In Danger of Forgetting

I’ve hardly watched any films this month it seems. This is really going to hurt my average and since we’re halfway through the year I should probably do a proper count to see what I’m sitting at.

Road Kill

Another Tony Elwood film (he who did Cold Storage from Dead By Dawn). Nice bit of low budget exploitation. A great turn from the head psycho and a fun way to spend ninety minutes.

Zombie Club double bill of Atlantis Interceptors and Demons. I’ve seen Demons before and it remains a great bit of nonsense which proves that when writer’s block strikes you just need to drop a helicopter on your location and all will work out fine.

Atlantis Interceptors, on the other hand, was a complete mess. It was as if three different films had been spliced together with the joins covered up with stock footage. To be fair, that’s quite possibly exactly what it was. Confusion was the order of the day as we all laughed along at the nonsense on-screen. However, it did feature some impressive stunt work with people jumping out of a helicopter onto a moving bus below. No jump cuts, just long shots of the helicopter coming down and people leaping out the open door onto the vehicle. Nice! I can’t say as it’d be worth sitting through the rest of the film for that though.

Wow, I think that’s it for the month. Slacker!

Not a lot

Attempted going for a run last week. It’s been over a month since I last went out and so was hoping I’d be healed up if unfit. Sadly, within 2km my left knee made its presence very well known and continued to do so during the day after as well.

On the other hand (foot?), I went out for a wander in the clouds today and climbed Ben Chonzie. It’s not a strenuous walk but 17km in heavy boots and there’s not a peep from the knee. I think I’ll have to stick to slow moving exercise for a while.

No Salvation Here

I was very disappointed that the Sarah Connor Chronicles was recently cancelled. It certainly had its faults (including a mid-season sag that almost drove me away) but the last half dozen episodes of season 2 were fantastic. All the pieces they’d brought into play suddenly began to line up and the convoluted timeline mechanics were expanding possibilities. But alas, not enough people were watching it so it’s not coming back.

One of the reasons I was a bit surprised it got canned was because of the big flashy new movie that was on the horizon. The surprisingly un-punctuated Terminator Salvation. I should have been a lot more scared given that it was being directed my McG but I’d gotten used to seeing his name on the credits for Chuck so figured it might not be so bad. Turns out there’s an unbridgeable gap between executive producing a TV series and helming a massive summer blockbuster.

To be honest, I’ve only really heard that it’s been getting bad reviews, I haven’t read them myself. I doubt they were harsh enough. This film is unforgiveably bad. The characters are one dimensional at best, the script is hackneyed and the acting perfunctory. When you get past that you can take pretty much any scene and play the “but that doesn’t make sense because X” game.

After twenty minutes I was ready to leave. The opening sequences sent me into a spiral of despair and it was clear that it wasn’t going to get any better and in that respect it didn’t let up. Painfully bad dialogue (“So that’s what death tastes like”), pointless stunts (why didn’t Connor take the stairs like the rest of his team?), sign-posted “twists” (he’s a bot? Really?!), confusion over what film it wants to be (Transformer Terminators?), poor design (watch for the signal simulation Connor watches over and over again. What the fuck is that?), poor design (access panels without locks?), poor design (why do the robots build such a spanky clean research facility?), poor design (and why do they have touch panel computers when they’re all networked?), poor design (why bikes? They’d be horribly complicated to keep steady and pointlessly flashy), poor design (oh good, they’ve got a USB port, an override switch, handlebars and a saddle) through to the nods to the original films (for nods, read lazy, crowbarred references that feel out of place) and the wholesale lifting of an entire scene it’s just woeful.

I’ll probably be told that I should just take my brain out and enjoy it for what it is but that’s a pathetic cop out. What it is is a film with an enormous budget which has all been splurged on effects with little thought given to plot and cohesiveness. Avoid like the plague. I think I’m done with big budget action films as they seem to be getting more dumb as the effects budget goes up. I think I’ll go back and watch some not so classic 80s action, they’ll probably pay more attention to detail and it’s a crying shame that 20 years later entertainment seems to be regressing.

Just in case I ever get tempted to watch it again, here’s another list of faults;

• When landing at the rebel base, why are they guided in with flares instead of, say, those massive floodlights?
• When escaping from said base, are we expected to believe that none of the resistance can hit two human targets but instead blow up trees behind them?
• Why would Skynet develop petulance when talking to its subjects?
• How come Wright’s terminator seems to be a far more advanced model than the one that Skynet will later send back in time to kill Sarah Connor?
• Are the resistance leaders so stupid that they don’t turn off their signal when their entire army disobeys an order?
• Who exactly were the people who didn’t believe in Connor? Just Michael Ironside then?
• Why did the leaders all stay in one location?
• Given how long the city had been trashed for why were cars still burning?
• “Tell them I’ll be back”? Oh fuck off. Be your own damn film, no wait, you don’t have the intelligence.
• Heart transplant surgery on a severely traumatised body in a desert? Blood type?!
• Wright doesn’t suffer any ill effects from crushing his Skynet CPU? None at all? Well that was obviously really well designed.
• A cute kid? Aw c’mon!
• How many times has Connor listened to the tapes from his mum and he couldn’t have immediately said whether any hybrid models were mentioned? He just went back to check again?
• A networked automaton guard machine doesn’t think to check with its controller if [i]the fucking door is meant to be open?![/i]

sigh

To top of such an awesome movie night, I managed to miss the train home (first time ever) because of the drunk, puking Oasis fans lining the streets. Hello £40 taxi fare home. At least I didn’t pay for the film. Orange Wednesday and Cineworld Unlimited ftw!

Oasis can fuck off and so can the next Terminator film.

Late Zombies

A New York City double bill for last month’s EZC and possibly the strongest pair we’ve had so far.

Ms. 45

I’ve only seen one Abel Ferrara movie before and that’s the very well known Driller Killer. It must have been while I was at school as I remember watching it on the portable tv in my room which was only there for about nine months. I clearly remember being very unimpressed, as I so often was (and am) with video nasties as I didn’t feel they lived up to the hype I’d given them.

This is the film Ferrara made after DK and it’s a much, much stronger affair. Playing a mute can’t be an easy role for any actor but Zoe Lund does well in what appears to be her first major role. Although this is probably classed as a drama movie, the concept is pure exploitation and I don’t think there can be any other description of a film which rapes its main character twice within ten minutes and in her first role.

Thana’s descent into vigilantism escalates nicely into a very bloody climax. I’ve avoided Ferrara’s work because of my earlier disappointment but after this I definitely need to seek out more.

Basket Case

A film I’d heard of and seen mentioned many, many but never got around to watching…for shame! This is a grade A slice of b-movie schlock. You know that self-referential crap that infected Planet Terror? Well, this film did it a lot better 25 years earlier. Henenlotter managers create a film that is at once an homage and a borderline spoof. Very highly recommended.

On the road again

Tuesday night was my second visit to the Osteo. I’d spent another week resting up with the biggest exertion being chasing Emma around the garden. The diagnosis last week of having a left leg that’s a bit twisted in the tendon department is unchanged. There was definitely more pain than last time as she probed a bit deeper into the muscles. Worst was the comparison between knotted muscles in the knees. On the right; no pain, on the left; oh fuck gonnae no!

It turns out that in combination with tense hip and thigh muscles, the structure of my left foot is a little off as well. All this lopsidedness meets at the knee and causes it problems. The good news is that this seems to be fairly straightforward to keep under control by stretching and concentrating on particular exercises.

So, I headed out on the bike for a very gentle hour’s pedalling and, for the most part, I had no problems. There were a couple of minor twinges and after a month’s rest small hills caused more puffing then necessary but at least I’m back in the saddle. I’ll be keeping to a more structure training plan from now on.

Pummelled

I had my appointment at the osteopath this evening and the good news is that I don’t seem to have done anything serious to my knees. The fact that I had a walk in the hills without any twinges yesterady was probably good evidence of that anyway but professional opinions are always welcome.

I probably just pulled a tendon and it was taking its time to heal up, my continued training not helping. The osteopath also noted that I had very flat feet, a left knee cap which turns in while standing and very tense hip muscles. This has caused a bit of an imbalance of strength between my legs. All of those combined wouldn’t have helped either. After the inspection there followed half an hour of various stretches and massage. Some of this involved having an elbow pushed deep into various muscles. She commented that I must have a high pain threshold as a lot of guys find it very painful.

The plan of action is simple; rest it up some more (though tai-chi is allowed) and I’ll head in for a follow up next week. Until then I’ve got some new stretches to do in the evenings with a view to loosening up my stupidly tense muscles. It didn’t surprise me to hear that more of my muscles and limbs refuse to relax, it’s what I have a big problem during tai-chi as well.

Dead by Dawn

It’s fair to say I was very disappointed with this year’s DbD festival. It’s quite usual to come away remembering some awful movies, that’s just the way it goes when you spend three days in the cinema, but the choices for 2009 seemed to lack much in the way of imagination or entertainment. As ever there were some films I already knew so I’ll only list the ones I hadn’t seen before and I’ll skip the shorts as well.

Blood River

This sounded like it was going to be a decent piece of psychological horror. Instead, it sacrificed logic and storytelling for the cheap get-out of “leaving it up to the viewer to decide”. What this means in reality is that you get all setup and little payoff. The last act seemed to consist of nothing but characters yelling at each other, demanding to know what they’d done without any answers. Character motivations seemed to swing around wildly without any regard for cohesion.

That said, the film looks wonderful, completely throwing off any accusations of looking like its budget. Still, an inauspicious start to the weekend and not recommended.

From Inside

Apparently the creator of this spent several years animating his own graphic novel and frankly, he shouldn’t have bothered. This is really tired, dull, post-apocalyptic fiction with nothing to recommend it apart from, again, it looks quite nice in places. Even then, that’s not enough to save it. I’m sure I wrote similar “everyone dies” stories when I was doing Higher English. Avoid.

The Forbidden Door

The first film that I could see myself recommending to people but it would be a very cautious recommendation. It’s likely to appeal to people who still salivate over J/K-horror in all its forms. It’s certainly an ambitious story and the creators do well to keep it almost together for the duration and they certainly kept my attention. They do, however, completely drop the initial storyline about halfway through and by the end it’s descended into something of an incoherent mind-fuck, but it is interesting. Everyone I was with was impressed by this to varying degrees and we all agreed that there was a coherent film in there somewhere just trying to get out.

Cold Storage

Best in show. Damn, they’ve been hawking this around for three years? That’s really surprising given how much of a solid film this is. This is a film that’s made by the performances, there isn’t a weak link in the chain even though there are many stereotypical roles. I would have preferred a more outlandish film to have taken my fancy this year, but I have zero qualms giving this two thumbs up. I also scored two DVDs of the director’s other films so I’ll report back on those when I’ve had a chance to rip them (note to self; buy a region free player). Also if you do watch this film know this; they made it for $800k. Now consider how many locations they used and how none of it looked cheap in the slightest.

Tamami – The Baby’s Curse

Scott enjoyed this a lot more than I did. I’ll admit I’d already largely dismissed it when I read that it was a J-horror about a creepy child. Whoop-de-friggin-do. That said, it was reasonably entertaining but I felt it fell down when it continually tried to flip-flop between borderline slapstick humour and heavy handed pathos. The creepy child in question is a hideously deformed creatures that lives in the vents of a large house. The idea works quite well until we start seeing it clearly over and over again. At which point the rubber puppet is exposed for the stiff effect that it is. The jars with the Yoda-like acrobatics it occasionally dabbles in. There are much worse films out there, but I wouldn’t choose to watch this again.

Night of the Hunter

A classic with a well deserved status. There’s nothing substantial I can say to fault this film. Get it watched.

Sauna

On reflection, I think this is a case of “nice video, shame about the song”. This is a really well made, well acted, well written film…until the final act at which point it goes a bit metaphysical from what I could tell and gives us no answers, easy or otherwise. I would watch it again though, hopefully with some director’s commentary to explain the conclusion. Before I work it out I’d find it hard to recommend watching without that pretty major caveat.

Night of the Creeps

A film I’d heard mentioned a fair bit but due to its lack of DVD release I’d never watched it. It’s great. A fantastic slice of 80s horror pastiche before we got to the point of outright piss-take. Interestingly we’d be the last people to ever see the film in that form on the big screen as the upcoming DVD release will reinstate the director’s original ending and any subsequent prints will be the same.

Last of the Living

Just avoid it, ignore the inevitable comparisons to Shaun of the Dead which will be made on the basis that this is a comedy with zombies. This plays out like a student comedy troupe decided to make a film after graduating. It’s weak in almost every sense; story, acting, dialogue. The effects aren’t that bad but then you don’t see a lot of zombie films where they can’t at least get that right.

The story has holes you could fit a freight train though, sideways. At the end of the film, the self indulgent twats who made the film play out over the soundtrack in some kind of awful rock video. Sadly, I suspect this is likely to show up as a “cult classic” before too long, hailed as an independant smash. It’s not.

Dead Space : Downfall

And here’s where I really lost it with this year’s fest. A game tie-in that’s already retailing for chump change in Fopp. The animation in this is sub-Scooby Doo and seems to have about six frames per second. The voice acting is stilted, the storyline bland and again, equipped with large holes. This screening has the dubious honour of being the only film I’ve ever seen in a festival surrounding that got absolutely no applause.

Dawning

I think the most interesting thing about this film is that it’s the second version. Apparently they shot the whole thing, ditched it and reshot the whole lot for ~$40k. It’s certainly no blockbuster and looks low budget but not to a debilitating degree. Instead, the makers concenrated on squeezing every last drop of atmosphere out of the cliched setting they opted for. For the most part, it works well. I think it helps that they don’t try and drag the story out (see Blood River) and instead opt to scare us with an unexplained horror but leave us guessing rather than gasping for information. Chances of this seeing the light of day outside of festivals? Slim, but if you see it on the bill somewhere then I hope you enjoy it.

Home Movie

Destined for cult status, if only because it stars someone from Heroes. A cult status would be well deserved though as this is a tight piece of found footage horror. That said, I would like it if horror writers would leave behind the extremely well trodden path of scary kids. It’s been done so many times it’s not scary, we just watch to see what they’ll have them do.

Vampire Party/Les dents de la nuit/Teeth of the Night

I walked out. The last film of the festival and I walked out. It’s been several years since I’ve walked out of a film before the end and this piece of French shit has reset the clock. Imagine Scary Movie with fewer jokes and in French. Then take the jokes you have left and replace with even more obvious jokes and cliched vampiric crap. Really fucking terrible.

And that was it. I think the only recommendation of a new film I would give whole heartedly would be for Cold Storage. Adele announced that DbD will be taking a break as she’s a bit burnt out. An understandable situation and part of me is glad she’s doing it. I really didn’t enjoy this year’s fest anywhere near as much as I have every other time I’ve attended. That’s the way of festivals though and expecting every film to be a cracker would be foolish, I’m just used to a much higher hit ratio.

All turned around

I think this self imposed “no training” period has got me all confused as to what day it is. Ordinarily I’d be having a day off on Monday, tai-chi on Tuesday, out for a run on Wednesday and so on and so forth. Now that the Heb has been officially cancelled I’m giving my knees a rest though since I’m still getting twinges after a week of nothing more strenuous than walking I’m still going to take a trip to the physio.

It has certainly been a bit strange having so much more time in the evenings, most of which has been spent procrastinating though it’s not bad to have a week off. I’ve got through a couple of the unwatched DVDs and I’m going to sit down and play some XBox which hasn’t been switched on for nearly a month as far as I can tell. While I don’t want to get into the habit of coming home and sitting on the sofa until it’s time to sleep, a change of pace is relaxing.

The King of Kong

Although it’s well known that the documentary is more fiction than fact it’s still incredibly entertaining. I’ll definitely need to go back and reread the interview in Retro Gamer in which three of the main protagonists give their side of the story which, for the most part, seem to be at odds with what’s on screen. Ah documentary, it appears to be a dead idea. I wonder what we should call works like this which are clearly one-sided and are made to entertain rather than inform.

Eden Lake

Although I’d been warned off this at the last Zombie Club night I was pleasantly surprised. There’s an incredibly sadistic streak running through this slice of English horror though little that feels particularly fresh. To be fair, and I’ve probably said this before, there are very few films of this type that do feel fresh.

The cast all do very well, especially the group of teenagers as their group becomes more fractured. They could have done with at least one fewer though as the dialogue was spread a bit too thin at times.

What sets this apart from another film I watched very recently (though have yet to post about) is that this doesn’t feel like it comes under the heading of “torture porn”. Although their motivation isn’t anything to write home about the antagonists are at least believable. For most of the time at least, but I did feel that the conclusion was too obvious and relied on too many coincidences.

Sadly, I see the writer has a hand in Descent 2, a film for which there is no need.

Return of the Shoot ‘Em Up

Last night was Grindhouse night over in Cardenden at chez Gogs and Debbie. They’ve got a sweet projector setup which would have been better if the sun hadn’t been shining quite so brightly but we made do.

First on the double bill was Shoot ‘Em Up, a film which I’ve been warned off and heard lauded in roughly equal measure and after watching it I can see both sides of the argument quite clearly. This is a film that can only be described as ludicrously over the top. On the other hand, you could describe it as not taking itself seriously. You might have a problem with the latter description given the excessively violent and comic nature of the film. For me it was okay, I enjoyed the daft jokes and the violence in equal measure, I’d even pick it up for another watch if it was a couple of quid which I suspect it will be before too long.

The second film, Returner, was a good reminder of why I stopped paying much attention to people telling me that action movie X from Asia was great. Uninspired plot, bad acting, horrible stereotypes and yawn inducing sentimentality. Leave it on the shelf.

I’ve still got a crap load of movies to note down from Dead By Dawn this year. The reason I haven’t so far is that it was an uninspired bunch this year with little to rave about.

Frustration

If you have a bizarre dictionary and look up the definition of “frustration” you’ll get a description of this weekend.

Yesterday it pissed down with rain all day meaning I couldn’t get my bike repairs done. Today it’s a glorious day, I’ve done the repairs and the brakes are still fucked. Practically worse than before.

So I now have to take the bike in to Edinburgh to put it into a workshop because all the shops around me are shut on Sunday and I can’t get home from work in time to take it in during the week. This means I’ll be wasting a couple of hours while I could be out running instead.

Oh well, I’ve give the Cohens a call and at least I might be able to meet up with them while they’re over. I’m certainly going for a long run this evening for frustration venting.