What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out of 5

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Markgway
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Re: What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out of 5

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Our Man Flint (1965) **½
Tongue-in-cheek spy caper typical of the era.
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Maverick (1994) **½
Entertaining, if somewhat flabby comedy western based on the 1950s TV series.
Mel Gibson is at his most charming, while Jodie Foster shows her comedic side.
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Ma (2019) **
Lonely, embittered veterinary nurse Octavia Spenser (looking uncannily like Diane Abbott) likes to get down and party with the local teens, but harbours a vengeful secret. Half-baked script scuppers potential of creepy Blumhouse horror.
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Extracurricular Activities (2018) **½
Amusing black comedy in which a highly intelligent senior arranges accidents for money and battles wits with a detective - the only one who believes him guilty.
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Steel Country (2017) **½
Bleak, slow burn thriller about an autistic man (convincingly played by Andrew Scott) who becomes obsessed with the suspicious death of a young boy. Story is compelling, but defiantly "indie" treatment (vagueness, plinky scratchy score, ending that leaves you hanging...) left me cold.
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Fair Game (1985) **
Sexy conservationist Cassandra Delaney is terrorised when her wildlife sanctuary is invader by scummy poachers.
OK cat and mouse/revenge picture spares us the sight of any animal cruelty (real or fake) and aside from one memorable scene (in which a topless Delaney is tied to the hood of a truck) is light on the exploitation.
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Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992) ***
John Carpenters most under-appreciated film, and better than I remembered.
Not a Chevy Chase fan, but he does well in this mystery comedy.
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Detention of the Dead (2012) **
Ever wondered what The Breakfast Club would be like if it were invaded by zombies?
No...? Then move along, nothing to see here.
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Everybody Wins (1990) *½
Private eye Nick Nolte is recruited to prove the innocence of a convicted murderer.
Barely credible, over-written screenplay by Arthur Miller, populated with assorted crazies.
Nolte gamely tries to wade thru this muddled piffle. Nobody wins.
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Fast & Furious: Hobbs and Shaw (2019) **½
Brainless, CG enhanced spin-off goes XXL with its "fuck physics" action sequences, excused by a "fuck logic" plot. Dwayne and Jason are value as a bickering odd couple of meatheads and the third act Samoan setting is fresh. Cameos by Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Hart are gratuitous and unfunny.

Clueless (1995) **½
Sharp, but unavoidable frothy teen update of Emma. Alicia Silverstone is adorable as Emma substitute "Cher", Paul Rudd proves to have aged very little in 25 years, and Dan Hedaya gets all the best lines.

The Parallax View (1974) ***
Effective political conspiracy thriller with Warren Beatty as investigate journalist in over his head. Cynical ending is typical of the era.
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Crawl (2019) *½
Competitive swimmer is trapped with her father in a basement during a storm.
Oh, and there's a whole bunch of hungry alligators.
Preposterous creature feature somehow made it into theatres.
Song playing over the end credits shows a sense of humour lacking in the actual film.
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Most Likely to Murder (2018) *½
Me... if someone were to try and make me sit thru this shrill, wrong-headed black comedy again.
The lead actor has all the appeal of a paper cut.
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Better Start Running (2018) **½
A pair of misfit shop workers (one appears to be on the spectrum) go on the run following a justifiable homicide.
Offbeat road movie tries too hard for that quirky indie vibe, but is affecting in fits and bursts.
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Satanic Panic (2019) **
Virginal pizza delivery girl finds herself hunted by rich satanists seeking the perfect sacrifice.
Goofy, gory horror-comedy isn't too bad, though the ending's a bit of a letdown.
Enthusiastically performed by a cast that knows the level of the material.
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Re: What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out of 5

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The Case of the Scorpion's Tail (Italy, 1971) [BD] - 3/5
A pretty good giallo captures the Greece locale nicely, but the story/characterization feels superficial. Charismatic Anita Strindberg was better cast in Martino's later, superior film Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key.
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Naked Fear (2007) **
An exotic dancer is stripped and hunted by a serial killer in New Mexico. An exploitation picture that seems a tad embarrassed to be an exploitation picture. There's nudity throughout, though not shot thru a leering lens, and the violence is a bit on the tame side. Not at all bad, but not good enough to pass for "a serious picture", with uneven performances and script contrivances a-plenty.
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Lukas aka The Bouncer (2019) ***
Jean-Claude stars in this tough, bilingual action drama.
It's moody and low-key, with limited action and no martial arts,
but the acting is good, and the quality far above what we get in DTV releases
(this one even played in theatres).
Beware dubbed versions.
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Bad Times at the El Royale (2018) ***
Well-crafted, noirish crime drama pays attention to character and keeps the viewer on their toes with outbursts of violence.
I keep seeing (not-inapt) comparisons to Tarantino, but this is frankly better than anything Tarantino has done since the 90s.
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The Meg (2018) **½
Jason Statham versus a gigantic prehistoric shark.
If you think the shark will win, then you clearly haven't seen enough Hollywood blockbusters.
Passable, undemanding entertainment.
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Sicario: Day of the Soldado (USA, 2018) [VoD] – 4/5
Gritty, nihilist sequel trades Emily Blunt for 350 pounds of toxic masculinity. Strong, political script with Del Toro and Brolin playing dirty games in Mexico, tightly helmed by Sergio Sollima's son who clearly has taken notes from his father.
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Airplane II: The Sequel (1982) **½
Spoof serves up more of the same.
Plenty good gags, as many misses.

Crocodile Dundee II (1988) **½
Long, but fair sequel.
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Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018) *½
Tiresome, mostly unfunny comedy horror has monsters unleashed by fracking at a posh boarding school.
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Re: What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out of 5

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Markgway wrote: 20 Jun 2020, 01:28 Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018) *½
Tiresome, mostly unfunny comedy horror has monsters unleashed by fracking at a posh boarding school.
Did you really have nothing better to do? ;)
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but I guess you're more intelligence than me.
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Sadly, no.
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Re: What general film/series have you just seen.. marks out of 5

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Markgway wrote: 13 Jun 2020, 06:56 The Meg (2018) **½
Jason Statham versus a gigantic prehistoric shark.
If you think the shark will win, then you clearly haven't seen enough Hollywood blockbusters.
Passable, undemanding entertainment.
I find this interesting purely in that they re-cast the Japanese characters from the novel as Chinese with Chinese actors, which I guess is something after Memoirs of a Geisha. I remember the film of The Meg being announced back in the 90s!
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