2010-2019 in review

This time last decade, and doesn’t that make me feel old, we did our top 10’s of the decade. However, as we career towards 2020 none of us felt especially inspired, or even able, to create another top 10. This led to some discussion as to why we feel like this, what’s changed in the last 10 years other than us being older, albeit not necessarily wiser?

Buckle up this is a long one

Jarv’s Schlock Vault: Tales of an Ancient Empire

Only half…

Christ it’s bloody dusty in here. I guess we should have invested in that maid service after all…

Tales of an Ancient Empire is the sequel to The Sword and the Sorcerer, a frankly ludicrous piece of 1980’s sword and sandal cheese with one of the simultaneously daftest but also most awesome weapons that this weird little subgenre produced. In all honesty, none of these films, bar the first Conan, are what you’d call actually good but a few of them, Beastmaster, Hawk the Slayer, Krull, TSATS etc, did aspire to highly entertaining cheese. And due to ratings laxity (because 1980’s) invariably slipped an awful lot of adult content into the fragile retinas of young kids. Such as me.

The Return of Jarv’s Birthday Series- Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014)

I’d completely repressed the fact that we’d done these bloody birthday series, which come complete with the added bonus of only being stopped by the reviewers’ actual death. Anyhoo, as I’m still on the unemployment train, I thought I’d have a look to see what treasures 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 had left for me before my imminent birthday this year. So, having briefly perused Wikipedia, I was quite pleased to see a palatable list that I’ve already (for the most part) seen and, more importantly, didn’t hate. My provisional list is: Premium Rush, You’re Next, Sinister 2 and, for 2014 and today’s entry, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. I’ll also update the scores for the first run through after I catch up with 2016’s entry.

Contains new material written especially for Werewolves on the Moon that isn’t as good as the material that has already been published in this series (heh) and spoilers below

Made in Britain: High Rise

I like Ben Wheatley films. Hell,  I even gave the nod to Kill List for my film of the year, and I rated Down Terrace quite highly too. Unlike Droid, I even found something to like in Sightseers. However, I found A Field in England to be a risible load of art student toss, and I’ve got nothing good to say about it. Unfortunately, for me, I don’t like J. G. Ballard, believing him to be probably the most overrated author Britain’s produced in the last 100 years. So, it was with somewhat mixed feelings that I sat down to watch Wheatley’s adaptation of Ballard’s famously unfilmable High Rise- a movie that spent the better part of 30 years failing to make it to the screen.

Contains social commentary (groan) and spoilers below

Being a responsible parent: Bumper 6 months unemployed edition! Part 1- Animation

The only benefit of long-term unemployment is that I’ve been able to spend an awful lot of time with Finn while he’s growing up. Other than that, and I do not say this lightly, this has probably been the most miserable 7 (count ’em) months out of work that I’ve ever had. However, keeping a happy smile firmly plastered to my face, I’m going to look at the bright side in that I’ve managed to indoctrinate watch a lot of stuff with the little ‘un. So, here’s a brief round-up of some of the many films that we’ve sat through.

What’s this? Burt is back in TREMORS 5!!!

I’m stunned that Tremors has now made it to 5 movies and a TV series. Stunned. Who would have thought the original Jaws in the desert premise could sustain a franchise of this duration- it’s almost 30 years old now, and still going strong. Sure, K-Bacs and Fred Ward abandoned ship long ago, but there’s one man that’s held on: Michael Gross has almost turned Burt Gummer into a cottage industry, and is still playing the grizzled survivalist and paranoid nutter, even he’s approaching Paul Kersey age.

Contains Daddy issues (ugh) and Spoilers below

Chrysalis (2008)

Director: Tony Baez Milan

Starring: John Klemantaski, Darren Kendrick, Glen Vaughan

I think it fair to say the works of Ray Bradbury haven’t always been best served by the movies. Didn’t know about this adaption and I cannot readily recall the short story from whence it came. But, tell you what, someone should’ve warned this daft scientist about chugging Baby Bio straight from the bottle. May contain an irritating fungal infection and spoilers…

Made In Britain: Kingsman

Well, colour me surprised. After the terminally shit Kick Ass and Kick Ass 2, and the less than wholly whelming (to put it mildly) X: Men prequel, I’d written Matthew Vaughan off as someone that had it once, lost it, and cannae get it back. As such, and given that Kingsman was from a funnybook by Mark Millar, I had the film also written off as another lame Bond spoof along the lines of Jonny English. Except, given Millar’s involvement, probably more unpleasant. Imagine my surprise, when it proved to be quite entertaining and a highly watchable, albeit flawed, film- so much better than I thought it was going to be.

Contains Harry Palmer Gentlemen Spies and spoilers below

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Apocalypse, part 3: Snowpiercer (2014)

I once toyed with the idea of doing a film series called “The Overrated” and jamming it full of terrible films that receive a vigorous critical nut massage, either by legitimate critics such as Bradshaw of The Guardian (looking at you, Bridesmaids), or from fat, terminally virginal “geek” reviewers (take your pick, there are millions of them), or even films that achieve massive critical and commercial acclaim across the board while, frankly, stinking (paging Forrest Gump). Anyway, I discarded the idea on the basis that each review would be a mixture of me ranting and being bewildered, or sometimes even supplying a bit of bewildered ranting. Nevertheless, I’m more than a little bit disappointed to have my shiny new Apocalypse series tainted by one of this category with 2014’s insanely overrated Snowpiercer chugging out of the station.

Contains a worse train service than Thameslink and Spoilers below. 

I wish I was dead: Death Wish 5

Everyone remembers the Simpson’s gag with an ancient Charles Bronson in Death Wish 9 saying “I wish I was dead, Oy”, and now we’re at the film that it best applies to on my little journey following the Kerse’s violent retribution on Street Punks. Death Wish 5: The Face of Death is the film where the series finally topped out, and is, frankly, a pretty poor way for the Kerse to check out. This is a franchise that should have been put in an old folk’s home after the third installment.

Contains bizarre transvestite hitmen with dandruff and spoilers below.