Films Watched 2018

Stand-out film of the year - Black Panther.  A very enjoyable Marvel escapade featuring ace sets and battle rhinos! (DVD on loan)

Cinema - Muse: Drones.  A one-night only, world-wide cine event.  Really cool effects especially the robots, with some AR added especially for the film thus apparently better than the live tour. 

Best found gem - Chemical wedding.  Alistair Crowley as told by the mad brain of Brian Dickinson.  Like a good old fashioned Hammer Horror, with ace music. What a hoot!  (DVD)

Best Sci-fi - What Happened to Monday.  Fantastic Noomi Rapace as septuplets in a future with a strict one-child policy… lovin’ the anti-EU vibe, especially the evil Glenn Close/ ‘Hilary Merkle’. (Netflix)

Sci-fi horror – Bird Box.  Very good story and apparently a massive hit.  Annoyingly, the strange phenomena making people commit suicide was never explained (Netflix)

Best shiny sci-fi- Valerian.  A touch of the Avatars with a big nod to Fifth Element.  Some ace comic turns especially by Rihanna (DVD on loan/Netflix)

Best comedy sci-fi - Safety Not Guaranteed.  An original idea, quirky and good script (TV)

Scariest idea - Bushwick.  Imaginative tale of confederates making a resurgence – like IS in Brooklyn – with the excellent Dave Bautista and (Netflix)

Silliest sci-fi - Geostorm.  Far-fetched disaster movie but didn’t top 2012, but then nothing ever will). DVD on loan)

Most disturbing factual drama - The Institute. Wherein said institute drugged and groomed posh young women into being slaves. And the place didn’t shut till 2009!  Shocking!  (Netflix)

Most educational true story - The Big Short.  Really good explanation of the financial crash (DVD)

Best biopic – Black Mass.  Johnny Depp as the notorious gangster James ‘Whitey’ Bulger.  Odd seeing him with no hair. (Netflix)

Funniest biopic - The Disaster Artist.  Hilarious story of Tommy Wiseau, an enigmatic eastern European (Polish?) American who made a terrible movie called The Room, which became a cult classic. (DVD)

Best action film based on a true story – Operation Mekong. War on drug lords in the Golden Triangle. (Netflix)

Best sequel - T2: Trainspotting. A jolly good jape, with a couple of LOL moments, although it posed a tautology at the end; or did it? (Netflix)

Best comedy cast - Death of Stalin.  Very funny and ace cast especially Jason Isaacs as the head of the Red Army. (DVD)

Best Horror - ‘Errementari: The Blacksmith and the Devil.  A very dark, Basque tale of devils and demons with great scenes of hell. (Netflix)

Best demonic possession -Deliver us from Evil.  A Cop pairs up with a priest to deal with demonic possession with excellent punk collage art tips.  Would make a good TV series (Netflix)

Most stylish horror - Neon Demon.  Uber stylish and ace music but a tad thin on plot. (DVD)

Most imaginative horror – Ghoul Interesting low-budget Brit flick with handy tips on dealing with depression although it did not end well.  (DVD)

Best Poe derivative - The Raven.  Sicko copies murders from Edgar Alan Poe stories with shambling detective trying to find out whodunit. (DVD) 

Creepiest horror - The Babadook. Genuinely creepy Australian horror and very clever that kept you guessing until the end.  (TV)

Best heist film - Den of Thieves.  Very complicated heist but good old fashioned cops n robbers in many ways. (Netflix)

Best Acting Dog- Bullet Head.  Billed as a heist film, but no heist (a theme at present, like space films with no actual space).  More about a fighting dog who was the real star despite a great minimal cast of John Malkovich, Adrien Brody, Rory Culkin and Antonio Banderas.  (Netflix)

Best war movie - The Man with the Iron Heart. This re-telling of Prague in WW2 explained the story much better than others with scenes of training Czech resistance fighters in Scotland. (Netflix)

Best WWI - Forbidden Land.  Very relaxing for a war movie. (Netflix)

Best prequel to WWI – Sarajevo. How the assassination of Franz Ferdinand was all a set-up to precipitate WWI by blaming the Serbs.  Confirmed my suspicions about how horrendously pointless it all was!  (Netflix)

Best girly war film - Suite Francaise.  In many ways, the usual tale of woman in Nazi occupied France accused of being a collaborator but with a twist – it was written by a Jewish woman, during WWII.  The unpublished script was only recently discovered by her ancestors. (Netflix)

Most depressing - The Secret Scripture. A bunch of Irish Catholic Nazis! (Netflix)

Best action/thriller - Act of Vengeance.  Turkish film about man accused of terrorism.  (Netflix)

Best spy thriller - Operation Finale.  Israeli spy network fetches Eichmann for trial in Jerusalem. A good; old fashioned espionage tale.  (Netflix)

Best Crime thriller– Message from the King.  A bit of a turnaround with South African guy mingling with lowlifes of LA.  So remind me; which is the 3^rd world country?  (Netflix)

Best Foreign Crime - Invisible Guardian. Decent Spanish drama about FBI-trained cop going back to her homeland to find a serial killer.  (Netflix)

Best Asian film - Steel Rain.  Well -balanced Korean film showing perspectives from both north and south.  (Netflix)

Best NZ film– Dead lands.  Definitely the best NZ film I’ve ever seen, and the first in their native language.  (Netflix)

Best European– Gun City.  Tale of corrupt cops vs anarchists in 1920’s Barcelona.  (Netflix)

Best Historical - Outlaw King.  This story of Robert the Bruce had great battle scenes.  Not sure why it received mediocre reviews - maybe people don’t get the history. (Netflix)

Best historical characters– Fall of an Empire (aka Katherine of Alexandria).  Loved the assorted women of Briton!  (Netflix)

Most Hilariously low budget– 1897.  Told the tale of the demise of Benin.  Looked like they’d raided their mum’s linen cupboard and dressing up box for costumes and the props were made of gold foil.  Very am dram!  (Netflix)

Best Literary classic - Ben-Hur.  This 2016 version got slated by the critics. No idea why (DVD)

Best Western – Hostiles.  Christian Bale as a grizzled old vet in this atmospheric western. (DVD)

Most amusing western - In A Valley of Violence.  Set in a really crap town with a total cast of 14 including Ethan Hawke as his usual character, Karen Gillan with a creditable Yankee accent and John Travolta as useless marshal.  (Netflix)

Best kids - Beauty and the Beast. The best Disney I’ve seen in ages (DVD)

Best animation - Kubo.  Adorably cute and funny with lovely animation.  (Netflix)

Best version of the Jungle Book – Mowgli.  Andy Serkis excels with his amazing motion-capture people animals!  (Netflix)

Most ridiculous Action - F&F8.  Predictably ludicrous, especially the nuclear sub, with a brilliant piss take of U571 “It’s all in Russian!”

Best TV film – Calvary.  Irish priest knows he’s doomed but carries on anyway. (TV)

Best cross-cultural - Dragon Blade.  Roman legion meet Chinese warriors on the silk road (Netflix)

Best road trip – Kodachrome. Ed Harris as a grumpy old git.  Nice photos.  (Netflix)

Best pirates - God of War. Chinese vs Japanese pirates inspired by Johnny Depp.  (Netflix)

Best Idris Elba - Netflix – Beasts of No Nation (pretty good; Idris relished his turn as a warlord)

Best re-make - The Foreigner.   Intelligent re-make of the Chjnaman with Jackie Chan beating the IRA at their own game.  A good turn by Pearce Brosnan as NOT Gerry Adams.  (Netflix)

Top Easter Film - Risen.  Roman follows Jesus when he comes back from the dead. (Netflix)

Top Christmas film -  The Man who invented Christmas.  Wherein Dickens writes a Christmas Carol in 6 weeks (Netflix)

Top Christmas re-run - Children of Men.  Count how many people say ‘Jesus Christ!’ (DVD)

I want my country back!

I want my country back, you effing bastards!

you self-serving twats still holding onto your public-funded gravy train jobs!

I want my country back, you fear and hate-mongers!

I want a country that is not divided

where half the population don’t feel disenfranchised

and the other half are angry

I want my country back, you back-stabbing connivers

I want a country where people are not scared of the future

where young people see hope and opportunity

where we build bridges, not walls

I want my country back, you cowardly rats deserting a sinking ship!

I want a country that is not a laughing stock to the rest of the world

where xenophobia and racism is not acceptable

where people are not scared of being forced ‘back home’

I want my country back, you effing bastards!

UKIP leader Nigel Farage NOT standing to be next emperor of Japan

UKIP leader Nigel Farage has said he will not stand in the forthcoming elections for emperor of Japan, it has been revealed.

 

In a blatant attempt to continue hogging the TV news, Mr Farage issued the shock statement this morning, to a BBC journalist in a raincoat, who was hanging around street corners just in case something didn’t happen.  

Farage said that his decision was nothing to do with not wanting to look like “a total tosspot” by entering the contest, as he did not "have any links with the Far East ", adding that he wanted to focus instead on pretending not to be a racist twat, despite mounting evidence that UKIP is full of obnoxious bigots who can’t keep their vile traps shut.

Farage was keen to stress that his major focus was on waging war with Europeans and insisted that if he got elected, he would campaign vigorously for the walls around Calais to be re –erected so that none of them “foreign scum would make it ‘beyond the pale’ “.

But John Knowitall, a top professor of politics at the University of Studies, said UKIP would be "trying to succeed on the back of Farage not going to do anything, ever".

The news comes just days after it was revealed that Farage will not be running for President of North Korea or as World Wide Ambassador for Refugees and Asylum Seekers.

Mr Farage told the BBC: "I haven't had long to think about it but I have thought about it in a half-arsed way, and we're just over three weeks away from a war with Europe at which I think UKIP could be victorious, and from which we can go on and win not just against the Europeans but quite a lot of Asia as well.  For that reason I don't want to do anything that deflects from the main battle, so I'm not going to stand for this particular dictatorship”.

Asked whether he had decided not to run for fear of losing, Mr Farage rambled: "It's about choosing the right battles. It's about prioritising and I know that if I were to have said yes to standing in Japan the next three weeks would be dominated by am I going to win, am I not going to win, and we wouldn't be talking about actors masquerading as immigrants, straight bananas and namby pamby green politics.

Prof. Knowitall added: “He is a total idiot peddling a load of nonsense based on nothing”.