Just a brilliant film.
“Everyone and their mum is packin’ round 'ere”
“Alright, like who?”
“Farmers…”
“Who else?”
“…farmers’ mums…”
Hilarious, but even cleverer when you realise that, later on, the first two villagers Angel encounters on his return to Sandford towards the climax of the film are 1) a farmer and 2) his shotgun-wielding mother.
I agree completely with your analysis. They tried to cram in way too much unnecessary plot complications and so it ended up just a mess.
Thanks. I thought it was straight to Amazon streaming. Didn’t even remember it coming to theaters.
Venom the Last Dance Sort of recommended, as long as you don’t expect too much from it. The franchise is about humor and action sequences, not a compelling narrative and deep characterization.
I think the humor took a while to get going, the first act wasn’t grabbing me, but meeting up with a family of hippie vegan alien hunters and Venom going all Rain Man in Las Vegas (with all of $20 to bet) really got the humor going.
Action was good, particularly with some truly horrifying monsters doing battle with a variety of Venoms. I didn’t find the Big Bad particularly interesting, though. I suppose he’s quite dangerous but they all are, so it’s hard to get invested.
We recently watched Shaun of the Dead for about the fourth or fifth time, and as the first film in The Cornetto Trilogy, it also had a lot of foreshadowing. In one of the earliest scenes, the third roommate tells Ed he might as well be living in the shed. What is the ending scene of the movie? Ed living in the shed.
Yarp.
Hangdog. A “loser” is tasked with caring for his girlfriend’s dog for 3 days. Problems and film ensues.
Walt and Wendy have recently moved to Portland, Maine after Wendy’s dad had a health scare. Walt knows no one, had to quit his job, etc. Walt is socially averse. Wendy has gotten a dog Tony that she treats better than Walt. Wendy has to do a business trip. Walt is left with a dog he hates and which soon goes missing.
The format is mainly oriented towards Walt meeting strange people in the search for Tony. Some of these are fairly interesting folk.
Modest film. Desmin Borges (Walt) is good at being a sadsack. Sort of funny. Okay if you want something simple to watch.
2.789 Mussels.
They show this movie on The Independent Film channel un-edited all the time. And this is a channel with commercials, go figure.
I just watched "Shawn Of The Dead* and now I’m watching “Idle Hands” , one following the other on the Roku channel Terror Vision. Btw, I just polished of a damn good barleywine and tomorrow is a holiday.
Escape is beautiful.
Yes, there’s a lot of stuff like that (right down to Aaron A Aaronson). Also, the line “Forget it, Nick - it’s Sandford” slipped by me the first time.
The Wild Robot (2024). Visually great with a touching story. I read that a lot of the visual style was inspired by Miyazaki films and it shows with really gorgeous shots throughout. The plot is fairly simple in concept but very well executed. The voice cast is great with an unexpected, at least to me, voice in the mix. A nice movie to watch that is likely to bring a tear to any parents watching it.
//i\\
Some Indies and a furrin’ film this weekend.
A Real Pain - Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin play Jewish cousins on a trip to Poland for a Holocaust tour. Hijinks do not (mostly) ensue. The film is mostly an opportunity for some tour de force acting by Culkin (though Eisenberg is the nominal protagonist- only two of the scenes in the movie are not from his perspective). If you want closure in the ending of a movie, this is not for you. I liked the journey and the insights into these characters. Expect some noise about Culkin around Oscar time, especially if he is nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point - The least publicized but best reviewed of the Christmas movies released this past week. It isn’t the typical Christmas movie. While the family depicted is obviously religious, there is no “message” or redemptive arc, or even a dramatic revelation. This might lead one to believe that it would be the standard alternative Christmas comedy; raunchy, cringy, with all sorts of crazy situations. But no, it’s not that either. In fact, it doesn’t have any villains. It’s a mostly funny observation of a large, loving, extended family at Christmas. It is another movie that doesn’t have conventional closure at the end, but it stuck with me afterwards and I can highly recommend it if you are satisfied with the journey and getting acquainted with the characters (the film somehow manages to give insight into just about every member of the family without reverting to stereotypes).
Blitz - An English production, starring Saoirse Ronan, about the blitz bombing of London, the evacuation of children, and the population that rose (and descended in some cases) to the occasion. The child actor who plays Ronan’s son is very good, and the film really centers on him. In the end, it is a very well done movie, but not one with a lot of surprises. Recommended.
Just rewatched The Artifice Girl 2022. Low budget Science Fiction movie that’s almost all talking between 4 characters in 3 or 4 locations spread over 3 acts that span 50 years. Absoutely love it.
It begins with 2 federal agents interviewing a young man who it seems they suspect of being a paedophile, and then becomes something else. I REALLY don’t want to give anything at all away - even looking up the IMDB page is a spoiler for something I think is far better as an early surprise. The best surpise IMO comes in the second act though, really great moment
Looks like you can get it in the UK on freevee or for £3.49 on Apple or Youtube
I just re-watched Blazing Saddles which I had not seen in a long time, and now I feel even more strongly about what I said. The n-word is all over the place and is an integral part of the film’s comedy. Bleeping it out is a crime. I just don’t understand how some people’s minds work.
Whale - LOVED it! Great concept, great acting.
I Saw the TV Glow - Ugh, I get what It was trying to do but it fell very flat.
My Old Ass - Great, fun show. I got misty eyed.
Thank you. I think we agree on this.
I just watched The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare which was based upon Operation Postmaster… well, like Inglorious Bastards was based on some real stuff. 
The real Operation Postmaster was a heroic operation, in which, afaik no one was killed. Hollywood turned it into a blood fest.,
Okay- they start out by Churchill’s Ministers saying they might have to surrender du to the U-Boat war, or remove Winston. Nope. Sure in 1939, Lord Halifax and some others were seriously considering a peace treaty with Germany- but not a surrender.
Next “our heroes” werent pulled out of prisons- they were a team the Small Scale Raiding (SSRF) and the Special Operations Executive (SOE), in January 1942. No, the team did not land at a Spanish held island with a Nazi base on it (The Spanish were neutral- and yes friendly to Germany, but they iirc they never allowed nazi troops to be garrisoned on Spanish territory), nor did 5 guys kill 50 Nazi troops without a scratch.
Then- they get magic involved- the magic silent Sten gun (yes, Sten guns did have a silencer designed later in 1942, but it only made the gun so it couldnt be recognized as gunfire over 200 yards away. Next, their original plan was to sink the U-Boat resupply ship (which was actually an Italian cargo ship) but it “magically” was retrofitted to become “unsinkable” … just like the Titanic, I guess. 
So they steal the ships- which really happened, but by massacring hundreds of soldiers and sailors. Somehow the italian crew of the Duchessa d’Aosta were all armed with Schmeisser submachine guns. And of course the Spanish port had all those Nazi troops.
Incidentally- the operation IRL did grab that ship, and a German tug, and sail them away. However, they never found any U-boat base in West Africa- which made sense as that’s a long way from the Atlantic shipping lines to the UK anyway. The Spanish very properly raised a diplomatic protest. Nor, IRL were the team put )back?) in prison, but many got promotions and medals. Just about all of those IRL heroes died during the war.
Oh, and of course - my pet peeve- smoking- lots and lots of smoking by everyone.
This weekend I ended up watching a double header of comedically murderous mayhem and revenge on Hulu:
First up was Boy Kills World. Bill Skarsgård plays a deaf-mute boy out for revenge against the ruling family of a dystopian city after the murder of his mother and sister. Because he was made deaf and mute as a small boy he can’t remember what his actual voice sounded like. So his inner monologue is in the coolest voice he can remember, a Street Fighter-esq video game he and his sister used to play as kids (played by Archer’s H Jon Benjamin).
Hulu then rightly assumed I would also enjoy Boss Level. Frank Grillo (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) faces off against Mell Gibson in this Most Dangerous Game meets Ground Hog Day videogame inspired comedic action kill-fest.
We like this, but am I right that it ends on a cliffhanger?
I think I liked it better than the reviews, which are closer to what you said.
Not to say it’s a film I would re-watch, but I appreciated the concept. Certainly different from any standard fare, and for that alone it’s worth the time. And though I find de-aging technology jarring and a little creepy, there was a reason to use it in Here.
It was a good example of a fairly simple idea brought forward - what if you could see a single place throughout all history? It’s the sort of thing you would do if granted godlike powers and you had a free afternoon.
And I don’t think it’s right to over-criticize Zemeckis. This is exactly the sort of thing he’s good at, it can’t have been easy and he made it work. It’s not Citizen Kane, or even Forrest Gump. But as its own piece of work, flaws and all, I think it acquits itself well.
In the past few days I watched Star Trek Beyond and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny for the first time. Neither was perfect but I liked both of them much more than their immediate predecessors (which were why I didn’t watch them for years).
I have also over a while been doing a Star Wars animated series rewatch, and while rewatching Resistance with its sequel-era setting and guest characters I decided to rewatch the sequel trilogy for the first time since each respective movie came out, and found that I still thought all three of them were pieces of shit.