legends of cinema

hello there

sorry for the sparse, somewhat infrequent updates of late, look you see. i've just not really had all that much of interest to post here. which, when you consider what i do believe to be worthwhile to shove on here from time to time, is saying something i suppose. saying what? don't ask me, you are the one reading this.

it is them school holiday things on the go now. i did have a plan for how the boys could spend part, if not all, of this holiday, but apparently they don't let you lease children to coal mines anymore. rather shortsighted, methinks, and best that Osborne character not whine about having no money if he is going to merrily discard such a potential windfall.

anyway, i went along to my favourite shop today to get some films for the boys to watch, on the off chance that the English summer fails like, for instance, the English top order in the second Test today. never mind chaps, it's only the Ashes, don't stress about being 30-4.

i did get some proper and very good films, but i also got these too. these films which blogger has elected, once again, to rotate and upload in a way that i did not intend to. have fun straining your neck to read the names of these films.  

oh yes indeed, dear reader, i quite agree with you. i truly have got some epic, mega, brilliant movies here, and each one of them cost be about 25p or so each. that's the kind of once in a lifetime deal that you simply cannot walk away from.

it would be on the whole, strictly speaking, not quite as incorrect as it is somewhat correct to assume that i did or did not simply grab a whole load of discs for sale from the kids and family section of my favourite shop. i would neither encourage nor discourage a view that i made efforts to carefully select films that i thought would be good or suitable. you are welcome to assume that either scenario happened, or possibly a combination of all three.

anyway, on to a look at the films in some more detail, then. well, whatever detail i can think of.

Chuck Norris is not an actor that one would usually associate with children or family intended films, what with his penchant for doing them smart roundhouse kicks to absolutely batter anyone that gets in the way of his doing whatever it is he does in his movies. this one, Forest Warrior, is billed as a family movie, however, and so i am sure it will be fine for all to watch.

what's it all about? for the most part you really know as much as i do by looking at the box. it looks like Chuck plays some sort of class Forest Warrior dude, who teams up with a bunch of kids to protect a mountain, and presumably forest, from someone or other who wants to do something or other with the mountain or forest that they all disagree with.

i might try and make the effort to watch this one myself, actually. the character Chuck Norris plays is called McKenna, and that's an awesome name, man. also, the write up suggests that he has the ability in the film to shape-shift, by which i think they mean that he can change into a wolf, a bear or any other sort of animal what Bad News mentioned as being a groovy potential sound effect for Excalibur. an owl, then. and a bat too, maybe. but obviously not a cow.

also, to my knowledge, it is physically impossible for Chuck Norris to be in a film in which he does not perform a smart roundhouse kick on someone to knock them out and make them stop doing whatever it is that is upsetting him. i want to see how that gets handled in a family movie.

next up, then, is Home Team. this would seem to be a film that exists for, at worst, no other reason than to stand as a big massive "f*** you" to those who believe that Steve Guttenberg's career is or was limited to the Police Academy quadrilogy and the Cocoon trilogy.

yes, before you get all Australian about it, yes i am aware that usually Cocoon is not referred to as a trilogy as such. as far as i am aware the only thing really stopping anyone calling the Cocoon films a trilogy is the absence, or if you like lack, of a third movie. that to me is a really minor concern, and there's nothing to say that they won't make a third one eventually.

plot? it seems to be a bit of a homage to the likes of The Longest Yard and Mean Machine, to be honest, with a little bit of real life too, if stories as to why certain managers were hired in the Premier League are to be believed. Guttenberg, in a role that i suspect will show off the full limitations of his acting range, plays a former footballer who has massive gambling debts. his punishment for this is to manage a children's football team, which is an interesting approach to debt management and payment servicing - i wonder if someone has thought to mention it to Greece at all in the last few weeks?

will i be watching this film? unlikely. i want to remember Guttenberg as "him off of Police Academy" and "him off of Cocoon", as well of course as "him who was not considered to be as good as George Clooney when they were looking at casting a new Batman".

finally, then, perhaps the greatest legend of all time in terms of cinema, Bury Reynolds. it seems that The Boy From Wolf Mountain generally, unlike the previous two films, gets rather good reviews, and is quite fondly thought of by those who watch it.

plot? it seems an orphan is sent to live on Wolf Mountain (yeah, so that title seems wrong) with his uncle, who happens to be Burt Reynolds. there he finds an injured abandoned baby wolf, or if you like cub, which he nurses back to health and befriends.

this all sounds like one of them soppy, sentimental films with a good heart - the kind that i would not normally select to watch by choice as such, but yet find myself watching to the end as and when they appear on TV.

i do rather like most of the actors mentioned in this legends post, but i do reserve a special place for Burt. for years and years he has entertained and, despite the ridicule and parody thrown at him, he is a damned good actor. it remains the single biggest disgrace of that Oscars thing that he did not win the best supporting award for Boogie Nights, in which he gave a performance worthy of any so-called "proper" actor you care to name.

now that i think on, a week or so ago we watched that Dracula Untold business, and as recently as last night i for some reason watched Alien vs Predator again, for it is not quite so bad as all them basement dwelling Americans who are really good at shouting on the internet claimed it was. i should probably write something or other about these ones, then, but for now i trust you have found these insights into three films that i have not seen most useful.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!