I recently watched the 1968 cop thriller Madigan starring Richard Widmark and Henry Fonda. I think is probably the one of the very best in the film genre. This feels more like a docu-drama than a thriller, a day-in-the life of cops. This isn't like Dirty Harry, Lethal Weapon, etc. in which the antagonists could be a threat to an entire city, it's just one punk who stole a gun from Madigan. Madigan, played effectively by Widmark, is simply trying to live day by day devoting time to the job and some to his wife. Henry Fonda plays the police commisioner who clearly lost touch with the men he employs; He's more interested in going by the book than anything else. Don Seigel directed this film and who better to capture the gritty reality of a movie than him. This film is remarkable because it's un-remarkable.
Last night I gave my "intellect" a real kicking by watching Jackass 3D with a grop of friends (yes, they were all male and under 30).
Whilst I completely agree with those who dismiss it as crude, juvenile etc I'm not going to fall into the trap of slating it and claiming the moral high-ground. Likewise I'm not going to pretend I didn't laugh during some of the stunts (one of which involves a jet engine).
I suppose one thing you can never accuse Jackass of is having pretentions above its station. It knows its stupid, it knows its dumb and never attempts to be anything other than that.
all three Toy Story movies. in a row. hadn't seen the 3rd one yet, and I'll admit...it made me cry. damn you, Pixar and your heart-string tugging lines...
Recently took in Star Crash, and well, the John Barry score is sumptuous. I think he made it between Moonraker and The Black Hole. The DTS had my speakers singing.
Caroline is lovely as super space heroine Stella Starr, Chris Plummer is slumming, and the Hoff's hair is ... perfect! (so is his eye shadow)
Recently took in Star Crash, and well, the John Barry score is sumptuous. I think he made it between Moonraker and The Black Hole. The DTS had my speakers singing.
Caroline is lovely as super space heroine Stella Starr, Chris Plummer is slumming, and the Hoff's hair is ... perfect! (so is his eye shadow)
all three Toy Story movies. in a row. hadn't seen the 3rd one yet, and I'll admit...it made me cry. damn you, Pixar and your heart-string tugging lines...
You're in good company Pen, I cried like a baby at TS3 !!!!
TS3 was hands down the best movie I saw in 2010. Intelligent, clever, funny, inventive and heart tugging, it had it all. Just picked up the DVD and can't wait to see it again.
LoeffelholzThe United States, With LovePosts: 8,993Quartermasters
Recently took in Star Crash, and well, the John Barry score is sumptuous. I think he made it between Moonraker and The Black Hole. The DTS had my speakers singing.
Caroline is lovely as super space heroine Stella Starr, Chris Plummer is slumming, and the Hoff's hair is ... perfect! (so is his eye shadow)
Check out my Amazon author page!Mark Loeffelholz
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
all three Toy Story movies. in a row. hadn't seen the 3rd one yet, and I'll admit...it made me cry. damn you, Pixar and your heart-string tugging lines...
Damn you indeed, Pixar. Tried to watch Ratatouille the other night, the story of the French rodent chef. Gave up after an hour, doesn't help that Pixar's adults look bland and rubbery, in contrast to Disney's delightful caricatures of the 1950s and 60s. Disney would have done this a lot better back then by chucking in some decent songs and comedy characters like Jasper and Horace or Smee. None of the characters in this had any charisma but even then they'd struggle by having the two leads a rat and a human, who can't really communicate verbally. It always threatens to break that cartoon internal logic where the human and adult world are meant to be kept essentially separate. Pongo and Perdy for instance are still just dogs in their owners' eyes, even if we know better.
I think the last film I saw was Paranormal Activity 2. Personally I enjoyed the first movie a lot, and this one was a bit of a step back... felt more like "the second Paranormal Activity movie" rather than "a series of spontaneous freaky hauntings in cinema verité". But it was still pretty damn scary...
"The secret agent. The man who was only a silhouette..." -- Ian Fleming, Moonraker
1) The Spy Who Loved Me 2) On Her Majesty's Secret Service 3) GoldenEye 4) Casino Royale 5) Goldfinger
I saw the 1944 classic Women in The Window directed by Fritz Lang. A professor falls in love with a woman, who looks alot like a woman in a portrait he saw, and does almost anything to keep her. Eddie G. Robinson plays the Professor and he does outstanding job as a man who is conflicted with logic and feeling after he meets this woman. I know people think of Eddie G. they think of Rico from Little Caesar but he's a terrific and sympathetic leading man. Just like James Cagney, he was type casted all too often as the dumb thug, crime boss, or tough guy. Here Robinson proves himself to be as charismatic as Gregory Peck or Spencer Tracy. You may see the ending of Women in The Window coming but I found it a shock.
Watched the Hammer Horror film "Brides Of Dracula" on Wednesday night. Really good sequel to their first one, despite the film having a couple of goofs. Actually many people claim it's the best Hammer Dracula film and it doesn't even have the man in it!
Kill Bill, volume 1...well, the first half, anyway. good thing I've seen it a few times before, 'cause the roomie fell asleep halfway through. Always a good one to watch.
This week I saw the latest Steve Austin vehicle - 'Hunt To Kill'. It's much the same as his previous work with a little more budget, it seems he is destined for the DVD market with the likes of Seagal & Van Damme, but hopefully the exposure from The Expendables will give him some better work?
LoeffelholzThe United States, With LovePosts: 8,993Quartermasters
Watched the Hammer Horror film "Brides Of Dracula" on Wednesday night. Really good sequel to their first one, despite the film having a couple of goofs. Actually many people claim it's the best Hammer Dracula film and it doesn't even have the man in it!
Probably my all-time favourite Hammer horror film B-)
Check out my Amazon author page!Mark Loeffelholz
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Kill Bill, volume 1...well, the first half, anyway. good thing I've seen it a few times before, 'cause the roomie fell asleep halfway through. Always a good one to watch.
I remeber seeing this at the cinema -having managed to avoid all publicity etc for some reason. It was literally like, "Shall we see that? Two tickets please..." I came out just jumping mad that it was in two parts and I'd have to wait! Great films.
Amazon #1 Bestselling Author. If you enjoy crime, espionage, action and fast-moving thrillers follow this link:
Recently took in Star Crash, and well, the John Barry score is sumptuous. I think he made it between Moonraker and The Black Hole. The DTS had my speakers singing.
Caroline is lovely as super space heroine Stella Starr, Chris Plummer is slumming, and the Hoff's hair is ... perfect! (so is his eye shadow)
Sadly the poster is the best thing about this dreadful 1970s smutfest, a sex comedy that will put you off comedy and then sex. Admittedly I went into this with a bit of smart alec schadenfreud, knowing it would be awful and hoping to enjoy if for that reason, but as it went on I began to feel the joke was on me. It's degrading in all the wrong ways, but at least the people up on screen were paid to be in it, what's my excuse?
The first sex scene, or rather nude scene, is six minutes in when we watch a buxom lass starkers, putting on her panties. Oh, she doesn't actually DO anything. Just to watch a woman with her kit off is decadence enough. One is allowed to come all over David Attenborough (no - stop it!) and marvel at the evolution of the fairer sex in the last 30 years; the woman is a bit wide in the berth, a bit Prussian, as much like today's porn stereotype as those plump woman in What the Butler Saw machines. But this is porn still in its infancy, we're comparing Space Invaders to Black Ops.
Of course, pre-video and pre-internet, it would be a real treat to perv over a woman with her kit off on the big screen, and not be charged £50 for a g+t and frogmarched to the nearest cash machine.
The comedy plot sounds promising, two middle-aged bank note forgers flee their Soho gangster employers and make off with the presses, with the portly, camp Home Secretary single handedly on their trail. The forgers make their way to a health spa in Scotland with the intent of hiding out, but it is soon flooded with buxom strippers who turn the ailing establishment around by turning it into a sex spa. So far, almost Some Like it Hot, but the two leads, Moonraker's Alfie Bass (he's the old boy who splutters over the coffin in the Venice canal) and George Harrison (wait for it) Marks are wholly uncharismatic and unfunny. They're a bit like the wally goons brought in to a latter day Carry On when the likes of Sid James have deserted the sinking ship. It is amateur hour from start to finish, a marvel to filmmaking really.
Even some of the simulated sex scenes later on are strictly missionary position, as if woman on top or reverse cowgirl, even if just simulated, might upset the balance of power in the battle of the sexes and incite revolution.
Actually, the DVD extras are worth a gander; some amazing trailors for other smutfests of the time - OHMSS's George Baker appears in one! Of course, back in the day actors might pay to be in rubbish like this much as Hollywood stars go to Japan to film an advert; it's not like anyone's gonna see it... There's also a frankly odd tribute documentary to the ill-fated Mary Millington, a blonde soft porn star who committed suicide when the tax man caught up with her, it's a mix of People's Porn Star hagiography with the necrophiliac implication of, well, thank goodness she left her talent on film so we can still perv over her... With ghostly invasive camera work of her kitsch 1970s-style pad and pining alsation dogs looking gormlessly on. Oh, it's ripe for parody, beyond it frankly.
Good marketing, (;) but she is also the lead. Plummer only has two scenes and the Hoff doesn't show up till the the third act. There's much more Caroline Munro exploring planets in thigh high black boots with a Darth Vader robot accomplice spouting the worst Texas drawl you've ever heard. It's bad movie heaven.
What's suprising is no one on the David Hasselhoff celebrity roast had the guts to bring this one up.
An attempt to boost the US box office for this very British comedy institution which threatened to give Bond a run for his money at the UK box office until it died a death in the mid-1970s like Hammer and very nearly Bond himself.
Phil Silvers does the Sid James role and it's great fun to watch him do his Bilko turn in the Foreign Legion, where the hapless posho Jim Dale and his manservant show up to assuage heartbreak and disgrace, spoofing The Four Feathers.
Some great laughs to be had here, in the Road to Morocco tradition, though it tapers off a bit towards the end. It's less of an ensemble piece than many Carry Ons with no room for Hattie Jacques, Barbara Windsor for instance and Charles Hawtrey is somewhat underused. Silvers seems to be subtly in another movie towards the end, the chemistry isn't quite there but there are two very good desert related laughs towards the end.
Kick-Ass. This movie started out as a real hoot: nerdy teenager decides to don a costume and be a super-hero, inspiring other powerless teens to do the same; but it eventually turns into a nasty, vicious, and downright ugly slash-fest. Note to producers: child endangerment is never a cool subject for a popcorn movie.
Kick-Ass. This movie started out as a real hoot: nerdy teenager decides to don a costume and be a super-hero, inspiring other powerless teens to do the same; but it eventually turns into a nasty, vicious, and downright ugly slash-fest. Note to producers: child endangerment is never a cool subject for a popcorn movie.
I'm actually quite glad someone else felt the same way I did about that film. I don't normally mind violence in films but there was something about KA that just left a poor taste in my mouth. Also the tone of the violence was uneven. One minute it was meant to be brutal and nasty (the torture scene) and the next it was OTT and gratuitious. All this wouldn't have mattered as much if kids weren't the ones either carrying it out or being subjected to it.
Comments
http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/features/editor-s-picks/ross-is-reeling-at-his-film-find-1.1062182
On the big screen one (probable) last time. It's Son Of Barbel's birthday, and he enjoyed this throughly.
Whilst I completely agree with those who dismiss it as crude, juvenile etc I'm not going to fall into the trap of slating it and claiming the moral high-ground. Likewise I'm not going to pretend I didn't laugh during some of the stunts (one of which involves a jet engine).
I suppose one thing you can never accuse Jackass of is having pretentions above its station. It knows its stupid, it knows its dumb and never attempts to be anything other than that.
mountainburdphotography.wordpress.com
Caroline is lovely as super space heroine Stella Starr, Chris Plummer is slumming, and the Hoff's hair is ... perfect! (so is his eye shadow)
Bad movies are really my weakness.
http://www.motifake.com/image/demotivational-poster/0908/dont-hassle-the-hoff-star-crash-david-hasslehoff-lasers-demotivational-poster-1250958413.jpg
HALT THE FLOW OF TIME !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3Rh2pfdxPU
You're in good company Pen, I cried like a baby at TS3 !!!!
I never cry at movies either. but TS3 had me bawling and clutching a box of tissues. SO GOOD though!
mountainburdphotography.wordpress.com
Oh my God
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Damn you indeed, Pixar. Tried to watch Ratatouille the other night, the story of the French rodent chef. Gave up after an hour, doesn't help that Pixar's adults look bland and rubbery, in contrast to Disney's delightful caricatures of the 1950s and 60s. Disney would have done this a lot better back then by chucking in some decent songs and comedy characters like Jasper and Horace or Smee. None of the characters in this had any charisma but even then they'd struggle by having the two leads a rat and a human, who can't really communicate verbally. It always threatens to break that cartoon internal logic where the human and adult world are meant to be kept essentially separate. Pongo and Perdy for instance are still just dogs in their owners' eyes, even if we know better.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
1) The Spy Who Loved Me 2) On Her Majesty's Secret Service 3) GoldenEye 4) Casino Royale 5) Goldfinger
This could go in music .. but ... fk that!
Metallica headlines in Sofia, Bulgaria, with Megadeth, Slayer, and a little bitta Anthrax.
(On BD)
(Mr. Martini, U know what's up)
(Devil Sign)
I know about this, but haven't picked it up. Going to have to check this out.
Sounds like a great headache !
mountainburdphotography.wordpress.com
Probably my all-time favourite Hammer horror film B-)
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
I remeber seeing this at the cinema -having managed to avoid all publicity etc for some reason. It was literally like, "Shall we see that? Two tickets please..." I came out just jumping mad that it was in two parts and I'd have to wait! Great films.
http://apbateman.com
I wonder why they put her at the front?
http://apbateman.com
Sadly the poster is the best thing about this dreadful 1970s smutfest, a sex comedy that will put you off comedy and then sex. Admittedly I went into this with a bit of smart alec schadenfreud, knowing it would be awful and hoping to enjoy if for that reason, but as it went on I began to feel the joke was on me. It's degrading in all the wrong ways, but at least the people up on screen were paid to be in it, what's my excuse?
The first sex scene, or rather nude scene, is six minutes in when we watch a buxom lass starkers, putting on her panties. Oh, she doesn't actually DO anything. Just to watch a woman with her kit off is decadence enough. One is allowed to come all over David Attenborough (no - stop it!) and marvel at the evolution of the fairer sex in the last 30 years; the woman is a bit wide in the berth, a bit Prussian, as much like today's porn stereotype as those plump woman in What the Butler Saw machines. But this is porn still in its infancy, we're comparing Space Invaders to Black Ops.
Of course, pre-video and pre-internet, it would be a real treat to perv over a woman with her kit off on the big screen, and not be charged £50 for a g+t and frogmarched to the nearest cash machine.
The comedy plot sounds promising, two middle-aged bank note forgers flee their Soho gangster employers and make off with the presses, with the portly, camp Home Secretary single handedly on their trail. The forgers make their way to a health spa in Scotland with the intent of hiding out, but it is soon flooded with buxom strippers who turn the ailing establishment around by turning it into a sex spa. So far, almost Some Like it Hot, but the two leads, Moonraker's Alfie Bass (he's the old boy who splutters over the coffin in the Venice canal) and George Harrison (wait for it) Marks are wholly uncharismatic and unfunny. They're a bit like the wally goons brought in to a latter day Carry On when the likes of Sid James have deserted the sinking ship. It is amateur hour from start to finish, a marvel to filmmaking really.
Even some of the simulated sex scenes later on are strictly missionary position, as if woman on top or reverse cowgirl, even if just simulated, might upset the balance of power in the battle of the sexes and incite revolution.
Actually, the DVD extras are worth a gander; some amazing trailors for other smutfests of the time - OHMSS's George Baker appears in one! Of course, back in the day actors might pay to be in rubbish like this much as Hollywood stars go to Japan to film an advert; it's not like anyone's gonna see it... There's also a frankly odd tribute documentary to the ill-fated Mary Millington, a blonde soft porn star who committed suicide when the tax man caught up with her, it's a mix of People's Porn Star hagiography with the necrophiliac implication of, well, thank goodness she left her talent on film so we can still perv over her... With ghostly invasive camera work of her kitsch 1970s-style pad and pining alsation dogs looking gormlessly on. Oh, it's ripe for parody, beyond it frankly.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
What's suprising is no one on the David Hasselhoff celebrity roast had the guts to bring this one up.
I approve of the beer.
Sounds like my kind of girl. I was tempted to buy a DVD of Emmanuelle in Soho starring Mary Millington but thought better of it.
An attempt to boost the US box office for this very British comedy institution which threatened to give Bond a run for his money at the UK box office until it died a death in the mid-1970s like Hammer and very nearly Bond himself.
Phil Silvers does the Sid James role and it's great fun to watch him do his Bilko turn in the Foreign Legion, where the hapless posho Jim Dale and his manservant show up to assuage heartbreak and disgrace, spoofing The Four Feathers.
Some great laughs to be had here, in the Road to Morocco tradition, though it tapers off a bit towards the end. It's less of an ensemble piece than many Carry Ons with no room for Hattie Jacques, Barbara Windsor for instance and Charles Hawtrey is somewhat underused. Silvers seems to be subtly in another movie towards the end, the chemistry isn't quite there but there are two very good desert related laughs towards the end.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I'm actually quite glad someone else felt the same way I did about that film. I don't normally mind violence in films but there was something about KA that just left a poor taste in my mouth. Also the tone of the violence was uneven. One minute it was meant to be brutal and nasty (the torture scene) and the next it was OTT and gratuitious. All this wouldn't have mattered as much if kids weren't the ones either carrying it out or being subjected to it.