The Guard (2011)

Brendan Gleeson plays Constable Gerry Boyle, he is a great cop, but is not without his vices. He drinks, cusses and says all the wrong things on the job, but deep down he is a decent guy and his heart is in the right place. He has just been assigned a new partner named Aiden McBride, who regrettably has a very bad first day on the job, from the seemingly cult murder of a local to the arrival of an FBI agent on the trail of a massive drug shipment ,things go decidedly downhill from there.

The Guard is a thriller with elements of black comedy and is a movie driven heavily by the characters and their choices; it isn’t really about the plot, more a platform for some superb performances by some very talented actors. Brendan Gleeson is the stand out, channeling a little of his character from Lake Placid with his borderline sarcasm and laid back approach to police work. Don Cheadle also puts in a great performance as the fish out of water FBI agent.

The film is beautifully shot in cinema scope with some great use of the Irish countryside; the writing is superb with particularly well written and often hilarious dialog and an amazing confidence in its characters and story.

The Guard would easily rate as one of the most entertaining films of the year, if not one of the best films in general.

Shark Night 3D (2011)

From director David R. Ellis, who gave us the best and worst sequels from the Final Destination series, comes the latest 3D horror film to see a bunch of teenagers splattered across our screens. One can only assume that this film got the green light as a result of the success of Piranha 3D although the similarities are few and far between.


Shark Night certainly starts off cliched enough, with a group of seven under-grads heading to one of their friends remote island vacation homes in Louisiana. They meet a couple of hillbilly locals along the way and also have an encounter with the local law enforcement that reminds you that at least one of their party used to live out this way, but left for reasons no doubt pivotal to the forthcoming events. Anyhow lots of water sports ensue and a shark attack occurs and a lot of blame laying between the so-called friends gets thrown around before it becomes clear that the shark attack was no accident. In fact there appear to be a number of sharks and from various breeds in the lake, all with a taste for teenage flesh.


Shark Night is one of those movies that takes itself far too seriously! From its opening Jaws rip off to its ludicrous explanation of why these events are occurring and its weirdly toned down violence (Obviously to attract younger audiences with a more "acceptable" rating) the whole film makes for a fairly pointless encounter. Even the 3D is somewhat pointless. These movies are made to exploit the gimmick of 3D, so when they take themselves too seriously and don't play to that gimmick then why did they bother filming it in 3D?

Final Destination 5 (2011)

Here we have the latest installment of the dead teenager horror franchise that is Final Destination 5, this time the vision of death falls on the shoulders of Sam Lawton who saves 8 of his co-workers from a horrific bridge accident that would have taken most of them off of this mortal coil in ways only a Final Destination movie could come up with and in 3D to boot.

We of course bear witness to his vision and the horrific aftermath; followed by the FBI investigation (which somehow tries to accuse Sam of being responsible for the bridge collapse) and watch as our 8 survivors slowly realize they are being bumped off one by one in order of how they would have died on the bridge. (So nothing really new here)

It is obvious from the get go that Steven Quale and screenwriter Eric Heisserer are fans of the past Final Destination films and this film certainly looks and feels more like the first three than the appalling fourth. It has a number of the same elements from the other films, such as the character names based on horror directors and the overall premise, but it does change the rules ever so slightly with the help of the recurring coroner William Bloodworth played by Tony Todd. The change is an interesting plot twist not really explored by the other films, although the reasons for this become apparent as the film progresses.

There are a few genuine surprises from Final Destination 5 and some great moments of tension building prior to the overly elaborate obligatory death sequences, but let us be honest, it is the death sequences everyone goes to these films for anyway and the inclusion of a story, even if it is mostly rudimentary is just a formality.


Side note: I am not a fan of the 3D fad Hollywood is going through at the moment, but I have to give credit to FD5 for using 3D as a gimmick as that is exactly what it is and how it should be utilized in my book.

Goodies & Recent Viewings...

Lots of new goodies arriving all the time...

Black Books Complete Collection (Australian Release)

Candyman, The Dark Crystal, The Curse of the Golden Flower (Australian)
and Somers Town (UK)

Wholphin issues 1 - 11

If you aren't familiar with Wholphin I strongly suggest you check out their website. It is a great quarterly DVD magazine featuring some amazing short film, doco's animations and much more. Well worth subscribing!

Last weekend saw my PS3 Hard drive give up the ghost, which at first didn't seem that bad given I had back ups, but when they didn't work, things got a little out of hand! So I have spent most of this week building a new drive and copying hex code to try and resurrect the old one to at least get my saved game data out of it, the drive finished compiling last night so the big test will occur this evening, but Sony certainly don't make this kind of thing easy!!

Viewing this week has been fairly sparse, I did watch my Candyman Blu-ray and the transfer is taken from a fairly clean print, there was some film damage around the 1 hour 14 minute mark and it looks like a little DNR has been applied to certain scenes, other than that very little restoration seems to have occurred. The transfer reminded me more of an HDTV transfer than Blu-ray, it didn't exactly pop, but there weren't any compression artifacts which was a bonus.

The DTS soundtrack is very front stage heavy (it is only 2 channel...), but is more than adequate with a decent range, the score is great and certainly benefits from the lossless track compared to my region 1 dvd. Sadly there are no extras from the special edition. In fact the menu is one of the old style Universal menus that doesn't even feature words, just pictograms.

Whilst it isn't a ground breaking transfer, as I said, it is certainly the best the film has looked in the home market.

Episode 102 - It's All In The Making

I have recently spent a bit of time trolling through extra features on some of my Blu-ray discs! I noticed that quite a number of these discs had feature length documentaries regarding the making of the movies (or in some cases relevant to someone who worked on the film) and figured that might make a good topic... so here it is... The How B Grade Movies Saved or Ruined My Life Making Of Special!

Challenges:

Steven – The Snow Ball Effect (2004) - Making of Clerks

Matt – The Guts of the Beast (2001) - Making of Brotherhood Of The Wolf

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All of our previous shows can be heard over at B Grade Movies Online! You can also hear us live on 99.3FM in Hobart or streaming live at Edge Radio at 10pm AEST every Sunday evening!

If you like us, why not join us on Facebook, we are generally stuffing around on the book of face whilst we do the show.

Cowboys & Aliens (2011)

Set in 1873 and the wilds of Arizona, a stranger rides into the little mining town of absolution. He has been shot, lost his memory and is a wanted man for a list of crimes longer than his arm, on said arm is a rather out of place piece of equipment. Unbeknownst to him, he was abducted by aliens, a notion far removed from any of the other townsfolk, that is, until it starts happening to them. You see it turns out an alien race has set its sights on the gold in them thar hills and will do just about anything to make sure they get it all and in the process wipe out man kind.

With the help of rag-tag team of local townsfolk and the stolen piece of alien tech attached to his arm, our intrepid abductee heads out to reclaim the captured humans and put a stop to the dastardly plan of beings from another world.

I guess my biggest problem with the film was my expectation, its not like you go into a movie like Snakes on a Plane expecting to see anything less than some snakes on a plane and whilst cowboys and aliens certainly do appear on the screen and even in the same shot, the film just doesn’t live up to the mental image you have just by saying the title aloud.

The film had so much potential and features a great cast including Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell and many TV stalwarts and yet they are given very little to work with! I don't think Jon Favreau really knew if he was making a western or a sci fi as the look of the film kind of fails at both. Whilst we do get some pretty landscape shots and the obligatory Magnificent Seven homage for the most part the film looks quite dull and underwhelming (At least it wasn't in 3D though!).

In the end Cowboys & Aliens should have been a fun ride, but it takes itself far too seriously and has a story that really didn't need to involve aliens at all, which just adds to the fact that it could have been an outright western, but instead leaves you wanting.

E.T Collectibles

I never really got the fascination with E.T, it made millions at the box office, had a tonne of merchandise and yet it was never really that great a movie to me. I was a pretty big fan of Steven Spielberg when I was growing up, that is not to say that I am not still a fan, just certainly not on the scale I was back then. Here are a few things I picked up during my collecting years...

Original Australian cinema poster.

E.T Key Ring (this if from its anniversary re-release in the 90's)

Press Book featuring actor Bios, Plot Synopsis, Full Credits and some photos.

Exhibitor's Campaign Book featuring print ads, posters and lobby accessories to help cinemas promote the film

Region 1 Limited Edition DVD Set



Various figures, a Pez dispenser and Yoyo

Not too many items there, but as I said, I was never a big fan, so I stuck mostly with the harder to find "press" stuff. I will maybe throw up a few pictures of the inside of those booklets when I get a chance!

I will also divert slightly in the next post of collectibles to include some of the stranger things that have crossed my path, but will return with more Spielberg related posts after that starting with Close Encounters of the Third Kind!

Recent Viewings....

Over the weekend I sat down to watch a few movies, some on Blu-ray, some at the cinema.. here is the breakdown:

Reign of Fire (2002)
This has always been a guilty pleasure of mine, picked up the Blu-ray during a sale awhile back and have only just gotten around to watching it. I was surprised by how well this film holds up, the effects are pretty impressive, the end is still a bit of a let down, but it is very much an enjoyable film!


Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
I was sadly disappointed by this film, the CGI is pretty damn impressive, but it just isn't a Planet of the Apes movie... in fact it doesn't even act as a prequel to the original film as its title strongly suggests. I must admit, I was pretty amazed by how irresponsible the adults in the film are, whether that was intentional or not I don't know, but it really distracted me and just took me out of the film, which is interesting given that I would have bet money on the fact that the CG was going to do that!


4.3.2.1 (2010)
So this film suprised me! I wasn't expecting this to be very good at all, but found myself pretty much enthralled for the majority of its duration. Not at all what I was expecting. This was a really solid Blu-ray too with great picture quality and a thumping soundtrack!

The Beaver (2011)
What the hell? I mean seriously. I don't even know what to say about this film...it really just left me wondering why... What was it trying to say? Who was this targeted at? There are so many things wrong with this that I just ended up with a bad taste in my mouth.

3:10 to Yuma (2007)
I have been playing a fair bit of Red Dead Redemption lately, so it makes sense that I was in the mood for a western. I really enjoy this film and it is quite honestly a stunning Blu-ray... the cast is great, the story (although it is a remake) is great and the film is a great revival to the genre!


Infernal Affairs (2002)
Remade by Martin Scorsese as The Departed, words cannot describe how much better Infernal Affairs is than its western counterpart. Great acting, a tight script and some awesome tension make for a fast paced thriller the likes of which have been ripped off numerous times since!

Insidious (2010)
Seriously the entire score and sound design for this film sounds like someone locked 2 stray cats and a violin under the hood of a grand piano and recorded it... lame remake of Poltergeist with such a predictable plot... really disappointed.

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night (2010)
Interesting little movie, not really anything special about it, but it was certainly entertaining and had its own style which I appreciated. I guess it is trying to cash in on the current Vampire / Werewolf trend sweeping the planet, and it does have some originality. Kind of reminded me of the old 40's noir movies, but in present day.

In the TV department, I have just started watching Haven, after a number of people recommended it. It reminds me a little of Eureka (at least in formula) and also bears a few similarities to Happy Town. I note it is based on a Stephen King story so I will be interested to see where it goes... it also helps that I have a soft spot for Emily Rose...

Will be off to the cinema again tonight to see Cowboys & Aliens....