The Recommended Movies Thread

[sandman67]

Ok, two more from the release goody bag for your delectation

First up some laughs - THE DICTATOR

Sasha Baron Cohens latest larger than life caricature is General Aladeen, the mad as cheese tyrannical dictator of a middle eastern oil state. He blends all the best bits of despotic insanity from recent deposed tyrants and gives them a dose of Ali G slapstick and outrageous statement humor, chucks in the Borat fish out of water in the USA stuff, riffs on the dumber aspects of GW Bushism foreign policy, and fires it at the wry comedy wall where it sticks like glue.

Sashas stuff is sometimes not that funny, sometimes it is, and this one is one of his best. There are some real laugh out loud moments - the scene where he is in a helecopter with two American sightseers talking in Arabic to his mate about his love of Porsche 911s (see where its headed?) is classic.

I had a good few belly laughs and enjoyed it. A solid three cheers keeper, and well worth watching.




Next some chills and splat with VHS (or V/H/S )

A clever and sometimes jump inducing "found footage" version of the classic Hammer Horror multi-story within a story anthology format. The arc story involves a bunch of smack heads who get sent to break into a house to recover a VHS tape. When they break in they find the owner of the place dead in an armchair in front of a bank of TVs and a stack of tapes. So as the others search the house one of the group watches a tape which s one of the sub stories (there are five), then back to the main story and so on and so on.

The over shaky camera work gets annoying and headache inducing in some places, and as with all these anthologies some sub stories work and some don't. The first and last are the standout ones, with the middle story scraping in close behind. The 2nd and 4th are just dumb and IMHO a pointless messy excuse for gore and splat, and the main arc story is just a waste of time and badly done n that it actually confuses the other film sections.

So, a bit of a mixed bag, and worth a watch for the novelty value and the two good segments, but a keeper it aint. Especially given the usual masses of hot air and over hype its been getting.

One cheer for the two good segments, a meh for the middle one....and a raspberry for the rest.

[sandman67]

THE REVEREND

Sometimes small indy flicks can be real "equivalent to a blockbuster" gems, and one of the key elements is budget. Unfortunately for this little indy Brit horror thriller it was more pennies than pounds. They should really have spent more on it, as the basic plot premise is really fertile ground.

Its a play on the Biblical story of the Book of Job, where the Devil has a bet with God that he can test the faith of a really good man by putting him through hell on earth. In this case he picks on a perfect vicar, and after getting a vampire underling to bite him, the vicar turns a lemon into lemonade and sets out on a one holy vampire crusade to clean up all the evil that is just under the surface of the seemingly idyllic village he has been posted to.

With a bigger budget this could have been a proper corker, but the cheep shows, and it does cack things up all considered. Its also odd that for such a small budget flick they wasted boodles on cameo appearances by names like Rutger Hauer, who despite being plastered all over the poster/DVD cover is in the film for a total of one short 5 minute scene.

Worth a look, but a keeper it isnt, which is a real damn shame. It is well worth a bigger budget remake, and who knows with todays industry the way it is.....

Out and about in DVDRIP formats all over the shop.

[sandman67]

THE CABIN IN THE WOODS

One of the things I hate most about horror films is their lack of imagination. There's only so much you can do with a bunch of teenage college kids in a scary house, and Hollydud has thrashed that genre so badly that even smart sideswipes at the genre like SCREAM end up getting sequeled to death. The only series to stay fresh through the series was the CUBE series of films, and that was because till the last one (Cube Zero) you never really worked out what the hell was going on.

So....this flick begins like all the other teen slasher flicks....bunch of oddly matched up college kids decide to go stay at a cousins shack in the backwoods, on the way meet a crazy gas station hillbilly with a boggy eye, etc etc. Cut into that plot theres a control room full of scientists...what can they be up to? Then it goes all SCREAM and gets very very clever on your ass. And by jimminy it damn well works, cos from then on youa re locked in trying to work out what the hell is going on, and when the answer does come in the frenetic last 25 minutes of mayhem its frickin excellent!

Shades of SCREAM, shades of CUBE ZERO, and lots of great fun references to every cliched slasher flick ever made...and it all ties in, all makes sense, all fits.

Great stuff, and out and about in a R2 DVDRIP format which means its a bit cut and shut (the bottom is cropped off) but thats no biggie. When it comes out in full US/UK DVDRIP format it s a definite Sandy keeper.

Three big cheers for the fresh blast of air into the dusty genre.

[sandman67]

One more fresh rabbit for the pot before me and the cat stick our paws up and watch some classics....

ELFIE HOPKINS

Elfie and her geeky mate Dylan are two bored stoner kids in an idyllic rural village in backwoods England. To while away the days they play at being amateur detectives, carrying out mock investigations on the villagers. Then a new family move in next door to Elfie. On the surface they seem the perfect modular family, all clean and city slicker....but when villagers start to go missing and Elfie and Dylan start to sniff about, they find all is not as it seems, and there's the distinct coppery tang of blood in the air.

This is one of those odd quirky gentle comedy whodunnit thrillers that Brits do well, and this is another good example of the genre, with some laughs, some splatter, and a few wry digs at the Midsommer Murders "murder mystery in a village" genre.

I liked it, and it kept the brain and eyeballs amused .... so its a keeper cos I like these small budget quirky Brit indy films. Give it a watch and see what you think....if you like Morse and Midsommer this will be a good watch

Out and about in crispy DVDRIP formats....I plumbed for the titchy 250mb streaming flv version

three cheers

[GLCQuantum]

Have you seen who is cast to play the new 'Lawrence of Arabia' Sandman... I'm sure it will make your blood boil.

For anyone who is not in the know it is the one and only.... Robert Pattinson

[sandman67]

Aaahhhhhhhhhhh y nearly had me there mate. Good job I checked before letting the anger monster take over

Its not a remake of the classic....Werner Hertzog is doing what he did with Conquistadors - a history bio pic on T E Lawrence's female counterpart called Queen Of The Desert, and Tweelight Twatty Heed is in that as T E. It sounds really good, but I wont be able to watch it as Tweelite makes me puke just by looking at his blank talentless pasty mug. Im also gonna guess that this one and his work with Cronenberg on a recent flick will have the teen panty wetter fanbase wringing golden showers from their pants in floods and moaning about how he has betrayed them all.

In Pattys hands TE is sure to be transformed into some soulful heartthrob character, just the idea of which makes me spit blood. TE was always at best asexual, didn't really care much for the company of women, and was as cold and public school as a cliche.

I used to despise Leonardo De Caprio in his Romeo + Juliet days for much the same reasons, but he has matured into a truly fine actor in the classic mould. Somehow I doubt severely Pattylad will follow in his footsteps, no matter how many edgy directors he works with. He is as wooden as my front door.

Although Hertzog has done one very good remake job - he remade Murnau's classic silent Dracula knockoff Nosferatu (I recc you take a look at the Hertzog version - beautiful) I doubt even he would have the stones to have a swipe at remaking Lawrence Of Arabia. Still, I bet some dickwad in Hollydud is trying to sell the idea to some studio....probably starring Will Smith and directed by Tarantino.

[sandman67]

THE FOUR

This Chinese flick is a recent wuxia wire fu epic in the same mold as Crouching Tiger, except the genre seems to have moved on quite a bit of late and the recent films now involve elements of steampunk type cogs and gears technology as well as the classic flying through the air, spectacular sword fights and eye poppingly beautiful costumes and sets.

There's big trouble in little China as the marketplace is awash with counterfeit currency, and the Imperial Police department has been infiltrated by a team of foxy women assassins disguised as police recruits. The police suspect that the secretive police unit The Divine Constabulary may have a hand in it all, but the magic and martial arts masters of the DC are busy chasing down a different lead.... the villainous Lord Ain.

Whilst at times it does suffer from the classic wuxia issue of its hard to keep track of who is who and who is kippering who up, its still an excellent example of the new wuxia style, and a great watch.

Now for the bonus ball...... look in one of my latest posts on the YouTube thread and there you can find a link to the film on YouTube which is fully subtitled and in hi rez versions - just use a Firefox add on like DownloadHelper to grab the vid and watch it at your leisure, or watch it streaming via YouTube. Otherwise its out and about on the net for normal download.

Well worth a watch if you like these types of film and a definite three flying kicks keeper.

[sandman67]

As a film buff I have built up a set of rules of cinema, one of which is that Chinese/Korean/Japanese historical "swordsman" (the Chinese wuxia genre for example) films are almost without exception excellent eye candy and great mind engaging watches. Very rarely do such films break the rule.....Im hard pressed as I type to think of an example. WHITE VENGEANCE was one possible example, as I pointed out in the review here, but even though it was overly wordy and pretentious in places it still was entertaining and looked good.

The recently released on the net Chinese wuxia flick THE SWORD IDENTITY is one of the ones I personally would recommend avoiding.

Its not only messily written and badly edited so as to make the film a 2hr chopping board of seemingly discordant scenes and obscure plot arcs that dont go anywhere, its boring, dull, humdrum, low budget, and looks as drab and grey as a newborn swan. The acting is wooden, and the dual language version I downloaded has possibly some of the worst dubbed voices ever - even more wooden than the acting.

Normally I would not mind too much but the amount of hype this has got, and the highly deceptive trailer, means it deserves another kick in the ribs even when its down.

So, there you go. As the old saying goes rules are made to be broken, and this flick breaks the rule that wuxia films are always well worth a watch.

Three thbbbbbbts

[sandman67]

I love military historical epics, and for the life of me never understood why the great battles between the Ottoman Empire and the Christian world never made it to film. Battles like the massive naval battle of Lepanto, or the bloody and drawn out sieges of Vienna and Malta would make excellent dramas. This was the age when naval warfare was transformed completely, cannonry started playing a major part, and you had insanely colorful troops like the Jannisaries. I guess it was always down to the sheer scale needed, and luckily now we live in the age of CGI spectaculars these films can be made. When the film is a non Hollydud one its even better (NB: the outstanding Directors Cut version of KINGDOM OF HEAVEN aside that is).

Anyways....if these are your bag then I have a real three cherries on the sundae treat for you now....

FETIH 1453 (aka CONQUEST 1453)

This epic tells the tale of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II in 1453, but as it is a Turkish film tells the story properly and starts in Medina with Mohammed (clever use of first person view so avoiding showing him on screen) decreeing that Constantinople must fall. Then it fast forwards to Mehmet IIs rise to the throne, and fills in all the Byzantine political machinations, the sly involvement of the Vatican and expansionist Pope, before finally getting to the epic siege itself.

The scripting is wonderful, and allows even a historical newbie to understand the motivations of all involved on the three sides of the conflict, even while focusing mostly on Mehmet. Its CGI heavy, and the work is done wonderfully - eye poppngly beautiful from the basic city scenes all the way to the cast of hundreds of thousands needed for the end siege. It does spend 1 1/2hrs getting there, but its essential stuff to understand why the Ottomans wanted the city so badly. Then there is a full 1 hour of wonderful full scale siege warfare battles complete with charges, sappers, siege towers afire, battering rams burning, massive earth shaking cannons, all the trimmings. It really is a joy to watch from start to end, and keeps you locked in from scene 1. Its also great to see a story told from a Muslim perspective for a change - very like KoH it shows equal respect for both sides rather than making one a cartoon villain for the kegger crowd.

Amazing stuff from Turkey, and out and about on the net in hard subbed english DVDRIPs in the usual AVI formats, and from watch online sites in streaming FLV formats. If you drop an unsubbed version you can find excellent full english subs from places like Open Subtitles easily.

OR.... you could always go to and download the whole film from YouTube with a FLV grabber, then find some subs.... just saying like.

A definite three cheers solid gold keeper and an extra cheer for covering one of history's turning points so well. My hot tip of the week.

and

[sandman67]

As you might have gathered Im a big fan of the Marvel superhero flicks, so when the whole lot from the last year finally all get tied together, which was the intention all along, Im as happy as a pig in a poo pile. Here we go for the testosterone laden THE AVENGERS

As was hinted at the end of the last film - THOR - via the stupid faddish easter egg scene that is at the end of the 15 minutes of end credits, when Odin expelled Loki from Asgard he didn't stay on Jotunheim... he fell to Earth. Here he has been up to his usual bad self, and with the help of some bad alien mates has got his hand on the all powerful blue cube The Tesseract (from Captain America). With this he intends opening a portal to the alien realm, allowing them to invade and make him master and king of planet Earth .....mwwaaaah ha ha ha haa! And the only people in his way are The Avengers, Nick Fury's oddball bunch of superhero misfits who spend more time fighting each other than they do on Loki.

yep, its total eyeball bubblegum that makes as much sense as a Thai soap opera, but the biffs, bops and bangs are served up in bucketloads. The CGI is lovely, the end battle spectacular, and it does what it is supposed to do.... thrill and entertain. I dont give a stuff about any subliminal messaging about military might etc etc.... its a sodding superhero flick not Schindlers List. I loved it, and as its over 2 hrs long that takes a lot of eye candy to do with a no brainer blockbuster.

Anyway, its now out and about in all sorts of high and normal rez DVDRIPS at all the usual places, and is IMHO a three cheers and a flippin great exploding New York in flames keeper all the way.



PS: As frickin usual there is the obligatory end of credits scene, but its pointless and shows that even Marvel are working out people have had enough of the fad and are sick of the gimmick. I will save you the bother as its not a spoiler.....its 45 seconds of watching The Avengers eating a post end battle burger in a wrecked diner...and thats it.

[Big Boy]

I have to disagree. I wouldn't give it more than 2 out of 10. The last 45 minutes was fine, but the 1 hr 15 mins leading up to it was dire. Both I and my son had to watch the first part 3 times because it kept sending us asleep.

[sandman67]

Horror and War are, IMHO, two genres of film that in the right hands make for corking chiller flicks. Films like THE BUNKER, OUTPOST, DEATHWATCH, and the Korean duo of the excellent R-POINT and nearly as good G.P. 506 really can send a tingle along the spine. War makes for excellently creepy settings....so Im surprised there arent more of them. (There are a number of bloody hopeless half assed splattery ones as well, usually set in the two current conflicts of Afghanistan and Iraq)

Anyway, I was looking forward therefore to seeing the Colombian film THE SQUAD, (El Paramo) .... and it was well worth the wait.

When a remote mountain top radio observation post on the edge of FARC guerrilla territory goes silent for three days the government deploys an assault team to investigate. When they climb the fog bound mountain they find the base is the site of a bloody massacre, but things dont add up. Most of the bodies are missing for a start off, and the men seem to have gone batsh*t and scrawled voodoo prayers all over the walls. There are booby traps everywhere, and the radios have all been smashed. And behind a freshly cemented wall in the store-room, on which is carved a spell binding evil in, theres a surprise waiting.....

It's a lot like DEATHWATCH and R-POINT, but in this case the claustrophobic blood spattered bunkers and fog bound creepy mountain top are used to maximum effect, and the watcher is never sure whether the ensuing chaos is actually supernatural, or just a platoon of psychotic special forces thugs finally cracking up under the strain and stress.

I really liked its creepy atmosphere and edgy camera work, and think it sits nicely alongside the two flicks I namedropped. I prefer chiller horror like this to splattery gore kegger flicks... they are a whole different ball game altogether - smarter, creepier, and better made.

Out and about on the net in DVDRIPs with hard subs in English on the film already. I'd give it a watch if you fancy a little icy tingle with your beer n popcorn.

Two cheers and a yay (half a cheer) keeper..... two and a half cos I think the end (as in the very final scene) could have been a bit better done but hey.... thats just me.





PS: Look in the YouTube thread for links I posted to GP 506, R-POINT and DEATHWATCH.... all three are well worth a watch, but R-POINT Is the standout one of those three.

[sandman67]

THE HOT POTATO

This recent Brit Crime Caper flick is set in 1969 and concerns the comedic attempts of a Sarf Lundin scrap metal dealer and his mate to sell a bit of recovered scrap. The thing is his mate recovered the scrap from an old MOD facility, and the large potato shaped lump turns out to be weapons grade Uranium. Having little idea what it is and how to sell it they approach some local gangland contacts...and thats where the fun starts. What ensures is a trans European shambolic parade of dodgy east end gangsters, iffy middle men, old die hard Nazis, MOSSAD agents, the Vatican and the CIA with our hapless heroes caught in the crossdeals and stitch ups.

Ray Winstone and Colm Meaney play it for laughs with a cool crew of supporting actors and actresses and its an entertaining watch. The thing is though that it is never as much as it could be - it makes you smile rather than laugh, moderately thrills rather than excites, etc. Its a damn shame as its a great little story and well acted, but the scripting is just too weak to make it a standout film. I dont know why....but the mojo just aint there.

Its still a good flick, and well worth a watch and download..... but it scores a mere two cheers rather than a three for not being as much as it could have been.

Scores a C - Must Try Harder!

[sandman67]

Two more from the goodie bag of recent DVDRIP level releases on the netski

THE LOST COAST TAPES

I'll be brief with this one - another shaky cam "found footage" Blair Witch style jobbie, this time about the film crew of a TV series that sets out to debunk supernatural hoaxers, and sets off into the deep N California woodlands to meet a bloke in a cabin who claims to have shot a juvenile Sasquatch and have the body on ice. When they get there they find the place under siege by its parents and all hell breaks loose.

Its not a bad effort and quite well acted for this sort of cheapster flick, but it soon goes off the rails and fails to deliver effects wise thanks to the low budget. Worth a watch if theres nowt else about or you are a fan of the genre.

One cheer for premise and effort, and another yay for the fact its novel and the characters are interesting



And on to the next biggie, the latest collaboration between the maister of comedy horror gothique Tim Burton and his favorite pale faced muse Mr Johnny Depp....

DARK SHADOWS

When Barnabus Collins and his family move from 1790s Liverpool to the US to start a new life they hope to leave behind the family curse, but it follows them in the form of a young girl who develops an unhealthy obsession with Barnabus. Its unfortunate because young Angelique is a witch, and once her love is spurned she starts to curse the Collins family more than ever, eventually turning Barnabus into a vampire and then engineering the locals to bury him undead. Then in 1972 Barnabus is accidentally dug back up and freed, and returns to find his relatives on hard times and a bunch of mental complexes on legs...so using his vampy powers Barnabus sets out to restore the family fortunes. One small issue.... Angelique is still alive, and she hasn't forgotten Barnabus and why she had him buried....and she has a grudge that like her never dies.

Its your usual high level Tim Burton gothique eye candy extravaganza with an ensemble cast of great actors, stunning visuals, and dry as a bone humor. Johnny is perfect, his accent rocks, and he plays the laff lines with such a straight face that in itself is funny as hell. I laughed out loud at a couple of the jokes, and its a great little watch. It has a lovely campy Hammer Horror feel to it, and the supporting cast of stars is perfectly cast, from the eternally lovely Michelle Pfieffer to the rest of the crazy cast including Alice Cooper.

Out and about in a Korean hard subbed version, or another that crops the screen and cuts off the subs....but also some of the picture.

Im waiting for the full US BDRIP or DVDRIP to come out in a couple of weeks.

Excellent three bats and a glass of the red stuff goth fun and well worth a watch.

[sandman67]

One of last years hits was definitely the off kilter fish out of water comedy from Eire THE GUARD, and it seems the Irish have hit a Leprachauns pot of gold with the comedy filums, as theres another similar style laff a minute one just out on the piratical seas

GRABBERS

One dark and rainy night a fishing trawler off the windy and wet west coast of Ireland spots what seems to be a meteor crashing into the sea. Unfortunately the object has brought along some unwanted travelers with it - a species of octopus like aliens that suck out all your blood then eat whats left. They make their way ashore onto the beaches of a small west coast island inhabited by a Father Ted like population of oddballs and drunkards....which is a good thing as alcohol is the only protection from the blood suckers, it being a poison. Unfortunately the island is under the protection of an alcoholic Guarda officer assisted unwillingly by a teetotal mainland colleague transferred there to cover the police chiefs holiday leave. So, its down to the islanders led by our plucky Guarda buddies to get hammered down the pub and save the day for humanity. What could possibly go wrong?

Its really funny in the same way that The Guard and Father Ted riffed on small island life and oddball Irish culture, throwing in some sly references to other films like GoodFellas like Father Ted used to, with the addition of space aliens and massive doses of booze. The beautiful island scenery adds a lovely backdrop to the mayhem, and even the special effects are well done.

Definitely a recommended watch and download. Its out and about on the net in very good quality DVDSCREENER versions, so the lads round town should have good DVD copies as well.

Three drunken wayhays and a solid gold keeper.