Category: MOVIE MUSINGS
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VENOM (1981) ***SPOILER ALERT*** “Have you seen the one where the snake bites the guy on the dick?” A common question doing the rounds at my primary school after this one was released on video. Back then every movie you rented had a bunch of previews before the film started. It was part of the…
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***SPOILER ALERT*** From the very beginning the franchise had a very straightforward theme: the law is useless and criminals are running amok. Thus, vigilantism is the only solution. Paul Kersey and the US 2nd amendment are the perfect cure for this disease. Good guys and bad guys, nice and simple. Socioeconomic factors be damned! Save…
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***SPOILER ALERT*** Both films use the same names for Tom, Marge and Freddy. In Purple Noon, Marge’s carefree partner is named Phillipe. In The Talented Mr. Ripley he is named Dickie. I will refer to this character as Phillipe for both films for simplicity’s sake. I have not read the book, so I will not…
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***Here’s Your One*** The rumour was that this movie had one of the greatest twists ever! Big claim. Unfortunately, I will never know. Despite being a card-carrying film fanatic, I have not ever been very good at picking ‘whodunit’ and any other plot twists. I was not even looking for the real Keyser Soze in…
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***Spoiler Alert*** Wow! What a brain twister! The mental gymnastics in this one are fantastic! Yet through brilliant storytelling sleight of hand, I think it holds, by the skin of its teeth, but it holds. Dirty Harry is back with his trusty .44 Magnum: ready and willing to put large calibre holes into anyone foolish…
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The concept is sickening yet simple, and with the revelations coming out from the Epstein Files, nowhere near as farfetched as we would hope. A savvy entrepreneur has thought of another way for the mega rich to entertain themselves at the expense of the peasants. Hunting humans is so blasé and exhausting. Why not just…
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One of the great big budget disaster films; the plot is not too important. Or I should say, it doesn’t need to be too convoluted. The crucial factor for this genre is getting the audience to care for, at least some, of the main characters. Keep the suspension of disbelief going strong and get us…
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The Karate Kid 2 was a great sequel, especially with the deleted ending of the original making such an awesome opening. Daniel travels to Okinawa with Mr Miyagi and continues his training in Magic Karate (don’t laugh, a lot of us thought it was possible at the time). The paternalistic relationship between the two grows…
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Glory Days of Home Video #2 I remember hearing at least two separate stories about people getting ripped off by the inaugural video shops. Looking back, it was a shonky business model, but everyone was learning on the run. Those first video shops charged a subscription fee, I believe it was for a year. Once…
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Avatar (2009) ***spoiler alert*** (plus a massive bummer alert) This wasn’t James Cameron’s first foray into corporate greed, and I will definitely be covering Aliens in a future post. Sci-fi is such a brilliant way to critique the human condition when it is done well, using fantasy to tell the truth. This one is about…
MINDLESS MUSINGS 