I wouldn’t mind seeing these guys in the series!..Rutger Hauer, Mark Dacascos, Olivier Grunner.
Speaking of Schwarzenegger, wrapping up my David Ayer viewings with Sabotage (2014), starring Arnold in the lead role. He plays the head of a “bad boy” DEA squad that has made enemies with the drug cartels. Its hard for me to get excited about Arnold in anything these days as he’s a total asshole in recent years, but that aside, this film is a freaking snoozer.
A few days ago, I watched Ayer’s [b]End Of Watch/b, and then followed it up with Harsh Times (2005, also by Ayer). Both of these films were impressively intense and engaging, and left me wanting more… but Sabotage is just average stuff with with weak performances for silly characters. Terrence Howard gives the only worthy performance here but he’s barely in it.
End of Watch, Harsh Times, both great stuff though.
Checking out Ayer’s wikipedia entry and have yet to see Street Kings, and looks like he’s got a new film with Brad Pitt coming out in November, Fury.
The Last Run - George C. Scott plays an ex-getaway driver who decided to do one last job helping Tony Musante escape, but not is all that it seems. Only watched it not long ago, fancied putting it on again.
We’re The Millers - A fake family run an RV full of drugs across the Mexican border with hilarious consequences. I was round a friends and they put it on, I wasn’t too bothered about seeing it but didn’t mind, I actually ended up really enjoying it.
Brannigan - Chicago cop comes to London and turns it upside down. I normally can’t stand “The Duke” but I did enjoy this, quite a few people reckons I would enjoy it even though he’s in it, and they were right, I think his wooden acting maybe made it better, great score too.
Fear X (2003) - Nicolas Winding Refn’s mystery thriller which bankrupted Refn’s attempted film company. I didn’t read much about this film prior to watching, or watch any trailers, and its interesting how much of an expectation you can build about a film based only on a film poster and its supposed genre. Fear X was not at all what I expected, and instead a distinctly Refn film full of pregnant silence and surreal, dream-like sequences. I will definitely be re-visiting this film.
Valhalla Rising - Like Fear X, this wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I’ve heard a lot of people talk about this film and its always been described as brutal and a really tough Viking movie - which I guess it is, but I was expecting more action and instead, it is again distinctly the work of Refn, not that this is a bad thing at all. Valhalla Rising didn’t impress me as much as Fear X, but will probably improve on repeated viewing.
Pusher (1996) - The first of Refn’s 3 part Pusher series about a drug dealer going further and further into trouble. Now this one just barely hints at the metaphysical style Refn has continually developed, and is instead more of a straightforward crime film. It was alright with some exceptional moments like when the lead is sent with a tough guy to rough up a loser who owes him some money. Overall though, I didn’t get much out of this film and I’m not sure I’ll go back to this one. Still have to watch the second two Pusher films in this series.
I’ve also just noticed there is a 2012 British remake of Pusher[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pusher_(2012_film)[/url].
House of Blood (2006).
Group of convicts escape from a crashed bus and come across a remote house full of some very strange people. Not the most original story with acting so so most of the time, but nice seeing Dan Van Husen in a nice over the top role. But its the gore and the violence that stand out in this one.
[quote=“Yodlaf Peterson, post:11743, topic:1923”][B]Brannigan[/B] - Chicago cop comes to London and turns it upside down. I normally can’t stand “The Duke” but I did enjoy this, quite a few people reckons I would enjoy it even though he’s in it, and they were right, I think his wooden acting maybe made it better, great score too.
[/quote]
I really don’t like Waynes Dirty Harry rip-off McQ, but then he went and took basically the same character to England and it’s really good fun!
But Brannigan is a Coogan’s Bluff rip-off … 
Dead Man Down (2013)
Is it just me, or does somebody else always root against Colin Farrell? 
Sure is. I don’t remember much of the movie, only the barroom brawl and the fact that Duke looked far too old for this kind of entertainment.
McQ is a mediocre movie, this Eastwood type of roles didn’t suit him at all.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/faXACjC.jpg[/img]
Godzilla-2014 D:Gareth Edwards
First off, let me just say that i’ve never been a fan of the original Godzilla movies, watching japanese guys in rubber suits stomping and wrestling about just didn’t appeal to me.
Anyways…I enjoyed watching this new Godzilla movie, but it definitely had some flaws though. Besides Breaking Bad actor (Bryan Cranston) with an ugly looking wig that looked like it was a left over from the 60’s and (Ken Watanabe), pretty much all the other actors put in weak performances witch you can blame on the script that didn’t give them much to work with. Aside from that, I loved the pace and the feel of the film. (Gareth) did a great job building suspense in it till the final climax with the monsters bashing the crap out of each other. The design of Godzilla in this is absolutely amazing. 6/10
Watched The Expendables 3 a few days ago now, I thought it stopped short in surpassing part 2 but it was almost as good; it was a similar pile of goofy, mindless fun. Kelsey Grammer was a great addition to the ensemble, as was Antonio Banderas.
Hah! Very true. I’m actually not much of a John Wayne fan but really like Brannigan for some reason.
[size=12pt]… PIU FORTE RAGAZZI! (All the Way Boys)[/size]
The movie Hill & Spencer made immediately after their Trinity adventures. It’s set in South (rather than North) America and the two buddies are now pilots who deliberately crash airplanes (so their commissioner - Spencer’s brother - can cash the insurance money); one day they wind up crashing for real in the Amazone Forest and end up siding with a group of poor miners who are terrorized by a corrupt business man.
Giuseppe Collizzi took over direction from Enzo Barboni. Hill & Spencer had already made a trilogy of Spaghetti westerns with him (God Forgives, I Don’t, Ace High, Boot Hill) but the film is more closely modeled after the Trinity movies than after this trilogy. Even at this early stage the formula starts showing some signs of wear, but it’s still an above average achievement, well-made and with a couple of good scenes, the best of all a scene set in a bush bar, with Hill asking the locals to perform a dance to show his mate where they are.
The film can be watched on You Tube (in good image quality) in both German and Italian. The German dub sounds a bit stupid here and there (it’s a so-called Klamauk version), so I switched to Italian after a while, but later noticed that the Italian version is ten minutes shorter. However, the original running time was 122 minutes and in both versions the cuts have led to inconsistencies and some weird transitions.
German version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wucNvcW1Huo
Italian version:
[quote=“Lord Brett, post:11746, topic:1923”]I really don’t like Waynes Dirty Harry rip-off McQ, but then he went and took basically the same character to England and it’s really good fun![/quote]Probably because he was a one dimensional actor
Split Second, 1953… Dick Powell-directed gem about escaped bankrobbers from Reno who flee to a Nevada atomic-bomb test-site, where they’d hidden their money. Situations force them to kidnap an array of people, then hide in a ghost-town. Predictable drama-intensity and detonation countdown. Superb acting performances lift it. The filmmakers were definitely going-for ‘atom-bomb fans’, which is weird but prevents it from one-dimensionally aging. Excellent blast-FX.
Actually there is no official 122 min version of PIU FORTE RAGAZZI!. The Italian and the German versions contain both different scenes, and the unofficial Tijuana version (a composite of both) runs 114 min in Pal, or 119 min if it existed elsewhere as Blu.
The differences in German language:
[quote=“Stanton, post:11756, topic:1923”]Actually there is no official 122 min version of PIU FORTE RAGAZZI!. The Italian and the German versions contain both different scenes, and the unofficial Tijuana version (a composite of both) runs 114 min in Pal, or 119 min if it existed elsewhere as Blu.
The differences in German language:
http://www.schnittberichte.com/schnittbericht.php?ID=2440
http://www.schnittberichte.com/schnittbericht.php?ID=2441[/quote]
I got the info from the Italian Wikepedia page of the movie:
“La versione originale del film durava 122 minuti mentre quella in dvd, con scene tagliate, dura circa 90 minuti.”
(The original version of the movie had a running time of 122 mns, while the cut DVD version runs about 90 mns.)
There’s no reference, so I don’t know what’s the source, probably only rumors.
I saw the film half in German, half in Italian, and it looks choppy. But 114 or 90 minutes is still quite a difference.
What do you think of the movie, being a Collizzi fan?
As far as I know the only Italian version is that which was released on DVD, and which is also released on the newer German DVDs.
I like it less than Colizzi’s westerns, but I know some who think very highly of it. There is less comedy than in the Barboni films of the duo, but a lot more than in Colizzi’s 3 westerns. It is half an adventure film, and half a typical Spencer/Hill comedy.
The most funny scene is that with the bank robbery, which is only in the German version.
Enemies Closer (2013).
Battle of wits between a mad French guy and a ranger who happens to be a diver and his skills are needed by the French guy. Jean Claude Van Damme plays the bad guy and he is pretty good at playing, makes a nice change for him. Also not one of these modern Van Damme films where he is in the film for about 15 minutes or so. Peter Hyams directs who has worked with the star a few times before and he knows how to direct an ok thriller.
Speaking of Hyams, been meaning to revisit End of Days which I didn’t like on original release. Haven’t seen it since, but seems like one I may enjoy now.