JayDee's Movie Musings

I put it at 74th... I need to go over my Top 100... needs a real overhaul.

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As for Ex3 casting... obviously the regular cast, hopefully Jet Li back in the team too with Jackie Chan alongside him as a double act...

I wouldn't mind seeing Cage tbh...


As for Seagal... absolutely. It'd be great to have him on board.


I'd also like to see the likes of Kevin Costner, Mel Gibson, Kurt Russell, Vin Diesel, John Travolta, Michael Biehn and Bill Paxton.
Brendan Fraser? Maybe not...


JCVD could easily come back if they played JCVD's usual trick of being more than one person at a time... maybe a pissed off twin brother of Vilain kinda thing.

Chuck Norris has to return with Arnie and Willis...



Is Vernon Wells still alive? He's be a proper good baddie pick... Sonny Landham too would make a great bad guy.




However... Mr T has to make a show at some point with Carl Weathers by his side.

I would love to see Gary Busey as a villain at some point, along with Michael Dudikoff in some sort of role.

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"George, this is a little too much for me. Escaped convicts, fugitive sex... I've got a cockfight to focus on."

Thanks Daniel. I was actually pretty happy with that one myself which isn't always the case.

Already? It feels like you just did your top 100. How can it already need a real overhaul?

Yeah would be great to have Jet Li back after his limited appearance in Ex2. Along the same lines would be nice to see Mickey Rourke's character again.

Costner could be quite cool, especially as Stallone has said he likes casting guys who are out of the spotlight a bit to try and get them back in it. Gibson I could see perhaps in a cameo, perhaps as part of a double act with Danny Glover. The Expendables crew could run into them like they did Norris in Ex2. And Kurt Russel I'd like - a reforming of Tango and Cash.

Yeah as I said in my review bring JCVD back as Claude Vilain, Jean's twin. Doubt they'd have him as the main villain again so could either have him as part of the opening set-piece, or I quite fancy him as a new member of the Expendables crew, but throughout there's this doubt as to whether he wants to atone for his brother's actions or avenge him. Have a few moments where you think he's going to kill Stallone but doesn't, eventually saving his life. For added drama you could also bring in Chris Hemsworth as Billy the Kid's brother and have them on the same team.

And yeah Mr T and Carl Weathers need some kind of apperance eventually. What about Samuel L Jackson? Always entertaining and he's made a few action flicks; Die Hard 3, Long Kiss Goodnight, Shaft etc, and is always a bad ass in Tarantino films. And if you've got Chan and Li you could really up the Asian contingent with Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun Fat.

One guy who I feel has to appear at some point in the franchise is Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. As the closest thing to a successor for these guys it would be great to see him there. Perhaps he could be the villain in one of them and make it a young v old thing with him kicking the ass of all these past it dinosaurs.

Busey could be...interesting! That's why I think Nicholas Cage would make a good villain in Ex3. So often he gives weird, out there performances that he could make a really colourful foe.

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Was just tidying up my reviews index in the first post and realised that I actually missed another landmark. Following Expendables 2 my total number of reviews now stands at 127, meaning that the film that had the honour of being #125 was The Lives of Others, a very deserving film of that accolade.

While the pace may not be on a par with Rodent (damn you! ) I think I'm still doing pretty well. I had my 100th review spectacular on November 19th and now less than 3 months later I've hit and surpassed another landmark.

Was going to say I may be able to hit the magic number of 200 before the year is out but I'm actually considering taking another break from my reviews for a while.

Lives of Others looks like it's right up my street. Will defo seek it out.

4 stars for Expendables 2 eh, havent seen it but wouldn't have thought it would hit those dizzy heights.

Yeah really could not recommend The Lives of Others enough to you.

And artistically, Expendables 2 obviously doesn't come within half a rating of Lives of Others but I just found a great deal of fun in it. Loved it

It's so funny revisiting this film more than 15 years after its release. With the film placing such an emphasis on technology and gadgets, the film feels spectacularly dated despite its relatively recent year of production; I mean it's not even two decades old yet, and yet you usually have to go back to at least the 60s or 70s to find something that feels so dated. The fact that this film places such prominence on computers and the internet just heightens this feeling. The tech looks so incredibly old fashioned that it's actually quite adorably quaint. The film features some notable and exciting sequences such as the iconic scene where Ethan repels from the ceiling (still the best moment of the series) and a truly ludicrous sequence featuring a train and a helicopter in a tunnel. The storyline is probably the strongest and most interesting of the series, and the film as a whole is arguably the darkest and grittiest the franchise had to offer. I'd say it's also the strongest cast effort the series has to offer, with a bountiful amount of respected performers including Jon Voight, Jean Reno, Kristin Scott Thomas and Vanessa Redgrave. All in all just a really good way to kick off a new franchise.




The first sequel in the Mission Impossible series is far and away the weakest entry to date. It's a very glitzy and glossy affair, but a rather hollow one. The film seems to forget that the real star of these films should be the gadgets. At the time this came out it was probably around about at the height of Cruise's superstardom and sex symbol status, and it feels like the film very much plays into that. Perhaps it wasn't his call but it comes across as a bit of a vanity project, and is certainly not helped by Woo's constant and irritating use of slow mo with the camera just gazing at his face. The story is lacking in mystery and intrigue, relying solely on it's increasingly bombastic action scenes to try and thrill its audience. The supporting cast fail to really spark. Dougray Scott does a nice enough job as the villain but is nothing special, while I found Thandie Newton quite wooden and a bit of a dud. The lack of gadgets is disappointing, and the abundant use of the famous Mission Impossible masks becomes tiresome and annoying. All that said the film will always have a little place in my heart as it was the first DVD I ever owned.




The best entry in the franchise in my eyes, and one of the most under-rated films of 2006; perhaps the fact it came out at the height of the Cruise hate had something to do with that. I like the personal aspect that is introduced for Ethan in the form of civilian love interest; it extends the world he inhabits and the character himself. What really elevates this film above the rest for me is its villain. The pretty much always excellent Phillip Seymour Hoffman is Owen Davian, and he really is quite a chilling and diabolical sociopath – one truly evil b*stard! As for weaknesses, the supporting characters portrayed by Maggie Q and Jonathan Rhys Meyers aren't given much opportunity to impose themselves and as a result weren't big misses when Ghost Protocol rolled around. The film has some of the grandest action set pieces of the series with a large scale battle on a bridge probably being the highlight. I may have cited the first film as the darkest and grittiest film but it's this film which I feel has the strongest sense of danger and threat about it, allowing Cruise to flex his acting muscles more than at any other point in the series and also allowing for more character development than in any other instalment.




Another entertaining entry in the series, proving that over 15 years on the Mission: Impossible films are still relevant and can still provide plenty of thrills. After those 15 years and 4 films Cruise is so comfortable in Ethan Hunt's shoes that he has reached the stage where he could probably do the role in his sleep. This time out he has some strong back-up from the supporting cast. After an initially dull start, Jeremy Renner's Brandt proves to be an appealing and entertaining addition to the team. Simon Pegg is alright (coming from me that's some decent praise right there) while Paula Patton is sexy as hell as Jane Carter. She didn't really catch my eye for much of the film but when she attends a party in a stunning green dress Hot damn!!! One thing I definitely have to give the film credit for is its amount of highly inventive and original set pieces. There's the thrilling and nerve-shredding climbing of Burj Khalifa tower; the cracking face off in a fantastically futuristic parking structure, and a nearly blind chase through a sandstorm. The storyline is engaging and fairly strong, even if it's not particularly original; after all this is now the third time in just 4 movies that Ethan has been betrayed, framed and disavowed. I felt the pacing was a little slow at times but that was just a small issue. As I said earlier, for me when it comes to the M:I films it's the gadgets that are the real stars and there are some absolute crackers in this instalment. The intelligent contact lenses, levitating suit and adhesive gloves are all cool, but for me the standout piece of tech is definitely the holographic projection screen. Just good fun. Roll on the 5th instalment!



Overall Conclusion - While I personally don't hold them in the same esteem I have for the Jason Bourne or James Bond franchises, the Mission Impossible films are for the most part a consistently entertaining slice of acion and adventure. It may rarely test his skill to its fullest but Cruise does a great job at leading the series as Ethan Hunt. The revolving door of agents he teams up with keeps things fresh, while the new gadgets continue to be a highlight whenever a new entry rolls around. Couple all of that with some terrific action sequences and you can be fairly sure that when you walk into a Mission Impossible film you're in for a rollicking good yarn.

Nice reviews of Mission Impossible... you gave them almost the exact same ratings I did too...

M:I - 89%
M:I 2 - 91% +
M:I 3 - 96% +
M:I Ghost Protocol - 96% +


Highly recommended films for a night in though... different to Bourne and Bond because MI are popcorn fun with a bit of a brain behind it for good measure.


One thing I found missing from Ghost Protocol though was the use of the MI theme song. They barely used it. The other 3 films had the theme and it made the action much more fun to watch.
The helicopter scene in the first film, mixed with the music is just absolute class.

Stop me if you think you've heard this plot before. An idealistic music teacher begins a new job at an inner-city school and is shocked at the violence and drugs that plague its halls. The main protagonist is a thug who is the leader of a gang, and who frequently clashes with this teacher. He's not only about violence and drugs however, he also has a hidden talent for playing the piano. Do you think you've got an idea where this story is heading? Well think again!!! This is no inspirational teacher movie. This is a piece of glorious garbage! The gang leader, Stegman, may have a touch of genius in him when it comes to music, but he is out and out evil! Some of the things that he and his followers engage in are just absolutely loathsome. They terrorise every teacher and every pupil in that school and take things to extreme levels where the idealistic teacher, Mr Norris, is concerned. Things go so far that they eventually break Norris' peaceful outlook on life and force him to seek revenge. While in most ways this is a pure exploitation flick there is also a bit more to it than you may initially suspect.

Everything is really heightened and exaggerated for maximum effect. The characters, the gangs, the violence and the endorsement of stereotypes are all ramped up to preposterous levels. Starting in the 70s I think it was, it seemed like kids started to get dangerous, and adults started to fear them. This film really plays on these fears. At the time of its release the film was banned in several countries for its levels of violence and sick depiction of school life, and now we see and hear about such things on a solemnly regular basis on the news. It was rather dismissed as far-fetched, and the warning Mark Lester was attempting to get across was ignored. And sadly the film has proved to be depressingly prescient. Columbine. Virginia Tech. Sandy Hook. With the knowledge of these and seemingly countless other school shootings and incidents of tragedy in US schools, it no longer seems like the paranoid and puerile film it was written off as at the time. I mean, as if metal detectors in schools could ever become the norm! Oh...wait a minute.

As I mentioned earlier the gang members are some of the most despicable characters I've seen on screen in quite some time. Indeed my desire to see justice meted out to these pieces of trash ensured that I actually stayed up a lot later than I was intending so I could watch the whole film. And by the end I had completely abandoned the film as a piece of satire, and had just given in to my bloodlust; celebrating at the delicious twist of irony that is dealt out in a caption that brings the film to a close. The gang consists of five members; Stegman is the leader and Patsy his girlfriend, Drugstore is unsurprisingly the resident drug dealer while Fallon and Barnyard are the group's two enforcers. Stegman is top of the food chain at the school, above even the teachers. He leads the gang in selling drugs, running a prostitution racket and battling rival gangs for their turf. He is somewhat of a Godfather figure, with one scene having a group of individuals waiting outside his office to see him for permission to join his gang and sell drugs or their bodies. It's not just their names or their actions that give them a real power. Their punk rocker appearances just add to their aura, all leather and piercings. And whoever cast Keith Knight as Barnyard in particular deserves major kudos. He is immensely intimidating looking, resembling what I imagine an ape would look like were it shaved! Though the actors who hold these roles obviously aren't the most skilled or experienced. The performances lack any subtlety or nuances (not that they were perhaps called for) and it's no real surprise to find that most of them didn't go on to star in anything else of great significance. The performances are however infused with a lot of character so they really make an impact.

Film trivia snippets - Class of 1984 was filmed on location at the Central Tech High School in Toronto. The same school was also used in Good Will Hunting. /// In the scene where Stegman reveals his extraordinary musical talents, not only was Timothy Van Patten playing the piece but he actually wrote that concerto.

There are some decent performances to be found amongst the adult cast however. Perry King is very likeable and sympathetic as the enthusiastic Mr Norris and is easy to root for, particularly when he goes on his quest for vengeance. On a side not I think he also makes for a pretty decent Commander Riker lookalike. Roddy McDowall is absolutely wonderful as the biology teacher Mr Corrigan. He is initially a real hoot as he provides some great comic relief before his character begins to crack under the torment he has to endure. He has a couple of great scenes, most notably the moment where he totally snaps and holds class with a gun in his hand, threatening to kill any kid who doesn't get an answer correct. That scene was actually based on a true story Lester had heard about. McDowall is just terrific in that the scene and this film as a whole

The film also holds one final delight for me personally on the casting front. One of the good kids that is terrorized by the gang's actions is played by none other than an adorably young Michael J. Fox in only his second ever film. He's so young he hasn't even earned the 'J' in his name yet, he is simply credited as Michael Fox. Despite being given a really basic character with little depth, he really inhabits the role and provides a glimpse of the immense talent he had. His nice guy image works perfectly at contrasting with the personality of the thugs. And the fact that he would go on to become one of America's most loved actors means that when you revisit it now it works even better.

Class of 1984 certainly doesn't opt for the subtle route; it is very much in your face and feels like it is just courting controversy at times. Alongside the scenes of drug taking, full frontal nudity and gratuitous violence, there is an uncomfortable rape scene and a sequence featuring the horrible aftermath of some vile cruelty to animals. There's also a moment where a kid who has just taken drugs climbs a flag pole and perches near the top, holding the American flag proudly. He then falls to the ground dead, wrapped within the flag. Clearly it's not a particularly jingoistic piece of work and Mark Lester saw some dark clouds gathering over America and its children.

Oh and the film also gets some bonus points for opening and closing with a rather cheese-tastic Alice Cooper song, “I Am the Future.”

Conclusion - Yes it's rather gaudy. Yes it's a bit camp. And yes it's pretty damn trashy. But since when were those bad things? Many people may get caught up in the pure garbage/exploitation side of it (and you can enjoy it as such) and miss out on the satire and some of the things that Mark Lester is actually trying to say. Either way this is a genuine cult classic.

Glad to see you enjoyed it so much, JD. When I was 10, this was one of my favourite films. On another day, it would've easily made my top 100, but it's just such a nasty film that, on the day, it didn't quite make it.

As for dangerous kids in the 70's. It's certainly much more explicit and, often, more dystopian, it's the mid 50's when this starts. The rise of the teenager and that old favourite, the delinquent.



I know it's on my 100, so you may already be aware of it, but a great example of the generation gap/adults fear of teenagers is Over The Edge.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

One thing I forgot to say in my review was that whatever complaints you may have about me and my reviews, surely variety can't be one of them. We've gone from 3 critically acclaimed, award-laden films (Moon, Lives of Others, Les Miserables) to some cult 80s exploitation in the blink of an eye, with only Expendables 2 in between. Might be off to the 60s next I think

God damn! 10?!!! That seems way, way too young for this film. I have to say I have some serious concerns about your parents and how you were raised!!!

And that review was especially for you. So while I know it's not the strongest (to be fair it's a tough film to write about with great insight and meaning), I hope you enjoyed it. Oh and out of interest would you say the sort-of-a-sequel-but-not-really Class of 1999 is worth a watch?

It's ok. A lot of people like it a hell of a lot more than I do, but it's ok.

A harmless and occasionally entertaining musical which nonetheless proved disappointing. The film's two young leads, Julianne Hough and Diego Boneta, are really quite bland. Apparently both are better known as singers, and based on this I certainly wouldn't mark them down as acting stars of the future. Tom Cruise's rock god creation of Stacey Jaxx is far and away the best thing about the film, well along with his monkey Hey Man! So I was disappointed to find that he wasn't in the film nearly as much as I had hoped or expected. It's story is unoriginal and pedestrian, and basically the only appeal the film has comes in the form of its soundtrack, made up of classic 80s hits such as “Don't Stop Believin'”, “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” and “Can't Fight This Feeling” from big bands of the time like Styx, Journey and Bon Jovi. And while some of the musical performances that Cruise and co are able to pull out are quite good fun, many of them just don't land enough to keep you entertained. And for a film that is basically just a series of music videos, it's running time of over two hours is way too long! Cruise's turn and the great tunes are the only reason my score hasn't plummeted even lower. So all in all, I'd say if you're in the mood for some classic 80s sounds you'd be better off just turning to VH1 or something, and looking for a programming block along the lines of '80s Power Ballads' or 'Anthems of the 80s.' You'd basically get the same experience as the film, minus the flop of a storyline they try to shoehorn in.










Like an episode of Glee by the way of Mean Girls this is a very enjoyable comedy which could really launch the star of Anna Kendrick. There's nothing truly remarkable about it, and it may well fade into obscurity before too many years have passed but I found it a highly entertaining diversion all the same. The glee club is made up of a cornucopia of colourful and outrageous characters each with their own individual traits. There's the fat, loud-mouthed one (coincidentally named Fat Amy), the quiet Asian who speaks so quietly you can barely hear her (though that's a pretty good thing as she has some dark thoughts and secrets), the secret lesbian, the spectacularly slutty one, the uptight bitch and a few others. They are all brought to life by some generally very impressive performances, with Rebel Wilson (Fat Amy) and Anna Kendrick the major standouts. The songs and mash-ups are fairly fun although I would have liked some more recognisable and memorable songs to feature. Or maybe they work just fine for 'the kids' and I'm just becoming an old fogey! My main joy probably came from finding myself a new crush in the adorable Anna Kendrick. I just fell in love with her over the film's running time.










I'm not exactly sure what the general opinion on this film is but when I saw it a couple of years back I really liked it. Revisiting it now and that is still the case. I found it to be a very funny film, no doubt helped largely by the fact that I'm a big fan of both Steve Carell and Tina Fey. And for fellow fans there's a good chance you'll like this as neither of them are exactly stretching themselves and the film exists in the same kind of area as most of their work does. In terms of a plot it's certainly not reinventing the wheel. The film is basically The Out of Towners, but with higher stakes and more dangerous predicaments which perhaps pushes it into Bird on a Wire territory. Fey and Carell make for a very likeable couple with nice chemistry, and are helped out by a supporting cast and cameo performers who really throw themselves into the swing of things. Mark Wahlberg, James Franco and the sexy Mila Kunis all get in on the fun. The film perhaps starts to buckle a bit towards the end as the silliness levels get ramped up to 11, but other than that I still find this to be a hugely entertaining comedy thriller. And the fact I also happen to be a little bit in love with the delightful Miss Fey probably doesn't hurt either.

Not seen Class Of 1984, Rock Of Ages, Date Night or Pitch Perfect... might have to give Class Of 1984 a go though, especially with it having Commando's director behind it... nice review


I will say though JayDee, you've written the wrong name of one of your films... Perfect Pitch...

Not sure if it will be your kind of thing or not, whether you enjoy exploitation style flicks. And Mark Lester actually calls Class of 1984 his favourite film of those he's directed. Interesting to see if you felt the same

I have no idea what you're talking about!

You have no idea what I'm talking about?

"Last edited by JayDee; Today at 6:02pm"

Sure

Date Night's watchable, though I only saw it for the totty.

I must say that Pitch Perfect is a film which I keep hearing good things about from people I mightn't expect it from.

I actually enjoyed Rock Of Ages quite a bit. Date Night is ok.

Oh well fair enough. We seem to have similar tastes but it would be dull if we agreed on everything. I'll give it another go someday in case I was just in a bit of a miserable mood.

Oh my Rodent we're so very paranoid aren't we?

Are you also an admirer of the lovely Tina Fey or are you more talking about the likes of Mila Kunis and/or Kristen Wiig?

People on the forum or actual people in real life?