Death is just as omnipresent as ever, and is unleashed after one man’s premonition saves a group of coworkers from a terrifying suspension bridge collapse. But this group of unsuspecting souls was never supposed to survive, and, in a terrifying race against time, the ill-fated group frantically tries to discover a way to escape Death’s sinister agenda.
You know when you ask someone to scratch your back, and they start off pretty close but then go wildly off target, before finally getting exactly the right spot? You get that deep sense of relief and satisfaction? That’s my best comparison for Final Destination 1-5.
★★★★
When rancher and single mother of two Maggie Gilkeson sees her teenage daughter, Lily, kidnapped by Apache rebels, she reluctantly accepts the help of her estranged father, Samuel, in tracking down the kidnappers. Along the way, the two must learn to reconcile the past and work together if they are going to have any hope of getting Lily back before she is taken over the border and forced to become a prostitute.
Never really threatens to get good but you just keep hoping and then it works out exactly like you’d expected and the credits roll. What annoys me the most is that I’m never getting that time back.
★★
Author and amateur astronomer John Putnam and schoolteacher Ellen Fields witness an enormous meteorite come down near a small town in Arizona. Putnam becomes a local object of scorn when, after examining the object up close, he announces that it is a spacecraft, and that it is inhabited...
John Constantine has literally been to Hell and back. When he teams up with a policewoman to solve the mysterious suicide of her twin sister, their investigation takes them through the world of demons and angels that exists beneath the landscape of contemporary Los Angeles.
First saw this at a cinema in the Philippines with very little foreknowledge (and therefore no expectations) and thought it was great. And I still think it’s great.
You have three characters (played by Stormare, the bloke from Bush and Swinton) that have only minutes of screen time but are so well realised that they’re some of the most memorable.
And, I’m no film student, but I really like how it’s shot. I know “music video background” blahblahblah. I like the framing and like the close-ups, which I guess is very comic book but, like, that’s exactly right, right?
Excellent comic book movie – even if they did almost entirely change the lead character.
★★★★
I’m nearly 50 years old. I can’t remember America looking as weak as it does today.
The presentation of “overs remaining” on cricket coverage still bothers me as a mathematician. “7.2 overs remaining” means 7 overs and 2 balls… but there are not 10 balls in an over! Outrageous.
In 1979 Ohio, several youngsters are making a zombie movie with a Super-8 camera. In the midst of filming, the friends witness a horrifying train derailment and are lucky to escape with their lives. They soon discover that the catastrophe was no accident, as a series of unexplained events and disappearances soon follows. Deputy Jackson Lamb, the father of one of the kids, searches for the terrifying truth behind the crash.
First saw this with my wife in the cinema when it came out and we loved it. I think this might be partly because we were 3 months pregnant at the time and everything was tinged with equal parts optimism and terror…
Watched it today with our (now) 13 and 10 y/os. Our oldest enjoyed the swearing, which was “just like at school” and our youngest loved it even if they were scared multiple times. I think that’s pretty high praise!
★★★★
The first manned spacecraft, fired from an English launchpad, is first lost from radar, then roars back to Earth and crashes in a farmer's field, and is found to contain only one of the three men who took off in it; and he is unable to talk but appears to be undergoing a torturous physical and mental metamorphosis.
The girl having the tea party is terrifying. The Grady twins have got nothing on her.
★★★★
Reclusive gym manager Lou falls hard for Jackie, an ambitious bodybuilder headed through town to Las Vegas in pursuit of her dream. But their love ignites violence, pulling them deep into the web of Lou’s criminal family.
If the intended tone was “queers do crazy shit for love” and “drugs are bad”, it was OK, maybe pretty good. Otherwise, I dunno what to make of this.
It careens wildly around: is it a domestic abuse drama, is it a serious thriller, is it an unrequited love story, is it a daddy-issues exploration, is it a black comedy, is it an organised crime “caper”, is it some some crazy Lynchian wank fantasy? Sadly it isn’t really any of those things.
Finally, the whole “let’s make it a period piece because you’d never get away with anything like that with modern forensics,” is just lazy writing.
★★★
