The Recommended Movies Thread

[PeteC]

GLC, go to: User Control Panel>Board Preferences>tick "yes" in the 3rd section>tick "yes" in the 5th and 6th section if you want to. Pete

[GLCQuantum]

Cheers Pete. I don't know when I turned it off but for the life of me I couldn't turn it back on!

[GLCQuantum]

Pharvey... No problem pal.

[sandman67]

Rebooting is a Hollywood term for revisiting a well trodden franchise, and as Hollywood are all idle coke addled swine they tend to do it a lot, with very mixed results. You only have to look at the cackfests they made of the Nightmare On Elm Street, Halloween, and Texas Chainsaw films to see how it can go badly wrong. Then there are the good reboots like Batman. After the excellence of the first two the franchise went badly off the rails, and ended up as a sad parody of itself, then came the Dark Knight reboot and shazzam!

Anyways, I think thats the best way to look at the new Spiderman flick THE AMAZING SPIDERMAN. After the great first flick came the rushed sequel, then came along the spider of the third very pants flick and it looked like it was "Batman & Robin" all over again....a sad campy parody of a once proud franchise complete with more ham than Palma.

So.... hit the switch and reboot it was in order. And thank all that is good for the new film is at least on a par with the first one, complete with excitement, thrills, spills and shed loads of CGI....and a pretty damn fine story line that is a good deal less maudlin and saccharine than the original and a lot more....well....down to earth. It just feels right if you get what I mean....things slot together better than the first one of the original trilogy.

The flick takes it back to stage one with the foundation story of how mild mannered and geeky orphan Peter Parker gets bitten by a bio-modified spider and becomes the red n blue web slinger, facing down a similarly gene challenged mad scientist who does a fine Dr Jekyll act and manages to turn himself into a lizard man when a gene treatment he is experimenting on has some rather unexpected side effects. Its up to Pete to put Doc Croc back in the box and save the day......

Out and about all over the shop in lovely DVDRIP crisp copies. So....well worth a download and watch...and its a solid web chucking three cheers keeper.



Which cant be said for the flogged dead donkey that lies a steaming and leaking on the floor next to the boxcover for PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4.

After three consecutive, and increasingly bland tasting, helpings of haunted houses on wobblycam BOO jump shockers methinks the makers of this dead dodo just have given up the ghost of pretence of caring about what they make, and have surrendered all effort and inspiration to the siren call of the cash till. Its as dull as a remedial class full of glue sniffing scousers, and engaging as a leper. Even though the makers finally seem to have worked out that an hour of boredom followed by 20 minutes of mayhem is an arse way to make three flms, and so now get the show rolling after the first reel, its still as tissue thin as an origami frog. It makes absolutely sod all sense, and things degenerate into a long chain of crap just happening with little or no story to add a narrative to the events. The characters are unlikeable or just plain dull and two dimensional, and the occasional (and I do emphasise occasional) shocks are so third rate its a shame....and the end is just plain dumb and pointless.

Demon posessed Heather from film 1, with her abductee demon raddled creepy kid from film 2, move in down the street from generic American moms apple pie family. Heather has to go to hospital for some totally unexplained reason. Kid stays at nice family's house, kid brings along his invisible demon playmate to stay as well. Bad stuff happens. People end up dead. End makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE

thats it.

Could have written it on the back of a fag pack after five pints of super strength lager....which is what it looks like they did. It sucks, it blows, and ejectile vomits green goo all over your eyeballs. You come away from it feeling like you just walked out of the scabbiest knocking shop in Tijuana... soiled, embarrassed, and feeling distinctly ripped off. And your knob will probably fall off in a day or two.

Out and about in blotchy hateful TS versions all over the shop....avoid like a dose of clap.

Three THBBBBBBTS and an earnest prayer the makers meet with a sudden accident of the arms being lopped off type.

[sandman67]

Two recent releases:

BRANDED

This is a sort of dystopian sci-fi flick set in Moscow in 2017, where advertising has gone mental and is all pervasive from cradle to grave. A young exec who works for a company who, at the behest of fast food manufactures, steer society towards seeing fat as attractive and consumption of trash food as good has a mental breakdown that has two effects. Firstly, he can now see strange animated "logos" with a life all their own that are taking over humans, and secondly he decides to right the wrongs he has done and take the system down.

Its an interesting film but there are two issues with it. Firstly it steers way to far towards the arty end of the house, and so is a bit dry and slow in places, as well as more than a bit obscure thanks to problem no2...some of it is in Russian and without subs you loose all that part of the plot.

If you can find a subbed version its well worth a looksee, but a keeper it aint. Two cheers for novelty and effort.



and then on the flipside.... COCKNEYS VS ZOMBIES

When two East End yobbos find out their much beloved grandad's retirement home is being shut down they decide to rob a bank to raise cash to keep it open. Only problem is they are a pair of useless prats with equally daft mates along for the ride. Meanwhile, outside at a building site builders uncover a sealed vault, and inside theres a nasty brains loving zombie waiting for them. So, when our wanabee robbers emerge from their hiest they find the world has gone to hell in a handbasket, the streets are full of shambling hungry corpses, and its time to get to grandad to save him and his mates from becoming meals on wheelchair wheels for the ravening horde.

Its a good laugh in places, even if the over use of swearing gets a bit much - the scene with an Uzi equipped Zimmer Frame bound Richard Briers blatting dead heads is hiilarious, and Alan Ford plays an admirable Brick Top a like foul mouthed hard as nails grandad. It gently riffs on gangster flicks, zombie flicks, and brit cinema and East End society....and its a giiggle. I liked it, and theres a surprising number of known faces in it in very off the wall roles.

I liked it, even without and yes...... its a keeper.

Three cheers for the fun of seeing codgers wipe out a zombie horde.



Both out and about in DVDRIP formats on the usual suspects, including YouTube....see the YouTube thread for links

chin chin chaps.....Im just dropping TOTAL RECALL and THE WATCH....so reviews for those soon.

[BaaBaa.]

Sooooooo, Star Wars has been bought buy Disney.

Thank you lord, take them as far away from Lucas as possible.

Check Red Letter Medias reviews of the 3 prequel abominations on Youtube, they're very long but comedy gold.

[PeteC]

[sandman67]

one worth keeping an eye out for

THE BAY

This little chiller thriller is filmed in the same sort of "webcam" stylee as CLOVERFIELD but without the annoying headache inducing shakey cam cack and hysterical screeching. Its very clever, using video feeds from a variety of sources from webcams and phones to skype conferencing and police car cameras and street surveillance cameras to string together the story narrated by the main character.

Donna is a young intern trainee reporter who, like the usual intern assignment, gets sent to a small American town on the Chesapeake Bay to cover the Independence Day celebrations. There is a shady aspect to the town however, as it has been making a fast buck from polluting the hell out of the estuary with farm runoffs from the mayor and his cronies chicken farms, and recently two oceanographers investigating the pollution turned up dead from an apparent predator attack. While Donna is filming people suddenly start to get violently sick and break out in hideous blisters, then all hell breaks loose and the bodies start to stack up as some unidentified outbreak grips the town. Is it a virus, a fungus, or a whole new breed of parasitic predator?

Its very well done, with shocks occasionally thrown in to make for a jump here and there, but mainly its a very well put together epidemic thriller filmed in a live cam style. Its also a lot better than the ridiculous zombie/monster outbreak flicks as this is sort of based on real life events and possibilities. Its a good proof of the maxim that shocks and horror are always most effective when they are realistic as opposed to ridiculous fantasy land stuff. "Keep It Real(ish)" was why 28 DAYS LATER was far superior to any zombie flick.....you could believe it could happen. Same is true here.

Well worth a looksee IMHO, and out and about in DVD quality rips all over the place.

Three cheers well earned.

[richard]

Just dug up 'Flashback' and watched it again. Love it.

Two of my favourites (Dennis Hopper & Keiffer Sutherland) jousting and thoroughly good entertainment with a truly great and unexpected happy ending

Glad I kept it

[Dannie Boy]

[quote="richard"]Just dug up 'Flashback' and watched it again. Love it.

Two of my favourites (Dennis Hopper & Keiffer Sutherland) jousting and thoroughly good entertainment with a truly great and unexpected happy ending

I thought that was restricted to the Bintabaht massage parlours?

[richard]

Anybody watched this movie yet?

photo.JPG (42.61 KiB) Viewed 879 times

[pharvey]

Shouldn't really, but.....

You are a bad, bad man Richard....

[sandman67]

wow mate..... just wow. Coffee - cough - keyboard in that order



Right.....down to business

First up.... that film up there THE BAY I reviewed. If you want to watch it or drop it in reasonable copies.... look what I found....... . Saves you downloading a big copy. Be quick though

And now for two recent DVDRIP releases

TOTAL RECALL

Thank god that the makers of this have left the gloriously daft and classic Arnie sci fi epic alone, and instead retained only the bare minimum of bits from the original and instead completely reworked the story - cos that way BOTH films work.

The re-write has the world in chaos after chemical warfare makes almost the whole globe a mustard gas hell. Only the United Federation of Britain and its colony of Australia, cunningly named The Colony, inhabitable. The two are linked by The Fall, which isnt a post punk Manchester agit prop band, but instead a sort of massive elevator that runs through the Earth from one to the other. Rebels in the colony are not too happy at being second class, so start a revolution, precipitating sabre rattling and a threat of invasion by the nasty evil Brit government. Meanwhile, after a visit to the dream lounges of ReKall, our plucky factory worker hero suddenly has a brain freakout and finds out he is in fact and ex government spy sent to kill the rebel leader, and now the wicked chancellow Cohaagen wants him dead. Cue the chase.....

Its really well done, and pays a heavy homage to BLADE RUNNER rather than the first film. Listen carefully in the ReKall scene and you will even hear the mock oriental Blimp singing from BR! Its a CGI eye candy treat all the way, and despite a couple of very iffy jump camera shots is really well filmed - beautifully detailed and well framed shots, exciting car and foot chases, big stuff exploding....and of course the hooker with three boobs shows up.

I really liked it, and was really surprised at its style and story changes than mean the two are completely different films in all but name and a few details. Top recc, and a solid gold keeper.



and THE WATCH

Ben Stiller's latest comic flick is an ensemble cast job, with three others of the hottest names in US comedy at the mo.

After a grusome murder at his small town America Costco store, the manager sets up a neighbourhood watch group. Unfortunately the only volunteers are a local good time yahoo, a failed cop applicant, and a computer geek. So the four set out to solve the crime, only to find that the culprit may in fact be not of this planet, and it looks like theres more gong on at Costco than bargain sales.

The comedy is edging on the American Pie gross out dick jokes some of the time, and in a few places is thin as origami paper, but it still works pretty well and raised a good few chuckles as it riffed on US small town culture. Its got some harsh reviews, which I think is unfair as it did make me laugh. Yes it could have been funnier and less poo joke related, and yes its no ZOOLANDER, but I liked it and it will stay on the hard drive. Sort of on a par with MIB3 in the comedy stakes, but definitely NOT one for kids.

Whispers through with three cheers and is a keeper.



Both out and about all over the shop in DVDRIP formats

enjoy chaps and chapesses - review of TED to come later

[BaaBaa.]

Is Ted a good copy? Been waiting for that!

[Big Boy]

Is Ted a good copy? Been waiting for that!

I've just finished downloading it - looks very good quality.