from the main guy who looks like he could play Superman but not in a film. In a shitty TV show though. His acting wasn't entirely awful. Acting gets a D, although there's a hilariously bad newsreader in it. She's the worst actress in it and that's saying something. The writing is awful. The pacing dreadful. Nothing happens in the film, nothing is explained until the end and even then they tack on a whole new reason for the events in the film and it's as stupid as it gets. 1/5



I don't think I had seen it before. I maybe saw European Vacation, some thirty years ago. I'm not a big Chevy Chase guy. I did like the fact that film didn't fully devolve into being a straight up farce. Well apart from the squirrel bit.

I saw 41 films at the cinema last year, and we’ve booked Nosferatu for new years’s day

Starting my Finish 52 for 2025.

1 - Prey. First rewatch since it came out. On first watch I felt it was a bit lame. Like one of those CW shows (Vampire Diaries or whatever) and riddled with bad CGI. It's still not great but I upped my Letterboxd score from 3 to 3.5. What I like about it is that there's not any nonsense. All that stupid humour from The Predator is gone and apart from the 'if it bleeds' line, it doesn't rely too much on fan service either. Certainly doesn't get as silly as Alien: Romulus did. But is it great. Nah. The people saying it's in the top two of the series are mad. Predator 1 and 2 are so much better. 3.5/5

I watched Carry-On cause someone said it was like Die Hard.

FUCKING LAUGHABLE.

Cor it’s terrible. When the dude said they’d kill his girlfriend in an airport and he runs over and she’s got a red dot on her head, I audibly laughed at how bad it was. Its implausible in a way that’s kinda irritating - and I’m normally not bothered about plausibility in fiction because, well, it’s all fucking made up init. It’s also kinda boring for about an hour and a few minutes cause not a lot happens and the drama can’t sustain the ambitions. I’m glad that Jason Bateman is in more stuff but not garbage nonsense like this.

Nosferatu is a decent bit of gothic horror.

We are still plugging away at these but I've been forgetting to post about them. They are all pretty good films, decently made and enjoyable, I still like them.

Yesterday we watched Harry Potter #4: (the Goblet of Fire). It was good but felt like it dragged on a bit. I mean, it is quite a long film anyway but it probably felt even longer because we should have started it earlier in the evening and the kids were being fidgety and annoying. The end bit is quite tense and a little bit emotional. From here on, all the films will be new to the kids, and If I remember correctly, after here the films started getting much busier and there was a lot going on in them.

I just remembered the utterly bizarre car sequence that looked like dogshit. It was so weird when this film that was so conservatively shot suddenly breaks out the 360 and some janky CG.

I'll be up for that one I think. Original one is unwatchable, despite being a "classic" and Defoe is always a good watch.

It’s an excellent start, great ending, but felt a little bloated in the middle.

With that sort of film, which I guess is like a period drama but horror, things tend to get a bit bloaty because they've usually got a few old school actors who need to flex with lots of lines. I'll enjoy though I reckon.

That said, I still haven't watched Last Voyage of the Demeter.

Have you ever seen Shadow Of The Vampire? It’s a film ‘about’ the making of Nosferatu. Its got John Malkovich as the director, Willem Defoe as Schreck and Carey Elwes as the director of photography. Eddie Izzard is in it, too, but I can’t recall his role. Maybe the other male lead of the 1920s movie.

Nope, but it sounds interesting. Will see if I can find it.

It used to be on Film4 ALL the time

I saw it loads of times due to insomnia.

We Live In Time was great. All the emotions!

For some reason I watched Joker 2.

Y’know, it’s not as bad as folks made out. But it’s not good either. Sod all happens for lengthy periods of time and I was struggling to maintain interest. The ending however is, um, a bit bizarre.



And it ends. It just made it feel a bit, well, pointless. A film about a sad man with a mental disorder having a thoroughly miserable time (due to his own actions in the first film, mind) and getting a thorough kicking throughout. I don’t think I learned anymore about Joker and actually the Joker character was barely in it. Take that Batman! KER-CHOW.

Oh and does Joker get raped? It’s implied, I guess. Did I read that this was supposed to be a thing in the film, or am I making this up. He could have just got another kicking. Weird.

We watched the new Wallace and Gromit film, Vengeance most Fowl.

I honestly can't remember which of the previous ones I've seen (I've seen quite a few, I think, but certainly not all).

They are always very well done, high quality and charming, and with a decent couple of laughs to be had - including some that would go straight over the head of most non-Brits (the name of the newsreader being the most obvious one).

All the same, despite it being clear to me how long lived these characters are and how well done it all is, how really good these films and stories are.... I don't love them, and I feel like saying it's 'good' doesn't truly do them justice. I feel like there's some undefinable thing that makes me think I should like them more than I actually do.


Edit - oops, for some reason I called it 'Murder most fowl' when I was posting originally. Crikey.

1) Carry-On
2) Joker 2

3) Longlegs

Pretty decent horror film that isn't done any favours by having Nick Cage as the bad guy. Him and his makeup were very distracting. It really needed some unknown playing the psycho on this occasion. Soz.

2 - Jaws. Never been a big Jaws fan but I caught it on TV (with adverts and everything) and watch it all. It stands up. The film just looks class and it's full of great character actors. I drags a bit but there's never been another shark movie as good. 4/5

3 - I Saw The TV Glow. There's something about the look of this film, and some of the acting performances, that hint at this being a good film. The plot never really gets going though, it just sets up things slowly and jumps around never really getting to the point. It was only after the film ended that I read it was about being trans, which I didn't get from the film at all. Pretentious twaddle really but watchable once. Lots of Buffy nods in there. 2/5

The Section 31 Star Trek film is now available. It’s bad…. Really bad!

4 - Alien Romulus. First rewatch. It hasn't improved. Is fun for a while but often rubbish and it's just a remix of the other films. Can't see me bothering again. 3/5

I'm 20 minutes in. It is absolutely diabolical

WTF were they thinking?

I mean as well as everyone being a shit actor playing a shit character (yes even Michelle Yeoh is shit in this). The phase stuff just doesn't even make sense.

I've given up.

To put that in context I've watched every minute of live action Star Trek since Enterprise.

Yep, I’ve watched every bit of Trek since TOS and even some of the unofficial shows, and this was dire.

I did stick around to the end though I’m not sure why.

If they’d just removed the Trek references and made a generic sci-fi heist movie it might have been a bit better.

But not before?

For context, I've seen every minute up to Enterprise, but nothing after

I'm pretty sure I've seen all of TOS, I've seen about 90% of
TNG.

I never really got into DS9 (I watched Babylon 5 instead) or Voyager. ( I keep on meaning to do a rewatch, but there is so much)

I've seen all the films. (Apart from this one now)

Bloodsport (1988) isn't nearly as good as I had hoped for

Moana 2: Yeah it's alright. I am getting a bit tired of Rock 'The Dwayne' Johnson. We saw it at a funny little dingy cinema that had weird roman style decorations, including statues either side of the screen. I enjoyed it for what it was but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, nor would I discourage anyone from seeing it. Its just... alright.

Sonic 3: I went on a 'daddy daughter date' to see this. Jim Carrey brings the fun, he was really good, possibly even moreso than the previous two in which he was also really good. Knuckles is a great character too and they 'steal the show' really. I'd also like to have seen a bit more of James Marsden in this - I like him and like his character too. It's pretty good but I think the first two are overall better films and I am wondering how much mileage there is left in this... I suspect it will end up getting milked beyond dry.






Sometimes I forget the order of the films, so I have to check which is which. But fans of me being very vague and wishy-washy will be pleased to read that we watched #5 (Order of the Phoenix) and then #6 (The Half Blood Prince) and even now I'm struggling to remember exactly which bit happened in which film. They're both pretty good but not as good as the films that came before, although I do enjoy the feeling of them building up to a climax. Aside from a few good bits I'm not all that fond of #6. They're also a bit longer than I realised, so starting to watch these with the kids at any time after 7pm was, for us, really not a good idea. Still, only two more of them to go now.

I've observed that my feelings are both 'these films are good, I'm fond of the series' and yet at the same time 'mehhhhh, motivation is waning'. What a very modern-feeling kind of malaise.

Bloodsport (1988) is BRILLIANT.

5 - Dark Windows. A bit of a cross between You're Next (which is great) and I Know What You Did Last Summer (which isn't great). I liked it a lot but the pace was pretty slow and there's barely any horror in it, until there is. 3.5/5

6 - Event Horizon. I've never been a big Event Horizon guy but I enjoyed it this time around. Good cast, decent scares at times. Typical bad CGI for the era though. 3.5/5