24

Double bill which starts off Day Four for Jack Bauer. He was only in CTU for 10mins before he sneaked into a holding room and shot some dude in the leg... maybe he needs a day off.



Sky

Colour

***

Meet the Fockers

Big budget follow up to Meet the Parents, which didn't really end in a I-need-a-sequal kind of way. It's a lot of jokes based on the surname as you'd expect, although the material is thin Hoffman and co deliver some amusing characters but it could have been better.



UGC Cinema

Colour

***

Criminal

Coool movie about small time criminals double crossing each other. Some great acting and a cool pace to it make this one worth checking out. There's a little annoying plot detail, but generally a nice film.



In Flight Movie (Back to the UK)

Colour

****

Taxi

Watched this one whilst flying back to the UK. I am a big fan of the Luc Besson original (and it's sequal) so was interested. It's really bad - even the car chases don't come close to the french sequences. I have no idea what they were thinking. Should have slept instead...



In Flight Movie (Back to UK)

Colour

*

Band of Brothers

Wathced the pilot of this series during a power cut back in Nairobi, it wasn't too bad. A little too american patrioticness around the edges and David Schwimmer was hilarious but apart from that I enjoyed it. Simon Pegg appeared delivering a letter which was a highlight too!



Was gonna watch some more but the battery ran out on the laptop!



DVD R2

Colour

**

Just Cause

This was a fairly formulaic thriller with Sean Connery playing some lawyer turned lecturer. Follows story of a wrongly convicted killer on death row who asks for help... The alligators were good actors but the best thing about this is that we watched it on a laptop outdoor whilst staying in a place called Boma in Southern Sudan miles from anywhere. Cool venue...



DVD R2

Colour

**

The Whole Nine Yards

Amusing comedy with Matthew Perry and Bruce Willis playing neurotic dentist and wanted hitman. Caught this again and really enjoyed it, it was just what was needed - lightweight and amusing.



DVD R2 (Nairobi)

Colour

***

Italian Job

1969 classic version with Michael Caine. Wonderful crime caper following the gold robbery and ensuing car chase involving those Mini Coopers. Yeah...



DVD R2 (Nairobi)

Colour

****

Bridget Jones Diary

Ok. Watched this in Nairobi on a laptop with the other people in the guest house.

Entertaining enough romcom following Bridget Jones as she falls in love etc. Has the usual 'working title' conventions such as christmas, awkward english types and of course Hugh Grant.



DVD R2 (Nairobi)

Colour

***

Cellular

Choice for in flight movies was thinning at this stage so I decided to watch this again. It's a formula thriller plot with Kim Bassinger getting kidnapped and held in an attic. She finds an old phone that's been smashed by her captors and by twisting the wires together she manages to make a phone call to some dude who buys her story and starts to help. He saves the day of course, and never loses the phone signal, even batteries are not an issue for the guy, but he delivers a great 90min product placement for Nokia! So bad it's good.



In Flight Movie (On Way to Kenya)

Colour

***

Enduring Love

Following a ballooning accident, Jed begins stalking Joe, a lecturer who gets slowly drawn into a dark story of stalkers, guilt and in the end it turns into blood and tears as you'd expect. Well filmed and brooding with Rhys Ifhans as a particularly disturbing psycho.



In flight Movie (on way to Kenya)

Colour

***

Collateral

A bad night for Max the cab driver as he picks up Vincent who's in town for a night of killing. Tense, real time style thriller from Michael Mann. Best quote from Max "You killed him!" Vincent replies "No, the bullets and the fall killed him..."



In Flight Movie (on way to Kenya)

Colour

****

Cannibal! The Musical

All Singin' All Dancin' All Flesh Eatin' fun. This is the first movie directed by Trey Parker (should be an official Trey Parker weekend), and released by the nice people at Troma. It was made whilst at college and follows the story of Alfred Packer, the colorado scout who confessed to eating five gold miners. Oh, and it's a musical with some great production numbers.



Sky Movies

Colour

***

Mystery Science Theatre 3000: The Movie

I've seen a bunch of episodes from this TV show. It's about a dude and some robots who are stranded on a spaceship trying to get back to earth. The evil doctor meanwhile subjects him and his robot buddies to watch some of the worse B-Movies ever made. Most of the show is them sitting watching the movie and ad-libbing, heckling and generally rip taking. This is the movie (really) which features the classic This Island Earth. Metaluna Mutants, large foreheads and sarcastic robots, what more could you ask for on a Sunday afternoon... great fun.



Sky Movies

Colour

***

Team America: World Police

I've been looking forward to this ever since I heard that Trey Parker was doing it. I think it was worth the wait. Filmed in what Gerry Anderson would have called Supermarionation (ie completely with Thunderbird style pupets) this is a political / movie / hollywood spoof that has the usual gross out moments that you'd expect from the makers of south park. It has some hilarious moments - love the way they trash paris and egypt whilt catching some bad guys with weapons of mass destruction, and it's worth hanging on through the credits for the Alec Baldwin special song at the end. The vomit scene is amusing but the panthers are hilarious. Everyone's a target, especially Hollywood big budget movies but the real winner is probably the hilarious soundtrack. It's also incredibly well filmed, with really complex puppet shots and great camerawork.



UGC Cinema

Colour

****

Rodan

Made in 1956 this cousin of the Godzilla movies made by Toho (their first colour movie!) is a nice little monster movie. It carries a cautionary tale of messing with nuclear weapons because they lead to some monster maggots attacking some mines then - everyone gets attacked by Rodan(s). Has some high production values with great miniature sets, mad characters and UFO's.

There's trouble in them there hills...



DVD Region 1

Colour

***

The Munsters

Ahhh.

The Munsters... This is one of my favourite TV shows of all time. Herman is so cool.

This DVD has been a long time coming, and they've only released season one at the moment.

Not a lot of extras, but it does have the 15min pilot that has never aired. Watched the first two shows with Jake - he liked it too.



DVD Region 1

Black & White

*****

Rescue Me

Denis Leary plays a NY fireman in this new series. Leary usually delivers the goods (I love his stand up) unless the cast includes Sandra Bullock, luckily she's not in this and it wasn't bad. Got a little cheesy re: 9/11 at times, but the scene where he was bribing his kids was great and his dead mates (a la Six Feet Under) was ok too. Looks promising...



Sky (Episode 1.1)

Colour

***

Las Vegas

Sky have kicked off some new series of US dramas, this is season two of Las Vegas - a glitzy show based in a casino. I like this, it follows the Montecino Casino security team and their boss played rather well by James Caan. The most entertaining parts are usually the completely ridiculous technology that they have in the casino. In this one they use a security camera to zoom in on a dudes arm, then thermal image it, then mess with the contrast and enhance it - and voila! they are able to read a serial number on a microchip he has embedded under his skin.



The A-Team would have been proud.



Sky (Episode 2.1)

Colour

***

Elephant

Gus Van Sant's movie about a normal day in a high school that is anything but normal.

Based on recent school shootings in the USA this follows life in a school in Portland Oregon. Using steadicam it has great cinematography that follows the kids around the school halls, replaying aspects of the day as various characters lives intersect. Powerful stuff.



DVD Region 2

Colour

****

They Came to Rob Las Vegas

This movie from 1969 is a pretty cool heist movie.

I kinda like the 60's cheesy music, along with everyone smoking and calling each other 'cat' but this is also a good story which involves robbing an armoured car in the desert, they actually bury it underground and fool everyone for a while. Lots of subplot with Jack Palance as a Treasury Agent who is after the owner of the security company too.



Sky Movies

Colour

***

The Commander - Virus

This was a two part (3 hour) TV crime drama written by Linda La Plante and starring Amanda Burton. I enjoyed it and thought that the idea of a hacker changing medical records was more creative and scary than the usual hacker stuff. All in all not a bad show.



ITV

Colour

***

Derren Brown: Messiah

Caught up with this tonight, from Friday - Mr Brown visits the USA to meet various leaders of differing belief systems that range from UFO abductees to Mediums and Christian church leaders. The aim is to see if by using his skills he can fool each one of them into endorsing him. As the show progresses most of them fall for it, from cold reading to remote drawing demonstrations these people take it all in. He says the aim of the show is to raise questions about what we accept and believe. I think his approach can do this, but the people he chose for the show were a little off the wall, as he says in the show the reading section was diffcult to perform as he was messing with peoples lives - this one was uncomfortable.



Overall I think that Penn & Teller did a better job of this whole thing in there recent b******t series, more open and honest and with more information. I guess Derren has a problem in this area - it's tricky to expose something as a fraud, when it's the tools you use for your own show as well - not sure if he's really the guy for the job. Don't get me wrong, I know that he never claims any special powers etc. but I think he makes a better performer than exposer...



Channel 4

Colour

**

I Spit on Your Grave

Yikes. Video Nasty time - I was interested in seeing if this was as shocking as it was when I saw it back in the early eighties. Also known as Day of the Woman this was a really notorious movie that fell foul of the whole video nasty thing at that time. I was trying to work out what was more shocking, the film or the fact that it was not that different from some stuff I'd seen on TV the other week... probably the latter! There's some strong stuff in there still, don't get me wrong this is not for everyone, but it's scary how strong some TV drama is these days and I guess that's scarier than this movie!



DVD Region 2

Colour

**

Without a Paddle

Nice buddy movie about three dudes who, following a friends funeral, go on a search for hidden treasure! Some good gags - the white water rafting was funny as was the scene where the rednecks were singing "do you really want to hurt me" modified to "Yes, we really want to hurt you!" Cool.



UGC Cinema

Colour

****

Cold Case

Caught up with 4 episodes of this show from season one seeing that season two kicks off later this week. It's a great show with Detective Lilly Rush investigating various old and cold cases.

Very stylised with some good characters and great music.

Episodes: Sherry Darlin' > Hubris > Glued > The Letter



DVD-R

Colour

****

.

Garfield

Watched this one again with the boys - it's not that bad, saved by Bill Murray doing the voice for a pretty good cgi Garfield.



The perfect main human characters played by Breckin Meyer and Jennifer Love Hewitt seem to be bred for such roles, maybe they keep them in the cupboard somewhere and only let them our for such roles... scary.



DVD Region 2

Colour

***

White Noise

Interesting film with Michael Keaton playing his usual slightly unhinged bloke role. It's about EVP (electronic voice phenomenom) where dead people speak to him via the white noise of radios, TV etc. Has a nice feel to it and some good moments but untimately seems a little unsatisfying by the end. I suggest he gets digital TV and DAB radio and dump his old analogue stuff then he'd have rid himself of the problem earlier, and we could have all gone home happier.

UGC Cinema

Colour

**

.

Undead

Cool. This aussie zombie movie was kinda like early Peter Jackson movies, written, directed and paid for by some brothers. They used over 600 litres of fake blood during filming and they rendered most of the special FX shots on their home computers.

It was great - mad plot about meteors hitting a small fishing town and turning people into flesh eating zombies - acid rain and alien abduction follow. Yeah!

The best quote has to be "Are you a fighter fish queen or are you zombie food?"



UGC Cinema

Colour

****

A Day at the Races

More Marx Brothers, this time from 1937. Groucho plays a vet posing as a doctor, along with a race horse owner and his friends struggle to help keep a sanitarium open with the help of a misfit racehorse. Classic set pieces!



DVD Region 2

Black & White

***

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry's third year at Hogwarts leads him into discovering more dark secrets of the past. I like this one best of the Potters to date - much darker with some cool camera angles. Seemed a bizarre choice to give the director gig to Alfonso Cuaron as his previous works didn't really spell 'kids movie' but it was a great decision and his influence creates the dark mood that the film has.

Loved the Night Bus sequence and the werewolf, not enough of them in kids movies today...



DVD Region 2

Colour

****

Blood Work

Clint, yeah!

Clint Eastwood plays a retired FBI dude (following a heart attack chasing down a murderer) who's approached by the sister of the woman who is his heart donor to help in tracking down her killer. Not quite Dirty Harry but still a cool movie - Clint is ace as the older detective who slowly realises that his enemy is back...



Sky Movies

Colour

***

About Schmidt

This film is great - Jack Nicholson plays Warren R Schmidt who retires from the Woodmen of the World Insurance Co. The story follows him as he leaves and the tragedies that follow which lead to him going on a road trip. Sad, funny and with some great cinematography this is a real treasure as he tries to make sense of his life.



DVD Region 1

Colour

***

Kangaroo Jack

Ben and I watched this again. It's got some really funny sequences and the CGI is really quite impressive. Follows a couple of losers who on the run from the mob put some cash into a jacket which they end up placing on what they think is a dead kangaroo for some photos (they ran it over). Of course, it wakes up and runs off leaving them to try and track it down over the aussie outback...



DVD Region 2

Colour

***

Flying Virus

So, two virus movies in a week.

Flying virus aka Killer Buzz in the USA , is about some developers overseas (led by Rutger Hauer) who invent a virus-carrying-killer-bee to help wipe out the local tribes so that they can get the roads built quicker. Really.

Of course someone steals a box load and smuggles them onto a passenger airplane only for them to escape. Suprise!



Cheesy around the edges but has all the usual virus movie cliches to keep it ticking along. Interestingly I found out via IMDB that the helicopter combat scenes and the big explosions were lifted from RAMBO: First Blood Part 2 and for that they get an extra star!



Sky Movies

Colour

**

Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD

Another Troma classic featuring Harry Griswald who is an NYPD cop who gets possessed with the spirit of a great Kabuki master. He's the chosen one who has to do battle with the evil one etc (as you'd expect!).



There's some great transformation scenes and great laughs - my favourite sequence is probably the big car chase where the car is chasing a clown on a unicycle, which if course features the famous Troma car roll sequence (same clip as seen in many Troma movies including Tromeo & Juliet!) which according to Lloyd Kaufman the director was really expensive to shoot that they use it as much as they can to get their money's worth. If you watch closely whenever the sequence appears you'll notice the cars are usually different colours to the one that goes into the air. Coolio.



Sky Movies

Colour

***

Super Troopers

This follows some Vermont state troopers who play some ace jokes on drivers who are passing through their stretch of highway but eventually have to do some police work. I enjoyed it and it's really funny in places. The opening gags they play on a car full of stoners are really good.



Sky Movies

Colour

***

Darkness Falls

Caught this via Sky Movies - missed it at the cinema.

This is a neat horror movie that has the Tooth Fairy as a kickass nasty piece of work who hunts down people who peaked at her during her collection of their final baby tooth. It's far better than it sounds and it turns out that the Tooth Fairy really is quite relentless...

Best quote during the final face-off "All this for a ******* tooth!"



Sky Movies

Colour

****

Garden State

Cool movie with a really good pace to it. Does the whole "what's life about / getting your head straight" thing better than anything recently and with some well composed quirky scenes. I really enjoyed it - it's an amazing debut from Zach Braff who wrote and directed. Also has a mucho cool soundtrack too.



UGC Cinema

Colour

*****

Tromeo and Juliet

I got this DVD at the 'Make Your Own Damn Movie' Masterclass in London with Lloyd Kaufmann. It's a modern, punk adaptation of Shakespeare's classic but with body piercing, chessy gore, over the top acting and Lemmy from Motorhead narrating.



If you've not seen a Troma movie then beware - If you have then this one is a classic with all the usual stuff and an amusing mutant ending.



Tromatastic!



DVD Region 0

Colour

***

The Murder Room

Two part BBC drama based on a PD James book - caught them both in a 3 hour sitting. Not bad - although we did guess the whodunnit!



BBC TV

Colour

***

Terror of Mechagodzilla

Yeah. Toho Movies rule!

This is one that has the spacemen from the third planet constructing a mechagodzilla to destroy Tokyo so that they can rebuild it as they want. Also includes a mad Dr who can control another monster called Titanosaurus, but fear not as good old Godzilla appears and beats them both up in the end. Yahoo!

(Very cool silver space gadget halfway through that's actually made of lego!).



DVD Region 1

Colour

***

Outfoxed

Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism.

Had this documentary kicking around on DVD for a month or two, what a scary film. Compiled from various footage recorded from the Fox News Network over a few months and shows how they have pretty much eradicated journalism from their output. Some amusing examples as well as some of the ones we've heard about but all in all an eye opener about the power of the media.

There's more info at: www.outfoxed.org



DVD Region 1

Colour

****

.

Frenzy

Spotted this Alfred Hitchcock thriller on Sky Cinema so had to view. John and I enjoyed it - great little thriller but what an amazing example of how times have changed. Some of the early 1970's attitudes are quite amusing, pretty un-pc and all that. Still has some amazing camera technique as well.



Sky Movies

Colour

***

Ring

So, nice Sunday afternoon fair if ever there was some. Hideo Nakata's Ring - the original rather than the Hollywood remake (which wasn't as bad as it should have been). Cool movie, I've watched shelves full of Asian horror films over the last couple of years and along with The Grudge and The Eye this is one of the best. Not overly long or ridiculous (like Gozu) but well filmed, a great mix of video nasty, urban legend and japanese curses amongst other things. Probably the best twisty ending too. Mucho cool.



DVD Region 2

Colour

****

Matrix Revolutions

Finally caught the third part on DVD - had the disc for ages but only just got around to watching. Great quality and sound. "Everything that has a beginning has an end".



Some didn't like the third part (or the second) but I thought it was ok. They are not as strong as the first and a little over indulgent at times but let's face it - the matrix is just very cool indeed. It's also much better on the second viewing!



DVD Region 2

Colour

***

Epidemic

Virus movie where the US president gets shot with a dart that unleashes a strain of ebola. Man I love disaster movies! Made for TV, was called conatagion in the usa. Not bad...



Sky Movies

Colour

**

Johnny English

Jake wanted to watch this one so I went with it.

Not that bad, although exactly as expected. Some funny moments and then the others.

Kinda liked the bit where his tie got stuck in the sushi bar and the tattoo across the A B of C's butt.



Sky Movies

Colour 2003

**

The Wolf Man

Oh Larry, Larry, Larry...

"Wolves, Gypsies, Murder - what is all this?"







I love classic universal movies like this one. Made in 1941 starring Lon Chaney Jr as Larry/The Wolf Man as well as Claude Rains and also Bela Lugosi. It's a great film full of atmosphere - Jake and I were most impressed with the original transformation where Larry puts on a shirt before he goes out!



Awesome stuff.



DVD Region 2

Black & White

****

A Night at the Opera

I bought a Marx Brothers DVD box set during the sale at the Virgin Megastore in Sheffield yesterday. I have seen some of their movies over the years but wanted to look a little closer and all that.



This is the first one and was created in 1935 - it has stood the test of time well. Some great visual gags and slapstick as well as sharp dialogue. I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to grabbing some of the others.



DVD Region 2

Black & White

***