The Recommended Movies Thread

[sandman67]

A nice little freebie bit of fun

THE JOCKSTRAP RAIDERS

Student animation award winning short tells the tale of Mikey and his squadron of misfits in WW1. Will Mikey and his bunch of left behinds be able to face down the wicked Kaiser and stop his invasion? Only a bunch of home made planes, half baked weapons, and a bumper box of sports supports stand between Blighty and the sausage stuffers. Chocks away chaps!

Good fun, although the bad accents suck a bit the rest of the fun is excellent Ardman level snigger material.

Three cheers all round.

[Dannie Boy]

Very funny SM

[sandman67]

This is Agent Sandy reporting here from the front lines of the western Front in the Cold War (as in its bloody freezing here....hail....in frickin late MAY????)

News out on the dah ditty dah machine

OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL
I think I reviewed this earlier so I will keep it brief.

Disney does an "origins story" prequel to the classic Wizard of Oz, explaining how the man behind the curtain got there from a hokey sideshow magician vaudeville style act to be Oz, lord of the Emerald City and johnny big banana in Oz land.

Oz gets himself into strife with the wife of a circus performer, and during his escape in a baloon ends up blown into the wonderland of Oz. But there all is not well, and the two good witches who watch over the Emerald City live in fear of the return of the third very wicked witch. Thing is.... all aint as it seems on the wrapper, and sometimes a pretty cover hides a horror book within.

James Franco plays a wonderfully caddish Oz who has a bit of a thing for the laydeees, and this explains how one good witch ends up green and bad as well. Its a wonderful CGI bubble gum fest filmed in eye popping colour that amuses and entertains with some sly wit for the dads and scary flying monkeys sure to send the kids scrabbling for the back of the sofa.

Top stuff, and a definite three cheers keeper.

Out and about finally in fully hi rez DVDRIPs all over the place including Viooz, etc etc. Get at it, get your kid hat on, crash out on the couch with the nippers and a bag of pick n mix, and have a ball.

[sandman67]

Theres nothing like an epic Chinese historical war drama to wile away a lazy Sunday evening, and the latest one based on the exploits of the noble sons of the Yang Clan that is out and about does not disappoint

SAVING GENERAL YANG

During the 5 Kingdoms period of pre-China the Song empire is invaded by their old enemies the Khitai, and so the Emperor dispatches his two greatest generals to face them down - the noble and brave General Yang, and his rival the scheming and cowardly General Pang. During a battle Pang leaves Yang isolated and cut off, retreating like a cowardly rat to the nearest fortress. Yang falls back to a mountaintop stronghold with the Khitai on his heels, hell bent on revenge for Yang's defeating them years before. So hearing of their fathers peril and his rivals cowardice Yang's loyal seven sons set out on a rescue mission.

Its a great example of the epic war/history drama that China makes sooooo well - full of noble deeds, big battles, and some excellent wire fu swordfighting fun. Looks absolutely gorgeous as well thanks to the lush sets, excellent costumes and dramatic scenery.

Out and about in wonderful crisp hi rez DVDRIPs and as a bonus is hard subbed in English (a lot of Chinese wu jia swordsman cinema is like that now). A top quality copy is available at Viooz.co for example in normal and hi rez formats.

Three easy cheers and a solid gold keeper.



The film collection at http://viooz.co/ just gets better and better as the days go by, with classics by the bucket load as well as up to date releases, many of which are in hi rez format as well as normal rez. Films from all over the world, and so many to watch and download you will need a new hard drive.

Use a simple streaming media plugin like DownloadHelper for Firefox to capture and download the vids to your HD.

If you aint visiting it at least once a week, you are seriously missing out on a great site.

http://viooz.co/

[sandman67]

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS

The second of JJ Abrams Star Trek reboots is if anything bigger, boomyer, grander and more epic than his first, but just like that excellent start this is top line entertainment from the opening to the end credits. As with the first it revisits the real old school high adventure style Star Trek (rather than the pompous up its own bum preachy ST that New Generations descended into), and even revisits the origin story for one of its baddest of bad guys. Along the way there are noble head nods to classic ST scenes from the original series and the best of the early movies, some eye popping CGI, and so many thrill a second edge of the seat sequences its like taking a ride in a spin dryer.

When a rogue agent of the secretive Section 31 blows up a data archive, then shoots the hell out of a subsequent war room meeting, Kirk, Spock and the crew are sent out to track him down and kill him using secret weapons developed by the same Section 31. Only one problem - the rogue agent is some kind of hyper powerful super human, and hes holed up on Klingon. When Kirk goes off plan things start to get very twisty indeed, and as the onion is peeled of layer after layer of deception and lies, the ground between enemy and ally becomes ever muddier.

This really is how ST is meant to be - yes there is an allegorical message about things now, and yes there is some moralising done, but its second place to a ripping sci-fi space opera high adventure romp with biffs, booms and attack ships on fire. Its a damn tragedy that this will be the last of the JJ reboots as hes now off to direct the Star Wars reboots for Disney, but hopefully whoever picks the franchise up wont spoil the broth and send it spiralling back into the limbo JJ saved it from.

The quality of the copies in circulation is just about watchable, but really as this is CGI eye candy leave it till the DVDRIPs come out. Passable TS copies are out and about, but they are pretty rubbish so just be patient and wait - its worth it.

When the DVDRIP comes out it will be a three cheers and three suns exploding solid gold keeper all the way

[sandman67]

Still having a hard time getting round to watching the newer releases Ive dropped. So in the meantime I can flag up a couple of recent uploads to http://viooz.co/ that Ive already reviewed and are well worth checking out:

SWORD OF DESPERATION - excellent neo-jidae samurai film released in 2010 - a slow burning drama set in the court of a daimayo and concerning a samurai who returns from his fall from grace to wreak bloody revenge in a stunningly filmed last sequence. A great example of the new samurai cinema coming out of Japan, and available in hi rez and fully subbed in English.

VERSUS - a classic bit of utterly insane Japanese extreme swordsman flick mashed up with a zombie horror/revenge and retribution plotlines. Made as one side of a two way arthouse film challenge between two of the best young directors of action films, this is an outstanding swords and splatter flick that takes the samurai genre and gives it a manga like sci-fi horror spinwash.

DEATH TRANCE - made by the same crew this does a similar spin wash swords and splatter thing, blending the Django character from spaghetti westerns (a stranger dragging a coffin on chains into a town full of bandits), samurai swordsman films, Chinese wire fu fantasy swordsman films, and Mad Max manga style post apocalypse flicks along with some influences from classic Japanese Kabuki theater. Good fun and pleasant on the eyes.

CONFUCIUS - Chow Yun Fat stars in this award winning biopic of the seminal Chinese philosopher telling the tale of his rise and fall during the Warring States era of pre-China.

FREEBIRD - great little feel good buddy Brit com about three oddball motorbike dispatch riders on a wild weekend break in the wilds of Wales. Sort of Withnail And I for bikers. Well funny in places and an excellent little watch.

DRAGON - also known by its Chinese name WUXIA this is your classic Chinese fantasy swordsman style film combined with a whodunnit storyline and shades of CSI thrown in for good measure. Donnie Yen steals the show as the silent and quiet farmer who has something of a history to hide from the Imperial Investigator sent to investigate a crime spree.

All of the above can be found by sifting through the recent posts to the site (click on the Movies tab on the sidebar then flip through the first 12 pages of films.)

Its a proper goldmine of great flicks - get at it.

[sandman67]

PHANTOM

I like submarine flicks - with horror flicks the isolation adds spice, and with thrillers the claustrophobic setting and connection between man and terrifying machine of death just rips things along. This latest sub aqua thriller is sort of a cross between CRIMSON TIDE and THE HUNT FOR RED OKTOBER, and stars an ensemble cast of character actors like Ed Harris, David Duchovny and William Fichtner who all play their parts well.

At the end of the cold war a Russian sub captain with a shady past record is given one last mission taking an obsolete diesel sub out on patrol. Turns out that the mission is in fact a live test run for a bit of tech built by the war boffins that can mask the identity of any sub by adapting its sonar profile, and the lads in charge of the test are all ultra fanatic KGB commandos. So combine that with a bleak future for their cold war unit, and a stack of nukes in the tubes and its pretty obvious that once out at sea the test will turn into something more real, and its only the captain and his crew that stand between the KGB and WW3.

I liked it - it does what it says on the tin and does it competently without getting silly or overly hammy. Its worth keeping as far as Im concerned - Im a fan of Harris and Fichter as actors, and this is a good little mutiny thriller on a sub flick. Gets a solid three cheers.

Out and about in DVDRIPs at all the usual suspects including at Viooz.

[migrant]

Im a fan of Harris

Same here
A few years back he did APPALOOSA based on a book by one of my favorite easy reading authers, Robert B Parker.

A western with Viggo Mortensen, as always Harris was superb!

[sandman67]

and so I begin the clearout of the download chest backlog

HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS

This got a real mixed bag of reviews - some loved it, some hated it. Me.... I think its great.

Take the bare bones of the Hansel & Gretel story, and then add a whole butchers shop full of meaty VAN HELSING style adventure gothic horror in a Tim Burton SLEEPY HOLLOW styleeee - and y get this action packed little gem. Yes its daft as a bag of frogs (mixing gatling guns and candy induced diabetes with The Brothers Grimm fairy tales) but I think it works.

Hansel and Gretel, after burning the candy housed witch, move into the lucrative trade of bounty hunting witches and other night stalkers. Their work eventually brings them to a town where 11 kids have gone missing, and it seems a local witch infestation is the cause. So, hampered by a less than co-operative populace and a sheriff that hates them and all they stand for, they set out to defeat the witches, save the kids, and make a fat bag o cash into the bargain. Thing is, it seems they have been here before, and as the adventure unfolds, the memories come slowly back......

One gripe I had with it was the overuse of swearing. Fits in some films, grinds like a sore tooth here. Other than that the action and CGI are top notch, and I appreciated the sly references to action and horror flick cliches thrown in for laughs. I liked it because it has a nice baroque gothyness to it, and I like the Van Helsing style action horror genre.

Out and about in hi rez DVDRIPs all over the place including Viooz. Three cheers and a solid gold keeper IMHO.

[sandman67]

right....two more from the downloads chest

V/H/S 2

Like the first outing this is a horror found footage anthology of shorts by different directors strung together with an overarching "real world" arc....and like the first its a proper mixed bag with some cools stuff but mainly mouldy rotten stuff. And like the first its the overarching story that is the worst of the lot - utterly stupid, pointless, and makes no sense at all.

The four "found footage" tape segments are like the first film one good, one ok, and two piss poor. The good one comes first and tells the creepy tale of a man who has a "bionic" eye prosthetic implant that helpfully, (for the film) records everything he sees....and he starts seeing ghosts. The next is piss poor and a stupid zombie attack flick. Then comes the OK one, which is an interesting little shocker around a Malaysian crazy religious cult compound and some visiting journalists. Then comes the worst of the lot - a dumb as nails alien abduction mess at the end.

My take - worth dropping to see the two OK segments, fast forward through the rest of the cack, then trash it. Gets one cheer for trying with the two OK parts and actually having a go with new ideas. Two raspberries for the rest of the cack



and another shocker horror..... THE FACILITY

Seven young bright things volunteer for a medical trial of a new product being researched by a big pharma company at their isolated facility miles from anywhere. After a few hours the first guinea piggy starts to act strangely, then as his condition gets worse the volunteers realise that the tests are going wrong, and all hell is breaking loose. The facility is in lockdown and the volunteers are now totally isolated, locked inside with a crazy on the loose and the drug in their veins turning each of them into a ticking timebomb of psychotic rage.

Filmed as a first project by a new director fresh from college, and on a titchy budget this may not break any new ground, or be an outstanding example, but what is there is good, and it does what it says on the tin. The splatter is at a minimum, and instead the film relies on off screen violence filled in by the mind of the viewer, and substitutes tight dialogue and pacy camera work instead. I like that in a flick - very Hitchcock, and very effective.

I liked it. Its no keeper, but well worth a drop and a watch IMHO. Two honest cheers - with a bit bigger budget and a bit better script could have easily been a three.



Both out and about in DVDRIPs at all the usual suspects including at Viooz.

[Dannie Boy]

I've just watched a film on you tube called Parker, starring Jason Statham and Jennifer Lopez. Great film with typical Jason Statham action and thoroughly recommended - look on you tube under Jason Statham and it will be one of the first things you find.

[buksida]

So in the meantime I can flag up a couple of recent uploads to http://viooz.co/ that Ive already reviewed and are well worth checking out...

Is there a way to download from Viooz (as you could from Veehd)? My connection is too shite to stream reliably.

Watched The Hangover III the other day ... if you've been waiting for this one don't bother, they ran out of ideas, gags, and a good plot after Vegas.

[sandman67]

Downloading from Viooz

This is only useful for users of Firefox or derivative variants like IceDragon - if there are Explorer or Opera plugins that do the same you may be more familiar with where to find them.

1) Go to the Mozilla site and download a flash video downloading plugin - I use one called DownloadHelper. There are a few available, and after trying a few I settled on DownloadHelper as it is so simple and reliable.

2) Install and restart browser

3) Open the relevant page for the flick, set it playing, and use the plug in to grab the link and paste it to a download manager like Flashget, or just download it using the plugin.

Viooz is a tricksy site as it uses implanted video players (usually associated with Googlevids) so grabbing the relevant link isnt possible without a sub browser plugin program like DownloadHelper to find and identify the links. http://keepvid.com/, which works for downloading YouTube, will not work with Viooz streaming media files.

Its also a pain with subtitled flicks as unless the subs are hard coded onto the film they are also hidden links, and so you will need to source those separately from Open Subtitles or a similar site.

Minor annoyances given the spankingly great quality of the site.

The same DownloadHelper plugin will also mean you can grab vids from YouTube, and all the other streaming media sites.

If you need to then convert the files or burn them to disks I recommend the great little freeware and burner converter suite by http://www.pazera-software.com/ - again easy to use and reliable. A lot of DVD players wont play FLV files, which is the common format of streaming media (although hi rez copies are usually MP4 format). Pazera make converters for all file types to convert to the one you need, and the burners are cool as well.

If there are any more questions or tips needed post requests here and I will sort out a tips post in reply so all can pick up the info.

Chin chin chaps and happy piratical surfing

[sandman67]

one to make you smile a bit

RAPTURE-PALOOZA

What ZOMBIELAND did for zombie flicks this does for Biblical apocalypse flicks, ripping heavily on the already dumb as nuts Left Behind evangelical christian flicks.

Two young and in love teenagers are not that surprised to find that when the Rapture happens they are left behind as they are not exactly churchy types. So, left in the end days they have to find ways to deal with abusive ravens, annoying locusts, falling molten rocks, rains of blood, and armies of invading wraiths that between bouts of destruction get stoned a lot....oh and the fat politician who turns out to be the Anti-Christ. When he sets his eye on the lass they decide enough is enough, and its time to kick some satanic butt.

Not laugh out loud funny, but definitely has some sharp barbs in there, and generally I was smiling all the way through. worth a watch at least IMHO - may not be a keeper but it kept me amused all the way to the end, and thats no bad thing at all. Two cheers for effort and having a go with a new idea....

Out and about at all the usual suspects in DVDRIP

[Homer]

Life of Pi

I put off seeing this because Ang Lee's films either leave me cold or totally engrossed. Usually it's cold. This one is brilliant. What's it about? These reviewers said it better than I can:

Mystical and endless as the number pi, 'The Life of Pi' works on a number of levels, all of them enchanting.
and
When adrift with Pi and the tiger on the open sea, the film is at its most wondrous: a ravishing spectacle that treads judiciously on the infinite line between what's possible and impossible.