Doun Peri's cope

Now this is a comedy!

A wacky commander is given captain of a diesel sub and a mission: blow up a ship (dummy). He's given a crew of even more wacky characters and together they must survive against the best the American navy has.

Kelsey Grammer is in fine form here, being equal parts sincere and getting right into the spirit of the absurdity this movie represents. The crew are, as noted, a series of wacky character types, and I don't know how many of them are written or just them improving their own bits. Unfortunately, this movie does feature Rob Schneider, but he is made a fool of repeatedly, so he is barely tolerable. Lauren Holly has an unenviable job of being a woman on a submarine full of men, and while the movie doesn't pass up the chance to show off that she is indeed a woman, the movie does otherwise treat her character respectably (although the low key romance plot with Kelsey Grammer's character does raise very awkward questions about power in relationships...).

Frankly, this movie never fails to get a smile out of me, and it's great to throw on to have a good time!

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Lake Placard

This is the start of something big.

There is something in Black Lake (the name Lake Placid was already taken), and this brings together a sheriff, a fish and wildlife officer, a paleontologist, and a mythicist to try to handle the threat. And do a terrible job of it, while all are bickering with each other.

Look at this cast list: Bridget Fonda, Bill Pullman, Oliver Platt, and Brendan Gleeson. Now that's a great group of people, and they are all in fine form (although Gleeson gets some lines that wouldn't quite go quite as well these days). And then there's Betty White, in full "I don't give a fuck" mode!

This movie is only 80 minutes, but as a comedy that is also a low level creature feature, it gets in and tells some scenes and packs those minutes in. On the negative side, this did spawn many, MANY SyFy original sequels, of which the only good thing is Yancy Butler.

But this original is a classic, and not the only one.

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Hudsonian Hawk

Ah, is it comedy or "comedy"?

He only just got out of jail, but already Hudson is pulled into running burglary jobs, for crooks, for the CIA, and for corporate leaders (I will lead the overlap between those categories for other people). All in the name of getting Da Vinci's crystal to turn lead into gold. And to sing some songs. This isn't a musical, but you could easily pretend it is.

Yeah, there's no taking this movie seriously. The crew knew what they were doing, and everyone is having fun... well, rather famously Richard E. Grant and Sandra Bernhardt didn't, but even their performances are so wacky, it fits everything well.

I do like fun stupid movies, and the 90s had a couple.

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Bwoken Awwow

It's Woo time!

Never mind the ambiguity, this time a Major decides to get his with the threat of nuclear weapons, purely because it's all about his ego. Up against him is a Captain and a Park Ranger. And paying the price is... several helicopters.

Seriously, this movie hates helicopters. Over the course of the movie, it destroys four of them at one point or another, taking out both good guys and bad guys.

And this is definitely a guy fest. We have Travolta vs Slater and it's great how they spark off each other. Travolta is starting his Evil phase and is loving every minute of it, whereas Slater is the pure one. We do get Samantha Mathis, who was Slater's actual romantic partner at one time. And speaking of romance, we don't even get a kiss between the boy and girl, just a hug! (Although flirtatious promise of more.)

And we get Zimmer on the score, with the lovely twangy acoustic guitar sound, backing the theme of the struggle between Travolta and Slater. Okay, may it isn't better than The Rock's score, but I like this movie better, so I am ranking it higher.

Just a great set of movies with great music.

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The Roock

Bayaction time!

A general is fed up with marines dying and the American military complex not honoring them, so he takes matters into his own hands, and also takes Alcatraz. Up against him is one SEAL team (expendable), one retired SAS soldier, and one chemical superfreak. No problem, eh?

Another movie where the bad guy has clear motivations, so it isn't all so clear cut how it should pay out. However, it's somewhat undercut by the men under him going "yeah, I just want my money" so we do get clear cut bad guys to get exploded. And if the script wasn't so against them, they might have just pulled it off.

Connery and Cage get most of the credit here, of course, although I could do with dialing Cage down several notches. But Harris and Morse give better performances as men who know what they are doing is wrong, but are going to do it anyway... until the time comes when they can't. Masterful tension there.

And the soundtrack.... is just fantastic. Great score by Zimmer, just trumpets and guitars to stir the heart and make it pound, and then a flute track that wouldn't be out of place on the softer moments of Lord of the Rings.

There's only one film that can beat it on sound...

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Cromsin Tide

A great blast from the past!

In a time of Russian aggression (really? would that ever happen) a nuclear submarine is given orders to launch a nuclear attack... but an interrupted message might be negating that... and that is the set up of one hell of a tense battle between "The Captain Is Always Right" and "The XO Is Trying To Not Go To War". As they say at the end, it's a hell of a mess, on the one hand, full orders, on the other, the threat of war.

According to IMDB this was a Soviet incident, not an American one, but Hollywood ain't gonna tell Soviet stories... but this is a damn well written movie (yes, with punch up by Tarantino) and Washington and Hackman give masterful performances. And hey, that's one Viggo Mortensen, I wonder if he'll go on to do anything else? And smoking... there is lots of smoking...

Of course Tony Scott is the director, who recently passed, bringing this movie back to mind. And while rewatching it... the music really stood out to me too. Such good soundtracks on movies back then. Speaking of which...

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8 Forest 2 Road 5

Haunted house movie? I'm in!

We follow three people who have recently moved into a house (not on Forest Road), but strange things start happening. There is a lot of "did you see that in the background?" moments, although they become more obvious later on. There was Helen Foster, who haunts the town, and she seems to be stalking... but also the sister lost her mother and she is making an appearance too.

There is something about this that grabbed me, and I really enjoyed this. Nice build up of tension, and atmosphere... however the ending moments let it down. Sudden revelations (that a lot of people will probably say they saw coming - I didn't) and then it ends quite abruptly.

I can't say I recognised anyone, but decent performances. The "horror" was simple enough, achieved with practical effects, so easily worked well.

I recommend it, but I can easily see it not appealing to all.

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