by Dan Collacott
Before the current age of streaming plus on demand movies and fast cinema to DVD/Blu-Ray releases, there were VHS videos (or for a short time Betamax). If you were a child of the 70s or 80s the wonders of the cinema were often secondary to the treasure trove your local video rental shop presented. Back then most block buster films took an age to land on video, which meant there was a huge market for cheaply shot straight to video movies. Including a lot of films that were rip offs of their big budget cinema brethren. Often VHS/TV films were able to do a great deal on small budgets, showcasing often hugely imaginative concepts and ideas that no big time movie producer would risk. In my Straight to Video series we will be looking at some of the best films that skipped the big screen and landed in your video rental outlet. My first pick is Wedlock (also know as Deadlock) a film that stars one of the kings of 'straight to VHS' movies, the late great Mr. Rutger Hauer! A man who seemed to excel in small screen action/martial arts style films. Odd considering this is a man who back in 1982 starred in one of the biggest sci-fi films of all time (all be it at the time Blade Runner wasn't nearly as appreciated as it is now). What is Wedlock about, I hear few cry? (Mild spoilers below) Set in the not too distant future, Mr. Hauer stars as diamond thief Frank Warren. After a shiny stone robbery, Frank ends up being imprisoned in Camp Holliday (silly names ahoy) after his best mate Sam and fiancée Noelle (Mimi Rogers), betray him and hand him over to the authorities. Why? Well of course they don't want to split the diamonds three ways and Sam presumably doesn't want to share Noelle! But fear not Frank has hidden the diamonds so both his partners in crime are unable to reap the spoils of their dastardly actions. The Sci-Fi Concept at the heart of the film: Camp Holliday is an experimental prison camp with no cells or walls, this is because each convict is given an electronic collar containing an explosive device which is electronically connected to another inmate. If any one tries to escape from the camp and is separated from their collar-mate by more than 100 yards, their collars will explode (yep exploding heads folks, that is this films gory punchline). Even at the time I saw this film as kid I remember thinking 'surely any Government round the world should watch this film and build new prisons using this in-genius concept?' I wonder if even now I could pitch the idea of proximity triggered exploding collars to the UK Government? Back to the plot... Frank fortuitously finds out he is connected to fellow inmate Tracey Rigg and they both escape with their exploding head collars in tact. Despite them fleeing the camp, things get even more intense when both realise it's not only the authorities that are pursuing them but back on the scene are traitorous duo Sam and Noelle (who still need Frank's help to find the diamonds). Wedlock soon becomes a good old fashion chase film, where the two leads must avoid capture and find the diamonds without accidentally at any moment separating for more than 100 yards! (As if they do boom go their brains and nicely quaffed 90s haircuts). Directed by legend Lewis Teague who is famous for some very good 80s and 90s films (Cats Eye, The Jewel of the Nile 1985, and sequel Romancing the Stone, 1984) and also terrible ones (Navy Seals, 1990). Wedlock was even funded by US TV giants HBO! Verdict: Wedlock takes a genius sci-fi concept, mixes in some bad future action and cheap FX/gore, a sprinkling of wooden and silly over acting to produce a goofy piece of retro action heaven. It also stars Danny Trejo as Tough Prisoner #1, so what's not to love? Also check out these other awesome Rutger Hauer films: Blind Fury, The Hitcher and Beyond Justice.
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Episode #11 of the Close Encounters of the 4th Kind podcast follows on from Episode #10 which saw Tee-J, Imran and Dan confess to classic movies they haven't actually seen ('2001: A Space Odyssey', 'Monty Python & The Holy Grail' and 'The Godfather', respectively). This episode catches up with the gang now having seen the movies in question and discussing whether they were worth the hype in the first place.
Episode #10 of the Close Encounters of the 4th Kind podcast sees Tee-J, Imran and Dan settle down to classic movies that we've never actually seen. We pitch each other 3 movies and vote on which ones each person should watch. Marvel with us in astonishment at the gaps within our own catalogues!
Episode #8 of the CE4K podcast saw the team pick and discuss their favourite on screen movie characters with praise given to Jack Burton (Kurt Russell, 'Big Trouble in Little China'), Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell, 'Evil Dead') and Michael Corleone (Al Pacino, 'The Godfather') but after much deliberation - and as something of a bonus for our web readers - we'd like to submit the marvellous performance of Vince Vaughn as Trent Walker in the 1996 classic, 'Swingers'.
Written by and starring Jon Favreau, 'Swingers' is a movie about a group of single friends and out of work actors trying to make it in LA with the film really focusing on their dating and night life activities. The film centres on Favreau's character (Mike) who has recently moved to town following a severe break up so while the film focuses on his attempts to come to terms with being single again, it's for best friend Trent to pull him out of that slump. 'Swingers' went on to make stars of Favreau and Vaughn, and also the film's director Doug Liman, but Vaughn was potentially the name who gained the more immediate success finding himself cast in 'The Lost World: Jurassic Park'. We could do a whole podcast episode about how awesome a character Trent is. Trent epitomises that infectious energy that people are drawn to - that proverbial guy that every guy wants to be and that every girl wants to be with. He undoubtedly cares about Mike but sometimes finds it difficult to pull himself out of his child-like take on the world and be a grown up, as perfectly encapsulated by the film's final scene. But there's something about Vince Vaughn putting his arm over your shoulder and telling you that "your're money" that would just make everything right with the world.
Episode #6 of CE4K saw the team discuss the concept of reboots - things we loved, things we didn't and things we'd like to see happen. Due to our masterful editing, you may not have realised that Imran's mic completely dropped out for the middle part of the recording so the episode doesn't get to include the reboot he was most thrilled about so we're including it here for your reading pleasure as opposed to your intended listening one.
In fairness, it was a very brief segment, mainly because the suggestion was unanimously agreed upon by Dan and Tee-J making us all die-hard fans of the MCU's rendition of Spider-Man. While Sony's previous five films (which saw Tobey Macguire and Andrew Garfield don the mask) achieved varying degrees of success and critical acclaim, Tom Holland's casting is widely considered as being the best onscreen iteration of the character. His match-made-in-heaven pairing with Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark, his Stark Technology upgrades and winning charm have not only led to the perfect tone for a Spidey movie but a logical update to the character as well. At the time of this writing, Spider-Man has featured in six movies within the MCU umbrella and thanks to what's been described as Tom Holland's drunk phone call with Disney Chairman Bob Iger, we're likely to see at least one more. Thankfully. Check out the Reboot episode in *full* to catch the other reboot suggestions. by Dan Collacott
Before I watched the final film in the series, I felt it was time to return to Rian Johnson’s divisive franchise behemoth to reflect on whether or not the second film in the final trilogy of the Skywalker story really deserved the kind of negative attention it earned on release in 2018. First of all I want to state that I don’t agree with some of the disgusting abuse and trolling that was metered out on social media to the actors, actresses and makers of this film. Everyone deserves an opinion but things got way out of hand. But I also don’t sit on the fence when it comes to this film either, when I left the IMAX after viewing Last Jedi I was filled with feelings of extreme confusion, in fact ‘what the hell did I just watch?’ was genuinely my overriding emotion as I walked into the night. What felt strange is the majority of the British press had given the film glowing critiques, praising the film like it was a sci-fi masterpiece. Even specialist film publications like Empire and Total Film had nothing but praise for this middle section in the Rey and Ren story. Their words rang in my ears like a hand grenade at close quarters, distorting my feelings, clouding my judgment and leaving me thinking ‘is there something wrong me?’ because I really didn’t enjoy the last two and a half hours given over to this befuddling cinematic enterprise. It is worth noting that I did grow up with Star Wars, I think New Hope was on TV one Christmas. I watched Empire on a video rental and then aged about 5 saw Return of the Jedi in the cinema (and then every film that followed). I didn’t enjoy the prequels a great deal even if Revenge of the Sith had it’s moments. But I respected the fact those movies were for a new, younger audience and in the years that have passed I have been more accepting of their existence. But when Disney bought Lucasfilm there was a new hope (gettit?) that the story would be reinvigorated and continued in a way that would both service the hardcore Star Wars fans and bring a new audience to the franchise. JJ Abrahams felt like a safe pair of hands, he’d already done a decent job of relaunching the Star Trek cinematic film franchise and it was felt he couldn’t do any worse than the prequels. Abrahams played it extremely safe with Force Awakens, providing a soft reboot of New Hope with a familiar templates of heroes, villains, creatures and droids that would fit seamlessly into the Star Wars universe. Almost by virtue of the fact ‘it didn’t suck’ Force Awakens earned a pass with most fans and brought the box office and merchandise profits that Disney wanted. Despite its issues during filming Rogue One also proved a critical triumph with both the fans and the press, but as this was a stand alone prequel it perhaps shouldn’t be included in this retrospective, other to say at this stage Disney seemed to be getting Star Wars unquestionably right! But back to Last Jedi, I have tried over and over again to not join the tidal wave of angry sentiment towards this film. Even as I started to watch the film again one year on I found much of the film jarringly unwatchable, experiencing the same strange fails in logic and baffling plot decisions. Only this time I decided to list everything I saw, recording all things the film got right and the much longer list of things the film in my opinion missed the mark on. Lets start with the Good It didn’t look out of place The overall cinematography and feel of Last Jedi remains accomplished, with SFX and cinematography delivering throughout. Star chemistry The ‘we’re connected’ story arc between Rey and Ren worked really well, Ridley and Driver have undoubted on screen chemistry. Maz Kanata sidelined This may seem a bit harsh, but I am not a fan of the ‘pure CGI’ characters in Star Wars and while I don’t hate Maz I was quietly glad she was only given a short cameo. On the other hand it would have been nice to finally find out how she got hold of Luke’s light saber. A dark edge Johnson definitely made Last Jedi feel a bit more darker and emotional, as obviously if Force Awakens was a New Hope reboot, then Last Jedi had to cast the same shadow as Empire once did. Arguably Johnson went even further, ramping up the ‘we can’t win can we?’ stakes to an all time high. Focus on Rey The fact the film focuses in on Rey at the expense of Poe and Finn maybe irritated some fans, but in some ways this wasn’t a bad thing. Treading some of the same ‘path to the dark side’ steps that Luke took during Empire Strikes Back still resonated. Jettisoning away from some entitled parentage to the ‘everyone can be a hero’ mantra is also perhaps not as bad as it seems. And now… the Bad Poe Dameron is a dick In Force Awakens, Poe was introduced to audiences as a sort of Luke/Han Solo hybrid, the loveable dashing rogue that women hate to love and men want to be. Only he wasn’t ever actually given any chauvinistic one liners, he didn’t use the word ‘Princess’ like it was a belittling ‘silly woman’ style term. And yet he spends the entire of Last Jedi being portrayed as a stupid, untrustworthy, rebellious, anti-woman, bell end. He contrives to wipe out half of his own fleet in the opening attack on the First Order. From then on, the resistance sidelines him. His biggest issue seems to be that Vice Admiral Holdo and some of her crew has a plan that they refuse to share with Poe (and if they had then he wouldn’t have kicked into action a useless sub-plot which added nothing to the narrative). He gets a bit of redemption at the end but on the whole is made to look like a hotheaded berk. Lucas has already edited to oblivion the ‘Han shot first’ notion, refusing to believe that Solo would act without honour. Now Poe throughout Last Jedi has had his testicles live edited out to the point his role is no more than a strange cameo (actually I’d go even further and say in this film he is made into the Jar Jar Binks of the new trilogy). Luke is a dick At the end of Force Awakens we saw the emotionally charged moment where Rey finally found Luke and handed him his lightsaber (hours of blood sweat and tears built up to that point). Roll credits. Roll titles for the start of Last Jedi and that very scene rolls on with Luke tossing the iconic weapon over the cliff in sneering disdain. He then proceeds (initially) to be a grumpy old twat, with little interest in helping Rey or his old chums. Yes of course we get he is a reclusive hermit burnt by the betrayal of Ren (and his Knights) and he does of course eventually find redemption and a degree of revenge. He just didn’t need to be such a weird grumpy old git with a personality a million miles away from the Luke the fans knew and loved. Force Ghost Yoda is a dick During Empire Strikes Back when Luke first meets the hairy green Jedi master; he is an eccentric and highly ridiculous old hermit, a sort of Muppet caricature. This fact was in itself a ruse, an act, before he then revealed his true wise and awesome self to the impatient young future Jedi. So it’s strange then that death seems to have turned Yoda back into that early and zany caricature version of himself. Not wise, not measured, just a bit of a twat who can inexplicably set the greatest works of the Jedi volumes 1-100’ on fire with ‘force ghost lightening’ (that thing we all wondered if force ghosts could do but never thought to ask about). Finn is a dick Ok so Finn isn’t really a dick, but in Force Awakens he cowardly does a runner from the First Order and in Last Jedi he cowardly does a runner from the resistance. Ok so for very different and understandable reasons, but his role in Last Jedi is massively reduced. The love story angle is horribly undercooked, the side mission is a failure and all of the chemistry built up with Rey in the previous film is jettisoned as the two share very little screen time together. Chewbacca is a dick Just kidding, but he doesn’t do much in the film other than befriend Porgs, which brings me to… Porgs You can’t even elevate them to the role of ‘flying Ewoks.’ The makers just decided to CGI over the local island bird population where they filmed the Rey and Luke scenes with a slightly dumber and more annoying bird species. They don’t work as comic relief and we have no idea why Chewbacca didn’t BBQ a few for a tasty snack. But hey it’s all about merchandising opportunities! The Knights that say… Neee screen time The mysterious Knights of Ren were a backstory that many fans were desperate to uncover. Force users likened to a modern version of the Sith, led by Kylo Ren and instrumental to his betrayal of Luke (and Han probably). But where did they come from? Who trained them? What is their relationship to Snoke or any other Sith/First Order/Empire faction? Oddly they didn’t feature at all, leaving them as another piece of narrative to be shoe horned into the already crowded Rise of Skywalker script. Snoke Joke Portrayed in Force Awakens by a giant 70ft holo projection, the gruesomely disfigured, believably powerful and evil Supreme Leader Snoke proved to be the perfect villain. There was just the right amount of mystery and dread surrounding the First Order’s leader. Fast-forward to Last Jedi and Snoke in person is just an ‘ordinary sized’ old man, who is quickly and very easily dismembered by Kylo Ren. We never find out who he was or anything about his mysterious backstory. Another long pointless set up only to be comically wasted in one of Johnson’s many ‘don’t care what Abraham’s wrote I’m doing this my way’ moments, which brings me to… Rey aint special A year of fun speculation of who Rey is the daughter of (or related to), came to an abrupt close when Ren reveals her parents were nobodies. The fans wanted her to be another Skywalker, Solo or even better part of Palpantine’s bloodline. Instead ‘ha ha she’s none of the above you nerds’ was what we got. Ok as mentioned above some people like the ‘anyone can be a hero’ story arc, but erm well many didn’t. Force training Rey confronts her destiny in what looks like a giant vagina, enough said. Phasmagorical Wasted in the first film (she shut down Star Killer’s shields because Finn pointed a gun at her!). Gwendoline Christie and her awesome silver armour return to put right the wrongs of the first film, getting revenge and kicking some ass! Except she gets even less screen time and is embarrassingly easily killed off by Finn, ‘but wait did she really die?’ I hear none of you cry, nope she’s really very dead this time. A deleted scene shows her being blasted off a different level of the same edge by Finn, yet again. The Holdo Maneuver The source of many memes and face palms. For some reason the Vice Admiral stands and watches what little there is of the resistance get wiped out by the First Order before deciding to hyperspace her own ship into the First Order's huge bad ass ship the Supremacy. A heroic and cool move but one she could have taken about ten minutes earlier with any of the big ships, thus saving a lot of lives. Princess Poppins It feels awful calling out anything the late Carrie Fisher did as bad, as she deserves so much respect but this was the only minor blot on her participation in any of the Star Wars films. But I just can’t ignore the fact that someone thought it would be great to have Princess Leia escape a burning ship by floating out into space, like a very resilient Mary Poppins. The worst part of this was fans had always hoped/suspected Leia had force powers and would become a Jedi…. but re-enforcing such a long held notion with such a goofy set piece really was the worst possible ‘I f*cking knew it’ type reveal. Romancing the Rose Finn and Rose’s strange romance story arc felt very rushed with plenty of their actual interactions and growth as a couple clearly sent crashing to the cutting room floor in the final edit. This is no fault of the actors who in the scenes that remained still didn’t replicate any of the wooden acting and dialogue that befell Padme and Anakin in the prequels. Their interactions just didn’t get enough screen time to save their needless and incredibly botched sub-plot, neatly leading me to... The Canto Bight sub plot So Maz tells Poe to find some dude on a casino planet, Finn sneaks off with Rose in defiance of Holdo and co to track down the ‘master code breaker’ they fail, but run into Slicer (Benico Del Toro with a weird stammer) who double crosses them, but they both eventually escape and return to the resistance having achieved absolutely nothing other than an excuse for a barely cooked romance plot and lots of montages of riding on CGI horse things and young force users/future Jedi being rammed down our throat as we all love young Annie from Phantom Menace didn’t we? ‘But look it’s an evil capitalist planet’ I hear none of you cry, as if you wouldn’t love visiting ‘Las Vegas the Planet’. Not bad not good but I still have questions… The Lack of Resistance I get that the much of The Rise of Skywalker’s plot will involve finding and uniting the ‘rest of the resistance’ but it does seem odd that the ‘rag tag rebellion’ is so pathetic in this film (ok yes I know Poe wiped out all the fleet’s bomber ships). The Ski Speeders used near the end are comically crap and by the final scenes of the film the resistance consists of just 7 people, not including Porgs and those weird foxes. In contrast to… The First Order f*ck yeah! Why did all Star Wars fans go through the emotional rollercoaster of seeing the Empire lose and the Rebellion win in the original trilogy, only to find out that 30 years later (or something like that) a new surprisingly similar organization also led by (Sith like) evil dark force users called ‘The First Order’ have risen up and now have 1000 times the power and resources of their previous incarnation. So basically everything that happened in the original films was utterly pointless, the rebellion would be better off had they just left Vader and Palps alone to get on with it. If you have ghost Granted the rules of what a force ghost can or can’t do have never been set in stone, so whoever took steps to widen that mythos was always going to get their good hand critically cut off. We’ve never ever quite understood what a force ghost is or does, the fact that George himself seems to edit who they are played by at the end of Return of the Jedi every few years doesn’t help. What governs their age, their form, and their abilities? Why hasn’t Qui-Gon shown up after being confirmed as a force ghost? Have any of the hundreds of Jedi to have been killed by Order 66 become ghosts? But returning to Last Jedi we have Yoda who in force ghost form (seems to lose some brain function) and can shoot force lightening into the real world (and he really hates Jedi history). But Obi-Wan force ghost did none of these things. But speaking of non-ghost powers... Force projection The fact Luke can project his image over thousands maybe even millions of miles of universe is very cool (again something Yoda and Obi-Wan don’t attempt and nor does any of the Sith). But why does doing it lead to Luke’s death (or his transition to force ghost) and can force ghosts project? Did Luke just decide his last act as a physical Jedi would be this long distance projection, after which he decided to give up his body? Ok time to wrap this up The fairly obvious conclusion is The Last Jedi is pretty much as bad as it always seemed one year on. This does feel disappointing, as all the trolling and calls of 'toxic fandom' made me feel ashamed to be a hardcore Star Wars fan. I do standby the fact that even if you didn’t grow up with Star Wars you would struggle to think this film is good as even ignoring the franchise mythos, structurally it is poor and it is peppered with extremely daft leaps in logic. Would it fit well in the recent DC canon alongside films like Suicide Squad, Batman vs. Superman and Justice League, yes it would! (Some people like those films). It is possible that if JJ Abrahams does a good enough job with Rise of Skywalker that Last Jedi might benefit, finding some redemption from its defiance of the rules, character traits and story that went before it. Sadly, It could also get even worse! (Update it didn't get worse, but in Rise of Skywalker, J.J Abrahams just retconned the things the things that annoyed the fans in the last film and packed in a lot of extra fan service, to make a very crammed film with some admittedly good moments)
Episode #6 of the Close Encounters of the 4th Kind podcast sees Tee-J, Dan and Imran delve into the topic of reboots each addressing three questions:
What's a reboot you hated? What's a reboot you loved? What's a reboot that you'd like to see?
In Episode #3 of the CE4K podcast, we discuss those incidents in the movies we all watched as children that, in most cases, we thought nothing of but now with 2019 goggles firmly attached, we marvel not only in our ignorance, but also in how things have changed.
We didn't go too deep into this particular aspect of the conversation but we did discuss the concept of sex in US movies from the 80s to early-00s, and the seemingly incredible ease in achieving it. That whole notion of sex as the continual goal for our heroic and horny teenagers genuinely served as the backbone for countless movies still regarded as classics. While the American Pie franchise is held dearly to many as a classic coming-of-age story, and undoubtedly boasts some incredibly hilarious moments, it's one of the biggest offenders in our case here: American Pie (1999) sets the goal for four teenagers striving to lose their virginity on prom night which surprisingly/unsurprisingly, they all manage to do with varying levels of success; American Pie 2 (2001) inexplicably ends with Stifler engaging in a threesome and of course, across all movies, there are the continual trists between Paul Finch and "Stifler's Mom". Unfortunately, it's impossible to separate the notion of "boys just want to have fun" with these insurmountable expectations and a mortifying devaluing of women who just kinda went along with things mindlessly. And why wouldn't they - these weren't *their* stories. Empire published a list of what they dubbed the best 80 movies from the 80s boasting classics including Ghostbusters, Die Hard, Beverly Hills Cop and The Man With Two Brains. Other than starring roles for Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally and Sigourney Weaver in Aliens, the top 40 featured next to no women in a top-billing role. Although it's certainly not indicative of whether a film poorly represents women or not, the Bechdel Test has always proved to be a fascinating jumping off point when assessing the role of women on screen. The test gauging whether two *named* women can be on screen having a discussion about something other than a man. Looking at this list of 80s movies and thinking back to 2017's release of Wonder Woman and the rapturous reception the film received, and the validation attached to its success, counteracting any outdated industry reservations about a woman's ability to carry a mainstream movie or franchise. Unfortunately, these are observations within films 20, 30, 40 years ago that can be stretched to other areas where diversity has fallen short, like race, but is it unusual that we watched these movies and thought nothing of it at the time - didn't ask these questions and just accepted the perspectives and view points passed on to us? Top 10 Most Under Rated Action Sci Films Part 2
by Dan Collacott
Back in our second podcast we discussed some of the films that we personally love that many more really didn't give a chance. Here is the final top most overlooked or harshly criticised films in that list! 4. Moon (2009) Director: Duncan Jones Moon tells the claustrophobic tale of engineer Sam (Sam Rockwell) who occupies a small Moon base, running a number of machines that harvest energy for the Earth. Experiencing a number of flashbacks and unexplained memories, Sam crashes his moon rover on a routine maintenance run. Woken hours later by the facilities computer Gerty (Kevin Spacey) Sam finds everything he thought he knew is under threat and he is no longer alone on the base. Duncan Jones seminal film is one of the most perfectly weighted piece of film making in recent decades, accompanied by Clint Mansell’s haunting soundtrack. Moon packs so much emotion, psychological tension and melancholy in a script that doesn’t waste a single minute of its runtime. 3. The Machinist (2004) Director: Brad Anderson Back in 2004, Session 9 Brad Anderson directed Scott Kosar’s pitch black psychological thriller. The film tells the story of an industrial factory worker whose acute insomnia and psychological problems lead to a horrific work incident. Taking you on an eerie journey through the deconstructed mind of the hauntingly skeletal Trevor Reznik (named after Trent Reznor), piecing his memories back together to uncover the central mystery at the heart of the film through a backdrop of delusion, sleep depravation and paranoia. Christian Bale went so method when playing Trevor Reznik that he resembled a shadow version of his former self, losing 62 pounds for the role. Director Brad Anderson perfectly executed Scott Kosar’s pitch black psychological thriller in a brilliantly atmospheric film (kudos to the incredible soundtrack by Roque-Banos) that largely gets overlooked.
2. The Running Man (1987)
Director: Paul Michael Glaser Based on a book by Stephen King (under his Richard Bachman pen name that he wrote in a single week!) Paul Michael Glaser’s bad future adaptation of The Running Man, took the base concept and characters but put them in much more contained and stripped down version of the ultra violent survival game show. An early career vehicle for uncle Arnie, Running Man was praised for its acerbic take on American TV and wicked deconstruction of capitalism, parodying the great American gameshow. The film can be found in the same cannon as Paul Verhoeven’s dystopian satires such as Robocop, Total Recall (which also starred Arnie) and later on Starship Troopers. All of which playfully deconstruct and hold a cracked mirror to western society. This late 80s movie is only on this list as it is often treated as more a lower budget B movie than one of the more revered Arnie favourites such as Terminator or Total Recall. But Running Man is a beautifully shot and surprisingly well framed and edited action movie, perfectly paced, with larger than life action and characters. It even has a brilliant electro synth soundtrack by Axel F composer Harold Faltermeyer, that perfectly underpins the rebellious chaos of the film. Admittedly the dialogue can be clunky and the acting sometimes forgettable, but there are also some classic lines and probably the best example ever of Arnie’s ‘I’ll be back’ line. The casting of real life game show host Richard Dawson as the sociopathic ratings obsessed host Killian is another reason that makes this film such an underrated piece of film history.
1. Watchmen (2009) Director: Zach Snyder Other than the Dawn of the Dead remake and maybe 300, Watchmen is probably the best film Zach Snyder has ever directed. But the adaptation of the beloved graphic novel from writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons wasn’t a welcome addition to the film world for many. Alan Moore himself didn’t want to see another one of his works thoughtlessly butchered for the big screen and many fans and critics alike saw this as an unfilmable project. Just look at the long list of studios and directors that passed up on the project before Snyder, including David Hayter, Darren Aronofsky, Terry Gilliam and Paul Greengrass. The reality is that Snyder produced a painstaking almost panel by panel faithful adaptation of the source material, with a director’s cut which even featured the largely symbolic and meta Tales of the Black Freighter segments (the comic story within the comic). Most of the casting was spot on with Jackie Earle Hayley breathing life into the gruff ginger anti-hero of Rorschach whilst (a pre Negan) Jeffrey Dean Morgan was inspired as The Comedian. There are few missteps in acting and script throughout this disturbing tale of hero outcasts, other than the much criticised ending which swapped out the giant squid of the comic for a different yet equally destructive final event. The ending still largely maintains the same end game and meaning as the book, but it is understandable that some will not forgive this transgression. Many believe that Snyder shouldn’t have gone all in on the source material, others feel this is as accurate version of the graphic novel as we could have hoped for. For those neutrals out there that haven’t read Alan Moore’s dark and unsettling cold war parody of the super hero genre, Watchmen is a movie worthy of your time. Other Worthy Mentions Constantine If you ignore the fact this bares so little resemblance to the comics it is based on you can certainly appreciate that this is a surprisingly decent action film even if most were less than thrilled with what Keanu Reeves and Shia LaBeouf brought to the adaptation (I don't agree), plus Peter Stormare is inspired as the Devil. Starship Troopers A Verhoeven classic despite its B-movie aesthetics and budget. Even the sequels aren't bad if you have the hours spare. Ghostbusters 2 Imran's favourite has to get a mention. Walking Statue of Liberty and weird ‘be nice to each other’ messaging aside, this is still an incredibly fun continuation of the first film. Robocop 2 Whilst the concept of sticking the brain of a drug-pushing addict into a giant highly armed robot maybe as ridiculous as it sounds, it does make for more fun dystopian shenanigans. Gremlins 2 (Is there a pattern here!?) Gloriously silly and featuring a plot that looks like it was created by a bunch of excitable four year olds. Gremlins 2 succeeds more than it fails even if it does this by throwing so much sticky green madness at the wall that it was inevitable that some would stick. Revenge of the Sith Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones were not complete turkeys even if they had their fair share of foul Christmas trimmings. But Revenge of the Sith has just enough payoffs to make it watchable, including the lava soaked battle between Obi Wan and Anakin. Not a classic, but if you can curb your Jar Jar Binks hate you might reclaim your love of the prequels even if you won't wipe out the memory of Last Jedi. Tron 2 If you loved the original then it’s hard not to appreciate the love that went into the 2010 sequel. The film rarely disappoints, the plot is a little clunky but the overall acting and story mostly delivers. Sadly 28 years was probably two long to leave creating a follow to the 1982 original, with the dedicated fanbase too small to make the kind of billions the studios these days demand from their franchises. TeeJ's favourite also!
Episode #3 of the Close Encounters of the 4th Kind podcast sees Tee-J, Imran and Dan discuss things we watched as kids in the 80s and 90s but after refocusing on them with 2019 goggles, we ask whether some of these things were really ok - is the notion of the Bond girl really something to be revered? How were Doc and Marty even best friends anyway? Apu may be a beloved Simpsons character but are we actually crossing lines of impropriety? Tune in as we ruin all of our childhood favourites (and more)!
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The 4Ever team...Welcome to 4ever in Electric Dreams which is the virtual HQ and home to our burgeoning podcast network spearheaded by our flagship series, Close Encounters of the Nerd Kind (C.E.N.K.). Our podcasts are available on the following platforms:
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