Carrie

A stone cold classic !.

The film opens in a girls dressing room, with loads of girlies bouncing around and generally having fun, the camera then pans to Carrie showering and cleaning herself then something happens first time, she has her period and the other girls mock her for not knowing; the reason why Carrie doesn't know is that she has had a very sheltered up bringing by overly religious mother, when Carrie confronts her mother about the period she calls Carrie dirty and that she must have sinned for it to happen as a period is a punishment from god, she then put her in a closet to pray for redemption.

Next day at school she is in class and hears a poem from a fellow pupil, when the teacher asks for opinions she says it was beautiful and the teacher mocks her and this also irate's the boy who wrote it, One the girls who tormented Carrie feels guilty for doing so and asks Tommy (her boyfriend, the poem writer) to take her to the school prom, also the teacher who found the girls tormenting Carrie bans them from the prom, which irks of the girls who is called Chris.

At the same time Carrie begins to notice she my have telekinetic powers and looks into this, whilst at the library Tommy asks Carrie to the prom, which she declines, but after Tommy's pursuit and Carrie talking about it to the teacher she accepts.

She informs her Mother that she is going to the prom, which her mother angrily tells her she can't and then Carrie reveals her powers and uses them to dominate her mother.

Chris however wants revenge and uses her bad guy boyfriend to kill a pig to get its blood which they put into a bucket and over the stage, she also uses her influence to make sure Carrie and Tommy win prom King and Queen, which they do.

Then cue all hell breaking loose !!

A Brilliant and an excellent performance from Sissy Spacek with an excellent supporting cast, its going to be hard to see how the remake will improve on this, the only reason I can see this will be if it remains totally faithful to the book.

Machine Gun Preacher

I never usually go in for films like this but I like Gerard Butler and with the recent news about Joseph Kony thought i would watch it.

The film is based on the the life of Sam Childers, an ex biker, drug user and generally all round bad egg, who finds god and sets up a mission in south Sudan to help children who are orphaned, abducted or affected by the rebel army of Joseph Kony (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kony).

The movie starts with his last spell in prison and how he finds out that his wife has given up her job as a stripper now she has found god, he initially returns to his old ways but after a violent incident one night he realizes he has reached rock bottom and agrees to go with his Wife, Mother and Daughter to church and whilst there he finds God and starts to change his life by getting a blue collar job, supporting his wife and being the father his daughter deserves.

He eventually starts a successful building firm, builds his family a home and also builds a church for people "like him" eg. bikers, down and outers etc..., after a choice meeting with a visiting preacher he learns about the problems in Africa and goes to Uganda to help build, whilst building he meets 2 soldiers who agree to show around, they take him to South Sudan where he see's and witnesses the problem first hand, this touches his heart and becomes his mission to help children.

I have only touched briefly, but his mission is inspirational and is a testament to what one motivated human being can do.

The real Sam Childers and his website http://www.machinegunpreacher.org/

Train

Never heard of this but the write up looked intriguing.

A high school wrestling team is on tour in eastern Europe, after a meet they need a train to Odessa but the coach has a language breakdown with the kiosk operator then a beautiful stranger offers to help him and directs him to a train which he thinks is the correct one.

Whilst on the train a couple of strange creepy guys go along the team taking there passports for safe keeping, we later see them burning them; we then go to the coach in the dinner carriage where he is joined once again by the stranger who is revealed earlier to be a doctor, they then go to his room for sex, whilst there he gets forcibly injected with a drug and is made unconscious, we next see him in another carriage being tortured and stitched up.

Then one by one the team starts to go missing, then our hero Alex (girl) and a friend go looking for the missing team, they eventually find the torture carriage, to find their friends suffering, they free one of them and see another bleeding to death, the one who is freed performs a mercy killing then the torturer walks into room with another one of their friends, they manage to escape but have to leave people behind, they then bump into the doctor where it is revealed they are all having their organs harvested.

So it is eventually it left down to Alex to try and escape and gain revenge for the group.

For me the film was OK but nothing special, It was essentially a Hostel rip off and if you have never seen it watch that instead of this.

Best of the Best

Another Netflix, an 80's martial arts was I fool to myself ?.

Yes it appears I was, So the American Karate federation or whatever it is want to get a team together to fight South Korea who are apparently the best in the world so they have a tournament to find the best fighters, so enter our unconventional heroes, damn I know this film is 1980's and hasn't aged very well but does it really have to fall into every stereotype of a 1980's sport film, the individual characters all against each other then bonding, a training montage and epic hair especially from Eric Roberts.

Only saving grace for me is the final fight between Tommy Lee and Dae Han, the actors themselves are obviously talented in Martial Arts and that's where there talents must remain, but you cant really blame them for trying as it seemed for a while every martial artist in the 80's tried their hand at acting.

So a small review this time and why is that you may ask, well it's like this the plot line is so shallow that it takes no thinking about, this is sometimes OK but when it's executed like a bag of shite and with shite acting you tend to think why am I wasting 90 minutes of my life !.

Also why the hell was James Earl Jones in this surely he still has Darth Vader money rolling in.

Oh and another thing in the film it says Karate every where but it clearly looks to Tae Kwon Do they are practicing.

Equilibrium

This is a movie I have never sat down and watched all way through, so with the sicky one still in bed and me bored out of my skull I thought I would sit down and watch it.

Set in dystopian totalitarian future after the 3rd world war where emotions are banned and controlled with drugs and anything that inflames the senses such as books, paintings and other similar materials are also banned.

Enforcing the police state is a group of elite law enforcers known as the clerics, trained extensively in gun play and martial arts, the head cleric John Preston and his partner are the best in the trade, however after a raid he notices his partner put a book of Yeats poetry in his pocket; he confronts him about this only to be told he will deal with the evidence personally, he later finds him with the book and as his partner has broken the law he must execute him, which he does, only to be told by his partner before he dies that any emotion he was feeling was worth the punishment.

The next morning Preston accidently breaks his emotion controlling serum and is informed by his son that he must go and replace this immediately, on his way to the ministry he is greeted by his new partner but by then the damage is done and is starting to experience emotions when he eventually receives his vial he refuses to take it; later on he and his partner go on a raid to arrest a sense offender, which he through out the film slowly forms a bonds with her, he also finds it harder and harder to hide the new burgeoning emotions from his son and new eager partner, such as remorse for the death of his ex-partner as it is revealed that the prisoner and his ex-partner where once in a relationship.

Early in the film it is noted that there is a resistance and he eventually contacts it, however because of his strange behaviour he summoned to his superiors where they inform him that there is a traitor amongst the clerics.

And that's where I am going to stop the review as the rest of the film will unravel itself as you watch it, I found it to be very entertaining, excellent action scenes that reminded me of the matrix, in fact if I think about it the film is a cross of the matrix, Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 which may seem eclectic but actually go together quite well.

Videodrome

I just got a month's free trial at Netflix and have heard a lot about this film as it is thought to be a cult classic, but for the life of me I have no idea how to review this as it is a little "out there".

Max Renn runs a sensationalist TV station that specialises in soft core pornography and extreme violence, he gets called to meet a colleague of his that finds a obscure satellite feed that appears to have scenes of extreme bdsm torture and Murder, he asks his friend to monitor and record it, he then appears on chat show to defend his TV station where he meets Nikki Brand a radio host and councilor, she is there to argue his station contributes to societies problem but there seems to be a sexual attraction between the two, and soon they agree meet, also on the show is a man called Brian O'blivion, he gives a speech about how soon television will soon replace real life.

Max starts to date Nikki and shows her the episode of videodrome, this makes her aroused and she and Max have sex watching it, she confesses to Max she has sadomasochistic tendencies and loves to feel pain and how to her videodrome would be the ultimate pleasure.

Max and his friend trace the signal to Pittsburgh and not the far east like first thought, to which Nikki announces she has to go there on business and will search it out, much to Max's reluctance.

Also around this time he starts having hallucinations which are violent and very very weird !.

When Nikki fails to return he asks a friend of his who has connections in the pornography world to help him find who is behind it, she finds the information and tries to warn him off as the videodrome is the public face of a political movement and he shouldn't mess in there business.

He tracks it down to Brian O'blivion who was the guy who was originally behind it but disliked the way it was going he also later finds out that the group behind videodrome deliberately singled him out for his TV station so they can get a wider audience and that also videodrome causes hallucinations and is being broadcast to get rid of the undesirables in the country.

He also finds from Brian's daughter that he has been dead for a while and she knows she will be next.

So it comes come down to Max to end all the madness.

And that's all I am going to write as the you really need to see the ending as it has such an unusual twist, also whats with the hallucination of the video slot in his stomach ! ENJOY !.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

Didn't know what to watch one night so went flicking and discovered this little gem.

So we have our unlikely heroes Bill and Ted, a couple of high school wasters with dreams of rock and roll stardom, unaware of their destiny that is they going to become the saviours of humanity through their music.

One problem faces them however it is a school history test !!, If they fail Ted will get sent to a Alaskan Military school by his father and their future will never be, their history test involves thinking about how famous people from history would find their local town, enter help from the future, Rufus, a guy who instructs them how to use a time machine which looks likes a telephone box.

The Boys then figure out how the time machine can help them, they go through history picking up historical figures from time to get their take on modern day San Dimas, obviously trials and tribulations face them and the obstacles thrown up by Ted's father fill out the film well.

The film is amusing and I will watch it when it's on, the idea behind the film is preposterous but then who cares, and Bill's oedipal complex with his stepmother is hilarious.

Sorry the review is so short but then the plot isn't deep, it is pure simple eye candy.

Tombstone

I first saw this when I was 16 and loved it, nothing changed.

The film deals with the before, during and after effects of the gun fight at the OK Corral, I will be honest I don't know how much of this film is truth and how much is poetic license but that me is academic because the film is well acted.

Kurt Russell plays Wyatt Earp with his brother Virgil and Morgan, The Earp family move into tombstone after all retiring from being peacemakers to make their fortunes, whilst there they met old friend Doc Holliday who has moved out east hoping the warm dry climate will ease his TB.

The brothers soon get a share in a local saloon where they have their first encounter with a notorious gang of bandits known as the "cowboys" who know the Earp's reputation and especially Wyatt's and don't want him interfering in their business, this also leads to a confrontation between the loose cannon of the "cowboys" Johnny Ringo and Doc.

As tension start to rise the leader of the Cowboys needlessly kills the town sheriff and the gang try to intimidate the Earp's and Doc, unable to stand anymore lawlessness Virgil feels the need to become town Sheriff and even though Wyatt disagrees he eventually backs his brother and this gradually leads to the gunfight and the aftermath in which Morgan is killed.

They trick the Cowboys into thinking they have won by pretending to leave town which is a ruse to gain revenge against them, and also gets their wives to safety and which leads to one of the best quotes in film history "From now on I see a red sash, I kill the man wearing it. So run you cur. And tell the other curs the law is coming. You tell 'em I'm coming! And Hell's coming with me you hear! Hell's coming with me!"

So what happens next is plenty of epic gunfights and revenge by the bucketful.

I feel that the secondary plot with developing romance between Wyatt Earp and Josephine Marcus was unneeded however this doesn't detract from the films main story.

All the roles in the film are excellently acted well performed and the film in my opinion is very overlooked.

Police Academy

It's a guilty pleasure.

I know being a film fan I shouldn't admit that, but there is something about these films I just love, so wonderfully silly, jokes you can see coming from a million miles away but to me that doesn't matter, it just makes me smile.

So we have a band of misfits wanting to become police officers and one who doesn't, enter Mahoney, Jones, Hightower, Hooks, Tackleberry and others ,with trainers SGT. Callahan the blonde big boobed and sexually aggressive one, Lt. Harris the butt of all jokes and Commandant Eric Lassard the fatherly if but slightly mad chief of the academy.

We follow the recruits around basic training getting into various scrapes and escapades whilst trying to get through it all to become Police officers, however we have Mahoney who does not and tries to do various practical jokes on his commanding officers to get kicked out, however his eye catches Cadet Thompson (Kim Cattrall) and his desire to leave goes, his desire to do jokes does not !.

The film is good if you like silly humour and silly slapstick which I do, its also good as you get to see where some of the franchises returning gags come from eg. The Blue Oyster Bar, Jonesey and his various voice abilities, Hightower being bad ass, Callahan having a bit of rough sex, Mahoney being a love-able rascal, and Tackleberry destroying shit with his armoury of weapons.

Just don't take it as a classic and you will be fine.

The Tortured

Another Love-film I fancy a bit more gore I guess !

One day a perfect average families life is turned upside down, their son is kidnapped, at the hands of his abuser he is tortured, abused and killed; the police track down the killer and he is arrested for the murder, during the trial it is revealed that a mass grave has been found and that the killer will plea bargain to reveal who is there so instead of getting a full life sentence he gets 25 years to life, which the family decide is not good enough.

After the trial the family blame each other for the abduction then realise it wasn't there fault and hatch a plan to bust him out of jail and administer their own brand of justice and well you can guess from the film title how the rest of the film goes.

It was pretty much as I expected, the gore was there to shock and it failed and despite a couple of whincy torture moments it was standard gore-movie stuff, however watch out for the twist, the film is from twisted pictures (the same studio that brought us the saw franchise) and they do love their twists.

Stuck

I was looking around love-film for something to watch and along came this.

I was first surprised to find this was based on a true story, the plot revolves around Tom a recently made homeless man and Brandi a carer in a home for elderly people.

On the day in question Tom is evicted from his apartment as he is laid off and can not afford to keep up with the rent, he goes to the employment office to find work but democracy gets in his way, Brandi in the mean has the opportunity to gain promotion in her work so reluctantly takes a Saturday shift despite Friday night being her club night, she goes out anyways, Tom however now homeless is wandering the streets, Brandi whilst at the club takes a whole lotta drugs and drinks a whole lot of booze and makes the silly decision to drive home.

On the drive back home she hits Tom with her car he becomes "stuck" in her windshield and suffers horrific injuries, she for whatever reason does not report the incident, the only reason I can think she doesn't do this is she really wants this promotion !, so she drives home with Tom still stuck.

The rest of movie goes with Tom trying to stay alive with odds totally stacked against him.

Mena Suvari plays Brandi and does a good job of quickly dispelling any sympathy you may have for Brandi, as she makes you quickly realise she is obviously a spoilt girl that see's this poor guy as nothing but an obstacle in her life, however the guy who played her boyfriend however I felt was nothing but a filler role to kill some time in the film and the guy who plays Tom well I think Bravo for showing the pain !, that being said it was for a budget film well shot and well acted, so give it a watch.

I did however feel sorry for the poor bastard that had it happen to him in real life !.