About 'Room 237'

Interesting (very short) article on the Vulture:
Stanley Kubrick's Shining Assistant Thinks Room 237 Is 'Pure Gibberish'

...and it's not actually Room 237 in the book.

10 Rillington Place

This is the true story of serial killer John Christie (portrayed by Richard Attenborough) and a case of miscarriage of justice involving Timothy Evans (played by John Hurt).

Between 1943 and 1953, Mr. Christie strangled 8 (known) victims, including baby Geraldine Evans. The film details the time of Geraldine's parents short stay in a rental apartment at the title giving address.

After Christie murdered Beryl Evans he tells her husband Timothy, who by modern standards would be considered mentally challenged, that she accidentally died while he helped her terminate an unwanted pregnancy. He urged Evans to leave town until the investigation about his wife's death had died down. The unfortunate Geraldine gets left in the 'care' of Christie.

Evans was apprehended and as a result of a false confession was then tried for the murder of his daughter and sentenced to death by hanging. He was executed in 1950. This enabled Christie to murder a few more women, including his wife Ethel. He was later detected and finally hanged in 1953.

The argument that Evans was in fact innocent of the crime he was accused of was brought forward in a book by Ludovic Kennedy, which lead to a revision of the case. Evans was officially pardoned in 1966.

Very well acted by both leads.

6/10

Submarine

Life is difficult for Oliver Tate.

He needs to get a girlfriend to lose his virginity to, preferably his schoolmate Jordana, while at the same time trying to resurrect his parent's marriage, that appears to be in shambles. His mother's former 'friend' Graham (Paddy Considine with one of the worst mullets in recent history) moved in next door.

Oliver himself moves through life in insecurity and wide-eyed desperation. He gets Jordana, but having a girlfriend brings a lot of complications with it, for one her family including a mother sick with cancer and a dead dog. His covert operations to keep his parent's marriage intact don't seem to do a lot of good either. Eventually, however, some things sort themselves out.

It's weird and dorky and very funny. I love this!

Great soundtrack, too!

8/10

Wreck-It Ralph

A cute little film about video arcade games. And you don't have to know arcade games to enjoy it.

Wreck-It Ralph, the title character, is the bad guy in Fix It Felix Jr. Basically, he spends his time beating down on a building that Felix and his friends live in. Felix, with his magic hammer, fixes it all up again and gets a medal and has cake with all the friends he saved. Ralph, however, lives in a dump all by himself, dreaming of getting a medal himself one day. Then everyone would love him...or at least invite him to the party celebrating the 30th anniversary of the game he is in.

When he takes matters in his own (huge) hands and gets a medal in a game called Hero's Duty he starts total chaos in the game he went rouge in, as well as his own. Felix sets after him to keep them from getting unplugged, along with the tough blond chick from Hero's Duty.

In another game, called Sugar Rush, he encounters a loner, Vanellope, who is kept out of the regular races for being a 'glitch'. After a bad first meeting, that has Vanellope stealing and misusing Ralph's medal, the team up to resurrect Vanellope's avatar and save Sugar Rush from the drones that made it over from Hero's Duty.

Sounds complicated? It's not. It's lovely.

7/10

Moonraker

Hugo Drax, an eccentric billionaire (and aren't they all eccentric?) steals a Moonraker space shuttle, that his own company built and that was on loan to the UK. Yes, yes, it is hijacked in mid-air! Why would he steal his own shuttle, you ask? Because he 'needed it', due to some malfunction in one of his own shuttles, he builds for his personal use (one assumes). He needs it to shoot a nerve gas - deadly to humans, harmless to animals - into the earth's atmosphere to get rid of all humanity.

The idea is to spend some time in a space station together with a number of genetically perfect young men and women. Then, after life on earth is deemed safe again (probably Wall-E will report on that) they shall return and repopulate the planet.

The henchmen sent after the inquiring James Bond are one Chang, Asian and therefore expert in martial arts, and the indestructible Jaws, who in pursuit of Bond and one Dr. Holly Goodhead (an astronaut) bites through a cable holding a cable car, among other unpleasantries he showers on the good guys. However, he will take 007's side eventually, because he realizes he is not a member of the master race.

Bond has at this point also survived an attempt on his life by centrifugal force and a rather mundane sniper, he takes out with a hunting riffle. Also, he has jumped out of airplane without a parachute before we even got to the beginning credits (the title theme the third and weakest by Shirley Bassey). Also we have witnessed the demise of one of Drax's unwitting minions who gets chased down and killed by two dogs.

Anyway, the final showdown this time takes place in - drumroll! - in outerspace! With lasers! And villain ejected into the universe!

What nonsense!

3/10

Manos: The Hands of Fate

This is widely believed to be one of the worst films ever made. It is currently third from the bottom on imdb's 'bottom 100' list - only, uhm, beaten (?) by Disaster Movie and The Hottie & the Nottie (both feature star power that Manos can simply not keep up with).

Where to begin? The acting is as bad as the script is stupid. The dialogue the poor people have to work with is as shallow as it gets. After all, this was only made because of a bet that director/star (?) Harold P. Warren made with a screenwriter who was in his hometown to scout for locations.

The story is of a family (parents, daughter, dog) that gets lost in the middle of nowhere, coming among a deserted farm house deserted but for the limping caretaker Torgo. Torgo, apparently a metaphor for a satyr, makes ominous remarks about a 'master' that is initially only present on a strange and fear inducing painting.

When we finally meet him, he is clad in black and red and surrounded by women dressed in nightgowns. The master, who may or may not be dead, comes to life and decides he must sacrifice poor Torgo to the deity "Manos". Torgo is tied to a stone bed and attacked by the women in nightgowns (the 'wives' of the master or something), but he escapes, wounded.

When the master comes upon the family, the father shoots him into the face from close range, but to no avail. The master applies some hypnotic power which turns the mother and daughter into 'wives' for the master and the father into the new caregiver, who at the end of the film welcomes another unfortunate group of lost travelers.

Needs to be seen to be believed (and cannot possibly be judged in mere numbers).

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane

Every boy in the high school wants to get into Mandy Lane's pants. She's allegedly still a virgin and got hot over the summer (their words, not mine).

A group of her class mates invite her out to Red's (the stoner) parent's farm, along with two cheerleaders (Chloe and Marlin) and two jocks (Bird and Luke). The only other person around is the farm hand Garth. During a night of drugs and alcohol, Mandy's former best friend Emmett - shunned because he made a boy jump off the roof towards a swimming pool (and, unfortunately, not quite making it) - starts killing them off one by one.

The first one to get it is Marlin, gravely wounded but not quite dead when Luke, heavily intoxicated, finds her by the lake. Luke is the first one to go, death by gun. Passed out Marlin gets the butt of the gun in the face (repeatedly), which leads to

DEAD CHEERLEADER ALERT!!!

The four others are at this point unaware of their friends being recently deceased. Bird then runs into Emmett and starts hitting him, before Emmett produces a hunting knife...

In the morning, Grant and Mandy have a heart to heart and we learn that nice, goody two-shoes Mandy is an orphan and that is why she is 'different' from her group of idiot friends. Awww! Then Grant gets lured away by a noise coming from upstairs. Mandy, asleep with her head on the table gets stroked by Emmett's bloody hand, so when Grant returns and sees the blood on her hair and the fridge decides that 'we need to get out of here'. As soon as the door opens, Grant gets shot in the shoulder.

Red and Chloe flee out the back door and find Luke and Marlin's bodies in a field. This leads to some making out (obviously) during which Red gets shot in the back. Chloe runs off into the fields, where she comes upon Bird's body before being chased by a car by Emmett and running....straight into the hunting knife, now held by Mandy herself (who was in on it all along). And again:

DEAD CHEERLEADER ALERT!!!

It was all really a suicide pact. But Mandy has one more surprise in store and planned to get rid of Emmett instead of dying with him. The bitch!

2/10