Cool Hand Luke

Posted on October 6, 2016 by jaycluitt

A prison chain gang in Florida gains its latest inmate in the form of Lucas “Luke” Jackson (Paul Newman), a war veteran sentenced to two years for cutting the heads off parking meters whilst inebriated. However Luke has a fairly serious issue with authority and a tendency to rebel against any order he is given purely on the grounds of it being an instruction, so prison life isn’t something he fits into well.
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My Week in Movies, 2016 Weeks 36 & 37

Posted on September 20, 2016 by jaycluitt

Late again, sorry, same excuse: I’ve been busy, but this time exceptionally so. I’m writing this from a hotel room in China, where I’ll be spending the foreseeable future on a trip for work. How much time I’ll be spending in the room is as yet undefined, hence my references earlier this month with regards to how productive I’ll be blog-wise in September. So far? Not very. Anyway it’s been a busy couple of weeks preparing for this trip, but I do have a fair few films to discuss. So many in fact that I’m going to cut off the diary at this most recent Friday, and I’ll aim to pick up the weekly format this coming Friday, when hopefully I’ll have a little more time to catch you up on, amongst other things, some new releases from this year that I watched on the plane. For now though, here’s what I watched fairly recently, in the latest addition of what should really be called My Fortnight in Films:
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Top 10… Movies With All-Male Casts

Posted on April 5, 2013 by jaycluitt

I’m off on a stag do this weekend – paint-balling, followed by drinking, in case you were wondering, although personally I think those should be the other way around – and in fact this is the first stag do I’ve ever been on, so I’m a little apprehensive as to what’s going to go down amidst a group of guys I know next to nothing about, seeing as the only one I really know is the groom. This concern comes from all the bachelor parties I’ve seen in films, and how none of them have ever really worked out all that well. The obvious list I jumped to was top 10 bachelor parties in films, but alas I couldn’t think of 10 (in descending order: The Hangover 2, American Pie: The Wedding, The Hangover, Bachelor Party, Very Bad Things, Clerks 2, Sideways), so I switched it out for something similar, celebrating the films that, just like the traditional stag do, don’t allow women in them. I had to take a few liberties here – you’ll see what I mean – but I think they’re acceptable. In fact, this list contains several of my all-time favourite films, two of which I have posters of in my lounge, which may say something about my opinions of women in cinema… Oh, and before you check, no, there isn’t any gay porn on here.

Honourable Mention: Outpost

Zombies! Nazi zombies! Ridiculous Nazi zombies! The premise for this film is, well, kinda dumb – a rich dude hires a group of mercenaries to take him to an underground bunker, where they discover the Nazis performed some tests in WW2 to create an unkillable soldier, and wouldn’t you know it, whilst they’re their they manage to resurrect them – and the film itself plays out little better. The only ‘names’ amongst the cast are Michael Smiley (Spaced, Kill List) and Ray Stevenson (Thor, Punisher: War Zone) and the director, Steve Barker, has made nothing else of note save a crap-looking sequel, but despite the unlikable characters (particularly Robert Blake’s greasy Prior) and evidently low budget, this still has its moments. Can’t help thinking Nazi zombies have a great deal more to offer than this though. I really wanted Con Air to take this position, or Armageddon, but they have fairly prominent female roles, dammit. Continue reading →