Worst Films
Straight to Hell:
Oh Brian Cox what were you thinking of? Yes of course, spending some money, having a great time with friends! This movie is worth watching just for the (odd) cast list alone, but nothing else! Joe Strummer (after whose song the film is named), Courntney Love, Dennis Hopper, Grace Jones, Elvis Costello, Kathy Burke, as well as members of The Pogues and many other 'odd' faces. Why all those Musicians? Well what do you do if you're all set for a concert tour in Nicaragua, but due to political problems it gets canceled - of course you knock out a quick script, get some actors, go to Spain with all the musicians and spend four weeks making a film!
Burn After Reading:
So much promised, I mean to say; A Coen brothers film, some great actors and to be fair some great acting, but what a poor vehicle...I loved some of the characters, but the plot is laughable (& I don't mean in a comedic way).
( I'm trying desperately to remember a George Lucas film that I couldn't actually get to the end of - but I seem to have purged it from my mind. Its title was a few letters, followed by some numbers and stared Robert Duvall & Donald Pleasence)
THX 1128: Thanks to Mr Whippy(?) for resolving the above film name - although 'Googling it' to check out this and going over the plot has just brought back the sorrowful memory of how bad it really was - think I'm going to have to watch a great film tonight to purge that memory...
Nightwatch:
A Danish film for a change, not to be confused with the Hollywood remake with Ewan MacGregor, or for that matter the Russian “Night Watch” black magic offering. I watch quite a few `world' cinema films and usually find them vastly more enjoyable to the mainstream Hollywood offerings, but in this case I felt rather bored by the proceedings! There are quite a few good to great reviews on the web for this movie, so I do seem a bit at odds with the mainstream here and perhaps that’s part of the problem my expectation were raised just too high.
The cover shouts “Before there was SAW and before there was SEVEN there was NIGHTWATCH” and “Visceral shocks & heart racing suspense” and “The original vision of TERROR” well I don’t think its any of these and certainly “Seven” is far closer to this description than Nightwatch, I’ve never seen “SAW” so can’t comment!
There's nothing overly wrong with this film, but at the same time it didn't really satisfy on any level. Thriller fans I feel will find the plot rather predictable; horror/gore fans will be disappointed and will probably laugh out loud with the use of the violin shrieks' taken from the Hitchcock's Psycho shower scene (a movie which far surpasses this in every way). I kept waiting for the action to kick in, but it only really happens in the closing stages of the film when the pace picks up, but once again it is all very predictable. Nothing wrong with the acting or the characterisation, but again nothing to enthuse about either, not poor, most of the time OK to good and a few times annoyingly out of character. I never found I could really relate to, or feel any real concern for the people being portrayed, there was nothing to draw me into the movie as it unfolds - I doubt this will get another viewing. Unlike say “Seven”, the Japanese “Dark Water” or the American “Below”
Day of Wrath: Well, this is only the 2nd DVD I've been unable to watch to the end! This is a truly awful movie, poorly acted, poor plot, poor action sequences - well you get the idea. At about halfway through I started wondering if there was going to be any point in watching anymore, there was just nothing to hold you to the story, I didn't care who was going to be killed off next, or why and by whom. This is the major flaw in the movie - the characters are all just too insipid to worry about and there isn’t a single one that you can feel a connection with, be they baddies, goodies or bit players. So another one for the charity shop pile! So who was staring in this oh so memorable outing - Christopher Lambert (Highlander, Greystoke - the Legend of Tarzan, Resurrection) & Brian Blessed are perhaps the most notable. Writer/director/producer, Adrian Rudomin, is perhaps a name to remember - but for all the wrong reasons. The only other thing I can find attributable to him is "Land of Darkness" which he wrote and directed, with the ‘tag line’
“…During the Mexican Revolution, a young and idealistic priest is forcefully recruited into the army where he faces the realities of war…”
Needless to say not a movie I’ll be looking out for!
Oh Brian Cox what were you thinking of? Yes of course, spending some money, having a great time with friends! This movie is worth watching just for the (odd) cast list alone, but nothing else! Joe Strummer (after whose song the film is named), Courntney Love, Dennis Hopper, Grace Jones, Elvis Costello, Kathy Burke, as well as members of The Pogues and many other 'odd' faces. Why all those Musicians? Well what do you do if you're all set for a concert tour in Nicaragua, but due to political problems it gets canceled - of course you knock out a quick script, get some actors, go to Spain with all the musicians and spend four weeks making a film!
Burn After Reading:
So much promised, I mean to say; A Coen brothers film, some great actors and to be fair some great acting, but what a poor vehicle...I loved some of the characters, but the plot is laughable (& I don't mean in a comedic way).
( I'm trying desperately to remember a George Lucas film that I couldn't actually get to the end of - but I seem to have purged it from my mind. Its title was a few letters, followed by some numbers and stared Robert Duvall & Donald Pleasence)
THX 1128: Thanks to Mr Whippy(?) for resolving the above film name - although 'Googling it' to check out this and going over the plot has just brought back the sorrowful memory of how bad it really was - think I'm going to have to watch a great film tonight to purge that memory...
Nightwatch:
A Danish film for a change, not to be confused with the Hollywood remake with Ewan MacGregor, or for that matter the Russian “Night Watch” black magic offering. I watch quite a few `world' cinema films and usually find them vastly more enjoyable to the mainstream Hollywood offerings, but in this case I felt rather bored by the proceedings! There are quite a few good to great reviews on the web for this movie, so I do seem a bit at odds with the mainstream here and perhaps that’s part of the problem my expectation were raised just too high.
The cover shouts “Before there was SAW and before there was SEVEN there was NIGHTWATCH” and “Visceral shocks & heart racing suspense” and “The original vision of TERROR” well I don’t think its any of these and certainly “Seven” is far closer to this description than Nightwatch, I’ve never seen “SAW” so can’t comment!
There's nothing overly wrong with this film, but at the same time it didn't really satisfy on any level. Thriller fans I feel will find the plot rather predictable; horror/gore fans will be disappointed and will probably laugh out loud with the use of the violin shrieks' taken from the Hitchcock's Psycho shower scene (a movie which far surpasses this in every way). I kept waiting for the action to kick in, but it only really happens in the closing stages of the film when the pace picks up, but once again it is all very predictable. Nothing wrong with the acting or the characterisation, but again nothing to enthuse about either, not poor, most of the time OK to good and a few times annoyingly out of character. I never found I could really relate to, or feel any real concern for the people being portrayed, there was nothing to draw me into the movie as it unfolds - I doubt this will get another viewing. Unlike say “Seven”, the Japanese “Dark Water” or the American “Below”
Day of Wrath: Well, this is only the 2nd DVD I've been unable to watch to the end! This is a truly awful movie, poorly acted, poor plot, poor action sequences - well you get the idea. At about halfway through I started wondering if there was going to be any point in watching anymore, there was just nothing to hold you to the story, I didn't care who was going to be killed off next, or why and by whom. This is the major flaw in the movie - the characters are all just too insipid to worry about and there isn’t a single one that you can feel a connection with, be they baddies, goodies or bit players. So another one for the charity shop pile! So who was staring in this oh so memorable outing - Christopher Lambert (Highlander, Greystoke - the Legend of Tarzan, Resurrection) & Brian Blessed are perhaps the most notable. Writer/director/producer, Adrian Rudomin, is perhaps a name to remember - but for all the wrong reasons. The only other thing I can find attributable to him is "Land of Darkness" which he wrote and directed, with the ‘tag line’
“…During the Mexican Revolution, a young and idealistic priest is forcefully recruited into the army where he faces the realities of war…”
Needless to say not a movie I’ll be looking out for!
