I have sadly taken the decision to stop updating this site. It really is for only personal reference and I just don’t really have the time any longer to be able to keep the content current. I’ve managed to migrate across to Excel so will keep updating the movies I’ve checked out on there.
It’s been fun, it’s been over a decade but that time has sadly come…
Cheers and bye!
T
Now I like a low budget modern b-movie. There’s been some absolutely blinding ones and many, many shockers. I’ll happily watch them thought o see what they’re like. I stumbled across this one, Arachnicide in a charity shop and just had to have it. I mean come on the cover has a big ass spider on it with the tagline “The infestation has begun” that’s more than enough to grab my attention.
The time came where I found a chance to actually check the movie out (after testing positive for the germs earlier that day, meaning I have five days of isolation ahead, this was the first movie on the list – I basically have a load of DVD’s that have been picked up dirt cheap, so thought I’d start right at the top of the pile, they’re alphabetical…) and was pretty excited to see this one… I really shouldn’t have been!
Arachnicide is from 2014 and what I didn’t realise was that this is an Italian movie and that it was going to have such a shitty dubbing job. So the idea of the big ass spiders has been done a load of times before, but I’m always up for more movies about a bunch of scientists pissing about with genetics and causing something like this mutation. Anyways, the movie started off with nothing, no early sighting of a spider making a kill, now normally this happens and then we get the story. But here we start with a couple of snipers making a kill and it’s all to do with an incubator that accelerates plant growth, so it’d being used for narcotics. So when a special forces unit go into the lab (after we’ve had a few minutes of a science lesson in the middle of the movie), I’m looking forward to finally seeing some spider action. The problem is the box says that the running time is 92 minutes, we’re already half way through the film and we’ve still yet to see a frickin spider! Finally a few spiders appear, of various sizes and there’s a bit of killing. There’s some big spiders, who in one shot look huge and then in the next frame have shrunk to maybe 20% of the size you were lead to believe they were.
So let me summarise up Arachnicide… wow what an absolute pile of crap this movie was. I felt really disappointed by it. There was no rampage through the city like the cover promises. There are so many better spider films out there, obviously Them! is a stand out, but even movies like The Spider from 1958, Eight Legged Freaks and even Ice Spiders are so much better than this one. Definitely a waste of my time watching this one, a real let down and one I would definitely not watch again.
This is definitely one of my go-to movies and one that I know I watch an awful lot but the time had come that I needed another viewing of it.
Starring Mark Wahlberg, this is the true story of Vince Papale, a bar tender in Philadelphia who in 1976 during some tough times he attended an open try out for his beloved team, the Eagles. The only player to make training camp and eventually the team.
A proper gritty sports drama that is done really well and one of if not the best sports movies out there.
A movie night with the eldest daughter and she picked one of her go-to films. The second part of the National Treasure series.
Nicholas Cage is back along with everyone else form the first movie in this action movie that explores hidden secrets and lost treasure. When his family’s name is said to be part of the assignation of President Lincoln, he has to try and find a way to prove the claims to be wrong. Thus starts a huge adventure with hidden treasure, loads of clues, secrets, kidnapping and much more. This is a great movie to be fair, lots going on and always worthy of a watch.
Now we found this one on DVD in a charity shop. It was six CD’s, DVD’s or kids books for £1 and yes we could mix and match so we did just that. Picking up a few books for the smallest one, a couple of DVD, a Belly CD and this one to have a go on.
From 1955, this is a singing and dancing adventure starring Danny Kaye. All to do with a rightful king who is a baby and is being protected and a way to bring down the fake ruler. Kaye ends up pretending to be the new court jester to gain access but becomes the item of affection for the Princess. It’s a silly movie, lots of fun, sword fights and comedy. Also stars Angela Lansbury, Basil Rathbone and Glynis Johns. We wouldn’t watch it again but for the approximately 17p that it cost us, this one was good fun.
We did indeed crack on with the second part. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this movie before. I’d seen the first one, but maybe just once before. So this one was all new to me.
Whoopi Goldberg is back and now a successful singer in Las Vegas. When some of the nuns come to see her they ask her to come help them at a struggling school in an inner city that is due to close. She accepts and ends up teaching a music class to students who don’t want to be there but of course she get’s them going and they form a choir.
Obvious again, fine to watch the once. Interesting to see the likes of Lauryn Hill and Jennifer Love Hewitt star.
Another daughters pick, Nancy Drew is from 2007 and stars Emma Roberts as the title character. She’s moved to a new school, is in a new house and is a bit of a wannabe private detective. The house she has moved into has a mystery about a famous movie star and a lost will which she investigates and finds a lot more is/was going on.
Sure it’s an obvious movie, the kids seem to quite like this one, they haven’t watched it for years. Let’s hope that they don’t want to watch it for many more years again.
OK, so my two teenage daughters chose this one. I pretty much could guess what it was going to be about when it started and it really did not offer anything unexpected or away from the genre.
A Prince is due to be married, he needs a haircut, the wrong hairdresser is booked and he meets Izzy, a sharp talking New Yorker who tells him for what it is. He is impressed and they end up hiring her for his wedding but the pair for a close friendship.
Hmmm, like this hasn’t been done many, many times before. The girls seemed to quite enjoy it, I can definitely confirm that I did not.
A Whoopi Goldberg classic from 1992. We were scrolling the streaming services and spotted that Disney Plus has the two Sister Act movies on and sometimes you just need something you don’t have to think about, these films are definitely that.
Whoopi stars as a lounge singer in Reno, her gangster boyfriend runs the club and when she goes to his office after he gifts here a coat that belongs to his wife she sees him execute someone. She runs and is put into a witness protection programme by the cops. In a convent and is forced to pose as Sister Mary Clarence. But there she struggles to fit in and ends up taking the very poor choir and turning them into something quite spectacular. But of course the bad guys are trying to find her to stop her from testifying.
Like I said, easy enough to watch and we’ll be popping the sequel on at some point soon too.
A random find over on Netflix, Go-Karts (aka Go!) is an Australian movie from 2019.
The story of a new kid who moves to town with his Mum and ends up falling in love with racing go-karts after attending a party. He decides to try and find a way to get involved in the sport so he can compete. He manages to cut a deal with the race track owner, puts a small team together, makes an enemy of the kid who is expected to win (and usually does) and sets about to try and become a top go-kart racer too.
It’s a very typical coming of age meets sports drama, one of those that was watchable enough but only the once.