Be Excellent To Each Other

Which one? There are loads

11) Conclave

The Pope is dead! Long live…whom? Back stabbing bishops abound in this … “thriller”? I wouldn’t say I was thrilled, mind, but very entertained. Everyone brings their A-game and choosing a pope has never been so…sexy? No. No, it wasn’t. It was great, though.

12) Companion

Pacey from Dawson’s Creed just come out of fucking nowhere and gives a banger of a performance in this…thriller? Yes, it’s a fucking thriller. Sort of. Pacey brings a companion to a mansion in the woods miles from civilisation. She’s super awks, and she might have an alternative motive. There’s a rich Russian here too. Guess who gets offed? A futuristic look at autonomous sex robots and why you probably shouldn’t piss them off after you’ve jail broken one. Also it’s really good.

Ol' Pacey was pretty good in that series about the bad doctor wot dun sum bad stuff (Dr Death).

Turns out it was Jack Quaid!? I’d have bet the house that was Pacey.

12 - Heart Eyes. Valentines-based slasher with a few good moments and fun kills. The comedy doesn't really land and the 'whodunnit' aspect is hampered by the fact that there are like five characters in it. 3/5

13 - The Box. A 2009 Cameron Diaz film that starts with a good premise (if you press this button, somebody dies but you get a million dollars) but wastes that premise by turning the whole thing into a long X-Files episode. 2.5/5

Watched Mickey 17 the other night. Pretty good, Robert Pattinson can fuckin' act, I'll give him that. Pretty seamless looking CGI too, at least as far as the "two Robert Pattinsons in one shot" thing goes.

Hudgens didn't need cgi

13) Mickey 17

It’s good but I wasn’t spaffing myself watching it. Batman does a decent job, but I didn’t like the irritating nerd voice he used for the titular character. I preferred the psychopathic Mickey 18 who had a normal voice. A mild complaint but it annoyed me that I was so annoyed by it, especially after listening to it for 2 hours. There’s some really good performances outside of Batman anyway: for example, Naomi Ackie fucking SMASHES it. Mind you, I had a little problem with the tone of the thing. It’s almost like a black comedy, but there’s a couple of leading stars who are so OTT that they’re cartoonish. Hulk does probably exactly what’s asked of him, but I found it too unsubtle. You’ve got TWD’s Glenn, for example, who does a really good job of being silly without, ironically, being a comic book character. I dunno, I just kinda wanted the cartoonish villain to be a bit less like an actual cartoon.

Anyway, it looks fantastic. It’s witty, it’s funny, it’s interesting, it’s also too long and the final act is a bit disappointing. Not my favourite Bong but a good Bong anyway.

Yeah, that pretty much matches my view.
Decent, but not the greatest.

I rewatched The Accountant last night, in anticipation of the upcoming sequel-that-everyone-was-asking-for-but-that-nobody-needed.

Even the second time around it's a surprisingly compelling and engaging film. It will be intriguing to see how they go with the sequel, as the "hook" of the first movie is obviously spoiled for the sequel.

Yes, completely agree too. I felt like it was over, then they found a load of stuff from the book that they crammed into a flashback, which was too much. But not to say that I didn't enjoy it.

Black Bag
Soderbergh’s latest genre movie, starring Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett and an excellent ensemble cast. It’s an espionage movie, Fassbender plays a mole hunter and there’s a mole.
It’s taut, classy, stylish and a tight 90 mins

14) Anora

The lead in this won best leading actress at the Oscars and it’s easy to see why. This story of a prostitute who marries a Russian oligarchs son is so fucking good, I was properly drawn in by it. It might have been the copious amounts of boobs on show, or how much I wanted to punch this 21 year old kids face in, or the utterly bombastic soundtrack… or maybe all of those, but it was the final scene that utterly cemented the brilliance of the lead actor. Christ, that final scene is filled with this complex mix of emotions that just fucking floored me.

A film I’d recommend to everyone but you’ve really got to be in the mood for it, I suppose. And probably don’t watch it with your mum and dad. This isn’t Pretty Woman. Well, it kinda is but with shitbags. And tits.

14 - The Gorge. The initial premise is interesting and the way the two leads bond is the best part of the film. Which is odd for me as the rest is sci-fi/horror and should have been the stuff that I'd like. But all those aspects are a bit underwhelming and often stupid (and all visualised with pretty thin and ropey CGI). A bit of a waste of the actors too. 2.5/5

15 - Shadow in the Clouds. Oh dear. Maude (Chloe Grace Moretz) cons her way onto a WW2 fighter plane and because she's a woman, the all-male crew take an immediate dislike to her. Which distracts them from the fact that this is essentially that Twilight Zone episode where the gremlin is on the plane. The idea had a bit of potential but the film is let down by two things.

The low budget means that for the first half of the film you're mainly hearing what's happening rather than seeing it (they make her sit in the gunner's bit). And then when you do see stuff happen it's all with pretty piss-poor CGI.

The other issue is that this is so heavily dated to 2020. And I'm not being a dick here but this is as girl-bossy a film as you've ever seen. Maude is the best pilot, best gunner, best tactician, best fighter, best everything. Every man is a super-angry sexist who fucks up at the first time of asking. Remember Die Hard 4 (the shitty Timothy Olyphant one where there's a kid who looks like the lead singer of Red Hot Chilli Peppers and it's all about hacking)? Remember how Bruce Willis survives a bunch of things that should kill him? Like he doesn't avoid them, he gets into car crashes, explosions, gets shot and just lives. Well this is more of that but worse.

Big spoilers (for a film you really don't need to watch ever).



1.5/5 - mainly because Chloe is always decent in things, even rubbish things. And I do like films that play out in confined settings. 1.5 might be a bit generous.


If you want to see that scene here it is.

The Electric State. Not sure why it's getting so much hate. Not that it's a great film, but it's not a bad one.

Wow, that scene is really, really bad. The grunting/gasping sound was the most annoying though.

The film wasn't doing well at that point but was still tolerable but then that whole scene happens and just beats any goodwill out of the viewer. I'm surprised it stayed in during editing.

And yet the description you've given makes it sound better than Singham for action awesomeness

Flow was excellent, and very moving. Not just a kids film despite the U rating.

16 - Popeye The Slayer Man (2025). The latest film to take an old expired IP and turn it into a horror film. Preferred this to the Winnie the Pooh films because it was set in America and so felt a bit more like a real film. The idea is that Popeye has been living in a discarded canning factory on the docks eating contaminated spinach that's made him super strong but also psychotic. Fun practical effects and daft kills, exactly what you want from a dumb horror film. It's not going to win any awards but it's my sort of thing. 3/5

Love Hurts: Jackie Chan-esque action comedy with creepy age difference between the man and lady. At 83 minutes it doesn't outstay its welcome.

There's some decent knitwear

Content for everyone.

17 - Alien 3, the Legacy Cut.  Well, it's definitely the version to watch.  It's also the longest at a gruelling 2hr 20.  But they've done a great job fixing all those terrible effects.  The Alien looks better in the chase scenes, the external shots lose that terrible lice effect and the ending looks better.  So that's good.  4.5/5

So as someone who has never watched alien 3, this is where to go? Or is it something one appreciates more having seen the original?

I would go straight to this version.

Cheers, have signed up for the link

I can't remember much about Alien 3 other than a few snapshots of some scenes, and perhaps a two-sentence summary of the story, so it wasn't very impactful. I recall it being bleak and possibly a bit boring.

I'm wondering if it's worth revisiting.

It's certainly bleak. A miserable prison planet where there are lice everywhere.

I get why people didn't like it at the time. I was just all-in on Alien shit back so I loved it but I can definitely say it's boring compared to Aliens. But it has its own strengths too. The cast are really good, especially Charles Dance, and I did enjoy the setting for what it was. The kills are all a bit 'A Quiet Place' in that it's all a bit quick and low on any gore. It feels a bit safe in that respect.

But compared to things like Prometheus, Covenant and Romulus, it's so much better than those. It's aged well. A bit like Terminator 3 when you compare it to slop like Dark Fate, Genisys and Salvation.

Minecraft was pretty decent given the subject material. Jack Black is doing his thing *a lot* but the rest of the cast help dilute that and it looks good.
Plenty of in jokes and references that were lost on me but the rest of the audience loved them all

Our kids do enjoy minecraft and used to watch a whole bunch of youtube videos about it, although at the moment their focus is elsewhere. They have said the Minecraft film looks "really cringe" from the trailers.

So, fellow middle aged man, was this film in fact "cringe" or was it the opposite of cringe (whatever that may be called)?

This is where not having kids is a pro-level lifehack. Sure, either me or my wife will eventually die alone and sad, but for now I don't ever have to watch Jack Black movies. Or the Aquaman guy. He's been a disappointment.

Look on the bright side. You could also die together in an accident (and if that now happens I’ll feel really guilty).

Personally I thought the first ten minutes was a bit cringey, but it settled down after. I’m not a cool child though.

The Minecraft Movie decided that it couldn't avoid the cringe, so clearly went balls to the wall. Jack Black is running at 175% Jack Black from start to finish, Roman Reigns Jason Momoa goes right along with him. The kids are tolerable and the visuals were pretty stunning. It was funny when it tried to be and embraced the memes fully.

A perfect 73%

Watched the remake of 'The Crow' over the weekend...I urge you not to make the mistake I made. To call this toilet or clown shoes would be an insult to crappers and the purveyors of oversized shoes. I am honestly embarrassed for poor Bill Skarsgard, Danny Hutson and Dayna from Blake's 7 for being in this piece of nonsense. Incredibly dull with maybe a single decent action setpiece....avoid.

15) The Crow

No chemistry between the love interests and, fuck me, it’s just boring. There’s one single half decent fight towards the end and then it fizzles out before the credits run. What a load of old shit.

Death of a Unicorn was ok.

Some funny bits, some gory tense bits, but it took a bit too long to tell the story.

This week's Top Five Face Off will be interesting to you (if I ever finish editing it).

Edit: I finished! https://topfivefaceoff.co.uk/ep/rebrem

Astonishing stuff...picking out the stand out examples of wrongness...

"Gritty, Character Development, Chemistry, Realistic, Wonderful"

...Where drugs taken before the recording?

18 - Novacaine. Jack Quaid plays his customary wet lettuce character. This time he's a mild-mannered bank manager who meets a girl (the lead from Prey, the not great Predator film). But then the bank gets robbed and he has to go after her. The gimmick being that he's unable to feel pain. I enjoyed it a lot, wife wasn't that impressed. I thought it had heart though. 4/5.

Yeah, really, really loved it. ICO, Last Guardian vibes I thought too.

Sinners. Good, not great, but improves over time. The music is one of the stars, but sometimes it's a bit much - maybe there were some jarring changes in there, I'm not sure. If you do see it, once the credits start rolling, the film is *not* over.

Got tickets for that on Sunday. I’m hoping I’m not disappointed.

The fall guy.

That was so silly it was brilliant. Minikov loved it.

I liked the Easter eggs and the cameos.

It passed the six laugh test.

19 - A Wounded Fawn. A bizarre take on the 'serial killer picks the wrong victim' type of story (sort of but not really that). It goes pretty mental towards the end and I found it all pretty entertaining and reasonably original. 4/5

I was not disappointed. It was brilliant. Easy film of the year so far.

Warfare - Felt very realistic, suitably tense, and does a good job of showing the consequences of war. Doesn’t give any context to the events, but just focuses on the experience. 4/5 if you want to watch that kind if thing but it won’t be for everyone.

Yes, agreed. Excellent, but uncomfortable. Also somewhat inconsequential, if you're looking for wider meaning. But don't do that (not meant flippantly).

The Amateur. Weirdly unbalanced. I suspect the book it's based on works well, and they've tried to stay true to a lot of that. On screen you're left from time to time to make up your own motivation, and not in a clever way. It made me laugh in odd places, and in general was a bit meh.

This new Peter Andre film looks amazing:

WTF? Did he do this as a really ill-advised dare?