If he's a criminal mastermind then Mother Theresa is running numbers

The Spirit (1987)

Chosen, once again, by INJCulbard's twitter account.

One of those teevee movies that was probably a pitch for a series that (thankfully) went nowhere. It's not as tonally off as the horrid Frank Miller take years later but still doesn't manage to capture what makes the Spirit comics so cool.
It's incredibly, incredibly cheap (the cemetery set is just terrible), features awful performances (Mckinley Robinson as P'Gell is about passable) and a dull trite plot.
I would still watch this a million times over rather than sit through the 2008 version though.

It won't be the nicotine that kills you, Mr. Bond.

You Only Live Twice (1967)

Chosen by Blogalongabond

But not for long

Bond's Intro: After seeing the world's most bored looking NASA worker (you work with spaceships man!) and Shane Rimmer (who later gets promoted out of desk work and commands a submarine) we get the line 'our man in Hong Kong is working on it now' - hur hur. Being Bond of course, who as we know by now is a bit of a rubbish agent, he is naturally dipping his wick. And we have another pre-credit sequence obsessed with the idea of Bond dying. I'm not sure any of this plot thread makes sense (all it really does is show SPECTRE up as monumentally stupid) but it's barely referred to anyway and exists to give the film it's 'poetic' title.

Theme Song and Credits: Not quite the taint exporling antics of Thunderball this plays it more subtly (for Bond anyway) with mostly eyes and head shots over cascading, spurting lava (so not that subtle perhaps). We do get some very perky nipples at the end. The song itself is not bad, a little wishy washy.

The Ladies: Helga Brandt is a weak tea version of Fiona Volpe from Thunderball but has her charms, every Bond villainess should be a redhead. Aki is a rather dull, needy, ally ('you wouldn't touch her would you') and strangely written out so we get Kissy at the end who is never even named in the film.

The Baddies: Some henchmen here make one of the laziest attempts at assassination ever, creeping ever so slowly behind Bond, in a car, a few foot away with a machine gun. Just outside of their office. None of this seems well thought through. Hans is a rather dull tough guy type not even introduced until over an hour in and over shadowed by the piranha. Osato is a beaureaucrat. Blofeld is Pleasance so pretty cool but is as idiotic as his underlings (why does he take Bond on a trip of his lair before shooting Osato, going on another trip and then giving the immortal 'Goodbye Mr. Bond'). He should really feed himself to piranha.

License to Kill: A few security guards are callously shot whilst just doing their job. The little nellie sequence is pretty cool, bond showing off his skills and something we haven't really seen in the other Bond films. Hans is, like so many Bond villains, not actually killed by Bond, who seems to take it in his stride the pushing someone into water will make them scream in pain and die.

Bond hates foreigners: 'why do chinese girls taste so different from all other girls like peking duck is different from russian caviar.' I don't know if this is more condescending to women or nationalities. And the whole disguising Connery as Japanese - yesh.

Bond hates women: 'men always come first, woman second' Bond is told 'I might just retire to here' he of course replies.

Bond's crazy knowledge: 'you forget i took a first in oriental languages at cambridge' 'lox - well it's the american name for smoked salmon but it's also the technical name for liquid oxygen which makes rocket fuel'. Naturally knows the right temperature for saki

Bond's a big fat snob: 'russian vodka well done' except he doesn't seem to mind henderson gets the wrong order for shaken not stirred (still Henderson pays the price for that mistake) 'siamese vodka' ugh - I love Bond looking disdainful.

00's killed: Still not a 00 but henderson last all of two minutes after meeting bond who is a form of black plague to intelligence workers. Later Aki bites it aswell of course.

Mini overview: A tremendously lazy, badly paced (the whole 'wedding' sequence is there for what purpose exactly? - although it does take a slight unintended tinge of sadness with what is to come next film) package. But the fun bits are so much fun that doesn't seem to matter. This is the one with the awesome volcano rocket base. Ninjas! Piranha! Red Heads! Cigarette rockets! Gyrocopters! That cool shot of the fight on the roof! Oh and these guys

Are these the Hot Cops from Arrested Development?

That's the end of the picture. But it's not the end of the mystery!

The Hangover Part II (2011)

Chosen by me as I like to go to the cinema a lot

Unfortunately it wasn't. Though claiming to be a 'gleeful black comedy' there's no funny to be found here for the most part. It's easy to see how this seems mostly forgotten now, it's central gimmick is a dud.
The cameos from a host of Hollywood legends in make-up utterly banal.
The actual mystery (not the spot the star game, which it may cheat at anyway) is mostly compelling until it utterly deflates itself and the film spends way too much time on foxhunts (possibly at Huston's request who had the James Bond spoof Casino Royale rewritten to fit the 'sport' in).




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Ok so that was a bad bit of meta-humour by copy pasting my 'review' from yesterday I am of course suggesting that Hangover Part II is the worst kind of sequel. One that merely goes through exactly the same paces as the previous movie. It's kinda understandable, you want to give the viewers what they liked about the first one again but this is so lazily xeroxed over it only makes the flaws of the first so much more noticable.
All the characters are complete aresholes, still, but the lack of surprise means you are focussed on this more. Bradley Cooper's Phil may be the worst of the lot, just a horrid, horrid man.
Everything feels so tired and dull this time, the trail of clues for what happened over the night doesn't seem to really connect or build.

That's the end of the picture. But it's not the end of the mystery!

The List of Adrian Messenger (1963)

Chosen by me as it was £3 in Fopp and sounded fun.

Unfortunately it wasn't. Though claiming to be a 'gleeful black comedy' there's no funny to be found here for the most part. It's easy to see how this seems mostly forgotten now, it's central gimmick is a dud.
The cameos from a host of Hollywood legends in make-up utterly banal.
The actual mystery (not the spot the star game, which it may cheat at anyway) is mostly compelling until it utterly deflates itself and the film spends way too much time on foxhunts (possibly at Huston's request who had the James Bond spoof Casino Royale rewritten to fit the 'sport' in).

Your nightmare's only getting worse

I saw the Devil (2010)

Chosen by Andrew who had this to say: 'An unrelenting and brutal Korean revenge thriller by director Jee-woon Kim (The Good, the Bad and the Weird and A Tale of Two Sisters). The highlight of the film is a great performance from Min-sik Choi as a ruthless serial killer.'

A rather grim piece of exploitation melodrama (not enough his pregnant partner is killed but the forensics guy trips over and deposits her decapitated head in front of him).
It's well performed but a bit repetitive and over-long. The revenge angle is at least interesting (though the old saw of hunter and hunted being two sides of the same coin is trotted out again), and after appearing to wimp out of giving horrific consequences to Lee's revenge plot (a couple of people Choi kills after being released are murderers/kidnappers themselves bizarrely) takes it to it's extreme at the end in a way that thematically works but is still dramatically too much.
Not a pleasant film by any means.

Hire the smart, fat girl

The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

Chosen by Jamie Blackmore who had this to say:'Really liked this movie, even though the plot and eventual conclusion for the main character are signposted a mile away. Also has the severely underused Stanley Tucci, as Nigel. And as Meryl Streep would say, "That's all"'

Annoying in a number of ways not least never questioning the idea that Anne Hathaway could be thought of as fat. At one point a character suggests Meryl Streep wouldn't be thought of harshly if she was a man but the film does the same thing with Hathaway. Everyone gets angry she would dare to be good at her job, sacrificing some personal life (so she didn't make her boyfriends birthday, it happens, way to overreact jerkface) to achieve her dream job. Also the comparison between what she does to Emily Blunt and what Streep does to Tucci seems entirely spurious and as empty and meaningless as the rest of the film.

We don't murder; we kill.

The Big Red One (1980)

Chosen by Darron Bowley who had this to say: 'Somewhat famous as Mark Hamill's attempted 'break out' film after Star Wars, that idea didn't quite work out as planned did it. This is perhaps the first true 'war' film I've lent Dave. As the war, and it's effects, are the focus of the film. I like the soldier's eye view the film takes, alternating the frantic fighting and 'hurry up and wait' life of a soldier. My favourite story beat is the one involving the opposing German soldier they keep encountering without actually meeting, until the end that is. I like to imagine that there is a companion film out there that tells a story from his perspective, again only intersecting with the others at certain points. All in all, one of the better war movies out there.'

Although a little clunky and slightly overlong this is a pretty terrific film about the madness of war. Closer in tone to Catch 22 or even MASH than Saving Private Ryan.
It offers an unblinking take on what needs to be done in war but catches and contrasts the insanity for both sides with touches of humanity and compassion that are as fleeting and offputting as the violence.
Lee Marvin is terrific but could probably sleepwalk through the role, Hamill is not really good enough (especially for a moment at the end he can't quite pull off) but the film is well worth a look.