lolly

Whispa it quietly but this might be good, doubt it'll be a Picnic to make though. Ban in 5,4,3,2,1

Vesper - (2022)Amazon Prime Struggling to survive with her father after the collapse of Earth's ecosystem, 13-year-old Vesper must use her wits, strength and bio-hacking abilities to fight for the future. I think someone reviewed this already and pretty much summed it up better than I can, it's very reminiscent of " The Prospect" which I though was excellent. This is good too, there's all sorts going on thematically and the allusions to the greater universe are nicely done. It doesn't hand hold too much so it's a nice change from the usual, the acting is decent with Eddie Marsan and Richard Brake doing some sterling work and there's a few really nice touches throughout,I especially liked the realisation of a specific sci fi trope to quite menacing effect . Only complaint is that I found it a little slow for the 1st half but there's an awful lot to like here. 4/5

Are ye Furya want to keep making these Vin?

Robot Holocaust (1987) A highly unlikely band of heroes traverses a post-apocalyptic wasteland to rescue a scientist from the tyrannical Dark One and his army of robots. This has featured on Mystery Science Theatre apparently , not that I watch it but I hear it’s decent. Some of the stuff I’ve watched recently has been incredibly cheap but this one takes the absolute biscuit , or would if they could afford them. The costumes, locations and props are all super cheap and the big bad’s lair is quite obviously a cartoon picture inserted into the shot. The acting is actually the worst thing I’ve seen so far , some of the delivery is absolutely laughable; mistimed, over enunciated and with all the emotion of the rubber suited dudes that are supposedly robots. By that measure though some of the actors appear to be taking it super seriously and give the impression they’re creating high art which is amusing in it’s own right. There’s also a fair bit of amusement to be had with where they’ve filmed this, it’s supposedly a post apocalyptic wasteland but the New York skyline can be seen in multiple shots looking absolutely fine, you can tell some of it’s shot on a wasteland near the city as well as Central Park , which looks well dodgy and it looks like the cast may have been in more peril on set than alluded to be the story. It also seems to suffer from the “fuck we’re out of money and /or I didn’t write and ending, shoot something quick and cheap” kind of ending that crops up in a few of these sorts of movies. Anyway, it’s fairly predictably shit and a lot of scenes bear little or no resemblance to the one just preceding them but it chugs along with no little enthusiasm so on that basis it’s recommended if your tolerance is high. 3/5

Fair warning ,I accept absolutely no responsibility for your enjoyment , or lack thereof, if you choose to pursue this course of action. I'm not sure what has motivated me to watch a load of C grade martial arts/sci fi movies but as a contrast I stuck on the 1st 1/2 hour of a Donnie Yen thing that has sumptuous visuals , gloriously choreographed martial arts and I'm properly looking forward to finishing it over the weekend. And it's made me think of how well made, and actually tight , things are like The Raid, Dredd (regardless of whether people like that interpretation of Dredd himself) and the John Wick movies are. To counteract that there's some thing on Prime with what looks like the baddie twins out of Conan the Barbarian in it, they look like a pair of proper thespians.

Robot Jox (1989) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102800/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 In the distant future, mankind has forsaken global wars for battles of single combat. The world has been divided into two opposing super powers, with each side represented by trained champions. That fails to mention that these champions fight in giant Mechs with stands of spectators incredibly close with little or no regard to the most basic of OHS guidelines. I remember seeing this in and around when it came out in ’89 and I wasn’t particularly impressed with it then so I’m not sure what I expected this time around, is it as bad as I remember? Happily, no, it’s worse! The sets are poor, the cast largely awful and it’s very much of it’s time attitude wise. This might be partially forgiven if the special effects were decent but some good stop motion work, which would have been acceptable, are undermined by cuts to static models doing the square root of fuck all except getting a few sparklers and bangers chucked their way.The martial arts segments in the training rooms and elsewhere looks like a bunch of actors that have had about 3 weeks to prepare.The ending is fucking risible. While all of that is largely negative there are a few positives in this, there's nods to a greater dystopia withing the setting during the lulls in action, the opening scene is reasonably well done and sets a pretty dark tone even if you can see how cheap it is and there’s clearly the ambition there to get a “live action “ giant mechs fighting movie made, as mentioned some of the stop motion is good (if you like that kind of thing) and this seems like an early ancestor to Pacific Rim for obvious reasons. It’s not worth it though, even as a curiosity. 1.5/5

White tiger (1996) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118159/?ref_=fn_al_tt_3 After a Chinese drug lord murders his partner, a tough DEA agent teams up with a mysterious beauty and makes an uneasy alliance to exact revenge If you like combat rolls and a noticeably inconsistent number of baddies scene to scene in your martial arts movie then White tiger may be for you. Whereas TC 2000 knew what it was and kept it simple , with lots of fights and minimal inconvenience of a story , White Tiger attempts to have it’s plot and eat it too. Which is to the detriment of the action as again, these guys , specifically the lead ,Gary Daniels who I thought was Ray Park of Darth Maul fame , is an accomplished martial artist and when he’s fighting it’s good fun.When it’s doing the rest of the daytime television movie of the week is where it drags this down and you end up going too long between drinks of water. In fairness it picks up towards the end where there’s a couple of half decent fights and one very pretty silhouette shot using sunlight and smoke that looks cool. Also there’s an impressive if a little incoherent pyrotechnic display at the finale. Can’t say I recommend it because of the paucity of action until towards the end and they cut out the combat rolls after the initial flurry so that was disappointing. 2/5

TC 2000 Early 90s martial arts guff where humans live underground due to a man made disaster. Something something " surface world" . Budget of probably $10 this has a load of martial artists who were bit part players in Bloodsport and various other B grade movies around that time but does have Bolo Yeung and Billy Blanks. It's as cheap as can be and looks like it was shot on location in a chemical Factory at night after the staff went home to save on costs. The acting is abysmal , the plot nonsensical and it borrows liberally from a lot of other , better movies, specifically Terminator. There's obvious poor dubbing where actors with limited English are required to give anything more than a yes or no answer.blanks probably should have been dubbed too. Despite all that some of the fights are pretty good and it's hard not to appreciate the skill of all the martial artists involved, some of the fights in the background or by bit part folk are wonderfully choreographed and superbly athletic and the main guys do good work on that front. My wife came in half way through and looked at me like I was insane after watching a few minutes, little does she know I'm planning on watching a heap of these daft c grade movies over the next year. Anyway 3/5 for the fights and the rest of it being barely above children's pantomime quality of acting, which has a charm of its own for about an hour of the 90 minutes and sure by that stage you're committed.

Hyperion- Dan Simmons I think this is considered a Sci-Fi classic ? Anyhow , the author uses a pilgrimage by a number of folks to tell a number of disparate stories crossing various genres, some are quite good but the most interesting one, for me,is given short shrift an the motivation is overemphasised while the results, which sounded like a far more interesting story are given a lot less time. Some of the characters are not brilliantly written but nothing too egregious. The final paragraph of the book however, is one of the most toe curling shit endings of anything ever IMO, his editor should have been fired for letting that pass. I'd be interested to see where the sequel take the story but that ending has me questioning whether to bother.

I've said this before elsewhere but this is pretty solid up until Arnie shows up and from memory the focus changes from the younger and more interesting/energetic character in Mackenzie Davis the two older ones in Arnie and Hamilton and the pace drops fairly considerably to the detriment of the movie. It's still pretty reasonable , probably good ,by the standard of the franchise, though there's always a nugget or two of gold even in the worst ones, be it the design of a specific terminator, an overall idea being quite good or whatever.

Once upon a time in Hollywood DiCaprio is outstanding and some of the movie making stuff is great,the violence at a certain point is ridiculously OTT and doesn't sit with the tone of the rest of the film. QT very obviously likes the smell of his own farts , it's quite self indulgent but not bad for all that. 3.5/5

Hollywood Hills Joseph Wambaugh By the numbers crime thing by Wambaugh, though the numbers never go very high. There's a bit of a plot about a robbery of high end paintings but a lot of the interesting stuff is the outlandish beat cop stories and they are amusing in their own right, there's one dust up that's very good . The end of the "plot" so to speak is decent but the journey to get there may not be worth it. Unless you really like Wambaugh and believe all cops are good guys I'd give this a miss.

The Banshees of Inisherin Wrote some words in the dedicated thread , I can see why people wouldn't enjoy it but I thought it was fantastic .Dark, funny, depressing and ultimately very good. 4.5/5 Bullettrain I assume there's an original manga or movie in Japanese "that's much better", great, this might inspire me to go find that. In the meantime this is a fun ,violent romp with Pitt on top form and a few extended cameos from some well know names. 4/5

Saw it last night with the wife, she was not impressed and I absolutely adored it, would love to see a breakdown of the imagery in it there's a lot of subtle stuff there that I was sure I was missing. Thought the cast was excellent and Farrell was outstanding. Will watch it again to see what else I missed.Also

The Wolf of Snow Hollow Written , directed and starring Jim Cummings with Riki Lindhome as the actual MVP in it this is a werewolf B movie that's pretty tight at 125 minutes and pretty good as far as the genre goes. It' s not particularly scary movie and Cummings seems to have a plot about how difficult it is to be, and cope with, an alcoholic and makes the fairly brave choice of being the least likeable character in this while also the star. I think this is Forster's last movie and Lindhome is the the most likeable and probably the best thing in it , it's not overly gory and not a terrible way to spend an hour and a half .3.5/5 Extra Ordinary Irish Comedy horror set in a small rural town beset by ghostly happenings, a "Ghost whisperer" who has turned her back on her craft to be a driving instructor gets drawn back in when a client's daughter is earmarked for sacrifice to a demon in return for regaining his fame by a One hit wonder from the 80s. Pretty gentle, very Irish humor with a few bits of slyness to it this is an easy watch with a few laughs. This one's just over an hour and a half so doesn't outstay it's welcome, reminded me a bit of Wellington paranormal, same sort of absurd supernatural tone.3/.55

Read a couple a while back that I don't think I added Cibola Burn 4# in the expanse series, you know what you're getting here, reliable space opera with a fairly likeable cast of characters, this one correlates to the same season on the telly unsurprisingly but that either drops or adds things from other seasons as necessary to widen the focus a bit .It's a bit slower paced than the previous installments and I think that was a criticism leveled at the season as well, still solid stuff though.No ginormous plot holes you could fly an Ark ship through in this one though(that I noticed). Picnic at Hanging Rock. Fictional account of the disappearance of a number of girls and their teacher at Hanging Rock in Victoria, Australia in 1900 while on a school outing. Very much of it's time and considered an Australian classic , some of the descriptions are , unkind , to put it diplomatically. I found it difficult to get in to initially but it picks up quite quickly and really enjoyed it by the end. There were a few moments of skin crawling disquiet , it's a low key slow burn psychological horror and there's a creeping dread about it.Recommended.

Red badge of courage. Short , classic story set during the American civil war of a soldier's 1st experiences of combat. I bounced off this when I was a teenager but 30 or so years later it's an interesting insight into the mindset of the day. What doesn't change if you've read more contemporary accounts of war is the emotions and nature of the experience. Seemed shit then, seems shit now.

The Crossing- Cormac McCarthy late 1930s -early 1940s New Mexico and Mexico set story whereby a 16 year old boy brings a trapped she -wolf back to Mexico to release and it climbs ever upwards upwards into an outpouring of joy and a Disney ending. Does it fuck. It's the 2nd part of the Border trilogy and again it's the usual McCarthy- musings on the nature of the world , the depravity/brutality of man etc and almost a coming of age story . For me this is his best work, that I've read and I loved Blood Meridian but this is sombre , tragic and reflective whereas that book almost seems to revel in the sheer savagery and heartbreak of human nature. Both are superior to All the Pretty Horses. Probably going to leave it a few weeks before I read Cities of the Plain

in answer to you question I think they are : Easy

They stuck the landing. lots of people have mentioned the various nuances in the final episode so I won't bother apart from one thing

On the Tremors scale of brilliant B movie horrors(though obviously not as good)- Deep Rising - there is some nasties in regards folks being eaten /melted. Tucker and Dale vs Evil - though that's a bit meta for a 9 year old possibly Edit Super 8 Cloverfield

Can't wait to see the finale next week

The Northman Pretty much a straight up revenge movie with a bit of mysticism thrown in , probably a bit too long but there's some stunning sequences in here . 3/5

Emperor - The Gates of Rome- Conn Iggulden 1st of his Julius Caesar series, focus on his early life, of which little is known apparently . It's distracting enough and follows similar beats to the 1st of the Genghis Khan opener, which as joemul mentions, is his best.Where this falls down is that Caesar ends up being a bit of a Mary Jane from the get go , which for me is ultimately boring,and a time jump in the "training" doesn't help matters nor does the deus ex machina on a couple of occasions, characterisation has never been Iggulden's strong point but it seems especially bad here. Moving on to the good, it's a pretty quick paced book despite clocking in at 400ish pages, Caesar isn't always the primary focus and some of the other characters are given some time to breathe and the set pieces are pretty awesome , worth the price of admission on their own, there's one which is especially good and up there with some of the ones in the Khan series. I'm going to read some McCarthy next to cleanse the palette.

The Glass Hotel - Emily St John Mandel I have an uncorrected bound proof copy that i picked up for $4 in an op shop so don't know how many changes are in the published version.Reasonably small cast of characters , different viewpoints of the collapse of a Bernie Madoff type Ponzi scheme and the impact on those directly involved and some ancillary characters. I personally loved it and thought it was as good as Station Eleven, it seems to be set in a parallel universe where the events of that book may or may not be relevant, but have read criticism that the disparate parts don't work so your mileage may vary. Started iggulden's Julius Caesar series, absolute horseshit, but enjoyable horseshit nonetheless