Conan the Barbarian

And this weeks Friday night movie has been....Conan the Barbarian!

Original image located here. Accessed 8th August 2016

Once again, this is a movie that i finally see having only experienced the effect (as opposed to the cause). I know that Conan the Barbarian is a benchmark of heroic fantasy; I know that this movie, along with the artwork of Frank Frazetta, played a major role in bringing Conan to a wider audience than previously; I recall seeing the sequel Conan the Destroyer when i was ten (or thereabouts) and, later, the cartoon Conan the Adventurer; I know Conan inspired similar IP (Golden Axe anyone?). But in spite of all that, it's only now that I've seen this movie.

As for the movie itself, I'm likening it to the evil twin of the Lord of the Rings movies: It is cheaper, nastier, dour, reliant on a different approach to SFX, has a lot of bare flesh, offers a scenario that is far from heroic and thrives on being something of a power fantasy.
Still, this movie is easy to see how it made Arnie a star (that is until The Terminator) and the score is incredible to say the least. And as a Low Fantasy it works rather well.
So in the end, it's a nasty piece of work but the good kind of nasty. If that makes any sense

Enter the Dragon

And this weeks Friday night movie has been.....Enter the Dragon!

Original image located here. Accessed 19th August 2016

This may come to a surprise to some people but I haven't seen any Bruce Lee movies before this one. Maybe it was the whole martyring of him that put me off (see also: James Dean, River Phoenix and Heath Ledger). But you can only stick your head in the sand for so long.

So what did I think of this movie? Well, it's interesting to see this movie having been familiar with Mortal Kombat (both the game and the movie) and see where Midway pillaged their ideas from. But in reality, we go to see Bruce Lee in a movie just to see him kick the living daylights out of so many goons. And to that end, the movie delivers: The fight scenes are all superbly done and the action is exciting & fast-paced.

So in the end, Enter the Dragon is Bruce Lee's show and what a show it is

Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn

And this weeks Friday night movie has been....Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn!

Original image located here. Accessed 12th August 2012

Man was this a ride and half. It was fun, inventive and remarkably faithful to the source material. Having read the Tintin books when i was a kid, i picked up a lot of subtle references and I was particularly impressed with what was accomplished through the animation - that, lets be honest here, LA wouldn't have a hope of matching. Seriously I doubt I could ever see the continuous take that was the falcon chase done in LA.

You know, prior to his death, Herge said that Spielberg was the only one who could do Tintin justice. Seems such a declaration was right on the money

Rambo: First Blood

And this weeks Friday night movie has been....Rambo: First Blood!

Original image located here. Accessed 5th August 2016

Growing up in the eighties it always seemed that Rambo was a character synonymous with big/dumb action movies. So it is indeed a shock to see this first movie in this series as not being the case. Its not about a big dumb action hero, its about a Vietnam veteran suffering from PTSD.

So if we move away from the mask of an action movie, there's a lot going for Rambo: First Blood. There's some great use of suspense, it works really well as a thriller movie and Rambo's final breakdown could well be Stallone's finest acting ever. So yeah, I found the first Rambo movie a gripping one - although I doubt I'd bother with the sequels.