Kris

I'm confused.

 

In the U.S., all the kids that go trick or treating are extremely polite and no one demands money. In fact, you don't give out money where I'm from, you approach the house, say trick or treat, and you get what you get and that's it. Also, where I'm from, if you do cater to trick or treaters you leave your house's outside light on, and if the light's not on it means you've chosen NOT to participate and no one comes to your house.

You could turn every light off in your house, turn the TV down as low as it can go, switch off your doorbell or remove the door knocker, you could also lace your garden with landmines and tripwires and razor wire and stick a ferocious kid-eating guard dog in your garden and i am sure it would not deter any of these kids from knocking on your door to say "trick or treat" and expect to get some money.

The same thing applies to Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, double glazing salesmen or travelling gypsies asking you if you need some tarmac laid on your driveway as well.

Count me in. I sound like a Scrooge on the Grumpy Bastard thread, have to rectify that somehow

The Last Horror Movie : Rubbish!  The central conceit was just dandy but the lead  lacked the charisma to pull it off and the ending....oh the ending....sub round-the-campfire rubbish.

Absolutely on the money about that film. The Belgian movie Man Bites Dog explored the same subject matter with more care, verve and wit than The Last Horror Movie did.

What lets The Last Horror Movie down badly is that the dialogue sounds forced and the acting is nothing short of being lacklustre but what annoyed me most was the the director was obviously trying to bludgeon us into submission with his points or diatribes or polemics or whatever he was trying to say about screen violence and our desensitisation to it all by opting to write these really tiresome and annoyingly smug monologues for that terrible actor who played the killer to talk direct into the camera to about, there was too much of that psychobabble bollocks and the violence wasn't particularly shocking or well-executed(pardon the pun) either despite all the hyperbole written on the front cover of the DVD cover box. It promises more than it can possibly deliver.

Films like Man Bites Dog and Michael Haneke's Funny Games already raised similar issues and handled them more effectively and more convincingly than this movie tried to.

The thing that really irks me most about the "Christmas rush" is people shopping for food, i have actually seen some people in supermarkets trailing about three or four trolleys of food behind them mainly because the shops are closed for about two days between New Years Eve and January 2nd, its fucking ridiculous, the way some of these people act its as if the supermarkets and grocery stores are never going to open again or they're stockpiling food to ready themselves for the coming apocalypse.

I don't know if they have these in the rest of the world but in the UK and Ireland, they have "Boxing Day sales" where masses of people get up at some ungodly hour in the morning to go and queue outside some high street clothes store so they can buy up clothes that have come down drastically in price...some eight or nine hours before the store is actually due to open in the morning no matter how dreadful the weather is outside, people actually camp outside these places like people do for much sought-after gig tickets.

Its these little things like this that makes me disconnect myself from the rest of society roundabout this period of the year, i am usually glad to be single around this time of the year too because i hate being led around shops and stores by a girlfriend who insists on looking at or trying on absolutely everything the shop or store has to sell.

I think Christmas cards bug me as well. I especially hate people who send round robin Christmas cards where they talk about what they did for the entire year but never bothered to get in touch with you any time during that year except for Christmas so they can write this extremely drivelish Christmas card where they gush smugly about all the great things they did this year and talk like their existence is far much more worthy, meaningful and relevant than your's. So i usually burn those type of cards.

I also hate e-cards, they're noisy, they're annoying, they're just tacky crap and they don't even get a moment's look by me and end up in my junk mail box without even being opened.

Speaking of other periods, i am usually also single around the time Valentine's Day comes as well(i always seem to be seeing someone between Valentine's and Christmas but never during those actual times, call it bad luck or call it good luck i don't know), so much so that i don't even remember what date it is on in the year but people always ask me "have you given anyone a Valentine's Day card this year?" and i am like "what? its Valentine's Day today?".

I have never bought anyone a Valentine's Day card, just because i think concealing your identity or writing a card as a "secret admirer" is a tad sinister plus i always think buying chocolate is something girls don't particularly like you buying them because they seem to think it makes them fat and they won't be appreciated getting like that too well even though basically every kind of food is something they feel makes them fat(even SlimFast milkshakes), and i know nothing about flowers and any girl i have been out with says "buying red roses is cliched" and that buying cuddly toys is "childish"...so fuck it, i just can't be bothered with any of that either.

Yeah but they're far more girly than you I hope Kris.

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Well, i might have less stubble on my face than they do

 

We are Northern, and we are proud, eh, girl? 

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Not as "Northern" as me though ;)

I remember the huge fuss everyone seemed to be making over the millenium, that really turned me off to the whole thing, what i thought was extremely obscene was the amount of pubs and clubs charging punters almost £15 to £20 quid just to get in the door of their establishments and i thought "why would anyone be so stupid to want to pay that extortionate admission fee just to gain entry into a club where they will be charging extortionate prices for drinks when they could save about a hundred quid or more by staying in and getting drunk at a house party instead?".

I did end up at a friend's house party that year and i much preferred doing that instead of freezing my bollocks off watching fireworks and walking around town as i remember Aberdeen being covered in about six inches worth of snow and being bitterly cold that New Year, i think the thing that shocked me most was the amount of people actually queueing to get into clubs that were charging those fees and the amount of time they were prepared to wait to get into those places, most of the people looked like they were about to collapse with hypothermia standing there shuddering and shivering to get into a club that was going to rip them off anyway.

The mentality of people around that time was just astounding though, this wild-eyed, reckless preoccupation about absolutely having to go into town to get extremely drunk and i kept asking "why? you're going to get completely bladdered and risk liver failure over a new century beginning?"...of course the usual response was "stop being so cynical" or something to that effect.

I don't mean to sound like a complete killjoy but i just failed to see why it was so important to these people at the time.

I can't be bothered with any of these dates like Halloween or Bonfire night, i barely even give Christmas and New Year any attention either, i get called things like "Scrooge" for trying to bury my head under the sand around Christmas even though i tend to buy my Christmas presents around the end of November because i can't be bothered with the "Christmas rush" as they call it.

New Year's on the other hand, it annoys me to no end, bars hike up their prices to make more money, too many people are let in so therefore the queues to buy drinks are longer and thus it takes more time to get a drink and the whole thing is a big fuss over not very much at all, all in all, you can have a great night out anytime you want but somehow this one night is made out to be THEE NIGHT YOU HAVE TO GO OUT and i just can't be arsed with that bollocks, i prefer to hang with some mates, have a few drinks, have a few smokes of weed and thats enough for me, and i don't have to bother with endless queues of people or bars trying to make me spend more money than i need to.

I remember the best New Year i had in a while was two years ago, went over to his house around 7pmish and smoked a shit load of grass, i fell asleep on the sofa and my mate Kev had fallen asleep on his living room floor and i said "hey Kev, Happy New Year man" and he slurs "how you mean Happy New Year, it says 11 o' clock on my watch" and i said "Kev, thats 11 o' clock this morning man". Think we'd missed the entire thing by about 12 hours

Shit, if I were hiring someone, all I'd look for is a pimp archeologist!

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"A new film by Melvin Van Peebles....

Indiana Superfly Jones' Badasssssssss Crusade"

Happy birthday Claire. Hope you had a good one.

and another thing. Bloody Halloween. It's that time of year when you're a prisoner in your own home while marauding gangs of kids roam around trying to extort money off you or else they'll fart the national anthem. Oh joy.

 

And bloody Bonfire night isnt much better. It's called Bonfire 'night' for a reason. ie; it's one 'night'... Not an excuse to let crap fireworks off for one month before and one month after just to piss everyone off. My poor cat is just about ready have a monster nervous breakdown.

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Be thankful you don't live on a council estate like some of the ones not far from the village i live in, its "Bonfire Night" almost every weekend there, the bonfire being a stolen car or someone's shed.

it ranks alongside The Last Detail and Five Easy Pieces as the best films Jack Nicholson has been in IMHO.

 

Wot, no Chinatown?

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I knew someone would say something about my Jack Nicholson opinions. I was expecting people to mention The Shining, Chinatown, Easy Rider, As Good As It Gets and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

I like Chinatown but i prefer those other films i mentioned more. That doesn't mean to say they're better films than Chinatown, i just think those Jack Nicholson's performances in those films are more noteworthy and are among the best films he's acted in.

However, the quintessential Jack Nicholson performance is obviously R.P McMurphy in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, which i had forgot to mention.

I'm very much looking forward to the re-release of Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger.  I own a copy of the rare but crappy VHS tape so I'm glad I finally have the opportunity to check it out on the big screen.  It's become one of my favorite films over the years and I recommend checking it out if you ever have the chance, although I must warn you that it is a bit slow and somewhat pretentious.

Own a copy of it myself, paid about 20 quid for it too, it ranks alongside The Last Detail and Five Easy Pieces as the best films Jack Nicholson has been in IMHO.

This movie lasts for three hours???????!!!!!!!! Seriously????!!!!!!!

You'd expect something like this to last maybe an hour and a half at the very least.

Yeah i have. Once. I was on MSN chat before it got shut down and this lass started chatting to me as she had noticed i was from Aberdeen and that one of my main interests was films, she told she was a Film Studies student and i told her i once was one myself before i opted out to go do another course at another university, we got chatting on MSN Messenger and she asked to see my pic so i e-mailed her one and she asked me out.

She suggested we go to the cinema so i said okay and then she said she wanted to see Once Upon A Time In Mexico so i agreed because i quite like El Mariachi and Desperado anyway.

Saturday came along and she texted me to tell me she was waiting inside the cinema wearing a black top, black short skirt and black thigh length boots and with blonde hair, so as i got to the cinema i saw her standing there and i said "hi i am Kris" and she smiled and said "finally we meet" so we went and had a drink first and had a chat about various things then it was time to go and see the film.

We went and got the tickets and the person at the desk said "where would you like to sit? front, middle or back?" and she says "back of course" so i said "back it is then".

The cinema was quite busy that night i remember so about 10-15 minutes into the film, she grabs my hand and just holds onto it for a while, then another 10 or so minutes she places my hand on her leg, then she pulled my head towards her and kisses me for what seemed like ages and the next thing i knew the film had ended.

So then she asks what i want to do now and i said "whatever you want, the night is still fairly young i suppose", so she suggests we go for a drive in her car. We drove around until she found a spot near the beach which was fairly dark and quiet and then she basically moved over and sat on top of me in the passenger seat and well, i don't need to really to go into all the gory details.

I remember she drove me home and said she wanted to see me again and we saw each other for a wee while but her uni work and her job clashing with the hours of my job made things rather difficult but she was fun to be around and interesting to talk to, haven't been out with many girls who love films as much as i do.

The only downside to her was the amount of bloody lovebites she'd leave on my neck, it looked like i had been dating one of Dracula's offspring it looked that bad at times.

Havent read the comics but then again somebody told me they werent so good?

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I was a bit indifferent towards them, i neither think they're bad nor good, i thought the artwork was decent but other than that, the stories didn't really compliment the artwork too well in the Paint It Black and Among The Damned issues, however i thought the graphic novel called Dying Inside was fairly decent, Ben Templesmith did the artwork for that one, i don't know if i would go rushing out to buy it but its probably the best of the bunch that came out.

For me it came from a long while back when i was a teenager through having a keen interest in UFOs and then i began to buy books about ghosts and the afterlife, then i went from there and started buying books about witchcraft and demonology but i have never practised witchcraft or meddled with ouija boards or anything like that, its a world i like reading about but not something i would ever want to get involved in.

My folks, my sister and some other members of my family have been to see psychics and mediums in the past and i must admit that some of the things they've said in the recordings my folks took home for me to listen to have thrown up some interesting things, i am still very much of the sceptical "i'll believe it when i see it" opinion.

Pictures from the Silent Hill film are online, I think they got the atmosphere right from these brief glimpses, monsters look kinda interesting too...

Looks interesting, here's hoping it isn't cursed like most films based on computer games.

Did you ever read the Silent Hill comics that came out?. They were extremely surreal pieces of work, just wondering if the film-makers may look to them for inspiration, i highly doubt it but they're not bad sources to seek inspiration from.

Gervais was right though, they do look like each other.

You think so? I figured they had a sort of "Jason in Space" thing going on. They knew how shitty the material is, and just had fun with it.

I was just surprised how it got so many good reviews from people, mind you i couldn't really understand the hype behind The Blair Witch Project when it came out as well.

I just thought Cabin Fever was such a poorly-written excuse for a horror movie, i don't think Eli Roth could put enough cliches and predictable conclusions in one movie, the concept itself was quite original but the execution of the concept was woeful.

However, his new movie Hostel does look interesting from what i have seen from the trailer.

Personally, I've become completely jaded towards horror movies, even though I can't quit watching them. I'd almost rather something like "Cabin Fever" make me laugh, instead of try to scare me and fall flat (see also: Darkness Falls).

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Well, i think the quality of stuff coming out of the States is rather average but the horror films coming out of Asia are proving to be the new benchmark in horror now.

I enjoyed Cabin Fever quite a lot. And I dont really think a plot as such is entirely necessary to make a halfway decent horror film.

Its not even a quarterway decent. I've seen Ed Wood movies that are more convincing.

On a different tack, I saw the Clive Owen/Malcolm McDowell film "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" last night. Owen plays a former gangster in self-imposed exile who returns to London when his younger brother kills himself. It was...OK. But just OK. The acting and cinematography were very nice, but the pace was.....so......unbelivably.......plodding. The actual amount of story could be summed up into one sentence. I felt really drugged and sleepy when it finally ended, and had to watch "Layer Cake" again to wake myself up.

I was left cold by I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, when you look at the cast you do say to yourself "that is an impressive cast they've got together for that film" - names like Clive Owen, Malcolm McDowell, Ken Stott and Charlotte Rampling and directed by Mike Hodges, the man who made one of the best gangster films ever made in Get Carter as well as putting Clive Owen back on the map with his performance in Croupier.

All the time you expect to see Will, Clive Owen's character, to finally explode into action and get revenge for the brutality inflicted upon his brother but it never happens and we never get to see it happen. Ken Stott appears in it as a rival gangster and then disappears after two pointless scenes that add nothing to the plot. Charlotte Rampling was cast as Clive Owen's former girlfriend and there's like an age difference between them of about 20+ years and it didn't look natural on camera. Malcolm McDowell's role in the movie was rather silly, he came across like a pantomime version of the aged gangster he plays in Gangster No. 1, and i didn't see the reason why his character would decide to anally rape someone, i mean are we meant to believe a South London gang boss punishes people who try to rip him off by anally raping them?.

The story didn't really make sense either, it was full of scenes that didn't really connect in any single way other than to be a trip down memory lane for Will when the film should've been Will's pursuit of retribution. I think perhaps Mike Hodges' reason for making I'll Sleep When I'm Dead unlike another Get Carter-esque movie would be that he wanted to make a different style revenge movie...however, it would've been nice to see some of that revenge in the actual movie.

What more do you want from a horror movie?

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Where do we start with Cabin Fever?

A plot would be nice for starters. Some characters with depth maybe. Perhaps a script too, some talented actors, some dialogue that doesn't sound its being forced out of the actors, some scenes that make sense and relate to the plot...a film that actually delivers what a horror movie should deliver - shocks, suspense, frights, chills, thrills, spills, blood, gore etc etc etc

It wouldn't have been so bad had Eli Roth meant to have made some kind of slapstick horror comedy but instead he tried to make a horror movie that comes across like a really badly-acted slapstick comedy...and the sad part is, is that he made the film like that unintentionally.

I watched Dominion: A Prequel To The Exorcist today, what a colossal bore that movie was. I thought Renny Harlin's effort was exceptionally bad but Paul Schrader's effort wasn't that much better, a more coherent film yes and with less histrionics but mindnumbingly dull.

Anyway, if you think you've been given a hard time about some of your taste in films, you should have seen the reaction I got from most of my friends when I admitted to not thinking Shaun Of The Dead was very good. It wasn't terrible, but given the talent involved, and the strength of the concept, I was thoroughly unimpressed by the actual film. It was competent, but never really sparked into life for me.

I like Shaun Of The Dead but i can see where you're coming from with your comments Mark, i think the problem with the movie is that in my mind i am always saying "they could've done more with this film, it could've been funnier, it could've been gorier, it could've had more action....etc etc", there's room for more scope in the film but while you're waiting for the film to up the ante in the horror and comedy stakes, it never truly delivers.

Compared to Peter Jackson's Brain Dead, i think that film delivers comedy and horror in abundance and they work in tandem to one another extremely well, and you also have to take into consideration that Peter Jackson at that time probably worked with a smaller budget too.

So Kris how does it handle? Sorta like GTA or Manhunt?

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A bit of both, its hard to describe really. It really depends on the mission you've been given because it alternates between which character you're assigned to use in the story as it begins 90+ days before Cyrus's murder and you do various missions leading up to that point then of course, after that is when it follows the course of the movie's story.

Unlike GTA, you don't steal cars but you do mug people and steal car stereos but like GTA: San Andreas, you do take on rival gangs.

Buy it and see for yourself, its an excellent game.

The Stones video that i always seem to see whenever i turn on VH-1 is the video for Its Only Rock N Roll But I Like It where the Stones are dressed as sailors and the room fills up with bubbles and foam.

The most startling part of the whole video is whenever we see a close-up of Keith Richards face and when he smiles, his teeth look like a bombed graveyard, he really puts Shane MacGowan's lack of dental hygiene to shame.