Cockneys vs. Zombies (2012) NR

Cockneys vs. Zombies (2012) NR 

Michelle Ryan (Bionic Woman), Harry Treadaway (Honeymoon), Alan Ford (Snatch)

A pair of bumbling brothers decide to rob a bank when the old-age home their grandfather who raised them is living in goes into arrears.  What could go wrong?  Try the zombie apocalypse.

The Breakfast Club (1985) R

Judd Nelson (Empire), Ally Sheedy (Short Circuit), Emilio Estevez(Freejack), Anthony Michael Hall (The Dark Knight), Molly Ringwald (Bad Night)

Five students spend a Saturday in the school library while serving detention.

And voted most changed in class is Anthony Michael Hall... who would have predicted what a beefy hunk he'd grow up to be?

Bad Hair Day (2015) TV-G

 Bad Hair Day (2015) TV-G

Laura Marano (Superbad), Leigh-Allyn Baker (Little Savages)

Disgraced cop Liz Morgan (Baker) and desperate-to-be-prom-queen senior Monica (Marano) discover they have to work together to foil the plans of a sneering jewel thief on prom night.

Battle Royale (2000) NR

Kateshi Kitano (Johnny Mnemonic)

In a fictional Japanese future, forty-two eighth grade students are drugged and dropped off on a remote island under the BR act to fight to the death until only one remains.

School of Rock (2003) PG-13

Jack Black (Nacho Libre), Joan Cusack (In & Out)

Rock band slacker Dewey (Black) is desperate for cash when a local prep school calls his roommate for a substitute teaching gig, so he takes his place.  The only problem is all he knows how to do is rock...

John Mullaney: New In Town (2012) NR

My daughter plays a Japanese import game whose online community has a meme about John Mullaney, and apparently they have plagiarized 90% of this standup act in the process.  It's very difficult to review something on its entertainment merits when you have a seventeen year old shouting "Oh!  It's this one!" and quoting the entire thing, verbatim.

Despite this, and the cheesey 80's sitcom-style intro and outtro, this was a cute little standup routine. 

The Decoy Bride (2011) PG

David Tennant (Fright Night), Kelly Macdonald (Brave), James Fleet (Outlander (series))

When a Hollywood starlet is looking for a remote location away from the papparazzi
to have her wedding and chooses a tiny island of the Hebrides, things go awry when the press follows her anyway.

This movie isn't really about the bride.

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014) NR

A dismal oil town gets even worse when a young vampire girl starts wandering the streets at night.

If "Near Dark" and "Requiem For A Dream" went on vacation in 1950's Paris, got pregnant and had the baby at home somewhere in the middle east, this movie would be that baby.

Atmospheric black and white in Persian with subtitles, it was depressing and dark.  Maybe I would have understood some of the nuances a little better if I was more familiar with the culture, but I did find the visual comparison between the traditional vampire cloak and a woman's hijab interesting.

There is a trench on the edge of town filled with corpses.  And clearly, there are no police.  There are vast class differences, yet they all seem to party together.

If you prefer to slowly experience a world as conceived by the director through tone and ambiance, then you will enjoy this film.  Unfortunately I found it too slowly paced and slightly boring.  As a film for knitters, you might be okay... even with the subtitles, it is long-paced enough that you will have ample stretches of time to stitch while waiting for dialogue.


As for my usual  counts, there was only one eye roll moment at the drug dealer and his stereotypical bachelor pad.  Where does he go hunting for animal head trophies, exactly?

Don't take offense if you loved this film... I am the same way with books.  I hate exposition and prefer lots of dialogue.  Subtle looks and smoke-filled rooms only take me so far.  If I can't tell what a character wants, and how it's trying to achieve it even when the film is almost over, then I'm not happy.

I gave this movie three out of five stars.  I don't need my vampires to move fast for me to enjoy the film, but I found this girl to be a complete mystery right up until the end, and that bothered me.  Perhaps you'll like her better.

Kill Me Three Times (2014) R

Simon Pegg (Paul), Bryan Brown (F/X), Alice Braga (Elysium), Teresa Palmer (I Am Number Four)

A killer for hire gets caught up in multiple threads of revenge and betrayal in this black comedy.

By the time you finish watching this film, you will have watched parts of it four times.  It jumps around to different viewpoints, adding different details, culminating in a predictable happy (ish) ending and a bad punchline.

The Mirror (2014) NR

Jemma Dallender (I Spit On Your Grave 2), Joshua Dickinson (Holby City), Nate Fallows (Viking Quest)

Three flatmates buy a purportedly haunted mirror on eBay with the goal of proving the existence of the paranormal for a million dollar cash prize.

Bill Burr: I'm Sorry You Feel That Way (2014) NR

A Netflix original.

Standup comedian Bill Burr covers a lot of hilarious territory, including sex, religion, parenting, gun ownership, adoption, and marriage.

American Sniper (2014) R

Bradley Cooper (Hangover, Limitless), Sienna Miller (Interview (2007))

The biographical tale of Chris Kyle, legendary sniper from Desert Storm.

Tactical Force (2011) R

Steve Austin (The Expendables), Michael Shanks (Elysium, Stargate SG1), Lexa Doig (Continuum, Andromeda), Steve Bacic (The 6th Day, Supernatural)

A disgraced S.W.A.T. team on disciplinary training maneuvers ends up in the middle of a gangster shootout over a hidden item with nothing but training rounds and their wits.

Hellgate (2010) NR

Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride), William Hurt (Altered States)

A businessman and his family get in a car accident on a trip to Thailand.  When he awakes from a coma to find his family dead, he discovers he can see ghosts.

The Phoenix Project (2015) NR

Corey Rieger (Out of the Furnace), Andrew Simpson (Heathens and Thieves), David Pesta (Creed), Orson Ossman (Life Inside Out)

Four young scientists come together to work on a machine that could possibly re-animate the dead.

They Live (1988) R

Roddy Piper (Hell Comes to Frogtown), Keith David (Platoon), Meg Foster (Masters of the Universe)

A drifter looking for work finds a place in a homeless camp on the outskirts of town.  When he finds a unique pair of sunglasses that reveals aliens all around him, he decides there's more to life than just surviving.

The Reunion (2011) PG-13

John Cena (The Marine), Ethan Embry(Late Phases), Boyd Holbrook(Gone Girl)

Three half-brothers are brought together by their father's will which stipulates that they have to work together to receive their inheritance.  Their idea for a family business?  Tracking down a kidnapped Wall Street tycoon for the reward money.

TED Talks: Chew On This (2011)

Various food, sustainability, and nutrition experts in a series of TED talks about humans' most basic need... the food we eat.

If you're not familiar with TED talks, then this review might go right over your head, but basically this Netflix collection is a series of lectures by experts.  They are almost always thought-provoking or amusing or both.  This series of fourteen lectures of varying lengths center around food... what we eat, how we eat it, how we produce it, and/or our relationship with it.

It's probably no secret that one of my passions is a belief that we need to return to a more simple, less processed way of preparing and eating our food.  I think that the phasing out of teaching Home Ec in schools, particularly the kitchen and sewing sections, was a death-blow to our children.  I once had a male friend I met online admit to me that he spent over $2,000 a month eating out because he didn't know how to cook.  For someone who doesn't even make that much money a month, I found that figure to be staggering.  And the economics of it isn't even the worst part.

The top three disease killers in America are completely preventable through dietary changes.

I won't go into the details of all the lectures here.  They can say it far better than I can.  But if you're a crafter who likes to have something thought-provoking and informative to listen to while you're knitting or whatever, this series is perfect for that, and you can concentrate your vision on your work while listening.

I highly recommend this series.  Even if you have no interest in cooking for yourself, improving the environment or the biodiversity of our ecosystem, the idea of how interconnected the way we live our lives is with the health and welfare of ourselves and others is an idea worth listening to.

Give it a try.

Alien Outpost (2014) NR

Douglas Tait (Jack the Reaper), Adrian Paul (Highlander), Joe Reegan (The Crazies)

In 2021 the Earth was invaded by aliens we called "heavies" but we pushed most of them out.  Ten years later, remote outposts established by the United Space Defense Force are there to clean up the last of the enemy stragglers, but they are underfunded and forgotten.

Shot in an after-the-fact hand-held documentary style, you will either love or hate this movie.  As a veteran of the first Desert Storm conflict, I find that military-themed

Ender's Game (2013) PG-13

Asa Butterfield (The Wolfman), Harrison Ford (Blade Runner), Ben Kingsley (Gandhi)

In a future where aliens have attempted to invade Earth, humans use the flexible minds of children to find the next great military commander who will save our species from the next attack.

Based on the series of books by Orson Scott Card (this being the first of four books in one quartet, with further series after), this movie takes a complex novel and attempts to condense it down into a manageable chunk for Hollywood standards.  It succeeds in some ways, and does not in others... much the way my one-sentence synopsis of the movie fails to capture all the nuances of the movie.  It's about how we treat our soldiers, it's about leadership, it's about family, and duty... far too complex to condense down to 114 minutes and include everything.

As entertainment, this movie works but feels understandably rushed.  They had to condense years of battle training down or risk creating a mini-series of just the first book.  And as tired as I am by movies populated with children, in this film it was required by the script, and thus forgivable.

The CGI effects during battle sequences are gorgeous, yet the animation during the storybook game sequence was terrible... probably due to the "uncanny valley".  The actors were all amazing, even those whose appearance onscreen was almost far too brief to do the character justice.

As a movie for crafters, this is semi-okay, depending on your project and your level of concentration.  Subtle facial expression and battle nuances will be missed if you're not paying attention.  It will not affect your ability to follow the story, but it may affect your appreciation of the film as a whole, as only listening to it may make it feel very flat.

Three laugh out loud moments for me, and that's it.  Possibly any surprise or shock value at events or the ending were ruined for me by reading the book first.  Knowing what I did going in, there was very little to make me exclaim out loud, and I'm working a very basic stockinette stitch on a pair of mittens, so I can work those without dropping the needles to concentrate.

Ultimately, I give this a four out of five stars.  There's just too much material, and too many nuances for this to be condensed down for this adaptation.  It's no-one's fault really, except maybe Card's for creating such a complex piece of writing that defies Hollywood standards... and that's not a bad thing at all.  This is good for a family movie night if you want to get a little knitting done yet still appease the sci-fi fans in the family, but the book is better, and I'd recommend the audio Whispersynch version if you want to try that for your Kindle.

  

Vegucated (2010) NR

A vegan filmmaker takes three self-proclaimed hard-core carnivores and documents them completing the challenge of going vegan for six weeks.

To be honest, I went into this documentary thinking it would be a slightly-preachy food documentary along the lines of "Super-size Me" where we'd see people eating three meals a day and how they dealt with it.  That's not what I got.  This was a very depressing thing to watch first thing in the morning.

The Numbers Station (2013) R

John Cusack (1408), Malin Akerman (Catch .44)

A tired CIA field agent is given a last-chance assignment to protect a numbers station in a remote part of England.  When the station comes under siege, can his talent and her brains find them a way out alive?

Slightly atmospheric but not terribly sexy, this spy thriller is a perfect vehicle for Cusack.  What does it say about a guy who is consistently typecast as either the lovable everyman in High Fidelity or the hitman with a heart in Grosse Pointe Blank?  What does that say about us, the viewing public, who will accept him as either type?

Playback (2012) R

Johnny Pacar (The Remaining), Christian Slater (Without Men), Ambyr Childers (We Are What We Are)

A journalism student uncovers a grisly, horrifying secret when he digs into a bloody local murder from fifteen years ago.  Worst of all, the videotape footage from the first reporters on the scene seem to have taken on a life of its own.

This film starts with shaky "found footage" of the original murders, taken by the killer's

Headhunters (2011) R

Nickolaj Coster-Waldau (Game of Thrones), Aksel Hennie (Pioneer)

A corporate headhunter steals art from his clients to maintain his expensive lifestyle... but did he just steal a painting from the wrong man?

I don't know why, but having seen quite a bit of Norwegian and Scandanavian TV and film (for an American) I can honestly say I always come away from it both entertained,

Vanishing On 7th Street (2010) R

John Leguizamo (Chef), Hayden Christensen (Jumper), Thandie Newton (Retreat)

Detroit becomes darker than usual when the shadows can cause you to vanish.

The Search for General Tso (2014)

Have you ever gone to a Chinese restaurant and wondered just who General Tso was, and why nearly every Chinese restaurant serves his chicken?  This documentary attempts to answer that question.

This turned out to be a cute, rather short documentary on the history of Chinese cuisine in America, with a side trip to the Hunan province of China.

The Internship (2013) PG-13

Vince Vaughn (The Breakup), Owen Wilson (Shanghai Noon)

Best friends and super-sales partners for a watch manufacturer find themselves suddenly without a job.  Can they leave their old-guy ways behind them and fit in with the twenty-something tech crowd at Google?

Part fish-out-of-water comedy, part super-ad for Google services, this actually turned out

Let's Be Cops (2014)

James D'Arcy (Screwed), Jake Johnson (Safety Not Guaranteed), Damon Wayans Jr. (Dance Flick)

Two struggling best friends in L.A. wear cop outfits to an out-of-season costume party and get mistaken for real police officers.  They're having fun with it until bad guys start messing with their neighborhood, and it becomes an all-out war where they may have to put their lives on the line.

With a second-generation Wayans and the doofy guy from New Girl, I expected this to be slightly funny, really crude, with very little redeemable value.  I was pleasantly surprised. 

Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead (2010)

A documentary about one Australian's trip across the US while doing a juice fast to reboot his declining health.

Ever since I was a kid, I've heard the saying that "you are what you eat", and that is certainly true.  Your body can't pull the nutrients it needs out of thin air through your

Sharknado (2012) TV-14

Tara Reid (American Pie), Ian Ziering (Guiding Light)

A freak hurricane off the coast of California starts flooding L.A. and dumping sharks into the streets. 

A perfect movie for those folks who are looking for films that are so bad, they're good.