3.45pm - Quantum of Solace

Quantum of Solace (2008)

Starring: Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric

Genre: Action thriller

Random observations:

- More of the jumping from rooftop to rooftop. Has that become this version of Bond's trademark?

- Awesome fast-paced opening scene, and Daniel Craig is so much more believable as an action star than that girl's blouse Pierce Brosnan. 

- I need me one of those palm-sized cameras that can take photos of faces from a hundred metres away with such clarity that face-recognition software can be used.

- First a boat battle, now a plane battle. What's next, a train battle?

- The girl who died covered in oil looks a lot like the girl who died covered in gold in Goldfinger. Deliberate homage?

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Overall comments: First off, I need to make it clear that I hate James Bond movies. The only one I've ever watched all the way through was Casino Royale, which turned out to be the most unBond Bond movie of them all. With Daniel Craig, gone are the smarmy nancy boys supping on martinis (Brosnan, Connery etc). His Bond kicks ass and makes no apologies about it. But while I loved Casino Royale, I merely liked Quantum of Solace. I'm not sure what was missing, but I think it might have had something to do with the main bad guy. Mads Mikkelsen's Le Chiffre in Casino Royale was a creepy-as bad ass, whereas Mathieu Amalric's Dominic Greene in this movie is... well, he's just not a very menacing villain. Perhaps the director (Marc Forster) is also partly to blame, not having much of an action background, unlike Kiwi Martin Campbell (Casino Royale). Quantum has way too much talking and not enough action for my liking.

Up next: Futurama - The Beast With a Billion Backs

1.45pm - Harold and Kumar escape from Guantanamo Bay

Harold and Kumar escape from Guantanamo Bay (2008)

Starring: John Cho, Kal Penn, Neil Patrick Harris

Genre: Comedy

Random observations:

- Poop and jizz jokes and the opening credits have barely finished. We're off to a good start.

- Smokeless bong!

- Rob Corddry from The Daily Show! Awesome.

- "That looks like Osama Bin Laden's beard". Best pube joke ever.

- Doogie Howser in-joke alert.

- Threesome with weed. Funniest sex scene since Team America.

- Best line of the movie... Neil Patrick Harris: "I'm gonna rock with my cock out and you're gonna jam out with your clam out".

Overall comments: If you're into these kinds of teen/stoner movies (American Pie, Road Trip, Club Dread etc) and you've seen the first one (and even if you haven't) you'll probably get a lot of laughs here. While this isn't my favourite kind of comedy, and I can't say I was laughing the whole time, I did laugh a lot and enjoyed Harold and Kumar 2 quite a bit.

Up next: Quantum of Solace

11.20am - Smokin' Aces

Smokin' Aces (2006)
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Ray Liotta, Jeremy Piven, Ben Affleck

Random observations:
- Quite the ensemble cast. Within the first few minutes I count Reynolds, Liotta, Piven, Affleck, Andy Garcia, Kiwi Martin Henderson, Alicia Keys, Peter Berg and Wayne Newton.
- My suspicions that this will turn out to be an American attempt at a Guy Ritchie movie are well founded so far.
- Hooker fight!
- Nazi redneck ventriloquist act! Ben Affleck's greatest acting performance ever (If you've seen the movie you'll know what I'm talking about).
- Alicia Keys in fuck-me boots. Daaaaaamn!
- Chainsaw up the ass. Ouch.

Overall comments: I was right about this being an American attempt on a Guy Ritchie movie. Like Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, you have a bunch of subplots all twisting and turning until they lead to one helluva shootout. But unlike LSaTSB, Smokin Aces doesn't have quite as much humour, and ramps up the blood and gore. Everything revolves around a hit put out on mob informant Buddy "Aces" Israel, and the various groups of hitmen (and women) wanting to cash in the $1m bounty. The would-be assassins include ex-cops, crazy rednecks, a sexy black woman and a master of disguises. Director Joe Carnahan (who's helming a sequel - Smokin' Aces: Blowback, due for release this year) throws in a surprise twist for good measure, and then caps things off with an attempt at a heartfelt ending. Smokin' Aces is at its best though when the bullets are flying.

Up next: Lunch, then a real change of pace... Harold and Kumar visit Guantanamo Bay.

9.30am - Class of 1984

Class of 1984 (1982)
Starring: Perry King, Timothy Van Patten, Roddy McDowall
Genre: Drama/thriller

Random observations:
- Theme song by Alice Cooper!
- Perry King, star of the short-lived 80s TV show Riptide, which no-one but me seems to remember.
- Roddy McDowall. Best known as Cornelius in the classic Planet of the Apes, but to me he'll always be Peter Vincent in Fright Night.
- Michael J Fox sighting! He's really young here. This is the same year as he started on the TV series Family Ties, which would shoot him to stardom. Here he's got a nasty bowlcut.
- Man, this movie is worth watching just for the array of early 80s fashions, which range from pretty cool to downright hilarious.
- Now we're two-for-two for movies featuring cars blowing up dramatically, this one after flipping over in the street.

Overall comments: I haven't seen this movie since I was a teenager, and it stands up pretty well after all that time. Class of 1984 is your basic revenge flick, with a teacher (King) pushed over the edge by a group of punk students, led by Stegman (Van Patten). What makes this movie stand out from others in the genre is the acting (especially Van Patten and Roddy McDowall, who plays another teacher) and the violence. If you want to dig deeper, there are subtexts about the degeneration of youth and the ever-decreasing level of respect shown towards authority/elders. If not, just enjoy the ride - Van Patten does such a good job of eliciting hate that you'll be cheering by the time Perry King takes his revenge.

Up next: Smokin' Aces

8am - Transporter 3

Transporter 3 (2008)

Starring: Jason Statham, Natalya Rudakova, Robert Knepper

Genre: Action

Random observations:

- The bad guy is Robert Knepper (T-Bag from Prison Break). Awesome!

- Less than 10 minutes in we get our first Statham-kicks-the-crap-out-of-a-bunch-of-guys fight scene.

- Fast car? Check. Hot chick in car? Check. Mission to get said car and girl somewhere? Check. The formula's all here.

- Why is it that when a big group of bad guys surrounds a hero, they take turns charging at him instead of all rushing him at once?

- The big guy in the garage fight scene is none other than 6-foot-11 kickboxer and three-time K1 world champion Semmy Schilt.

- Car chase cliche #74: Car flies off cliff, car explodes on impact. Every damn time.

- Best lines of the movie so far: "You're the gay!", "No, I'm not the gay".

- Natalya Rudakova - sexiest freckle-faced, ginga Russian chick ever.

- Directed by Olivier Megaton. Sounds like a French Transformer.

Overall thoughts: If you've seen either of the first two Transporter movies, you know what to expect here... senseless, unrealistic action. If you go in expecting that and nothing more, and you like these kinds of movies, you'll be entertained. Jason Statham has been in some great movies (Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Crank) and some not-so-great ones (Death Race), but as an action star he's hard not to like.

Next up: Class of 1984

And so it begins

It's 8am and the 24-hour movie marathon is about to begin.

First up is Transporter 3.

I read somewhere that any good 24-hour movie marathon needs to start with a few fast-paced movies, and if the first two are anything to go by, we're in for some good brainless action.

Countdown to the 24-hour movie marathon

Tomorrow Jen and I are going to do something we've been talking about for a while now... we're going to attempt to watch movies continuously for 24 hours.

In the past we've done a couple of 12-hour marathons, which were admittedly quite difficult. I think the main reason for that was that we started at night and finished in the morning. The early morning hours are obviously the hardest to stay awake. That's why we'll be starting our 24-hour marathon tomorrow at 8am, finishing at 8am the next day. Looking ahead, it shouldn't be too much harder than the 12-hour marathons, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

One thing that I think will help is the fact that we've recently taken out the back row of theatre seats in our home cinema and replaced them with two business class airline seats. They're a lot more comfortable. When we did the 12-hour marathons, my back ached for days afterwards. Hopefully with a bit more comfort that won't be the case this time.

We've stocked up on essentials - numerous cans of energy drink and a pile of snacks. I've done some research on public 24-hour movie marathons, and found that they have breaks for meals. That's good - as I'm diabetic, skipping meals isn't an option - so we've scheduled breaks for lunch, dinner and breakfast over the 24 hours.

What movies will we be watching? I'm not going to reveal that just yet, but as a clue we've got quite a few new/recent releases, a couple of 80s flicks and a Japanese movie that promises to be a real mindfuck. The only ones we've seen before are the two 80s flicks, and that was many years ago.

I'll be blogging as we go, offering my thoughts on the different movies as we watch them. I can't promise the entries will make much sense, especially into the early hours of Tuesday morning.