Intentionally quirky
films normally twist my piss, but this one manages to stay on the right side of
the irritation balance, and somehow be very likable even though it's not particularly funny or eventful.
Sunday, 31 December 2017
12/2017 Weird Science (1985)
As a young 'un in the
'80s, I thought this film was funny and enjoyable. Watching it again now, not
so much.
12/2017 The Invention Of Lying (2009)
Another film Podd
watched that I didn't. She thought it was alright. Ricky Gervais though, so
probably best avoided.
12/2017 Skyfall (2012)
I didn't watch this,
Podd did. I have seen it though. It was the most enjoyable Bond film I'd seen
since the Moore era. Back when they were fun and not bollocks. Daniel Craig is
still rubbish. Wrinkled like a sun-dried bollock, but with less range.
12/2017 Brawl In Cell Block 99 (2017)
Vince Vaughn plays a
fellow with what appears to be a Terminator-like immunity to pain. This comes
in handy when he gets sent to jail as he graphically, viciously and very
effectively beats up almost everyone else in prison.
It's not much more
complicated than that, and is way more fun than such a basic film should be.
12/2017 Evilspeak (1981)
Childhood bear buddy
and Fred West tribute act, Clint Howard stars as a socially difficult teen at a
military academy, who finds an old book in the basement that his computer
translates, which then bestows satanic powers onto him.
We watched this on
Christmas day, being a traditional family film. The main reason we saw it was
because it was one of the films on the Video Nasites act banned list. Hard to
see why, beyond some laughable scenes of devilish gubbins that I'm sure even
the most devout of Biblefolk could laugh off as the silly nonsense that it is.
12/2017 Blood Money (2017)
John Cusack's latest
straight to DVD effort is every bit as forgettable as all the others he's done
for, well, flippin' ages now. Think the last film of his actually of merit was
probably Identity. 15 years ago.
In this film he plays
a man, looking oddly like a cabaret drag queen half way through the dressing
room preperation, who has stolen a quantity of money from unknown baddies. A
trio of annoying pricks have gone hiking and come across his stashed loot, nabbing
it for themselves, so he chases after them and all that.
Not as exciting as my
indifferent description makes it sound.
12/2017 Maggots (2017)
Well, it's a cheap
film about over-sized, deadly space maggots falling to Earth and killing people.
You don't need more
than that.
12/2017 Sound Of Nothing (2013)
Low budget post-apocalyptic effort with a bit of
zombies and stuff as well, but not much. Mostly talky things. Alright for what
it was
12/2017 Cave (2016)
A bit like The
Descent, but focusing more on the people underground who have gone funny in the
head, rather than the cannibal mutants.
Pretty much that,
really.
12/2017 The Wolverine (2013)
Just as shit as when
I saw it in the cinema. Only watched it again as it was on TV while I was
giving my thumbs a break between festive Playstation sessions.
He's about to do that thing where he puts his knees in his slippers and walks 'round the house pretending to be Midget Wolverine.
12/2017 The Stolen (2017)
Slow moving Western
about a lady who's husband gets killed and child gets stolen. We think she
probably gets the kid back by the end, but we're not sure as we fell asleep.
24/12/2017 Inside (2016)
If you've read this
with any kinda boring regularity, you may have noticed that Inside, the
original French film this was based on, is a bit of a Christmas Eve tradition
here at 'Plop Towers.
What's more
Christmassy than watching a film set on Christmas Eve, with an absolute fuckton
of extremely unpleasant ultradeath and grimoriffic mutilations? Exactly! How
very French.
The American remake,
like most films remade for Yank audiences, takes the core of the film, removes
anything that may trouble septuagenarian Fox viewers and then wanks away any
remaining good bits.
An absolute insult on
the original, utterly, utterly, utterly, utterly dogshit.
12/2017 Elf (2003)
I didn't watch this,
Podd did. She didn't come home with a tattoo reading 'Elf is my favourite film
ever, it's brilliant!' so I'm going to assume it was average.
12/2017 The Foreigner (2017)
After Jackie Chan's
daughter gets killed in an IRA bomb in London, he takes far too long trying
reasonable routes to justice before going over to Northern Ireland and kicking
the wank out of numerous goons.
12/2017 Fubar (2002)
This film showed up a
lot on the netweb again recently as a TV show based on it has been commissioned,
or possibly even made and shown, dunno. Anyway, seen it before. If you spent
your teens and twenties listening to heavy metal and being a pointless dick
rather than pursuing any kind of constructive life, this film will probably
tingle some fond memories for you. It did for me.
12/2017 Splatter University (1984)
Bumular slasher pish
from the '80s. If you know this sort of film, you'll be able to fill in the
rest of this 'Plop for yourself. Just make sure you include the usual childish
attempts at humour and all that.
If you haven't seen
this sort of film, don't push yourself, they're almost universally shit. Like this.
11/2017 VHS Forever? Psychotronic People (2014)
A film with a fair
amount in common with 'VHS Massacre' below, although this one focuses more on
the obscurities and, like a growing number of others, the UK's Video Nasty act.
Where the fucking Daily Mail's editorial opinion pieces literally guided
government policy on what us subjects were allowed, or not, to watch.
Good to know that a
paper who overtly supported Hitler and Mosley still had such influence in
living memory, eh?
Fuck 'em.
11/2017 Plastic Galaxy: The Story Of Star Wars Toys (2014)
Documentary (well,
obviously. It's hardly gonna be German scat porn with that name) about the
little plastic ubiquibastards that people of my generation instantly lost the
accessories for as soon as the packaging was opened.
For anyone who had
some in the late '70s/early '80s this will prod your nostalgia nub.
Worth watching alone
for the prototype toys that were created from rough descriptions of the film's
characters, resulting in shit like Chewbacca wearing flares and suchlike.
11/2017 M.F.A. (2017)
A young woman is
exploited once to often by an entitled, ego driven prick of a fella and decides
to fight back.
Fucking good it is
too.
11/2017 VHS Massacre: Cult Films And The Decline Of Physical Media (2016)
Dirt cheap
documentary about the struggles faced by amateur film makers, the rapid
replacement of physical media by streaming/digital stuff and the people that hunt
through the second hand piles of VHS tapes for the obscure and forgotten films
that never got digitised.
LLoyd Kaufman, who
is, I think, contractually obliged to appear in every doc of this type, also
brings up the worrying prospect of how much power the media giants have and
what they'll do to retain it in a changing world, with issues such as
censorship and net neutrality. That of course could lead to a long, tedious
pile of words on here itself, but another time perhaps.
The most striking
thing for me was the footage taken from inside video shops at their peak,
compared to that taken in their dying months, and then after closure. At their
height, they were almost like social venues, places to hang out longer than the
process of selecting a film would logically take. In the independent ones, they
would frequently be staffed by people who were knowledgeable and enthusiastic
about the films on the shelves, be on good terms with their customers and
decorate the interiors of the shops with posters, cut-outs and reproduction
props of the contemporary and enduring, older films.
Sad fucks like me
used to feel very at home in such places.
Then came the
monopoly of Blockbuster, (one victim of the change to digital that makes some
of us happy) and the small independent shops, and their welcoming character was
killed off in pursuit of bland, production line profit chasing.
Anyway, there is more
to this film about films on actual film than what I've waffled on about, and,
aside from a wobbly first fifteen minutes, it's well worth watching.
Which ironically I
did on a streaming service. Ho hum.
11/2017 Nails (2017)
A young lady gets run
over and mangled whilst out jogging, thus proving that exercise can be very bad
for you, and ends up in hospital, paraspazzed on a lifeglug*
She becomes
increasingly convinced that something creepy is visiting her in her room,
mostly due to the heavy breathing, creepy shadow man who comes and stands next
to her bed at night. However, her family, the hospital staff and surveillance equipment her husband installs in her room all suspect she's a bit wonky in
the mind and imagining it all.
Ropey in parts but
watchable enough.
*Chris Morris. He
should do much, much more TV stuff.
11/2017 Haunted (2017)
You'd think the
Italians would've learnt how to make a decent film by now.
On the strength of
this, no, they haven't.
Actually bad enough
to be funny.
Doesn't appear to be an IMDB entry for this gem. Shame.
LIES! Here it is:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3530328/
11/2017 Thief (1981)
Crime flick (not a
big surprise, given the title) about a sucessful, low-key heister/safe cracker
who loses a big pay off after his fence gets murdered before he can convert a
bundle of diamonds into cash.
Compromised, he has
to work for a mob-like outfit which doesn't sit well with his solo artist
practices.
All goes well for a
while, fat paydays, legitimate businesses doing well etc., but then, as it
normally does in such tales, it all goes bollocks up and our chap flops into a
big vat of peril.
Good stuff, liked it
a lot.
11/2017 Creep 2 (2017)
Sequel to the less
numerically bestowed Creep, and essentially the same film. If you liked that
one, you'll like this one.
11/2017 The Limehouse Golem (2016)
Jack The Ripper like
series of murders has Victorian London all of a pickle.
London's shit enough
now, but it would've been even worse for anyone poor back then.
"Dinner? I
peeled some rats earlier, fry some if they ain't turned green yet"
"Cup your
bollocks over the cobbles guvnor? Only a penny a mile"
"Spit bath! Get
yer spit bath here! Shilling for warm, half shilling for cold"
"Open sewer boat
rides, kids go free!"
We went on a guided
tour of Highgate cemetery a few years back, (well worth doing, fascinating
history stuffs) the guide explained how the average age on a pauper's grave in
1880s London was 22.
"Fred died
yesterday"
"Well, he had a
fair innings, he was 24."
"True. Good
genes, his grandpa lived to be thirty."
"Thirty? Fuck
off I don't believe it!"
"True, I
swear!"
11/2017 Detroit (2017)
Film about some bent
cops beating and killing unarmed black people in the early '60s. Thank golly
things have moved on so much since then.
Oh.
11/2017 Jason X (2001)
A terrible pile of
utter toilet, but we were apparently in the mood for such twaddle as we
actually enjoyed it quite a lot. Which surprises me as much now as it did on
the night.
I won't even describe
the plot as, well, it's absolute bum-dumplings, but there you go.
11/2017 The Terminal (2004)
I didn't watch this,
Podd did. Some flick about Tom Hanks missing his plane and deciding to stay in
the airport for, like, ages and shit.
11/2017 Slumber (2017)
A doctor of sleepy
people (Slumpologist? Pillowtrician?) discovers there's a family that's being
tormented by a spooky entity while they sleep. She decides to help them in a
plotcrash of Nightmare on Elm Street and Flatliners.
Think it was alright,
can't really remember.
11/2017 American Assassin (2017)
Some young fella is
on holiday when a bunch of jihadi ballsacks raid the beach resort and kill lots
of people, including his girlfriend, who's just agreed to his proposal.
He reacts in the way
any normal person would by turning himself into a home made Jason Bourne type
fella. He goes off to kill those who ruined his wedding plans, which brings him
to the attention of shady CIA types who decide he'd be a great candidate for
their version of a Youth Training Scheme apprentiship.
YTS and
apprentiships. If you're under 30, these are things that used to exist when you
still had half a chance of getting somewhere in life in the U.K. if you weren't
born into wealth.
Anyway, he does well
and joins a furtive 'let's kill forigners' dept., having wee little adventures
all over the world. Including, seriously, Croydon.
Although it's dressed
up to be Turkey for some reason.
It's the same road I
done my driving theory test in some years back.
CROYDON!!!
11/2017 A Bad Idea Gone Wrong
Two bumbling chancers
break into a house to steal an item of great value, only to discover an
unexpected house sitter who throws a spanner in the works.
Fun, lightweight
stuff. Some amusing dialogue. Worth a go.
7/10
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5212918
Red Christmas (2016)
Nubbin-budget
seasonal horror effort. I think they tried hard with what they had, but it
still comes up short. If you're in a forgiving mood, there's some fun to be
had, but I wasn't feeling it.
Manchester by the Sea (2016)
I didn't watch this,
Podd did. She seems to like these films about glum people living in bleak
places having miserable times. I reckon she's secretly Russian or something.
*Edit* This was written before all the current fucking hoo-ha with Russia.
Sicario (2015)
Watched this again as
I've enjoyed Talor Sheridan's other two films, Wild River and Hell Or High
Water and thought I'd give this another go.
It's still too long,
overly talky, humourless, convoluted and po-faced, but the early scenes
involving the journey in convoy through a ghettoised city rising in tension and
leading to a traffic jam shoot-out are exceptional.
Crooked House (2017)
Agatha Christie
adaptation about a bunch of unbearable posh arseholes squabbling over the
division of a sizable will and furtively killing each other.
I don't like the
British fetish for making expensive period films about rich people living in
massive houses all despising and plotting against each other, all that boating
lake, cricket green, straw hat, Rolls Royce dogshit can fuck off up Julian
Fellowes arse.
However, Glen Close
was excellent in this, made it worth watching and it went off in a slightly
different direction to what I was expecting.
November Criminals (2017)
A film about a
high-schooler who turns detective after a good friend of his is murdered. The
murder is seemingly dismissed as gang violence by the police too quickly and
without merit.
The last film with a
smiliar-ish plot we watched was 'Brick' a good number of years ago, and we
binned that half way through as it was such pretentious ballsack, so we went
into this expecting it to be probably rubbish, but it turned out to be mostly
pretty flippin' good. So there, take that, expectations!
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