Tales From The Crypt (1972)

Here you go, the last film we watched in 2018, uploaded for your disinterest less than a month after we saw it. You lucky bear!

Anyway, it's now a 47 year old film, so if you're into this sorta stuff, you've probably seen it already. It's one of those anthology spookers that the UK used to bash out frequently back in those days. All of 'em were daft old toffee, but almost always brilliantly entertaining.

And you can never go wrong with Peter Cushing.

The Blind Side (2009)

You may, if you're an incredibly unlikely fan of this blog who obsesses about detail, notice that The Podd watches a lot of films solo around public holidays. This is because my shite job insists that what applies to the great majority of the UK doesn't apply to us and I have to go to work.

This is something I look forward to one day leaving behind if we escape to the better life we're planning for.

However, it does mean that Podd can watch old guff like this without me moaning like a boring idiot about how bumholes it is.

I, Tonya (2017)

I didn't watch this, Podd did.

True life story about some ice skating scandal or some shit.

And if that description isn't enough to ensure I'll never bother, than nothing will be.

Cannibals And Carpet Fitters (2017)

I saw the ten minute short film that this is an extended version of and thought it was enjoyably silly twaddle with amusing dialogue and fun effects, and er, yeah, a longer version of that.

Ta.

Yardie (2018)

Film about a young fella who comes over to 1970s London to escape from a load of crime nonsense back in Jamaica.

Not too bad, and if you're a sad fuck like me, great for spotting vintage Brit motors.

Mystic River (2003)

I didn't watch this, Podd did.

Although I've seen it before, it's the one where millionaires pretend to be tough-guy working class people and suspect their mate is a nonce.

Bird Box (2018)

The one everyone's been wanking on about. The Netflix cover version of A Quiet Place.

Yeah, it was alright.

Fuck me. People really are dumb as a wanksock, aren't they:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jan/11/bird-box-challenge-teen-car-crash

Trainspotting 2 (2017)

Watched it again, hoping it was better second time round. It was, a very small amount, but I think that's only because I went in knowing it was a pale shadow of the original.

I stand by what I wrote here:

https://filmplop.blogspot.com/2017/02/022017_11.html

So read that, if you can be arsed.

Quantum Of Solace (2008)

I didn't watch this, Podd did.

https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/arts-entertainment/bond-film-breaks-new-ground-with-tits-cars-and-punching-200809261283

Bad Times At The El Royale (2018)

A number of strangers all book into the El Royale hotel (obviously) on the same day.

The hotel is a faded glory, its better days long behind it and now stands isolated and mostly unused, the sort of place where most of the residents are intentionally staying off the radar, escaping from their back stories.

Convenient, that, otherwise the film would be about a bunch of dull people stopping over before uneventfully making their way onwards the next day.

Of course the few guests and staff at the hotel all have secrets, and they're slowly revealed over the lengthy running time, eventually leading to a Charles Manson-like cult leader arriving and taking everyone hostage whilst demanding a runaway rejoins his group of loonies.

2hr20mins, but fills it well and we wasn't bored. Well acted, fun, interesting and feels almost like an extended Twilight Zone episode.

Johnny English Stikes Again (2018)

Tepid, woolly old nonsense with a couple of gentle chuckles.

searching (2018)

A chap's daughter goes missing so he goes all Sherlock Googlesearch to see if he can find her after the plod make a bollocks of it.

Not too bad.

Webcast (2018)

Two young wannabe documentary makers, a boy and a girl, decide to make a flick about the girl's family history, specifically what happened to her Aunt who went missing thirty years ago.

Set in a recognisably dull everytown, UK, it begins blandly, intentionally so, as the two investigative juniors slowly peel back the layers of the mystery and becomes more and more 'odd' as they bimble towards the strange conclusion.

Pretty decent.

Assassination Nation (2018)

A bit like a feature length episode of Black Mirror, the risks of dependency on mobile phones, social media, Instagram 'status', male hypocrisy, possessive sexual behaviour and a bit of murder, but without the background suspicion that Charlie Brooker typed it one-handed whilst using the other one to wank over his own smug brilliance.

I say that as someone's who's generally a fan, but have found most Black Mirrors to be dull and shite.

Fair play for nailing the thing about a prime minister fucking a pig though.

White Boy Rick (2018)

Copy & pasted from IMDB:

The story of teenager Richard Wershe Jr., who became an undercover informant for the FBI during the 1980s and was ultimately arrested for drug-trafficking and sentenced to life in prison.

Central Park (2017)

Bunch of New York teenagers go to Central Park for an evening to get messed up on booze and drugs.

A murdery fellow decides to shush them.

Perfect Strangers (2017)

A group of friends meet up for a dinner party and to watch a predicted meteor shower.
To liven up the conversation, one of them suggests everyone swaps mobile phones and reads aloud whatever message comes through on the device they've been given.

Sure enough this results in revelations about people's work lives, true sexual orientations and extra-marital affairs.

Well, it is a film, the reality would be much different.

**Beep! Beep!**

"Oh, Gary's got a message!.."

"Can't come to the pub tomorrow, my kid's off school with the shits"

Anyway, the film wasn't bad and will probably get remade before you've finished reading this.

The Predator (2018)

Not terrible, not particularly good.

Very predaverage.

The Festival (2018)

Further proof that British comedy films are in terminal decline.

As shite as it was predictable.

Venom (2018)

Kicked in the pillsack by critics, predictably enough, I quite enjoyed it!

Fuck 'em anyway.

Heat (1995)

Fascinating documentary about thermal conduction, narrated by David Attenborough.

"To avoid exposure to the seasonal extremities, it digs it's burrow in a downward, westerly direction"

You Were Never Really Here (2017)

Podgy bearded man kills nonces with a hammer.

Fair enough.

The Domestics (2018)

The DumbAsShits.

1/10

The Gateway (2018)

Australian film where a lady loses her husband (as in he dies, not gets wedged under the fridge) and because she's a science person, she goes through to a parallel world and steals that version of her fella.

Of course, this being a science fiction film, he's a bit different to the original model.

The Unthinkable (2018)

A film where a mysterious attack in Sweden (prob poisoned clogs/windmills) erases the memory and effects the behavior (crashing Volvos, thinking saunas are shit) of those exposed to whatever the transmitting agent is.

Starts well, drags a little and finishes superbly. Well, I thought so.

Yeah, the clogmills are the other place, whatever.

Sicario: Day Of The Soldado (2018)

Watched it again as it's rather good.

In Order Of Disappearance (2014)

Man's son gets murdered, man decides to take revenge.

Very entertaining and well made not a Steven Segal special that my description suggests.

Being remade.

Outlaw King (2018)

Captain Kirk goes back in time to have a fight in Scotland.

Just like everyone else who visits Scotland.

7.5/10

"That lassie got ale-horned, and nae cunt leaves here until we find oot which cunt did it!"

The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs (2018)

This is a Cohen brothers film, so every review you read of it will be like a praise bukkakke because there's some law that dictates it.

Pretty sure those fuckers will get oscar nominations for the Skype calls they make soon enough.

As it is though, like most of their other films, for normal people watching this, well, where's the magic?

It was a great big pile of 'OK'.

The final story, with Tyne Daly and Brendan Gleason in a carriage on its way to a strange location is the best of the lot, but you have to sit through two hours of dull bollocks to get there.

Cohen brothers? They can dick off.

Mile 22 (2018)

Who the fuck told that soppy meathead Whalberg dick that he can act?

For fuck's sake, get back in the corner and eat your protein crayons you fucking pin-faced twunt.

The Equaliser 2 (2018)

Yeah, that's right, I spelt it correctly! If this country insists on arsefucking itself with this fucking terrible Brexit shitmare, than I'm gonna spell film titles the correct, British way.

Fucking colonials.

Now excuse me while I drink terrible tasting, warm beer and salute a Union Jack made from pork!

(Film was largely wank as well)

Anon (2018)

This film, set in a future where nano-tech has invaded us at a physical level and our every act is recorded via our eyesight, available for the authorities to demand, and in potentially manipulate.
This also means that people's waking lives are a constant river of visual digital information and relentless, intrusive advertising.

Basically a bit like a fleshy YouTube but without a decent Ad Blocker running.

Anyway, murdercrimes start getting committed by someone who doesn't leave any form of E fingerprint. An omission that leaves the futureplod all confused and shizznit.

Starts of really interesting, I was barely taking any notice by time it ended.

House On Willow Street (2016)

Some criminals kidnap a young girl in the hope of a big ransom pay off.

Turns out she's possessed by demons or some ol' twaddle and it ends badly for them.

A bit poo.



Amazing I was never approached by the BBC after Barry Norman left, isn't it.

The Ranger (2018)

A mad park ranger kills some young people. In fairness, they, along with most young people, deserve it.

Killer Kate (2018)

Some awful people, who quite obviously all hate each other, meet up to celebrate one of them getting married. By celebrate, I mostly mean continue to obviously hate each other.

Anyway, some other people gatecrash the party, so they all spend about forty minutes trying to avoid/kill each other.

OK in moments, but generally crap.

Pineapple Express (2008)

I didn't watch this, Podd did. Although I saw it about 8 years ago and thought it was unfunny shit.
Why the fucking hell is that Danny McBride guy successful? His entire fucking thing, like that other cunt, Will Ferrell, is "Look at me reacting with mildly perplexed indifference to a ludicrous situation".

Monocharacter wanker.

James Franco can fuck off most of the time as well.

Monster Party (2018)

Three desperate young thieves get a job pretending to be waiting staff at a party being held by some enormously wealthy people.

Turns out they're something of a specialist interest group and the plucky young crims best get outta there while they still can! Yoinks, Scooby!

What?

Anyway, it's pretty good fun.

Reprisal (2018)

Dull and generic crime investigation/revenge sorta film. Three or four of the fellas in this look so alike, they appear to be sharing the same head between scenes.

It will be confusing for the short sighted among viewers.

Mountain Fever (2017)

During a nasty flu epidemic, a posh English fella hides in his parent's poncey French house.

A French lady ends up in there with him and other people want to get at her. She probably stole their bagguettes or something.

Not too bad.

Bonjour.

Fractured (2018)

Starts off kinda slow, and seems to follow a predictable pattern, then takes an unexpected turn.
It's unlikely, but works well enough and is one of the rare films that gets better as it goes along.

Don't Go (2018)

An American and an Australian pretend that one of them (can't remember which) is actually Irish, so they move to a bequeathed house that they're gonna turn into a hotel or something.

The manchapfellow keeps having a reoccurring dream, blah blah, blah, can he save his lost child by becoming his own ghost or somesuch bloody nonsense. I dunno.

It was OK, managed to pull it round by the end and finished well.

Welcome Home (2018)

A pair of annoying, whiny yanks rent a villa in Italy in the hope that a holiday will magic away their marital problems.

Instead they end up having to deal with stalkers and shit like that.

It was alright.

Snakehead Swamp (2014)

As nonsense as it looks, but sometimes that's exactly what you wanna watch.

Well, have on the TV whilst you don't take much notice at least

Await Further Instructions (2018)

A family (mum, dad, son, daughter and their other halves) get together for what should be a happy Christmas but almost immediately it's obvious there's a clash of personalities between, well, everyone.
This is made worse on the first night when the house appears to be coated in an impenetrable black substance.
A message appears on the TV telling them they are under quarantine and to await further instructions, funnily enough.

It all goes completely to bollocks and almost everyone ends up dead.

Perfect Christmas film, really!

Black '47 (2018)

A few reviews have described this as an Irish western, which is pretty fair. A chap comes home to Ireland after serving abroad in the British army and finds that the same British rulers, and those that sympathise, have left his homeland, well, fucked.
And the potato famine has turned a bad situation into a nationally devastating one.

He soon falls foul of the law and decides to stop bollocking about and kill an arseload of baddies.

Somewhat over-simplifying it, but not a million miles off. There is also lots of mature stuff about loyalty, the ambiguity of lines between good and bad, the class system, horrors of repression and other such stuff.

The two leads, Hugo Weaving and James Frechevelle are cocking superb.

Yup, very good.

An American Werewolf In London (1981)

I didn't see this, Podd did. In the cinema. There was a special showing in London for, I dunno, the 37th anniversary or another remastered version or something?

Personally I fucking hate London. Grubby, concrete, loud, expensive, crowded, smug arsehole of a place that should be dumped in the bin and started again.

But I suppose in this case it was locationally apt at least.

No denying that the film's a masterpiece though.

Galveston (2018)

A youngish (40 years old) hitman has been given his knackers yard ticket by the doctor and not knowing how much time he has left decides to settle a few scores with his former employer. He gets sidelined by rescuing a young prostitute and her even youngererer sister.

On the run together they start to bond and probably have a nightly conversation about whose future is looking bleakest.

Better than I make it sound. Definitely a bit of an obscure gem.

Patient Zero (2018)

How can a zombie film with well known, fairly talented actors be so fucking gash?

Well, apart from the terrible script, strange casting choices, illogical plot and numerous other stuff that made this film so wank.

Alright, Stanley Tucci's performance was a redeeming feature, but boy, considering the film around it, he had to do some heavy lifting and it still wasn't enough.

A Crooked Somebody (2017)

A fraud psychic scrapes together a living as a modern world sideshow attraction, just about managing to get from one small gig to the next. He travels with his ex., who works as his assistant and dependable audience plant.

At one gig in a backwater town, his made up stream of spirit babble accidentally nudges the truth regarding a decades old missing persons case. The person responsible for the crime is in the audience and decides he needs to silence the man who, he believes, can expose his misdeed.

There's more to it than that, the above is only the first third or so of the film. It's an unusual idea for a plot and it works well. The acting's good, there's moments of humour, irony and even a little bit of sharp satire. It's no masterpiece, but definitely deserves more than the small audience it'll probably get.