I Just Watched (Films)

[Alan]

The Rule Of Jenny Penn
John Lithgow and his hand puppet terrorise an old folks home. Lithgow is having a ball, tis not a great film but is fun enough to watch him chew the scenery. Could cut 20mins, easily, and it has quite film student camera work.

Star Of Midnight
Overly complicated whodunnit but William Powell and Ginger Rogers are so watchable in anything so that pretty much carries the entire movie.

[Wrathbone]

Sometimes a title alone is all you need...

Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988)

After a worldwide nuclear war, where 68% of the male population was wiped out and virile men becoming a rarity, Sam Hell, a scavenger and a highly virile man, is assigned to help rescue a group of fertile women kidnapped by humanoid frogs.

If the Carry On franchise decided to make a post-apocalyptic sci-fi action comedy, this would be the result. Wrestling star Roddy Piper goes to Frogtown wearing a government-mandated hi-tech chastity belt (that is remote-controlled by Valeria from Conan the Barbarian) and cuts loose. If your secret, buried desire was to watch a film with an exotic dancing mutant frog, look no further.

A picture says a thousand words, so perhaps the film poster can convey the essense of it better than I can:

Spoiler

I can't recommend it, yet in some ways I can't recommend it enough.

7/10

[Sly Boots]

[Animalmother]

It's literally Fury Toad..

[Wrathbone]

[Animalmother]

Willow
Had a watch after Val Kilmer passed. I could have sworn the film was older, like around 1982 but it was made in 1988. It's also only the 2nd time I've seen it apparently. Silly good fun is probably the best description, Lord of the Rings lite is another. Kilmer is definitely the highlight as he romps around having a whale of a time, Madmartigan is charming as fuck. The effects are good for the time, a mixture of blue screen and stop motion but haven't aged that well. Apparently the software developed for Willow's effects was eventually used for Terminator 2.

Worth a look but at over 2 hours long it does drag in places.

[Stormbringer]

I remember watching it at a mate's house when I was (maybe) ten years old (possibly younger) and being absolutely blown away by it...but not remembering what it was called for years afterwards.

In fact, I have a vague memory that I may have even created a thread on the old PWF, probably about twenty years ago, saying "Tell me about this film I saw when I was a kid...it featured some ape-like monsters, a two-headed dragon and a guy with a skull mask..."

I think I might try re-watching it with my lads soon.

[Stormbringer]

1917

Very well acted and technically impressive film. I have no idea how they pulled off the continuous camera and I don't really want to find out, thus spoiling the 'magic', but amazing work all the same.

There were a few odd moments in the second half where I was thinking: "Why? What? How?" in terms of plot, pacing and general goings on, but, overall, top-notch.

[Animalmother]

I think it was a series of long takes very cleverly joined together.

Novacaine
A very ordinary guy who due to a rare genetic disorder can't feel any pain. What follows is a series of some brutal body trauma that is often very wince inducing. The fact that he takes all this damage with an air of indifference is all the more hilarious. Not the greatest thing ever but entertaining none the less.

[Stormbringer]

Munich: The Edge of War

Excellent pre-WW2 drama, based on a book by Robert Harris, with some top acting talent delivering excellent performances throughout. The film portrays Neville Chamberlain (played by Jeremy Irons) in a positive light, rather than an incompetent fool, in the signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938.

[Stormbringer]

There were a few odd moments in the second half where I was thinking: "Why? What? How?" in terms of plot, pacing and general goings on...

Spoiler

The first half of the film, up until the point when he falls down the stairs and blacks out is fine: more or less everything makes sense...

But then, when he wakes up...

1. He's bleeding in the back of his head. Is that from the fall? What about the gunshot wound that sent him flying backwards in the first place? Where's that?

2. What were those German soldiers doing in that bombed out city between the British lines and the Devons? It makes no sense.

3. The bit where he runs through the ruined streets and is still being shot at, while flares are sailing through the sky above? Who is firing the flares? Why? Who is shooting? How many Germans are hiding in this city? What are they holding it for? They're miles away from their line. Also, some really odd dramatic music starts playing at that moment, but it doesn't seem to really fit the moment.

4. How is that French girl keeping hidden in a basement with a baby, just yards away from patrolling enemy soldiers?

5. Why is there a platoon of soldiers sitting in the woods listening to someone singing, not that far away from a city crawling with German soldiers?

6. When he finally delivers the message, though the attack is eventually called off, the order to charge has already been given and hundreds of men, standing at the ready, have already gone 'over the top'. It didn't really feel like he saved all that much.

7. Running over the top of the trench to save a few seconds? I'm surprised he didn't get shot: some serious plot-armour there for the sake of a cinematic scene. It was a bit...'over the top'...

Everything about the second half was so weird and dream-like I can't help but wonder if he was just dreaming the whole thing while still lying, bleeding out, in that stairwell.

[Animalmother]

The biggest plot hole in 1917 is that they bothered to call off the attack in the first place.

[Alan]

I put 1917 in the same category of Dunkirk (and pretty much every Nolan film for that matter) in that its a cracking spectacle that's a terrible movie if you try and switch your brain on.

[Snowy]

Mickey 17

An absolutely cuckoo film where Robert Pattinson plays a down-on-his-luck guy who volunteers for the worst job on a colonising expedition to a new planet being run by an unsuccessful populist politician with more than a whiff of the orange twat to him. The job in question is Expendable and involves him being used for suicide missions, dying, having his memories saved and getting basically 3d printed as a clone.

Where the story goes from there is very odd. No idea if I enjoyed it, but I feel I liked it well enough. Bit flabby at a snadge over 2 hours but a reasonable watch.

[Rusty]

100% echoes my thought. It's all played tongue in cheek so I just went with it.