Thursday, April 30, 2015

Death Race Trilogy ( Blu-ray )


There are few things that annoy me more than poor quality remakes or sequels to movies but I have to admit I have a fondness for Paul W.S. Anderson's remake of Death Race 2000.

Like the original movie Death Race isn't by any means a great movie but it is fun in a B-Grade kind of way.

A couple of years ago I saw the direct to video production Death Race 2 and as you'd expect at the time I thought it wasn't great but I thought it was interesting that the second film was actually a prequel that only featured a couple of supporting actors from the original film, more recently I became aware that there was a third film which was also a direct to video production called Death Race 3:  Inferno or some times just Death Race: Inferno which was a sequel to Death Race 2 but a prequel to the original Death Race.

Sometimes I think I must be a glutton for punishment because I like to see every movie in a series eve if I expect them to be terrible especially given that the second and third Death Race movies were directed by Roel Reiné  who also directed the awful The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption.

Rewatching the first two films and seeing the third film for the first time I found I enjoyed them, there is a definite drop in quality between the first movie and it's sequels but they all work as big dumb fun and while I do enjoy a well written and thoughtfully made movie sometimes fast cars, pretty girls and lots of explosions can be fun as well.

Thursday, April 23, 2015

*Sigh*

So the court thing was a waste of time and an expensive one at that, it's somewhat hard to have a conciliation conference when one party is just being difficult for the sake of it.

Looks like this is going to drag on into next year now and the only thing that will be achieved is that a couple of lawyers will get a little richer.

Monday, April 20, 2015

The Evil of Frankenstein ( Blu-ray )


Today I received a Blu-ray copy of Hammer Horror's The Evil of Frankenstein, for me this is a lesser Frankenstein film, the back story for The Evil of Frankenstein departs from what was established in the previous films in the series, today I guess we would be calling it a reboot rather than a sequel.

Peter Cushing stars once again as Baron Frankenstein and as usual gives an excellent performance but he is let down by a weak story and a poorly realised monster.

The Blu-ray of The Evil of Frankenstein is a bit of a mixed bag, while there is much more detail in the picture than there is in my DVD version of the movie, the picture is riddled with dirt and speckling in places which was disappointing to see, it's a shame some restoration work wasn't done on the movie, it's certainly watchable but as always it's a shame that little extra effort couldn't have been put into this release.

Hi Ho Hi Ho , Its Off To Court We Go !

Well I'm off to a roundtable conference at court tomorrow and if some issues can't be resolved then I guess things get really serious, wouldn't it be nice if sanity prevailed and things could be sorted out without needing the intervention of a Judge, of course I don't expect it to happen but it would be nice.

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Alien Anthology ( Blu-ray )


If there was good thing to come out of my recent back injury it was the fact I had the opportunity to catch up on some things I wanted to watch and read, I also took the opportunity to revisit some old favourites.

Unlike myself my daughter hates the Alien movies and if there is one thing she hates more than Alien movies it Alien movies with the commentaries playing and that's how I chose to watch the films this time around.

The commentaries are a bit of a mixed bunch, especially the commentaries for Aliens and Alien³  which were assembled from several different sources rather than having the commentators record a live commentary, of course it would have been fantastic to hear David Fincher's thoughts on the making of Alien³ .

One of the things that always shocks me is how grain Aliens is compared to the other films in the series and the different aspect ratio also feels a little out of place but it's a fun movie all the same.

I love the Alien movies and I hope the rumoured fifth Alien film goes ahead even if that means I'll be buying yet another Alien themed boxset in the future.


Monday, April 13, 2015

The Scorpion King 1-4


Yes that's right there are four Scorpion King movies, who knew ?

I remember when the original Scorpion King was released in the cinemas and a lot of people complained that it was a big dumb action movie which was actually exactly what I wanted from that movie so I enjoyed and I've enjoyed it the couple of times I've seen it since, not being a wrestling fan I had no idea who The Rock was but he seem to have a certain charisma and he suited the part he was playing.

Years later I saw a prequel film called The Scorpion King: Rise of a Warrior, it wasn't a great movie but it was watchable, recently I discovered there were in fact 2 more Scorpion King movies ( strangely enough The Rock doesn't appear in either of them ).

Scorpion King 3 & 4 ( especially 4 ) are two of the most uninspired, unengaging workman like movies I've seen in a long time, they had the potential to be entertaining B-movies but they don't come close to achieving that, it honestly felt like everyone involved was just there to cash a paycheck and weren't trying at all, it's been a long time since I've seen a movie as bland as Scorpion King 3 & 4.

I guess it was nice to see M. Emmet Walsh  was actually still alive and working.

Watch the original Scorpion King, it's a fun movie and if you must The Scorpion King: Rise of a Warrior but don't waste your time on the other two movies in the series, you have been warned.

Sunday, April 12, 2015

When the hell did I get old ?

It's been a crappy couple of weeks, basically I threw my back out and until a couple of days ago I could barely walk or sit upright for very long, I certainly couldn't sit at a desk and type.

I wish I had an interesting or exciting story to tell that resulted in this but the simple truth is I went to bed feeling fine and woke up the next morning in agony and that agony lasted for a couple of weeks, don't know what I did, I assume I twisted in an odd way while I was sleeping, I used to have recurring back problems but hadn't had any issues for years and personally I think I'd like to keep it that way from this point onwards, hobbling around like a little old man isn't much fun.

When the hell did I get old ?