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I describe this film Airport 77 meets Thunderball,because of the plane went down to the bottom of the ocean,when crashed in the Bermuda Triangle,but what a star-studded performance in this film and most of the stars sadly no longer with us and original title of this film was called Airport 3 in some parts in other countries.

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Originally posted by HelBic in the notes section....

I saw this movie with my then girlfriend in the mid 70's and frankly, it was the closest thing to a porno movie you could see without attending a 'specialist' cinema - none of which I knew where to find at the time.

In the 70's it was pretty risque as there was a lot of nudity in it. Now it'd probably be shown on the Disney channel!


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Cinema:
Godzilla
Review by Magic Marmalade
Big monsters beating the snot out of each other...

...What more does a grown man need?

I was expecting to be disappointed by this, but for all the CGI and bells and whistles, it's essentially an old school Godzilla movie... and I couldn't be happier :)

Sometimes you want thoughtfulness and poignant, layered, nuanced dramatic content... but mostly you want a couple of hours of not thinking, and this is just the ticket.

(It doesn't bear analysis).

Godzilla rocks!

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Brilliant and inventive storytelling from Jaco Van Dormael, his debut full length feature. It is the life story of Thomas as told by the protagonist from traumatic childhood to embittered old man fretting over the life he could have had, had he been born Alfred - his neighbour and enemy. The three ages of Thomas' life are told in fragments but so expertly woven together that the 90 minutes fly by. The film has some strange moments of fantasy to divert you and drops clues that you will need to think about carefully to fully appreciate what is going on.

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Another bout of insomnia made me watch this on the telly last night...

Having seen it was written and directed by Mike Cahill, and also featuring Brit Marling, who starred in his other film: "Another Earth", I thought I'd give it a crack, as that one was excellent.

...And Like that this is a thoughtful, steady paced piece of science fiction, centred around a great idea - no flashing lights, candy coloured CGI that would give your eyes diabetes, strobing zoetrope editing, or other assorted nonsense that most Hollywood greenlighters often mistake for making great sci-fi.

It centres around the idea of a genetic scientist looking for the origins of the human race - sans intelligent creator... that "God" chap you hear so much of - through the study of the human eye, as pertaining to memory - and eyes in general with the assistance of his new intern (Brit Marling), but through an encounter with a mysterious girl at a party (who just turns out to be a supermodel with "spiritual" sensibilities. he is progressively challenged in his view of science and the world, and the origins of life etc.

Big themes which have been systematically, ham-fisted by "better" writer / directors many times before (Either the science gets the better of them... if they even bother trying, or the spiritual aspect sees them wading way out of their depth) ...and to begin with, you think this is going that way, by Mike Cahill proves that Another Earth wasn't a fluke, by understanding that a lightness of touch is required to pull this kind of thing off, without getting bogged down in the logic, or trying to turn back-flips in trying not to look out of your depth, or simply devolving into delivering a sermon - just give the audience enough pegs in the storyline to hang their own imaginative hats on, then let them do the thinking, while you concentrate on story and character... All of which he does masterfully.

...And from the inauspicious start, something really engaging, smart and poetic develops.

Other directors have promised, on early showings, this kind of priomise, but then cave into to Hollywood and take the fat pile of cash to make a "Blockbuster" (ahem -Duncan Jones: Moon< brilliant / Source Code< great story idea, buried under CGI = disappointment), I hope Mr Cahill doesn't cave in in this way, because if he keeps making movies in this manner, and are as good, I will watch anything he makes now :)

Great film.

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Just caught this last night on BBC iPlayer and was absolutely gobsmacked with it. To call this a mere thriller would be a bit of understatement. It had me glued to the screen with my heart racing and doing the odd somersault into my throat. This is one movie that really doesn't go the way you expect it to, needless to say I'm not going to put any spoilers here but if you get the chance to watch, grab it before it leaves iPlayer, other than that it can hired from Amazon. Maxine Peake, as always, puts in a stunning performance that can't be faulted in any way. If you enjoy rollercoaster movies I would highly recommend it

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Cinema:
Basic Instinct 2 (2006)
Review by zabadak
At the end, the credits list the characters in order of appearance - even knowing who was in it, it was still a surprise to see the first name was one... Stan Collymore! :shocked:

Anyway - not a great film but enjoyable mush... :happy:

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Cinema:
Ghosts (2006)
Review by harley
Ai Qin Lin is one of the survivors of this terrible true life event she was a illegal immigrant cockle picker at the dangerous Morecambe Bay and who paid a Gangmaster to bring her into the UK. She came to the UK to help her family but was deported back to China not long after. In all 23 illegal workers lost their lives whilst cockle-picking on Morecambe Bay.

The film also show how cruel the Gangmasters are to illegal immigrant showing how they get from China to the UK in terrible conditions, living in awful crowded houses and making them work in conditions in a area which they knew known was a death trap.

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Saw this for the first time(!) last night and thoroughly enjoyed it!

OK, Ray Harryhausen's special effects have not exactly stood the test of time and the dialogue was creakier than the wooden sets but, taken with a (large!) pinch of salt, it was rather fun! :happy:

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Aiming to be a kind of Picnic At Hanging Rock for our times...

...with all the whoosy, surreal atmosphere of that odd, enigmatic masterpiece, this doesn't really achieve that lofty ambition.

Like Picnic, it centres around a strange happening occurring to a group schoolgirls, whereby they begin to act oddly, dance about in a trance-state, then "fall" on the floor.

>your joke here< :)

It's all "metaphor for sexual awakening" and so-on, which the whole film is based around. Unfortunately, rather than being mysterious and enigmatic, it comes off as crudely done, melodramatic, and a bit embarrassing. Their "falling" has these girls waving their arms about and trancing away in a manner more like the first meeting of the local Am-dram society than being a serious production, and it undermines the whole concept.

Not the actors fault though, as they all play it through with a straight face, and give as good performance as they can, given what they've been asked to do (They probably thought it would turn out better than it did, themselves)...

Maisie Williams is good, and I understand she's quite popular at the moment in that Lord Of The Rings knock-off, and Maxine Peake is always brilliant in whatever she plays (probably the best actor in Britain today).

But I came away feeling decidedly underwhelmed by it.

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Cinema:
John Wick (2014)
Review by zabadak
Beware the Jabberwock, my son! :erk:

Also, beware the film with five (five!) producers!

Actually, this was quite entertaining. The violence is ridiculous - it plays like a shoot-em-up video game at times - and Keanu rocks his monosyllabic Arnie too much but, still, I will watch the sequel when it appears on DVD.

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Cinema:
Apollo 13 (1995)
Review by zabadak
A labour of love for Mr. Hanks, this - check out his TV series From The Earth To The Moon - you can bet he talked to the real-life protagonists at length! :happy:

It has a feeling of accuracy (I'm not as au fait with the story as I would like, even though I remember it happening) so I applaud everyone for that.

Of course, it is (or should be!) no spoiler alert to say that it all works out in the end. This removes a great deal of the peril while watching but there was a great deal of anxiety, worldwide, while the events unfolded! This is well portrayed here.

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Beautifully shot and with great acting, especially the unnerving Angela Pleasence who inherited all her father Donald's air of understated menace.

A modern horror fan may find this film a little boring. It's very slow paced but I found the English countryside calm made the shocks all the more shocking. The soundtrack/effects are great too. Nothing like a good old creaky door to add terror to proceedings.

I'm still not convinced so much damage can be done with such a modest knife though. It looks more like it should be used for peeling potatoes!

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Children of the night! Shut up!

Oh yes, love at first view for me!

This is hilarious! George Hamilton plays the Lon Chaney-isms to perfection and Susan St. James is a willing victim, knowing full well what Drac is and what he wants, and doing it very cutely.

An entirely knowing film, made all the more affecting by the clever, sympathetic performances from the two leads (plus Richard Benjamin, always VFM!).

The bizarre plot needs to be read to be (un)believed! :happy:

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I knew this film has had pretty luke-warm reviews and is already considered a pretty major flop but it seemed like the least bad option at my local multiplex so I decided to give it a go.

Perhaps I wasn't expecting that much and really this is a 6/10 but I really enjoyed it. It's pretty unbelievable but it has a great cast and the overall look is Art Deco style lush. One big gripe would be that it's replaced the silly 'Hooker with a heart of gold' cliché with 'Gangster with a heart of gold' but hey! It's Hollywood. I was willing to buy into the nonsense and just enjoy the performances and narrative.

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A gloriously over the top giallo(ish) horror, very loosely adapted from Edgar Allen Poe's 'The Black Cat'

An impressive fluffy black cat called 'Satan' is indeed one of the absolute stars of the film. The other star being Euro beauty Edwige Fenech playing a 'bad girl' for the first time in her career. That said the whole cast are great. It's not quite clear who are the goodies or baddies or indeed which of them are sane!

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Ben Benjamin (Paul Rudd) takes the job of caregiver for teenager Trevor (Craig Roberts) who is suffering with Duchenne muscular dystrophy which leaves him tied to a wheelchair with a daily routine of treatment and medication. A modest life expectancy is the cherry on a particularly sh*tty cake.

Trevor is an understandably troubled and cynical teenager but what becomes apparent is that Ben also has his demons and the pair quickly form an uneasy bond.

Halfway through the film turns into a kind of Road Movie, dragging in several more broken characters they meet along the way.

At it's worst the film dips into the well of Hollywood clichés but overall it stays on the right side of the cheese line. The cast are good and for a TV movie (albeit of the modern 'Netflix' kind) it has high production values. If anything I think I would have preferred a slightly slower pace and a bit more character insight into Ben and Trevor's mother Elsa. Another 30mins running time may have transformed this into a great film but as it stands I'd rate it 'good'.

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Cinema:
Doctor Strange (2016)
Review by zabadak
Yes, yes and yes!

We really enjoyed this, Mme Zabadaque and I!

OK, it's an effects-driven movie. OK, Bonydick Cucumbersandwich does his Sherlock schtick again.

HOWEVER, we found the whole thing really engaging and a worthy entry into the Marvel canon (if that's not your thing, well...).

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This originated as a ballet by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. There's classical orchestral accompaniment, but I would not call that a "musical". I don't recall comedy that the description here states, and anything incidental would not make this a "comedy".
The players are ballet dancers throughout the film, with the camera among them. A well-executed idea relating Stoker's novel. Mainly black and white, with subtitles, harking back to silent films.

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On Halloween night, two middle-aged couples prepare to attend a friend's annual party. Though the evening begins as usual, familiar traditions slowly unravel when the foursome shares a bottle of South American ceremonial wine made from the skin of blue dart tree frogs. Under the influence of this tribal truth serum, they share an unpredictable and hilarious night of unbridled honesty that stretches the bounds of their friendship forever.

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Cinema:
Peter's Friends (1992)
Review by zabadak
Yawn-inducing luvvie-fest :angry:

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The sun is dying.

...Running out of Sunny D or something.

And so scientists and astronauts are assembled to take an enormous nuclear Rubik's Cube up to the sun and detonate it, thus giving it the extra kick it needs to keep going.

It's a fairly straight-forward plot, and this is usually a very good premise, despite it's simplicity, for a great character study... bods in a box, for a very long time, going slightly crazy as they go...
...So far, so good, and I have to say I was very excited about this film when it came out, as Danny Boyle never lets you down.

But.......

Unfortunately, this film doesn't really have the courage of it's convictions, in seeing this premise all the way through, and instead bottles it I think, but opting instead for the usual recourse of lazy or frustrated script writers when they hit a wall in resolving a plot line, and turn it into some kind of Sci-fi horror monster movie at the end.

(I won't spoil for those who haven't seen it yet, but leave it at that)

Up until this moment though, it's brilliant, with an excellent cast working through the character conflicts and the potential catastrophes which can come from the smallest mistakes in space... drama enough I'd have said, and had they (Boyle principally) stuck it out, this could have been one of the great Sci-fi movies... but instead, it's just a pretty good one.

Worth watching though

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"Tired of being on the heights I deliberately went to the depths in the search for new sensations" so wrote Oscar Wilde. In 1962 Mondo Cane served up an exquisite piece of trash for the jaded cinema goer and spawned a whole new genre in the process, (though non match the punch of the original). You want to see an ugly world, a primitive world, the destruction that man is capable of, the odd, the bizarre, the wretched, or to see what the rich get up to behind closed doors, its all here, with a cynical carnival-barker type narrator, glorious cinematography and a lush score (including a worldwide hit). The film now looks a little dated but remains a must-see, some scenes are unsettling and guaranteed to leave you ruffled.

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Turn off your mind, relax and float down stream. Jodorowsky's visual stream of consciousness is splurged before our eyes in an avalanche of dazzling, bewildering and grotesque images that make for a uniquely enjoyable cinematic experience. I am sure there are mystic and allegorical references aplenty for the enlightened ones to spot but when Jodorowsky finally leads his bald-headed followers out of the freak show and up the Holy Mountain things become crushingly mundane until eventually reality calls a halt to the proceedings.

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The Feebles are not your average ordinary people - no kidding! these are bitchy puppets and they get up to all sorts of criminal and abhorrent behaviour and all done in the worst possible taste. Actually when you think about it they are quite like your average ordinary celeb really. The story concerns a variety show troupe with 12 hours to get rehearsed and ready before a live TV broadcast, but everything that can go wrong will go wrong. One hilarious jaw-dropping experience, its hard to believe that such a film could possibly exist, well recommended.

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In this early short film by Paul Bartel a nurse on her lunch break abandons the hospital for a more pressing engagement at a cheap hotel. Bartel’s subversive and humorous touch is fully evident in this 9 minute wonder.

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Mad scientist and plastic surgeon Dr Cortner saves the head of his girlfriend, who's body has been destroyed in a car crash, by keeping it alive in a dish of chemicals. He then sets off on a mission to find the perfect body for her, but unbeknown to him she develops a telepathic link to a monster lurking in the laboratory who will give her the revenge that she craves.

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Based on the true story of Clarus, the resistance leader in Madagascar, who is captured and faces extradition to Vichy, but is then freed by British forces and sets up Radio Free Madagascar offshore to broadcast propaganda. Its a story of duplicity told in clever flashbacks and played by the man himself, who was an actor at the time, but the finished film was never seen by it's intended audience.

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Some online reviews for this film prefer to attach a racism subtext to this film, which I find perplexing. Race exists within the story, but that is simply because race exists period! Yes, it's Alabama, and yes, the real life John Patterson was a racist and segregationist in the George Wallace vein, but the movie never goes there. Aside from the response from a cop answering the phone call about the dead black girl, there is no trace of race and white indifference, despite some claims to the contrary. Unfortunately, modern audiences view everything through a grievance prism and peruse all media in search of injustice they might embrace and draw attention to.

The introduction sequence is carelessly elongated and would only have been interesting if trimmed tight like the rest of the film. Otherwise, this is a very intense thriller considering its release date.

Interestingly enough, director Phil Karlson more or less remade this film as Walking Tall with some scenes practically 1:1 shots, characters rubber-stamped, and the same string of events unfolding in the same order as that mostly fictional biopic which managed to be even more violent than its parent source.

It's a story about a city run by criminals living above the law and decency standards of the community, characters muscling extreme brutality over anybody who dares to raise a voice in their direction (ie, when a gambler catches the house cheating him and speaks up, he's beaten within an inch of his life and dumped in the streets.) Children are hit by cars or outright murdered, a politician shot in cold blood - just a catalog of corruption.

No marquee stars to get in the way of the storytelling, but it was nice seeing character actor Edward Andrews in such a serious role, rather than the comedy stereotype he's better known for. Also, Kathryn Grant is very cute. I would hesitate to even call this film noir, since it really doesn't follow the conventions of the genre, but it will certainly appeal to fans of the form or anyone else looking for a great, lost sleeper.

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Ace director Jacques Tourneur yet again proves his masterly atmospheric touch with this tense and chilling psychological horror based on M.R.James' short story Casting The Runes.
American psychologist John Holden travels to Britain on the invitation of Professor Harrington, who is currently engaged in a public spat with occultist Dr Karswell. However Holden arrives to find that Harrington has been killed in a freak car accident during a storm, with Karswell gloating on his demise. Holden is keen to expose wealthy Karswell as a fraud who preys on vulnerable people, but Karswell proves to be a difficult case being both charming and hospitable one minute and then disarming and sinister the next. Karswell slips Holden a mystical parchment and then strange things happen that even Holden cannot easily explain away. Desperation takes hold as Holden is forced to believe the hex is real, but how can he break the spell?

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