THE SNOWMAN - Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Ferguson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jonas Karlsson, JK Simmons, Val Kilmer, Toby Jones, David Dencik, James D'Arcy, Chloe Sevigny. Serial killer on the loose in Oslo, Norway. None of the cast speak Norwegian so why not have it in northern Scotland maybe? Film jumps around from past to present and back again with no purpose. I guess trying to confuse us as to who killer is but super detective Michael will figure it out as the guy is right in his face much of the time. Did Kilmer or Jones have any idea what their part had to do with anything? Finale scene is absolutely ridiculous, nailing down a 1 on the Moizmeter.

Retarded Animal Babies episode 22.

…It's as if I'm finally finishing the remaining two thirds of American High School…

Okay, that was juvenile, but American middle school (secondary school) wasn't any picnic for the most part. -_-

Norm of the North (2016)

…you want to know what the worst part is?

52 minutes in and I would STILL rather watch this than any of the minions in Despicable Me or their movies.

Johnny the Giant Killer (1950)

This is more of a boy-driven Thumbelina adapted by Harvey comics, but the animation offers all the wonders of the decade it was released, and it's even inspired in a scene or two. Tis' super good.

Last night I saw Foolproof- a 2003 Canadian film with Ryan Reynolds. He's such a boy in it but all his speech styles, personality and mannerisms are already set, the same then as they are now.
It was quite a good film actually, quite clever and a little more brutal than you'd expect for an action drama heist comedy. I recommend it.
Atom Egoan played a part in the movie production, can't remember what, but that would account for the quirkiness.

Good twists.

JaymonRising wrote:
Johnny the Giant Killer (1950)

This is more of a boy-driven Thumbelina adapted by Harvey comics, but the animation offers all the wonders of the decade it was released, and it's even inspired in a scene or two. Tis' super good.

I'd recommend Jack the Giant Killer (1962) though cheesy by today's standards the effects were incredible for 1962. Not Ray Harryhausen but a close second.

But for an early fantasy movie only a few top The Magic Sword. Basil Rathbone. Even MST3K couldn't really riff on it as it was too enjoyable.

But check your brain at the door and just enjoy. And for an old D&D like me it's the stuff that gave the creators all their ideas.

I'd recommend Jack the Giant Killer (1962) though cheesy by today's standards the effects were incredible for 1962. Not Ray Harryhausen but a close second.

But for an early fantasy movie only a few top The Magic Sword. Basil Rathbone. Even MST3K couldn't really riff on it as it was too enjoyable.

But check your brain at the door and just enjoy. And for an old D&D like me it's the stuff that gave the creators all their ideas.

Aright, I'll give the Harryhausen film a chance. The Bryan Singer one…well…Bryan Singer XD.

The Rising of the Shield Hero is the current series I'm watching.
It's a fantasy where the character gets sent to another world (a fantasy setting), to become one of the 4 heroes that gets assigned a particular weapon. He gets assigned a shield and so everyone thinks he's useless and no one want to be in his party to help him level up (the mechanics of the world work like a game).

OK, big spoiler plot reveal here:
After whining, a pretty girl switches parties from the other heroes and joins him. She gives him a bit of help fighting monsters and takes him to buy armour and gear. He thinks things are going well…
A few days later they're having dinner in an inn. She encourages him to have wine and loosen up, he refuses and goes to bed.

The next day he wakes up to find all his money and gear gone, he's surrounded by guardsmen and the girl is accusing him of rape. He's dragged before the king, the girl is tearful and accusing him, his fellow heroes are disgusted and people want him dead. The girl pulls faces at him. when no one is looking.

AFter that incident he starts hating the world and all the people in general and becomes a cold, bitter arsehole.

-My conclusion: I like the fantasy elements of the show and the fact that the protagonist plays a support role, with the shield and goes around healing people and stuff. The whole thing about him being wrongly accused of rape and then transforming into an areshole is really bad though, makes me think the thing was written by an incell. Not bad enough to make me stop watching but I'll see.

JaymonRising wrote:

I'd recommend Jack the Giant Killer (1962) though cheesy by today's standards the effects were incredible for 1962. Not Ray Harryhausen but a close second.

But for an early fantasy movie only a few top The Magic Sword. Basil Rathbone. Even MST3K couldn't really riff on it as it was too enjoyable.

But check your brain at the door and just enjoy. And for an old D&D like me it's the stuff that gave the creators all their ideas.

Aright, I'll give the Harryhausen film a chance. The Bryan Singer one…well…Bryan Singer XD.

Not the Bryan Singer one. That's the 2013 one. I'm recommending the 1962 one.

Not the Bryan Singer one. That's the 2013 one. I'm recommending the 1962 one.

I know, I was just joking about Singer (given how he and Mr. Spacey have more than one thing in common now)

MOLLY'S GAME - Jessica Chastain, Idris Elba, Kevin Costner, Michael Cera. Based on true story re Molly Bloom (Jessica) former skier turned poker game boss. Very long with poor Jessica making a million costume, hair & make-up changes along with complex dialogue that jump all over da place and I had a hard time following most. Wouldn't want to sit thru that again but I generously gave it a 2 on the Moizmeter.

Watched Bohemium Rhapsody,
it was nice enough but far too shallow. It's like I watched an abridged version.

Afterlife.
fantastic series from ricky gervais.

I saw the anime movie “Hells” (or “Hell's Angels”, I'm not sure…)

It was REALLY good :)
Nice, scratchy hand drawn style. Lots of twists and turns and a series of climaxes so it's not always ramping up to the one resolution.

An innocent school girl tries to save a weird cat from being hit by a truck and then finds herself in hell. Hell is a school run by the evil principal Hellvis!

She makes friends with the horrible demon people there and learns she has to defeat Hellvis to get out of hell…
But things DO NOT work out that way. It's quite cool and really reminded me of Kill La Kill.

I recommend it.

Kato Hayabusa Sento-Tai. (1944)

A biographical film about a squadron commander in the Imperial Japanese Army air force.

Sort of like the American movies Flying Leathernecks and Flying Tigers without all the American Hollywood tropes, sticking to the true story. The special effects are directed by the guy who.would go on to do Godzilla and Ultraman. However there are many real stunning air to air sequences of the real planes in action including faux dogfights with P-40 and Brewster Buffaloes. There's also a staffing scene with a real Lockheed Hudson. Real life captured aircraft since this was a Japanese movie. Lots of shots of “Peggy” bombers and “Oscar” (the Hayabusa or falcon of the title) including close-ups which showed just how tatty the schemes were on IJA fighters.

Some of the air to air shots are reminiscent of Battle of Britain. The film's director is non other than Kurosawa 's mentor and many of the actors would go on to work with him.

Sounds freaky! :D

———

I saw the TV movie “Doublecrossed” starring Denis Hopper of all people!
He starred as a convicted drug smuggler pilot called Barry Seal who turned over a new leaf and started helping the DEA and CIA fight drug trafficking in south America in a major way.
It was about how he was betrayed by the government and the courts and eventually murdered because of it.

It was based on a true story and it was one of these things that get you to sympathise with the person and their situation, making you sad for them and all that, you know? Emotionally manipulating you and because it's a “true story” that effect is stronger.

I don't like to let things manipulate me, I usually suspect I'm being told a one sided story and half the context is missing… so I looked up Barry Seal to learn for myself, including watching interviews with him and TV news reports about him from the time.

Turns out the movie was pretty accurate afterall. Seal really was betrayed and used, not just by the cowardly piece of shit Colonel Oliver North but by that slime Ronald Regan as well… so the movie actually pulled a lot of punches.
It could have gone into how drug smuggling and entrapment was used to overthrow the regimes in those countries… as it is it never did. you just get hints. Overall the tone was pretty pro that kind of intervention and anticomunist.

THE AGE OF ADALINE - Blake Lively, Michael Huisman?, Harrison Ford, Kathy Baker, Ellen Burstyn. Over 75 years ago, Adaline (Blake) gets killed in an accident but amazingly is struck by a bolt of lightning and brought back to life…..and she stops aging! After a few years she notices this as others around her age and she doesn't. Not wanting to become a freak show artifact, she has to keep moving around and not forming relationships. Then she meets Michael and falls in love, and goes to meet his parents…yikes, his dad Harrison had a love affair with her 50 yrs ago, but she claims to be that woman's daughter. He doesn't buy it but another accident and medics jolt her back to life again. Now what? Supposed to be San Fran but actually filmed around my town Vancouver with lots of SF outtakes, couldn't fool me. A 3 1/2 on the Moizmeter.

Love death and robots.
Watch it, it's well worth it. Nice mix of animation styles in the various shorts and some neat little stories.

Rewatched Hudson Hawk after it came up in conversation with some fellow Duckers! I loved that movie years ago and used to watch it all the time.

So I remembered most of it, and parts of it are great: Bruce Willis and Danny Aiello together is absolute gold, and Richard Grant and Sandra Bernhard are wacky villains - but there are serious slow parts and definitely some misfires of comedy. It's all over the place, tonally, and a famous big-budget flop.

I still like it, but it's not one I'd go around recommending to everyone.

I bought the whole Twilight Zone collection and am watching it in order.

It's pretty great so far. Weird to go through a show that old but I'm digging it! Little Ronnie Howard is in an early episode, as are quite a few other actors I recognize, like Jack Warden, Burgess Meredith and Martin Landau.

I s'pose it's not news to say it's well worth watching. An all-time classic obviously!

Since I'm here and feeling chatty, I grabbed a couple bargain bin dvds the other week -

One was “Knock Knock”, a semi-erotic home invasion thriller thing starring Keanu Reeves and directed by Eli Roth.

Yee-Gads was it horrible! Some of the worst acting Keanu's done. His shouts of anguish near the end made me laugh out loud, though; I guess that's worth something.

Captain Marvel (2019)

I am not mad at it for the “polemics” surrounding it. It was above average regardless.

I AM, however, mad at this: yes, Samuel L. Jackson appears. Yes, it's the early/mid 90s.

No, he is not the footmaster. :(

I will re-watch Hudson Hawk at some stage…

I saw Green Lantern finally.
It wasn't bad. A decent mediocre superhero film that gets a bad rap because it was light in tone and heavy on effects when Christopher Nolan's Batman movies were al the rage and even those were just following on from the gritty tone in the X-men movies. Whereas Green Lantern is more like the modern marvel films of DC's Aquaman.

I also saw Rogue one.
It had the tone of Empire Strikes Back, told in a way that modern movies do though (rather than a 1980s film), and it's a direct prequel to the original Star Wars. It's obviously the best of the modern Star Wars films. That and Solo.
The one main flaw is that it's not fun or “high adventure” feeling like a Star Wars movie should be. But it's nicely grown up the way the originals were.

One of the main issues with the shit prequals and the Rey films is that movie ratings have changed. Back in the 70s and 80s films could be a lot darker and more adult and still have a kid-friendly rating. Standards are stricter now which means that if you want that same rating and therefore more market potential then you have to neuter your film. It's good they avoided that with Rogue one.

-Spoiler-

The scene at the end with Darth Vader really set him up as the uber villain that he is. He's unstoppable! James Earl Jones however is now too old to do his voice properly :(
The CGI faces of Leia and Grand Moff Tarkin were good but not perfect: the mouths on those digital masks still pull the faces in unnatural ways. I think it's the artist's fault rather than the tech though.

Genejoke wrote:

Love death and robots.
Watch it, it's well worth it. Nice mix of animation styles in the various shorts and some neat little stories.

A fine recommendation! I watched the first one and it was really cool. And reminded me of a Genejoke comic, or a Genejoke-type world!

Banes wrote:

Genejoke wrote:

Love death and robots.
Watch it, it's well worth it. Nice mix of animation styles in the various shorts and some neat little stories.

A fine recommendation! I watched the first one and it was really cool. And reminded me of a Genejoke comic, or a Genejoke-type world!

Haha thanks. That first one is based on a shirt story by Peter f Hamilton, who is an awesome sci fi writer and I wouldn't be surprised if I was influenced by him in some ways. It's a great anthology, apparently the makers were originally going to do it as a heavy metal sequel type thing but Hollywood and licensing etc meant that didn't happen and it became love death and robots.

I saw Kingsmen and Stardust.
Interestingly Mark Strong starred in both.

I didn't think I'd like Kingsmen…
The main character is meant to be a “chav” sort of person, with that affected way of talking that imitates young black British kids… That can be very irritating but it wasn't as annoying as I thought it'd be :)
It also features the balletic, over-stylised and choreographed violence that SO pisses me off about action movies these days, but it was perfectly ok in this instance because Kingsman IS supposed to have a ridiculous, over-stylised feel- unlike a James Bond or other type of serious movie where it absolutely doesn't work.
It was a silly, over-the-top spy movie that was supposed to be exactly what it was and it worked.

Samuel L Jackson was amazing as the squeamish, nerdy supervillian! He's much better at that than playing a badarse.
Michael Cain as the snobby, conservative representative of the establishment was a little insane. He's so much the opposite of that (as in the characters he used to do in film).

The lack of blood and gore is weird, but fits with the craziness.

————–

Stardust
This was a lot of a fun. It's a fairytale film in the style of The Princess Bride. Apparently based on a Neil Gaimen book. I can see the influence of his sometime co-writer Terry Pratchett, although the early Pratchett before he got far too preachy.
It was good to see Dinero in a trans role. Michelle Pfifer made a great witch. All in all it had a great cast.

It's good to see a fairy tail type story that isn't afraid to be dark and adult, without overdoing it.

T2: TRAINSPOTTING - Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle, Kelly Macdonald, Ewen Bremner. 20 years later, we see the old gang of losers again, still losers, still as uninteresting as the first one. Got the kybosh after an hour which means a Golden GooseEgg on the Moizmeter.

THE DEATH OF STALIN - Steve Buscemi, Andrea (be still my heart) Riseborough, Jeffrey Tambor, Michael Palin, Paddy Considine, Jason Isaacs, Olga Kurylenko, Simon Russell Beale. Joseph Stalin, one of history's biggest mass murderers and dictator of the Soviet Union dies in 1953. Movie tries to make it into a dark comedy? but not all that funny. Buscemi is Nikita Khrushchev altho he doesn't even remotely look like him and little attempt by anyone to sound Russian. Mainly about who will be the successor to the throne. Andrea gets it to a 2 on the Moizmeter.

moizmad wrote:
THE DEATH OF STALIN - Steve Buscemi, Andrea (be still my heart) Riseborough, Jeffrey Tambor, Michael Palin, Paddy Considine, Jason Isaacs, Olga Kurylenko, Simon Russell Beale. Joseph Stalin, one of history's biggest mass murderers and dictator of the Soviet Union dies in 1953. Movie tries to make it into a dark comedy? but not all that funny. Buscemi is Nikita Khrushchev altho he doesn't even remotely look like him and little attempt by anyone to sound Russian. Mainly about who will be the successor to the throne. Andrea gets it to a 2 on the Moizmeter.

It's an odd film but works pretty well.

IT - Bill Skarsgard, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Jaeden Martell. Chapter One, focuses on the 1989? visit by Pennywise (Skarsgard) the evil clown who kills kids and 7 in particular who band together to combat this monster, who creeps up from the sewer system in good ole Derry. They learn that this visit seems to happen every 27 years and the kids take a blood oath to fight this clown to the end. Wonder what the neighbors think about that house on their block, maybe have the city condemn it ya think? Skarsgard does a completely different take on the Pennywise that Tim Curry did. Chapter Two in production where we'll see the kids grown up and called back to Derry for another visit with guess who? A 2 1/2 on the Moizmeter.

An AMC series now on Netflix: Turn (spies of the American Revolution). I tried to watch this when it was on AMC, but the lead character annoyed me. Now, however, I see that the annoying trait is part of the lead's character development. I find the acting solid, the sets/costumes detailed and apparently authentic, and the writing varies, competent to good.

It's based on historic events, but is no slave to accuracy. For example, British Major John André is portrayed as a 30-40 yr old, trim, handsome man, but from what I read of the actual André, he was an overweight 60-something year old. So the show has induced me into looking up some history.

And to hone up on my grassroots knowledge, should history come to repeat itself.