Saw Bronson very unapologetic unabashed glorification of a total thug. Having done sweet Fa with his life, Bronson grows to love the notoriety being the number one troublemaker in a set up that's theoretically full of troublemakers. The movie mirrors (and it has to be said totally eulogises and celebrates) the life of a real life prisoner still serving his sentence in the UK. As the years go by, Bronson's chaotic behaviour gets more and more inventive even as it still retains a few constant elements like brawling with guards. He begins to kidnap random prison officials and voluntary workers who cross his path, initiate prison riots etc. The film takes a decidedly gleeful 'isn't this guy SUCH a badass for pulling this shit off?' approach which I found quite annoying because Bronson comes across like a total dick. And yet in spite of not liking the character it was about, it is nevertheless a very interesting brilliantly shot and performed film. I'd have liked it a little more if it had sucked its central character's dick a little less.

Saw Road Games again after ages and its still a pretty kickass movie. Stacey Keach is a trucker in the Australian outback carrying a shipment of pigs who happens to notice a mysterious green van and it's creepy driver. At the same time there are reports on the radio about a madman killing young female hitchhikers. Pretty soon he picks up Jamie Lee Curtis who is an American runaway escaping her father and his new wife. This is a terrific performance from Keach as the eccentric truck driver and he spends large parts of the film just talking to himself and his best friend, a dingo. Curtis isn't bad either as the spunky American girl and the two have great chemistry. This isn't a classic or anything but just a very nicely done and well acted thriller. The only downside is the pompous Brian May soundtrack where it feels like he thought he was scoring music for Lawrence of Arabia or something. Well worth tracking down and perfect for a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Incidentally that Brian May is not the Queen guitarist who also scored an immensely boring soundtrack for a film called Furia.

^^ oh good to know. I thought it was the same guy.

The Blood On Satan's Claw , a so-so 70s British horror flick which has an eerie first act but relies a bit too much on sex and the evil children motif and a bit too little on plot. The biggest let-down is when the main adversary of the evil cult declares that he is going to use 'undreamed-of measures' to vanquish them and all he does is track down the cultists using dogs and then skewer the fiend and his main minion with a really big sword.

Well how many dreams have you had in which you were tracking down cultists with dogs, eh? Welcome back *-) Saw The White Ribbon a film of brooding insidious creepiness which encourages you to conjecture about things far worse than what's actually playing out. Quite gripping and excellent for a one time watch.

Saw Blood Creek a low budget horror movie from Joel Schumacher. Not sure what he's doing directing this but for action horror buffs this movie is total timepass. The movie starts in the 1930s in a farm in rural America owned by a German immigrant family. The Nazi party sends a German occultist to the farm to unearth a rune left behind by the vikings who actually discovered America 300 years before Columbus or the Spaniards landed. The moment when the rune is first shown with a carved out swastika and even a strategically placed SS is awesome in a laugh out loud kind of way and Michael Fassbender plays the occultist with a complete straight face. The story moves along to modern times and a family who is grieving for the missing husband/brother/son who disappeared on a fishing trip and is missing for two years. One night he pops out of nowhere at his brother's trailer and convinces him to go back to the same old farm where he says he's been kept captive and tortured for two years.

The first 20 minutes or so are all about building the story and the next hour is pure cheesy action. The two brothers go postal on the farmstead killing everybody, Fassbender is now an immortal ghoul like thing waiting for the arrival of his third eye and there's even a zombie flesh eating horse thrown in the mix. Total timepass, cheesy fun and told at breakneck speed.

Otherwise been re-reading Preacher and finished the Old Man Logan mini series.

Moon was extremely gripping through its entire length, and Sam Rockwell put in a great performance but I think I wanted it to be a bit more sinister than it actually was. Probably just appealing to the HAL fan in me, great watch nonetheless.

The Man From Earth was fabulous. Its a movie that keeps you enthralled with just a bunch of college professors sitting around a fireplace and talking. Highly recommended.

^Awesome. I've pimped those two for ages. Some of the best sci-fi this decade.

I've been watching reruns of the fifth season of Lost on Star World, having seen the damned thing twice before already. I'm a bit of a latecomer to the show, having started watching it only in August last year. I burned through all five seasons, once with my own owl-self, and the other time giving my sister company over holidays and get-togethers. I'm not much of a TV watcher and haven't followed a series in decades, but Lost really hit me something fierce. Contrary to what most who've seen a season or two of the show claim, it isn't only the first season that is gold; if the nerd in you is willing to persist through the sticky bits and exaggerate your suspensions of disbelief, this can be a rewarding experience. The character development given the quaint premise of the show, the Slaughterhouse Five references, throwbacks to ancient mythologies, the absolutely stellar performances (I can't think of one bum actor..this has to be the best ensemble on TV) and just the general vision and creativity needed to bring together various disparate threads sprouted over five years to a satisfying head..there's just been nothing like it on television.

[/fanboy]

Now that you mention it, The Man From Earth was sci-fi with only your imagination to live it out for you.

Creation was a good way to spend the afternoon. Its a story about Darwin's physical and mostly mental ill health and coming to terms with his daughter's death prior to the writing and publishing of his book.

@GoreD - I can't say I agree with you about Lost. IMO, it has sucked poopy ever since the time traveling crap started happening. It's still well acted no doubt, but man, the story is a steaming pile of shit.

Saw half of Season 1 of The Thick Of It a superb Britcom that plays out like a mixture of Yes Minister and The Office. Really fucking funny.

Also saw Manhunt super fun Italian gangster movie complete with absurd action sequences and immense amounts of overacting. Luca Canali is a small time pimp who is believed to have stolen a huge chunk of drugs from an American cartel. The American overlords send a couple of badasses to take Luca out in an exemplary and brutal manner to send a message out to anyone else considering swindling them. Except Luca seems an almost absurdly friendly and good natured pimp and hardly strikes one as a criminal mastermind capable of pulling off such a heist. And as the film unfolds it becomes more obvious that Luca (who looks like a greasy slightly overweight version of our very own Vik) himself has no clue why so many important people want him dead. Anyway he fights back, taking on almost the entire Milanese mafia and kicking ungodly amounts of ass along the way. This is a fabulous movie of its sort, complete with badass dialogue and a great funk soundtrack that tides you through some of the more repetitive action segments. Overall awesome fun if you like your thrillers served with a huge side order of cheese.

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Having done the jugaad to get proper visuals and sound, tripped out yesterday evening on concert oriented DVD's - Steve Vai: Where the Wild Things Are and Iron Maiden: Flight 666. Full Yenjai.

Saw Ishqiya and Rann back to back. Ishqiya is a great example of a very interesting story being fucked over by the pretensions of its director. An uncle-nephew conman duo (Naseeruddin Shah and Arshad Warsi) fall foul of some big time gangster and while attempting to escape, take refuge in the house of an old acquaintance of theirs in Gorakhpur. They discover that their acquaintance is dead leaving behind his wife (Vidya Balan) who is all sorts of maniacal including nympho. Here's where the movie starts to really drag. The director wants Balan's character to be a seductress who plays one thug against the other, a psychotic woman who is set on revenge over her husband's death and lonely widow looking for love. Now I don't believe these characters necessarily need to be mutually exclusive, but the director is hopelessly inept at conveying these transitions or nuances and Balan just comes across as a person whose schizoid nature is dictated by nothing more than what's convenient to the plot at a particular time. The film manages a few interesting sequences in spite of itself - Shah apart from some hamming is in good form and Warsi is playing to his strengths - being a total lout. But these only offer brief respite. The end is kinda phones it in from Kaminey and the film's many Tarantinoisms made me want to go and slap someone hard - pointless use of old Hindi film songs and rousing saxophone scores every once in a while. And don't get me started on the heavy handed and idiotic attempts at being symbolic. I think in a day and age where films are discussed threadbare by assholes not just in film schools but on films forums and sites like passion for cinema, directors of the more stupid variety feel it beholden on themselves to throw in stuff to get the discussion going, and this film is a great example of that kinda crap being pulled.

Rann was a pretty entertaining film - for once, it was at least in part entertaining the way RGV intended it to be. Bachchan is Prannoy Roy and Monish Behl is Rajdeep Sardesai. Roy is old school and his channel is getting fucked over for that very reason. And so his son decides to play along and 'engineer' the overthrow of the current government via a sting operation, with disastrous results for all concerned. RGV's irritation with journalists comes through quite palpably but this is seriously one of his better paced, more interesting films.

^^oh cool, how was Mr. Bachchan's performance ?