Monday, 30 January 2012
Thursday, 26 January 2012
WSIFITS: Haggis crisps
In a little late-Burns night special...
Right, so normally these things I find in shops are a bit weird and rare. But, this is probably something you can get in any supermarket. In Scotland. But… that doesn’t stop it from being fucking weird as shit. Haggis flavoured crisps. Which is just weird. Was there really such a group of people calling out for this? Oh well, I saw them and I bought them. Because I’m an idiot. On closer inspection however (I ate them) they... weren’t very haggisy. They’re kinda spicy, and they have a really strange unexplainable taste, but one thing is for sure, it’s definitely not haggis. And also, it’s definitely not tasty. So don’t get these. I really don’t know why they exist. Haggis flavoured crisps that don't taste like haggis and aren't very good either, mmmmmmmm. Why did I buy these?
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| This is a horrible picture. |
Monday, 23 January 2012
Friday, 20 January 2012
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
Holy Shit. There's a Cyborg Cop III... review.
So finally the last Cyborg Cop film. I feel I was a bit harsh on the original. At least it had an FBI agent who got turned into a cyborg. I complained at the time he wasn’t really a cop. Well this movie has two federal marshals, who aren’t technically cops, and neither of them are at any point cyborgs. It should have been called ‘Cyborgs and sort-of Cops’ but that doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. Luckily we get an alternate title, a sure sign of a shitty movie, which is… Terminal Impact. Why? Is it because of the one scene of the cyborg being used a car crash dummy? Well, that’s lovely and all but it doesn’t have anything to do with the film as a whole.
This film unfortunately doesn’t have our old favourite David Bradley in it. In fact the only connection with the previous films is it has cops and a cyborg and it’s called Cyborg Cop. Seriously that’s it. Luckily we have our two new cop stars. One is called Saint and that’s literally his entire character except for a joke about how he learnt to fly in a book, except it goes on so long that it’s either unbelievably unfunny, or it wasn’t a joke and he’s actually meant to have learnt from a book, which is just dumb. And the other is an idiot. That’s all I have to say about him. He keeps wanting to eat ‘tootsie rolls’, there’s a running joke about people slagging off his mother and him getting annoyed and he keeps just being generally childish, stupid and obnoxious. Then there’s Miss Generic Reporter Woman who falls for the idiot in one scene after never showing any interesting before. And to round it off we have our evil boss who’s trying to act like someone, but I can’t think who, all I know is he’s doing it badly and our cyborg. And the cyborg is rubbish. One, we never see any machinery, he could just be a tough man, I mean Cyborg Cop I looked a bit plastic, but at least it showed some of the machine part, this has about two shots of the insides before skin repairs on top and the rest is just a man in funny clothes. And two, the cyborgs aren’t very tough. Like one gets a car dropped on it and a few get blown up, one even drops his gun which is then used to kill it immediately. So rubbish cyborgs.
Also, the whole thing doesn’t make any sense. Like at one point the reporter is knocked out and wakes up at an evil doctor’s. This sets up her being turned into a cyborg later, I think. But I’m not very sure. It seems to be pointless. Also the businessman lets her see the cyborgs pretending they are actually just men with radiation drugs. Then he lets her hang out in her office, and she finds out what he’s really doing. What is his plan? If it’s to kill her/turn her into a cyborg, why show her round? If it’s to make her think he’s a legitimate businessman, why leave her in the office when you have secrets in there, and why conduct a trial of the cyborg’s gun fighting abilities while she’s still there (which he does). And even if she bought it for a bit, surely people would become suspicious when the drugs never arrived. It’s not like his plan is to take over the world, it’s just to sell the cyborgs as weapons. Oh, never mind. Why am I expecting it to make sense, have I not watched the first two films?
So basically: plot makes no sense, actors can’t act, characters are ridiculous, cyborg is rubbish, effects are bad and direction is bland. So, it’s shit. It doesn’t even have David Bradley in it, cause he’s clearly the star of the Cyborg Cop franchise. Now you’d think I’d be finished with Robocop rip-offs. And I would be. If someone hadn’t disguised one as a Terminator rip-off. Back next with: TC-2000. Fuck.
This film unfortunately doesn’t have our old favourite David Bradley in it. In fact the only connection with the previous films is it has cops and a cyborg and it’s called Cyborg Cop. Seriously that’s it. Luckily we have our two new cop stars. One is called Saint and that’s literally his entire character except for a joke about how he learnt to fly in a book, except it goes on so long that it’s either unbelievably unfunny, or it wasn’t a joke and he’s actually meant to have learnt from a book, which is just dumb. And the other is an idiot. That’s all I have to say about him. He keeps wanting to eat ‘tootsie rolls’, there’s a running joke about people slagging off his mother and him getting annoyed and he keeps just being generally childish, stupid and obnoxious. Then there’s Miss Generic Reporter Woman who falls for the idiot in one scene after never showing any interesting before. And to round it off we have our evil boss who’s trying to act like someone, but I can’t think who, all I know is he’s doing it badly and our cyborg. And the cyborg is rubbish. One, we never see any machinery, he could just be a tough man, I mean Cyborg Cop I looked a bit plastic, but at least it showed some of the machine part, this has about two shots of the insides before skin repairs on top and the rest is just a man in funny clothes. And two, the cyborgs aren’t very tough. Like one gets a car dropped on it and a few get blown up, one even drops his gun which is then used to kill it immediately. So rubbish cyborgs.
Also, the whole thing doesn’t make any sense. Like at one point the reporter is knocked out and wakes up at an evil doctor’s. This sets up her being turned into a cyborg later, I think. But I’m not very sure. It seems to be pointless. Also the businessman lets her see the cyborgs pretending they are actually just men with radiation drugs. Then he lets her hang out in her office, and she finds out what he’s really doing. What is his plan? If it’s to kill her/turn her into a cyborg, why show her round? If it’s to make her think he’s a legitimate businessman, why leave her in the office when you have secrets in there, and why conduct a trial of the cyborg’s gun fighting abilities while she’s still there (which he does). And even if she bought it for a bit, surely people would become suspicious when the drugs never arrived. It’s not like his plan is to take over the world, it’s just to sell the cyborgs as weapons. Oh, never mind. Why am I expecting it to make sense, have I not watched the first two films?
So basically: plot makes no sense, actors can’t act, characters are ridiculous, cyborg is rubbish, effects are bad and direction is bland. So, it’s shit. It doesn’t even have David Bradley in it, cause he’s clearly the star of the Cyborg Cop franchise. Now you’d think I’d be finished with Robocop rip-offs. And I would be. If someone hadn’t disguised one as a Terminator rip-off. Back next with: TC-2000. Fuck.
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| Because clearly this is a quality movie when it runs out of pictures from itself on the first page of a google image search. |
Monday, 16 January 2012
Monday, 9 January 2012
Friday, 6 January 2012
Films of 2011
This is the one I've been waiting for, I think I might've gone a bit mad with how much I wrote, but I hope you like what we have to say. Over to me. Then Lewis.
CHRIS
BEST: DRIVE/HUGO
Wow. I wasn’t being very impressed by the films this year until the start of December. I mean, some were ok, but I just didn’t see anything that made me excited about the quality. That was until one week where I watched both Drive and Hugo. Both these films are fantastic. Drive is a dark action film about a get-away driver who gets involved in shady dealings and it brings down his whole world. It’s the most intelligent action movie I’ve seen in years, with some of the best performances this year from Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan and a surprisingly dark turn from Albert Brooks (Nemo’s Dad in Finding Nemo). Everyone in this is brilliant, every shot brilliantly put together and it’s a real call back to thrillers from the 80s, which is definitely not a bad thing. It’s one of the very best made films of the year and it’s also right up my alley, exactly the sort of film I like. Oh, and it has a fantastic soundtrack.
Hugo is a completely different affair. It’s a surprising film from director Martin Scorsese, mainly because it’s not incredibly dark and violent for adults only. This is a family film, and definitely the best I’ve seen in years. It’s a magical experience, all the characters are interesting and it has some of the only child acting I’ve actually ever liked in it. It starts off as a moving story of a boy who’s lost his father, but then it changes into a love letter to the art of the cinema, and to the early pioneers. It’s also the only film I’ve ever seen where the 3D adds anything. I won’t give anything more away, because really, just go and watch it right now. It’s one of the best made and definitely the most heart-warming film that’s come out this year.
RUNNERS-UP: X-MEN: FIRST CLASS/HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN
This is where things get interesting. Up until about a month ago, I was all set to give the best movie to X-Men: First Class. Now that I’ve seen Drive and Hugo, I see that it’s just because of the poor quality of films this year that I was going to do that. First Class is a really good film, but it’s really not best film material. But, being one of the good films this year has to count for something, especially as it’s the X-men film that followed the Wolverine movie, which was just awful. It was well made, exciting and entertaining, but at the end of the day it was just a superhero action movie. It was a very good one, but except the Nolan Batman films, superhero films are never going to win any films of the year awards. Definitely one of the best of the genre though.
Another film that would never get a mention on any other best of lists is Hobo with a Shotgun. It carries on the grind house film movement, started by well, Grindhouse, but moves it along a bit, by making a very 80/90s film with a modern twist. It’s incredibly over the top, with mad violence and ridiculous characters like a guy who kills his enemies by putting them down a manhole and pulling their heads off with a rope attached to a car. A really over the top action fest, this is hugely entertaining, but with a brilliant and quite seriously played performance by Rutger Hauer as the Hobo, this film has made it as one of my favourites from this year.
WORST: THE SMURFS/GREEN LANTERN
I hate The Smurfs. I’ve talked about it before here, and here. And really, there’s nothing more to say, except it’s definitely the worst film this year.
But since I actually have to write something here, I’ll talk about what would have been the worst film of the year if it hadn’t been for Smurfs. Green Lantern. I don’t get this film. There are plenty of other superheroes that could have had films made about them, so why didn’t they do someone more interesting? Green Lantern as a character is not interesting. So, was it made for fans? Well it can’t have been. The character of Green Lantern/Hal Jordan is completely wrong as Ryan Reynolds is spectacularly miscast. The main villain Parallax is just a big cloud, instead of what it’s meant to be, and a big cloud is not an interesting villain. There’s also a guy with a big head who’s meant to have back story with Green Lantern, but it’s never shown so it means nothing to us. And there’s Sinestro who’s another Lantern who turns evil, but he kind of disappears in the film and is only evil after the end credits. You can’t do that. That’s like when The Thing (2011) tried to put important story details into the end credits, it’s annoying and when the credits roll the film should be over. Basically half the film doesn’t make sense, like half the connecting scenes were cut out, so things happen and they’re not connected, for example, there’s evil stuff going on in an underground bunker, then BOOM, Green Lantern’s there. How did he know stuff was going down and why is he there so quick? Not explained. A lot like that happens. And there’s too much going on with the aliens at the Lantern Corps, that’s the sort of stuff that’s normally kept for a sequel once we understand what our basic characters are about. So it’s got too much shit we don’t understand for non-fans and it’s all changed from the comics, so fans won’t like it either. Who is this film for? No-one. It’s shit. Oh and since I’ll get a slap if I don’t mention it, the effects in this film are god-awful. Why did they make the Lantern suit CGI? It looks terrible. Superman 4: The Quest for Peace looks better, and that’s complete shite. So Green Lantern should be the worst film of the year if it wasn’t for that one film I hate even more.
WISH I [HADN’T] SEEN: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES
I watch a lot of films, so I really see all of them I want to. So I can’t really do a ‘wish I’d seen’ for film. If I did it would end up having to say I wish I’d seen Breaking Dawn, Fast Five or Cars 2, which would just be a lie. Well actually I would like to see Cars 2 but that’s just so I can see the first bad Pixar movie and I don’t think that’s a legitimate reason. So instead, I’m doing a ‘wish I hadn’t seen’, for the films that weren’t the worst of the year, but they were still a complete waste of my time to watch. One of these is the new Pirates of the Caribbean film. It’s not awful, it’s just dull. There’s none of the original cast except the first mate, who’s alright but hardly a major character, Barbossa, who’s character has almost completely changed until he’s almost unrecognisable and Jack Sparrow, and Johnny Depp just seems so uninterested in the film, it’s like he’s only there for the pay cheque. Oh wait. The new character aren’t interesting, the new thing they’re looking for isn’t interesting, it’s blandly directed and just nothing gets me involved. It just sat there bored waiting for it to end, because I didn’t care. And I really liked the other films, so I especially disappointed.
There were other bad films this year, Bridesmaids, where not even Roy from The IT Crowd could make it the slightest bit funny, Alvin and the Chipmunks 3: Chipwrecked, which was truly awful, but it is the third one so by now anyone seeing it should know what they’re getting into, The Tree of [Fucking] Life, which is just wildy pretentious and unbelievably boring, probably the hardest film I had to sit through this year and so on, but I think I’ll drive myself mad if I keep going. Here’s hoping I survive 2012.
LEWIS
BEST: Evangelion 2.0: You Can (not) Advance
I’m a huge fan of the 1996 anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, which in itself was stunning, wonderful animation and design, with a complex and absorbing plot. Some fans -I must say, I am not one of them- were largely unimpressed with the ending, which was rushed through on a lack of time and money. This led to an alternate ending being released as End of Evangelion, which replaces the final two episodes as a film, showing a more physical version of the ending, rather than the artistic and psychological end in the series.
In more recent years, the studio behind NGE have decided to make a reboot of the series, released as four films. You Can (not) Advance is the second of these, where the plot is more different from the original than the first film, which sticks closely to the series. The visuals were beautiful, and the re-imaging of the plot was superb, it was truly faithful to the fans of the original series, but still make it justified for anyone new to the concept. I seriously can’t wait for three and four, now.
RUNNER UP: Hobo With A Shotgun
This. Film. Is. Mental. Oh my goodness, Hobo With a Shotgun is a modern exploitation film following a hobo who seeks to clean up a terrible city with his trusty shotgun. It features ridiculous gore, gangsters, swearing, assassin cult orders, swearing, blood, drugs and other 18-rated filth, all presented with an old-school area of baaaaaad production values -done on purpose, of course.- This B Movie style horror was exceptionally well done, and thoroughly enjoyable.
WORST: The Thing (2011)
I’m so surprised this was actually made, a prequel to the incredible ‘The Thing’ from 1982. I honestly thought this was one of those passing rumours about remakes and sequels that just fizzles out quietly, (often to the relief of fans) but this actually got through to completion, and release.
Frankly, and as obscure as this sounds, I think it’s too modern. It has too many elements of modern horror bringing it down, as well as not very effective covering up of the change from a remake to a prequel, with sequences and events happening suspiciously the same as the original. I’ll admit it wasn’t horrendous, but still not good, and nothing in comparison to John Carpenter’s original.
WISH I’D SEEN: The Adventures of Tintin
I used to love the comics and the animated series of Tintin, and this modern film looked pretty damn good, but I just never found an ideal time to go see it, so hopefully I can get my hands on a copy in 2012, as I’m really disappointed I missed this.
CHRIS
BEST: DRIVE/HUGO
Wow. I wasn’t being very impressed by the films this year until the start of December. I mean, some were ok, but I just didn’t see anything that made me excited about the quality. That was until one week where I watched both Drive and Hugo. Both these films are fantastic. Drive is a dark action film about a get-away driver who gets involved in shady dealings and it brings down his whole world. It’s the most intelligent action movie I’ve seen in years, with some of the best performances this year from Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan and a surprisingly dark turn from Albert Brooks (Nemo’s Dad in Finding Nemo). Everyone in this is brilliant, every shot brilliantly put together and it’s a real call back to thrillers from the 80s, which is definitely not a bad thing. It’s one of the very best made films of the year and it’s also right up my alley, exactly the sort of film I like. Oh, and it has a fantastic soundtrack.
Hugo is a completely different affair. It’s a surprising film from director Martin Scorsese, mainly because it’s not incredibly dark and violent for adults only. This is a family film, and definitely the best I’ve seen in years. It’s a magical experience, all the characters are interesting and it has some of the only child acting I’ve actually ever liked in it. It starts off as a moving story of a boy who’s lost his father, but then it changes into a love letter to the art of the cinema, and to the early pioneers. It’s also the only film I’ve ever seen where the 3D adds anything. I won’t give anything more away, because really, just go and watch it right now. It’s one of the best made and definitely the most heart-warming film that’s come out this year.
RUNNERS-UP: X-MEN: FIRST CLASS/HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN
This is where things get interesting. Up until about a month ago, I was all set to give the best movie to X-Men: First Class. Now that I’ve seen Drive and Hugo, I see that it’s just because of the poor quality of films this year that I was going to do that. First Class is a really good film, but it’s really not best film material. But, being one of the good films this year has to count for something, especially as it’s the X-men film that followed the Wolverine movie, which was just awful. It was well made, exciting and entertaining, but at the end of the day it was just a superhero action movie. It was a very good one, but except the Nolan Batman films, superhero films are never going to win any films of the year awards. Definitely one of the best of the genre though.
Another film that would never get a mention on any other best of lists is Hobo with a Shotgun. It carries on the grind house film movement, started by well, Grindhouse, but moves it along a bit, by making a very 80/90s film with a modern twist. It’s incredibly over the top, with mad violence and ridiculous characters like a guy who kills his enemies by putting them down a manhole and pulling their heads off with a rope attached to a car. A really over the top action fest, this is hugely entertaining, but with a brilliant and quite seriously played performance by Rutger Hauer as the Hobo, this film has made it as one of my favourites from this year.
WORST: THE SMURFS/GREEN LANTERN
I hate The Smurfs. I’ve talked about it before here, and here. And really, there’s nothing more to say, except it’s definitely the worst film this year.
 |
| My reaction to The Smurfs. |
But since I actually have to write something here, I’ll talk about what would have been the worst film of the year if it hadn’t been for Smurfs. Green Lantern. I don’t get this film. There are plenty of other superheroes that could have had films made about them, so why didn’t they do someone more interesting? Green Lantern as a character is not interesting. So, was it made for fans? Well it can’t have been. The character of Green Lantern/Hal Jordan is completely wrong as Ryan Reynolds is spectacularly miscast. The main villain Parallax is just a big cloud, instead of what it’s meant to be, and a big cloud is not an interesting villain. There’s also a guy with a big head who’s meant to have back story with Green Lantern, but it’s never shown so it means nothing to us. And there’s Sinestro who’s another Lantern who turns evil, but he kind of disappears in the film and is only evil after the end credits. You can’t do that. That’s like when The Thing (2011) tried to put important story details into the end credits, it’s annoying and when the credits roll the film should be over. Basically half the film doesn’t make sense, like half the connecting scenes were cut out, so things happen and they’re not connected, for example, there’s evil stuff going on in an underground bunker, then BOOM, Green Lantern’s there. How did he know stuff was going down and why is he there so quick? Not explained. A lot like that happens. And there’s too much going on with the aliens at the Lantern Corps, that’s the sort of stuff that’s normally kept for a sequel once we understand what our basic characters are about. So it’s got too much shit we don’t understand for non-fans and it’s all changed from the comics, so fans won’t like it either. Who is this film for? No-one. It’s shit. Oh and since I’ll get a slap if I don’t mention it, the effects in this film are god-awful. Why did they make the Lantern suit CGI? It looks terrible. Superman 4: The Quest for Peace looks better, and that’s complete shite. So Green Lantern should be the worst film of the year if it wasn’t for that one film I hate even more.
WISH I [HADN’T] SEEN: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES
I watch a lot of films, so I really see all of them I want to. So I can’t really do a ‘wish I’d seen’ for film. If I did it would end up having to say I wish I’d seen Breaking Dawn, Fast Five or Cars 2, which would just be a lie. Well actually I would like to see Cars 2 but that’s just so I can see the first bad Pixar movie and I don’t think that’s a legitimate reason. So instead, I’m doing a ‘wish I hadn’t seen’, for the films that weren’t the worst of the year, but they were still a complete waste of my time to watch. One of these is the new Pirates of the Caribbean film. It’s not awful, it’s just dull. There’s none of the original cast except the first mate, who’s alright but hardly a major character, Barbossa, who’s character has almost completely changed until he’s almost unrecognisable and Jack Sparrow, and Johnny Depp just seems so uninterested in the film, it’s like he’s only there for the pay cheque. Oh wait. The new character aren’t interesting, the new thing they’re looking for isn’t interesting, it’s blandly directed and just nothing gets me involved. It just sat there bored waiting for it to end, because I didn’t care. And I really liked the other films, so I especially disappointed.
There were other bad films this year, Bridesmaids, where not even Roy from The IT Crowd could make it the slightest bit funny, Alvin and the Chipmunks 3: Chipwrecked, which was truly awful, but it is the third one so by now anyone seeing it should know what they’re getting into, The Tree of [Fucking] Life, which is just wildy pretentious and unbelievably boring, probably the hardest film I had to sit through this year and so on, but I think I’ll drive myself mad if I keep going. Here’s hoping I survive 2012.
LEWIS
BEST: Evangelion 2.0: You Can (not) Advance
I’m a huge fan of the 1996 anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, which in itself was stunning, wonderful animation and design, with a complex and absorbing plot. Some fans -I must say, I am not one of them- were largely unimpressed with the ending, which was rushed through on a lack of time and money. This led to an alternate ending being released as End of Evangelion, which replaces the final two episodes as a film, showing a more physical version of the ending, rather than the artistic and psychological end in the series.
In more recent years, the studio behind NGE have decided to make a reboot of the series, released as four films. You Can (not) Advance is the second of these, where the plot is more different from the original than the first film, which sticks closely to the series. The visuals were beautiful, and the re-imaging of the plot was superb, it was truly faithful to the fans of the original series, but still make it justified for anyone new to the concept. I seriously can’t wait for three and four, now.
RUNNER UP: Hobo With A Shotgun
This. Film. Is. Mental. Oh my goodness, Hobo With a Shotgun is a modern exploitation film following a hobo who seeks to clean up a terrible city with his trusty shotgun. It features ridiculous gore, gangsters, swearing, assassin cult orders, swearing, blood, drugs and other 18-rated filth, all presented with an old-school area of baaaaaad production values -done on purpose, of course.- This B Movie style horror was exceptionally well done, and thoroughly enjoyable.
WORST: The Thing (2011)
I’m so surprised this was actually made, a prequel to the incredible ‘The Thing’ from 1982. I honestly thought this was one of those passing rumours about remakes and sequels that just fizzles out quietly, (often to the relief of fans) but this actually got through to completion, and release.
Frankly, and as obscure as this sounds, I think it’s too modern. It has too many elements of modern horror bringing it down, as well as not very effective covering up of the change from a remake to a prequel, with sequences and events happening suspiciously the same as the original. I’ll admit it wasn’t horrendous, but still not good, and nothing in comparison to John Carpenter’s original.
 |
| Full Review HERE |
WISH I’D SEEN: The Adventures of Tintin
I used to love the comics and the animated series of Tintin, and this modern film looked pretty damn good, but I just never found an ideal time to go see it, so hopefully I can get my hands on a copy in 2012, as I’m really disappointed I missed this.
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
Last Films of 2011 Review
Because of christmas and new year and me being ill, I never really had the chance to do a video about the last films I saw in 2011. Buuut, I was round at Tara's and the chance arose so here is a video review of Sherlock Holmes 2, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, Mission Impossible 4 and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Enjoy!
Part 1
Part 2
Part 1
Part 2
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