Obscuriosities

A few months since I've done one of these so let's get to it. I've got a lot to get through. Happy Feet 2 I was reminded watching this film as to why I quite enjoyed the first Happy Feet. It's just so bizarre, nonsensical and unlike anything else out there that you can't help but smile and the funny dancing penguins. Add to that incredible visuals and two 'krill' characters that only seem to exist to make crustacean-based puns and you're on to a winner. In Time A thought provoking concept with some great world building. Some of the visuals were excellent but some were distractingly bad (the car crash). The relationship between the two leads went in an unexpected direction too. Passably entertaining on the whole. Contagion Possibly the first 'horror' film to ever cause me to modify my behaviour in day to day life. Little by way of character development, the film seems to be designed to show as realistically as possible what would happen

The demon is actually the tooth fairy. The kid loses a tooth at the start of PA3 and we never see it go under a pillow. The demon then turns up looking for the tooth but instead of just giving it up the family spend the rest of their lives running from it. I bet it would all stop of they would just leave a tooth under a pillow for the guy.

Wow, I really need to get around to writing another 'what I've been watching' post. The list is 11 films and growing. In the meant time I'll knock together a review of The Human Centipede 2 while it's fresh in my mind. Written and directed by Tom Six, Dutch film-maker and creator of the series: The Human Centipede 2 takes place in a world where the first exists as a fictional movie and we follow the protagonist/villain 'Martin' who has fetishized the idea of a human centipede and begins gathering victims to create his own, twelve person abomination. The first thing to note about this film is that it is not simply 'pointless shock value' or 'sick for the sake of being sick', I perceive a very clear message to this film. By having the main character inspired by the first movie, Six is pointing out the absurdity of someone carrying out such crimes because they saw a horror movie as suggested by some of that film's detractors while simul

So apparently I watch a lot of movies. Project Nim Fascinating doc, ostensibly about a talking chimp, but secretly about human dynamics played out with stunning archive footage. Super James Gunn's  foray into the superhero genre, having come from a horror background and it shows. The 'realistic' super hero subgenre is pretty much played out at this point but this film is so darkly comic and bizarre that it actually feels quite fresh. Ellen Paige is really annoying though. The Guard Hilarious take-down of the buddy cop genre. Great, sharp, dialogue and fun central performances. The Inbetweeners Pretty much an extended episode of the show. Just as puerile and cringe-worthy. Fans of the show will enjoy the crass misogyny but you should probably avoid it otherwise. Red State Interesting career turn from the normally comedy-focused Kevin Smith (of whom I am a fan). This film feels like Smith's attempt at a Tarantino movie with even more hyper-real dialogue tha

My Top 5 movies from Frightfest 2011, in no particular order: TUCKER & DALE VS. EVIL: Brilliantly hilarious farce and deconstruction of the hillbilly horror subgenre. A definite #frightfest highlight TROLL HUNTER: Great fun. 'Cloverfield' by way of 'The BFG'. Sadly missing fe-fi-fo-fum based punning. #frightfest THE WOMAN: Most intense, challenging film of #frightfest so far. DETENTION: Holy shit. Pure visual and aural adrenaline. Feel like I've witnessed the birth of a future cult classic. @JosephKahn #frightfest KILL LIST: I *think* it was one of 'the best of the festival. Slightly impenetrable plot but funny and riveting nonetheless. #frightfest  Below you can see reviews of the rest of the films I saw at the fest. A LONELY PLACE TO DIE: A fitting end to action-thriller fest 2011. See you all next year! (or in the phoenix) #frightfest INBRED: Insanely gory hillbilly horror comedy. Possibly a little mean-spirited but inventive. #frightfest SE

It's been a while, gang. Let's do some quick reviews. I'll try to keep them to one sentence because I have a short attention span. Horrible Bosses 'King of Kong' director does good comedy, good chemistry between the main cast and the titular bosses are hilarious. The Devil's Double I like Dominic Cooper but his performances here were weak, rest of the cast also a bit crap, poor showing overall. Captain America Middle of the road Marvel movie, nothing to write home about, some of the CG was pretty shonky. Harry Potter 7(b) Some deliciously OTT performances (Snape and Voldy) and some good, dark imagery, one of the better entries in the series. Transformers 3 Say what you will; Bay can direct a thrilling action sequence, vapid pornography but I wallowed in it gladly. Super 8 A fantastic nostalgia trip, 'ET' meets 'Aliens' with a dash of 'The Goonies' thrown in for good measure. Bad Teacher Not as -bad- as the trailer wo

Since I am in the process of moving, I happen to have no TV or internet in my house at the moment so in lieu of any form of entertainment, it's time for another edition of BULLET POINT REVIEWS. Some of these are going way back so my memory might be a little hazy, also I can't check any facts on-line so this is all popping off the top of my head but I'm going to plough on regardless. -Attack The Block Directorial début of Joe Cornish whom you may know from the Adam and Joe show on BBC 6 music or their late-night Channel 4 show from the 90s. Aliens attack a South London council estate Reminded me of an Amblin movie or a Joe Dante film from the 80s (massive compliment) Good mix of comedy and horror, some brilliantly quotable one-liners Some of the performances great, some a bit pants (to be expected from young first-timers I guess) -Pirates 4 You've probably seen this already since I think about 6 of the 7 billion people on earth did. Captain Jack is back, in search of the

I'm psyching myself up for FrightFest 2011 already, so in preparation I thought I'd collect together all of my between-movie tweets from last year. Read them from bottom to top for chronological order. Heading to the Phoenix in a bit. Say hello if you see me. Tall guy with glasses. Sad #frightfest is over. See y'all next year!! » Video nasties doc/panel highly enjoyable, how could people go that bonkers? The Dead beautifully made but a bit underwhelming. #frightfest » The Loved Ones a unique and hilarious take on the 'torture porn' subgenre. A good day at #frightfest » Buried is fantastic. One of the best of the fest. Tense, claustrophobic as hell and shot like an action film. Highly recommended.#frightfest » This RT @Meanbobs:Damned by Dawn showed promise for about 15 mins before suffocating it with a plethora of school disco effects. #frightfest » The Pack was original, average. short films a good laugh (papa wrestling + rise of the app

So, it's been denied a rating by the BBFC. *shrug* So what? What did you expect? The director Tom Six (a wonderfully charming and witty Dutch gentleman) has been claiming (threatening?) that his vision for the Centi-Sequel would make his début effort look like My Little Pony. When you're trying to top a film that is known as one of the sickest of all time, where do you go? You go deeper, you go darker. You go to places that the BBFC don't like you to tread. They are claiming that the film is likely to "risk potential harm... even if confined to adults". That's right, there are theatrical images on a screen that when combined with sounds and music risk potential harm to you, an adult viewer. Is anyone swallowing this? As a fan of horror, I'm all for keeping it out of the hands of children. So rate the film an 18, hell, rate it an R18. Make me go to a sex shop to buy it, under the counter in a brown paper bag if possible, I'd be well up for that. By refu

The Hangover Part Deux suffers from the same problem as every sequel to every small, indy film that hits big at the box office; It's basically a cash-grab by the studios, trying to recapture the lightning in a bottle. This means that a lot of the heart, and earnest energy of the first film is lost in favour of the swagger of a filmmaker that knows they're making a hit regardless of what ends up on screen. It is fortunate for us then that director Todd Philips has used his carte blanche to push the boat out and make a movie that is ambitious, but adheres to the same 'whodunit' structure of the first film. This time around, the set pieces are bigger, the performances are broader and the comedy is blacker. There are some solid laughs and the plot is actually a lot smarter than it has any right to be. I was pretty much grinning or cringing throughout the entire running time (especially during the end credits which, again were the highlight of the film for me). Overall I wou

I think I might be a closet Michael Bay fan. I was so deep in the closet I didn't even know I was in the closet. I didn't even know the closet existed. Now I suddenly find myself very aware of said closet and my location therein. Here is Bay's filmography as director from IMDB: 2011 Transformers: Dark of the Moon ( post-production ) 2009 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen * 2007 Transformers ** 2005 The Island ** 2003 Bad Boys II ** 2001 Pearl Harbor 1998 Armageddon 1996 The Rock *** 1995 Bad Boys A '*' means I've seen the film and a '**' means I saw it and enjoyed it. A '***' means I think it's genuine classic. That's four out of five that I liked. One that I think is a goddamn classic of the whole goddamn action genre. I'm having all these weird feelings I've never felt before. I thought I was just experimenting, having fun. But I always

Lots of stuff to get through so let's get to it! Thor - Action/CG clunky. - Performances way OTT but mostly good. - Visually luscious. - Tough to follow for a Thor newbie. - Average. Playing Columbine - Fascinating look at controversial video games and the 'are games art?' question. Hanna - Great action. - Great score. - Fun performances playing on the fairytale theme. - One or two of the characters annoying as all hell. Portal 2 - Not a movie but incredible nonetheless. - Great story, characters and acting. - Challenging puzzles with great 'aha!' moments. - The ending is like a (figurative) layer-cake. With each successive layer being sweeter and more surprising than the last. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs - This film is very close to my heart - Criminally underrated - Hilarious - Bizarre - Touching - Visually sumptuous Priest 3D - Pretty 'meh' vampire movie - Post-apocalyptic western styling quite good - Everything else quite bad Misfits - Fun superhe

Scre4m I said to a few people that this film is to me, what Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was to Star Wars fans. I loved the first three movies as a kid, and I've been waiting over a decade for a new instalment to the franchise. The question is; as an adult, will I be impressed with the flashy pod-racing sequences or will I find it all to be a bit Jar-Jar? Thankfully Scream 4 lives up to its name and is a proper Scream movie, giving us more of what was fun about the first three. It takes pot-shots at remakes and long running franchises and turns the snark up to eleven. It even parodies the concept of the meta horror movie (in a brilliant opening sequence that had me grinning from ear to ear) a concept that the first Scream pioneered, so I guess that makes this movie meta meta horror? I thought the movie missed a trick in that there was 10 years of horror tropes that it could have played off, but ignored (J-Horror and 'Torture Porn' spring to mind). Instead the film chose

Just some bullet point style thoughts on the movies I've watched this last week. Sucker Punch There is a huge amount of fun to be had with this film as long as you keep in mind that Zack Snyder is a visualist, not a storyteller. I feel his style works better within the framework of another's script, but as the logical apogee of the current generation Project A-Ko/Call Of Duty inspired film-makers I think the movie works. An interesting thesis could probably be written about filmmakers being inspired by the pop culture of their youth. I'm thinking Speilberg/Lucas being inspired by early film serials and creating Indiana Jones, Tarantino and Rodriguez being inspired by 70s exploitation and creating the likes of Desperado and Death Proof and now we have the new crop of up-and-comers like Snyder and Wright who are inspired by anime and videogames of the 80s and 90s and come up with things like Sucker Punch and Scott Pilgrim. In ten years time are we going to see mo

In an attempt to save some money I have decided to make a concerted effort to tackle my massive stack of unwatched DVDs instead of just buying new ones all the time, some of which I have had in my collection for years! So, the first film I decided to pop in was Park Chan-Wook's 'Lady Vengeance'. A film that has been sitting unwatched on my shelf for about 6 years now. The story follows our heroine as she is released from prison after 13 years after being wrongly convicted of the kidnapping and murder of a young child. It soon becomes apparent that she knows who the real perpetrator is, and has been plotting her revenge throughout her sentence... If there is one word to describe this film it's this; bleak. There are no flashes of dark humour here that have been present in the director's previous works, nor is there any let up from reminders that we are dealing with child-killers here and all the horrific connotations that brings. I can admire the film-making on displ

Digging through my pile of unwatched DVDs I came across this movie from David Cronenberg, one of my favourite directors of all time. HERE WE GO Dead Ringers is the tale of the Mantle twins, Elliot and Beverly, a pair of gynaecologist brothers who share everything, including women. The pair pair have built a reputation as the best in their field, but everything begins to unravel when Bev starts falling for one of their conquests, a former patient and beautiful actress. Slowly he becomes obsessed with her and begins becoming involved with her drug habit... The first thing that needs to be mentioned about this movie is Jeremy Irons central performances as the twins themselves. He manages to infuse the two roles with enough individuality that you are never at a loss as to which twin is on screen with Elliot the brash, off-hand brother and Bev the sensitive soul. As the movie progresses and the characters devolve his performance takes on a terrifying other dimension of a man (men) losing th