Be Excellent To Each Other

I never really want to see any blood pumping out of my bollocks.

Take it easy and rest, the fun isn't over yet. My mate had this op and whilst he never had the "bollock" issues you're reporting it was around 6 months before they could tell him it had worked (in that he had no swimmers in his samples) at one point he was under the threat of a 2nd round of surgery.

I'm sure that news has cheered him right up.

*snort* totally

Fancied a bit of a daft action film last night so decided to watch The Transporter for the first time ever, even though I bought the DVD from HMV years ago, I've just never got round to watching it.

What a load of old tosh that was. Stupid PG-13 language and violence (even though it's a Cert 15, I reckon it'd get a 12 these days), and didn't seem to be able to work out if it was supposed to be taken seriously or not.

Some of the car stuff was pretty good (albeit completely ridiculous, with speedos showing 120-140mph driving through tiny little French back streets where you'd be hard pushed to get to 50mph), and seeing the Japanese lass in her knickers was nice, but overall, not good at all.

4/10 - Didn't really work for me, annoyingly I've got the second one to watch as it was two-film boxset that I bought.

I think I'm right in saying the first is garbage but the second is pretty fun after the karate got dialled up a notch.

I might give the second one a go tonight then, at 90 minutes you can't accuse them of dragging on at least.

Also I quite like Statham.

Oh yes I remember the thing that annoyed me the most now, that ridiculous accent that Statham seemed to be doing (some of the time), what was all that about?

Also a TV show of this https://www.tvrage.com/Transporter_the_ ... ode_list/1

Its 2 Seasons with a 3rd planned to still active

You've seen Crank and Crank 2, right? They're the best Statham action films by an absurd margin.

I think Statham is utterly brilliant, and I'm convinced that there's a big film producer's joke where they insist on making him do a silly accent in all his films. Same as Sean Bean only being allowed acting roles where he doesn't last past half the film.

They're intimidated by Stalham's manly baldness

Yeah I've seen both the Cranks, the first one was awesome but I felt the second one had a 'nasty' edge to it that I couldn't quite put my finger on but I didn't enjoy it as much.

And the lass in it. Woah!

She's in Mirrors, too.

Watched 'The Grey' last night with Mr Liam Neeson.

I really like Liam Neeson, the first thing I remember seeing him in (certainly as the lead) was Darkman back in 1990 and he was dead good in that, just a mesmerising screen presence.

Anyway, whilst I haven't seen the trailer for The Grey I did read that it makes it look like an action-packed wolf-fighting thriller with non-stop man-on-wolf combat, a bit like the trailer for Drive made it look like The Fast And The Furious.

As long as you don't expect the wolf-fighting thriller, but are instead happy to settle down and watch a really strong character driven examination of the human condition and man's desire to survive, with a dollop of rumination on faith, you'll be good.

Great film and a strong cast all round - 8.5/10

Watched 'Flight' with Denzel in it last night, it's on Netflix UK.

Now, it was a good enough film, and Denzel was absolutely awesome but then again he always is. Rest of the cast were great too, including a welcome turn by John Goodman.

However towards the end it started to ring a bit off for me, the film is about alcoholism and addiction, not actually planes at all really, which I knew, and that's fine. But the protagonist's actions started to not make sense for me, particularly the set up for the final big scene which sets him up for eventual redemption.

I would still recommend it I suppose, and maybe a full-bore alcoholic really would do what Denzel did, but I'm not convinced. I've been a functional addict myself in the past (and known many) and you work within boundaries that still enable you to get shit done, which is how Denzel's character is portrayed - so I dunno really.

8/10 - Still a good fillum.

EDIT - The one actual 'flight' that is in the film is fucking awesome though, and incredibly scary, tense, and exciting.

We watched Whiplash a week or so ago.

I thought it was great. I could believe in the extremities of behavior from the orchestra leader, though I would have thought that a greater number of people would walk in such circumstances, despite prestige.

I enjoyed teh journey, but afterwards Russell said he couldn't understand what the film was trying to achieve.

I always think that to tell a good story is enough of an achievement, and the film does that with some gusto.

no explosions, no boobs, no car chases.

Lots of drumming.

I watched '22 Jump Street' on the plane. Absolutely loved it. I was laughing out loud throughout, probably to the annoyance of other passengers.

I'm out.

It's not got the requisite Craster draw.

So I watched Transporter 2 last night and it was better than the first, which isn't saying much, and I'd say it still doesn't get itself into 'good film territory'.

A reasonably enjoyable 90 minutes of fluff with some great fight sequences, good car action, plenty of dodgy CGI, the world's most amazing regenerating Audi, and decent baddies. (Including that sexy one whose bottom you get to see. Oh yes, and Matthew Modine, who for me will always be McFly.)

And Statham was still doing a bit of a strange accent.

And the violence was clearly PG-13 stuff again, although a bit harder than the first film and it had a proper 'fuck' in it.

Basically I'd say Crank is the evolution of Transporter, and a lot better.

I give this 6/10.

I can't wait for Statham's remake of Face Off, "Statham Off", where he plays both the good guy and the baddie. Statham swops faces with Statham and 'face off' against one another in a film that's 80% slow motion in this John Woo remake.

Statham's full range of accents is demonstrated in his new comedy "Meet the Stathams" where Statham plays every member of a dysfunctional family. Unlike Eddie Murphy's Klumps, Statham doesn't wear any make-up and every family member wears a very nice Armani suit and sounds slightly cockney.

I would pay good money to see both of those films.

Tonight's film, which I watched as is now customary sat in a big comfy chair, with my supportive sports shorts on, a big fluffy pillow under my arse/bollocks, and my feet in front on me on a pouffe (praise the lord for mother in laws who still have such things as pouffes) - was The Midnight Meat Train. *

It's quite hard to describe this one really, it's appeared in my Netflix (UK) listing under the horror category. I do like a good horror film, the user reviews at Netlfix seemed to be pretty good, and the limited coverage it's got at places such as Rotten Tomatoes seemed mixed to positive.

Dodgy CGI not withstanding - (I mean, I've seen worse, and maybe you're not as averse to obvious CGI as I am, but I just fucking hate it, if they can make films like Aliens and Star Wars and Terminator with practical effects, then why the fuck use CGI? It just looks shit) - this is a pretty lean, mean, crunchy, violent, very bloody thriller/horror flick.

It's got Vinnie Jones and Bradley Cooper in it, as well as a nice looking lass who I'm not familiar with, but Wikipedia says she's been in other things.

Oh yes it's based on a short story by Clive Barker, so that may well give you some inkling of the directions it heads off in. It's also directed by a Japanese dude called Ryuhei Kitamura and as you may know they do like their horror flicks.

I am not suggesting that this is a classic 'must see' film, or even a 'must see' horror film, but you could do a lot worse with a spare couple of hours, and if you like some proper 18 rated violence and gore then it certainly delivers. (The version on Netflix UK is the unrated Director's cut, the US theatrical release had some 80 (!) cuts made to it for an R rating.)

8/10 - Solid Friday night action and took my mind off my fucked bollocks, which is the highest praise I can give at the moment.


* The left one still bleeds a bit at night. Bollock, that is, I don't have two arses.

Cost.

I did wonder about that but are practical effects really so expensive to do? I know they farm the CGI out to the lowest bidders and whichever rendering house in the world can do it cheapest (which apparently is why big films can end up with dodgy CGI in them), but some of what they do with CGI would be what I'd consider to be fairly basic, like blood spurts which are just squibs and suchlike when done with practical effects.

It sticks out a mile to me and totally breaks the illusion of the film, 'cause I'm just like, 'Oh yeah, CGI again'.

I appreciate there are some things that simply couldn't be done with practical effects, like Terminator 2 which did things with CGI we'd never seen as a special effect before, because practical effects outright couldn't do it (The Abyss springs to mind as well). Then again they were both James Cameron films, and both films were rammed with superb practical effects as well.

I don't mind model work and matte backgrounds and suchlike, even though I know it's a special effect too, it feels more 'real' than CGI, I guess because they are at least real objects.

Some of the CGI in Transporter 2 was shocking, especially the aeroplane stuff at the end. Seriously, just chucking an Airfix model around in someone's spare bedroom would have looked better than that.

As for The Midnight Meat Train, that had plenty of practical effects in it too, so why they stuck the awful CGI in as well I really don't know.

You're right, a blood squib is really cheap... until you have to spend an hour scrubbing it out between takes. That's an hour your expensive shooting crew are sat around not doing anything useful. Want to do five takes? Now that's an entire day, rather than a few hours. Hence, CGI blood, added in post, by any number of the vast array of SFX houses, most of which are much cheaper than you'd think, especially the lower-end overseas ones.

Same goes for other practical effects: any problems making them work waste shooting time, and shooting time is really, really expensive. Post production time is almost free. So you restrict practical where you can, unless you're on an generous budget.

(Source: I know someone who works at an SFX house. He animated one of the shots in the Age of Ultron trailer.)

Hmmm yes it makes sense when you put it like that I suppose.

Curse computers, especially cheap overseas computers!

Cheers for the explanation

Also, CGI blood is easier to remove if the censors come calling

That's the problem with 'censoring to a certificate', there's actually not that much that the BBFC censor these days at Cert 18, but distributors will request a 15, or 12A, or whatever, and the BBFC will advise them on what to cut to get that certificate.

So recently for example Kingsman was cut for a 15, where an uncut 18 was available. A Walk Among The Tombstones got exactly the same treatment.

Transporter 2 got cut for a PG-13 in the States (some of which was indeed CGI blood), but could have had an uncut R - and so on.

I went through a phase of importing DVDs from the States in the 90s and into the 00s, as the BBFC were notoriously scissor-happy at the time either cutting for a 15 or even at 18 (they're a lot more liberal now at 18). The ridiculous cuts to The Matrix for its 15 for example, where the headbutts had to go, rendering a couple of the fight scenes a bit daft looking.

There's so many great uses of CGI, but I can't stand it when it's used to recreate something that would be relatively easy to do a practical effect for, at least when the effect is implemented badly enough that I can tell. Films are inherently all smoke and mirror's, but I don't want to see behind the curtain. Obviously there are cost considerations, but I would agree that despite the many advances technology has provided for filmmakers, there has also been a big old mess of regression.

CGI is absolutely amazing these days. I reckon that most of the time you don't even know that you are looking at it. For Expendables 3 they actually just got a bag of moldy old bollocks in front of a green screen and filmed that for two hours and all the rest was added in afterwards, you can't even see the join!

Also, for Rambo, I'm pretty sure that the cost of all of the blood squib packs would have been higher than the CGI had they gone down the practical route

The other issue with a lot of practical effects is that, quite often, they're built for one angle and one angle only. It locks the director into one shot. Directors don't like having the SFX guys telling them 'I don't care about your 'vision', this is the shot our FX works in.'

CGI stuff, the effects are much more flexible.

Song Of The Sea is epically beautiful. And very relaxing.

I should have mentioned it earlier, but I just remembered.

Bill and Ted 3 news: https://www.yahoo.com/movies/alex-winte ... 78022.html

that does look wonderful. But not in the cinemas until July? Pah.

Is it not? Ooops.

Woah

That's what imdb says. But then I looked on the BFI site and it seems they were showing it in October last year. I don't know. Maybe July is the DVD release date. Either way, will get on it when it arrives.

Watched 'We Are What We Are' last night which is a rather unusual horror film, I went into it basically knowing bugger all about it and it certainly surprised me on more than one occasion.

Kept me interested right to the end and the finale wasn't what I'd ever have guessed.

Oh yes it's got OLD KELLY MCGILLIS in it as well, and it also has a well hot lass called Ambyr Childers in it and for a moment it looks like it's going to get a one on the Craster Scale with her but then it doesn't. It does however get a one on the Craster Scale elsewhere, but not perhaps in a way you'd want.

Not a bad little flick, 7.5/10

Here's the synopsis from Rotten Tomatoes:

...colour me excited.

Divergent:Insurgent - Still a bit Hunger Games light but I think I slightly prefer this lead femme to Jennifer Lawrence as she's a tad less simpering and also much more volatile. I quite enjoyed this and there were quite a few unexpected moments in it yet somehow again there was a tiny bit of something missing that The Hunger Games manages to have. I think it's partly that it doesn't quite get the depth to do with consequences of actions or maybe just that this follows in the wake of the Hunger Games that makes it feel rather more of the same. Despite only being about 2 horus of film it still felt a little stretched as well which Hunger Games Mockingjay Pt1 didn't despite being longer and only half a film really. It's good, got a good lead character but isn't quite good enough.

I watched "A Year of Violence". You shouldn't.

It feels like it goes on longer than a year and has no violence. These are the facts.

Oh my god. That madmax trailer looks AMAZEBALLS

Went to see Get Hard. It should have been terrible, but it was actually pretty funny

Tonight's film was the slightly bonkers (as is often the case with French films) DISCOPATH.

Seriously, I'll let the synopsis from Rotten Tomatoes do most of the talking here.



Yes we have a film set in the 70s (and then the 80s), complete with period cars and ghetto blasters and suchlike, whereby a deranged serial killer is inspired to kill by THE SOUND OF DISCO MUSIC.

This film has got the lot, young would-be lesbians at an all-girls college, perverted priests, French cops with serious moustaches, a maniac DISCO OBSESSED killer, big 70s hair, platform shoes, the whole thing. (And a pretty good disco soundtrack.)

Oh yes and some reasonably nasty murder scenes so it's not all total cheese, although death by a 45RPM is a bit daft I suppose.

You know how Craster has his scale? 1 for boobs and 0 for no boobs? Well I currently run the bollocks scale, whereby 1 is a film that takes my mind of MY RUINED FUCKING BOLLOCKS for 90 minutes or so, and a 0 is a film that doesn't.

This film gets a 1 on the Hearthly bollocks scale. A high recommendation indeed.

Check out DISCOPATH!

Fast 7 was booked up?