White Noise

Interesting film with Michael Keaton playing his usual slightly unhinged bloke role. It's about EVP (electronic voice phenomenom) where dead people speak to him via the white noise of radios, TV etc. Has a nice feel to it and some good moments but untimately seems a little unsatisfying by the end. I suggest he gets digital TV and DAB radio and dump his old analogue stuff then he'd have rid himself of the problem earlier, and we could have all gone home happier.
UGC Cinema
Colour
**
.

Undead

Cool. This aussie zombie movie was kinda like early Peter Jackson movies, written, directed and paid for by some brothers. They used over 600 litres of fake blood during filming and they rendered most of the special FX shots on their home computers.
It was great - mad plot about meteors hitting a small fishing town and turning people into flesh eating zombies - acid rain and alien abduction follow. Yeah!
The best quote has to be "Are you a fighter fish queen or are you zombie food?"

UGC Cinema
Colour
****

A Day at the Races

More Marx Brothers, this time from 1937. Groucho plays a vet posing as a doctor, along with a race horse owner and his friends struggle to help keep a sanitarium open with the help of a misfit racehorse. Classic set pieces!

DVD Region 2
Black & White
***

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry's third year at Hogwarts leads him into discovering more dark secrets of the past. I like this one best of the Potters to date - much darker with some cool camera angles. Seemed a bizarre choice to give the director gig to Alfonso Cuaron as his previous works didn't really spell 'kids movie' but it was a great decision and his influence creates the dark mood that the film has.
Loved the Night Bus sequence and the werewolf, not enough of them in kids movies today...

DVD Region 2
Colour
****

Blood Work

Clint, yeah!
Clint Eastwood plays a retired FBI dude (following a heart attack chasing down a murderer) who's approached by the sister of the woman who is his heart donor to help in tracking down her killer. Not quite Dirty Harry but still a cool movie - Clint is ace as the older detective who slowly realises that his enemy is back...

Sky Movies
Colour
***

About Schmidt

This film is great - Jack Nicholson plays Warren R Schmidt who retires from the Woodmen of the World Insurance Co. The story follows him as he leaves and the tragedies that follow which lead to him going on a road trip. Sad, funny and with some great cinematography this is a real treasure as he tries to make sense of his life.

DVD Region 1
Colour
***

Kangaroo Jack

Ben and I watched this again. It's got some really funny sequences and the CGI is really quite impressive. Follows a couple of losers who on the run from the mob put some cash into a jacket which they end up placing on what they think is a dead kangaroo for some photos (they ran it over). Of course, it wakes up and runs off leaving them to try and track it down over the aussie outback...

DVD Region 2
Colour
***

Flying Virus

So, two virus movies in a week.
Flying virus aka Killer Buzz in the USA , is about some developers overseas (led by Rutger Hauer) who invent a virus-carrying-killer-bee to help wipe out the local tribes so that they can get the roads built quicker. Really.
Of course someone steals a box load and smuggles them onto a passenger airplane only for them to escape. Suprise!

Cheesy around the edges but has all the usual virus movie cliches to keep it ticking along. Interestingly I found out via IMDB that the helicopter combat scenes and the big explosions were lifted from RAMBO: First Blood Part 2 and for that they get an extra star!

Sky Movies
Colour
**

Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD

Another Troma classic featuring Harry Griswald who is an NYPD cop who gets possessed with the spirit of a great Kabuki master. He's the chosen one who has to do battle with the evil one etc (as you'd expect!).

There's some great transformation scenes and great laughs - my favourite sequence is probably the big car chase where the car is chasing a clown on a unicycle, which if course features the famous Troma car roll sequence (same clip as seen in many Troma movies including Tromeo & Juliet!) which according to Lloyd Kaufman the director was really expensive to shoot that they use it as much as they can to get their money's worth. If you watch closely whenever the sequence appears you'll notice the cars are usually different colours to the one that goes into the air. Coolio.

Sky Movies
Colour
***

Super Troopers

This follows some Vermont state troopers who play some ace jokes on drivers who are passing through their stretch of highway but eventually have to do some police work. I enjoyed it and it's really funny in places. The opening gags they play on a car full of stoners are really good.

Sky Movies
Colour
***

Darkness Falls

Caught this via Sky Movies - missed it at the cinema.
This is a neat horror movie that has the Tooth Fairy as a kickass nasty piece of work who hunts down people who peaked at her during her collection of their final baby tooth. It's far better than it sounds and it turns out that the Tooth Fairy really is quite relentless...
Best quote during the final face-off "All this for a ******* tooth!"

Sky Movies
Colour
****

Garden State

Cool movie with a really good pace to it. Does the whole "what's life about / getting your head straight" thing better than anything recently and with some well composed quirky scenes. I really enjoyed it - it's an amazing debut from Zach Braff who wrote and directed. Also has a mucho cool soundtrack too.

UGC Cinema
Colour
*****

Tromeo and Juliet

I got this DVD at the 'Make Your Own Damn Movie' Masterclass in London with Lloyd Kaufmann. It's a modern, punk adaptation of Shakespeare's classic but with body piercing, chessy gore, over the top acting and Lemmy from Motorhead narrating.

If you've not seen a Troma movie then beware - If you have then this one is a classic with all the usual stuff and an amusing mutant ending.

Tromatastic!

DVD Region 0
Colour
***

The Murder Room

Two part BBC drama based on a PD James book - caught them both in a 3 hour sitting. Not bad - although we did guess the whodunnit!

BBC TV
Colour
***

Terror of Mechagodzilla

Yeah. Toho Movies rule!
This is one that has the spacemen from the third planet constructing a mechagodzilla to destroy Tokyo so that they can rebuild it as they want. Also includes a mad Dr who can control another monster called Titanosaurus, but fear not as good old Godzilla appears and beats them both up in the end. Yahoo!
(Very cool silver space gadget halfway through that's actually made of lego!).

DVD Region 1
Colour
***

Outfoxed

Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism.
Had this documentary kicking around on DVD for a month or two, what a scary film. Compiled from various footage recorded from the Fox News Network over a few months and shows how they have pretty much eradicated journalism from their output. Some amusing examples as well as some of the ones we've heard about but all in all an eye opener about the power of the media.
There's more info at: www.outfoxed.org

DVD Region 1
Colour
****
.

Frenzy

Spotted this Alfred Hitchcock thriller on Sky Cinema so had to view. John and I enjoyed it - great little thriller but what an amazing example of how times have changed. Some of the early 1970's attitudes are quite amusing, pretty un-pc and all that. Still has some amazing camera technique as well.

Sky Movies
Colour
***

Ring

So, nice Sunday afternoon fair if ever there was some. Hideo Nakata's Ring - the original rather than the Hollywood remake (which wasn't as bad as it should have been). Cool movie, I've watched shelves full of Asian horror films over the last couple of years and along with The Grudge and The Eye this is one of the best. Not overly long or ridiculous (like Gozu) but well filmed, a great mix of video nasty, urban legend and japanese curses amongst other things. Probably the best twisty ending too. Mucho cool.

DVD Region 2
Colour
****

Matrix Revolutions

Finally caught the third part on DVD - had the disc for ages but only just got around to watching. Great quality and sound. "Everything that has a beginning has an end".

Some didn't like the third part (or the second) but I thought it was ok. They are not as strong as the first and a little over indulgent at times but let's face it - the matrix is just very cool indeed. It's also much better on the second viewing!

DVD Region 2
Colour
***