Lurv Hurts

A movie from the year of Ke Huy Quan.

It's Valentine's Day and Marvin is a realtor who loves his job. However, an old flame turns up, and suddenly his brother wants Marvin to give up Rose... and suddenly a fight scene breaks out, as Marvin has a backstory he's trying to get away from. Then we have another drama moment, and... another fight breaks out...

And that's a problem with this movie. It swings from "character drama moment" to "fight scene that Jackie Chan would approve of". This isn't even 90 minutes, but this feels like it should be longer to flesh the characters out... as well as feeling too long as this should be an episode in some series.

Ke Huy Quan is fine, still playing the goofy guy with mad action skills. Mustafa Shakir stands out because he is an amazing presence. And... there are a bunch of other people in this, including the main female lead, who are just moments of characters who get involved in fight scenes.

Overall, rather disappointing.

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Project Mail Hary

It's science time!

The sun's going out, but hey, it has it's time, no biggie. Except people are upset about it, so fire off a space craft to deal with it. We find out this as the ship arrives, with only a 33% successful no death rate, and flashbacks giving how this was set up. While we find out the backstory, Grace is there, working out what he can do and what support he can get from around him. I'm sure, as this is Andy Weir, that there's no problems at all.

Yeap, this is the book as the movie. I read the book a few years ago, and this hits a lot of the beats. Some parts are glossed over, but mostly it works (except the link from the Petrov Line to the Astrophage, that could have been a bit more explicit). However, knowing what is going on meant that it did feel like the movie dwelt far too long on some sequences, and although they are already skipping some parts, it could easily be trimmed out more.

Ryan Gosling is fine, and gets to act in a range of hair and beard styles. I would like some behind the scenes information to see if he acted against someone crouched down or if it was pure CGI.

I think I prefer the book, which can lean more into sitting with the problems and the bigger issues, but as a movie of the book, this is pretty accurate.

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Stold Corage

It's a horror! It's a comedy! It's a horror comedy!

NASA sent some organisms up into space, and when the ship went to pieces, some pieces came down, and the organism was different. Fortunately, it was contained in time, and stored away, but hey, line items, costs, gotta sell off properties, and the storage unit becomes... a storage unit. And then the alarm goes off that the something special has been released, and minimum wage stooges and retired military figures need to stop the fungus from spreading more.

Basically, this is the common trope of "what if virus got out of hand" with a couple of extra steps in the set up. It's... fine. It's based on a book, and I can't imagine the book is that much more exciting. The horror is mainly around the effects of the fungus on the body, and the comedy is... that no-one is really treating this seriously? Yeah, it's not really going with a lot of jokes, just a light tone.

We have Joe Keery, who isn't exactly escaping the Stranger Things line of being in weird sci-fi things. Liam Neeson is trying to play "gruff military guy" who gets jokes by undercutting things with a tough tone. And Georgina Campbell is also in this movie.

It's just... fine.

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Long Waaaaaalk

We've had first King, but what about second King?

It's another dystopian future where in order to make money you need to do something stupid for the public. It starts out fine... but it gets grim. When you know what happens after three warnings, and you know the game is on until there is only "one left", then... 

This is a group picture, with relying more of group dynamics that one particular hero (although we do have our hero character). But... I can't say I recognise any of them. Indeed, I didn't even know who played the Major until I looked him up.

Let's be honest, I would be dead before even making mile 1. But I wouldn't be picked. But something else that would be different these days... why just men? There are plenty of women who could out walk these men (although they wouldn't be able to pee so easily).

This is just a bleak movie that gets worse. And one of the worse things is this is nearly two hours!

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Runninninninng Man

He's a man. He runs. Checks out.

Hey, dystopia, we don't know what that's like... but in this one, when you can't get a job, you go on tv and do something stupid. Like get hunted for 30 days to win money so you can afford medicine for your baby. But it's all good... for the network. You die? Ratings. You live? Even more ratings. And no-one wins the full 30 days, what sort of man could do that? Not with the network in control.

Well, you can't accuse this movie of subtlety. This is a terrible thing happening to people? Yep, just outright state all that. Still, the movie looks good, so Edgar Wright has that going for him, if not much else as this is not a deep picture like others he's done. But, hey, it's Stephen King, so you do what you can.

Glen Powell is fine, and... it's William H Macy, Lee Pace, Michael Cera, and even Joss Brolin. Only small parts, but names enough, and the rest of the cast is fine as well.

If we ignore the story, this is a good movie... if we ignore the story.

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Best Maddy Album?

I watched this Zebra Charts video about Madonna and it made me wonder... how well did the albums do? So this means... statistics!

First of all, I'm just going for the main albums, no compilations, no part contributions, with the one exception being I'm Breathless, which is all Madonna songs. Then I'm looking at the US Billboard Top 200 albums for the album rank, and for each released single the US Billboard Top 100. (Not all songs have a listing there, especially in the latter albums, so I do wonder if I should be looking at something else.)

And all numbers based on what Wikipaedia has, so I'm assuming they are accurate.

I looked at: how many songs did the album have (first release, no special add ons), what rank did that album get, how many singles were released, of those how many got to Top 10, and how many got to Top 1.

We can look at percentages of singles that got top, and all that, but it's pretty clear... True Blue is the winner! So she peaked in 1986... well, it does have my two favourite songs of hers... Huh.

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Blak Phon 2

Sequel? Don't need it... let's do it!

The kids from the first movie (I assume, I can't remember) are called, via dreams, out to the lake where it just so happens that a) their mom was there, and b) the Grabber started there. They join up with the camp owners and seek out the kids who were killed there previously, to take away the Grabber's power.

From IMDB: "the sequel was not based on a specific Joe Hill story" and yeah, it shows. This movie has nothing to do and spins its wheels not doing anything. The kids "powers" (talking on the phone, having visions in dreams) are cranked up to 11 to give some excuse for having any old phone ring and to have her have weird dreams they can use to be "scary" (but not actually scary).

Why did Ethan Hawke come back for this? Did he have nothing better to do? I can't recognise the other actors from anything else, so I'm guessing they didn't. Certainly there isn't a lot of budget to splash around, the biggest effect they do is put some post processing filter on the dream segments, which is nice, but otherwise was this filmed all at a backlot? I'd believe it.

We didn't need 2, so I'm sure they'll wring a 3 out of this...

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Doc Martin

I've done it, I've seen it all!

He's a fish out of water, he's a doctor is a small town village... that could describe a lot of series, but in this case it is Doc Martin, starring Martin Clunes. Who is kinda based on the character in the two tv movies, which was based on the character from the even earlier tv movie... but they couldn't spin up a tv series with that character (who is far too chill) and made him more uptight.

This is ten seasons, however as this is British tv, these are around eight episodes per, which the US wouldn't hit for several years. Often at the end of each season he is no longer able to be the village doctor... and then in the next season they work out how he can doctor again. Also I watched the beginning of each season wondering who came back. There was a big break after four seasons where several main characters don't return, so they quickly slot some other characters into those positions. (Oh, he gets another inexperienced secretary... oh, he has another aunt!)

There is definite character change, but more to the other characters than him. He does get married and has children, but still remains uptight and outspoken and with a bloodphobia (although the last episode quickly tries to pivot that to something else).

With Martin Clunes we get Ian McNeice, Stephanie Cole, and Katherine Parkinson (who is competent with computers... what?). Aside from those known, we get Caroline Catz, Joe Absolom, Selina Cadell, John Marquez, Jessica Random, and who turns out to be the absolutely lovely Eileen Atkins. And cameos from Ben Miller, Jeff Rawle, Chris O'Dowd, Louise Jameson, Caroline Quentin, Sigourney Weaver (!), and Rupert Graves, amongst others.

The reason I went into this is because there is now a US reboot, Best Medicine. The pilot episode is pretty much the same. There are different stories in there, but again some borrowed plots (such as one involving the doctor's father... who is played here by Martin Clunes!). But because this is a tv series in this current year, it's just ten episodes. Ah well, something else they got from the UK!

A fun wee series, ends on a Christmas episode. Definitely rewatchable!

 

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Bone Temple is Ready!

Some period of 28 later, the companion film!

The Jimmys are a bunch of complete a-holes, at least the lead Jimmy is and everyone else follows his lead. Alternatively, Ralph Fiennes is nearly naked and gets drugged up with the lead zombie. Eventually their paths cross, and it can only go one way, especially as we know how things are heading from the last movie.

Despite this being close to the previous movie, I can barely remember any of it, so much so that I wasn't sure if Spike was from it or not. The two main plots proceed pretty much as you expect, so much so that I was thinking it was retreading stuff from the previous movie. Although I watched it one my main screen, I may not have picked up on everything.

Ralph is fine, and the rest of the cast is decent, and... it's a well made film. But I am probably not giving it the justice it deserves.

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Shuttering again

Indonesia movie about the dangers of taking photographs.

Darwin is a photographer, but his pictures are showing a strange woman in them. Slowly he and his girlfriend work out that she is related to the woman they ran over, and now it's about them trying to escape her curse, which she enacts on people she has been photographed with.

I was about a third of the way through this when I got the sensation that this was very familiar and... this is a remake of the 2004 movie of the same name. That's it! I saw that, and now I saw this.

So what does this bring over the original... well, it's in Indonesian, so there's that. But as this is about analog photography, this doesn't update the tech to be able current technology, so...

It's fine. I hope the film makers and people involved did this because it was something they wanted to, but if you seen the original you've seen this, and vice versa.

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