Goode Boye

Woof woof!

Indy's master is having a bad time, and Indy is suspicious of something in the corner of the house. The guy moves to his grandfather's haunted cabin, and Indy is suspicious of lots of things, even if the chap doesn't see them (and at some point you have to ask, should Indy give up on him?). Indy does his best, because he is a ... good boy!

Apparently director Ben Leonberg spent a long time getting the right shots. So Indy wasn't trained? But certainly we get great performance out of the dog, and the humans are barely made out (as the camera keeps with Indy's eyeline). Although I was reminded of this sketch.

Come for the dog, stay for the dog, give up on the humans.

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The Crooow

I think I saw the 1994 one, but I can now confirm I saw the 2024 one.

"Do you love me so much that you would come back from the dead for me?" Yeah, this is one angst of a emo teen drama... but it's also...

"Oh no, my girlfriend/wife/dog/lamp was taken, I must get it back!" and so this becomes a rather dreary revenge flick. Indeed, you could easily edit out the little supernatural elements there are and not really change anything.

Bill Skarsgard is fine, he wears tattoos well, they got clothes to drape on him well, and he manages to contort his body for the various stuff that we know he can pull off. Danny Huston is the only other actor of note in this, and even he doesn't have much to do.

Meh.

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Planet Tearroar!

I saw Death Proof ages ago (go Zoe!) but hadn't seen this... until now!

Whoops, a biochemical weapon gets released and... they are zombies. Let's just state that we are dealing with zombies. Well, by 'we', we have a collection of random people of police officers, an ex go-go dancer, a doctor, and El Wray, and others. They aren't really bothered by the zombies, but they do see them as an annoyance, and so we get a lot of gore around.

You know, I don't think Robert Rodriguez was taking this seriously! Gun legs, balls falling off, barbecue sauce, just anything is on the table. While the intent is to honour the grindhouse films of old, this is just such a much better movie that I don't think he could go bad enough to be truly grindhouse.

Quite the cast too, with Rose McGowen, Josh Brolin, Jeff Fahey, Bruce Willis and any Fergie-Ferge herself (and she does turn out to be Fergalicious). Surrounded by practical effects (aside from the leg), everyone is having fun. (Although we could do with less Quentin.)

Fun movie, if that's your kind of thing!

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Yes, There Was Blood

It's that milkshake meme movie! And now I've seen it!

Daniel Plainview is a complete bastard, doing whatever it takes to be the king in his own mind. He "adopts" a son, agrees to a verbal contract, and gets a brother. As long as they don't turn out to be an inconvenience or betray him. How dare!

This movie is basically "watch Daniel Day-Lewis give several unhinged performances" over the course of two and a half hours... Two and a half hours? Did this movie need to be this long? Paul Thomas Anderson has a vision and this is probably cut down from five hours or something.

Aside from DDL, there are some decent other performances. The kid(s) aren't annoying. Kevin O'Conner isn't annoying. And it seems there was a young Paul F Tomkins in this, but I suspect it was a blink-and-you-miss-it role.

I'm not sure what to make of this. This is long, and it is about an oilman, but... why did I watch this?

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Moonkey Shones!

More specifically this is Capuchin Shines.

Allan opens the movie and IMMEDIATELY gets into an accident, making him a quadriplegic. Now this is getting on with the movie! His ethically dubious brother donates him a monkey he's been doing experiments on, because why not, but the monkey, Ella, gets rather attached to Allan. Like "I'll kill for you" attached. Surely that can't be a problem.

The poster for this movie has the cymbal banging monkey toy and... this has nothing to do with that. George A. Romero directs this psychological thriller that dare asks who would win: monkey or budgerigar. I can't say I recognise the main actors from anything, but Stephen Root has a neat cameo, and Stanley Tucci is in this, although I didn't recognise him.

I don't know if this is "must see tv" but it is now a movie I have seen.

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VHS H/A/L/O/W/E/N

It's the latest anthology video... and it's about what I expected.

Diet Phantasma: It's good, only because it's short and thus just skips straight to the interesting parts.

Coochie Coochie Coo: Someone likes Resident Evil. Well, this was an excuse to scare some women, and give into their mommy fetish.

Ut Supra Sic Infra: Once again, if you want decent horror, go international! Spanish short, in which the police investigate an aftermath, and it goes about as well as you would expect.

Fun Size: Neat gimmick to the start of the story, but then... kinda wish this was a Kandyman story. It would have been actually notable then.

Kidprint: They say don't work with kids, but to be honest the random shots they did with random kids were the best part of this! I had a better idea of what spooky thing could be going on, but they went with the basic ideas.

Home Haunt: Aging dad tries to capture one last haunted house with his kid, and uses a spooky record to set the scene.. and unleash the horrors. This is quick and snappy how it jumps from one group of scares to the next, and a solid entry to end the movie on!

The moral of the story is: don't go trick or treating if you are no longer a kid.

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Domesday

I haven't seen this movie, but I've seen many like it.

An area gets a virus outbreak, and gets closed off, isolated... but then, a party of people need to go back in to find something and get caught up in the devolved society...

In this case, the area is Scotland, and what they want is a person who has survived the virus as the virus has been found outside. But while they go in with tech, they are defeated, and instead find a near medieval society.

...and I started writing this before it was over, because at around 80 minutes into it, I realised I had seen this before! Still doesn't make it not like a dozen other movies of the time, but does explain why I thought I recognised Rhona Mitra even though she hasn't been the lead in any other major thing I recognise. And speaking of actors, we also have Malcolm McDowell, Bob Hoskins, and Alexander Siddig!

If you are looking for a brown-filtered somewhat action movie, this is certainly one of many.

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Prime Minster

Sure, let's have a biopic about one of our better leaders.

We follow Jacinda Ardern, from when she becomes the leader of Labour, through to when she resigns. We encounter some very big moments, the Christchurch incident, and of course a lot around COVID-19, and we are with her as she announces decisions. We end on her afterwards, living a simpler life, and enjoying it.

Note that I say "as she announces decisions" rather than, say, "as she makes decisions". We get events as they happen, largely from the point of view of someone who happens to be there. We don't get a deep insight into how Jacinda is making choices, just some surface level stuff that most people could guess. Yes, it's hard, we get that, but... that's about it.

It's a basic view, so there is a better documentary out there that might actually delve into the events.

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Second of Senua

I finally decided to take the plunge and play the sequel. Sure, why not go through another emotional wringer.

This time Senua is after the slavers that previously attacked her village. She gets close, then a storm hits, and the game starts. We are her as she encounters a couple of people and through them get one step at a time closer to ending the problem.

While the first game was all about Senua's personal issues, especially around Dillion, this is about other people's issues. The end of the game tries to tie it into how Senua interacts with people, but the bulk of the game is not really Senua's issues, but helping other people. And the game is basically three repeated instances of find a giant, finding out their deal, then deal with the giant. Which involves repeated bouts of bits of combat, an environment puzzle, and a boss fight that's kind of a puzzle boss fight.

There are far fewer environmental puzzles this time, but that's because the game is a lot shorter too, and definitely feels it. I wouldn't say this feels like DLC for the first game, but it definitely isn't as full as the first game was. But I do seem to be a lot better at combat. Towards the end in the first one, I had to turn the game to easy, but this time I left it at dynamic the entire time. I did some lore stuff, but...

After finishing the game I unlock some extra stuff, but I don't think I feel like going back and playing through again, which does mean there is some lore I will miss (unless I watch it on youtube).

So decent-ish, but lower effort that the first time around.

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