Dalekboy

Not much watched recently. Lex has changed his daytime sleeping habits, so it's taken most of this week to find the new balance. Plus I've been madly researching houses for my overnight trip to Cooma - want to check some out and strike them off, or add them, to our list of potentials. Plus plus, been watched Pertwee's first season so I can pre-record my bit for Swancon. I think Doctor Who and the Silurians is an underrated story.


15th January
Kung-Fu Hustle

19th January
The Brides of Dracula


Fourteen movies watched since the start of the year. I'm rather pleased about this. Keeping the list means that even though I don't feel like I've watched many, I can go, "Fourteen? Cool!" I'm quite pleased at the range of years I'm going through.

Since I enjoyed keeping track of what angriest watched last year, I've decided to try and keep track of the films I watch this year.

I'll be doing charts of the year the films were made, as opposed to the type.
Partly because that tends to hold more interest for me, and partly because I struggle to pick what category something should be in. Should a horror/comedy be down as horror or comedy? Grant, you got an answer?

So anyway, the films so far...

1st January
Star Wars (Original Theatrical Version)

2nd January
A Chinese Odyssey Part 2 - Cinderella

3rd January
The Colour of Magic Part 1

4th January
Next
The Colour of Magic Part 2

5th January
Dance of the Dead

7th January
Mission Impossible 3

* April and Andy visited on the weekend. Yay!

* My car indicator continues to play up. Boo!

* Sharon and I got to go see Up on Sunday. It was good and didn't stupidly pander to the 3D. Yay!

* Sharon's grandpa died Sunday night. He was an awesome old bloke. Boo!

( More under cut, some TMI... )

Just watched the old 1978 film, Return from Witch Mountain. In it there are a gang of wannabe tough guys (all played by kids) called the Earthquakes. Their gang names are Rocky, Muscles, Crusher, and Dazzler.

I think Dazzler is kind of missing the point. He's way older and a good head taller than the other kids, so you'd think he'd get the whole 'tough' nickname thing. What makes it especially funny is the way he lights up as introduces himself to Kim Richards. "...and I'm Dazzler!"

For all the film's problems, there are actually some fairly full-on moments during the major chase scene, and Christopher Lee plays his part dead straight, which is especially nasty when he's trying to arrange for a child to be crushed to death.

5/10

A bit of background - The last Star Trek movie I enjoyed was First Contact (or as most people know it, the Borg one) which is also the only Star Trek movie out on DVD that I still wish to buy.

I refuse to buy the 9th and 10th films. I'll watch them again if someone loans them to me, and who knows, I may re-evaluate my position, but for the moment I feel that Paramount got my money at the cinema, and they ain't gettin' another cent outta me for those lacklustre pieces of crap. I felt dissatisfied while viewing them, and by their respective finales was feeling quite cheated at what we were being given. Overlong, uninspired episodes that weren't even internally consistent and hoped to disguise what they were by wearing tarty clothes and talking dirty.

So, the new film. ( No real spoilers, but cut for those who are worried... )

Well worth a look.

7/10

Films and tv shows usually rely on suspension of disbelief.

To me, if one is going to maintain the suspension of disbelief, you have to obey all the ordinary everyday rules that people know and understand. One can believe an massive alien invasion with giant biomechanoid floating death cannons, so long as the world rules beyond that are consistent. But if a human character, in avoiding one of these cannons, jumps off a ten storey building without any sort of aid, or interruptions to their fall, and land unharmed and run off - that's the deal breaker. One knows that's not possible, and suddenly one is left questioning that moment, and by default, the rest of the film.

I mentioned in a post yesterday that I hate it in films and tv when medics use the defibrillator paddles on a woman to try and restart her heart, and they are using them through material - bras, tank tops, etc. - rather than on bare skin. It pulls me right out of the moment, because I know it's not right.

I also mentioned hating when people can just break passwords when they have no information on the person, which has become really common in shows. Any computer whizz can break any password, within a relatively short time.

Another one I hate is when someone who is driving spends time looking at the their passenger rather than paying attention to the road. Quick glances are fine, but when they're maintaining eye contact for whole big chunks of conversation it annoys me. If you regularly did it in real life there's no way you wouldn't crash.

king_espresso mentioned that he hates when people don't wear ear protection on board military helicopters, which is a great one. Well, except now I'll be looking for it and getting annoyed by it.

kaths brought up the way people type madly on computer keyboards to do things that the rest of us would do with a mouse. We're in the internet age, everyone uses computers, we know they don't work this way.

kaths also mentioned the way they can zoom in on a small section of a photo, blow up that section, sharpen/clean it up, and suddenly have a incredibly clear and detailed picture. It's the equivalent of being able to blow up my icon for this post to read all the book titles.

So what about you? What regularly used, unrealistic film and tv conceits pull you out of the moment?

I have now seen it. I thought it was a good film, with an interesting concept/conceit - until the last ten minutes when it breaks the Monty Python rule.

There's a rule of comedy that I heard many years ago, attributed to the boys from Monty Python - If you have four men standing in dustbins talking, you don't need to explain it. The audience will accept it. But if someone then walks on in a business suit, you need an some sort of explanation. - It's a rule I think works equally well for any bit of writing.

( Rant on Knowing that will contain massive spoilers for the end of the movie - Oh, and there's a fair bit of swearing - you have been warned... )

Was as bloody ordinary as I remembered, I was hoping that it would hold up better, as some films do.

Easily the weakest of the films, it falls into the "if this is cool, then ten times as much of it is ten times as cool," trap. Sequences go on far too long, the dreams end up boring and repetitive, and Freddy has now attained cartoon character corniness.

One can only wonder what it would have been like if Peter Jackson's Elm St. script Dream Lover had been made instead.

Another silly Bond theme that sounds more like a proper Bond title song than "Another Way to Die." I know making a good song is hard, but at least getting the right sound to a Bond song shouldn't be.

( YouTube thingy below the cut... )I love the line about 'I know they do big bags of solace, but I don't want'em."

There's so many people online who have done their own QoS title song and many of them, with better singers, would be better songs than the one chosen. Of course all this bitching and moaning is for naught, as is most of the bitching and moaning on LJ.

But I'm still sure when EON read my posts, they'll see their error and get a new song and stick in ;P

It was kind of ordinary. I wasn't bored, but neither was I thrilled, amazed, surprised, shocked, delighted... It's not a bad film, but neither is it remarkable. The comments that I've heard that said it was a "hits of the Aliens, and Predator, series" was accurate.

The only thing that stood out to me was its use of violence towards women, which I thought was pretty obvious and dreadful. ( MAJOR SPOILERS regarding this aspect and the some stuff from the end... read on only if you've seen it or don't care... )

There are times when I see a film and I hear women talking about the violence against women within that movie, and I think they've been a bit one-eyed - seeing only what they are looking to see, separate from the context of the moments within the film itself. And there are times when I think they are bang-on, that in modern cinema, there should be a higher standard of writing. I'm suprised that I haven't heard a lot more about AVPR.

There is an arguement that AVPR is going out to shock, and that's why it has some of these scenes in it. It breaks many of the cinema 'rules', something I'm always in favour of when handled well, but when it does these things, they're... not interesting. Every shock is telegraphed so far in advance that it has no real impact.

While I'm a fan of both the original franchises, and love many of the Aliens Vs Predator comics, if I ever decide to have AVP and AVPR in my collection, it will be when I record them off TV. And even then I'm not sure I could be bothered.