A Liar's Autobiography: The Untrue Story of Monty Python's Graham Chapman - A Review

4 Stars - Interesting

This is a somewhat unusual film, created from audio recordings of Graham Chapman reading his Liar's Autobiography and animated around them with the other members of Monty Python providing voices of the incidental characters, except for Eric Idle who is inexplicably absent.

I like this film, there is a lot of funny stuff and it isn't afraid to go into surreal and dark territory with its sections.

The animation is odd, with different sections having different style of animation. For the most part however it is good, with a couple of sections here and there being very hard on the eyes and difficult to make out exactly what was happening.

Oh and they do 'Sit On My Face' as a giant production number...

In short, an interesting film, maybe worth a watch by Python fans, and certainly deserves to find a cult audience if nothing else.

The Birds - A Review

5 Stars - Magnificent

Took me long enough to get around to watching this one, right?

This is a brilliant film, it has likeable characters, cool cinematography, tight direction, good acting and a truly unsettling threat.

The most scary thing in this film is the noise of the birds, it is so loud and violent and it just gets under your skin.

creepy... just creepy

In short, a truly unsettling film, definitely one to watch.

Blazing Saddles - A Review

4.5 Stars - Great

Blazing Saddles, probably the most important comedy Mel Brooks ever made, due to it's wonderful and intelligent satire of racism.

The plot is simple, a really racist town in the old west get a black sheriff, Black Bart. Bart must now convince the town he's good for them and stop the evil Hedey Lamarr... sorry Hedley Lamarr... from building a railway through their town.

The jokes come thick and fast and it isn't afraid to pull any punches with more uses of the n-word than you'll hear in most zany comedy spoofs...

"You spare the women?" "No, we rape the shit out of them"

In short, a great film, definitely one to watch.

Marnie - A Review

4.5 Stars - Pretty Good

Confession time, this is my first Hitchcock film I've seen all the way through, but at least I picked a good place to start fixing that mistake.

This is a very clever film with good performances from Sean Connery and Tippi Hedren, intelligent writing and wonderful cinematography that in places is reminiscent of Hitchcock's roots in expressionist cinema.

All in all it is a very strong film, with good characters to keep you interested.

In short, a good film.

Machete - A Review

4 Stars - Badass

Machete is a man's man, a lady's man, a man men want to be and women want to be with. He is Danny Trejo being awesome.

The films is pretty good, although you can get somewhat bored when Danny Trejo isn't on screen, but fortunately these scenes are very few and far between.

Basically it is cheesy, over the top grindhouse action, what more do you need really?

Roll on Machete Kills and Machete Kills Again

In short, goofy, but fun.

Hobo With A Shotgun - A Review

4.5 Stars - Awesome

So within the first 8 minutes of this film a man had his head ripped off via being stuck in a manhole and run over by a car, then a woman writhed in the blood wearing nothing but white a bra and panties. You see the kind of film this is?

This is grindhouse at its finest, from it's crazy opening to its blood splattered finale every moment is either piss yourself laughing funny, or writhe uncomfortably disturbing.

Rutger Hauer gives a splendid performance as the titular Hobo, playing it deathly straight, which is probably the only way it could work against all the over the top performances around him.

Just makes you want to yell fuck yeah!

In short, a great film, well worth a watch if you like something a bit silly.

The Muppets Christmas Carol - A Review

5 Stars - Brilliant

I realise this is my second review of  a Christmas Carol in less than a week. But it's the Muppets, what do you want from me?

So of course this is a film everyone loves and everyone watches every year, in fact for many this is the best Christmas Carol film, and for me it is a very close second.

So we see Michael Caine as Scrooge, Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit, The Great Gonzo as Charles Dickens, Miss Piggy as Emily Cratchit, Robin the Frog as Tiny Tim, Waldorf and Statler as Jacob and Robert Marley, Fozzie Bear as Mr. Fozziwig and of course Rizzo the Rat as himself. That's without mentioning the countless others.

This film is just joyous, one that always brings a smile to your face no matter how often you watch it.

Charles Dickens wasn't blue and furry...

In short, a magnificent film. Merry Christmas.

Mickey's Christmas Carol - A Review

5 Stars - Classic

We all know the story of a Christmas Carol, Miserly Ebeneezer Scrooge gets visited by ghosts and changes his ways, it's a story we've seen far too many times to count. But how many of you remember how you were introduced to this classic story? For me it was Mickey's Christmas Carol, With Scrooge McDuck playing his name sake.

This is short, sweet and to the point, and it is extremely memorable for it's jokes, colourful characters and for bringing a Christmas Carol to children all over the world. It's one I watch every year, and always will.

Here's Your Nightmares For The Next Few Nights Kids...

In short, my first Christmas Carol and it'll always have a place as my favourite Christmas Carol

Gremlins - A Review

4 Stars - Corny, but fun.

Ah Gremlins, a horror-comedy Christmas classic. This is one of those films you could probably watch every year around Christmas time and never get sick of.

The plot is simple enough, there's a cute little Mogwai named gizmo, but due to water spillage and feeding after midnight there's soon an army of Gremlins running riot.

The acting is really, really bland, so you don't care much for the humans. But let's face it we came here for the Gremlins; and they deliver entertainment in spades. There is so much energy in every single one of the Gremlins, whether they're messing with the electrics, playing poker at the bar or watching Snow White at the cinema. It's clear a lot of work was put into these puppets and it pays off.

This guy always makes me laugh

In short, a really fun film, definitely one to watch.

Singing In The Rain - A Review

5 Stars - Glorious

I feel somewhat ashamed that it has taken me twenty one years of living to get around to watching Singing In The Rain. It's one of the all time classic films and it's easy to see why. This film is fun, colourful and energetic with a whole lot of heart.

The main appeal of this film is, to me at least, the performances from Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds. They all give it everything they have, with Gene Kelly dancing through pneumonia to produce the perfect tap-dancing in the 'Singing In The Rain' scene and Debbie Reynolds, who wasn't a dancer, dancing till her feet bled for 'Good Morning' and Donald O'Connor hurling himself through the scenery in 'Make 'Em Laugh'. No one does anything by halves and it shows.

Also, Aunt Harriet from Batman is in it, what more do you need?

Few Scenes Are This Perfect

In short, a brilliant film, worth all the praise everyone lavishes on it.

Stephen King Month: The Stand

1.5 Stars - Awful

Now we're going way back to one of King's earliest books, a sprawling epic that was so long the original version had to cut out a large amount of material, it wasn't until several years later that it was published in its original uncut version. This is The Stand.

The Stand tells the story of a world wiped out by a plague, with only a small percentage of the population surviving. They start to have dreams, dreams of a sweet old woman by the name of Mother Abigail and dreams of a dark man wandering the world in worn down cowboy boots, named Randall Flagg. The people begin to split into two groups, those who side with Mother Abigail and those who side with Flagg. The forces of good and evil are set up on opposite ends of the country, ready to do battle with one another for the future of the world.

The book is an absolute masterpiece, taking its time to play out all the stories that develop and giving birth to King's most iconic villain, Randall Flagg, who would later play an important part in The Dark Tower series.

The miniseries however is atrocious, the characters are poorly acted, the script is nothing to shout about, the effects are lousy and it is really long and boring at six hours of sheer dross.

As an adaptation it is pretty bad, because even at six hours this is too big a story to do justice to in other media. Flagg is turned into a literal devil, which looks stupid. Characters are left out entirely or not as fleshed out as they should be. Despite this however I do kind of respect them for trying.

First Came The Days Of The Plague...

In short, an incredible book, an awful miniseries, skip this one unless you're some stupid guy who decides to watch a Stephen King film every day in October or something...

Stephen King Month: Salem's Lot (2004)

2 Stars - A Bit Crap

Once more we delve back into Stephen King's first small town story 'Salem's Lot, this time in the form of the 2004 miniseries, where they modernised the setting and changed some things... but I'll get into that.

I've already explained the story of this one in my other 'Salem's Lot review, but basically small Maine Town with Vampires.

This miniseries isn't all that good, the story drags and the supporting characters, the very thing that makes the book so good, aren't interesting to watch and so whenever they're on you just think where's the story? The acting is actually fairly decent with notable actors like James Cromwell, Andre Braugher and Rutger Hauer it would be hard not to be, but the best actors don't get that many scenes, in fact I think Hauer has all of about three...

As an adaptation it isn't very good, the modernisation feels forced as they all miraculously seem to forget that they're in a time where mobile phones could help out in a lot of situations and it doesn't contribute anything to the way they tell the story. The biggest change they made is the one most guaranteed to annoy fans of the book and once again it's what they do to father Callahan, who just can't seem to catch a break in these things. They had kept a faithful and true to the character interpretation of him right up until the end where he suddenly gets turned into a badguy, which is such a change from the book that it is inexcusable. There are also little changes made here and there, like when a guy falls where he thought there would be stairs in this he lands on a table saw, as opposed to the much more gruesome wooden spikes on the ground in the book.

Words Are His Power

In short, an annoying miniseries, give it a miss

Stephen King Month: The Mist

4.5 Stars - Good

Let's talk about Frank Darabont, a terrific director who has a great track record with directing Stephen King works, so far he has directed The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile and today's offering, The Mist, based on the novella collected in Skeleton Crew. He also owns the film rights to The Long Walk, another of the Bachman books, I really hope he makes it soon.

The mist tells the story of a group of people who get trapped in a supermarket by a mysterious mist filled with otherworldly creatures. As time goes by people's fears start to get the better of them and they give into paranoia and start to turn on one another. The question begins to be raised of which is more monstrous, the creatures in The Mist, or the people trapped in the building?

The film is very good, really capturing the terror of what it would be to get trapped by something you can't fight against and can't really see. The performances are all strong enough to carry across this film and the only gripe I really have with it is that the CGI creatures can look a bit goofy.

As an adaptation it is another rare example where it surpasses the book in some ways. For one it removes the scene where the main character sleeps with a woman in the store, which feels a bit out of place given how close he clearly is to his wife and son and of course it changes the ending to something far more depressing than the book, and it is so much better that way.

Welcome Aboard. Enjoy The Ride.

In short, a really good film, well worth a watch.

Stephen King Month: Secret Window

4 Stars - Entertaining

Stephen King writes about authors a lot, many of his books have author main characters, that are often in some way an analogy of King himself, like today's story stars a writer who creates a character so real that he seems alive. Today is Secret Window, based on the novella Secret Window, Secret Garden from the collection Four Past Midnight.

Secret Window, Secret Garden tells the story of Mort Rainey, an author with writer's block, no doubt caused by his depression following his separation from his wife. One day he receives a mysterious visitor named John Shooter, who claims that he wrote a story that Rainey wrote several years before him, Rainey of course denies this claim and tells Shooter to leave him alone. Shooter has no intention of doing any such thing, he starts to use dark methods such as murdering Rainey's cat and burning down his wife's house to intimidate Rainey into telling the truth. All these events and the contact from his wife and her new boyfriend drive Rainey's sanity to it's very limits until he learns the horrible truth.

This is a very entertaining film with great central performances from Johnny Depp and John Turturro, who really play off each other very well and make for a likeable main character and an intimidating villain. No doubt the screenplay and the direction give this film some of it's entertainment value as at just over an hour and a half it absolutely flies by and you enjoy it all the time, is it scary? Not really, is it fun? You bet.

As an adaptation it is very solid up until the end where a fairly substantial change is made, however this is one of those rare times where I prefer the end of the film to the end of the book as it is far more deliciously dark.

Right Time. Wrong Place.

In short, a good film, I'd say well worth a watch.

Stephen King Month: Hearts In Atlantis

2.5 Stars - Dull

Stephen King was a child of the 1950s and 60s, and his growing up in that period undoubtedly influenced his writing as can be seen in stories like The Body and the collection Hearts In Atlantis. Which is a collection of novellas and short stories about the 1960s and their effect on people. The film is based on the longest story in the collection, Low Men In Yellow Coats.

It tells the story of Bobby Garfield, a young boy whose mother is constantly telling him that they don't have much money. One day a new lodger arrives for the apartment above their house, his name Ted Brautigan. Ted employs Bobby to read the newspaper to him as his eyes are getting tired in his old age, he also asks him to keep a look out for signs of the suspicious low men. Ted is wanted by them so they can use his psychic gifts to assist them in their destruction of the beams supporting The Dark Tower... but that's a different, better story. Bobby and Ted develop a connection together which is put to the test when the Low Men start to show up.

The film is a bit boring, not an awful lot happens in it and the performances, apart from Anthony Hopkins who is marvellous as always, are just a bit uninteresting to watch.

As an adaptation it does okay, but misses a few important things, like there isn't a single mention of Lord of the Flies, they changed the end so that Bobby never became angry and bitter against the world. The most obvious removal was the Dark Tower stuff, which is a problem, there is no way they could have done that stuff without having made a series of Dark Tower films first, but without it the Low Men have no established reason to get Ted so the whole plot feels unsubstantial.

"Astonishingly Good"

In short, an okay but dull film. Maybe if you really like the book give it a watch as you'll only be a little dissapointed at the adaptation.

Stephen King Month: Apt Pupil

5 Stars - Unnerving

Once more it is time to delve into the book Different Seasons, which is such a good collection of stories that only one out of the four novellas hasn't been made into a film. Today I look at Apt Pupil.

Apt Pupil is the story of Todd Bowden, a high school boy, who one day turns up on the front porch of an old German Man, Arthur Denker, stating that he knows who Denker really is, a Nazi called Kurt Dussander who was famed for his cruelty and evil. Threatened with blackmail Dussander gives into Todd's demands, to tell him everything about the holocaust he can remember, every sickening, vicious detail. The time Todd spends with Dussander starts to reveal dark parts of his own psyche, he becomes violent and distant, he starts to lose focus at school and he is falling apart. Dussander starts to get sucked back into his old ways, his murderous past becoming his present as he loses more of the fantasy he has hidden behind for so long.

The film is tremendous, both lead actors do a terrific job with what is a difficult subject matter and character relationship to play. Particular praise should be given to Ian McKellan for his vicious, icy cold and yet somehow understandable and almost sympathetic Dussander, who will unnerve you and make your skin crawl, until you smile along with his laughter.

As an adaptation it changes the ending of the book drastically, leaving out the section where Todd completely snaps and goes on a killing spree, however what it offers is instead a Todd who, whilst not a murderer, is as much as a manipulator and just as cruel as Dussander, which given the length of the film feels like a more realistic ending with the possibility for worse things to come down the line.

The Summer Of Corruption

In short, a very creepy and very enjoyable film

Stephen King Month: 1408

3.5 Stars - Decent

My original plan for today was to watch Children Of The Corn, but then I realised I don't remember anything about the short story at all. So instead I decided to look at a story from the Everything's Eventual short story collection, 1408.

1408 tells the story of Mike Enslin, an author who writes books reviewing supposedly haunted hotels. One day he goes to review the room 1408 of the Dolphin Hotel, famed for its unusual deaths. Mike, who has spent his career debunking the supernatural as nonsense must now face the real thing.

The film is an enjoyable little romp, with an engaging performance from John Cusack, however I would have preferred it if they had perhaps had less jump scares and creepy looking people attacking or chasing him and much more of the psychological horror, making you question what is real and what isn't through the way the room plays with Mike's mind, as this was something I felt it did quite well.

As an adaptation... they had to add a lot, it is a very short and not particularly in depth story. The main driving emotional crux of the film is Mike's guilt and anger over his deceased daughter, this was added for the film. The majority of events that the room does to him were added for the film so as to increase the menace and break the reality somewhat more. However I feel these additions are needed, as otherwise it wouldn't be a very interesting film either visually or emotionally.

14 Dark Tales

In short, an entertaining film, I'd say worth a watch.

Stephen King Month: The Shawshank Redemption

5 Stars - Iconic

So this is perhaps the most well known and loved film based on a Stephen King book. Though it is so not Stephen King's usual style that I imagine not a lot of people know it is King.

Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption is a novella collected in the book Different Seasons. It tells the story of Andy Dufresne, a man accused of the murder of his wife and her lover, sentenced to prison for two life sentences. The story tells his time in the prison for many years and his rise in the system to a respected position. Then his eventual miraculous escape.

I hardly need to talk about how good the film is, just about everyone has seen it, many times. It is one of the most iconic films ever made. I will say it should finish on the words I hope and cut the final scene, but that's a minor gripe.

As an adaptation it surpasses the book, showing more details that we only hear about in the book and adding the Brooks section, which is just about the best section in the film.

Hope Will Set You Free

In short, I hardly need to say a must watch, because let's face it you've already seen it...

Stephen King Month: Dreamcatcher

3 Stars - Wonderfully Awful

In the late 90s Stephen King was hit by a van and severely injured, he wrote this book whilst stoned on painkillers... the result is as weird as you'd expect. It's Dreamcatcher.

The book tells the story of four friends who whilst hunting in the woods, split up into groups of two, come across two people both farting insanely. They find it weird, and then find it weirder still when the people shit out weird snake like creatures. The whole area is put under quarantine and the surviving two of the original four must try to save the world from the aliens that spawned the 'shit weasels' with the help of their psychic friend with downs syndrome. Also one of them is possessed by an alien.

It is a very weird book, and one that would seem fairly unfilmable, but they tried it anyway. The result is one of the best worst films I've ever seen. A real guilty pleasure that is nothing but silly from start to finish.

As an adaptation it is perfectly fine, getting across all the major stuff from the book, though really the book shouldn't have been turned into a film I'm kind of glad I got something this fun all the same.

'Classic King'

In short, an awful film, but one heck of a fun film all the same.

Stephen King Month: Cat's Eye

3 Stars - So Bad It's Good

Once again I jump ahead with the schedule I'd set up for myself, why? Because I really don't like the Bag Of Bones miniseries... So it's onto a film based on two of King's short stories which had previously been collected in the book Night Shift, Quitter's Inc. and The Ledge, and a silly bit at the end made up for the film with a goblin...

Quitter's Inc. tells the story of Richard Morrison, a man who wants to quit smoking, and has a friend recommend him the company Quitter's Inc. who boast a 98% success rate, due to their cruel and vicious methods of making you not smoke, and even the unregenerate 2% never smoke again, they guarantee it...

The Ledge tells the story of John Norris, who is forced into a crazy bet by a vicious mobster, he has to traverse the side of a tall tower block on just a small ledge going around the edge of the building.

The film is very silly, tied together by a cat travelling between the stories on its way to rescue Drew Barrymore from a breath stealing Goblin... it makes very little sense, but it is enjoyably bad. It seems to miss the serious tone of Quitter's Inc. and lacks the tension of The Ledge, plus it's full of references to other Stephen King films, which is just weird.

As an adaptation of the stories I guess they get the main story points right, but as I said Quitter's Inc. (which is my favourite Stephen King short story) isn't taken seriously enough, which is a real shame, because it should be very unnerving and somewhat scary. The ledge they get okay, other than not being very tense.

Excursions Into Horror

In short, this films is terrible, but in a fun way...