Man Movie Day

So yeah, I'm bloody late with this again. This time however I have a damn fine excuse. I spent Saturday getting drunk and watching films... Man films. "What is a man film ?" I hear you ask. Well a man film is the kind of film your girlfriend/wife generally has no interest in watching. Don't get me wrong, I know some girls out there like man films as much as I do, but the general rule is that if you ask you're partner to watch Commando. She looks like you just asked her if you could butt fuck her mum in French.

So day began at 11. To ensure I was in the right frame of mind for my day of man film goodness I watched some MMA before I left the house. So I was ready for some crazy fighting man movie related crazyness.

First up Pathfinder, the rather awesome film starring future Judge Dredd, Karl Urban. The only problem I have with this film is that we were watching it on a hd tv with a blu ray player.So it made this and most of the other films look like a mexican soap opera. It made a couple of the effects look especially bad but ultimately this film is fucking awesome.

Karl Urban plays Ghost, a viking who has been brought up by a Native American tribe after they found him as a boy on a wrecked ship. Vikings arrive when he's all grown up 15 or 30 years later. I say 15 or 30 years because at the start of the film they say it's been 15 years then later someone says it was 30 years. Cunts. Clancy Brown plays the big fucking Viking guy who is hell bent on tearing the land apart so all his viking buddies can take over the land.

It's an awesome film, and is one of the many films that didn't do too well in the cinema but kicked ass in the dvd market. This is often the case for action films, hence why so many awesome action films are made just for the dvd market. If you haven't seen this film then stop being such a dick and buy the fucker.

It's not even 13:00 and we're already one film down, the chilli is on and we're currently drinking fanta. A note to anyone doing this, if you start drinking too early you may not make it through the day. You don't want to have a mid afternoon snooze and miss some awesome action. Have people draw on you, and if everyone's drunk there's always the posibility you may end up naked in the back garden so pace yourself people.

Next up is Taxi, not the shitty American remake with Queen Latifah and Jimmy fucking Fallon, but the original awesome french film. Yeah you heard it, we're watching a French film on Man Movie Day. But lets face it, Luc Besson has been producing some great action films lately. This is the first of 3 for the day, and they're all set in france.

The film follows an ex pizza delivery guy Daniel, becoming a crazy taxi driver, and getting caught up in Emiliens police investigation. A troop of Germans are busy robbing banks and Emilien is fucking useless. It's funny and has some awesome car chase sequences through Marsielle. If you have only suffered the American fuck up then you should watch it. There's four of the fuckers now and they're all awesome.

It hits 14:30 and I need to go get the wife, 30 minutes later and I'm back. This time with a blu ray, not the wife, it's man movie day you fucking moron. There's only so much crappy looking awesome I can take without the aid of booze. So a blu ray was very much called for. But it'll have to wait because we've just put on Big Trouble in Little China.

Jack Burton says... anything he fucking wants because he's one of the best characters to appear on film, ever. He's so shit at everything and spends most of the film fucking up but you love the fucker for it. Kurt Russell as usual is amazing as the crap hero. Kurt Russell and John Carpenter make great films together. There's isn't one of them I couldn't put on right now and love.

Kim Cattrall is pretty awful in it though, it's no Mannequin or Split Second for her, but it was the eighties and she wasn't an old slut yet. Hell I even kind of thought she was hot back then, especially in Star Trek. Which lets face it is a world of fucking wrong. You all know what the film is about, it's just about awesome. There's no other way to describe it. It constantly appears in my greatest films ever made list. Fuck the Godfather, Jack Burtons on.

Time for blu ray goodness with From Paris with Love, I remember seeing the poster for this and thinking it looked shit. It has to be one of the best action films made in the last few years. I even put it in my top ten action films of the last decade if you remember that hell at the end of last year.

John Travolta is fucking awesome in this film, how often can you say that these days. He plays a crazy spy who comes to france to kick some ass with the aid of his new partner Henry VIII, sorry i mean Jonathan Rhys Meyers. He's the personal aid to the US Ambassador. It's the second awesome Luc Besson produced film of the day. Don't worry a Transporter film isn't the last one. Though I do enjoy watching Jason Statham kick the fuck out of people.



Now were full flow manlyness, yeah it's a word. Eating some hot fucking chilli with crazy Dave chilli sauce. It's hot enough to blow your asshole off. Seriously. I had a tiny wee dab on my tounge and I felt it for the next hour. Pure mentalness, made of good.

Fifth film up, I think it's the fifth.... Yeah it's definitely the fifth film of the day. I'm losing it, the chilli is finished and the beer is well and truly flowing. I guess it's time to watch Liam Neeson beat the fuck out of some people in Taken. Holy fucking shit this film is so good if I wasn't married already I'd do a weird science, turn it into a woman and fuck it.

It's fucking orgasmic, not a word of a lie. This is the third Luc Besson produced film of the day. Liam Neeson plays an ex special forces operative who's daughter gets kidnapped in France. The scene where she is taken is brutal, just the moment when he tells her she's going to be taken gives me goosebumps. This film could easily have just been your average run of the mill action espionage film, but Liam Neeson makes it so much more.

The acting throughout the film is just perfect, you completely believe in the characters. Apparently they're making a sequel. I can't wait. I hope it brings in his old unit. They appear in the film for a while at a barbeque and he goes on a job with them protecting Holly Valance. Just putting my two cents in there. And yes, even Holly Valance can't ruin this film.

Next up was the shock package of the day. I'd bought Blood and Bone in Tesco a couple of days before and thought it looked pretty good for £4. Fuck me was it good. Michael Jai White plays and ex con who gets involved in an underground fighting circuit. Yeah it's a film that's been made many times before but the fight. This film however brings in a few MMa guys like Kimbo Slice and also has some of the best martial arts fight scenes I've seen in a long time.

I have no idea where the hell Michael Jai White has been hiding, he pops up now and then. He was in Spawn and Universal Soldier: The Return but he is every inch an action star. And thats a lot of fucking inches. Considering I bought this on a whim it was fucking spectacular. Again, not the storyline, some of the acting isn't great but the action in the film is just awesome. At one point he jumps up and kicks four guys before he hits the ground. Four fucking guys.... Awesome.


You often watch these films and the guys just stand there waiting to be hit while the main actor poses and gives some cheesy awesome line before he kicks the guy in the face. Not in this, it actually looks like a proper fight, not a saturday night in Glasgow, guys falling on each other kind of fight. But it looks like the other guy is fighting back. Go watch this film. Michael Jai White needs to get big so he can be Luke Cage and we can see Black Dynamite 2. Speaking of Black Dynamite.

DYNAMITE... DYNAMITE... Oh yeah, you can't have a man movie night without the meanest motherfucker the world ever did see. Black Dynamite is one of the funniest films I've ever had the fortune to watch. I love Blaxploitation films and a lot of the pulp fiction around from that time. This film isn't some Scary movie esque mockery but a full on respectful affair which just plays up a lot of things which actually happened on low budget affairs like Black Samurai and Blacula. Two of my personal favourites from that time.

If you haven't seen it or for some reason didn't quite get it then your a fucking moron. If you've only just heard about it recently then your a fucking moron. The moment this film was completed the world changed forever. I may be over emphasising it a bit but get your friends together with some beers and watch this film. if anyone doesn't laugh then they're probably dead. Don't bother going to the doctors to check the diagnosis. Just bury the fucker in your back garden. Kicking and screaming is usual, that's why you have coffins.

It's coming close to midnight and my beer has all gone. Normally this would bring about the end of the evening but we said fuck it and put on Army of Darkness. See I told you we had a film day of awesomeness. I know I say awesome a lot but this day was made for a word like that. I brought the majority of the films down so you'd have to worry if I didn't like them. The films we never got round to watching were, The Last Boy Scout, Beverly Hills Cop, Cliffhanger, The Thing and Outlander. So it was never going to be a shit day of films.

Anyway Army of Darkness is the amazing third part of the Evil Dead Trilogy. A film series which still has to be one of the best trilogys ever to be pushed out of the statue of libertys vagina. I manage to make it halfway through before my body gives up. Damn going out the night before, ruining my enjoyment of man movie night. Eventually I had to give in and walk home, just as Ash had fucked up getting the Necronomicon. Bugger.

Next weeek I'll be back to the regularly scheduled programme... See you then.

Colin

2008
Director
Marc Price
Starring
Alastair Kirton
Daisy Aitkens

With the recent demise of the UK film council things are looking bleak for the UK film industry. I'm not going to go into any political rantings or anything here don't worry, but let's face it. Things are going to be fucking harsh over the next few years as the money dries up. With that in mind I am going to go over some small budget horror films that seem to have been popping up all over the place lately. Some of them have had the help of the UK film council, some haven't. I was going to do just non UK film council funded films but that was virtually impossible. Again, it's going to be a hard few years without them.

British horror is in an alarmingly good place right now. With directors like Christopher Smith, and Neil Marshall, not forgetting the re-emergance of Hammer, things could be a lot worse for a horror fan. First up for your pleasure I shall be reviewing Colin. For those of you who haven't heard of it, this is a zombie film which had the ludicrously small budget of £45, did remarkably well and was even shown at Cannes.

The film is in no way without flaws, at times the lack of budget really hampers your viewing pleasure which I will go on about later. The reason this film is good though is because it doesn't follow the usual zombie film by numbers route. Colin gets bitten at the very start of the film, it then follows him as a zombie. Seeing how it affects members of his family who have been searching for him, and how the world is affected by the outbreak through the zombies eyes. It's a very interesting premise that is very well executed here.

Anyway the films started, Colin is washing the blood off his hand in his kitchen. He has a hammer which is also covered in blood so it looks like he got some good zombie bashing done before the cunt got a hold of him. The acting is pretty solid, which you wouldn't expect from a film with a budget as small as this. I've seen worse in that new series Outcasts, but the less said about that the better really. Bastard, yeah I just jumped. Fucking zombies scare the shit out of me.

 

Colin is now officially one of the undead, and he's stuck in his house. He can't open the door, he's a fucking zombie. Don't worry he just fell out the window so it's not like we have to worry about him just sitting in the house all the time. Imagine how dull it would be if he spent the whole film locked in a house. It'd be like Big Brother. I love the fact that in this film there are people having to escape the zombie horde all the time. Currently Colin is walking down the street and there are screams coming from a house as some woman trying to escape is hauled back inside, while a guy trying to escape in his bathrobe is totally brutalised. 

Bloody zombies everywhere... The bastards.There's no escape. A guy just ran past Colin with a shopping trolley and knocked him over, when he got up the expression on his face was awesome. This is in no way a comedy, it's bleak as all zombie films should be, but there are moments of pure comedy genuis. They aren't played up, Colin doesn't wink at the screen or anything but there are nuances in his performance that create outstanding moments. 

Just to clarify, although it has no budget the effects are good, I'm currently wincing from a rather gruesome moment of Colin getting his feed on. There are also some rather beautiful moments of people giving up, allowing the zombies to take them. I mean there are morons in the film too, a woman just tried to hold a zombie back with a small flimsy piece of plastic but those people deserve to die. Fucking idiots. Let's face it if there is a Zombie infestation, and you end up in a party with someone who tries to hold zombies back using a thin piece of plastic, you'd trip them up and give yourself more time to get away. Not being a cunt or anything but they're going to get you killed eventually so you may as well get them first.

Anyway, a couple of guys have spotted Colin and have decided they want his shoes. So they jump him, hold him down and try to grab them. Again, fucking morons. This time however Colin is saved by his sister, who happens upon him as the guys fail miserably to take his shoes off. He bites her for her troubles too, the ungrateful zombie prick. But that's a zombie for you. Stupid bitch, what the hell was she thinking. It's the classic 'one of your loved ones is a zombie' scenario though. That's why I'll be killing all mine... Just kidding... maybe. 

The next part is probably my favourite part of the film, for pure stupidity. A young boy has decided to do a film documentary on how his family have survived the zombie invasion, by letting lots of zombies into his house. Oh you people are all just determined to get your loved ones killed aren't you. Like the scene in Flight of the Undead where the awesome golf guy get's done in because his wife decides to run after him through a mass of zombies and he comes back to rescue her. Sorry but she deserves to die and you just got yourself killed dickhead. Even if the guy from "Hardball" is in the film, he can't save you. What??? Yeah I digress... You'd be disapointed if I didn't so shut the hell up.

These people are well and truly fucked. The living room is filled with zombies and they're desperately trying to hold them off with pots and pans. Seriously people, keep better fucking weapons in your house. A hammer, a baseball/cricket bat. anythings better than a cheap ass frying pan. They're even using an umbrella, morons. One of them actually manages to get away though, not for long though because she's managed to bump into a guy who's clearly a mental. He locks her in a basement with a bunch of (you guessed it) zombies. Colin has fallen down a hatch so he's also in the room.

Yeah things aren't going well for her, but then again she did allow herself to be locked in a basement by some random stranger. The crazy bastard has removed all the zombies eyes too so you never know she may even make it out alive. Anyway this is one of the moments the film gets annoying, it's far too dark. You can't really tell what’s going on well enough. It's a pain in the ass, it sounds like something very interesting is going on but I couldn't really tell what it was. Maybe I'm just moaning but it bugs me everytime I watch the film.

So Colin walks past the guy who keeps all the zombies in the basement and gives him a very un-approving look, oh it doesn't look like she'll make it out alive after all because the old cunt has just thrown her ass back down into the basement just as she was about to escape. Damn.

Good old Colin has yet again managed to bump into his sister, who still hasn't turned into a zombie. That'll be that dramatic effect thing I spoke about in a previous blog. Well it is a zombie film after all and they use it so well. His sister Laura is determined to take Colin to see their mum for some reason. Maybe she wants her to die and doesn't want the guilt, maybe Colin was always the favourite and she just wants to rub it in. Probably not though right? So the mum gets to see Colin through a window and jumps at her, from the look on Lauras face I guess that wasn't part of the plan. Damn zombies, they just mess up everything.

While Colins locked in the room something very interesting seems to happening through the door, very interesting and muffled. I'm guessing the mum has killed herself having seen what's happened to her son but I'm not sure. They've just brought a body into the room with Colin so I'm sure we'll find out in a minute. And the winner is... Laura has finally turned into a zombie, so they've fucked her into the same room their other zombie family member. Collecting zombies is never going to end well, all I'm saying.

When zombie Laura finally wakes up she manages to get the door open and they both go off into the night. Nice of the family to let them loose on everyone instead of locking them in. Guess they don't think it's their problem anymore. Enter the usual idiotic vigilanties who decide to try to clean up their streets. Very noble, but lets face it I've seen this kind of film before, a large number of them will be killed and their numbers will dwindle until there's not enough of them left to do anything about the massing hordes. They don't fight well together and most of the time just get in each others way. Probably a realistic potrayal of this kind of moron.

Anyway I'm pretty sure you're growing tired of my ramblings about the film by now. It's not a film I could ruin because let's face it, he's already a fucking zombie. It's not like he can get turned into a zombie again and it doesn't have a big enough budget for him to turn into some crazy zombie hybrid that's going to try to kick Milla Jovovichs ass. Oh the depravity.

Ultimately this film, although flawed, is a good idea, done well for the money spent on it, and is in no way going to waste 90 minutes of your life. Don't go watching it expecting Night of the Living Dead or anything but I really enjoyed it. It's one of the better zombie films made lately. Another decent british zombie film you may want to check out is Devils Playground with Danny Dyer. Don't let him put you off though because it is alarmingly enjoyable. It is a bit of 28 days later but if you're a fan of zombie films you shouldn't be too dissapointed.

Next week... SALVAGE