The Serpent's Egg

This was probably the only english language film Ingmar Bergman did. Movie is set in Germany sometime in the period between WW1 & 2 (20's/30's?) when Hitler is just a blip on the horizon. The lead character Abel (Mr. Bill himself, David Carradine) is an emigrant trapeze artist who has just seen his brother blow his brains out and then moves in with his separated sister-in-law who is desperate to dissolve the guilt of her husband's suicide and have a normal life with Abel. But Abel is also an alcoholic with huge-ass self-obsessed tendencies and the seeming desire to mind-fuck everyone around him. The film was pretty good on the whole, although sometimes Abel is presented as such a jerk you want to reach across and slap the shit out of him. it doesn't help that the lovely Liv Ullman plays his sister-in-law who is wasting away from both the hardships of living in a recession and having an explosed bag of nerves for a companion.
Good film, worth a watch.

Punishment Park - Peter Watkins

Docu-style speculative movie where forces of establishment in the McCarthy era round up rebellious elements and conduct kangaroo court proceedings after which they're given the option of either serving long prison sentences or doing a punishing desert run in which they are pursued by police. Watkins' viewpoint is not impartial (none of the establishment characters have any sympathetic facets, and the cops seem determined to live up to the 'pigs' moniker) but has a genuine sense of anger at the steamrolling of individual freedoms in the name of maintaining national security, a theme that resonates more than ever in today's USA (and every other so-called democracy). Engaging and emotionally brutal, this one is a must-watch for pretty much anyone that's not a complete jackass.

Saw this movie called Smokin Aces with Ryan Reynolds, Ray Liotta, Andy Garcia and Jeremy Piven. Piven is a wannabe gangster and Las Vegas showman who's about to snitch on the Mafia, Reynolds and Liotta are FBI agents charged with bringing him in, Garcia is their boss and the basic premise is that the mob puts out a hit for a million bucks on Piven so you have a whole bunch of colourful hitmen out to get him including 3 redneck hillbily brothers who look like rejects from a Mad Max movie, a master of disguise, a master of torture and 2 super dangerous and also super hot chicks. The movie makes absolutely no sense though and not a single likable character apart from Liotta. Mostly pretty fuck all movie with a pretty decent cast.

Watched Season 3 of That Mitchell and Webb Look and actually laughed till I had tears in my eyes at the last of the Get Me Hennimore sketches. This is easily the best season yet with the hit to miss percentage at an all time high. While I don't grudge these guys the quality over quantity approach which has made this series so superlative and much much MUCH better than the turdlike Little Britain it is rather sad having to wait an entire year for comedy of this calibre. Easily the best British series in recent times. And I say that having struggled through an episode of Pyshoville in which a series of flawed and edgy Little Britanic characters receive some threatening I know what you did last summer type letter. The first episode pissed me off so much I deleted the rest of the series. The Day Today by Chris Morris some satirical news programme probably works better in countires where the lines between fake news and real news are more clearly etched. AS such it seemed to be both trying too hard and not trying enough all at once. Was quite awful and Morris was a LOT better in Brass Eye.

Caught Eurotrip yesterday. Nothing to report, except that Michelle Trachtenberg is really smokin' hot...

Saw Alien Trespass yesterday, which is a very pleasant and amusing watch...IF you like the idea of a straight-faced tribute to the goofy 50's B-grade alien invasion movie. The guys who made this obviously have a lot of respect for the genre.

Rewatching the first two seasons of The Wire, since it's been years since I saw them. Definitely an interesting experience. The first time around, things were happening so fast from all sides that it took quite a while before I got the scheme of it all. This time, already knowing what's going to happen, it was a lot easier to keep track. Also, caught quite a few details that I missed the last time around.

Paa - A very competent tribute to the Hrishikesh Mukherjee style, with a startlingly good turn from Amitabh. Me and my mum liked this a good deal.

Saw Spartan which is like a Bourne movie in David Mamet style. As an espionage thriller, the film is excellent. The main plot involves the kidnapping of the daughter of a politician and the case is handed over to the secret service to get her back. Val Kilmer plays the lead role as a cold blooded agent handled the task of getting the girl back. Mamet spends little time on the minor details and moves right into the crux of the plot. It moves at a very good pace and has enough plot twists for an engaging experience. The dialogues are sharp and witty. Worth a watch but not in the league of Homicide or House of Games.

Finally read Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's The Mote In God's Eye, a book that has perenially been on (discerning) sci-fi fans' best-of lists. The story is set some thousand years in the future when man has escaped the solar system to colonize new worlds, and recounts his first encounter with an intelligent, alien civilization. It is exhaustedly descriptive and easily qualifies as hard sci-fi for its time or today for that matter. While the sheer volume of detail can get slightly tedious at times, I can think of few other books that have evoked the same kind of otherworldiness about creatures utterly alien. Though the two species communicate, there's little room for bullshit anthropomorphism. The Moties look different, have a different evolutionary and social structure, and different ideas of basic engineering and aesthetics. Nevin doesn't go easy on the technical side either, be it alien biology or the pop-physics. While the language is relatively easy to comprehend, there are few gaping holes in the various hypotheses presented. Light sails, wormhole drives, cosmic phenomena, etc - it's all in there.

The Fantastic Mr Fox I feel Wes Anderson is the definitive diminishing returns filmmaker - as you delve deeper into the films he's made, the stronger the impression that he's making the same movie over and over again with some very minor variations. And Fox is not entirely free of this malaise but the story is told so well, you really stop caring. One of his funniest and most effective films in a while (but then I'm one of the few people who liked The Darjeeling Limited On the other hand, I thought The Royal Tenenbaums one of his more highly regarded films was ass.)


Blood Rage A LULzfest of a film that's very typical of 80s style slasher film making. I love these movies precisely because you have NO fucking asshole character pondering on the irony of being in a slasher filmesque scenario, coming up with 'rules' of the slasher film and deciding who is going to die next. Seriously, fuck that shit! The people in this film react with terror, hysteria and wanton sex which is probably far more realistic and definitely far more entertaining to watch. The premise and acting are extremely hokey - a psychotic 12 year old spurred to kill a couple who are fucking, after seeing his mother make out with some sleazy guy in a drive-in, implicates his twin brother. The twin is bundled off to an asylum and manages to escape 12 years later just around the time the mom is planning to remarry, sending Evil Twin on yet another homicidal rampage. And what a rampage it is! Lots of hilariously OTT gore and dismemberment are the order of the day. Mark Soper does a great job as Mr Homicide - his role as the innocent twin is restricted to stumbling across corpses and looking horrified which he does competently enough. Great film, overall.

I just watched Commando (1985) for the first time. Oh man... I'm dumbstruck by the utter awesome contained in this movie. So many epic one liners in this movie. Especially loved the bit where Arnold and some big black thug are talking trash, and the girl goes, "I can't believe this macho bullshit". lol. Soon after that there's gratuitous nudity, and the black dude goes, "Fuck you, asshole!" and then Arnie goes, "Fuck you, asshole!". HAHAHAHAHAHA! It's like when elementary school kids first learn those naughty words. I can't believe somebody actually put that in a script.

Awesome movie. 5 stars.

Commando is fucking epic. One of the best ever.

Caught two awesome movies in Kontroll and 13 Tzameti. The first is a Hungarian movie set entirely in the Budapest Metro - its a darkly comedic thriller revolving around the lives of a bunch of ticket inspectors trying to do their job amidst a series of murders where passengers are pushed onto the railway lines. Excellent screenplay with a really dark atmosphere throughout.

13 Tzameti is a gritty b&w movie involving a sick mafia Russian Roulette betting game where guys bet on the last man standing. A young laborer somehow gets pulled in as a contestant, without knowing what he's getting into. Great acting all round.

Highly recommended.

133T4dip wrote:
Awesome movie. 5 stars.
Too many epic moments in this one. The rocket launcher misfire scene. The cliffhanger scene, with two great deliveries ("I lied" and "I let him go") back to back. Oh, and the Matrix vs Bennett showdown earned top spot at Cracked's Biggest Mismatches in Movie Fight History list. Can't believe you hadn't seen it till now. I remember seeing the trailer for this when I was taken to see Ghost sometime back at the beginning of the 90s (yeah I don't know why they took 5 years to air it here, but I guess the world wasn't the 'global village' then that it is now). Needless to say, that one minute was totally worth my trip. I managed to catch it a few years later.

Started watching Flight of the Conchords - fun so far. Let's see how it fares in the long run.

I've watched about half of Sherlock Holmes in two sittings. The first time I was sleepy, the second time I wasn't, so that's not really a favourable verdict. The script's bland, and Holmes comes across as a smug tit. Not an 'I'm the smartest man in the world' smug, more like an 'I'm Robert Downey Jr' smug. Ah well.