Spent the whole of this film thinking it was called 'Cavalry' and wondering what the title had to do with anything. Then I saw it was Calvary, which is apparently the place Jesus died. Now it makes much more sense.
Cracking vintage heist film. If given to the right people, a remake could be excellent. However, I've little doubt that it would be written and directed by some crayon munching fuckwit who would turn it into a shite music video with guns. So, yeah, just watch this one instead.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048790/
8/10
Blimey! Look at the length of that plume coming from the chimney!
Still, in those days things like pollution were not such an issue.
"Smith's plastic disposal incinerator, pumping wonderful sky nutrients into your atmosphere!"
"So, how drunk are you?"
"Well, let's just say..." *Slides key over* "I'm in room 237"...*Wink*
Abraham Lincoln used to occasionally take the wife and kids out for a trip into the 1950s.
I think this is the worse film I have seen this year.
Utterly terrible remake of a French film I seem to recall being quite good fun. This really is awful, like and arse that has shit out a load of incrementally smaller arses, creating a wobbly pink Russian Doll of arses that get smaller as they head towards the vanishing point of the horizon of arse.
Three slightly dickish/nerdy highschool lads reply to an online advert promising some bedroom pleasure with an eager older lady. She drugs their beers and they wake up in a bit of bother as a small, very fundamentalist church of nutbags have decided that they represent all that is immoral and wrong with modern society and plan on sacrificing them to God ...for whatever mentalist wobble-bonk reasons they think justify such prick lunacy.
Things don't really go to plan for anyone when the ATF decide it's time to raid the church compound and a simple story of religious child-murder turns into a big gun fight.
No one, with the exception of the essentially decent and naive young lads, comes out of this looking particularly good. The religious nutters and the law enforcement both justifying terrible acts as a response to orders from a higher agent.
The performances are all superb, especially Michael Parks as the head of the church, a far too believable example of mentalist wibble-thought inspired by a two thousand year old book. Glad that most Christians I've met are the fluffy, decent types who help out at homeless shelters and whatnot.
We watched the 1984 original a few years ago for the first time in ages. It was much, much more terrible than we remembered. Like someone had done a poo in a hat which you then had to wear for 90 minutes.
Ropey blaxploitation film with Chef from South Park. Pretty embarrassing to watch and some of the performances are terrible, but it has its moments and the hospital gunfight at the end is frenetic and exciting.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072325/
5.8/10
On a hot day I like to go up on the roof and fire my ten-inch weapon.
"Whassat?"
"Paper, you twat."
"Hello? I want to speak to a man wearing a helmet-wig"
"This is he."
"Get up, Keith. We're starting that bathroom conversion job today."
Five young people of varying shades of slappable go off for a hike in the woods and get pursed by a bitey monster. they hide in a shed with some other people, then most of them die.
Pretty much sums it up.
It's low budget and should be terrible, but it's actually quite a decent effort. Don't get me wrong, it's no equal to The Thing, but for what it is, it's very entertaining and the monster is either CGI that looks better than the effects used in films costing twenty times as much or it's a superb man in a rubber suit type effort. And it's certainly tons better than The Thing sequel from a few years ago.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2996684/
8/10 (Y'know, relative an' all that.)
Canadian Aaron Paul tribute, Aaron Poole, (who was in the excellent spook flick The Last Will And Testament Of Rosalind Leigh) plays a curious documentary maker who is filming a profile of a local conspiracy theorist called Terrence.
Terrence goes missing in suspicious circumstances, so Aaron and his fellow camera nudger literally pick up the clues he left behind and unravel a large-scale conspiracy involving a powerful shadow group that hold occasional meetings out in the woods like a bull worshiping cross between The Bilderberg Group and the Bohemian Grove fuckwits.*
For a low budget effort, this is commendable on every level. The script, acting, camera work and pace are all excellent. Best of all, though, is the subtle immersion into paranoia and, eventually, panic. Yet another found footage style film, but it's an absolute cracker. Well worth buying.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2330322/
10/10
Perkin.
*Look it up. A bunch of 50yr old, millionaire Republicans running around in the woods wearing nappies worshiping a giant stone owl? Fucking hell, what a bunch of soppy cunts.
I mentioned on here a while ago that I've been playing the (truly excellent) PS3 game The Last Of Us. As with many popular video games, it has inspired a number of 'fan films' online. If you didn't already know, these are small, low budget, short films inspired by the original digi-pixel time-wasters. If you have a look on YouTube, there's thousands of 'em.
I done a search the other day and this one 'topped the charts', so to speak. Even if you haven't played the game, although it'll definitely help if you have, I think there's something to be enjoyed in this.
It's only fifteen minutes long, but I'm gonna include it as it's a fine effort and it has an IMDB entry, therefore legitimate by the loose standards of this blog.
Set twenty years after a rather nasty fungal infection has decimated humanity, it focuses on Joel and Ellie making their way through a wasted, fading landscape, hoping to make contact with an underground resistance group called The Fireflies.
The Fireflies have a medical team that can potentially harness Ellie's immunity to the infection and create a cure, ensuring humanity's survival. On the way they encounter numerous dangers both human and infected. A bit like The Walking Dead, but without the boring six months spent on a farm bit.
As someone who has spent a great deal of time watching films, playing games and making zero-budget splatter-flicks, I feel I can pass a relatively experienced eye over such endeavours.
Starting with the bad:
The building used in the film is covered in graffiti. This makes no sense as the infection spread fast and would've left little time for decorative tagging.
Lifting dialogue directly from the game feels a little forced when comparable scripting would have worked just as well.
The guy playing Joel looks a little young and the girl playing Ellie looks a little mature.
The 'Clicker' they encounter basically looks like a normal fella with a cake glued onto his face.
The good:
The building used looks very much like the hotel in the game (the level it's based on), and considering this was made on a pocket-money budget, the graffiti is easily forgivable.
Both the main actors capture the game's characters style and mannerisms very well. Idiots on YouTube complain that 'Joel' is too young and 'Ellie' is too old. (see above) Well, when it was made Jeff Moffitt was 47 and Kate McLeod was (a young looking) 20, so that's bollocks. They nailed it in my humble.
The action choreography was spot-on.
It caught the mood of the game.
It looks great considering the almost complete absence of budget.
Anyway, I've waffled on far too much about this, the main reason being that I'm off work tommorow and I've had a few whiskys. So, yeah, have a look for yourself:
If games ain't yer thing, please ignore all the above. Although I don't really care either way.
Silly old nonsense about a bunch of people looking for some shipwreck booty. Some proto-Romero shufflers wearing insta-dry clothing waddle out of the ocean to claim them back.
It's pretty ropey, but fun enough if you're in the mood for vintage twaddle.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051226/
5/10
Electricity was expensive 57 years ago so most houses employed a 'Fire Nan'.
Pop group The Alberts were pretty much the One Direction of their day.
"Isn't this outfit a bit, well, revealing?"
"It'll be dark in the club, don't worry."
"Gary, I'm in the mood..."
""Nice one. I'll switch on the Fire Nan."
"Careful, Miriam. You'll 'ave someone's eye out with them."
"I'm amazed I found someone with the same fetish!"
"Actually, when your advert said 'big brassy helmet diver' I was kinda hoping for something else..."
That would actually make a really cool poster. Someone print it off and send it to me.
Better than average crime film based on a true story about a pair of silly billys who decide to hold up Mafia pubs.
Good film if you can tolerate those fucking awful New York accents that make people sound like they're talking out of a nasal arse.
I also found it distracting as the main actress in the film looked a lot like a guy I used to work with many years ago. He possibly wore slightly more make-up though.
Two Canadian nerds take a year off to travel around the world, doing the the whole self discovery/boozy-sex thing that young folk do when holidaying. After successfully wooing a local girl in France, one of the young fellas wakes up with a headache and a puncture wound on his arm.
I think that is the first time I've ever written the word 'wooing'. Could've written 'pulling' I suppose, but that sounds like something a wanker would say.
Anyway, the chap starts developing odd symptoms like superhuman strength, being bullet proof and, like most Italian women who wish to preserve their virtue, being able to run faster than a moped.
Things start looking bad when, on a day out visiting a cheese farm or some other touristy place, strong sunlight starts to make him burst. The two buddies realise that he's turning into a vampire.
Things then start kicking off with lots of blood and stuff, loads of action, a house raid scene that's like something from a Call Of Duty game and some excellent, amusing dialogue. Obviously, being Canadian, the two fellas remain very polite during all the carnage.
Anyway, I won't give away any more as it's well worth seeing for yourself, but this is the best vampire film I've seen since 30 Days Of Night and easily in my top ten flicks of the year so far.
Sex comedy aimed at people much younger than us. However, we were in a forgiving mood and actually enjoyed it more than we should have. Elizabeth Shue is particularly fun as a boozy sexual predator. Which are the best type if you ask me.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2314824/
6.8/10 Which is embarrassing.
Short film, only seven minutes, but I'm including it as it's got an IMDB and it's quite good. Also it's got that bloke with eyebrows who's been in longer films that we like.
One of the few John Hughes films of that era I hadn't seen.
Like the rest of his well known stuff, the moral of the film seems to be: Aspire towards conformity and material wealth. Fortune favours the attractive and wealthy.