Decent Films to Watch This Week (29/4/13)

Monday

Again, a usual hurried Monday... I do apologise...

 

Donnie Darko (2001) Sky Select 12.00 am

So, just to give you a gist about how this goes – the titular character, Donnie, is visited by a giant rabbit that then proceeds to inform young Donnie about a future apocalypse. If you think watching this film will shed more light on proceedings then you’d be wrong, at the end of this movie you’ll have a look on your face that would be reminiscent of the expression that follows spontaneously wetting yourself. That’s not necessarily a bad thing though – the film is mind boggling, yes, but this all adds to the bafflingly fantastic ride you’re about to go on. You’ll have never seen anything like it before.

 

And if you're really desperate...

Speed (1994) Sky Action 9pm

Classic action with Mr Neo himself, Keanu Reeves.

Iron Man (2008) Film 4 9pm

In case Iron Man 3 being released inspires you to go back where it all began…

Tuesday

Predator (1987) Film4 9pm & Film4 +1 10pm

Wow – can you get a more manly film than this? There are certainly not many films that can get men giddy in anticipation as this anyway… maybe Die Hard (which should come as no surprise as both films share the same director, John McTiernan - it’s just unfortunate that due to a few court problems he won’t be directing anything else for a while… shame). Why oh why does this film get men so giddy? Right from the off you know the films means business - we see a helicopter lower in from the heavens with Alan Silvestri’s score bellowing out (a soundtrack so masculine that it could only be more masculine if it had women groaning in pleasure over the top mixed in with cans of Lager opening). The helicopter lands and heralds the arrival of some fellas you really don’t want to mess with. They dutifully pour out of the chopper eager to start bringing the pain, and just when we think we’ve seen them all we realise we haven’t…  The biggest and baddest ain’t even considered getting out of the plane yet. He’ll get out when he’s god damn ready. We’re looking at man who is able to crush pine trees in his fist. A man who could light a stick of dynamite off his stubble. A man who looks like he’d keep a Tyrannosarus Rex as a pet… a man… a man named Arnie. Just the start makes you get excited and we haven’t seen anything really yet. We haven’t even heard any dialogue… just from the start though you know you’re about to witness something special. The start certainly doesn’t set you up for disappointment either, hell, how could it – a special forces marine unit goes on a rescue mission against some foreign scum rebel types, but come under attack from an invisible alien who likes to hunt for sport…. What a premise! Even though some of the acting gets a bit cheesy sometimes, you really don’t care, because it’s exactly what you want from the group of badasses you’re watching. You want them to have arm wrestles in mid-air, you want them to be continually engaging in one up man ship the whole time – if the male genitalia could be represented as a film, then this would be that film – the movie has testosterone all over the damn place! This makes all the more sense when you realise that the antagonist of the film, the Predator, has an oversized  and grotesque pussy for a face. Yep, the thing that is most destructive to the male way of life, the woman, is the bad guy in this film. What you have is a group of blokes, doing what they like to do best – blowing shit up – and then the embodiment of woman has to come and ruin it. That’s why blokes love this film, they can relate to what Arnie is going through - the pain of having ones ambitions continually checked by female inhibition. Anyway the men do what they do best and try to fuck the pussy. Not literally of course, they use very big guns in order to do this, but the results are just as entertaining. The woman/predator is characteristically stubborn and picks off the men one by one leading to a tense finale which sets up the ultimate man against the ultimate woman, but getting to that point is so much fun. The shootouts, the predators array of tricks, the endless quotable nature of the film…. Christ it’s probably the quotes that keep men coming back, they are just so frickin’ many! Every man reading this will instantaneously think of ‘get to the choppa!’, but then there are just so more underneath that, every individual will have their own favourites and there are plenty to choose from (‘you son of a bitch!’). That’s another reason why this film is so good, there are so many good bits to focus on that you will have a chat with someone, mention your favourite bit, you’ll both go mental, then he’ll mention his favourite bit, and then you’ll both go mental again. Then some stranger will be listening on the other table, he’ll mention his favourite bit, and you’ll all go mental together. Good times…

So yeah, why is the film so good? Well in summary, it’s cause it has hard blokes with massive guns trying to fuck an alien which looks like a pussy, in the jungle, while quoting unholy levels of badassery.

That’s why.