Obscuriosities

It's been exactly 7 months since I've done a 'what I've been watching' post. My list of watched movies is now so long that it will probably take me another 7 months to write about them all. In the mean time here are the 10 movies I enjoyed the most in 2012, in rough order of preference. 10. Wreck-It Ralph I normally reserve a place on my top ten for whatever Pixar movie has been released that year but unfortunately they dropped the ball this time with Brave and Disney picked up the rebound with Wreck-It Ralph. Very funny and heartwarming as you'd expect with plenty of nerdy references to keep those of us who grew up on Sonic the Hedgehog and Street Fighter happy. 9. Nitro Circus: The Movie I suppose this choice is very specific to myself, since Nitro Circus currently holds a whopping 6% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but I don't care. These guys do things that literally make my heart leap and my jaw drop. I don't think another film this yea...

The Hunger Games I found this film to be painfully average. I don't see where all the praise for Jennifer Lawrence's performance is coming from, I thought she was wooden as woods she spends most of the film running around in. Couple that with shakey-cam action scenes and over the top melodrama and the result is a film you can skip.   Cabin In The Woods Hilarious commentary on the state of horror cinema, reality TV and pop-culture in general with some great money-shots and witty dialogue from non-other that Joss Whedon who also directed... The Avengers Which was fantastic, masterfully combining four years on Marvel mythology into one film (with only a few plot holes) and providing the big-budget eye-candy you would expect. Where the Wild Things Are  I missed this the first time round, though I loved the trailers so I thought I'd catch up with it on DVD. I think the film is a great technical achievement and has a few moments of genuine emotion as you follow the s...

My, has it been two months already? Time sure does fly when you spend all your time in hot-tubs with super-models and playing shuffleboard on cruise-ships. Resurrect Dead This obscure documentary might be the best film I've seen since my last update, it follows a group of young men and women who are obsessed with solving the mystery the Toynbee asphalt tiles that appear all over the world. I won't reveal whether they figure it out or not but the journey is absolutely fascinating and the subjects' excitement is infectious. Chronicle Found footage movie in which a group of teenage boys stumble upon some sort of artifact that imbues them with psychic abilities. There were some great character moments here thanks to the script by Max Landis and some creative twists on the found footage angle but unfortunately the film is hampered by it's lack of budget. Overall, a pretty fun time but nothing spectacular. Woman In Black Harry Potter dresses as a grown up and is t...

It's been a couple of months since I've written one of these and my list of movies to review is becoming unwieldy. Have some reviews in your eye-holes. (pupils) The Fall Tarsem Singh's fantasy epic. An absolutely gorgeous film (one of the best looking of all time) shot in some of the most visually stunning locations around the world. Unfortunately the story doesn't stack up too well for me, I often have trouble connecting with movies that have a 'real' story and a 'fantasy' story. Why not make the fantasy real and then we can legitimately root for the characters and look at pretty pictures at the same time! Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol Directed by Brad Bird (of Pixar fame), this is an almost flawlessly executed action film. Fast, funny, thrilling and eye-popping. Sherlock Holmes 2: A book of shadows(?) Is that the title? Directed by Guy Ritchie, this is less a Sherlock Holmes movie, more of a Victorian James Bond. A perfectly fine distra...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...