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Snakes, Children, paranormal, Wernher von Braun, Volvo, Immigration, flashbacks, reservoir, MIcrosoft, Jellyfish, Force Majeure, Clerks, Complaint, diorama Frankenstein, Jan Svankmajer, RADIO TELESCOPE, Antique, Streetview, Riddle,

Starship Troopers - Paul Verhoeven

Been meaning to watch this for a while - missed it when it first came out - largely because of lousy reviews, but it actually deserved better.

How to describe it? Stupidly good looking, blue-eyed Aryans travelling to the ends of the galaxy to stomp out bugs. The sets, effects, bugs, spaceships, costumes, all first rate. The dialogue and plot is stilted and 2 dimensional, but is intended to be that way - it's a satire, after all -- and if you understand that you'll be laughing all the way through - at the call for a medic, at the good-natured butt-slapping in the Co-Ed showers, at the pun "Roger Young" - look for it, the complete unaffected aspect of the troops when roaming through wastelands of carnage and bodies, at the 1-limbed infantryman who welcomes Johnny Rico to the infantry with a "One day you'll be just like me", at the ever-younger recruits, at the eagerness to die for "the species", the suspiciously prescient propaganda of the state "Would you like to know more...?".

Not a great movie, but a very good one, and certainly well ahead of it's time.

Other films by Paul Verhoeven include Robocop and Total Recall.

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Category: Film
Created: 03 April 2020

3:10 To Yuma

In keeping with the Western Theme, this 2007 film with Christian Bale and Russell Crowe was excellent. Really excellent. Well paced, superbly acted, the most despicable of villains, it has it all. If it had a flaw - it might be the general amorality of the piece - other than a couple of central characters (no spoilers) almost all of the Bandits, Bad Guys and Lawmen were - well, a little too deeply flawed for my taste. I think I need to find something a little more affirming to watch...

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Category: Film
Created: 31 March 2020

True Grit

On a western theme at the moment. This, the remake with Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon, and (I was surprised to notice) directed by The Coen Brothers, good, enjoyable, careful attention to speech and details. A good movie. Enjoyable.

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Category: Film
Created: 01 April 2020

Leave No Trace

Very good, well written, slowly paced, about a Vet and his daughter living homeless off the land near Portland, a sort of the tale of those countless people broken and tossed aside by the system.

I enjoyed this, and it was a different sort of story-telling. Expect a lot more movies like it when the Pandemic has passed.

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Category: Film
Created: 28 March 2020
  1. Prisoners
  2. 12 Monkeys
  3. Isle of the Dogs - Wes Anderson
  4. The Twilight Zone - Season One

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