"This is brilliant, laugh out loud funny." - London Evening Standard
"One mans quest to use the word "Gash" in as many reviews as possible. Keep it up man this is wicked." - Entertainment Tonight
"Loving the blog" - News of the World
Quite an impressive list of comments from some well established sources, i'm sure you'll agree. I didnt make them up. these are actual quotes. They're... Just not from the sources I claim they are from...
Weirdly i've logged in to write a new blog and the basic font I'm writing in seems to have changed which has nothing to do with me.
Thanks to everyone on Facebook who has taken the time out to suggest more films for me to watch, it's very much appreciated and keep them coming! I'm also willing to receive suggestions through this blog. C'mon now, dont be shy.
Anyway, onto the films:
10.) District 9 (2009) Dir: Neill Blomkamp
Well, after years of my friends telling me I would love this film and me putting it off, and off, and off, I finally got around to watching it. I dont really know why it took so long as I had been told the idea and thought it sounded really good - despite being told that it was (Apparently) low budget, something which I find more often than not isnt a plus in the world of Science Fiction...
If this film is indeed low budget then I have to say a big props should go out to everyone involved with it because the make-up, action scenes and special effects are incredible. As good as any high budget Hollywood movie (Skyline had the effects but not the story...) and then some!
District 9 stars Murdock from the A-Team as someone in charge of relocating Aliens from a Ghetto to a new housing encampment. Years earlier aliens had come to Earth and taken up residence in Johannesburg but have since doing so pretty much been treated like second class citizens. Human residents aren't happy so the aliens are being moved from slums into what are effectively, as even Murdock points out in the film, concentration camps.
Bad luck for Murdock, he ends up being subjected to something that is rewriting his (Here comes the science bit) molecular make-up and is turning him in to the first Human to Alien specimin. He becomes incredibly valuable to the company responsible for the Alien relocation, develops a taste for catfood and eventually teams up with one of the Aliens himself in the hopes of being cured and getting his life back. Along the way he see's the horrors that the unfortunate aliens have been subjected too and you cant help but sympathise with the aliens plight.
I wont go too much into the actual story (The end battle scene is pretty epic) but suffice to say I found it to be a kickass commentary on how we have dealed with things like Racism in the past. I read it as a comment on the Holocaust and Apartheid. Mostly Apartheid due to the legal segregation and the fact that it is in South Africa. I got the holocaust bit from the camps the aliens were being relocated to. They also refer to the aliens as "Prawns" which is a racial slur for the aliens much like ones we have all heard in the past ourselves.
Murdock is absolutely amazing in this and you can really feel his anguish as he goes from goofy guy who shouldnt work in any other area than admin to a desperate man who will do whatever it takes to survive.
This is one seriously sexy film! (It evens shows photoshopped pics of Murdock doing a "Prawn" from behind- rock on. Bit weird which is why I could only knock one out to it twice...)
Rating 5/5
So, one absolutely fantastic film done and dusted! I then moved onto a film that... Wasn't quite so fabulous...
But as a fan of anal sex might tell you: You have to take the rough with the smooth.
11.) Antibody (2002) Dir: Christian McIntire
The Pros of this film:
It stars Lance Henriksen AKA Bishop from the Alien films
It stars William Zabka AKA Johnny from the Original Karate Kid (Send him home in a body bag Johnny! YEAH!)
The cons of this film:
Ok so the film starts with Bishop as an FBI agent (Gaynes) called out to a bomb threat in an American suburb. He checks out the bomb and uh oh! It's a bad one! How to disarm it? Hell there hasnt been a bomb made yet that good old Gaynes couldnt disarm! But then a call comes through! The local airport have surrounded a man armed with a handgun and detonator switch. His finger isnt on the trigger of the detonator so Bishop tells airport security via phone to take the shot and put the miserable s.o.b down.
Please note: All supporting actors up to this point are beyond terrible and for the rest of this review i'm going to refer to cast members by names they had in films I liked.
Aaaaanyway, the bomber is shot dead but just to set the scene for the rest of the film, the bomb goes off anyway. Bishop is made the patsy and loses his job.
Excitingly though, it turns out that there is a new implant you can have that basically detonates a bomb if your heart stops. Intriguing no? No.
A year later and Bishop is living in Munich working with Johnny at his own private security firm. Enter an annoying reporter chick I initially figured would be an irritating part of the film and love interest for Bishop. Wrong. This film keeps throwing me curveballs quicker than I can knock them out of the park! She's in it just until some Embassy is attacked by some terrorist, the leader of whom has a detonator implant, and is then never seen again.
In go Germanys equivalent of a SWAT team who kill all the terrorists bar their leader who is mortally wounded. Bad news is the leader is wired up to a world ending Nuke (I might exaggerate slightly here but I kinda glazed over in this film at parts...) with an implant that is microscopic and in his body somewhere.
Bishop is asked then to join a team of appallingly bad actors to disarm the bomb.
"If its microscopic, how can he disarm it?! HOW?!" you might ask me...
Cue bad "Inner Space" rip off.
The team get into a space-ship like vessel and are shrunk to microscopic size then inserted into the terrorist leader.
Cue incredibly bad CG effects.
Cue terribly cheap looking set which makes for the ships interior.
By this point already I was feeling like this:
The seats they are sat in seem to be made of some cheap plastic... All the money spent on the ship and they couldnt fork out for some comfy leather? Fuck me, seriously? I'm sure they could sterilise it!
The other two "characters" that make up the crew are a big let down in what would otherwise have been a blockbuster movie i'm sure. Flirting with each other but denying they are in love as they are more like family. Yet when the girl faces impending death she cant resist but to tell a guy with the worlds best monobrow, that of course, she loves him.
Of course the crew die with the exception of Bishop and Robin Givens so that they can have a romantic rendezvous at a later point. All the while through the main action though, poor old Johnny hasnt been able to put anyone in a bodybag because he's been watching from the outside and is unfortunate enough to have a terrible cold. Bless. No sweeping of any legs for the poor blighter.
I cant stress enough how bad this film is that I wont give anymore of a detailed description for fear of "spoiling" it for you. OH! There is one bit though where a skin mite has gotten into the terrorists blood stream and hasnt died but manages to attack one of the ships Bishop and the crew are using. I'm guessing its this point of this film that allows the IMDB to classify the film as a horror as well as a Sci-Fi however lame that link might actually be...
This film is the epitome of Gash.
Rating 1/5
So another 2 films down another couple hundred to go. I'm still open to suggestions and would love to get some comments going.
I know not everybody is going to agree with all of my reviews - some folk have already argued with my opinions of "Children of Men" and "Monsters" but I feel I must stress they are just my opinions. And they're the right one's. Feel free to debate the merits of what I write though.
I wonder how cynical I will be towards Sci-Fi by the end of this challenge... Or even if i'll be sane...
Back to the films!
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