DEF

471 films watched this year including repeat viewings.

TOTALS

2019 : 449

2020 : 525

2021 : 471

That means I'm down 50 odd from last year.

I'm perfectly capable of misscounting but I believe I watched 50 different films released in 2021. Only 5 of which I saw in a cinema. Sad times. 

TOP 10 OF 2021 based on viewing 50 films that were mostly shit.

Honorable mention - Fear Street Part 3: 1666 - The best of the three Fear Street YA films from Netflix. Surprisingly it's the least slashery of the three but I liked this easily the most of the three.

10) Mortal Kombat - I liked this far more than I thought I would. It's a mess but some times you just need a big dumb bit of fisty cuff fighty fighty action in your life.

9) Framing Britney Spears - I would have liked a more detailed dive into American law and conservatorship but still found this fascinating.

😎 Nail Bomber: Manhunt - A documentary about the real life race to find a far right nail bomber in the UK that targeted minority groups in 1999 London. People like this guy terriffy me as do white supremacist wankers in general.

07) The Orange Years: The History of Nickelodeon - exactly what it says on the tin. A look back at the birth and 90s glory years of kids TV channel Nickelodeon. 

06) Nobody - A slightly slow burn that evolves into a brilliant action film. Wrongly marketed as a action comedy.

05) Last Man Standing: Suge Knight and the Murders of Biggie & Tupac - Follow up documentary to the 2002 documentary Biggie & Tupac. I don't particularly like director Nick Broomfield's style but this one is actually pretty engaging and interesting. 

04) Spider-Man: No Way Home - Loads of fun. I may like it more on repeat viewings but I've only seen it once.

03) Godzilla Vs. Kong - the right balance of stupid blockbuster sci-fi silliness and giant Kaiju fighty fighty. The best of the US Godzilla movies. I've watched it several times and it's a lot of fun.

02) Halloween Kills - As a huge Halloween fan I feel like I should probably hate this cluster of ineptness and dodgy dialogue but I'll be damned of it doesn’t amuse the hell out of me. 

01) The Suicide Squad - Loads of fun. Genuinely funny at times and immensely rewatchable. Harley Quinn is her most tolerable here and Big Match John is on fine form as the stiff neck nutter Peacemaker. I'm hugely fond of DC's lesser known villians and this does a load of them justice. This is what the first film should have been.

I probably should do better than 50 released in 2021 but there are so many films from years gone by I've yet to see that it's a difficult balancing act.

2 hours ago, Devon Malcolm said:

They've only done one good film, Bound, the rest are over-stylised high concept shite. But I hope this new one does well because we kinda need it to.

It's almost as big a myth that Bound is a good film than the Matrix is a masterpiece. Bound is interesting but ultimately only alright. The Matrix is a really good superhero movie. (I understand that's an oxymoron to you)

IMO Speed Racer is good Shallow fun. Like watching a super expensive kaleidoscope.

17 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Yeah, it's Anderson's best film since the first Resident Evil, which is a fucking low bar but I still enjoyed it!

Death Race is far better than Resident Evil because the Stathe and Lovejoy. But I'm convinced that with a different music score Resident Evil would be far more watchable film. As it is other than maybe the first five minutes the astonishingly heavy handed awful industrial just destroys any sense of suspense or action.

Fine folk of the UKFF I bet you got some great stuff for Christmas. Let us have a butchers?

My family have treated me like a king and as per tradition have allowed me to buy myself a bunch of pretty dubious looking horror Blu-rays.

I will no doubt have a blast with them but the true highlight was the wonderful surprise gift my Wife got me.

I got a cracking pair of Kennedy's autographs...

Playing with these lads. Totally worth the wait. Merry Christmas.

Now I've got to get my mits on Starscream, Dirge and Ramjet. At least with Starscream it should be pretty easy to get the TFM86 version.

I know it has its detractors but I love the Ark Pat. It's a toy I never thought would exist let alone be Titan sized. Not to mention it includes the double cool Mainframe/Teletran.

40 minutes ago, wordsfromlee said:

I know it's not real, but why would anyone pay extra to not get Mrs. Brown's Boys and The One Show when you could pay the normal price and just, y'know, not watch them?

Voting with your wallet sends a louder message.

4 hours ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

Only one critic deserves that, and it’s the one who gave a negative review of Paddington 2.

Well he certainly needs to be on a list at least. Proper wrong'un.

3 hours ago, WyattSheepMask said:

So apparently there’s a load of people booting off and sending death threats to some critic because they didn’t give the new Spider-Man a perfect review, meaning that it doesn’t have a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, because apparently that matters.

What the fucks wrong with people?

That's insane. They need to be on watch lists with behaviour like that. I certainly wouldn’t have given it a perfect review. It’s a lot of fun but it's no Spiderverse.

That was a incredible read. Heartbreaking but powerfully honest. Amanda, Big E and Cody are all hero's in my book.

Aye that is some horrific stuff. What a cunt.

7 hours ago, patiirc said:

Definitely not pre ordered Black Zarak and I'm very sure that I've not ordered Black Roritchi either. 

It is someone else. 

With that i mind anyone expecting any Transformers stuff for Xmas? 

Bonus Content: Kapow Toys posted this website which has loads of info on Gobots and 3rd party products from the 1980s http://www.the-liberator.net/site-files/robot-toys/index.htm

 

My Wife has had her arm bent into getting me these bad boys. I've been after them for ages.

EDIT - That site is tremendous. Whilst I remember the cartoon and had a few toys Gobots are still a bit alien to me.

50 minutes ago, Merzbow said:

Possession's the greatest horror I've ever seen, Adjani fucking losing it in the subway will forever be seared in to my brain.

Not seen that one. Will give it a look.

29 minutes ago, chokeout said:

Everyone that didn't vote for Paddington 2 needs to have a long hard look at themselves

This

I got one to share with my mates from Grandmaster Melle Mel. We hadn't been able to get together to watch hiphop documentaries since covid in a year. He cut a tremendous promo and ended it by telling my mate to fuck himself (by request). Couldn't have been happier.

Shaking the hand held cameras in an attempt to accentuate the impact of moves, particularly punches. TNA went through a period where this did my absolute nut in. Wrestling isn't a badly made action film. It can work if subtle but I'd much rather do away with it altogether. At best it takes me out of the action and at worst (in TNA's case makes the whole thing unwatchable).

Bot mode for me. I think that's what appealed so much to me about the Seige/Earthrise lines. It really grabbed me attention that they were selling updated versions of the G1 characters with the bot mode being front and centre in the packaging. I'd been out Transformers toy collecting pretty much since just after Beast Wars before then. Not to mention they take up a damn sight less space.

1 hour ago, Sexy Dad said:

There were some valid points but I’ll assume you’ll also be throwing out any technology, household items and clothing sourced by overseas exploitation to teach a proper lesson about ethics and doing the right thing as well. Have a day off. 
 

Nah it's sort of WWE's fault. The relentless barrage of shitty things they have done has broken me so I have far less tolerance for wrestling scum. I know full well a lot of stuff I consume and enjoy is crap but I just draw the line after a certain point. Being a Dad to a young Women puts shitty behaviour towards women front and centre in my mind.

Plus it's my perogative to spend my money how I wish and supporting something that genuinely bothers me and legit hurts many women is not how I want to spend it. AEW can get my money back any time they actually prove they give a shit about that sort of behaviour.

It's the same as I don't buy Roman Polanksi films anymore. The idea of giving him money boils my piss. Yes he's a great filmmaker but that means very little to me as he's also a child rapist.

Thanks to The Basics this week I learnt what Kiss Players was. What the fuck were they thinking?!! I highly recommend not looking it up. The crib notes version is that it's a manga/radio play set from the moment Galvatron is thrown out of Unicron's eye in TFM until season 3 and involves creepy hentai involving very young looking characters. 

Anyhow how's it going with Earth Wars? I finally upgraded my hq to level 17 so I can start the Titans campaign. Going to be a while before I get through it mind you. My best team just isn’t leveled up enough yet. I've only got four 5*'s and it takes bloody ages to get them up to level 60.

Don't know if I mentioned this before but I got my first Masterpiece toy a little while back. Bumblebee v2. Are MP's all a nightmare to transform? It literally took me an hour to get him from VW to bot mode. Really like the little guy but I won't be transforming him back.

18 minutes ago, andrew "the ref" coyne said:

He was doing really well until that last paragraph. 

No really I'm gutted to let her down. It blows.

Really gutted about Lethal. I had no idea he'd been accused until after the PPV and read Keith's post at work last night. Really put a dampener on things.

Unfortunately it's a step to far for AEW to employ him for me. This is a massive mistake and I won't support them until they properly address it. I.E. sack him.

What he did is simply unacceptable and I won't ignore it.

I hate not paying for things I love and I really love AEW. I don't think of AEW like I do WWE mind you. They are pretty progressive and certainly not irredeemable but they need to be held accountable and the only way I can vote on that is by taking my money away from them. It's really no skin of my nose as its pretty easy to WATCH WRESTLING.

The thing that really hurts me personally though is having to tell my daughter that we won't be going to see them live when they eventually make it over. She will be devastated.

Just watched part 2. Tremendous stuff. The whole arc is superb and fascinating to rewatch like this. I didn't think I could be more into this match but I'd forgotten so much in those first two videos that it’s like a adrenaline hit. Wonderful.

I vote for the ready to rumble triple cage.

Not sure if this has been posted but this is a tremendous recap from the start of the Hangman arc. Can't wait for them to do more episodes as it really only scratches the surface.

Kingston is wonderful. His character has really deep self loathing in my view. Like the character presents as the hard man but really he's actually very vulnerable. It leads to him being ever so slightly unhinged and a detriment to both himself and anyone around him. Way more depth than your average upper midcarder. The thing is that the crowd really do root for him. He gets monster pops but you know that the self loathing doesn't allow his character to hear that.

1 hour ago, David said:

And you call them "talented people." If they're indeed talented they'll find their way to a company that manages to recognise that talent and place them in their rightful position to actually play a part in generating some profit. And I'll be more than happy to see them prove WWE wrong in letting them go.

.

Surely that's where some of this frustration comes from for fans. Even if you ignore its an utterly shitty thing to do to people when the company is making more than enough to warrant keeping them when they have a million hours of TV to book (although you shouldn't, fuck them) They clear as day have given up developing talent properly. I don't know all the names on the list as I pretty much stopped watching a year ago and stopped paying for it at all after the Ashley abuse came to light.

But 'Oweing someone a living' is utter bollocks if they are blatantly mismanaged and underutilised. As I say I've not watched but when I did the way they treated Keith Lee was utterly perplexing. But ignoring fan complaints of how talent is handled even, they are doing an utterly incompetent job of making money with the 100 odd talent they employ and have released this year.

The talents job is to do the best they can with what they are given and it's on WWE to give them something to work with and make money from. Vince's utter apathy and/or contempt for anything that he didn't think of or aligned with his narrow view of the product is actively hurting not only the onscreen product but how much the company makes.

There is no way in hell they are making as much money on NXT merch now for instance than they were three or four years ago. They are chasing the big money and getting it but at the detriment to other aspects of the business. I don't for a second think that if the company was booked well and the audience was bigger/more attracted to it then they would be getting the same money. It would thrive if they utilised all the assets they have and actually cared about the product they put out. Yes you can argue they are thriving because they are getting the most they ever have but the point is that they quite obviously get so much more. They should be doing record numbers in all aspects of the business not just the ones they get from TV rights fees and Saudi Blood money (ewww)

Case in point their declining ticket sales. Vince has gone on record as saying maybe we aren't a touring live show any more to paper over the fact there's no reason they couldn't have that money other than people don't want to pay for that product like they used to.