Change Your Image
sub_mish
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Ex Machina (2014)
At least as much about men as it is about AI
On re-watching this film, the rather obvious conclusion came to me that it's as much about men (as in people of the male gender) as it is about AI. Both types of men are portrayed here - the insufferable "alpha male" d******d variety and also what the incels call the "white knight" variety - bad men and good men, in short - and how the sexy female 'droid manipulates the latter and destroys the former, leaving her would-be rescuer in the . (Obviously written by a man as well)
I liked it. Loved it, in fact. But it's not really an AI movie. It's more about a certain type of persons' idea of the battle of the sexes. There's a lot of Freudianism in it as well, as exemplified in the much joked about scene where the lines "You're the first man who's not me it's ever seen... and I'm like it's Dad."
Precis: Insuferrable tech bro d*******g creates (his idea of the) perfect woman out of high tech bits and bobs and invites employee to evaluate her... presumably so that he can enjoy dominating her even more. It's actually a pretty cool feminist allegory when you look at it that way. Go watch!
Avanpost (2019)
An extremely disturbing piece of propaganda, otherwise banal sci-fi
Made in 2019, this film is INCREDIBLY disturbing in the light of current events. It basically justifies the various horrible war crimes the Russians are committing right now - a major part of the films plot is that everyone outside of the big cities in Russia has turned into an alien zombie and they must ALL, repeat ALL, be murdered, however unarmed, young, or old they may be.
In one scene, a young survivor is interviewed, then suddenly attacks our heroes for no reason and must be shot out of hand. In another, a greiving woman must be murdered by the hero. Eventually, every civilian in an entire city turns into a rampaging mob, and of course, must be massacred by the heroes. It is incredibly disgusting.
This film is literally grooming Russians to become war criminals.
Obviously, such content goes a long way to explaining the behaviour of Russian troops in Ukraine- this is the sort of thing they are consuming at home.
Other than the above, it is incredibly banal science fiction, barely worthy of the name. Absolute crap.
Interstellar (2014)
A chick flick pretending to be SF. Plagiarises a good writer, too.
Well, Nolan's sold out. And quite spectacularly, too. From the heights of Inception, Memento, and Batman Begins, to this. It's a pretty long drop.
In lots of ways this film is good, amazing visuals etc, but what really annoys me is (a) the whining Americans whining about their families storyline and (b) the fact that he's massively ripped off two sci-fi novels by Stephen Baxter, called "Time" and "Space" respectively, and doesn't seem to have credited it.
Stephen Baxter if you can read this, sue this piece of sh*t.
*********************SPOILER ALERT *******************************
In the books, humans discover a time machine in space and Earth faces ruin within 200 years. In the story, humans discover a time machine in space and Earth faces ruin in a similar time frame. In "Time", an astronaut sends information back in time through the wormhole thingie. In the film, pretty much the same thing happens. In the other Baxter novel, "Space", time dilation plays a huge part in the plot, an astronaut returns to the Solar System still wearing his old pressure suit and is revived in an advanced space station of the future. In the film... you see what I'm getting at?
********************* END OF SPOILER ALERT ************************
Plaigiarism IS a nasty word, but basically... this film massively plagiarises Baxters' books and that makes me very angry.
The worst thing was, he took Baxters' awesome ideas and turned them into mawkish sentimental Americanized Hollywood slush. I hate to use sexist terms, but at the end of the day - this is a chick flick pretending to be SF, and we should all be insulted by it.
Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)
A waste of celluloid... Jarmusch should be ashamed of himself.
This is the worst movie I've ever seen, and I've seen The Room *and* Plan 9 From Outer Space.
What can I say? This isn't just a bad film, this is the worst film ever made. The characters are unsympathetic, the plot hackneyed and boring, the pace glacial. It's a love story about two vampires who care about the environment and human rights, or something. Even the soundtrack is terrible.
This film manages to cram in every clichè from every bad vampire movie ever made. Adam and Eve (no, really) spend their immortal centuries whining about the environment and "zombies" (ie, humans), name dropping all the famous people they've met throughout history, and hanging out in undiscovered hipster paradises Detroit and Tangiers while scoffing hospital blood (because, among other things, fresh human blood is too "contaminated"). Oh, and they wear sunglasses at night and wear gloves all the time, no doubt 'cause they're so, like, sensitive and stuff.
The action, like the plot is almost non-existent - if you took out all the self-indulgent, lingering shots of their dilapidated houses and cities and uninteresting conversations that go nowhere you would have perhaps 20 minutes of footage, at the most. A warning: It manages to look like it might become interesting if you give it ten more minutes for most of the film, and there is an almost interesting bit in the middle - but it's not worth it. This is two hours of your life that you will never, ever get back. I don't care who he is, Jarmusch should be ashamed of himself.
Kuhle Wampe oder: Wem gehört die Welt? (1932)
Historical classic that's blissfully unaware of future horrors.
This film strikes a real chord with me in 2010; like Weimar-era Germans we are suffering from a terrible recession, and like them (but unlike this film) we have a vague sense that something terrible is about to happen.
Interestingly there's no mention of the Nazis in this film, even though they were very much a presence in Germany in 1932. Hitler was getting well into his stride in that year and there were huge street battles between Nazis and "Sozis" yet they are conspicuous by their absence in this film.
All in all Kuhle Wampe gives the impression of a society that's entirely unaware of the nightmare that's about to begin. They're so damn downtrodden yet optimistic, but if half the people who were in this film knew what was about to befall them they'd probably kill themselves too. Hell, even when the Communists got their shot at running things in the DDR after WW2 the result was a police state. Those poor sods.
I really hope we can keep things more civilised this time round.
PS. Look out for the cu-tie in the Kraftwerk outfit - a young lady in a skirt, shirt and tie ensemble - she is totally HOT.
Derren Brown: The Heist (2006)
Chilling... a real life Manchurian Candidate
This is the most frightening thing I've seen on TV since Threads.
Brown proves once again that you can scoop a bunch of people off the streets and make them do pretty much anything. In this case he takes a bunch of suits and turns them into violent, ruthless criminals within a matter of weeks. The techniques are more "superliminal" than subliminal, and seem pretty transparent to us, the audience, yet Brown's "victims" really do act out the scenario, time and again. Three out of four norms pulled the heist.
Hypnotism, mind control, whatever you want to call it - it really works! A thought provoking and frightening example of real-life brainwashing in action.
Shopping (1994)
The chavs of today could learn from Billy's style.
Brilliant if slightly flawed - one for the gutter kids of the 90s.
I didn't think I'd like this film after all these years. Boy was I wrong! Billy is actually much more sympathetic than his role suggests, compared to the criminals of today anyway. He's a loser adrenalin junkie, true, but there's something pure, almost artistic about his love of the chase and addiction to capturing and destroying high powered automobiles.
He doesn't attack people and he isn't in it to make money - he just loves shopping! By which I mean ram-raiding high class shopping malls and stealing odd bits of crap. Billy isn't antisocial, he loves his father (who has given up on him) and has a great platonic love for his girl, whom he doesn't shag but prefers to stay best friends with. All in all, a very sympathetic character that just couldn't exist today. Bit silly, but then I think you had to be around in the 90s to really appreciate what this film's about - there was that time when nobody had any money and car thieves had the edge on the cops, and all their crimes only involved cars and shops anyway, and who cares about some stupid machine? It reminds me a lot of "Crash" - the JG Ballard novel and the late-nineties film - in that it has that Ballardian acknowlegement that we all secretly want the bomb to drop, we want the bad guy to win, and that's what's so great about Shopping. Considering that he's a posh kid Jude Law's performance is stellar.
So if you like the 80s and 90s, like the "industrial" asthetic, love to see cars destroyed, hate (or have hated) authority, watch this film. It's the cools.
Funny Games (2007)
Nihilism - there's nothing to it.
Two well-spoken psychopaths show up at a middle class holiday home. They proceed to torment and then murder the occupants.
Tim Roth does a great job of suffering in this one. Otherwise it's a black comedy-cum-sicko slashfest of the first water. I can honestly tell you not to watch this if you are of a sensitive disposition. A whole load of people left the cinema after the first murder, and I wasn't in the least bit surprised.
The odd thing about this film is the psychic absence of the protagonists. Their polite, well-spoken exteriors fail to conceal a complete and chilling vacancy. During the film they shoot a small boy, leaving even me shocked and disturbed, but the killers only laugh and joke, in fact using the incident to break up the drama. They make repeated references to the "entertainment", reminding me of the YouTube killers, the various thugs who have attacked and / or killed people and put the results on the internet. It reminded me of a comment someone once made, to the effect that perhaps all evil is a lack of something.
At the end of the film, for example, they discuss philosophy together, but one realises very quickly that they are talking complete gibberish.
The most screwy thing about it, though, is that you realise at a certain point that they are actually going through this entire tract of upscale resort homes, picking off the residents household by household. Leaves you with a profound sense of emptiness, which, all in all, is what it's supposed to do, apparently.
Similar films: Rope, A Clockwork Orange, and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. I must admit, I started watching this film thinking "HA! Now the upper middle classes will GET THEIRS!" and ended up thinking =:-O =:-O =:-O =:-O =:-O =:-O =:-O =:-O =:-O
Conclusion: Plenty of surprises and a thought provoking watch for those with a strong stomach.
Runaway (1984)
Great film if you're after a bit of Eighties fun!
Tom Sellick - yes, THE Tom Sellick is a wimpy cop who has busted himself down to the Robot Squad after his pathological fear of heights has resulted in a bad guy getting away and killing six people. His vulnerable bloke type is complemented by female rookie Cynthia Rhodes, it being the Eighties the sexual politics are still pretty caveman like but it's still a cut above the average for the time (apart from Blue Steel I suppose).
This is Michael Crichtons second outing AFAIK after Westworld, and can be seen as a sort of prequel; set before robots are good enough to pass as humans but after they have become an everyday part of the household. The creepy little things are running around killing people and only Sellick and his friends can solve the mystery.
One of the first cracks in the cult of macho invulnerability; the tough guy who looks good with a gun loses out to the geek who's afraid of heights and is good with robots. Watch, and if you think it's dated, just think of the robots as Microsoft Windows with arms and legs!
One more thing - British fans will enjoy the similarity to the contemporary Robo-Hunter comic strip from 2000AD- this should definitely be seen as a compliment to Robo-Hunter (which is itsself a rip off of Blade Runner) rather than a blatant steal. 'Nuff said!
Westworld (1973)
Fabulous early cyberpunk movie with sly underdog elements (mild spoilers)
The 70s movie that inspired 'Terminator' is still brilliant. The Delos resort is a machine-run paradise for the rich and bored - At $1000 a day, you can shoot people in lawless WestWorld, joust in lovely, historically-authentic MedievalWorld, or just shag everything that moves in debauched RomanWorld.
Along come our hero Peter and his friend John, your standard yuppy visitors to WestWorld. At first everything is apparently fine, (albeit gross - what kind of sleazebag would actually sleep with a robot?) but in various vignettes set in the technical support centre, robot maintenance workshops and the Delos corporate boardroom we can see a cascade of malfunctions, and that furthermore, "there's a clear analogy to an infectious disease process!" Delos execs sneer at this ("I find it difficult to believe in... a disease of machinery!") but the board decide to stop accepting new residents and wait for the resort to empty out. Sadly, the machines are by now starting to go quite insane and begin attacking guests. For real.
Yul "he's dead now" Brynner is fantastic in this, probably the best robot villain ever made. Although completely amoral (and despite Wild West garb, weirdly reminiscent of Gary Numan's Machmen, probably an inspiration) he starts life as a real-life counterpart to all those video game bad guys that hadn't been invented yet, basically a bullet magnet with a few lousy lines and a gun that doesn't work when pointed at humans. Things change, however when the computer virus finally allows him to shoot back! Bwahahahaha! Now that's what I call an underdog movie! What follows is a fantastic battle royale involving members of the bourgeoisie and their flunkies being variously kebbabed, shot to bits and suffocated before our hero flees for his life through the ruins of the Delos resort complexes. Run, yuppie, run! There are also enough subtle bits which allude to the world of Westworld, such as the multilingual information sign including Cyrillic lettering, hinting at a post-cold war, post-globalisation world, or the callous behaviour of the repair tech who utterly refuses to help the main character, as well as the repeated allusions to sex with robots and the whole sadistic, control-freak premise of the Delos resort - when you think about it, people in the future are really rather unhealthy. This is well-done because it's so understated; part of the film's background psychology rather than a Big Social Statement getting in the way of all the mayhem and fun.
This film still thrills, is the inspiration for much of what we might call cyber-culture, and hasn't dated too much - so you haven't seen Westworld, you should. Assuming you like that sort of thing, of course.
Doctor Who: The Sound of Drums (2007)
Excellent Who episode (mild spoilers)
Dark, weird, funny, Not Just For Kids - this is more like classic Doctor Who, blending psychology and political science with the usual ray guns and aliens. Shades of The Omen in the flashback sequence as well! Much better than The Parting Of The Ways and even better than last years season finale, this episode sees all the little bits of info that have been, almost subliminally, given the viewer throughout the series come together to make a blockbusting slam-bang of an episode, as they say in movieland. Find out why people keep mentioning "the election", the identity of the sinister Men In Black who have been taping Martha's calls to her mum, and much more.
And I couldn't help noticing - Simms has really got Tony Blair's twitchy freak down pat - right down to the speech patterns and crazed grin.
Mulholland Falls (1996)
A nice little thriller...
What do you get if you take a James-Ellroy style police thriller, add nuclear paranoia, cover-ups, state murder, a great cast, stir and serve? Mullholland Falls, that's what.
Nick Nolte's elite LAPD unit deals with gangsters in the most violent way possible - it takes them to a cliff (Mulholland "Falls" - geddit?) and pushes them off. If they survive they are then told to leave the city. This is fine until the come across a dead girl on some waste ground who has some unusual injuries. What follows is great - I've always wondered what would happen if you took various members of the establishment in the '50s and ran them up against each other. Nolte's arrogant city cop clashes brilliantly with Malkovicth's nerdy, ailing nuclear general and his scary adjutant Col. Nathan Fitzgerald, who reminds me an awful lot of Oliver North.
The acting isn't great, but the themes and plot structure more than make up for it - especially the feeling that it's all vaguely reality-based. There really was a Hat Squad in LA in that period and there really have been weird and horrible experiments done on US soldiers and civilians alike - such as the infamous tuskegee experiment and the "atomic veterans" - soldiers who were literally used as human test dummies, ordered to march through clouds of fallout, stand close to nuclear explosions and so on.
I'd probably have given it an even higher rating if it wasn't for the acting, which on occaision was a bit stilted.
Mulholland Dr. (2001)
I don't really see the point second time round
...but I'll still give it 7/10.
A woman with no memory appears mysteriously in Betty's aunt's apartment, shortly before Betty, an aspiring hopeful from Canada, moves in. The Woman With No Name takes the name "Rita" from a Rita Heywood poster on the wall, and Betty allows her to stay for a while - she is injured and has a bag full of money and a strangely shaped, blue key.
The pair have some romantic adventures together trying to piece together "Rita's" story, and the clues lead them to a dead body. They run away screaming, then have sex and fall in love. Then they rush off to the Club Silencio - where it is revealed that "It's all a tape!" - i.e, the last hour has been an hallucination. Oh, goody.
Betty finds the box that the key opens, and they rush home to try it out. Then Betty disappears and Rita is left to open the box.
Some surreal things happen and Betty turns out to actually be Diane, former dead body and jilted lover extraordinary. Her lover - "Rita" has completely £%*&ed her over and run off with her director, Adam. Diane has taken out a contract on her exes life, then has a psychotic episode and kills herself.
So what? Personally, I'd have shot the pair of them - Rita and that @#£$%&*% director both.
The X Files: How the Ghosts Stole Christmas (1998)
Best Christmas TV episode since Steptoe and Son.
I disagree with both the above posters. I think this episode would be very accessible to non-X-files fans. And, in the world of the X-Files, all the paranormal things are real, so the ghosts are real.
Being ghosts, they can read people's minds, and so they accurately diagnose Mulder as a narcissist and Scully as his co-dependant. The psychology is accurate; pairings of this sort are quite common, and the parapsychology milieu seems like ideal place for such people to hang out in.
I think this episode is a brilliant insight into the characters of Mulder and Scully. I mean, how surprised were you when Mulder shot Scully? Even if it did turn out to be the ghosts playing games; as in other episodes where evil Mulder dopplegangers attack Scully, (and where the real Mulder attacks Skinner) there's something in there that suggests that Mulder could indeed turn violent on his friends in the right circumstances. Narcissists become very nasty when crossed, and that's what makes that ghosts lay analysis of Mulder so good.
In summation; this is probably the best Christmas episode of any TV show since Steptoe and Son.
[Anti]killer (2002)
Real horrorshow!
What's not to like? A gritty crime movie with lashings of the old ultraviolence all round! I like the way the film makers portray the desperation of life on Moscow's streets, i.e the Granny that steals food from a corpse, the banker who has to hire maniacs to protect him from gangsters.
It seems the Russians love their action movies too - but in many ways it's more like a Japanese anime film with it's convoluted intra-gang politics and cartoon violence.
True, they could have done with more money - but what the hell, CGI looks crap anyway compared to real stunts. Another gripe is the way things would explode for no reason - like that visual gag in The Simpsons where even if a pram crashes it blows up. But these shouldn't bother anyone who really likes their gangster movies. Korolev is like the Man With No Name, he bludgeons his way through Moscow lowlife until the job is over.
This film r0x0rs! (oh and apparently there is a PC game of it too)
Bad Timing (1980)
A brilliant film about emotional instability, love, hate, madness and crime.
I can't wait to see this masterpiece again. I hate slushy romantic flicks but this is not one of them.
The world of people with extremely unstable emotions is brilliantly evoked in this film.
I love the way they are both *so* messed up. There is no happy ending, this is no fairy-tale romance. The constant breakups, the creepy, almost stalking behaviours, the outbursts, the attacks and counter-attacks and violence and general hell that is borderline personality - it's all there.
Russell's character is a complete mess - drunk, angry, crazy - she has a string of boyfriends with whom she rows constantly, she smashes things up, she smashes herself up and generally goes completely ape.
Garfunkel is brilliant - he has much the same trouble as his girlfriend but he *seems* more subdued, although he hides it better, he keeps coming back to her because *he's the same*.
Keitel's detached, manipulating cop who tries to unravel the whole thing is probably his best ever work. He's either the consummate professional, calmly picking up the pieces after some crazy and damaged people have been desperately trying to destroy themselves and each other, or he's a crafty, manipulating, evil so-and-so - you're never quite sure.
If you like seriously messed-up movies, this film is for you!
Threads (1984)
"I have an educational video for YOU, Cartman."
If you know anyone who is gung-ho about war and nukes and stuff, show them this film. It is the ultimate "educational" video for fans of patriotism, death and destruction. It will disturb and depress, I don't know anyone who hasn't been emotionally affected by it, including myself, and I'm a right callous bastard, me.
Aside from the political content - and it is a political film, reality is political - it is quite simply the ultimate "we are the monsters" horror movie- who needs vampires and werewolves when you can be thrilled and chilled to the destruction of civilisation and indeed life as we know it? My "favorite" bit is the almost Lovecraftian ending when Ruth's daughter gets handed her own deformed, dead baby, and you see her drawing breath for that scream... roll titles. OMG!