Be Excellent To Each Other

Really, well I'm out.

Great title, but makes me wonder if the makers came up with the title first and then made up a film to fit.

I'm watching Taken 3 and I got bored half way through and stopped to do a spreadsheet comparing 6/12 month rental contracts.

They should release two Taken movies at a time. One with the family and relationship bollocks, one with None Stop Action.

I thought 3 was better than 2, but both were far worse than 1.

Reasonably interesting 'Cutting Edge' article at Melonfarmers about the shredding that Taken 2 and 3 got for a PG-13 in the States and then even more so for a 12A over here. (And a brief look at how the original Taken was cut down for a PG-13 in the States from an uncut European version. We got the cut version in the cinema but the uncut version on DVD/Blu-Ray.)

http://www.melonfarmers.co.uk/bbfc_cuts_taken_2.htm

I've just realised why that site is called that; very good.

Which led me to this relatively interesting page on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minced_oath



I like the fact that in stuff like Only Fools and Horses when someone is being called a 'berk' they're actually being called a cunt.

It's a great site, and it's been there almost forever. It was definitely there in the mid/late 90s.

I generally check the site every day, as it's a good place to find out which films are getting cut and in what territories, so you can make sure you get an uncut version. (Or in some cases, where no uncut version actually exists for various reasons.)

Yesterday I saw Cinderella but before it was Frozen Fever which was completely charming and superb. In fact the lovely cute, comical nature of Frozen Fever probably eclipsed Cinderella just a bit and possibly Frozen as well.

Cinderella - A very nice pleasant heartwarming traditional fairytale (reinforcing the idea of ruling by right of birth and who you marry, tsk). First 20-30 minutes struggled to really grab my attention but from the moment the fairy godmother appears it improves considerably. Helena Bonham Carter brings huge fun and live to the role and the films pace seems to pick up somewhat. The ballgown transformation sequence is utterly spectacular and the best setpiece in the entire film. Everything is obviously very predictable and it never verges at all on being nasty or clever with it (Though does contain scenes of emotional upset, the BBFC warns). I didn't expect to like it as much as I did but I found just going with it meant I got a huge amount of pleasure out of it.

Most obvious use of this is Frack instead of Fuck in the re-made BattleStar Galactica even in going so far as saying "Do you want to Frack me?" and "Frack off!" etc.

Red Dwarf managed to change every swear word to Smeg I think.

There's a companion article listing some of these here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minced_oaths_in_media

And then you have Porridge, which invented the expression "naff off" as a way to get past the swearing censors in the 70s

It didn't invent the expression, it just used it. No one seems to know for sure where it came from but it was certainly used before Porridge e.g. the book Billy Liar in 1959.

I invented the word munter. Trufax.

Furious 7 - Tremendous marvelous fun. Silly over the top action done right. Achieves what Michael Bay can only wish for. Despite being 2h20m it was paced perfectly and I loved it. Statham is still an amazing screen presence.

The Duff - A sub par teen rom com with overwrought (but still good and valid) message. Lacks the smarts of say Pitch Perfect or Mean Girls.

Gravity: I wish I had seen this at the 8 max and in 3D. Annoying physics aside it was a pretty good ride.

What We Did On Our Holiday is jolly entertaining.

Which, given that it's an Andy Hamilton and Guy Parker effort, is hardly surprising.

Also, blarting like a girl.

Also Rosamund Pike.

Ninja 2 - 95 minute martial arts film that gives you a good well shot fight about once every 10 minutes. Very good.

Wild Card: A Jason Stathem action movie with barely any action in it. I think 3 fight scenes. All quite good, but everything else in the film is pretty boring. He spend the rest of the time doing gambling and engaging in boring conversations with characters I never even slightly cared about.

I did have fun playing "Hey is that the dude from Heroes? He looks a bit different"

19 minutes 57 seconds.

That's when I finally turned off straight-to-DVD garbage that is The Man With The Iron Fists 2.

Yes, they made a sequel.

I wasn't convinced that The RZA's artist direction was the only reason why A Better Tomorrow was a terrible terrible send off for The Wu, but, actually, now I'm convinced that The RZA has utterly and totally lost his way, his edge and his relevance.

I'll try and finish this later on (probably in short sessions interspersed with breaks to come on here and moan about it) but it's obviously going to be heartbreaking watching this shit swirl around the bowl.

How'd you get a load of oriental fellows and don't let them speak their own language but rather some terrible English with terrible terrible dialogue? And then get a bunch of oriental folk that also do martial artists and have the least convincing martial arts since, well, The Man with the Iron Fists?

God this is terrible.

Finished.

Just cringe inducing final fight and "twist" at the end. Of course, no one cares though. Stupid movie is stupid.

Good point: Some nice scenery.

Bad points: The rest.

Gotta be up there with some of the worst films ever made.

How does it compare to Batman and Robin?

Ooh, I also watched Eli Roth's Clown, cause my brother said I should watch it.

I watched it. You shouldn't.

It's utterly terrible.

Incidentally Eli Roth's appeared on that Iron Fists shit. Has he ever done a decent film? I mean, I kinda "liked" (if it's possible to like it) Hostel, but as far as I can remember everything else is dogshit.

I'm also not much of an Eli Roth fan, but to be fair, he's not either the director or writer of Clown:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1780798/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

John Wick. Slick, minimal and action filled revenge flick. There are parts early on where the "Act, Gary (Keanu), act" alarm was going off for me, and it's at its worst more or less any time Keanu has a line, but they use his silence to good effect. Enjoyed it. I might even watch it again for the whizz bang crikey action scenes.

He is unbelievable wooden. And it's great.

This weekend I watched Straight to Video tripe Karate Warrior 2. It is utterly awful. If you ever have the opportunity to watch it, please do yourself a favour and don't. There is very little Karate and not much in the way of Warrior-ing. Just generally teenagers doing not much at all. Agony.

Tomorrowland trailer looks fun.

John Wick - Generally ok.

Saw the new Avengers film in three-deez at the local cinema last night.

It was good, I enjoyed it, but I wasn't blown away despite how hard it was obviously trying. I won't really go into detail and no spoilers but despite being quite a thrill-ride it was also a bit predictable; even though I had been trying not to see too many trailers I felt like I knew what was coming next.

There were a lot of really good bits and the GFX looked amazing as you would expect but somehow it just felt like overall it was less than the sum of its parts. I don't know if maybe it's because the first one was so exciting (and I went to see it twice at the cinema which is pretty unusual for me) but I come out of this one a little underwhelmed. Perhaps the ever increasing ramping up of action films has led to a kind of 'action-fatigue' for me.

Oh, and I think that films need to chill with the 'quippy one liner' quota, don't try to force so many laughs.

Overall, maybe too much is a bad thing after all, and that's not something I would have expected.

Looks like Krishnan Guru-Murthy has pissed off Iron Man.



Skip to 6m if you don't fancy watching the rest of the interview.

Russell Brand is talking about it.

Saw Age of Ultron tonight and it was alright, I suppose. There was the odd flash of the excellence of the last one in the dialogue (the Whedonesque quips mostly) but the plot very often fell into disappointingly standard blockbuster incoherence and it definitely wasn't anywhere near as good as the previous film. Things I didn't expect:

On a side note I felt the 3D was very good in that it added depth (yes, ha ha) to the world without ever once being gimmicky. I quite like modern 3d but generally I'm 'aware' of it when watching a film whereas this time I forgot completely about it until I took the specs off to go to the toilet at one point and was appalled at how flat the raw image looked. As an immersion device this was definitely the most effective use of 3d I've ever experienced due largely to the relative subtlety of it.

You went to the toilet in the middle of a film? Are you really 7?

MockingJay Part One: Really good and deals with ideas well above what I would expect for a film for teenagers

I agree with all of that, the 3D was well done.

When I saw the 2nd Lord of the Rings film, I needed a piss as soon as I sat down and didn't go until it finished.

That was the most glorious piss I've ever had.

Watched "All This Mayhem" the other night. Really, really good feature length documentary about two Aussie brothers Ben and Tas Pappas, from a rough background they grew up skateboarding together and became some of the best vert skaters in the world. All the while being pretty fucking nuts and taking loads of drugs. They were the antithesis of the whole horrible corporate X-Games scene yet they were also competing in it.

Best bit was their confrontation with birdman, the clean-cut Tony Hawk. Who came up to them after a contest sulking and saying that he thought he should have won. "Yeah, fack off Hawk ya wanker, ya can't even flip yer board yer fackin' old cunt".

It all gets a bit less funny after that, though.

I agree with this. Thus you are wrong.

I was really surprised when it ended as I was into it so much. Loved it.

I've watched Jupiter Ascending.

It's utterly terrible garbage. Just as something is about to happen that guy (the one with a bland name and is the hunk of the moment) saves the (useless) woman (played by that hottie of the minute).

Useless woman continually saved by macho man time and time again. Utterly horrible bullshit. Probably written and directed by some very insecure man.

No one can act, the cast a shambles, the action is terrible, the set pieces boring, the story is utter nonsense with no redeemable qualities ... yet the budget was probably massive.

Don't watch this unless you hate yourself and you've got a spare 2 hours of self harm to fit in but you can't find a sharp knife.

DUFUQ EDIT: Did I just read that The Matrix brothers did this!? oh. Dear.

Siblings. One of them is no longer a brother

Racist

Wreck it Ralph: Lovely. Really, really, lovely. especially enjoyed spotting things in the background.

I love men in black 3.

'kay.