| TITLE |
Date |
ABM Score |
ABM Comment |
| Doctor Who and the Daleks (1965) |
Seen 17-01-05 |
2 |
New Blu ray edition |
| Whisky Galore (1949) |
Seen 17-01-06 |
2 |
Innocuous, dated, apparently there's a remake last year… and Joan 'fagash' Greenwood… ugh! |
| The Avengers – The Cybernauts, The Two Of No Return |
Seen 17-01-13 |
2 |
|
| Cape Fear (1962) |
Seen 17-01-20 |
2 |
Very film noir and probably groundbreaking for its time BUT impossibly genteel even laughable by modern standards. Great if you like 40's and 50's cinema hoo-ey. |
| Trainspotting (1996) |
Seen 17-01-27 |
2 |
So much swearing. |
| Alien (1979) |
Seen 17-02-03 |
2 |
Slavishly copied, seems like a cliché as a result. |
| The Elephant Man (1980) |
Seen 17-02-10 |
2 |
Beaut photography. Story is kinda unreal but the look is hyper real. |
| The Addams Family (1991) |
Seen 17-02-11 |
1 |
Like a series of corny sketches.. yawn |
| Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels |
Seen 17-02-17 |
2 |
Violent, but the extremity of the characters attitudes seems normal now in 2017 rather than bizarre and extreme which it seemed in the 90's. That's worrying |
| Love Actually (2003) |
Seen 17-02-24 |
1 |
So formulaic and like about 25 sketches assembled in random order.. |
| Tomorrowland |
Seen 17-03-03 |
1 |
There's a story in here somewhere but it's lost under a fuzz of naive Hollywood schmaltz |
| Network (1976) |
Seen 17-03-10 |
1 |
There's a story in here somewhere but it's lost under a fuzz of naive Hollywood schmaltz |
| 2010 The Year We Make Contact |
Seen 17-03-17 |
2 |
OK I suppose.. it's fun to spot all the anachronisms. |
| Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) |
Seen 17-03-24 |
1 |
Fantastic CGI and a boring story… yawn. |
| Rogue One (2016) |
Seen 17-03-31 |
1 |
Star Wars as a war movie like the Dirty Dozen… with shit effects for the money they burned through… |
| To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) |
Seen 17-04-01 |
2 |
Hokey and obvious or allegorical and meaningful… I'm developing this theory that popular US culture has to be bleeding o-b-v-i-o-u-s for some reason. |
| Brazil (1985) |
Seen 17-04-07 |
3 |
A dream within a nightmare. This movie is getting more prescient with age. |
| Life of Brian (1979) (Blu Ray) |
Seen 17-04-14 |
3 |
He has been taken up….. no there he is, over there… Alright I am the Messiah. Now FUCK OFF!!! |
| Amelie (2000) |
Seen 17-04-21 |
2 |
This movie is very stylish and uniquely idiosyncratic but the plot is kinda at odds with that mood. It ends as a simple girl and boy live happily ever after. That's unforgivable and it loses a whole point for that. |
| Alien Resurrection Special Edition (1998) |
Seen 17-04-28 |
1 |
Yawn…. |
| Kill Bill (2003) |
Seen 17-05-05 |
0 |
Stopped after 55m. Ugly, violent, indulgent and boring. An extremely predictable movie with a bizarre hyperviolent style. Plot is very familiar, characters are paper thin. So we just decided to stop watching it. Total waste of time. |
| The Great Dictator (1940) |
Seen 17-05-05 |
3 |
Not a perfect movie. Many technical limitations. The slapstick is pure silent movie. This must have looked old fashioned even in 1940. The conceit of the main Chaplin character who returrns to his life after a long period of amnesia and becomes the only one failing to be subjugated by the Fascists is pretty damn clever. |
| Catweazle 108 The Power of Adamcos |
Seen 17-05-12 |
3 |
Vale Geoffrey Bayldon… everything works. |
| All the Presidents' Men (1976) |
Seen 17-05-12 |
1 |
Worthy but dull. The lack of computers and mobile communication is so obvious and aggravating. This movie tried to be up to date and real. But it has aged to the extent that it now has no effective historical context. It does not effectively explain what happened and why ever it was important. It also fails to portray any social relevance to the events depicted. |
| The Lady Vanishes (1938) |
Seen 17-05-19 |
1 |
Creaky and appallingly out of date but well enough produced and has a saisfying conclusion I guess. |
| James Bond in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) |
Seen 17-05-26 |
1 |
What a load of old rubbish! |
| An Inconvenient Truth (2005) |
Seen 17-06-02 |
3 |
Still scary. Not at all nostalgic, dammit. Sequel in the works…. |
| Amadeus (1984) |
Seen 17-06-09 |
2 |
Loses a point for historical, vandalistical inaccuracies. But it's a very good movie. |
| Gandhi (1983) |
Seen 17-06-16 |
3 |
There are some movies that are just worth watching. Very satisfying, despite the tragic ending. |
| My Brilliant Career (1979) |
Seen 17-06-23 |
1 |
Overrated |
| Zulu (1964) |
Seen 17-06-30 |
2 |
Fascinating but not very sophisticated. First why were the Zulus so motivated and on the offensive. The issue is not even referred to let alone explained. Second, what was the point? What did the redcoats actually achieve by their bluff, military insistence on 'staying their ground'? Very. Very little and at great cost IMHO. Third the military tactics employed by the redcoats were absurd. Disperse, move to higher ground, deploy heavier weapons are all obvious moves which were clearly ignored. “Experts” ought to be aware of several more and better tactics than that. I see this movie as a study into the thinking that later was to bring you Gallipoli, Verdun and the Somme. Also little achievement and at great cost. |
| David Gilmour in Concert |
Seen 17-07-01 |
2 |
Nice concert |
| Nirvana MTV Unplugged Live |
Seen 17-07-01 |
2 |
Shit concert but watching the band members fighting and Kurt Cobain having a meltdown every few minutes is like watching a car crash. |
| World's Greatest Football Matches |
Seen 17-07-01 |
2 |
Variable obviously due to the editing, the source material and the selection but he the highlights of certain memorable matches are very exciting. |
| The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ ep1 |
Seen 17-07-01 |
2 |
Funny and odd. Much more real than American teen sex comedy movies eg. Porky's |
| VanderValk – The Professor |
Seen 17-07-01 |
2 |
Remarkably solid stuff and different from the standard police procedural. Lots of well known guest actors. |
| Sapphire and Steel 1 Escape Through a Crack in Time p1-4 |
Seen 17-07-06 |
2 |
Shit weird |
| Sapphire and Steel 1 Escape Through a Crack in Time p5-6 |
Seen 17-07-07 |
2 |
Shit weird |
| The Box (2009) |
Seen 17-07-07 |
1 |
Preposterous. And not a laugh in it… |
| The Court Jester (1955) |
Seen 17-07-14 |
1 |
Old fashioned shit redeemed slightly by a outlandish performance by Danny Kaye. But the rest of it it utter ham. Costumes, script, direction, acting is outdated and awful. |
| The Trouble With Harry (1955) |
Seen 17-07-14 |
1 |
Dull and dated too. A better made movie with a more sophisticated intention but lacking any great insight and value.
What a great night this has been…. |
| The Shawshank Redemption (1995) Blu-Ray |
Seen 17-07-21 |
3 |
A great movie |
| Doctor Who – World Enough and Time – The Doctor Falls (2017) Blu-Ray |
Seen 17-07-28 |
4 |
The multiple flashbacks, the spooky atonal incidental music, the echo-ey soundtrack, This is Gallifrey from The Sound of Drums, the D*E*E*P* fannish contexts, the Einsteinian time dilation field… this is hard SF Doctor Who and then the Pilot turns up at the end. When you think it's all over the Doctor turns up. The original you might say. Wow this isn't great, it's legendary. |
| Passengers (2016) |
Seen 17-08-04 |
1 |
Nicely made and performed but the script has some startling naivete. |
| Attack the Block (2011) |
Seen 17-08-11 |
1.5 |
Nearly a 2. Low budget but well directed. Suffers from lack of script development. The initial premise of 'what f the neighbourhood hoodlums are the first, last and only line of defence against the 'big bad' is excellent trope inversion but it doesn't seem to go anywhere from there. Remarkable star incubation. The leads in this 2011 movie are now leads in Star Wars and Doctor Who 6-7 years after production. There's several other good performers in this who might yet get discovered'. |
| The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) |
Seen 17-08-18 |
2 |
ok. Lots of circle symbolism but falls short of a complete movie. |
| Arrival (2016) |
Seen 17-08-25 |
2 |
Great music, another circular plot. |
| Guardians of the Galaxy II (2017) |
Seen 17-08-26 |
1 |
Funny and quirky but nothing more than formulaic. |
| Doctor Strange (2017) |
Seen 17-09-01 |
1 |
Regular Marvel Cinematic fare. A sort of retread of Iron Man? |
| Alien Covenant (2017) |
Seen 17-09-08 |
1 |
Poor science fiction, kinda dull and poor, un-engaging. Body horror to the max but biological containment, and contingency planning on that planetary expedition is shamefully absent. Characters are idiots and deserve to die. No sympathy. |
