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Post by fenris on Mar 23, 2008 15:08:55 GMT
The 1990 straight-to-cable effort Peacemaker (not to be confused with the nuclear terrorism thriller starring George Clooney, which came later) is a movie that I first watched many years ago, and which now gets shown regularly on the Movies 4 Men channel, where I saw it last night (another early Nineties favourite The Runestone also turns up there frequently). The story has an alien law-enforcer hunting down an alien serial killer in present-day Los Angeles, with a female coroner caught in the middle. The problem from her point of view is that both combatants claim to be the law-enforcer, and she doesn't know which one to trust.
Due to budgetary limitations, Peacemaker isn't quite up to the same standard as similar films from the late Eighties/early Nineties that it was clearly influenced by (for example The Hidden, Dark Angel and The Terminator). The use of familiar stock footage from Battle Beyond the Stars to portray one of the aliens arriving on Earth is particularly disappointing. However, despite these problems Peacemaker is still a highly entertaining sci-fi/action hybrid that has been undeservedly overlooked and is ripe for rediscovery. It's also one of the few films in which the gorgeous and talented B movie actress Hilary Shepard was given a leading role.
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Post by fenris on Mar 30, 2008 19:05:08 GMT
One of the occasional pleasures of channel-hopping late at night between the free movie channels (Zone Horror, Zone Thriller, Movies 24, Movies 4 Men, etc) is that you sometimes come across recent films which were made with respectably-sized budgets and feature well known actors, but which you've never heard of. These obscure movies are often independent productions which failed to obtain cinema distribution (the big Hollywood studios have become increasingly zealous about flooding screens exclusively with their product, forcing out smaller players) and ended up going straight to DVD or cable.
A few weeks ago I discovered The River King (2005) on Zone Thriller. A British/Canadian production based on a novel by Alice Hoffman, it's set during the depths of winter in a small American town dominated by a prestigious university, which funds most of the local economy. When a student is found dead in a frozen river by a uniformed patrolman (played by Edward Burns), he assumes a routine investigation will follow, to establish whether the boy's death was an accident, suicide or due to foul play. However, the university - fearful of a scandal and/or bad publicity - pressurises the local coroner and Burns' police colleagues into immediately declaring that it was suicide. Disquieted by events, Burns proceeds to unofficially investigate the student's death in his own time, and after finding himself confronted by a wall of silence, he starts receiving clues from an apparently supernatural source. The River King is simply a beautifully shot film, and boasts a wonderfully touching and insightful performance from Rachelle Lefevre as the dead student's best friend. The final revelation about what happened on the night the boy died is quietly devastating.
And last night I watched Second Nature (2003), a British production filmed mostly in the UK. Alec Baldwin plays an assassin working covertly for the U.S. government, who's recently recovered from injuries suffered in a plane crash in which his wife and two young daughters were killed. His first assignment upon returning to work goes badly wrong, and he subsequently discovers that his employers are trying to kill him. But whilst on the run, he begins to realise that aspects of his past don't make sense, and he may not be who he thinks he is. More interested in suspense as opposed to action, Second Nature is an entertaining thriller, with several unexpected twists. A large part of the fun in seeing various familiar British faces turn up in blink-and-you'll-miss-it bit parts: for example, Casualty's Georgina Bouzova as an airport check-in girl, and Lucy Punch from Hot Fuzz as a car hire rep. The biggest surprise is TV presenter and occasional actress Daisy Donovan, looking absolutely stunning in a small but important role as a woman from Baldwin's past. The camera positively adores her in this movie.
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Post by girlhexx on Mar 31, 2008 23:16:22 GMT
hi, you make the river king sound a little interesting could be the bit about the devastating end , i wonder? last night i watched blade runner dl. from graboid it doesn't say what language the movies are in but i was desperate to watch it , so i watched it in french. i watched this as achild and it has an aura that attaches itself to you. it was one of those movies that always seemed to be around and i got a little bored as a result and looked for unpredictable kicks elsewhere. then who would know , that old feeling, sentiment or something whatever cant quite describe it, dont need to the film does all the talking. although the film is old and the ending well known and not that surprising it still clings to you draws you into a really shitty world, dark dismal despairing yet i feel it is a place i could be i could live. the people are real the world is real no bullshit no reality tv-yeh, right what a laugh that is..NOT. i got a real nostalgia watching that film, i'm only 31years though i must say have been around the block in so many words, my halo still holds its own though :)the film is captivating, romantic of a bygone era maybe real maybe not maybe yet to come but it exists and it should exist it should not be forgotten , it should not be lost, it's in my dreams.
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Post by fenris on Apr 7, 2008 18:59:03 GMT
Watched The Monster Squad when it was shown on Five last Saturday (05/04/08). I actually bought this movie when it was originally released on VHS in the late Eighties, and I've still got it somewhere. It's a shame so much was edited out of Five's screening - the 19th century prologue was cut entirely.
The Monster Squad was director Fred Dekker's second film, the first having been another cult favourite, Night of the Creeps. Unfortunately his next movie was Robocop III, the release of which was delayed for two-three years due to Orion's bankruptcy: when it finally crept out, it tanked at the box office and completely killed his career.
I remember an interview that Dekker gave about The Monster Squad - he said that the infant actress who played the little girl wasn't scared at all by the mummy, the werewolf, the gill man and the Frankenstein's monster, and she would happily walk up to the actors in their full make-up and costumes between takes and talk to them. But for some reason she was terrified of the actor playing Dracula, despite him looking more normal than the others.
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Post by DreamDangerously on Apr 8, 2008 18:22:04 GMT
Monster Squad was one of my faves when I was little....I was so happy when it came on the other day. I watched Millions on Sunday night. Fantastic film, the kids were charming without being sickly and Alex Etel as Damian, the little boy who finds thousands of pounds from a robbery and thinks the money has been sent by God, was an absolute natural. Heartbreakingly good. I loved the cinematography of the film, the bright childs eye view of the world and the saints were hillarious, especially Joseph giving tips on how to play his role in the nativity. As the Radio Times said, Shallow Grave for kids. (without the death and naked corpse of Keith Allan of course) Perfect Sunday night fare.
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Post by orokiah on Apr 20, 2008 13:50:31 GMT
Saw 21 this week. Some great performances: Jim Sturgess was excellent as the lead character Ben - he's got a great talent for accents - and there was a nice turn from Kevin Spacey, at his oily best. It's hard work making card games look dynamic on screen, but they made a good job of it. It's flashy and stylish, with a flavour of crime capers like Ocean's 11 thrown in, and the film looks great.
On the downside, the emphasis on style occasionally detracts from the substance. It was all a bit Hollywood-ised - the formula was very predictable, from the twists involving Laurence Fishburne's character down to Ben inevitably getting carried away with his new persona, and realising it's better to just be himself. And the love story between Ben and Jill did feel shoehorned in. Plus there were a few plot holes, not least the question of why a super-intelligent guy like Ben would keep his casino winnings hidden in a hole in the ceiling instead of putting it in a safe.
But it was still a good, solidly entertaining film. Generally if a film makes me want to read the book it's based on - this one a true story - it's done its job, and this definitely delivered.
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Post by fenris on Apr 21, 2008 21:12:36 GMT
Have just seen Flashbacks of a Fool, in which Daniel Craig plays a washed-up Hollywood star, buckling under the weight of his own self-loathing. In some ways it reminded me of Lost in Translation, in which Bill Murray portrayed a semi-similar character. Something else the two films have in common is that not much actually happens in either of them, but both have some wonderful performances and memorable sequences. For example, in Flashbacks of a Fool the highlight is a beautiful and spellbinding scene in which Felicity Jones joyfully mimes to Roxy Music.
Considering it's a low budget film by a first-time writer/director, Flashbacks of a Fool has a truly heavyweight cast - it seems even the smallest role is played by a respected actor or actress. This is certainly due to Craig, who clearly believed in the project (he's credited as an executive producer) and called in some favours amongst his acting chums. Hence Mark Strong has a single scene as Craig's agent, Emilia Fox shines in a brief cameo as a cheerful and extremely chatty Beverly Hills drug-dealer, and Jodhi May bares all in some graphic bedroom scenes as a sex-starved housewife who seduces her neighbour's teenage son.
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Post by fenris on May 5, 2008 16:11:58 GMT
I saw P2 yesterday. Rachel Nichols (a regular cast-member in Alias' final season) plays Angela, a lowly executive in a Manhattan legal firm. Working late on Christmas Eve, she finds herself locked in and asks the young, polite and helpful security guard in the building's multi-level underground car park to let her out. However, he suddenly chloroforms her and she wakes up to find that he's stripped her, put her in a clingy and very low cut white dress, chained her to a table in his control room by her ankle, and cheerfully expects her to share a Christmas meal of microwaved turkey with him.
Although other characters do occasionally intrude, the movie is basically a two-hander between Nichols and Wes Bentley, who plays Thomas the security guard. Both are on great form - Nichols convincingly acts distraught and terrified, and is particularly impressive when she gets soaked to the skin halfway through the movie and spends the rest of the film shivering uncontrollably, while Bentley portrays Thomas as an obsessive stalker who simply doesn't comprehend that what he's doing is wrong. As far as he's concerned, he's lonely and through watching Rachel enter and leave the building each day on CCTV, believes himself to be in love with her. She works such long hours she must be single, so all he has to do is get her attention and she'll see what a nice guy he is and fall in love with him. And if the only way to get Rachel to notice him is kidnap her and hold her captive, then so be it - after all, once she loves him she'll forgive him, right? Needless to say, when Rachel's scared reaction doesn't match the perfect fantasy scenario he's worked out in his head, Thomas's initial bewilderment and annoyance soon erupts into murderous anger, like a overgrown child throwing a violent tantrum because he can't get what he wants.
The movie benefits from a clever script that avoids the usual horror cliches of having a victim do stupid things that places them in further peril. Rachel is smart and quick-thinking - she almost immediately realises that the deluded Thomas can't be reasoned with, and every time an opportunity arises to either escape or alert the police, she takes it. The film also ventures into action movie territory in the final scenes, with a tense and well edited car chase though the lower levels of the car park.
I highly recommend P2. It underperformed (undeservedly) at the U.S. box office when it was released there last year, so it's only getting a limited cinema release over here. Try to catch it if you can.
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Post by fenris on May 11, 2008 20:48:11 GMT
I saw Doomsday on 09/05/08 and absolutely loved it. Yes, it's gloriously daft with plenty of plotholes, but for sheer entertainment value it was everything I'd hoped it would be. There's some classic and well chosen '80s pop songs on the soundtrack ('Good Thing' by the Fine Young Cannibals, 'Spellbound' by Siouxsie & the Banshees, and 'Two Tribes' by Frankie Goes to Hollywood), and I had a massive grin on my face throughout the climatic car chase. Director Neil Marshall has freely admitted in interviews that this movie is a homage to various sci-fi/action/fantasy films that he enjoyed while growing up, such as Excalibur, Metalstorm, and the Mad Max trilogy. However, the biggest influence is clearly John Carpenter's Escape from New York - in fact you could regard Doomsday as being an unofficial third entry in the Escape series.
As he'd previously helmed the wonderfully enjoyable Dog Soldiers and the highly effective The Descent, it's three for three from Marshall. Doomsday ties with WAZ as the best film I've seen so far this year.
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Post by fenris on May 13, 2008 19:21:01 GMT
Much better was WAZ, which I saw list night (strictly speaking, the title is actually W delta Z, as the symbol in the middle isn’t an A, but the Greek letter delta). Most critics have described it as belonging to the torture porn sub-genre, and admittedly the killer in WAZ – pausing before hammering a jagged two inch nail underneath a bound victim’s fingernail - declares “There will be pain”, echoing Jigsaw’s promise of “There will be blood” in Saw II. But WAZ owes a much bigger debt to such cerebral serial killer thrillers as Se7en and Russell Mulcahy’s Resurrection. Although set in New York, WAZ is actually a British movie, partly financed by National Lottery funding, and - apart from a few scenes featuring the Manhattan skyline that were shot on location - it was filmed in Belfast, convincingly standing-in for the Big Apple. New York is portrayed here as an unrelentingly bleak urban hell of filth-covered alleyways, stinking and muck encrusted crack houses, and blood-smeared stairwells. When bodies start turning up in pairs – one electrocuted, the other tortured – the case is handed to grizzled, jaded, ultra-cynical veteran detective Eddie Argo (Stellan Skarsgard) and his newly-acquired rookie partner Helen Westcott (Melissa George). They eventually discover the symbols craved into the victims’ flesh relate to The Price Equation, which argues that altruism and selflessness do not exist as part of animal or human nature. Westcott eventually realises that the killings are linked to an infamous rape/murder case from several years earlier, and the perpetrator is someone whom Argo betrayed in the worst way possible. Skarsgard is a terrific actor whom Hollywood usually casts as either a villain or in supporting roles, so it’s great to see him headline a movie. He takes full advantage, fully inhabiting the role of Eddie Argo. George struggles to flesh out her extremely underwritten and non-descript character, and is only partly successful. Other noticeable faces amongst the cast are rising British actress Sally Hawkins (as a crack addicted single mother, turning tricks in front of her infant son) and Cape Wrath’s Tom Hardy. And although it’s Skarsgard’s film, Selma Blair tucks all her scenes under her arm and walks off with them, in a small but pivotal role. The momentum established in the early scenes isn't sustained throughout the movie's entire running time, and the narrative does sag slightly at the midway point. And the scene in which we first see the killer is curiously underpowered. The killer's second appearance - unexpectedly and cleverly abducting a victim in the middle of the street, in front of unsuspecting bystanders - would have made a more effective introduction. But otherwise I enjoyed WAZ immensely, and it’s stands proudly alongside American Nightmare (2002), Reeker (2005) and I Know Who Killed Me (2007) as one of my favourite horror movies of the decade. News for our American members: WAZ has been retitled The Killing Gene for it's Stateside release, which unfortunately will be straight-to-DVD. Personally, having seen the movie I think the new title is nonsensical, but I can understand how the distributors thought the original title (which only makes sense if you either see the film or are already familiar with The Price Equation) was problematic for marketing purposes. For more information and a look at the Region 1 DVD box art, here's a link; www.fangoria.com/news_article.php?id=6522
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Post by fenris on May 15, 2008 12:46:17 GMT
Iron Man ticks most of the necessary boxes for a summer blockbuster, and benefits greatly from the perfect casting of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark. The tone of the film is sometimes reminiscent of Batman Begins, which is probably wise, considering the similarities between the two characters: Bruce Wayne is a high-tech, costumed crimefighter who pretends to be a billionaire playboy, while Tony Stark is a genuine billionaire playboy who becomes a very high-tech, costumed crimefighter.
Tron Man's single major weakness is one that affects many superhero movies - not only do they have to tell the hero's origin story (how he/she obtained their powers & abilities and what made them decide to put on a costume and fight evil), but they also have to provide the hero with an enemy to fight in the final reel. All too often in this genre, that latter aspect feels rushed and tacked on as an afterthought. And so it proves in Iron Man, with Stark's climatic battle against another armoured opponent being an overlong, messy and CGI-heavy sequence that seems to have blundered in from last year's Transformers movie.
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Post by fenris on Jun 9, 2008 19:30:41 GMT
I'm a fan of the Prom Night series (four Canadian horror films that were released between 1980 - 1991) and today I saw the remake of the first Prom Night movie.
Strictly speaking, it's incorrect to describe it as a remake, despite the fact that's how it's been marketed, because other than it's title and Prom Night setting this new film takes nothing from the original Prom Night. It's basically an original movie that's been labeled as a remake because such cinematic xeroxes are currently in vogue.
I have to say that the new Prom Night is totally unoriginal, and stacked full of slasher-movie cliches. But it's slickly made with solid & professional performances from the cast, and boasts a script that's more intelligent than usual for the genre. Any notable plotholes only start to occur at the end: (spoiler font) I can accept the killer managing to ambush unsuspecting hotel staff and half-drunken teenagers with relative ease, but at the climax he somehow takes two experienced & highly-trained policemen by surprise, despite the fact that both officers know that he's in the immediate vicinity, and are actually keeping guard!
The new Prom Night might be an unremarkable and surprisingly bloodless film, but it's probably one of the better entries in the ongoing wave of 'remakes' of 70s & 80s horror movies. It's also paradoxically more entertaining than the original Prom Night, which was actually very dull and decidedly inferior to the sequels that followed it.
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Post by orokiah on Jun 10, 2008 20:18:50 GMT
I watched Galaxy Quest again over the weekend and it's every bit as fresh and funny as it was when it first came out. It works brilliantly as a spoof but it's also a fantastic comedy film in its own right. The script just crackles with great lines and observations - I love Tony Shalhoub's laidback, deadpan performance and Sam Rockwell's Guy, the death-fixated redshirt ("It's an alien planet! Is there air? YOU don't know!!"). Also the part where a fan at a convention asks Sigourney Weaver's Gwen if she and Taggart 'had a thing' in an episode - she says no, but the fan ends up squeeing ecstatically when Jason (aka Taggart, played by Tim Allen) steps in and slyly suggests they did. Just hilarious from start to finish. They're bringing out a comic in August which picks up the story after the film. It's so perfect as it stands that I never wanted a sequel, but I'm intrigued by the idea. Be interesting to see how it pans out.
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Post by fenris on Jun 12, 2008 19:35:41 GMT
Watched Superhero Movie this evening. It's fairly amusing in places, if you're in an undemanding mood. It works best when it's parodying the plot of the first Spider-Man film - there's a lengthy sequence mid-movie that exists purely to throw in some extremely lame jokes at the expense of the X-Men and Fantastic Four films, and is so painful that it should have been left on the cutting room floor. That said, Pamela Anderson (in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo) looks more like the Invisible Woman as she's portrayed in the actual comics than Jessica Alba ever will.
Regarding the previous 'spoof movies' in this loose series, I saw all four Scary Movies (mostly because I'm madly in lust with Anna Faris), thought Not Another Teen Movie was surprisingly okay, chuckled just once during Date Movie (the elevator music gag), and didn't bother watching Epic Movie or it's sequel Meet the Spartans. The next entry is coming in the Autumn - Disaster Movie. It's tag line: 'Al Gore Was Right.'
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Post by fenris on Jul 12, 2008 18:27:24 GMT
A thread about comic book movies on another forum that I frequently visit inspired me to dust off an old VHS tape on which I recorded the 1990 Captain America movie when it was screened on Sky Movies many, many years ago. I've always liked this film because it's perhaps the only superhero movie of it's period that attempted to address real-world issues. Most superhero films of the Seventies-to-Nineties were set in their own self-contained worlds: Tim Burton's Batman effectively exists in a bubble - a weird Gothic parallel universe called Gotham City, into which the outside world does not intrude. And even when Christopher Reeve's Superman goes globe trotting, it's only to picture-postcard locations full of landmarks familiar to American tourists (the Eiffel Tower, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Great Wall of China, etc). Granted, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace had Supes trying to tackle the wider issue of the nuclear arms race, but it did so in simplistic terms and ultimately copped out as the final credits ran.
Hand-in-hand with Captain America's real-world setting is it's unrelentingly cynical tone. Considering that it's a family adventure film about the most patriotic of America's superheroes, this movie is surprisingly bleak and anti-American. The USA is portrayed as having been controlled since the end of WWII by a shadowy and corrupt cadre of industrialists, Pentagon generals, CIA chiefs, war-profiteers and kingmakers. The President is merely their corporate puppet, and if he gets out of line he'll simply be assassinated and replaced (the film openly states it's belief that JFK, his brother, Martin Luther King and others were all murdered by those who pull America's strings).
The Red Skull therefore isn't the movie's grand supervillain, responsible for all the ills of the world, but instead is simply the employee, the operative, the troubleshooter, of the real villains - those who secretly rule America. And the Skull being recruited by this powerful elite has real-life parallels in Operation Paperclip, the exercise in which numerous useful Nazis were smuggled out of Europe at the end of WWII to either assist with American's space programme or help create the organisation that become the CIA.
It's also noteworthy that all the Skull's underlings are incredibly good-looking men and women, who would be equally at home on the catwalk or appearing in a high-profile advertising campaign. The message is that the Allies may have defeated Germany, but our subsequent obsession with body image, constant fad dieting, gym membership, botox and plastic surgery, shows that the Western World has ironically embraced the impossible Nazi ideal of a physically perfect Master Race.
For all these reasons, I consider Captain America as being a very under-rated film. Apparently the original director's cut was two and a half hours long, and I'd love to see it.
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