Spring Breakers

Posted on May 27, 2015 by jaycluitt

This review was originally written as part of my USA Road Trip series for French Toast Sunday.

For this addition of my USA Road Trip I’ll be celebrating – albeit a little tardily – that great American tradition of Spring Break as I delve into the wonderful insanity that is Florida, home state of FTS’ very own Robert, and he has informed me that it is definitively the craziest state in the whole country. Judging by this movie, I’ll have to agree. Spring Break is not a thing in the UK, or at least if it is I was never invited, and for that I’m grateful. I have a reputation for being anti-fun and especially anti-partying, and that goes double for absolutely everything that takes place in Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers, a film that, if I were a character in it, I’d have happily remained in the nondescript, comparatively tedious college town at the start because, as I’m frequently told, I fail at life.
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Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Posted on May 26, 2015 by jaycluitt

Upon returning home from a trip, small town doctor Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) begins to suspect something is wrong. Whilst he was away, his nurse/receptionist informs Miles that he had a waiting room full of patients who all refused to tell her what was wrong, but now all these people are suddenly fine and well. Others complain that people they know aren’t whom they seem to be. On the outside everything looks fine, but there’s a feeling that something is missing. Then, one night whilst catching up with Becky (Dana Winter), an old flame back in town for the first time in 5 years, Miles is called out to an emergency. Friends of his, Jack and Teddy (King Donovan and Carolyn Jones), have found a body that seems to be in the process of forming an exact copy of Jack’s. Dun dun-duuuuuuuuun!
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My Week in Movies, 2015 Week 21

Posted on May 25, 2015 by jaycluitt

It’s safe to say this has been a very unproductive week, List-wise. I didn’t watch anything that I need to review, not even a Road Trip movie for FTS. I did, however, go to the cinema twice, and watch an entire franchise worth of movies for a Lambcast episode, so all is not lost. And I didn’t lose track of any green ticks, so there’s that. Here’s what I watched this week: Continue reading →

The Green Mile

Posted on May 20, 2015 by jaycluitt

This review was originally written as part of my USA Road Trip series for French Toast Sunday.

Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks) was the head prison officer at Cold Mountain Penitentiary’s Death Row, known as the Green Mile, in 1935. Along with having a crippling urinary infection, Paul and his team of good men must also deal with their snivelling bastard of a colleague Percy Wetmore (Doug Hutchison), the governor’s wife’s only nephew, and the various inmates that come through their doors on the way to the execution chair. The most recent of whom, John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan), is a towering, muscle-bound mountain of a man, but with a simple, child-like mind, and something a little special about him that makes Paul doubt whether Coffey has any cause to be on the Mile at all.
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My Week in Movies, 2015 Week 20

Posted on May 18, 2015 by jaycluitt

My first full week back at work (and heck of a work-week at that) and having a houseguest for a week too predictably cut into my effective movie watching and reviewing, but at the last minute I managed to claw in one review that prevented me from losing one of those hard-striven green ticks. No new ones this week, but I’m working on at least oen more for next week, fear not. Here’s what I watched this week: Continue reading →

Vinyl

Posted on May 17, 2015 by jaycluitt

Victor (Gerard Malanga) is a juvenile delinquent. He beats people up and dances a lot, but is apprehended by the police, who re-educate him via brainwashing, until he becomes a better person and less of a danger to society. Not that any of that matters, because this is easily one of the worst so-called-movies in existence. Continue reading →

My Week in Movies, 2015 Week 19

Posted on May 11, 2015 by jaycluitt

Slightly less film watching was done this week. I only had three days off work, and at least one of those was spent predominantly looking after the puppy, so I didn’t get quite as much done as I’d have liked. However, some catching up has been done, and there’s a few more green “Yes!” marks at the bottom of the page today than there were last week. The trick now is keeping it up, and I’m going to give it a good try, although my imminent future will require me to be watching a lot of films not connected with any of my lists for podcasting purposes, but for once in my life I have faith in myself. Here’s what I watched this week: Continue reading →

Wuthering Heights

Posted on May 11, 2015 by jaycluitt

One stormy night, a traveller finds himself sheltering at Wuthering Heights, a rundown, morbid old house that we later learn used to be a home of joy and laughter. Warming himself by the fire, he is told by a servant the tragic story of Heathcliff and Cathy, which will apparently make him believe that ghosts can walk the Earth. Heathcliff, as a boy, was orphaned and then adopted from the streets by Mr. Earnshaw, who already had two children, Hindley and Cathy. The latter took a shining to the new boy, playing with him whenever possible and forging a firm bond, but her older brother saw this newcomer as nothing more than a stableboy, which is the position Heathcliff was reduced to when Mr. Earnshaw passed away and the property became Hindley’s by right. By this time, the adult Heathcliff and Cathy (Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon) are obvisouly in love with one another, but their positions in society prevent them from doing anything about it. When their wealthy neighbour Linton (David Niven) falls for Cathy too, Heathcliff runs away, but seeing as this is a romance movie you know he’ll be coming back, and that it probably won’t work out all that well for everyone involved.
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Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Posted on May 11, 2015 by jaycluitt

In London, real estate agent Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves) is sent to Transylvania to handle the transactions of Count Dracula (Gary Oldman), leaving behind his young fiancée Mina (Winona Ryder). Jonathan gets held up at the Count’s castle, and Mina longs for the man she loves, whilst her friend Lucy (Sadie Frost) picks between three suitors, the gallant Lord Arthur Holmwood (Cary Elwes), the dashing American Quincey P. Morris (Billy Campbell) and the sweet-but-awkward Dr. Jack Seward (Richard E. Grant). Oh, and Dracula is a vampire.
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The Kingdom (Riget) (1994)

Posted on May 10, 2015 by jaycluitt

Stig Helmer (Ernst-Hugo Järegård) is the chief consultant neurosurgeon at the Kingdom hospital in Denmark. He has just transferred from Sweden, having gotten into some trouble for plagiarism, and is plagued with a recent mishap that led to a girl he was operating on suffering severe brain damage. Helmer has various problems to deal with at the hospital, including junior registrar Hook (Søren Pilmark), who lives in the basement performing various errands and making ends meet for everyone in the hospital, whilst gathering potential blackmail information on everyone in any place of power. There’s also Mrs. Drusse (Kirsten Rolffes) a recurring patient with a fixation on the occult, and Moesgaard (Holger Juul Hansen), Helmer’s boss, who is midway through a new initiative to increase morale at the hospital, and continually pesters Helmer to join the hospital’s elite lodge. There’s also the ghost of a little girl and a dog, a phantom ambulance, a pregnancy that increases at a worryingly rapid rate, a surgeon trying to convince the family of a dying patient to donate his liver that contains a rare affliction, some business with a severed head, Haitian zombies and two dish washers who seem to know a great deal more about what’s going on than anyone else.
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