The Servant

I have a feeling I'm not a fan of Harold Pinter, and this example isn't drawing me in.

An upper class type gets himself a manservant, and then hooks up with a potential fiancée. The fiancée and the servant do not see eye to eye... and that basically seems to be the reason the servant goes about destroying the upper class man and eventually leading him to psychological ruin.

Is this comedy? Or even satire? I'm not going with it, indeed found it painfully dull to get through. Decent performances, but the script did not engage me at all.

Bit of a fizzer really. And there's more Pinter to come.

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Final Centipede

The first movie was a fictional movie in the second movie, and now the second movie is a fictional movie in the third one as is the first one.

We are at a prison and the man in charge is basically insane. But his accountant has this amazing idea based on seeing the previous two movies. And they get the director of the first two movies to give them a hand (in a scene which is basically Tom Six gushing at himself, and then being sick at how far it gets taken). Given this set up, you can probably tell where they are going, and... yeah.

This movie seems to want to go to extremes with how crazy the warden (played by Dieter Laser, who plays the doctor in the first movie) goes, and the language and acts that he does.... but he, and the movie, comes across as simply childish, "look, I know the rude words, ain't I a stinker?" and so there's no shock value. At this point, we (at least me) are jaded, so this isn't getting anywhere.

Dieter Laser does, within the script, give a good performance. I quite liked Lawrence Harvey as Butler (who was the bad guy in the second movie). And adult star Bree Olson gets top billing on IMDB... and hey, Eric Roberts is in this, and I wouldn't be surprised to find they filmed all his scenes in one afternoon.

And so the trilogy ends... yep, there it goes.

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Enigmatis 2

I liked the first Hidden Object game, so let's check out the second!

This one takes place at an evil themed park, in which the evil of the place is making people think this is a nice place, then they get brought in and killed. Because that's the state of American local entertainment. Our job is to find out what's going on around here, and save the peoples we can because no-one in the present day is as competent as us.

The first problem is that there are far fewer Hidden Object games in this than in the previous game. There are some sections where you are picking up items, but they aren't quite the same. And then there are the puzzles, which fortunately aren't too impossible. So the game side was a bit of a let down. And there are collectibles, and I was one short of one set, and two of the other, and the only way to get them would be to play through again but that won't be happening.

The other problem is that we are helping a prisoner... and it is immediately obvious who the prisoner is. And releasing him is a bad idea, but of course we have to to progress. But that our character never suspects (despite reminding herself of him more than once) is just stupid.

Overall, a bit of a let down over the first.

The set up at the end is for there to be a 3... but there's no sign of it yet.

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What They Did on the Disc

I've already talked about What We Do In The Shadows, but this is a follow up of sorts. I gots the BluRay disc from the UK, and this is a review of what's on that.

The main movie is still good, and is now making the rounds in the US (with the help of the Kickstarter I was a part of). Since this is the BluRay of course the picture quality is good.

So let's get into the extras. I saw a super bonus edition of the disc before... but not now. I'm sure that had commentary on it, but that's not on the disc I have. There are a fair few pieces of deleted scenes and extra scenes. And to be honest, they were deleted/trimmed for a reason. The jokes were largely... weak. They may have worked in the full film with pacing and everything, but by themselves they didn't quite make it.

There's also a behind the scenes bit, in which we see a few of the more special effects scenes and how they were done. There is no interview with the crew (just the cast in character), that would have been nice. There is also the Original Short 30 minute version of this documentary... which largely gets incorporated into the film, and done better in there when fleshed out. This feels... raw.

So... yeah, would still like some more features, to be honest. I doubt the DVD version from the Kickstarter will have more, but I'll be back then!

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Yes Men Are Revolting

This came out in the recent NZ Doc Fest, but I didn't see it there. In fact... I can see it whenever I want to, because I helped Kickstarter this!

This has some of the usual Yes Men antics, and there is a large slab of background for them. We get to see into their past lives, their real selves, and their current living situations... and also get to see them almost give up. This could easily be the last Yes Men movie, and they have moved on to the Action Switchboard and stuff anyway, so that would work.

With the more personal focus... this movie doesn't feel as fun as the previous two. We do get some usual action of them getting into press statements they shouldn't, and they get a whole room singing along wearing white native headbands... but there's also a lot of frustration. The two men are getting their own lives now, and seem to be drifting apart, so there is a loss of the full sense of camaraderie that was there before.

Nice to have them back for a third movie, but it's not as good as the previous ones.

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Starship: Rinsing

This is a good example of a movie that gets it wrong on many levels.

The setup is fairly common: the most powerful starship in the fleet is taken over by someone, and then used against the fleet and forces that is in charge. So far, yeah, that set up can work well, and even done badly can be entertaining.

But then this movie takes that and messes it up. No scene seems to connect to another, and it's not a case of 'show don't tell', it's a case of 'we can't think of a way to show that so we might tell it, but more likely we'll just skip that scene', making it rather confusing. And the writer seems a bit too fond of rape... too much Game of Thrones?

The acting itself isn't much better, and everything seems to be shot against green screen with bad generic backgrounds added in afterwards. As was the sound, which can completely swamp whatever actual dialogue we're supposed to hear. And it doesn't help that the main bad guy speaks in a low gravely voice that gets annihilated by any other sound.

And after all that... there's a sequel planned for this. I can't even bring myself to look to see if it actually got made. Just don't worry about this. I won't.

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Topped Gear

And that was Top Gear. Okay, technically the show might go on, but let's face it, do we really care about the new presenters? Fine, Jeremy Clarkson was on warning, and he broke that, and the BBC had to deal with him... but they can kiss their ratings goodbye.

The last episode was hosted by Captain Slow and the Hamster, and all they did was introduce two segments that had previously been filmed. These two bits are classic Top Gear and the reason why I watch the show: three men farting around like idiots, and cars happen to be involved. There's a reason the Challenges DVD sell well as opposed to the more generic 'here are some cars' DVDs. We don't care about the cars, we just want to see them screw up!

And all this could be put to the test. Why do people tune in? The BBC will have their show with new presenters, and apparently Netflix will have these three back on the air with something else (likely car related). The audience will decide! And then we'll see that personality is the keeper.

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