The Hunger Games (2012)

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few years, you probably have some idea of the premise to The Hunger Games.  But just in case there are any of you with sub-lithic homes, here's the brief:

The nation of Panem consists of the Capitol, and twelve districts.  There were once thirteen districts, but one was annihilated when the districts rebelled against the Capitol.  Every year, the remaining districts are reminded of the failure of that rebellion when they are forced to provide two randomly-chosen youths - one male, one female - to participate in a televised death match known as The Hunger Games.

Katniss Everdeen lives in district 12, the poorest of the districts.  When her younger sister Prim is chosen for the games, Katniss volunteers in Prim's place.  She does so without any expectation of victory, but since she's the protagonist of the film, you can probably guess that she has a better chance than she realises.

This is a smartly put-together film.  It efficiently establishes the setting and Katniss's selection, then effectively builds up tension for the games themselves by showing the training given to the competitors: who are explicitly called "Tributes", so that the in-universe purpose of the games is not forgotten.  It also makes good use of the televised nature of the games to have commentator characters deliver some handy exposition.

Strong performances also aid the film.  Jennifer Lawrence is excellent in the lead role, while Woody Harrelson does a great job as former games winner Haymitch, who is detailed with the job of preparing Katniss for the competition.  Haymitch is an important character because he shows that even if you win the games, they mark you for life, and Harrelson owns the role.

This is a good, though often rather bleak, film.  If you prefer a more up beat and escapist tone to your entertainment, you should probably look elsewhere - that's why it only gets a qualified recommendation.  If you like the sort of thing this is, though, the execution here is excellent.

Cathy's Curse (1977)

"Just like The Exorcist, only dreadful!" probably isn't the most appealing of tag lines, but it would in this case have the benefit of being truthful.

A woman runs away from her husband.  She takes her son with her, but for some reason leaves her daughter.  The daughter and her father go tearing off in a car at great speed, for no clear reason, and end up dying in a crash.

Thirty years later, the son, now grown up and with a family of his own, moves back into the house.  This whole "moving into a house that's stood empty for decades" thing is a common staple of horror movies.  Isn't it amazing how well-maintained they all are, after their long abandonment?

Anyway, the son now has his own wife and daughter (Cathy, naturally), and it doesn't take long after they move in for the daughter to begin acting strangely.  She finds a creepy looking doll that belonged to her now-dead aunt, and becomes inseparable from it.  And to everyone except her father, she becomes steadily more hateful and malicious.

Child actor Randi Allen, who does not seem to have done anything else in the field, is surprisingly effective in the title role.  She spits her (often obscene) dialogue at most of the other cast members, while being gushing and adoring with her father.  Alas, her dialogue is about the only memorable thing in the script.  While the story is a slurry-like morass of hackneyed horror tropes (blood gushing from a faucet - never seen that before!), the writers seem to have had a passion for inventing colourful vulgarities for Cathy.

A review on IMDB indicates that certain important plot-related scenes may have been cut from this DVD version of the film.  It's unlikely you'll be interested enough in the movie to care, though.

Gamera: Super Monster (1980)

I was really tempted to give this film a Qualified Recommendation.  Not because it's in any way good, you understand.  Because it is really, really, really, really not.  What it is, however, is so deliriously, dippily dreadful that it kind of infects you with a Cinematic Stockholm Syndrome and you - well, I - like it despite its complete absence of anything resembling quality.

I'm not going to bother you with the plot since it is (a) the usual 'aliens want to take over the world and Gamera stops them' thing we've seen before and (b) flagrantly an excuse to re-use footage.  About 1/3 of the run time, and 98% of the scenes that actually involve Gamera, is recycled footage from the old films.  Instead, I'm going to share with you the dreadful joy of some images from the film.

Such as the opening shot.

I dub thee the USS It's Totally Not A Star Destroyer, Honest

Or the bit where Gamera flies past the Yamato from Star Blazers

Yes, this is really in the film

Or pretty much anything to do with the good guy "Space Women" who help Gamera fight the bad guys.

"Help" may be exaggerating their contribution

Actually, you know what?  Have a trailer.  It's in Japanese, but it won't matter.

Transcendentally awful

Monkey Business (1952)

Director Howard Hawks apparently felt this comedy was not as funny as it should be because the premise was not believable.  I think the film's not as funny as it should be because it only has one joke.  Or I guess three jokes, if you consider "young people are irrational", "young people are impulsive" and "young people are superficial" to be separate things.

Barnaby Fulton is a research chemist searching for an elixir of youth.  He's having only limited success until - for no readily apparent reason - he decides to test this latest formula on himself rather than his usual chimpanzee subjects.

The formula is bitter, so Barnaby takes a drink from the lab's water cooler.  Unknown to him, however, one of the chimps made its own elixir and dumped it into said cooler, so he's unwittingly drinking that concoction as well.

The results, of course, are miraculous: he finds the aches and pains of his middle-aged body are gone, and his eyesight is as sharp as when he was twenty.  And then he goes out and buys flash clothes and a fast car and goes roller-skating with Marilyn Monroe.  As you do.

Despite nearly crashing his new car multiple times when his eyesight fades again, and leaving himself very sore from all his escapades, Fulton plans to take an even larger dose of the formula as a second test (I guess being irrational and impulsive is not purely the province of the young), but his wife intercedes and takes the dose in his place - and once more, drinks from the cooler to wash away the taste.

And thus the pattern of the film is established: someone unwittingly drinks the chimp's formula, regresses to an age between 5 and 15, and "shenanigans" ensue.  It's honestly a all rather tiresome, despite the gallant effort of stars Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers.

Not much to recommend here.

The Americans, Season 2 (2014)

I rarely give flat out recommendations, but I gave one to the first season of this show.  It was expertly-crafted TV, with smoothly executed narrative twists and strong performances from the cast.

Despite the qualification added to the recommendation for this season, the show continues to deliver the goods here.  The qualification is wholly and entirely "provided you've watched and enjoyed the first season, you should check this out".

Elizabeth and Philip Jennings are continuing their double lives as real estate agents and KGB agents.  With Reaganomics gathering steam, the stakes are mounting for both the US and the USSR.  The Nicaraguan conflict, the birth of the internet, and the development of the stealth bomber all play significant roles in the progress of the season.

But perhaps more immediately pressing than even these potentially world-changing political and technological struggles are the issues which strike much closer to home: the murder of two fellow agents with whom they were close friends; a dangerous new contact whom they must blackmail into aiding them; and the growing independence of their eldest child.

There are plenty of other plots and schemes afoot with other characters, as well, and you'll probably find yourself alternately cheering them on and biting your nails over their potential fates.  You may even find yourself cheering on one character even as their actions put another character into fingernail-chewing territory.

Really good stuff.

Mythica: The Necromancer (2015)

Does it make me want to play D&D?

As a metric for whether or not I enjoyed a fantasy film, that question is actually a pretty reliable one.  If the answer is "yes", the movie's obviously done something right.

I'm pleased to say that after what I found to be a slightly shaky second chapter, the Mythica series returns to form in what now appears to be the middle entry of a five part series (though it also also serves as a satisfying end point for the trilogy of films to date, which is nice).

Marek's history as a slave returns to haunt her when one of her friends is kidnapped by her vengeful former owner.  She, Dagen and Teela must now complete a dangerous task for the man, if they want their friend back alive.  And of course this task will once again bring them into conflict with the "big bad" who was introduced in the previous film: and he is rather more prepared for the encounter than they are.

Arrowstorm continue to show that they know how to get their money's worth out of their budgets.  The cast they've assembled remain solid, and the costumes and sets look good.  They are perhaps a little too ambitious occasionally, with some larger scale action and effects sequences that they don't quite manage to carry off, but I certainly don't count that as a major blemish.

On the non-action front, I think the character work in this film is the strongest of the trilogy to date: the relationships between the cast feel convincing and natural.

The kickstarter for Mythica 4 launched a couple of days ago and runs until 17 Feb 2016.  I'm already a backer.  Now, does anyone wanna play some D&D?

The Blancheville Monster (1963)

Alternatively known under the single word title Horror, this is a low rent knock-off of "The Fall of the House of Usher", complete with madness, mesmerism, and someone being buried alive.  And to its credit, it tries its darnedest the capture the elaborately Gothic atmosphere of Poe's original tale.  Alas, it does so at the cost of pretty much every other factor of the film.

Emily Blancheville returns home from an extended absence.  Her brother confesses to her that her father - whom he had told her was dead - in fact still lives, but is horribly disfigured, horribly mad, and intent on murdering Emily before the end of the week!

There is a prophecy, you see, that the house of Blancheville will fall when a female member of this generation reaches the age of 21, and Emily just so happens to have that important birthday fast approaching.

Now you may be wondering to yourself "Self, why didn't dad kill Emily when she was still a baby, if he believes in the prophecy?  Surely it would have been easier."  Well if you are, congratulations, because you have spotted the first of the many (many) flaws in the villain's dastardly plot to see her dead.  Though not so egregious as their inexplicable failure to actually, you know, try to kill her.  Instead they repeatedly mesmerise her and make her wander the mansion grounds.

Is this villain the slimy new family doctor?  Or is it the beautiful but strange new governess?  Well of course not.  It's transparently obvious it's the brother, because in any "drive them mad and then kill them" Gothic tale it's always the closest relative who's to blame.

Eventually brother dearest mesmerises Emily so deeply she appears to be dead, and she is buried alive.  This scene is actually quite effective.  Or would be, if they could decide whether Emily's eyes are open or not during the burial.

Fortunately, Emily manages to get out of the family sepulchre, and her brother is so surprised he falls down a well.  There, I've generously spoiled the whole thing so you don't have to waste 85 minutes of your lives watching it.  Feel free to thank me in the comments :-)