Movies

I was trying to build up the energy to blast you with the 2nd 1/2 of the BIFF reviews, but after 2 weeks I still can't be bothered so here's a shortened version;

Starfish Hotel.
Welsh/Japanese mystery? Rubbish. With no pr0n in.

Hitch hiker's guide.
I'm on the "don't like this" side of the fence here. Comedy timing is rubbish and constant references to the original TV serialisation just serves to remind how much you'd prefer to be watching that version. Slartybartfast (bloke who played Simon Pegg's dad in SotD) is good, mind.

Running Scared.
Actually (and shockingly) very good, that dude out of Fast and furious (no not that dude, the other one) does really, really well as a mob soldier with shot nerves, which was a nice surprise after the forst 5 minutes spent thinking "Not this cunt, I can't believe I paid to see a movie with this cunt in it". This holds true up until the last 20 minutes when the plot irreversibly shits itself and our main character's acting reverts completely to his F&F shite. Watch it, you'll see what I mean and I guarantee you'll be shouting "NOOOOOOOOOOOO, you fucking cunts, how DARE you!" before throwing a beer bottle through the telly, and strangling the cat.

Sky High.
Didn't watch it, it clashed with the England France game. Oh Joy, I'm really glad I wasted movie tickets to watch that shite.

Minator.
This was OK, but no more than that. The dude who plays the king in charge of the guys who live on top of the minatour wotsit clearly went to teh Shatner school of acting. Hes was being catcalled in the cinema before the movie was 1/2 way through and a huge roar went up when he died. Some graduitous nudity, but not enough. Kind of B, but not in a funny way, really. Oh, and Rutger Hauer was OK, but only had about 3 lines and wins the prize for most fally-offy false beard.

V for Vendetta.
Frankly, apart for the fact that it's copied from the original and on that basis can't really be better (points lost for lack of originality) .... apart from that ... I think it's better than the original. This movie is fucking brilliant. It's changed considerably from the original story, in the way that Bladerunner is different from Electric Sheep ... only better. the central chick (Nats) is a middle class professional instead of 1st-day-on-the-job-prosser, which I thought was a complete cop out to make her less morally ambiguous in the beginning. I realised after 15 minutes, however, that this made her much more easy to relate to and also allowed a dimension to be added that I suddenly realised wasn't there in the original story; a study of why otherwise sensible and educated people, who are not rabidly evil, put up with (in fact take an active roll in) a fascist (or crypto fascist) system. For my money this was the single most intelligent change they made to the original story and added an entirely new dimension to the moral tale. They, unforgivably, missed out on the chance for Nats to get her joobies out and, as Dave pointed out, not giving her a Brazilian during the shaving scene was just wasted opportunity, but overall, a genius adjustment. The other thing they did really well was to change completely the explanation as to how this fascist system came about. The original was written in the 80s and of course nuclear war was the most common plot mechanism of the time for changing the world order (from the ashes, power vacuum, blah blah blah). The movie updates this and provides a much more believable mechanism. You can probably guess what it is, it's been happening in real life for the last 10 years, but I won't tell you, just watch it. On the negative side, the study of Anarchy is almost completely removed from the movie, something that I'm sure pissed Moore off, but I think the omission is OK(ish) on balance. In the end, it's a bit of a lofty notion to explain to the movie going public as a positive (which is odd in the extreme, being that it's such a simple notion), and the story has enough ground to cover as it is. This movie could be titled R for Revolution, rather than V for Vendetta, but that would have been a shit title, so I'm glad they kept it V. The casting of John Hurt as the Dictator guy is absolute fucking genius, it's just a real shame that Richard Burton is dead. If he had been cast as V, I would have geek5punked myself in the cinema. The bloke cast as V did a good job. I must say that I don't think it's as challenging a role as many have made out. I mean, no facial expressions etc; big fucking deal. Hire a good radio actor and get on with it. Cheaper too. Anyway, whether they did this or not, it worked and he's pretty damn good. Another negative stems from a positive. The knife fights are bloody marvelous, I want more of them. In fact, I demand this, and a hammer fight, on the director's cut edition.

hmm, seems I did have the energy after all

Bomber out