Movies

The Ballad of Wallis Island is a lovely little film. Sweet, poignant. Funny in places.

Typically twee in a British Kind of way. I really found it heartwarming. The Island looked ace too. Wish I could live there....

Chicago: Going Soft.

Happy Gilmore 2. You know exactly what you’re going to get. My kids liked it. It had some mildly funny bits and the (many) cameos were truly bonkers.

It was fine. Not a patch on the original.

HG2 was truly awful. It was far, far worse than I thought it would be. The film was 90% cameos*, 9% recycled jokes and 1% terrible plot. Most of the cameos were not that funny because, guess what? Most golfers can’t act (honourable mentions to John Daly and Scottie Scheffler). It had the feel of a very poor 2 hour Sports Relief ski.

0.0001 triceratops. File under “I’m glad I didn’t make my wife sit through that. I would never hear the end of it.”

*kudos to the producers/Sandler for getting all the cameos but given there are very few iconic golf films, I suspect these guys were queuing up to be in it. Plus the plot (spoiler alert) was about bringing down a nasty breakaway tour so I I assume the PGA loved it.

Just read an article that Gremlins 3 was touted at Comic-con. Waiting for script approval from Spielberg.
I cannot fathom how anyone makes a sequel to The New Batch. But it better be Joe Dante.
Gremlins 2 Pitch Meeting NSFW

Per Sean’s post in another thread about Batman:

My two memories from watching the film that friday or possibly the Saturday (watched it at the cinema on Magdalen St. in Oxford with then girlfriend) are someone singing “na na na na na na na na Batman!” while the camera moves through the logo during the opening credits and being loudly shushed by many of the packed house, and coming out thinking it was “alright.”

I feel like it was one of the first films that I remember that couldn’t possibly live up to the hype.

Didn’t watch it again for years but I think it’s held up, possibly even got better with age.

Two weeks before that, I went to see Last Crusade. Unlike a lot of people on the Internet and despite the (fun?) fact that I’m an extra in it, I don’t think it’s the best Indiana Jones. That would be Raiders. Forever and always.

That is a fun fact. How did this come about and which scene?

They needed extras for the book burning, Indy bumps into Hitler scene which they were filming at Stowe School. They wanted people who could march, so asked my dad because he was CO of a camp. He basically called me at school and asked if I wanted to be in a movie. Pretended I was one of his soldiers and I got to be an extra.
It was a 12 hour shoot and alternately extremely fun/extremely boring. The extras were predominantly squaddies, officers are officers, and the Hitler Youth were a local scooter club (ready made crew cuts and flat tops).
Fun moments were: shouting out scores for accuracy at the extras who played students throwing books onto the pyre; hearing one bloke shout “AYUP, IT’S MR. BRONSON!” at Hitler; an announcement over the tannoy asking squaddies to stop taking the eagles off the top of the standards, tucking them into their epaulettes and doing Captain Hook impressions; and in the early part of the day as we formed up in uniform, watching an impossibly old character actor clamber up some steep steps and giving him a huge round of applause when he reached the top. He turned and did an exaggerated and theatrical luvvie darling sweep of his hat and bowed deeply. The several hundred of us went mental.
I’ve tried to post the picture but I can’t find a host that will work as a link. You can see me in the shot, if you zoom in. About a second before the cut to Indy bumping into Hitler, as he’s being carried toward Der Fuhrer by the crowd and looks panicked, I’m the soldier on the left, about midway up, behind the bloke in the black hat/beret. I’m looking right at Harrison Ford as if to say “hold on, that bloke looks an awful lot like renowned archeologist and adventurer (not to mention Nazi Puncher) Indiana Jones.
If I can figure out a way to post the picture, I’ll put it in here.

Finally got round to watching Past Lives. Marvelous piece of work. The kind of movie I have to be in the mood for, but I was and it was wonderful.

Started watching Mission: Impossible - Final Reckoning last night, was utterly confused after the first 15-20 minutes. As it's the second part of the story I decided to go back and rewatch Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (I can't believe they couldn't come up with a less clumsy name than that) to refamiliarize myself with the story so far, and having done so I then watched Final Reckoning. Found it all to be rather entertaining fun as long as you put aside the countless obvious plot holes and disregard the completely unnecessary attempt to retrofit previous movies in an attempt to make it look like it was all designed to be one cohesive storyline all along. It did unfortunately mean I didn't get to bed until 3am, but it was more fun than getting up and watching Forest at 9am.

This is what I should have done. I just kinda glazed over and decided to continue and enjoy it anyway.

Don't they spend most of the first hour of Final Reckoning explaining everything that's happened in all the previous films? That's my memory, at least.

That's what I'd heard, but it didn't bother me. The most annoying bit was the whole

which seemed somewhat unnecessary.

If it is the last film, I didn’t mind the various attempts to tie the plot into previous films.

Rewatched The Martian. Magnificent movie.

One of my favourites.