MSU

Me and Mrs MSU have been doing a Coronation Street podcast for a few years now, and as part of its Twitter account, I've been collecting various stupid clips, one of them being a series of characters being shocked, surprised, and terrified any time someone mentions London. I posted my latest addition to the collection on Friday and this one has blown up a bit, to what the kids I believe are calling "going virus". Viewed more than 3 million times through various shares and quotes and retweets and TikToks and stuff, and this morning, I discovered this had happened:

199 The Bourne Identity -- Guess I'm watching Bourne movies this week. I can't believe I haven't watched it before, because now, twenty-odd years later, it's easy to forget whether this is trendsetting or jumping on the bandwagon. Because we've all seen this movie plenty of times now, where a spy who doesn't know he's a spy has to figure out his past, and we've all seen movies where the average shot length is less than 5 seconds and fights and chases, which can appear confusing actually do a great job when done correctly, like here, to throw the audience into the scene. Doug Liman really reinvents the action genre and discovers that Matt Damon is an awesome action hero along the way. There's maybe a bit too much on the exposition at the end, but this is a thrilling watch and I'm looking forward to going through the others. 7/10 200 The Bourne Supremacy -- The octane from the first movie maybe dips a little bit here but Paul Greengrass's style more than makes up for it. Jason Bourne is in India with Marie, still struggling with his memory but putting his life back together, when figures from his past drag him back into the shadows. Matt Damon is superb again and the story is gloriously twisty-turny, but it's Greengrass's direction and camera use that really makes this one stand out. It's dizzying and disorientating, but there's method to his approach here which has often been imitated but seldom with the care shown here. 8/10 201 Dumb Money -- The GameStop Share Squeeze story is based on The Antisocial Network by Ben Mezrich, who also wrote the Facebook story in The Accidental Billionaires which was one of the worst books I've ever read and was eventually polished up by Aaron Sorkin into The Social Network. Here, I can only assume his work is unrecognizably buffed up by Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo because this is actually a very interesting and complicated story told in a very captivating way. Paul Dano stars as Keith Gill, the YouTuber whose videos on why GameStop was undervalued and a great investment opportunity sparked a reddit revolution that threatened to take down billionaires and hedge funds and sparked a Congressional hearing. The movie doesn't go into the minutia of how this all worked but rather tells us the individual stories behind it. America Ferrera is a nurse looking to repay her mortgage. Anthony Ramos is a disillusioned GameStop employee. Myha’la Herrold and Talia Ryder are college students drowning in $100,000 of debt. Along with Seth Rogan and Nick Offerman as hedge fund CEOs, the movie focuses on how the investment rollercoaster affects each of them, and how the game is stacked against the little guy and it wears its heart on its sleeve on how it feels about that. It draws inspiration from The Big Short and looks and sounds very much like The Social Network, and it punches competitively in comparison to both. It serves as a reminder of how angry we should be at stuff like this, how that anger is ultimately futile and temporary, and it's absolutely astonishing to think that this happened just a couple of years ago when we were all working from home wondering where the next roll of toilet paper was coming from. 8/10 202 The Bourne Ultimatum -- It's unusual to have a series where the first three movies build so well on the previous one, but this one seems to take it all up a notch and is my pick of the bunch so far. I loved how confused I was for spells that, given I've watched the three movies in a week, it took me a while to realize how much of this overlapped with the previous film and to figure out where the joins were. If I'd waited three years, I may well have assumed this was deja vu, which would've been a neat touch given the premise. It's just a great action movie that finds a perfect blend between running away from something, running toward something, fighting and shooting things, and the internal workings of CIA department politics. If there was any doubt beforehand, Matt Damon is an awesome action hero. 9/10

195 Outlaw Johnny Black -- A 90 minute movie if ever there was one, cram packed into a 130 minute runtime. Michael Jai White directed, co-wrote and stars in this comedic nod to blaxploitation movies and spaghetti westerns of the 70s, filmed on grainy stock, filled with ridiculous zooms, horse stunts, flashbacks, and a taste for revenge. We find the titular Outlaw Johnny Black on his way to take out the scoundrel who killed his father but he's thrown off course when he rescues a Native American couple, is wrongfully arrested, escapes on the lam, and winds up impersonating a preacher he assumes to be dead, in a town already full of corruption. Michael Jai White is a compelling enough presence but the movie really lacks focus and is too easily distracted by dull side stories and tonally it's all over the place. There's quite a bit of punching down in the direction of Native Americans that suspect Mel Brooks would've thought twice about. Contrary, though, to other things I watched this week, it all comes together pretty well in a third act. Tip of the hat in any event as it looks like White crowd-funded at least some of the budget he used here. A pickier editor could've saved him a bunch. 5/10 196 A Simple Favor -- It's impossible to ignore the Gone Girl vibes but it's not necessarily a bad thing and it's fun to watch Anna Kendrick's character develop from a mousy, Connecticut single-mom to Nancy Drew to a bit of a badass. Meanwhile, Blake Lively is wonderful as the mysterious PR executive who befriends Kendrick before going missing and Henry Golding is good as the husband who you know is about to get set up for something if he isn't behind it all in the first place. It's funny and kinda endearing it does such a good job in the set-up that maybe it was always going to disappoint by the end. 7/10 197 50/50 -- Joseph Gordon-Levitt is quite excellent in this heartfelt comedy about 27-year-old Adam who discovers he has an aggressive form of spinal cancer and only a 50% chance of survival. Will Reiser's story is careful to tell Adam's story realistically but where it really excels is how this affects the people around him. Kyle, Seth Rogan, is his best friend who masks his fears with jokes and chasing tail. His mother, Anjelica Huston, is dealing with a husband with dementia and a son who refuses to talk to her. And then there's Anna Kendrick as Adam's therapist. It gets a little too neat and fancy and sugary towards the end, and perhaps Jonathan Levine could've resisted sticking his thumb down to make such a pretty bow, but the chemistry between Gordon-Levitt and Rogan, as well as the overarching message, makes this a surprisingly feelgood affair. 8/10 198 It Lives Inside -- A Hindi horror movie on paper at least sounds like it might bring something new to the genre and for a while it does. We're introduced to Samidha, a young Indian girl living somewhere pointedly unnamed in North America with her parents. She prefers to be known as Sami, to speak English around the house much to the annoyance of her mother in particular, to shave her arms, and who associates with the white kids at school at the expense of her former best friend and fellow immigrant, Tamira. Tamira seems to be having some problems of her own, looks like she hasn't washed or slept in forever, and carries a dingy glass jar around with her wherever she goes. When Tamira approaches Sami for help, the jar is broken and it's all downhill for Tamira after that. Writer and director Bishal Dutta borrows heavily from Indian demonic mythology and his own immigration story and for the first hour or so, it was a compelling tale. The monster lingering in the shadows isn't winning any originality awards, but with the Indian spin, it felt renewed as these poor kids avoided the demon spirit determined to drive them crazy and consume them. There's a strong focus on meals, and sharing food, and offerings, and prayer all going hand in hand and I found all that fascinating, helped along by the performances of Megan Suri as Sami and Neeru Bajwa as her mother Poorna. For long periods, Poorna is in her own horror movie as she battles with a daughter who does everything she can to reject her heritage and culture. Sadly, though, it all falls to pieces in the third act where the old adage of the monster only being scary when you don't see it is proved to be true, and the whole thing becomes horribly rushed and the strength and power of the premise is diluted. It was never much of a scary movie in the first place, but it was spooky, and the last twenty minutes seemed to be in too much of a hurry to finish in five. 6/10

Lucy Beaumont and Jon Richardson are well matched in the same way that David Mitchell and Victoria Coren Mitchell are, but overall a very promising-looking series.

187 First Blood -- Well, I guess I'm watching Rambo movies this week. Why do I still know the words to the closing theme tune of this? WHY? Our introduction to one John J Rambo is a prime example of a 90-minute 1980s action movie. It's tight, it's thrilling, it's one man against the world, and its score is enough to get you punching the air at appropriate moments. I've always loved this movie and I loved it just as much for the 20th time as the actors have the good grace to follow along to the script that's also stored in my memory for some reason. As I get older, though, the exploding-shoebox-story ending becomes a little less satisfying, although it's still way better than the disregarded alternative I saw on YouTube. Rambo might still be a bit of a killing machine -- although his personal kill count here is (arguably) zero -- but he has corners and edges and layers and is all the better for it, especially as he demonstrates few of those nuances in future installments. Tod Kotcheff would go on to direct Weekend at Bernie's. 8/10 188 Rambo: First Blood Part II -- I remember watching this on video in 1986 with my parents AND a grandparent and we all LOVED it. Watching it now, it lacks the heart and depth of First Blood and with James Cameron's involvement in the script, it feels pretty formulaic as the pace and storyline rise and fall with Swiss-precision toward what is, admittedly, a pretty satisfying conclusion. Rambo kills a bucketload of Johnny Foreigners to make up for the poor bodycount in the previous movie which leaves no time for character development. Still, that 90 minute 1980s action movie thing still rings true and it's a pretty exciting watch if absolutely surface-level jingoism only. 6/10 189 Rambo III -- It says a lot that in a movie where Rambo joins the Mujahadeen -- awks -- that he has the worst haircut of them all. The most meager of set-ups positions Rambo against the pesky Ruskies with the leftover helicopters from Part 2, and has him play Sheepball with the rebels, which is quite fun, before going on to rescue Trautman who was stupid enough to get himself captured by the Soviets in the first place. If nothing else, it serves as a relevant tableau of the transient nature of foreign policy. How different this series could've been had Brian Dennehy just driven Rambo to a Tim Horton's in the first movie. 5/10 190 Rambo -- Starring, written by, and now directed by Mr Stallone. For the unprepared, this fourth installment of the Rambo saga is shockingly brutal and visceral. Living a quiet life in Thailand, Rambo is coaxed by a group of pesky Christian missionaries to take them upriver into Burma. When the do-gooders are captured, Rambo teams up with a group of mercenaries -- including the bloke who played Sally-shagger Chris in Coronation Street in the late 90s -- to rescue them from the horrible Burmese regime. Yet another rescue mission killing a new nationality doesn't, on paper, appear that different from the second and third outings, but the sheer bloodlust of the movie elevates it into uncharted territory and as a result, it's surprisingly enjoyable. Stallone directing does a decent job -- the man knows action movies -- and it's shot pretty well, especially when there aren't limbs and heads flying across the screen. Admittedly, this doesn't apply to a single second of the last 20 minutes where the bodycount seemed to be a target. 7/10 191 Rambo: Last Blood -- Is it fitting that a series that started as First Blood ends with Last Blood? Or is it a bit on the nose? The final installment actually starts off pretty promisingly, stereotypical names notwithstanding. Rambo is finally home, back living on his deceased father's ranch in Arizona where he inexplicably digs tunnels under his house, he's a friend to his father's Mexican housekeeper, Maria, and uncle to her granddaughter, Gabriela. When Gabriela learns of her estranged father's whereabouts in Mexico, she goes off to find him, against Rambo's wishes because of how horrible and dangerous Mexico is, and how it's full of drug cartels and human trafficking and wouldn't you know it, that's what Gabriela finds, leading Rambo to set off on one last rescue mission. The version of John Rambo at the start at least feels more in keeping with the Rambo from the original. He's unspeakably damaged, on meds, has tremors, the whole tunnel thing FFS, but any good work this does is quickly forgotten and I realized about halfway through, how despite all the furious bombastic gore of Rambo 4, it actually tied up the series very well. This undoes all that, and instead rests on a tired view of Mexico that played pretty well to a certain wall-building demographic in 2019. By the end, it doesn't even feel like a Rambo movie, it's kinda boring, and then it chickens out of the only thing that could've given the movie purpose, and the tunnels that 90 minutes earlier had harkened back to tunnels built by the Vietcong, turned into a subterranean gory Home Alone that isn't nearly as much fun as it should be. Rambo slaps cheeks with aftershave. Oh. 3/10 192 Freaky -- Well, I guess I'm a fan of Christopher Landon. Considering how bad this could've been, how mean-spirited it could've been, it's almost worth an extra half-star for how well it turned out. Freaky Friday the 13th manages to do what other Landon movies have done, but amps it up for a more adult audience. We're giving out no prizes for originality here but, as usual, his twist on a well-established trope is executed brilliantly. Full marks to Vince Vaughn and Kathryn Newton for the duel roles they play, particularly Vaughn who is hilarious as a 17-year-old girl, but both their little micro-expressions are so on point. The downside of most comedy-horror movies is that they aren't as funny as they should be and nor are they as scary as they should be and they struggle to find the right balance, but this came pretty close to the sweet spot for me. 8/10 193 A Haunting in Venice -- I watched this as God intended, on a massive IMAX screen, and I was going to joke that it's probably the movie least suited for such a grand projection, but in actual fact, it really suited it. There were many moments where the sweeping camera made me grab onto the side of my chair, which is nice because nothing much else in the movie came close to making me do so. A Haunting in Venice is very loosely based on Agatha Christie's Halloween Party and veers far more drastically from the source material than Murder on the Orient Express or Death on the Nile did, and to be honest, it suffers a bit from it. There's a reason why people are still making adaptations of Agatha Christie's work: she knew what she was doing. Hercule Poirot is called out of retirement by author Ariadne Oliver, Tina Fey, to debunk Michelle Yeoh's medium, Joyce Reynolds, at a decaying, haunted Venetian mansion where the owner's daughter had recently been driven mad and committed suicide. When Reynolds herself dies in mysterious circumstances and an attempt is made on Poirot's life, he's forced to put his skills of deduction to use again while surrounded by supposed ghosts. Kenneth Branagh is, as usual, rather magnificent as Poirot, but Yeoh is underused and Fey feels miscast and the story rarely broadens in interesting directions. The scenery and surroundings look less CGId than previous movies, but it's edited quite poorly which left the ending underwhelming and the sense that not all the loose ends have been tidied up. 5/10 194 Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates -- I was surprised to see that this movie was from 2016 as it felt more 2006 on this rewatch. I remembered very little from the first viewing, and it's okay, I guess. There are a few decent moments and a couple of chuckles but it's a comedy far too weighed down by its own conceit so that by about halfway, it's as good as done. Anna Kendrick was great in a what-would-happen-if-Pitch-Perfect-smoked-meth type way, and actually the main cast is mostly all better than the movie. The problem lies in a patchy, uneven script by writers who would go on to do slightly better with The House in the following year. 5/10

Saw the new trailer. It's a little predictable that it looks like a simple role reversal where the focus is on Frasier and his son rather than Frasier and his dad, and rather than Frasier finding company with his brother, this time it's with Gary Sparrow. It's always tough to judge a comedy on a couple of snippets out of context. I mean, who knows, if the episode has had me laughing throughout, maybe a line like, "not in jeans" would have me chuckling away, but it's a bit concerning that there are no standalone outright funny bits in there. I'll likely still give it way more time than it'll ultimately deserve.

It's all George Soros's doing, apparently.

180 The Equalizer -- Watched ahead of going to see the new one. Denzel Washington's charm and charisma buy an awful lot of good faith as he stars as Robert McCall, a man with a shady past who is drawn into a world of Russian organized crime when a young prostitute, Alina, played by Chloe Grace Moretz is beaten half to death. It's a long, long movie for what it is, but I kinda liked how it took its time to build up the characters. What it lacks is genuine stakes because none of the good guys ever really look like being in danger. This is a movie where good has to triumph over evil and so it does and by the end of it, when McCall meets up with Alina again, he must be doing some mental arithmetic to tally up how many people he's killed since meeting her. Good fun, entertaining set-pieces, and Denzel is fabulous, but here's an idea...maybe it would've made a better TV show in the 1980s? 6/10 181 The Equalizer 3 -- Denzel Washington kill people in interesting ways, this time in Italiano. We start with Robert McCall at the end of a Sicilian assignment where he suffers a sucker punch from a kid during his walk into the sunset. After that, he's found and taken in by a doctor to recuperate where he falls in love with the village and its people. And little wonder. The Amalfi Coast is stunning and provides a calm and soothing contrast to the bonkers mayhem that goes on during the movie when some local mafioso kids push Robert's friends a little too far and ignore his advice to leave town. Of course, these small fish have bigger fish behind them and so things escalate quite quickly from there. The story is pretty thin, as was the case in the original, but it's impossible not to cheer on Robert McCall, and applaud when he sticks a corkscrew through the chin of a bad guy. Dakota Fanning's CIA operative character is so under-developed it's amazing that they could be bothered to give her a name, but it's still good fun and at twenty-odd minutes shorter than the first one, it feels a bit tighter too. If this is how the series ends, it's not a terrible way to go. 5/10 182 The Equalizer 2 -- I've watched these in an odd order but honestly, they're all pretty much standalone so I don't think I lost anything except for a small plot point that carries forward into Equalizer 3 that I managed to assume for myself anyway. All three movies are very much slight variations of the same thing and would be nothing without Denzel Washington and his murderous ways. If you liked the first, as I did, you're going to like them all, but I felt that this one was maybe just a nudge better than the other two. Robert McCall is a more interesting character here, his contacts with his past are more impactful, and the set pieces are just a little bit more exciting. It also has the best denouement of the series. 7/10 183 Polite Society -- It's a kneejerk reaction from me but whenever I see the Working Title logo come up, it makes me think of Edgar Wright and the Cornetto Trilogy, and for spells in Polite Society, the movie was kind enough to give me a similar vibe, although perhaps more influenced by Scott Pilgrim vs The World. Priya Kansara is wonderful here as Ria, a teenager with dreams of becoming a stuntwoman -- Eunace, the Scouse Gladiator no less -- who is determined to save her sister from being married off to the wrong man but is shocked to discover exactly how wrong he is. There's an awful lot to like in this action comedy and it's perhaps a testament to the goodwill it garners when it feels like it could have better action and it feel like it could be funnier, and yet I still came away from it thinking it was very good. A lot of this goodwill is generated by Kansara herself who is an absolutely captivating presence and carries off all the emotional beats beautifully. The wire work fight scenes don't disappoint either. Director and writer Nida Manzoor puts on a stunning show, especially in the final act, although it feels like she lets the pace of the story get a bit out of control in the first hour or so. The script though is sharp and witty and managed to encourage me to show Bollywood a bit more attention in the future. 8/10 184 Evolution -- I had fonder memories of this early 2000s comedy, and there are still moments that raised a smile, but I think in the past I was more taken with the concept than the actual execution. The story of a meteor crashing to earth and kickstarting alien life in an accelerated manner is interesting and the four leads of David Duchovny, Julianne Moore, Orlando Jones, and Seann William Scott all have their moments, but surely too much time is dedicated to the male scientists deciding how much the female scientist is begging for a "good humping." 5/10 185 I Blame Society -- Gillian Wallace Horvat is the writer, director, star, and main character of this uber meta mockumentary in which the fictional (let's hope) Gillian is a failing but ambitious filmmaker who resorts to an old idea of hers to make a documentary about how she would commit the perfect murder. It occupies a weird intersection in a complicated venn diagram of genres but it's an interesting watch for the first half at least. Gillian is a quirky wee soul and the tone pitches well into the sad realization that if you are a creative type of any sort, the chances are most of your friends don't give a shit one way or the other. As the movie progresses, though, and it takes the turns it kinda has to do, it becomes less fun, more stupid, and it really could've done with an increased blood budget. At under 90 minutes, though, it's not a bad distraction and overall it probably has something interesting to say underneath all those layers of meta. 6/10 186 Between Two Worlds -- Juliette Binoche stars as Marianne, an author who looks to find out the effects of the cost of living crisis for her new book and goes undercover with a group of women who work as cleaners. Eventually, through a series of quick turnover positions, she ends up cleaning ferries in the port of Ouistreham in Northern France where she makes friends and eventually struggles with the morality of her deceit. I was expecting something like a French version of I, Daniel Blake but Moi, Daniel Blake it is not. With the exception of a brief scene with a four-leaf clover, it's a strangely emotionless affair, even before we learn that Marianne isn't in the financial crisis that she claims. That's not to say that the work these women undertake isn't grueling and thankless, or that their security isn't worryingly fragile, but the movie spends more time talking about their struggles than showing them, and so many offshoots of the main story are left feeling bare and unresolved. In the end, I'm not sure what the movie wants me to think about Marianne's deception or the plight of the poor folks whose lives continue to be spent cleaning cabins on ferries whether she's there or not, so perhaps it's appropriate that I left the movie feeling pretty much the same as I did when I went in. 4/10

What a nightmare, ser. It's a shame on all counts as Scrapper looks great, The Blackening is decent and worth an undistracted watch, and I used to love to spend the day in that Cineworld back in 2011/12. Plus cuntish old people really make me sad.

Had never heard of BGB until I saw your post and their EP has pretty much been all I've listened to since. Belting stuff! Cheers for the recommendation.

Sky-high blood pressure and kitchen dentistry it is, then. At least there's no celebration of racist gangsters this week, but I'm not sure a massive puppet was the answer.

Yeah, seems like the consensus is that FD3 is the pick of the bunch. I don't think my opinion was helped by watching all of them in a week.

174 Final Destination 2 -- Ah, so this is the one that made sure I would never drive behind a lumber truck ever again. It's a pretty decent sequel for the most part and I was probably enjoying it more than the original for the first half or so. The elaborate build ups leading to incredible simple deaths was a bit of a joy and the choreography of the Route 23 Pile Up is an astonishing achievement. For me, the movie dips quite a bit in the second half, mostly down to the re-introduction of buzzkill Clear Rivers, not helped by the acting of a seemingly disinterested Ali Larter, which is a real shame because Final Destination 2 really takes the story in an interesting direction and delivers some satisfying kills. 6/10 175 Final Destination 3 -- 5/10 feels pretty generous and most of that is due to the fact I like Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Final Destination movies have never been blessed with a bucket load of likable characters but this bunch is just despicable. I kinda get that this supposedly makes watching them die more entertaining, which is true, but there's an awful lot of the movie where no one is dying and that's a bit tougher to put up with. Some entertaining kills, mostly done practically as far as I can make out, but I'm not sure the franchise is aware of its own rules anymore. 5/10 176 The Final Destination -- Urgh, well, this is a definite low point. I mean, I'm not entirely against digital effects but these are just so woeful it's almost like it's deliberately trying to look like a cartoon and I swear I heard some cartoony clang noises in here too, so maybe that was the goal. Introducing NASCAR to the franchise was never going to set the heather alight (remember, motor sport is very boring) but I am somewhat curious to know if Chuck Palahniuk's got paid for the hat-tip to Guts. Points are awarded purely for the soundtrack to Racist Carter's demise which gave me a chuckle, the opening credits that show x-rays of better kills from previous movies, and for the fact that, like all the other FD movies, it didn't demand much in the way of my time or attention before being done. Kinda like a betta fish. 3/10 177 Final Destination 5 -- Wow, it really goes to show what a good intro credit sequence can do for a movie. The James Bond-esque theme tune really raised my weary spirits as I went into what I expected to be another example of diminishing returns, and I ended up really quite enjoying this one. It's helped along by having characters that are more likable, and even the horrible sexist doofus guy is passable, and his eventual demise is rather satisfying. Digital effects get in the way again but the opening sequence on a Vancouver bridge is breathtaking and I imagine the scene in the gym is what got people talking back in 2011. All of this and a rewarding sting in the tail make this probably my pick of the bunch, which I didn't imagine happening when I hit play. 7/10 178 We Have a Ghost -- Happy Death Day director, Christopher Landon, is quite good at these PG-13 "horror" movies, although this one isn't really trying to scare anyone. Teenager Kevin and his family move home thanks to dad being a loser, only to discover that the attic is haunted by a ghost named Ernest. The two of them bond and while Kevin attempts to find out more about Ernest’s backstory, his dad sets about making some coin from the situation which attracts the attention of the CIA. So a bit like ET but with ghosts. Overall, I enjoyed it. David Harbour is silent as Ernest the ghost and Jahi Di’Allo Winston is very relatable as Kevin with Isabella Russo providing the chuckles as the next-door neighbor kid who gets caught up in it all. And it’s Tig Notaro as the villainous CIA agent, and Jennifer Coolidge as Jennifer Coolidge. I guess my issue with it is the tone is mismatched all the way through so I don’t really know who this is aimed at. It’s a little too gritty at times to be a family feature, but it’s too lame at other times to be entirely Young Adult, and it’s at least 20 minutes too long. That said, it made me laugh a few times, and whenever I felt it was getting too schmaltzy it would pick up again, and like Happy Death Day, I think it’s got a lot of spirit. Ba-boom tish. 6/10 179 Bottoms -- High School lesbian best friends, PJ and Josie, inadvertently start up a self-defense fight club as a way to lose their virginities and score with the popular girls. The club proves to be such a hit that it threatens to take attention away from the school football team and their upcoming rival game, and soon the pals realize they've bitten off more than they can chew. Really, though, it's like Fight Club meets Pitch Perfect meets Superbad with lesbians, and there's not one thing I dislike about the sound of that. I mean, throw in a "meets Paddington 2" and this might just have been the greatest movie ever made. Emma Seligman directs and writes along with Rachel Sennott, who stars as PJ, alongside Ayo Edebiri as Josie. Both actors are in their late-twenties, but don't let that spoil anything for you. The writing is just perfect and has an incredible tone that manages to match and satire high school politics in a really refreshing way. There's a slight lull around the transition from the second act into the third, which is to be expected in this kind of movie, but apart from that, I really laughed out loud all the way through as time and again it continued to surprise me. There felt like there was quite a bit of improv and riffing allowed in the scenes, giving it a very natural flavor, and something that was confirmed by the (perhaps unnecessary) blooper reel at the end. As good as the main actors are, the success of the movie for me is helped greatly by the rounded characterization of the supporting players. I thought Ruby Cruz was wonderful as Hazel, as was Marshawn Lynch as the girls' teacher, Mr G, all of which contrasted brilliantly with the bland emptiness of the football players, all of whom are constantly in uniform, and one of whom is kept in a cage for everyone's safety. It feels rare to rate a comedy as highly as this, but honestly, along with Past Lives and Aftersun, this was one of the few times in the last couple of years that I left a movie absolutely dying to turn around and go watch it again. 10/10

Makes it look easy.

There's yer tifo.

169 The Life of Emile Zola (#10 in Best Picture series) -- I guess for the early batch of Academy Award-winning Best Pictures, it's perfectly fine and Paul Muni is pretty good in the role of 19th century French novelist, Emile Zola. The story is a worthy one about the Dreyfus Affair, which I confess I knew little about, a scandal about an antisemitic miscarriage of justice and when a Jewish French officer was accused of treason. It's just told in a weird sort of roundabout way and it failed to grab my attention. In the end, my mind wandered to Sunday dinner and it didn't really venture too far away from that until the movie ended. 5/10 170 Kill List -- I was disappointed in Ben Wheatley's Meg 2 so came back to Kill List to, oddly, cleanse the pallet. I was blown away by this the first time and it definitely bears a repeat viewing as there are a few neat bits of foreshadowing that might be missed. Kill List moves quite seamlessly through drama, to thriller, to outright horror although there is at least a horrific undercurrent running throughout. The dialogue is crisp and believable and the leads' performances are spot on. It really delivers throughout and feels a million miles away from the one with the big shark. 9/10 171 Enys Men -- After watching Kill List, I was reminded about this experimental Cornish folk-horror piece from last year that I'd never gotten around to watching. A woman, The Volunteer, is alone on a rocky island, making daily observations on the condition of what I presume to be a rare flower, and every day she drops a rock down a mine shaft. This repeats. This repeats quite a bit. In amongst all this, there are visions of a young woman, who may or may not be a younger version of The Volunteer, a man, who may to may not be her lover, and some miners and milk maidens, who probably don't exist. There's also a stone pillar in memory of lives who were lost at sea, and this may be a metaphor for her, and maybe the woman *is* the island. It's filmed like it's an old 1970s PSA film, and it reminded me an awful lot of The Owl Service and a bit of Skinamarink, and it's a very unsettling experience either way. Is it about loneliness and grief, or is there more to it? It feels like it depends on the viewer, making it something more to be interpreted or solved, like a work of art or a puzzle, more than necessarily enjoyed. 6/10 172 Final Destination -- Somehow, I've seen bits and bobs of this series but I don't think I've ever sat down and watched a Final Destination movie all the way through. This was pretty entertaining and beyond the enticing concept, it still rides on the coattails of Scream a little bit and is more fun than terrifying or gory, and certainly enough for me to get the sequel onto my watchlist. 7/10 173 Gran Turismo -- Archie Madekwe, who I've somehow managed to see in five other things without really trying, is Jann, a Welsh Gran Turismo player who gets a chance to race for Team Nissan for reals, where his fellow competitors and pro drivers and his pit crew and family are praying for him to fail. It's impossible to describe how much Jann's family suck here and as this is based on a true story, they must be feeling the burn pretty hard right now. Some of the race scenes are quite exciting, and there are neat visual effects like when Jann was racing at home he imagined it being real and this played in reverse when he was actually on the track, but because motor racing is generally pretty boring, all the drama that needs to get added to a race to make it watchable also makes it unbelievable. Add to this extraordinary scenes of exposition, like when one character explains to another that the Le Mans race that's about to start lasts for 24 hours, which is bad and bad enough until you remember that the character having this explained to them is putting on their helmet as they're about to be in the actual race. David Harbour as an e-Sports Mr Miyago shines amongst a fairly wooden cast that somehow includes Orlando Bloom and Ginger Spice. 4/10

161 Mob Land -- We're in RURAL AMERICA here, which can only mean one thing, and good ole family man, Shelby Connors (Shiloh Fernandez, who I kinda liked in Evil Dead) is down on his luck and out of a job and unable to support his lovely wife and daughter when his brother-in-law, Tre (Kevin Dillon) has an idea to rob the town's doctor's office which is pushing oxy like they're going out of fashion. Unbeknownst to either of them, the operation is run by the N'Orlins mob and they're less than happy about being robbed so send their fixer guy, who definitely isn't ripped off from No Country for Old Men, to get the cash and make those responsible pay. The fact that John Travolta is miles ahead of anyone else in this stupid movie tells you everything you need to know. Meanwhile, Fernandez and Dillon, along with Stephen Dorff as the fixer, are asked to say some horrendously bad lines out loud to each other and put zero effort into making them sound any more acceptable, while the movie creeps towards its predictable end. All of this, for no discernible reason, is filmed by the shakiest-handed cameraman they could find. You know, sometimes a tripod is your friend. And I'm getting a bit tired of Alabama being used as shorthand for oxy addiction, unemployment, and crime. 2/10 162 Heart of Stone -- The opening sequence is probably as good as it gets, all because someone had the idea of using a parachute canopy with a light inside it against the snow, so at least it looked interesting. Sadly, that someone seems to have called in sick for the rest of the shoot. I don't remember much of Wonder Woman, but I don't recall Gal Gadot being as wooden as she is in this Dollar General version of Mission: Impossible, and absolutely no one else cares enough to help her out with a decent supporting role. 3/10 163 Blood Simple -- What a debut from Joel and Ethan Coen. Phenomenal lighting, great cinematography, an effective score, incredible performances, and a deliciously noir storyline where after the first half hour or so, nobody has a clue what's going on. I don't recall it being so funny in places too, and I loved how Ray living on a cul-de-sac was worthy of a callback. A timely reminder of what the Coens would go on to produce but an outstanding movie all on its own. Love it. 10/10 164 The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! -- This movie is so old now that all of the bad guys have died -- Colonel Gadaffi, Ayatollah Khomeini, Queen Elizabeth II -- but there are still an awful lot of laugh-out-loud moments. Leslie Neilson, George Kennedy, and Priscilla Presley all do incredible jobs keeping straight faces while the nonsense carries on around them. Honestly, though, it's not quite the consistently funny joke machine I remember, and the baseball sequence goes on a bit too long, and it's not quite at the Airplane! level, but all things considered, it's aged better than I imagined, and still knows how to make me giggle. Nice beaver. 7/10 165 The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear -- Pretty much as funny as the first one but with a better-paced and more enjoyable story. 7/10 166 Strays -- Poor Reggie, voiced by Will Ferrell, is a lovable mutt who doesn't realize that his owner actively hates him. So when he's driven three hours for a game of fetch and abandoned in the city, his first instinct is to get home to his beloved Doug. But when he meets fellow stray, Bug (Jamie Foxx), he learns that owners aren't always all they're cracked up to be, and along with Hunter and Maggie (Randall Park and Isla Fisher), they decide to track down Doug so Reggie can enact his bloody revenge. There's an awful lot of swearing, an awful lot of poop jokes, and pee jokes, and while I'm sure there's a bit more to it than that, it's been a couple of hours and I can't quite remember what that might be. Homeward Fucking Bound seems to be as good a description as any. It is funny, though. I did laugh quite a bit, and the voice talent is very effective, but it feels utterly disposable and, evidently, forgettable. Like Ted, but with dogs. Or Sausage Party, but with dogs. 5/10 167 Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult -- Maybe an insult too far. A lot of the gags in this one feel a bit like SNL skits, and no one laughs at SNL skits. Like, I'm not sure that the previous movies would've spent that much time riffing on Thelma and Louise. Also, the bending over in the shower jokes, and Anna Nicole Smith supposedly being trans kinda felt awfully stock. It's still funny in places, but I don't think many people can say that the series went out on a high note. 4/10 168 Jules -- Ben Kingsley is Milton, a slightly curmudgeonly old, widowed, man who has gone that sort of weird way that slightly curmudgeonly old, widowed men tend to go. His daughter is worried about his failing memory but all he cares about is turning up to town meetings to complain that the town motto is ambiguous. His life should be turned upside down when a UFO crashes into his backyard but despite an initial shock, he bonds with the alien inside, feeds it apples, explains how his remote controls work, and takes it in his stride until two widows in town discover his secret. I really loved this. Ben Kingsley is brilliant in the lead role but Harriet Sansom Harris and Jane Curtin are the perfect foil for him as Sandy and Joyce. The alien, played by Jade Quon, is silent throughout and it's questionable how much it understands of the situation or conversations that happen around it, but some of the delight comes from how easily the trio open up to it. The peril in Gavin Steckler's script is mild to say the least as the alien is kept from authorities, but Jules isn't that kind of alien movie. Instead, it's far more interested with Milton's strained relationship with his daughter, and his non-existent relationship with his son. It's more interested in the loneliness that sometimes accompanies old age, so there's comfort in these three finding each other through these strange circumstances. It's very much a movie with an alien rather than a movie about an alien. I thought it was funny throughout and brilliantly so in many places. It mostly manages to avoid too much shmaltz and there were many cheese-laden places that director Marc Turtletaub could've taken us towards the end, but thankfully he avoided them all. He's delivered a pretty perfect wee package here. I loved it. 9/10

158 The Farewell (#90 in the A24 series) -- Such an incredibly simple and emotional movie that succeeds in pushing many of my buttons. Awkwafina is immense as Billi, a Chinese-American who goes back to China to see her beloved grandmother who is unaware that she has Stage 4 lung cancer. Lulu Wang's direction and writing uses a very light touch to examine the cultural differences and societal expectations between the US or really the West, and China, as Billi is conflicted by her love for her grandmother who she thinks deserves to know what is wrong with her. I just adored the way this movie moved and how beautifully it was shot and presented, and how it realistically moved between languages. There's a little sting in the tail at the end that I wish hadn't happened, but otherwise, I found it a bit of a triumph and a welcome reminder of how good Awkwafina can be. 9/10 159 The Death of Dick Long (#91 in the A24 series) -- Daniel Scheinert, out of off of Daniels, directs this odd wee story, which apparently has its basis in a true story, which on its own doesn't sound that remarkable until you actually sit down and watch the movie and then it's oh my fucking god. It's funny, intriguing, and deeply disturbing as a group of friends who play Nickelback covers for fun -- FOR FUN -- lose one of their buddies in suspicious circumstances and it's these circumstances, and the attempts to cover them up, that provide the intrigue. Reminiscent of Scheinert's Swiss Army Man and Coen brothers' back catalog, it's entertaining stuff and on the one hand it's hard to understand how it made so little money, but on the other hand, it makes all the sense in the world. 7/10 160 The Last Voyage of the Demeter -- Alien set on a boat with a vampire should be a better movie than this. It opens at the end and then recounts the events that led to the conclusion. We've all seen this done before rather well but here it just drains any lingering dregs of suspense. Based on the captain's log section of Dracula, it tells the tale of the ship and its crew hired to transport a consignment of wooden boxes from Romania to London. It's all just fine, there are some really heavy emotional moments, but the decision-making of the crew leaves a lot to be desired and Dracula really would be scarier if he didn't look like a peckish version of Dobby the House-Elf. 5/10

I found this out the hard way. Funnily enough, though, you can fill your tank if it's diesel which makes the law even more ridiculous.

Extra greenies for that.

151 Midsommar (#89 in the A24 series) -- What a long and odd way for a woman to get revenge on her asshole boyfriend. I'm not sure if I enjoyed this quite as much as Hereditary, but it's close. The colors are incredible, as is Florence Pugh, and everything is so beautifully unhinged that I think I found it funnier (in a weird way) on this viewing. It is overlong, though, and it seems to revel in how overlong it actually is, and while I can appreciate that indulgence from time to time, I think I'd have been less fidgety if it came in closer to the two-hour mark. That said, a great piece of folk-horror, far scarier for it all being out there in the daylight. 9/10 152 Talk to Me (#137 in the A24 series) -- Maybe not the ideal movie to go see if your wife collects disembodied ceramic hands. Yikes. I can go either way on Australian horror movies these days. For every Babadook, it seems, there's a Run Rabbit Run. Despite showing considerable early promise, Talk to Me kinda falls in the middle of the two. A great premise of a spooky hand reportedly from a medium and covered in a graffitied cast that when you grasp it and say Talk to Me, it connects you to a spirit. A bunch of teenagers abuse this ability when one of them is connected to her deceased mother and things go very awry after that. It's pretty spooky, unflinchingly gory in places, and maybe a little predictable in the finale, but it's nice to see a couple of YouTubers get some A24 backing here and turn in a bit of a money-maker. 7/10 153 Missing: The Lucie Blackman Case -- I vaguely remember this story from the news back in 2000 or so but the wider case of Japanese millionaire, Joji Obara, and his suspected 400 victims was new to me and is shocking stuff. The documentary is a very Netflix documentary. I mean, you know what you're going to get before you click play as the story is told through the talking heads of Lucie's dad, a reporter, and the Japanese detectives who worked the case. Despite all this available insight, it seems reluctant or perhaps unable to go into the broader issues here, such as the societal issues that allowed one man to commit so many horrific crimes, the other victims are hardly named never mind heard, and also the effect this had on the Blackman family is left beyond arm's length. It feels like the focus is only on part of the story but then doesn't tell all of that either. A sad and tragic tale but it misses out on so much. 5/10 154 Piranha -- I've been meaning to go through a Joe Dante rewatch for a while and with Meg 2 out this week, I finally got round to starting here, a B movie rip-off of Jaws that is so obvious in its intentions that they have the heroine playing a Jaws video game at the start and Dick Miller doing his best Murray Hamilton impression. The piranha are hilariously bad as they statically move through the water, they sound like bees, the wounds are about as convincing as the acting, but it's good, stupid, fun and Dante's sense of humor ("They're eating the guests, sir") is put to hilarious use. 6/10 155 Piranha II: The Spawning -- There are a few surprising things about this movie. First, it's directed by James "Yes, That One" Cameron. Second, it's not exactly a cash grab seeing as it came four years after Joe Dante's effort, so one can assume that some thought and time went into it. Third, given the first two, this is perhaps one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It's flat, pointless, meandering, slow, humorless, and absolutely no fun to watch. It also seems that halfway through filming, someone decided to themselves, f**k it, let's make the piranha fly. I know there's some debate over how much Cameron was involved, and the mostly Italian crew couldn't speak much English which just confused and frustrated everyone, but it's frankly incredible that within 24 months of this coming out, the next movie to have Cameron's name on it would be The Terminator. Saw it for free on YouTube. Still feel ripped off. 1/10 156 The Terminator -- I'm really not sure why this scores so well for me because it really isn't all that good. The SFX have not aged well, the score outside of the main theme is dreadful, the acting isn't significantly better than Piranha 2, and the movie takes lengthy pauses from the action so that Michael Biehn can deliver a few pages of exposition to Linda Hamilton. And that's before we mention anything about it not making a lick of sense. All this said, my first rewatch in 20 years was still pretty enjoyable. The scenes in the nightclub and the police station are gripping and brutal and my inner thirteen-tear-old cheers with glee at famous lines. All this goodwill, of course, doesn't detract from the fact that it's nowhere near as good as T2. 7/10 157 Meg 2: The Trench -- I quite like Ben Wheatley movies and I was fairly ambivalent about the first Meg movie from 2018, so I was curious to see how the two would mash up in this sequel. Turns out, it's less of the former and more of the latter. Jason Statham returns as Jonas Taylor along with a few of his buddies from the first movie and he leads an exploratory expedition to the Mariana Trench but discovers that his efforts have been deliberately sabotaged by a horrible billionaire corporate lady or whatever, happy to trade environmental efforts for the almighty dollar. A lot of that stuff is pretty dull, and an awful lot of it is missing any kind of big shark action. This picks up, and the movie picks up, and it starts to be a bit more fun -- ironically enough when we get to the Fun Island portion -- but by that point, I'd kinda made up my mind to be disappointed. In a sequel, I think it's acceptable to have an expectation for the bigger and grander even if that is at the expense of any sense being made, and while the sight of Statham on a jet-ski with explosive harpoons does try, it's really just not enough. 4/10

This is excellent news.

Lyle, you may want to have a support puppy at the ready.

143 Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation -- The resurgence of this franchise continues with Christopher McQuarrie in the director's chair, where he will make himself comfy for the next few movies. It also introduced the never not wonderful Rebecca Ferguson into proceedings as a feisty British agent working to her own agenda. The shadow of PSH still casts deep and heavy, but it's absolutely fine as far as MI movies go, and more Tom Cruise movies should have Nessun Dorma in the soundtrack. Is it all starting to feel a bit samey, though? Do they always have to be the most impossible mission ever? Does no one ever listen to the IMF? All this said, the ending is pretty satisfying. 6/10 144 Mission: Impossible - Fallout -- I liked this one a lot. I may have liked it a bit more if it had come in twenty minutes shorter, but hey, you can't win them all. Unless you're Ethan Hunt. This is a breathless romp around the globe again with chases and stunts galore but what really made it for me was the reintroduction of Julia, which gave the movie a bit of a personal touch. I started out this journey through the franchise thinking of Mission: Impossible movies as a poor man's James Bond. That's not really the case at all, they're doing similar but different things, and the one thing that Mission: Impossible has never tried to make me do is think that underwater fight scenes are impressive or tense, and I have to thank it for that. 8/10 145 Shaun of the Dead -- I never get tired of watching this, helped by there always being a new bit of foreshadowing or a callback to spot. This time, I don't think I've ever caught the fact that the guy calling Ed for drugs near the start is Shaun's underling at the store. If ever there was a movie to prove how much thought and attention people put into their work, this is it. And as clever as it is, it has the fun and the drama and the emotion and zombie flesh-eating to back it all up. My one complaint is that I wish Edgar Wright had given Nick Frost a couple more takes for some of his lines. It's become a classic in the last twenty years and a bit of a predictor for human behavior during certain real-world events. A great comedy, a great zombie flick, just perfectly written and directed. 9/10 146 Threads -- A cheery wee look back at Cold War nuclear armageddon anxiety. I was 10 or 11 when this came out and I remember watching it on BBC2 at the time. What were my parents thinking? Forty years later, give or take, and it's no less harrowing now than it was back then. Growing up in the 80s, we were terrified of nuclear war without really knowing what that meant. This changed that. So often, war is told from the perspective of those fighting or those issuing the orders, but the impact of this comes from telling the stories of everyday people in a 1980s Britain that is very recognizable. Impossible to say that I enjoyed it and if I see it again in another 40 years it'll be too soon, but vital viewing. 8/10 147 Hot Fuzz -- I wish I'd seen this in the cinema, just to feel the frustrating joy of the eighteen false endings with a larger group of people. I wonder if there were riots. I adore this. There's the same Shaun-of-the-Dead-esque meticulous attention to detail and careful arrangement of set-ups, callbacks, and foreshadowing that always make a rewatch a rewarding experience, Frost's acting is better, and the setting of a hard-boiled action movie in a quiet English town, with all the requisite hat-tips, is absolutely perfect. Definitely in my Top 10 favourite movies of all-time. 10/10 148 They Cloned Tyrone -- There's an awful lot in here to unpack, many genres touched upon, some more than others, and maybe overall just a few too many to keep the whole cohesive, but it's a pretty clever, occasionally hilarious, constantly odd wee tale of social satire with gentrification taken to an unexpected level. The three leads, John Boyega, Jamie Foxx, and Teyonah Parris put in barnstorming performances as a drug dealer, a customer, and a prostitute who uncover a government conspiracy in their neighborhood. It's Juel Taylor's directorial debut after writing a Creed sequel and the Space Jam revamp and this is clearly his most impressive and ambitious work. I'd maybe question that it's literally (and maybe figuratively) too dark in places, but the tone from the fonts used and the slightly grainy film stock rather brilliantly evokes a 70s blaxploitation flick and maybe the lighting is part of that. All in all, a bit of a mindfuck that provokes a lot of thought and surprises right to the final word. 7/10 149 The World's End -- I'm not sure what exactly it is that makes this last part of the Cornetto trilogy such a disappointment. Is it Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's role reversal? Is it that it takes 38 minutes for the sci-fi part of the story to begin? On paper, the idea of a group of friends returning to their hometown to do a pub crawl, only to find that the town has been overrun by clones should work, and it's hilarious that Edgar Wright talked the studio into throwing $20m at this idea. The group slowly getting drunker and drunker as the movie progresses is kinda funny and the fight scenes are pretty satisfying, as is the CGI, but it just doesn't connect in the way that Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz did with ease. The overall message of the human race being f**k ups and we don't like being told what to do hasn't aged all that well either. 6/10 150 The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster -- It's such a great hook of a title and the basic premise of an urban retelling of Frankenstein doesn't sound too shabby either. Teenage Vicaria's mother and brother are both killed in her neighborhood and she sees death all around her. Deciding that she can cure death, she brings her brother back with predictably unpredictable results. The first half of this or so is really quite fantastic. Laya DeLeon Hayes is superb as the protege scientist and the fact that she's never allowed to veer too far from what the neighborhood deems her to be worth is rather sad. For most of the movie, her glasses are broken. Her teacher at school, rather than supporting her or encouraging her free-thinking, is a racist asshole. The gangs want her to make drugs for them. The social commentary blends in quite neatly with an interesting paradox of bringing someone back from the dead into such bleak surroundings that are dripping with death, and the movie tries to run with this as much as it can. I don't know if it's a lack of budget or script, but it wanders away from tough questions in the second half and becomes a bit of a by-the-numbers slasher instead. 6/10