Be Excellent To Each Other

I liked Frank a lot, but I couldn't tell you why. It's about the mood it creates, I suppose.

Watched 10 Cloverfield Lane on the weekend. Pretty good, 3/5.

Moon is amazing.

Moon is excellent. Proper sci-fi.

We watched this last night, it certainly kept me interested.

I thought it was great up until the last 20 minutes or so. After that. Rubbish.

Watched Cleaner on Netflix last night. Samuel l Jackson playing a former cop who now cleans up crime scenes for a living. Unfortunately that aspect is just the setup for the plot and it's just generic thriller stuff from then on.

I see that The Taking Of Pelham 1 2 3 was added to Netflix recently too. Not the great original, or the not-so-great Travolta remake, but a grainy made-for-tv version. I think I'll pass.

I like to think Frank is about what Little Frank did when he grew up.

I love the original Pelham 123 so, so much. I've a real thing for those kind of 70's thriller movies, there's a real sense of tension and fun that sparks magnificently. You pack the movie with great, fugly looking character actors and give each one a moment or two to shine and you keep the damn thing streamlined and simple, working relentlessly towards a brisk, satisfying conclusion. No tedious references to other films, no balls-achingly boring origin stories, just pure fun. Kind of the reason why I dug the Dredd movie. (Though it probably did need more funny looking character actors, perhaps with an angry Chief Judge saying, "Damnitt Dredd!" and pounding a desk. Only that of course is a terrible idea given the film's core premise, but anyway...)

If you like Matthau and Pelham, then please, please, please watch Charley Varrick. It's tremendous...

Matthau is a small time criminal Charley Varrick who also dusts crops.
And he's with his wife and some young guy.
They rob remote banks on the side but oh no
This little bank has - has a big problem
Too much money, Charley now has too much money
Which means Mafia are on his ass
And they are the guys who complicate
With Joe Don Baker
As non-Italian mafia guy
And Andrew Robinson as another mafia guy - sort of - who is also not Italian
But wait, there's some Chinese guys who are up to no good either
They're not Italian, they're Chinese, but they're only in it for like two scenes
But Joe Don Baker - he's in it like a lot, and he smokes a pipe, and is funny evil
So Matthau has to survive him as he's after the money, and other stuff too
It has cars and a plane and it's No Country for Old Matthau
Only he gets laid with hot women so maybe it is for Matthau as he stars in
Charley Varrick: Last of the Independents versus Suspiciously Non-Italian Mafia & Some Chinese Guys Who Are All After the Money what Varrick has but Varrick has a plane and a plan so that helps Charley Varrick, it's, it's just called Charley Varrick. It's called Charley Varrick.

Charley Varrick is indeed awesome.

Finally got to see 'GREEN ROOM' last night which is solid but not amazing and I felt not as good as BLUE RUIN. (Perhaps the director's next film will be 'RED CRUET' or something.)

The premise is fairly straightforward, a struggling punk band play a gig at a white supremacist club, see something they shouldn't, and are not allowed to leave, but obviously they want to leave. TROUBLES ensue.

I was really looking forward to seeing Patrick Stewart playing a nazi but it turns out he just does old Picard (he's even polite!) albeit a bit more murdery and prone to saying 'fuck' and the n word occasionally.

It was a decent watch and it held my interest, but for my money it lacked the originality and offbeat sort of feel that Blue Ruin had. The violence was pleasingly icky although I definitely got a feeling there'd been a bit snippity-snip going on for the R rating, one of the attacks in particular was very jerkily edited.

Oh yes and it's got the Chekov guy out of Star Trek in it who's dead now because he got squashed by his car. He's pretty good in this.

I'm saying good but not great. 7.5/10.

I watched The A-Team again. I'm always surprised by how good it is.

It's really good.

Yeah, it really had no right to be as good as it was. Sharlto Copley fucking nailed it as Murdoch.

Will watch that tonight, as the current MissKov has not seen it

It really is. Shame it tanked at the box office as I'd have liked to have seen a sequel.

Or four.

Did it come out alongside some blockbuster, or was it just a case of bad advertising?

Too many people hate fun.

Didn't Shawshank Redemption tank at the box office too

http://www.movieinsider.com/movies/summer/2010

Summer 2010 movies....

Sex and the City 2
Toy Story 3
Prince of Persia
Shrek Forever After
Iron Man 2



edit Released before or very close to the A-Team

Goddamn it, Sex and the City 2 ruined the A Team for us.

The A-Team was one of the DVDs I offloaded to Music Magpie recently.. never actually watched it. Oops.

Yes but it is shit

I didn't like it.

oh, you are a grump...

It's ok, he loves Alastair fucking Campbell.

I didn't even know RevStu had a sex tape.

Slightly less potential for sequels too...

Oh, come on. It's liked because good wins out and the hero overcomes his villains but done in such a bland, paint by numbers way. It really isn't as good as people think.

Since there's no objective, quantifiable measure of movie quality, it's exactly as good as people think it is.

It's a triumph of style over substance.

The Craster Scale disagrees.

Much like New Labour, eh?

I've not seen many movies this past month. I started watching a huge 8 hour docu about a guy who was framed for murder then got out and supposedly murdered some one. Then I watched a few other docus, Peckham BMX was about the best of those (felt right at home lol).

I did watch a film last night though called The Dog Pound or just Dog Pound, can't remember which. It's a prison film about young offenders much in the style of Scum. It was pretty good though I guess. They literally ripped the ending right out of Scum though.

Then again, how many Canadians would have ever seen Scum? so they probably got away with it.

Making A Murderer, perchance?

I just watched a film called 'Precious' over the course of two long baby naps.

Goodness me, that was difficult to watch. I almost turned it off a few times, but did stick with it. The social worker made me not dislike Mariah Carey, and I think I love the teacher.

Lenny Kravitz was a nurse, too.

Anyway, weird casting aside, it's powerful but very difficult to watch.

Went to see Ghostbusters last night, and was pretty pleased with it.

It's a very different film to the original, for sure, but that's not a bad thing.

Perhaps somewhat ironically (or predictably, who knows) the only things that I didn't particularly like about the movie were the cameos by Aykroyd and Murray. Aykroyd's cabbie was fine up until the "I ain't afraid of no ghost" line, which just pushed it a bit too far - but Murray basically phoned in this "performance."

Ernie Hudson's cameo was pretty good, as was Sigourney's - and it took me far too long to realise that the hotel clerk was Annie Potts - she still looks good, but very different to how she looked in the 80s.

The CGI is great, many people have said it's a bit overbearing, and I can understand that, but there was never a moment where I lost track of what was going on because of it.

Chemistry between the main cast is good too.

I'd watch it again, and indeed probably will - wonder if I can persuade Jem to come along

This morning I've been taking a quick look at the Message Boards for it on IMDB and on Reddit. I'd seen the frankly ludicrous levels of hatred levelled against this film on the official Facebook page, but nothing prepared me for how utterly fucking toxic those two places are. Unbelievable. People posting about how anyone posting a good review is "obviously a shill" or that they don't believe they've seen the movie - which is especially amusing of course given that 99% of the people criticising the movie won't have seen it either.

Beasts of no Nation was amazing. I don't think they pulled any punches when doing it, and i doubt the filme would have the same feeling of authenticy if it got a theater release. Idris Elba as awesome as always.

Oh, if it's good I'll probably see it then. The added bonus of enraging man-children who cling obsessively to a highly accomplished lightweight piece of entertainment from over thirty years ago as if it's some sort of Holy Scripture will be extra sauce for the goose.

Miranda is doing an Airplane! remake.

Blimey. Could you imagine?

Yes I can. And don't call me blimey

I merely weep for the state of the film industry, not over any perceived desecration.

No spoilers, but I thought ghostbusters was excellent.

It's ok, Gaz has spoiled it already

There is a new Power Rangers movie out next year.

Bryan Cranston is returning to it, playing Zordon. He also did the voices for a few of the villains in the original series.

RedditFeeX.

Ghostbusters was great fun!

Yes it was.

But it has time travelling women in it who can somehow ruin things from your past!

It is far superior to Ghostbusters 2, let's be honest.

Eddie the Eagle is a fucking delightful movie.