Today I Watched...

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Today I watched Rise of Skywalker.

... enjoyed it.

How, I don't know.

It kinda sucks a viewer in and has POWERHOUSE EXCITEMENT!

[AlexMcpherson79]

... I guess, its got a 'I love it the first time, second time doesn't feel so good' vibe to it.
Still better than Last Jedi though...

If anything, I think TLJ ruined this film... and based on that, and seperately, word of mouth, wouldn't have gone to watch this one if I didn't have a cineworld unlimited card.

[Graham Kennedy]

Today I watched Rise of Skywalker.

... enjoyed it.

How, I don't know.

Weird, isn't it? I sat there thinking "this is terrible. Terrible, terrible enjoyable fun!"

[McAvoy]

Today I watched Rise of Skywalker.

... enjoyed it.

How, I don't know.

Weird, isn't it? I sat there thinking "this is terrible. Terrible, terrible enjoyable fun!"

I was the same way. Popcorn blockbuster film.

[Graham Kennedy]

Today I watched... Midway. The recent one.

It was quite good. I winced a bit at the pilot hero as "the guy who flies like a cowboy but the Navy doesn't mind because he gets the job done, dammit!" But he wasn't too obnoxious, just a bit annoying. Knew his freaky landing trick from the start would play into the end.

From what I've read there's a bunch of mistakes with regards to equipment, markings, etc, but it's mostly pretty small stuff and I didn't even know about it till I read up on it after, so no biggie. Was more surprised that they abbreviated some of the action - you'd never know American carriers even carried fighters from this film, though their fighters were involved in every action. Guess they thought it would be too confusing.

I do wonder why these kinds of films don't seem to be able to just focus on the subject. Pearl Harbor gave us the Battle of Britain and the Doolittle raid. Midway gives us Pearl Harbor, the Doolittle raid, Coral Sea... just focus on your battle, movie!

I thought the CGI stuff was a little bit cartoony - not awful, but really brightly coloured, and just a tad bit unreal. But again, it wasn't terrible, it was fine. And I did appreciate getting clear views of the action; the old Midway movie used actual battle footage, but as a result the battle scenes weren't exactly well staged or shot, and this was a definite improvement. Also appreciated that whilst we did get a bit of home-life stuff going on, we didn't get the tedious romance angle or anything that Pearl Harbor went for. They had a straight story to tell, they told it pretty well.

Also I liked that they put some of the Japanese stuff in there, showing them planning, talking about their reasons for fighting, etc. A lot of war movies act as though the Japanese just decided one day that a war with America would be fun, so it was nice to see them talk about the oil embargo and such. And I thought it was rather touching that they dedicated the film to the men lost on both sides. All allies now, and all that.

I left appreciating the battle, the skill and heroism of the men involved, and the tragic price payed by both sides. I was also quite entertained, more so than I expected to be going in.

[Graham Kennedy]

Today I watched... 1917.

I'd heard good things about this movie, but it didn't really meet them - it exceeded them.

The basic story I'm sure you know - the Germans have retreated several miles, abandoning their positions. This is a trap - the new positions occupy a shorter front and more easily defended, so the planned attack on them will lead to a slaughter. Communication with the area has been cut off so the General in charge sends to messengers to carry a letter cancelling the attack.

What that leads to is one long trek through the battlefield, showcasing some of the devastation the war has caused. It's gripping stuff, helped along by the way the film is cut together to appear as if it was a single long take from beginning to end. It isn't, but there were only about three times I spotted the joins, so to speak, so it really is well done.

All the actors involved are doing good work. They don't endlessly moan about the war, there's no "Why are we here!" hand wringing really. They're just getting on with it and hoping they don't die before the war ends.

One criticism I've seen levelled at the film is that it depicts the general caring that a couple of his battalions are going to get chopped up for nothing. The popular image of Generals in WWI is that they pretty much thought of their men as being about on the level of toy soldiers, where if they get damaged or broken you just get some more. From what I understand this view is now being challenged by historians, with the thesis that the mass casualties came not from a lack of care about the men so much as that through most of the war massed infantry attacks were pretty much the only thing you could do due to the technical limitations of the time. As the technology came along to allow better co-ordination of forces, the use of tanks, etc, the Generals were only too happy to employ them. So I don't really buy that complaint about the film.

All in all, probably the best film of the year so far.

[Graham Kennedy]

Today I watched... Horror Express.

One of those old Christopher Lee/Peter Cushing movies. This one has a sci-fi bent; Lee is a scientist type who digs up a 2 million year old fossil in the depths of Siberia. It's an early ape-human, the supposed "missing link" people believed in then. The fossil, of course, wakes up on the train back home and starts killing people. Turns out it harbours an alien intelligence that can move between bodies via red-glowing eyes. The alien was left behind when its people left, and now is trying to work out a way to get back into space.

I remember watching this as a kid, and always found the creature particularly creepy.



You get several decent looks at it, too, and it's really a surprisingly good makeup job. There's fun to be had from seeing it do its thing, and a bit of a whodunnit atmosphere to the whole thing. Tele Savalas turns up with a bunch of Cossacks to investigate the train, and although he's fun to watch, I fear the movie takes a turn for the worse here. It worked better as a "confined space" kind of story, and bringing in new outside elements doesn't quite sit well with me.

Still, whilst it's never a great or especially memorable one, I still find it a fun one.

[Graham Kennedy]

Today I Watched... Dark Encounter

I like me some UFO movies, and I usually don't mind if they're bad so long as they're entertainingly bad. This one is kind of good... in that it's well made, well acted, and it's ultimately a twist on the UFO/aliens thing that could have been interesting.

Trouble is that 1) it's so heavily rooted in Spielberg's work that it's practically outright plagiarism. Foggy nights with every light source casting glowing beams through the fog? Check. Starry sky backgrounds in which a "star" creeps across the sky? Check. Aliens showing up making household stuff go crazy? Check. In fact about half the film plays out like that kid abduction scene from Close Encounters, only spun out to 45 minutes long. It's a shame too, because it's all done pretty well - there are clearly competent people doing the camerawork, lighting, cinematography, effects. It's just a shame that all that competence is being so heavily used to ape another, better, filmmaker.

And 2) It's really, really boring. It's not a long film - 97 minutes - but by god it feels like a long film. In part that's because they don't really give the characters much to do. There's like six or seven people in the family at the centre of the film, and every one of them spends at least 3/4 the movie staring at the alien lights or noises with an expression of amazement or shock or terror. And doing nothing. Just... standing there.

It's a real shame because as I said, the central idea could have been good. Or at least quite original. Spoiler :

Basic story is that a young girl vanishes from her family home. Given the film, it seems like it's an alien abduction. A year later the aliens return and start abducting the rest of the family one by one. Turns out, they never abducted the girl - one of the family murdered her and buried the body. It's suggested that the aliens visited her before this happened and wanted the murder of their "friend" solved so were waiting for humans to work it out. When we didn't, they came to make clear what had happened.

See? Doesn't that sound like it could be kind of interesting? Well it isn't.

It's a competent film with potential, but it fails in the implementation. Do not recommend.

[Graham Kennedy]

Today I watched... Tentacles

I was listening to a review of Jaws and they mentioned how so many copycat movies came out in the following years, all of them bad. I had one of those little lightbulb moments - what's the worst Jaws ripoff? I had to find it and watch it! Google returned "Tentacles", and the rest is history.

Tentacles is more or less Jaws with a giant octopus. The film opens with a scene that's not bad, if a bit over the top. We see a mother with her baby, out for some sunshine. They're sitting next to the sea wall, kept safe by a chain barrier. The lady sees a friend on the road thirty yards or so away and goes to chat. Traffic goes past behind her, cutting off the view of the baby. And we get a point of view shot of the creature approaching the shore. Oooooo. Finally a truck goes by and when it's gone, so is the baby.

Clearly somebody said "Jaws kills a kid! Let's one-up it and kill a baby!" It is kind of ballsy, but also kind of exploitative.

We get ten minutes of this - people doing stuff near the sea, somebody looks away, when they look back they're gone. Turns out the construction of a local tunnel is disturbing sea life, and has brought the monster to the surface. No less than Henry Fonda owns the company that's building the tunnel - he'd just had surgery, and performs his very few scenes sitting down chatting to people. Shelly Winters is also present, for whatever that's worth.



Much of the movie plays out like Jaws, except there's really no "don't close the beach" character. Fonda comes closest with his denials of the tunnel being to blame, but he doesn't have much effect on the plot.

Alas, this movie doesn't really tread into "so bad it's good" territory. It's mostly just boring and utterly pedestrian. The hero is a trainer for a pair of Orcas, and at one point he literally talks to the sea, asking them to lend a hand with the issue. They seem to ignore him, but at the climax of the film the Orcas rush to the rescue and dispatch the Octopus. So I guess the film is claiming Orcas understand English and are fully sentient. Which is nice.

Anyway, do not recommend.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Today I watched... the Adventures of Robin Hood, the 1938 movie.

It was pretty damned good. Fast-paced, packed a lot in, but didn't feel rushed. Some really cool action scenes and swordfighting. I felt Errol was a tad too... jokey on occasion, but otherwise really good.

"You speak treason!"

"Fluently."

I love that line.

[Graham Kennedy]

Today I Watched... This Island Earth

A classic bit of sci-fi, This Island Earth concerns Cal Meacham, a rugged and manly scientist type who is working on a process to convert Lead into Uranium. Yes, no less than transmutation! As he's flying back to his lab (in a jet that the government apparently just gave him as a present because he's so brainy - remember how 50s sci fi used to love treating scientists as if they were Important People?), his aircraft runs out of control and almost crashes - saved at the last second by a strange green glowing energy that surrounds it and brings it down safely.

Cal find further mysteries back in the lab - a sizeable piece of equipment his assistant ordered has arrived, in the form of a handful of small beads. Cal tests a bead and it takes an inordinate amount of voltage to overload it. Subsequently a mysterious book is delivered with plans and parts list for constructing an "interocitor", a device that can apparently do more or less anything. Cal builds the gadget and is contacted by Exeter, a strange white-haired man.



It's incredibly obvious that Exeter is an alien, though apparently this fact passes Cal by. Exeter lures Cal to his mansion, where various scientists are working on "world peace". But amazingly, Exeter and his lackeys prove to be aliens who want Cal's new unlimited-atomic-power project for themselves. Exeter takes Cal and his obligatory lady sidekick back to his planet, which is being bombarded by alien attackers. But it's too later, the war is lost and Exeter's people are about to be exterminated. He flees back to Earth with Cal and his galpal, releasing them. Alas he's used all his energy, and his ship crashes and explodes. The end.

By far the strongest part of the film is the first act. The mysteries are interesting, you're always engaged, everything always makes sense.

The second act is... weak. Most notably, as mentioned above it's really obvious that Exeter and his peeps are aliens, and Cal starts to look like a moron for not seeing it. There's also a whole thing where he has a past with the lady scientist but she refuses to admit it, because she thinks he might be brainwashed. Huh? How does lying about that make a difference if he is in fact brainwashed?

The flight to the alien planet is okay, but once there not a lot happens. So much so that the MST3k version highlights a moment where the screen is adjusted to "normal view", which the score then treats with a musical crescendo suitable for some immense dramatic reveal.

The alien boss man says they want to flee their planet and conquer Earth, but it's pretty obvious that they don't have the ability to, so that doesn't amount to anything. Exeter is told to brainwash them, but instead he just leaves to take them home as the planet melts behind them (turning into a star, somehow). There's a mutant monster that attacks, but he dies on his own thanks to a kind of decompression thing you have to do in the ship.



So as a hero, Cal is lacking. Nothing he does has much of an effect on the plot. He doesn't convince Exeter to change sides, Exeter just does it himself. He doesn't even kill the mutant, it just dies by itself. He doesn't come back with any new knowledge or technology. For the second half of the film he's basically just along for the ride.

It's worth a watch for that first third, and I give it an overall weak recommendation just as an example of it's time. But it pales in comparison to something like Forbidden Planet.

[Graham Kennedy]

Today I watched... Bombshell



The story of Fox News and its creator and CEO, Roger Ailes, and his penchant for... well, not being very gentlemanly to the women he employed.

It's an interesting story, and paints a rather unflattering picture of Ailes and of the Fox News atmosphere in general. The place was clearly rather a toxic environment for women to work in - they were treated largely as pieces of meat to be put on display. John Lithgow does a superb job as Ailes, making the man so creepy and disgusting that you have to remind yourself that he's human a couple of times. In particular the scene where he asks new employee Kayla Pospisil (a composite character not representing any specific person) to stand up and show him her legs is just... he keeps on saying "higher..." as she hikes up her dress, and his breathing becomes something disgusting to listen to as he repeats it over and over until she's showing off her panties.

They touch on O'Reilly's own bad behaviour, without going to far into it. I'd be prepared to bet there were others at Fox News doing the same thing. If there's one thing you can say about guys like this it's that they think it's normal behaviour, even praiseworthy. If the boss is like that, you can bet he's hiring guys who are like that too.

Also amusing just how utterly Gretchen ran rings around him. She put out quotes of disgusting things he said, knowing full well that he would deny it completely. No equivocation, just flat denial. And that's when she revealed that she'd been taping her conversations with him for a year before she was fired, and everything he'd denied was on tape in his own voice. Whups. She walked away with a $20,000,000 settlement. In the final scene her lawyers point out that the settlement contains a gagging order, so she will never be able to truly tell her story. "Maybe," she says. And the thesis of the film is to tell it for her.

All in all a decent film, and an interesting one. Recommend.

[McAvoy]

Watched Robin Hood Men in Tights.

Still very much watchable after all these years.

[McAvoy]

Today I watched... Midway. The recent one.

It was quite good. I winced a bit at the pilot hero as "the guy who flies like a cowboy but the Navy doesn't mind because he gets the job done, dammit!" But he wasn't too obnoxious, just a bit annoying. Knew his freaky landing trick from the start would play into the end.

From what I've read there's a bunch of mistakes with regards to equipment, markings, etc, but it's mostly pretty small stuff and I didn't even know about it till I read up on it after, so no biggie. Was more surprised that they abbreviated some of the action - you'd never know American carriers even carried fighters from this film, though their fighters were involved in every action. Guess they thought it would be too confusing.

I do wonder why these kinds of films don't seem to be able to just focus on the subject. Pearl Harbor gave us the Battle of Britain and the Doolittle raid. Midway gives us Pearl Harbor, the Doolittle raid, Coral Sea... just focus on your battle, movie!

I thought the CGI stuff was a little bit cartoony - not awful, but really brightly coloured, and just a tad bit unreal. But again, it wasn't terrible, it was fine. And I did appreciate getting clear views of the action; the old Midway movie used actual battle footage, but as a result the battle scenes weren't exactly well staged or shot, and this was a definite improvement. Also appreciated that whilst we did get a bit of home-life stuff going on, we didn't get the tedious romance angle or anything that Pearl Harbor went for. They had a straight story to tell, they told it pretty well.

Also I liked that they put some of the Japanese stuff in there, showing them planning, talking about their reasons for fighting, etc. A lot of war movies act as though the Japanese just decided one day that a war with America would be fun, so it was nice to see them talk about the oil embargo and such. And I thought it was rather touching that they dedicated the film to the men lost on both sides. All allies now, and all that.

I left appreciating the battle, the skill and heroism of the men involved, and the tragic price payed by both sides. I was also quite entertained, more so than I expected to be going in.

Midway is considered one of the most historically accurate films made. It's the small details.

I can't speak about thd carrier landing as being accurate or not (could be for all we know). But the big one for me was Arizona. In the movie with her bow basically removed from the rest of the ship the ship started to turn. In real life the the ship sank very quickly once that bomb did its massive damage.

[Graham Kennedy]

You know, I'd really love to see a couple of the Brit Navy movies get a big buget remake. I'd love to see Battle of the River Plate and Sink the Bismark with proper quality CGI battles in them. I now it'll never happen - no audience for it - but man, that would be fun.