Be Excellent To Each Other

7 - Nosferatu. I was torn between a 3.5 and a 4 and eventually went with a 4 because the film looks great and is such an improvement on the shitty 1922 original. Omnipresent Nicholas Hoult does well with his plummy English accent (even though he's playing a German) but after an hour he's no longer the star of the show and instead Lily Depp takes over and she's not great in it unfortunately. As for Nosferatu himself? Very effective. A big, scary embodiment of evil played by Bill Skarsgard who just disappears into the character. Really good work. The pacing was a bit off. You get a very slow first half and then it sets up a three nights thing but it doesn't really represent it all that well. The should be more of a feeling of creeping dread to it but instead it feels like it jumps right to the conclusion. So, yeah, a 4 but not something I'll be watching again in a hurry. 4/5

4) The Order.

Couple of Amazon Prime films I’ve watched. This one was decent about some facists in American (based on true events apparently) where these nazis want to take over America and start by robbing banks but only get as far as the robbing banks bit before they get dead. Some good performances from Jude Law and cast but it sort of stutters away after the first hour.

5) Elevation

Ok, so I only got 30 minutes into this before I turned it off cause it was shit. The premise is, there’s aliens, right? Yeah, and they, like, can’t go above 8000 feet above sea level for some reason. There’s, like, a line drawn on a mountain where the last survivors of humanity are happily living but for some convoluted reason, guess what, a coughing child, they need to go and get some kid’s asthma inhaler. The characters were so one dimensional and the first action sequence was so poorly done that I just couldn’t even raise a smile at how shit it was and just turned the telly off in disgust.

6) Don’t Blink

Awesome horror film with some great aesthetics, cinematography and performances. Everyone is having a great time and the creeping dread pushes to the forefront really well. Yeah, I recommend this one. Don’t watch the trailer before you watch it, mind. I wish I hadn’t but I hadn’t heard much of it beforehand.

Watched The Brutalist yesterday. You need to know it's long (3:35, with a 15 minute intermission built in - it's not up to the screen, it's there in the recording), so it helped that I took the afternoon off (informally, ahem) to see it. I don't really know how to describe it because it's not about many of the conventional beats of story-making, but I really enjoyed it and it has stayed with me. Guy Pearce and Adrien Brody are fantastic, and I though Felicity Jones was good too, just a smaller part. If I were a betting person, I'd be up for this getting best soundtrack/design.

I've seen some lovely things in the last week. The Brutalist, as above. A Complete Unknown. September 5. And then today I went to Captain America 4. I held on tight to the memory of the previous 3, to remind myself that the world hasn't gone mad, AI isn't everywhere, you can still have actual characters and dialogue. It's terrible - for the first few minutes I was in, somehow the first fights were a bit dull and then poor Harrison Ford had to read the dialogue that somehow got approved. Shocking. I considered leaving halfway through, stuck it out, but didn't hang around for the credit sequences, though they were probably the best thing in it.

Over three and half hours long can fuck off on the horse it rode in on then shoot the horse.

John Wick 4 being about three hour long was enough to put me off watching it.

Fuck that noise.

John Wick is compulsory.

I should be a total mark for John Wick (punnnnnnn!). I love assassin shit, I love action films in general, I don't mind dumbing down for 90 mins, and I like Keanu Reeves. But I found JW1 unsatisfying and found the second one to be boring. I bailed on the third one and then the fourth was eight days long and so I wasn't interested.

If you want a similar, but better, film try Nobody instead.

(note: that said, I might be the problem here as JW has lots of fans).

Yeah, Nobody is great action film too.

8 - Blood Car. A vegan school teacher invents a car that runs on blood. It's obviously a not very well made film, but it knows it. It had moments but felt like a college film project at times. However, I popped for a mad monologue at the end and the three minutes of chaos that followed. A generous 3/5.

This sounds like the very worst film I ever saw, which was called ‘I Bought A Vampire Motorcycle’, which starred Neil Morrissey and I’m pretty sure had a talking poo in one scene.

"September 5" was gripping from start to finish, despite the very limited 'scope' (it pretty much entirely takes place within the studio of the ABC Sports team covering the Olympics)

The Munich massacre has been a morbid fascination of mine ever since I heard about it -- the botched response from the German authorities, the aftermath (the immediate formation of GSG-9, the Mossad retaliation etc.) and now, the perspective of the news crew that covered the events live. I knew they'd done so, but hadn't really stopped to consider what they would have been feeling while the events unfolded, and although this movie could be mostly bollocks of course, it's supposed to be pretty well researched and it doesn't shy away from showing the news folk in a somewhat... predatory light sometimes.

7) Fargo

It’s Fargo, init. A stone cold Coen Bro classic.

Captain America: Brave New World

Wow. Dangerously uninspired from Marvel. Again. They’re really on a roll here. The only plus was I watched it in 4DX 3D (isn’t the third dimension included in 4D?) and was almost tossed out of my seat during the Hulk fight, it was crackers.

There’s, like, 2 action sequences which were both “ok-ish” and the rest was bobbins. It probably didn’t help that the villain was unknown to me. And, boy, the dialogue was dreadful, Harrison Ford would be spinning in his grave if he wasn’t hanging on by a thread. And old Mackie is not an action star lead…fucking Elevation showed that.

Also, the 3D was shit.

And god knows why I had to have a puff of air blasting into my ear when someone punched someone else.

Basically, it was shit. Imma just pretend Marvel films ended at End Game.

Bridget Jones 4 was pretty good fun despite me not being in any way target audience. A fine way to spend a Sunday morning

Heretic is brilliant

Yup. I was totally surprised by it too. It’s heartfelt and funny

9 - Aliens. As good as ever. Watching it again shows how it is light years ahead of Romulus and the two prequels. The version was a fanedit that was full of tiny fixes for some of the ropier FX. Nothing major, all very subtle. 5/5

9) Don’t Look Up

I have no idea why this got a bad rap when it was released. It wasn’t exactly subtle but it was well done at doing what it did and there were some great performances from Hunger Games and The Beach. For a tongue in cheek apocalypse comedy it was more chuckle than LOL but it kept me entertained throughout. What I really liked was…

Lady T sometimes accuses me of loving a downbeat ending, but I don't; I just find it refreshing to see a film without a magical happy ending amongst all the other films where the plucky underdog pulls through or the hero saves the day or some miraculous escape happens at the very last moment.

yeah I enjoyed that one. Gave it 4/5 on Letterboxd. It nailed the social commentary aspect.

The Gorge (Apple+)

It's actually pretty good. It's not particularly original, but it works in suitably diverting fashion for its run time. It's a solid 6/10

Capt America: Brave New World.

Anthony Mackie's Sam Wilson juggles the Captain's mantle and Red Hulk's anger in a tangled plot. It's chaotic but heartfelt, with thrilling action scenes and some missteps. A wobbly ride that's still worth watching.

We watched The Giver. It was based on a book, I suspect a teen or young-adult book (not that that's a bad thing, but it was a fairly simplistic story). I would have liked a touch more suspense or a feeling of dread, as it was all pretty straightforward and obvious. Still, it was an enjoyable film and it was fairly briskly paced, there wasn't much padding or hanging around, which I appreciated.

10) Mandy

Nic Cage has a breakdown in his pants. Gotta say, I didn’t love it. It was daft as shit and had a whole vibe, but it didn’t do much for me outside of “Hah! What’s Cage doing now.”

Some of the editing was bad too. People rave about the chainsaw fight but I’ve issues with the kill. https://youtu.be/az858yOchMQ?si=Co3nL9ds6alx9aso

Like, they barely show the guy drop the chainsaw and don’t establish it lying on the floor in front of the guy when he falls over. Just lazy, and only needed a shot of it on the floor.

Basically, it ain’t all that.

DogMan is a chaotic, unrelenting assault on the senses and laugh out loud funny. Brilliant.

Watched Stand By Me for the first time yesterday. Although I've seen many references to it in the past, it's one of those I never quite got round too.

Absolutely charming and really captures how kids that age behave.

I love Stand by Me, really well told, directed and acted.

If you want a film which shows the same sort of lived teenage experience but instead of white teenagers in rural 50s America it's black teenagers in 80s LA, then you might want to give Boyz n da Hood a try.

I really should watch Stand By Me. And The Goonies for that matter.

*shocked face*

I have some bad news for you. If you didn't watch Goonies as a kid, you probably won't like it much as an adult.

How can you have not seen The Goonies?!

I'm honestly not sure whether I've seen it or not.

I’ve never seen it.

I know I've definitely seen at least the last hour of it because that was quite recently, maybe only fifteen years ago.

Busy afternoon for the ban hammer right here.

Jesus fucking Christ

I should really watch the Godfather

I've never seen that either.

Me neither.

It’s hardly The Goonies though!

10 - Carved. An angry mutant pumpkin takes its revenge after being included in a pumpkin carving contest. It's enjoyable and has some daft practical effects. I liked it a lot but I'm a sucker for this sort of brainless comedy horror fun. 4/5

Haha this sounds brilliant

Me neither. Not seen back to the future 2 and 3 (just bits of them) despite loving the original.

Dies

The Last Showgirl. A little uneven, and I wasn't really sure what it was for a while, but Pamela Anderson can act, Dave Bautista has range, it's under an hour and a half and haunting, if a bit vague. Shouldn't be the most important thing, but I'm going to make it seem so because I'm so used to them being appalling - Pamela Anderson's table manners, by which I particularly mean the way she uses a fork, are impeccable. Rare enough you could cut that scene out and use it as instruction. Anyway, sorry - nice short thoughtful film.

I don't think I've seen Stand By Me, but I have read the book (well, it's a short story in a book IIRC)

I also haven't seen the Godfather.

However I'm feel like I'm somewhat aware of a fair bit just from pop culture references





Some are concerned about how actors display trigger discipline and gun handling; true gentlefolk are all about the table manners and precise use of cutlery.

I am interested in viewing this scene.

I’ve read a lot about Pamela Anderson and her relationship with make up and beauty over the last few years, and I find her so inspiring, so I’d like to see this film because it looks almost like a stripping away of the past P.A ‘character’.

I see photos of her, completely natural, and it’s just so good to see a woman to look so confident without a mask.

11 - Truth or Dare. I absolutely love modern horror and I really like it when a film has some nonsense sort of rule that it follows (pun not intended but It Follows is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about). Anyway, this one is about a bunch of teens who inadvertently get caught up in a demonic game or Truth or Dare where you die if you don't follow the rules. It got massacred by the critics but I really love it. 4/5





It's a lot of fun but, equally, I am incredibly forgiving of low budget horror films if they just get a few things right!