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King Ellis' Christmas Movie Thing


King Ellis

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God, I was trapped in the car with that fucking Christmas Shoes song this past weekend. I very nearly put my fist through the stereo.

The live action Fairly Oddparents specials were... fine. I guess. The first one anyway. The guy who voices Jorgen makes me crazy because Jorgen is pretty much my favorite character on anything, and the live action guy can't belt a proper TEEMEE TUHNUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH.

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Day 9

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The Santa Clause

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Hurray! More Hollywood nonsense with hard working fathers and the destruction of childhood innocence as Tim Allen's character, Scott Calvin, has his son's belief of Santa shattered by that no good, interfering psychiatrist step dad. What a wanker, almost literally in this case as he is played by Judge Reinhold.

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His son, Charlie, is staying over on Christmas Eve and Scott is a woeful cook, somehow setting fire to his turkey. I'm no Michelin chef myself but how on earth do you manage to have your turkey erupt into flames?

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Which leads to them eating at Denny's, in the midst of some sort of Japanese businessmen party, and amongst a sea of other weekend dads who burnt the turkey. How utterly depressing.

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Just when Scott gets done reading Charlie his bedtime story of The Night Before Christmas, there arises such a clatter on their roof. Scott heads outside and disturbs Santa who loses his footing, slides off the roof and falls to his death. Wow, we're only 15 minutes in and we've already bumped off a beloved childhood icon. "Oh no, I've killed Santa! Well, looks like it's back to jail for me!"

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Whilst checking for some ID, Scott finds a card that instructs the finder to don the Santa outfit should Santa ever meet his demise. Scott is obviously reluctant to do something so stupid but is guilt tripped into doing it by his kid and it's not long before we're committing a little breaking and entering by way of some special effect wizardry. Between that and the reindeer, it's all rather telling that this was a 1994 release. To be fair, there's not too many scenes that have need of special effects so it's not too big of a problem and the movie looks nice enough otherwise.

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After a long, grueling night delivering presents, Scott thinks he's heading home but the reindeer deliver him back to the North Pole and to a gaggle of awaiting elves. Amongst them is Bernard, who fills him in on the 'Santa Clause', some very fine print on the aforementioned card that indicates anyone that dons the suit is volunteering to relinquish their identity and life as they know it and become the full time Santa. I'm more concerned with why a pasty white elf has dreadlocks.

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Nice Home Improvement reference, BTW.

When they do eventually get back home, Charlie is very excited after the journey they've just been on it retells the whole story to his mother. She's not very happy that Scott has been filling their son's head with such flights of fancy. God forbid your son have a little bit of fun on Christmas!

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When career days rolls around, Charlie proudly stands in front of his classmates and declares that his father is Santa Claus. Whilst Scott tries to play this down by explaining away that he deals in the production of toys, Charlie corrects him by telling the whole story all over again, raising a few eyebrows amongst the faculty.

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As much as Scott wants to believe it was all a dream, soon he finds the Santa gene kicking in as he starts sprouting facial hair that grows at an alarming rate. That's not the only thing that's growing as his love of desert causes a scene at a company meeting where he takes advantage of their lunch policy by ordering cheesecake, cookies and a hot fudge sundae. His boss, the Grandad from Everybody Loves Raymond, is not amused and tells him to get some help.

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Oh God, put it away man!

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Meanwhile, during one of Charlie's soccer games, his mother and step father arrive to find this creepy little scene playing out, as we start to enter into this phase of the movie that has them under the impression that he's playing up this whole Santa thing to his son in order to manipulate him into loving him. I actually think some of this stuff might work as one of those fan re-cuts where you turn a movie into one of another genre, like that 'happy' version of The Shining.

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Also, I do love pee wee soccer. Stop bunching! It's no use you all chasing after the bloody ball, stick to your formation! Four four fucking two!

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So, mommy and step-dad motion to have this crazy man's visitation rights removed and the judge (the law kind, not the actor) complies. Scott, rather than coming to his senses that this was all some grand delusion and using it as a wake up call to get his life back on track, goes to their house, gets the parents out of the room under the pretense of saying a personal goodbye and then absconds with his son.

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After all, he wouldn't want to leave his son out of this grand adventure. Santa even gets a kickass intro that looks like a cross between Armageddon and The Breakfast Club and it's all set to ZZ Top. Because really, what else would you use for a guy with such an epic beard?

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Of course, when you're Santa, you're inevitably going to return to the scene of the crime and the police are there waiting for them, leading to what must be the most emotionally scarring moments that the children in this film will possibly ever see as Santa Claus is hauled away by the fuzz and bundled into the back of a squad car. Fantastic.

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Some crack team of elves (Or elves with attitude, as they call themselves. Boy that made me roll my eyes hard) bust him out of jail and Scott returns Charlie home. Rather than punch the guy out or call the cops, they suddenly believe that he is the real Santa. I'm not really sure why, he doesn't do anything to convince them, he just gives Charlie a bit of a speech about how he has to go and that Charlie can't be selfish and hog him all to himself.

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I do like all these neighbours who rush into the street with their kids anytime there's the slightest sign of commotion. There are SWAT team members surrounding the house and cops lining up with pistols trained on it, is this really something you want Junior to have a front row seat for?

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Now granted, they get some pretty convincing proof soon after when he flies off on a sleigh led by reindeer, dropping them the presents they'd always wish they'd had as a kid, but still.

Though, I think if I'd have done this movie, it would have had some really grumpy cop who took this case as a means to 'get' Santa because he never got a bike when he was a kid, ordering his men to open fire on the sleigh just as it's leaving, only to have everyone throw down their arms and say 'Well heck no, they don't pay me enough to shoot Santa!' or have their guns turn into candy canes or something. Along those lines, the Wikipedia article on this film has the cheek to call the Detective who probably has about 30 seconds of screen time and 2 lines 'the main antagonist'. I thought the prissy step father and, to a lesser extent, the mother were meant to be the antagonists!

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I liked this one. The premise is neat, even if it does gloss over the 'Welp, I just killed Santa' thing and wraps itself up a little too conveniently. Tim Allen can come across a little strongly with his one liners but is otherwise OK, except for all the fat Tim Allen bits, those are really creepy. He kinda looks like a fat Data from Star Trek.

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I could never get over the scene where Mom and Judge Reinhold are standing around talking about when they stopped believing in Santa and both of them justify it with "well when i was a kid i wanted this but i didn't get it so i stopped believing in santa" and it's like, dude, you are both gigantic assholes.

Also nobody stops believing in Santa that way. You stop believing in Santa because some jerk kid on the playground tells you it's just your mom and dad, and you don't believe it at first, but eventually you figure out that it's what makes the most sense and your parents fess up.

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Yeah, at least with something like Miracle on 34th Street you can say that the mother was trying to make her daughter more grown up in order to deal with her divorce and to eliminate such wild ideas as daddy ever coming home but here it's just the kids parents are kinda dicks.

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Day 10

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It's a Very Merry Muppets Christmas Movie

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Whilst I know that a lot of people love The Muppet's Christmas Carol, I don't' want to overdo the whole Christmas Carol thing since I'll be doing Patrick Stewart's turn as Scrooge soon. But, what's this? A different Muppet Christmas movie? With more than a passing resembalance to It's A Wonderful Life? Well hot dog, sign me up!

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Wait a minute, David Arquette is the angel?

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A cameo from the cast of Scrubs? (And Neil Flynn doesn't even get one line!)

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And a horribly offensive towards both theater directors and the French from Matthew Lillard? Oh God!

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The angel, Daniel, tries to get his boss (Who is pretty much God, played by Whoopi Goldberg) to intervene in a situation that's developed for Kermit the frog, and not just that he seems to be frozen solid on that park bench.

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See, whilst preparing for a big Christmas show, the Muppets are flat broke and are hoping their ticket sales will see them through. Unfortunately, the banker they have an arrangement with pops his clogs and his cold hearted widow immediately comes over looking for them to pay up. She even manages to coerce Pepe the shrimp into turning all Benedict Arnold and going to work for her.

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I really like that little guy, he's just so small next to some of these other Muppets and it makes him look like he was the victim of a head shrinker or something. He spends most of his time hitting on the greedy banker, Bitterman, but...I dunno, I think he might just be overcompensating. I mean, he has been invited to go 'shake his bon bons' for Ricky Martin...

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There are some Muppet designs that freak me out though. Like Dr Teeth for one.

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Or this girl who can't seem to open her eyes. That's not a bad freeze frame, she permanently looks like that. The comically applied lipstick doesn't help either.

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And the overly camp choreographer.

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Speaking of dancing, I think one of my favourite parts of this movie is when Kermit inadvertently triggers the 'never been born' part of this It's A Wonderful Life homage and we see what would have become of the other Muppets if he weren't around. The big change is that Bitterman's plan of turning the Muppet Theatre into a nightclub comes to pass and quite a few of the Muppets find themselves there, including Sam the eagle, now a glowstick-wielding raver. Actually, the music and the dress sense seems be more metal or gothy so I don't know where the glow sticks come into it.

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Beeker is a roided up bouncer, complete with tribal wraparound arm tattoo!

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And Scooter is an erotic cage dancer. That's actually really disturbing.

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If I'm skirting around actually talking about the movie, it's because I'm not overly a fan of it really. I've never really seen too much of the Muppets outside of a brief thing that aired on TV over here in the late 90's, but I guess they had sort of a variety/sketch show sorta thing going on which would often include their celebrity guest of the week, so celebrities have their place. But here it just feels like a constant bombardment of cameos and parodies, making it a little jarring and dated when you have a Steve Irwin type apprehending Fozzie Bear out on the street.

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Or when a bunch of people who mistake Fozzie for the Grinch after he accidentally gets sprayed green. Good lord, that's not what the live action remake of The Grinch looks like, is it?

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Day 11

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The Great Escape

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The tale of Allied prisoners trying to make their escape from a Nazi PoW camp...Merry Christmas everyone!

Though, I'm sure a movie got made within the last few years about that famous Christmas Day ceasefire that saw the two sides meet in no man's land for a game of football, so hey, another potential viewing there. I swear I spend half of these entries alluding to future ones.

Not really something I would have gone for but I am beholden to Mr Hamster once more and I suppose this is something of a Biritish institution over Christmas so I suppose it's not too out of place. Plus, there are actually a few instances of Christmas carols during the movie but it takes place during Summer, as far as I can tell. There's one scene in which some American prisoners celebrate the 4th of July and there doesn't seem to be too much time that passes either before or after that so, yeah, it's a bit odd for them to be singing Christmas tunes.

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At nearly three hours long, I'm only going to be briefly touching on this one. How about that cast? There's some big names in here, Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson (why is he playing a Polish guy?) and my old favourite, Donald Pleasance. As if it wasn't enough he's sat through World War II, then he has to put up with Michael Myers!

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I was kind of surprised how relatively jovial things were during this movie. You'd have all these soldiers trying to break out and it was almost as if the guards would just shake their fists disapprovingly and the prisoners would just slyly wink before trying again the next day.

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It's pretty fun too to watch them hatching their plan and seeing all the work that goes into it, distracting guards in order to pinch supplies, reworking old blankets into civilian looking clothes and almost taking apart their huts in order to reinforce the tunnels they're digging. The last one makes me a little curious as in a way you'd think they can't dismantle them too much because they might have been built quickly and not to any great standard. But then again, you know those Germans and their quest for ruthless efficiency and quality. Hell, they've just turned their noses up at the training camps on offer at next years World Cup and are set to just build their own. They might as well just finish everything off anyway, I'm sure half the stadiums aren't even finished yet and all the workers seem to keep dying.

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There is very much a shift in tone halfway through though when things start to go awry and one of the more long suffering inmates just can't take it anymore and goes with a less than subtle approach of just trying to climb the fence. It doesn't work out...

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And when they do eventually make their escape (well, some of them) it's a lot of fun just watching what happens to all these people, all spread out and finding different methods of escape with all manner of planes, trains and automobiles.

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Even though I've never seen this before, it's one of those movies that still manages to sneak into your head somehow, in my case I must have must have misinterpreted whatever snippets I've seen because (spoilers!) I always thought Steve McQueen made that jump on the motorcycle into Switzerland! Apparently not though, ending up wrapped in barbed wire worse than Mick Foley. I mean, I was already planning it in my head, what I could say about it. Henry Winkler jumps sharks, Steve McQueen jumps borders (and to a lesser extent, roads in San Francisco) but nope!

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Things are very bittersweet though as the outcome for many of the escapees is far from fun. rounded up and executed. Even the guy running the prison seems to be driven away to his doom as punishment for letting this all happen. It's alright, he's a Nazi!

A neat film but maaaan, 3 hours? Gimme a break!

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Day 12

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Bad Santa

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Man, this is one deeply unpleasant movie.

I don't mean that in the sense that it's terrible or anything, and with a name like 'Bad Santa' it's hardly going to be all sunshine and happiness but there's just a very nasty atmosphere to the whole thing.

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This probably isn't one you want to make the upgrade to Blu-ray for as you seem to spend half the movie staring at close ups of Billy Bob Thornton's disheveled, hungover face or his piss stained Santa suit. Actually, hungover doesn't seem the right word as I don't think the guy ever stops drinking. It's like the worlds longest instance of 'hair of the dog'. When he is able to collapse into his Santa chair and listen to these kids, he's prone to a case of the potty mouth. Nothing too bad, just sort of in passing, like when they ask for whatever crazy new toy they're craving and he's all "A what? What the fuck is that? Whatever, next!" but he does get a little crazy at times. It think it goes beyond antihero and into anti antihero caus, yeah, not a nice guy.

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It's a pretty interesting setup with Thornton's 'Bad Santa' and his elf (played by Tony Cox, as alluded to in my Fairly Odd Christmas entry) merely a front so they can case the mall they're working in and then rob it on the night of their last work day before skipping town and living off their takings for the next year till the holidays come around again once more.

But it's not just the characters or their underhanded motives for their lackluster attempts at providing some holiday cheer, you'll often hear some accompanying music of a familiar Christmas tune but just played in a really peculiar way that's just off putting.

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It's just kinda hard to describe...there's just a weird vibe to this whole thing. Like this barmaid, played by Lauren Graham (aka the older of the 'Gilmore Girls', aka the show that I'm kind of curious about when I've caught it on TV over the years but never really put any concrete effort into watching. Man, those girls talk fast.) who has a thing for Santa's and jumps Thornton's bones pretty much the second she sets eyes on him. Granted, the kind of person who's going to be working as a Mall Santa isn't always going to be in the best shape but this guy barely seems to be alive most of the time.

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Or the repressed Indian guy who tries to rape Thornton out in the parking lot until that weird fat kid breaks it up. That kid is just a whole other thing, given the fact that he seems to be living with a Grandma that barely knows what day of the week it is and that they even have a scene where he shows off a report card that is quite respectable (pretty much C's across the board) he doesn't seem like a dumb kid but he certainly acts it, latching onto this crazy Santa, letting him stay at his house and handing over the contents of his (jailed) dad's safe and garage.

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Then there's the boss, played by the late John Ritter, who is a bit of a prude and is quite appalled by a lot of Thornton's behaviour, having to describe it in great detail to his head of security, played by the late Bernie Mac who is pretty much the polar opposite. These are quite fun scenes, particularly a later one where they go back and forth quite quickly with the camera cutting between the two.

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Mac does a good job here actually, it's a shame the character isn't utilised too much. Man sure does love his clementines though.

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In closing, during The Santa Clause I remarked how traumatising it must have been for kids to have seen Santa being led away to a Police car. Hell, seeing some guy trying to rape Santa is a hard one to top but this one might well manage it as the big heist goes tits up and Bad Santa, having had something of a change of heart as the movie wore on thanks to his role as surrogate father, just tries to deliver his little buddies Christmas present, only to get gunned down by the cops. They even have Sheriff John Bunnell from World's Wildest Police Videos making a cameo to lead the charge!

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Day 13

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A Christmas Carol (1999)

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Ah, Sir Patrick Stewart, when he's not doing sterling work on screen, stage or the voice over booth, he's keeping us amused via Twitter with his amazing photos. Just, keep him away from James Corden, things don't pan out well with those two in the same room...

A Christmas Carol is of course a story that has been adapted countless times and has taken many forms: live action, animation, musical and Jim Carrey infused CGI (Because besmirching the Grinch wasn't enough for him, apparently). Everyone's had their crack at it, from Mickey Mouse to Barbie. Barbie for Christ's sake! This would be Mr Stewart's attempt, a made for TV movie all the way back in 1999 with a delightfully British cast. You've got Richard E. Grant as Bob Cratchit, Dominic West as Scrooge's nephew and plenty of other familiar faces such as Trevor Peacock, Liz Smith and Celia Imrie.

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There's a lot of fantastic facial hair on show too, I've always loved the vicar who oversees Jacob Marley's funeral and his overgrown sideburns.

After being his usual grouchy self towards his clerk, his nephew, some caroling children and some men collecting on behalf of charity, Scrooge retires to his darkened house in order to settle in front of the fire and seek some nourishment. He's plagued though by strange visions, be it on his door knocker or the tiles surrounding his fire. When he hears the clanging of chains as they scrape along the floor, he's alarmed to see a ghostly figure step into the room claiming to be his former business partner.

I have to say, you'd think that the effects might not be up to par given that this is just a TV movie but I think they're actually really good, particularly the ethereal, semi-transparent look of Marley. Though,there is one scene later in which the Spirit of Christmas Present and Scrooge get whisked away in a whirlwind in order to see people from far off places celebrating the season and that does look pretty bad so not everything is up to scratch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62R8Du6Id1U

It's not just the effects or the pained look of Marley that make this scene great, I love the interaction between the two. When Scrooge doubts what he's seeing, he theorises it might be something he ate. "A crumb of mouldy cheese, an underdone turnip. British beef, that can be mighty upsetting to the stomach." Man, even during the Victorian era British beef couldn't catch a break. He tops it off with the line "There's more gravy than grave about you, Jacob." which is amazing. I'm normally hesitant to fill too much of these with video but I found this scene on YouTube so I'm including it here, if only to better get across the weird way in which he says "Why do spirits walk the earth?" (2:32 in the video).

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The first spirit is a little weird to look at, so pale and surrounded by bloom.

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Whereas the second is surrounded by a different bloom, wearing a holly wreath upon his head. What a giant of a man with elegant robes and a majestic beard. Such a jolly fellow too, until he starts to delve into the nastiness surrounding Scrooge, being particularly damning as he reminds Scrooge of a remark he made that the poor and needy should die and decrease the surplus population.

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This plays out at the Cratchit house and their Christmas dinner, which is made out to be this epic event. It's such a big deal for them, the children are mesmerised by the arrival of their Christmas Pudding and Bob savours it as if it were manna from Heaven. I keep expecting him to break out into orgasm like When Harry Met Sally. Though, he may be taking things a bit far when he calls it his wifes 'greatest success of their marriage'. Not a great thing to say in front of your kids.

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They also pay a visit to Scrooge's nephew, Fred, where we seeing him making merry amongst his friends, including 'Topper' who acts like the sexiest man who ever lived. Always wearing a wicked smile and his every word just dripping with seduction.

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And then there's the final spirit, Christmas Yet to Come, a real Nazgul, Shadowlord looking guy, showing Scrooge how little impact his death has on the world, bringing only joy to those whose are in his debt and to those who would rip his bed clothes from him before he'd even gone cold so that they make a few pennies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vviOGFiGrHc

When Scrooge does learn his lesson and comes to on Christmas morning, it's just an utterly bizarre spectacle. He reacts as if he were having convulsions or an out of body experience, gasping for breath before breaking out into a maniacal laugh. Again, I've provided video because it has to be seen to be believed. If anything, this is the scene that makes me curious to see other adaptations of this story because I want to know if this is just a thing that Scrooge does or maybe Stewart just went a bit mental or something.

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This whole last ten minutes are pretty great, with Scrooge just going way overboard with the whole nice guy act. Other than the momentary possession, the best part has to be when he plays a little trick on Cratchit on Boxing Day, acting as if he were his old, surly self before surprising Bob with a pay rise. Cratchit is so taken back by this sudden change of character that he grabs the fire poker with which to defend himself, perhaps believing that Scrooge has lost his mind. He might have just seen the poster or something, Scrooge looks ready to beat the shit out of somewhere there.

Well, that's it for another year I'm afraid. Perhaps I shall return in 2014 with another Christmas Carol, the front runners being either Alistair Sim, George C Scott or Mickey Mouse. But until then, Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

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Oh, and in the words of Tiny Tim, God bless us, every one!

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  • 1 month later...

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Groundhog Day (1993)

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I wasn’t going to watch this at first but then I had a special message in my inbox.

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So I guess I don't have much ch...hey, wait a minute, this seems oddly familiar...

Well, I guess it was this or just shoe horn in a YouTube video of 'I Got You Babe'.

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But yes, it's February 2nd, Groundhog Day! The world's most famous weatherman has once more emerged to face an especially frosty morning as hundreds gather to learn just when Spring will finally come. It seems that that the fierce winter that has gripped America these past few months, bringing with it such events as 'The Icepocalypse', is going to last another 6 weeks. Sorry!

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But the movie that pays tribute to this curious holiday has left it's mark in a way that has lasted much longer than 6 weeks, introducing a term to describe a situation that just seems to keep repeating over and over again. That's literally what happens here to Phil Connors (Bill Murray), a TV weatherman once more tasked with covering the annual Groundhog Day festivities in Punxsutawney, PA, only to find himself waking up every day at 6am to live out that same day again and again.

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As he slowly begins to get his head around this alarming phenomenon, he goes through various stages which are a lot of fun to watch. He panics at first, not believing just what's happening to him, before beginning to experiment with just what he can get away with, which is apparently just about anything. Going on a bit of a bender, he ends his night by leading the police on a wild car chase and playing chicken with a speeding train.

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And as if he didn't already come across as selfish and self centered, he goes through various schemes to try woo a local woman and his producer, makes off with a bag full of money whilst two workers in an armoured car are distracted and indulging on a grand scale with a table full of desserts. Merrily puffing away on his cigarette, guzzling down entire pitchers of coffee and shoving entire slices of cake into his gaping maw leads to a look of utter disgust from his onlooking producer, Rita (Andie MacDowell).

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But no matter how much information he extracts from Rita, no badly how badly he tries to paint himself as the perfect man or how much effort he puts into making this the most perfect day of her life, it always ends up with him receiving a smack right in the chops. There's some great shots of just how miserable he is at this point, waking up alone again in that little B&B, destined to face another day in which his every action will leave no lasting impact on this world. This truly is the face of man that just can't take it anymore. Phil thinks he's finally managed to figure it out though, this Winter will never end if his namesake keeps coming out and seeing his shadow. He can never be free until someone takes care of that groundhog...

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At least he let him drive before he drove him off that cliff though.

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As harrowing as Phil's various suicides are, I think his corpse barely looks any different to that grey figure that would be awoken into another day of futility to the sounds of Sonny & Cher.

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To his credit though, Phil manages to shed his selfish, misanthropic ways and becomes something of an icon in Punxsutawney, almost an omnipotent force that seems to drift through the town, doing good deeds and touching everyone's lives. He even managed to score a newly wed couple tickets to Wrestlemania! Hmmm, this film was released in 1993...Wrestlemania IX? Undertaker vs Giant Gonzalez? I dunno, maybe you can keep those tickets, Mr Connors.

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Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

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Written by Charlie Haas?! Oh boy! Is he The World's Greatest Screen Writer?

Don't get too attatched to the old timey shop of Oriental mysteries there, Mr Wing falls victim to a deadly cough about five minutes in. He was the last holdout against billionaire Daniel Clamp's plan to renovate the Chinatown area into some sort of mega tower. Just as they're knocking the building down, Gizmo makes his daring escape, only to be captured by a worker of a genetics company housed in the Clamp Office Building.

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Oh, Phoebe, what have they got you wearing? That drab, grey uniform actually sums up Clamp Enterprises pretty well. As high tech and automated as they appear, it's all very authoritarian with no knick knacks or plants allowed at your desk. It's a weird shift to go from a small town in the first movie to New York in the sequel with this huge skyscraper full of voice activated lifts and cubicle lights that turn off if you don't move every so often.

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Not quite so weird though as the massive shift in tone from the first movie. Sure, that was a bit of a dark comedy but this just goes completely off the rails into almost a spoof of itself, with scenes of people mocking a potential second outbreak by questioning the 'rules' of Gremlins, pondering what would happen if a stray piece of food got lodged in the teeth of a Mogwai and came loose after Midnight, or if they traveled into a different time zone. Plus there's a movie critic on the Clamp Cable Network that gives the first movie a scathing review, only to run afoul of the gremlins themselves.

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There is actually some semblance of plot going on, at least to start with, with Billy rescuing Gizmo from the genetics lab, only for the little guy to accidentally get wet and give 'birth' to a new batch of more chaotically aligned Mogwai. I think Gizmo was drinking during his split second gestation period though because one of them came out a little derpy. It does make me wonder though if it was just bad luck on these two occasions that the Mogwai that spawned were a bunch of jerks or whether they are generally predisposed to try and reach the 'Gremlin' stage by seeking out food and water in order to multiply.

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It's nice to have Billy and Kate around again, even if Kate seems to have PTSD over the whole ordeal back in Langston Falls, majorly freaking out when she hears Gizmo is back. And hey, even the Futterman's pay a visit! Just how did they survive getting impaled by a JCB anyway?!

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But things just fall apart about half way through, literally so as the movie comes to a screeching halt as the Gremlins have occupied the projection booth, leading to Hulk Hogan cutting an angry promo on them, telling them to put the movie back on, lest they feel the wrath of his twenty four inch pythons. He probably got a nice fee for this cameo, to think you can get him to make you a video message, giving a shout out to you and your WoW buddies for about $50 now.

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There are some funny moments like Kate's other childhood incident that happened on Lincoln's birthday, and all the different Gremlins are cool (not to mention a little bit frightening) like a bat Gremlin, spider Gremlin, hyper intelligent Gremlin etc but the entire thing just feels like it's a sketch show, just going from one bit to the next.

Even if it does feel like a little bit of a chore to get through, it's still a little jaw dropping to see all the things that pop up.

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Like a Grandpa Munster impersonator introducing scary movies at 3.30 am.

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Or the numerous homages to movies such as Marathon Man, The Wizard of Oz and The Phantom of the Opera.

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Or the alcoholic TV chef, who when it comes to her recipes, subscribes to the 'one for you, a lot for me' method. Though, the Gremlins do make a mess of her set.

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In the words of Jory Caron, is it a good idea to microwave this?

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No, no it isn't.

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Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995)

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As I was rewatching Die Hard 1 and 2 again over the Christmas period and got to thinking how I should actually follow through on all that 'I'll watch the others one day!' and following my entry on Groundhog Day, I thought this might make a nice little run of things to watch and talk about. Gremlins 2 fits in to a lesser extent because obviously that didn't spawn quite the franchise that Die Hard did. Still waiting on that reboot...

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So, out with the old and in with the new...New York, that is! Following his hi-jinx in LA and Washington, John McClaine is back in his old stomping ground of New York City. Location isn't the only thing that's out, with John's on/off marriage set to the 'off' position so there's no Holly around, and no cameo for Sgt. Al Powell. Plus, as I alluded to previously, it ain't Christmas, barring one throw away line about Santa from John as he jokes around with some crooks before offing them.

That's probably this film seems so weird after repeated viewings of the first two. Besides having John racing all over New York, compared to things being centralised to pretty much just the Nakatomi building and the airport in 1/2, I'm just not used to seeing it all take place in the daylight!

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But hey, this is a pretty cool opening. Footage of the New York City skyline plays to the sounds of 'Summer in the City' and you're expecting a few minutes of the film's general location to be established, maybe some credits as they do. Then all of a sudden, BOOM! The action starts early with this one.

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The local police department takes call from someone claiming responsibility, threatening more bombs will go off unless he gets what he wants. Hmmm, I didn't know Topper had taken up a job as a cop. Anyway, what he wants isn't gold, negotiable bonds or an extradited President, he just wants to play a little game of 'Simon says', with John McClane being the one to follow out his instructions. I don't think I ever got over how silly it sounded to hear the police chief preface situations with 'But Simon says we gotta do this!'. The police have to go find John first though, as he's busy serving a suspension by playing his own game of 'drink the beer'.

And when the situation calls from him to be in Harlem and it's slowly revealed that he's to wear a sandwich board, it becomes pretty obvious as to where this is going.

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Oh dear. Doesn't quite have the subtlety of the Westboro Baptist Church, does it?

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Oh hey, it's Laurence Fishburne!

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Yeah, like this joke isn't going be dated. <_< But apparently Fishburne turned this role down so it all ties together nicely.

And this is another weird thing about this movie, they really cram this whole racism thing down your throat. It's not just John and Zeus (Jackson's character. Is Zeus a popular name or something?) bickering all the time about it, you've got this scene where Zeus tries to help John from being set upon by some locals and a bomb being planted in an elementary school full of

African American kids. Though it does provide a plausible reason for Zeus to want to help John, if a white cop gets killed by a group of Black guys then there's going to be a thousand cops in Harlem with itchy trigger fingers, I don't know, it's a pretty big leap to accept that this guy in his underpants and a racist sign is a cop. Sure he has a gun strapped to his back but maybe that was just so he could run amok later on?

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So 'Simon' has John and Zeus running (or driving a stolen taxi cab through Central Park, whatever he feels like) all over town to answer public phones like they're playing Grand Theft Auto, or he'll set off another bomb. But it's all a clever ruse so that he can get the cops to go on a wild goose chase whilst he steals the federal reserve of $140b worth of gold. Simon, it transpires, is the brother of Hans Gruber from the first movie, out to make a lot of money and dabble in a little bit of revenge on the side. Jeremy Irons is looking slightly Sting like here. Ooh, that reminds me, apparently Sting was in a Frankenstein movie once, that might be something for me to look into.

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Overall, this is pretty good fun but I think it's a little lacking compared to the first two films. There's some pretty nasty kills though, whilst John normally gets pretty beat up and covered in blood, I don't recall him ever being quite so blood splattered as he gets following a gunfight inside a lift. Plus there's a guy getting cut in half on a boat by a cable.

But whilst some of the action scenes are pretty spectacular visually, they don't carry as much weight as something like the plane crash from 2, even if things are pretty awkward when you've got people fleeing on dusty New York city streets. And John going from phone to phone, looking like a goof as he tries to solve riddles is a world away from the tension of the first movie. I guess a villian speaking in rhyme wasn't what I had in mind for a grand revenge plot for the loss of Hans Gruber.

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Live Free or Die Hard (2007)

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And so we reach Live Free or Die Hard, sometimes known as Die Hard 4.0 because I guess not everyone is as appreciative to the efforts of whoever's job it is to try and cram Die Hard into the name somewhere and not cop out to just have Die Hard 3, 4 or 5. With two and five year gaps between the other movies, it was twelve years before John McClane would make his return and with a little family en-tow this time.

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Ramona Flowers herself, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, plays his daughter Lucy, in a very brief early appearance before disappearing for an hour and half. Yeah, that does it make it a little obvious as to the reason you're in the movie. My lazy man's source of research, Wikipedia, tells me that this was a role that might have been potentially played by Willis' real life daughter, Rumer, as well as having such well respected actresses as Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears audition for the part. Now I just want to see an alternate version of this movie featuring Britney Spears.

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Despite things looking positive by the end of the third movie for rekindling his marriage with Holly, things seem to have gone off the rails again and John is his usual jaded self, but now a little hampered in how he can express that because everything is a little toned down here. Poor guy can't even bust out his trademark line without being censored by way of gunshot, gunshots that don't quite have the after effects that they used to. Not that it really hurts the movie, it seems more like one of those things that you'd only notice if someone pointed it out to you.

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Kinda like how I'm now finding out that the villain was one of the friends in Dreamcatcher, the one that I didn't have anything interesting to say about because I had no idea who the actor was despite having seen him in like three other movies.

But, yeah, this still has a ton of action to it with all manner of gun shoot outs, McClane being chased by a helicopter, massive car crashes and casual male on female violence. It seems like like way more happens in just a scene or two in this movie than in the entirety of 'With a Vengeance'. They even manage to do the whole 'buddy cop' thing here without the heaped on racial tension, it's just replaced instead with bouts of 'NERRRRRRRRRRRD!'.

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Because gone are the days of breaking into a skyscraper to steal hundreds of millions of dollars, taking over an airport to spring a prison break for a corrupty leader or planting a (fake) bomb in a school. Shit, it's the 21st century now, everythings done with computers these days. By hacking into the governments computer systems, these cyber terrorists hope to enact a fire sale that will...

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OH MY GOD! WE'RE HAVING A FIRE...sale!

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A firesale that involves crippling key sectors of the nations infrastructure all at once in order to bring it to it's knees and get a small measure of personal revenge. Oh, and make a lot of money on the side, because everyone's gotta get paid, right? Yo know, people give Die Hard 2 shit but at least the bad guys there had goals outside of 'get all the money'. Granted, they were all about to jet off to some private island to live out the rest of their days in bliss until John McClane blew them up but still, it was nice to see some moral conviction that didn't fall by the wayside in the persuit of the almighty dollar. I'm looking at you, Simon Gruber, Mr Half Assed Revenge Scheme.

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As there often is when it comes to technology in TV and movies, there's a little hand waving and "we can do this because technology" but it was cool to see moments like the villains fucking with traffic systems in order to get McClane caught in a horrific traffic accident or just wipe out his life savings with the press of a button just because he fucked with them. I think everyone's pensions are going that way nowadays so I wouldn't worry about it.

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The whole nerd thing can get a little over the top, with all it's techno babble and stereotypical characters like the 'Warlock' played by Kevin Smith, a guy in his 30's, living in his mothers basement surrounded by about a hundred computer screens, all of which he's running off 'five generators' during a terrorist induced blackout. Guy, if you're worried about all the juice you're sucking up then you probably don't need to have that Asteroids arcade machine running the whole time.

For a series that was apparently worried about avoiding just transplanting the 'Die Hard' motif into different gimmicky settings when the whole world was already doing that (It's Die Hard...on a mountain!), it does a nice job of bringing John McClane into the modern age and leaving him totally out of his element.

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As far as negatives go, and as much as I enjoyed all the action on display here, there's a scene in which McClane is being targeted by a jet fighter which involves the pilot having to bail out, leaving McClane to use the vacant plane as his own means of escape. When McClane is left clinging onto the tail fin, things are kind of bordering on the absurd. Not to mention that he's doing a good job considering he should have a separated shoulder or two by this point. Sure, there are other scenes that were a bit silly, like McClane driving an SUV into power station and sending a baddie, played by Maggie Q, down a lift shaft to her death, but at least that had the hilarity of seeing him crash through the wall like he was the Kool Aid man or something.

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By far the worst scene though is when McClane and Matthew Farrell, the nerd that John was meant to take to the FBI before everything went tits up, have to steal a car. Just as McClane is about to hotwire the thing, Farrell tries to warn him not to for some reason and ends up having to set the airbags off in order to stop him. This causes road side assistance to get involved, wondering if they should send an ambulance. Farrell then starts adlibbing a story about how his dad is dying of a heart attack and he needs to get to hospital right away, begging the person on the other end to start the car. Remotely starting cars? I didn't even know that was a thing! Who knew it was so hard to steal a car?

Next week things will be rounded off with the latest film in the series, at least until they make the 6th one. Die Hardest? Really? Still, the fifth one doesn't quite reach 'Kingdom of the Crystal Skull' levels of 'THEY JUST TOOK A DUMP ON MY CHILDHOOD' but it's probably still up there.

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A Good Day to Die Hard (2013)

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Unless that whole 'Die Hardest' thing gets off the ground, I'm looking at the final Die Hard movie and, man, John McClane isn't a nice person, is he?

Not that he didn't have his moments of 'shoot first, ask questions later', reveling in bumping off the bad guys and tossing out one liners as blood splattered his face before, but there was still some emotion about him. Like when he was almost resigned to the fact that he wouldn't be making it out of the Nakatomi building alive, pouring his heart out to Sgt Powell over the radio. But now, it's like he's a robot or something.

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Actually, there's an infamous interview with Bruce Willis over here in the UK on a programme called 'The One Show' in which he appeared to promote the film, only to come across totally apathetic to the whole thing, taking shots at the films title and rolling his eyes at all the footage wheeled out of the more curious moments of his carreer. It seems to carry over to the film itself, with McClane a bit more sluggish than usual, which I suppose makes sense given that he's meant to be an older guy by now and really out of his element given that things are taking place in a whole other country. It's kind of an interesting idea to have him looking in from the outside on one of these situations for once but it just doesn't work out.

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Speaking of British people, hello Sophie Raworth. Didn't expect to see you here. She's reporting on the upcoming trial of political prisoner, Yuri Komarov. McClane's son, Jack (Jai Courtney), is somehow involved in this whole corrupt Russian political scene and gets arrested after assassinating someone and ends up in court beside Komarov because he's willing to dish some dirt on politician Viktor Chagann. Only, Chagann blows up the court to stop the two ratting him out, only for it to aid their escape.

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McClane, meanwhile, has flown over to see just what the hell has been going on, but only slows his son down, who is in fact a CIA agent tasked with extracting Komarov and thanks to the unexpected family reunion, missions his escape and is forced into taking plan B. Poor Jack really isn't happy with his dear old Dad, twice uttering a rather melodramatic 'Damn you, McClane. Damn you.'

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At this point I should point out that I was viewing an 'extended cut' which I guess ended up really padding out the car chase (as well as cutting out Lucy McClane entirely) that played out here because it goes on for like 15 minutes and it's so boring. With Jack on the run and the baddies chasing him down, John decides to get involved and ram them off the road. At least before he could fall back on the fact he was a cop and he had good reason and the authority to appropriate people's cars, now he's just being a dick, punching innocent citizens out and carjacking them. It all leads to such thrilling action as an armoured truck getting into a fender bender or McClane trying to side swipe said truck that probably outweighs him two or three times.

But when even Plan B goes tits up, even Jack is out of ideas and it's up to John to help them bumble their way through things, engaging in some tired 'You Americans...' exchanges with the villain, argue amongst themselves for a while because of all the family baggage before making up for lost time with some father son bonding. Only, 'Atta boy!' is something you'd normally reserve for when he's managed to ride his bike for the first time, not for killing someone. So, yeah, it all feels a bit weird.

I say villain but he's just one of many that come and go. Maybe whoever was in charge thought the whole 'You're getting in the way of my plans, Mr McClane, I'm going to have to kill you now.' 'Yeah, well I'm gonna come find you and kick your ass.' thing was getting a little played out because all we get now are interchangeable baddies that come and go thanks to a series of 'twists' that you don't really care about when they happen.

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They certainly brought back the bad language and intense violence though, including a rather gruesome point blank gunshot. It's like something out of the Vietnam War.

Above all though, this movie is just really, really dull, especially given that I'm watching this on the back of 4 which had so much going on. But here there's just the boring car chase, a boring shootout/helicopter scene and then an even more boring and harder to see one at the end. And that's about it really.

It might be a while before I can look at another Die Hard but I can still enjoy Jai Courtney again next year in the new Terminator. Great...

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  • 2 months later...

Back from the depths of the second page of the film section comes my inane thoughts, this time on something in theaters...

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X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

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I didn’t really look into First Class all that much before it came out, besides seeing one of the first trailers and being a little surprised that they were going back to tell this origin story. I ended up seeing and enjoying it though, which is a little odd for me as I’m kind of spotty with my X-Men movies. I think I’ve seen snippets of the first, saw the second in the cinema, skipped the third and the Wolverine spin off, saw First Class, skipped the second Wolverine movie and now we have Days of Future Past.

Again, didn’t really look into this one at all and wasn’t even planning to see it tonight until a last minute change of plans, so everything came as a bit of a surprise, even if the fact it has so much Wolverine in it shouldn’t be that shocking given that Hugh Jackman turned on RAW to promote the thing.

As awesome as it was to learn of the appearance of the Sentinels, I was a little disappointed by how they looked in the ‘future’ parts of the film. Just all silver with heads that open up to fire out some sort of laser thing, it reminded me of the Destroyer from Thor and I just thought they looked a little bland. Those scenes were still really cool though, with all the portals and stuff, all the mutants using their powers to compliment each other and fight off these behemoths, only to getter utterly annihilated. Since the Sentinels are able to adapt and render all of these amazing feats utterly meaningless, shrugging them off before impaling someone, melting their face off or ripping them in two, it just absorbed me into this really oppressive atmosphere where the Mutants are just fighting to buy a few extra precious seconds to allow them delay this struggle just a little bit.

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I suppose my whole thing on how they look comes from being used to that whole giant purple/maroon thing they’ve got going on in the 90’s cartoon and in the X-Men Legends video game, which are about the sum of my X-Men knowledge so forgive me if I don’t exactly know who everyone is. There’s just something funny about making these massive death machines and painting them in such a garish way. Still, it was nice that when they turned up in the ‘past’ portion of the story they had a bit of purple to them. Those were some pretty kick ass robots for 1973 though, I was a little surprised how warmly they were recevied by the onlooking crowd. They must have been pretty scared of the shape shifting lady, the magnet guy and the rabid blue animal to stand up and applaud these things with chain guns for hands.

And hey, it’s Peter Dinklage! I might not watch GoT (at this point I must be the last human being alive that doesn’t) but I know of him. I always think it’s pretty neat when people in prominent TV shows end up getting work in films because of them, like Bryan Cranston suddenly being in Godzilla. Not that I watched Breaking Bad either of course.

I liked how the events of the past were taking place just as the Vietnam war was coming to an end. It helps add to that whole sympathetic side of the mutants when they’re being targeted by humans who are barely five minutes removed from a horribly bloody conflict, especially since we’ve just seen that they’ve been fighting alongside them the whole time. Presumably they didn’t out themselves by using their powers but fighting a way with mutants on the battlefield does seem like a cool idea. Oh, and having a fake Richard Nixon pop up just amused me.

Quite how Magneto’s powers work left me a little confused by the end. He is the master of magnet, we all know that, but I found it a little odd that he could convert the Sentinels to his bidding by using railway track.

I was also left puzzled by the prospects of ‘past’ Wolverine, the movie certainly loves to drive home his whole past with Stryker through it’s more subtle symbolism of having him underwater with things poking out of him and then the more super liminal, cramming it home with actual footage from the older movies. Except Stryker was just Mystique in disguise so is she planning on using Wolverine for her own devious ends?

Perhaps the one thing I’ll take away from this movie though is just how much they loved to use slow motion shots. Granted, when you have a character with super speed it’s to be expected, but that character was only in one small portion of the film and these things seemed to be happening every other scene between Xavier speaking to people telepathically or in fight scenes.

That and my rookie mistake of leaving a comic book movie before the credits rolled, apparently missing the reveal of Apocolypse. Oops!

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Legend (1985)

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So, over in Jimmy's Film Club thread, we have people picking a theme for that week, say films by a specific director or featuring a certain actor, that people can go off and pick from and come back with their thoughts. With all the talk of Blade Runner when Srar put forward the Ridley Scott theme, it did seem an ideal choice for me. After all, I actually own the thing on HD-DVD so it'd be a nice excuse to dust the old thing off. But, for curiosities sake, I figured I'd give Mr Scott's filmography a quick once over to see what other things I could pick from. Something immediately jumped out at me from the list: 1985's Legend.

The film that, if not a direct inspiration for The Legend of Zelda video game series, than at least a film that people have said is comparable to it. Tom Cruise running around in a tunic, clutching his sword and shield, facing off against a villain played by Tim Curry? Hell to the yes!

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Not that you see the villain, known simply as Darkness, to start with, allowing Curry to delight us with that majestic voice of his, keeping his face obscured whilst he monologues about his plan to cover the world in darkness, summoning one of his nasty looking goblins to vanquish a pair of frolicking unicorns that are apparently the source of all the light in the world. This movie certainly ticks the right boxes in the 'looks' department, from the costumes of the various Elves, Fairies and Goblins, to the budding meadows and dank dungeons, it all looks fantastic.

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It's in one of those meadows that we find Princess Lili as she searches for her love interest Jack before they frolic happily amongst the flowers, cuddling cute little animals and become enchanted by some passing unicorns. It's all very saccharin and, to be honest, a little hard to get through.

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Perhaps living a life of riches and getting everything she wants makes it hard to understand being told 'No' though, as Lili ignores Jack's request for her not to approach the noble creatures, leading to one of the Goblin's hitting it with a blow dart. The unicorn bolts, Jack scolds Lili but she doesn't really give a shit. She soon will though as the Goblin's track down the unicorn and commence harvesting it's horn, ushering in a new ice age.

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These three provide some nice comic relief in amongst all of their unicorn slaughtering and cottage pillaging. They often speak in rhyme though which I always find hard to take seriously, here's looking at you, Simon Gruber. The head of the trio gains some delusions of grandeur when he discovers the horn allows him to pull off all manner of tricks, perhaps thinking himself as the new big cheese around here. One of the other Goblins does the same when he picks it up, only he does it without realising that the villain is standing behind him the whole time. He doesn't take kindly to this tomfoolery, conjuring up an undead creature to grab the Goblin and leap into a nearly pit.

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Jack meanwhile awakens in the snow, surrounded by woodland creatures, Elves and Dwarves and the like, threatening him for his part in the events that have brought these sorrows upon them. They do offer him once chance to save himself, so long as he can answer a riddle, at which point the whole place becomes swarmed with bubbles. I guess Emma was just passing through or something?

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So they all have to go off and slay the great evil but first Jack has to gear up, after all, it is dangerous to go alone. But he has a fairy companion to lead the way, known as Oona, so you can see where those Zelda comparisons come from.

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But it's those comparisons that perhaps lead to something of a disappointment. Being an adventure movie and all, there aren't too many grand fight scenes. For instance, Jack and his party must cross a swamp, where Jack is set upon by some hideous swamp hag, spindly fingers and overgrown nails scratching at the shield Jack takes cover behind, catching a glimpse of herself in it's reflection. Again, it's a great looking costume and there's some fun interaction between the two as she taunts him, talking about what a fine meal he will make, whilst he tries to flatter her and talk her into letting him go. But it just leads to her turning her back for a moment allowing him to strike her with his sword. Hardly the most exciting of battles.

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I'm not quite sure what I was expecting the Darkness to be exactly (spending two seconds to look at the poster beforehand would have surely told me) but when he finally does show himself, it's the Devil! I don't think he's explicitly referred to as such but just look at him, it's the bloody Devil!

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The chin is a bit odd but those horns are pretty badass. And even as the Devil, Curry isn't afraid to camp it up a bit. He always has a way of sounding like he's getting immense pleasure from every line he reads. With our heroes eavesdropping on him, they get the idea that light will allow them to vanquish him and they duly set about finding every bright thing they can find in his dungeons and creating an elaborate series of mirrors to reflect sunlight upon him. It's another example of the sense of humour that this film has running through it, as even when they're about to face off against this great demon, the Dwarves still find it a good idea to play Frisbee and end up waking the guards when they end up crashing into this pile of metal dishes they construct.

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Hell, if they wanted shiny things, they could have just waltzed in there straight away. I swear everyone and everything in this movie is just caked in a layer of body glitter. Between that and the glistening snow, the whole thing just sparkles.

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  • 4 months later...

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The Invisible Man (1933)


No, I haven't found a leaked copy of the biopic of CIW's Invisible Man, this is the Universal classic now 81 years young.

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Good old Universal, they'll warn you of the Frankenstein menace and then stand up for your rights to gun the bastard down when he comes in trying to take your smokes.

This is a movie I've touched upon previously so forgive me for making some of the same points again but, even though he has his place amongst the iconic Universal Monsters, this is going to seem out of place when listed alongside some of the other movies I've watched in the past and those I'll watch this month. No gargantuan beast, no gore splattered walls, no fantastical folkloreish creatures, just one naked man wreaking havoc in a country village.

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Not that it isn't unnerving when you catch your first sight of The Invisible Man as he throws wide the doors of the local inn, bandages flapping in the chilling winds, peering through goggles from beneath a snow sodden hat, it's definitely a very cool costume design and one I readily adopted as my Tumblr avatar some 3 years ago. Time flies, eh?

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Though his other set of clothes are pretty stylish too, those glasses in particular.

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But his descent into madness leaves him acting out in rather childish ways such as knocking the hats from peoples heads and smashing windows, all the while cackling away to himself. Then you the surrounding cast with their reactions which run the gamete of being way over the top to barely trying at all. The landlady of the pub lets out the most ungodly shrieks at the drop of a hat, almost enough to deafen you, whilst police offers who are trying to stop this homicidal maniac sound half asleep at times.

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He quickly racks up a body count that would make Michael Myers and co green with envy, from throttling high ranking police offers to off screen train disasters, it's just a little difficult to give it the utmost respect when a few minutes later he's prancing down the street dressed only in a pair of stolen trousers singing nursery rhymes. If he's even wearing trousers at all that is, to be truly invisible he has to be naked as the day as he was born. To that end, it's pretty interesting to hear him explain the shortcomings of his affliction, with food being visible for up to an hour after eating, water vapour giving him a faint outline during the rain and even polluted cities causing soot to settle upon his head and shoulders. Plus you have the police and members of the public coming up with all manner of plans to try and catch him, tarring the roads, spraying him with ink, waiting for the snow to allow them to see his footprints etc etc.

Of course, the biggest problem with this chemical concoction, aside from the whole making him criminally insane of course, is the strength that has seemingly been bestowed upon him. I mean, just look:

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THE INVISIBLE MAN IS REALLY STRONG YOU GUYS!

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From a technical standpoint, watching it from the blu-ray I picked up last year, I was able to make out the odd string they used when The Invisible Man is waving books or vials around or a really long one they use to pull a bike along and provide the illusion of him riding it. The whole invisibility thing in general though works really well, being able to see through where his legs should be to things on the other side or a shirt just moving about the room. I'm not really sure on how difficult such things would have been at the time but one can't help but imagine effects weren't exactly cutting edge in the early 1930's.

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I still have to highly commend the vocal work from Claude Rains throughout though. When you spend a good portion of time not able to be seen and losing things like body language and facial mannerisms, the vocal part of the performance is going to play a bigger role and it's just so great here. Like when he goes into a rant on how he plans to use his power to walk into the vaults of nations, how he is going to auction the formula for millions and allow armies to sweep the world with invisible armies. And of course, he closes on my favourite line: "Even the moon's frightened of me, frightened to death."

But it's not his fault, nor the speedball of crazy chemicals he injected into his armpit for a month. I blame that no good Clarence.

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Yeah, I see you there, you no good Angel. This is why you never got your wings, isn't it? This is all just some crazy prequel to It's A Wonderful Life. Sure, you managed it eventually, you made George Bailey disappear but I guess you were still working out the kinks here. There's blood on your hands, Clarence, no mulled wine for you tonight.

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Only one from you I can recall is when I openly asked for one final King film and you pointed me in the direction of the deliciously terrible Dreamcatcher.


Day 2

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Who Can Kill a Child? (1976)


Also known as 'Island of the Damned', this is but one of the movies that caught my eye as I watched Horror Europa last year, a very familiar tale of outsiders arriving in a small village with the adults nowhere to be seen, met only by the smiles and the laughter of the local children.

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But laughter is the furthest thing from your mind as you spend a grueling eight minutes watching archive footage of the atrocities of war from World War 2, Korea and Vietnam amongst others, all merging together with the periodic sound of children singing. It's meant to drive this idea that the children suffer most from these events and that is what has driven them to seek some sort of revenge against the adults that have ruined the world they're growing up in, but I got the point quickly enough during the footage from Auschwitz, never mind carrying out another 3 or 4 times. Though, any talk of Franco and the Spanish civil war is curiously absent during this opening considering the film's origin and setting.

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Indeed, let's forget all this horrific death talk because we're all off to sunny Spain, VIVA ESPANA!

Where a nice young couple, currently expecting, touch down amidst the annual Fiesta of Benavis. Dragon costumes and giant heads parade down the street whilst extremely loud fireworks explode and drown out any conversation. Meanwhile, the children are busy with...

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PINATA! PINATA! PINATA!

Looking to escape the noise and congestion, as well as revisit old memories from another visit many years previous, Tom and Evelyn hire a boat to reach a remote island some four hours away from the mainland.

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Whilst they expect some quiet given that there is normally only a population of around 100-200 people, when they arrive it's almost...too quiet. Bars, shops, houses all seemingly abandoned in a hurry and no one to bee seen but a few eery looking children at the docks.

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Left a bit peckish after the journey, they have to take a few supplies from the shop including Bimbo bread! Bimbo! You shouldn't be calling it that, even if it does go around with no crusts on.

But wait, there's a nice old man just walking by! Maybe he can explain where everyone has gone. Perhaps it's just as Tom says, the town all heading out for a fiesta.

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There's no answers to be had though as a young girl comes out of nowhere, wrestles a walking stick from the hands of the old geezer and just starts absolutely whaling on him like The Sandman or something. As Tom pushes her away and screams 'Por qué?', the girl just giggles and skips away.

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Whilst the shocking start to Children of the Corn certainly was a change of pace from the kind of suspenseful build up exhibited here, it also left it feeling like it peaked immediately and was just meandering through to the end after that. Aside from feeling like a more interesting way to do the whole 'child killers' idea given the boom of Spanish tourism in the 60's and 70's, things just have so much more weight here and it's so much better for it. There's no kooky spirit or monster driving them to commit these horrors, only some vague allusion to some form of hypnosis. In a way, I think I might have preferred just the plain idea of kids rebelling against the adults that have brought so much destruction to the world rather than bringing in some sort of supernatural element into play, but it does lead to some cool moments.

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When this couple is forced to ponder the question that titles the movie, dozens of innocent faces blocking their path, instruments of death in their hands and sweet smiles on their faces, they're still left absolutely horrified by their actions despite the extenuating circumstances that drove them to it.

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Though, maybe it's a little easier when those puppy dog eyes are as black as the ace of spades. And here I was thinking that Emma Watson front cover from the Daily Star was stupid and fake...

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When are you gonna review Space Jam? :shifty:

In all seriousness though, looking forward to seeing a Halloween movie come up that I have seen. Not much for horror flicks but I may have to get in the mood and watch something for the season.

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