SpikyCactus
Bio:
A failure in almost every way modern science has found to measure it, I spend my hours digging gardens, mindlessly delivering delivery vans and trying to keep The Man at bay. At other times I listen to music, watch films, play games and go to mostly punk and ska gigs, to try and hide the fact that I've got no friends. I live in a place I call Cactus World. Like most concepts that outlive their original purpose, Cactus World is an ill thought-out but increasingly complex muddle of canonical contradictions, fuelled by a mixture of decent alcohol (vegan cider, 'interesting' beer and Guinness), movies, games and music, which encapsulates the sneaking suspicion that basically I'm a talentless nobody, living as a parasitic observer of life rather than as a participant in it.
I learnt everything I need to know about life from watching Tom & Jerry, Laurel & Hardy and Star Trek, growing cacti (and other succulents), reading Thomas Hardy, going hiking/camping, playing Traveller (it's a role-playing game), listening to punk and owning a guitar I will never learn to play.
On a more technical note, I'm on a mission to write up to 600 characters of mostly irrelevant, superficial, ill-informed, uninteresting and unamusing rubbish about each film I own as I watch it, with a special (management speak alert) laser-like focus, on cats, cacti (and other succulents), chainsaws, decapitations and general badassness. (You know what I mean, the sort of low grade, background noise that the Internet allows people with no talent, understanding or considered thoughts to publish). I imagine this probably infuriates many real movie buffs who take these things seriously and actually know something about their interest; but please, just try and roll with it.
I have noticed that some people (probably accidentally) press the 'star' button by what I've written. To them I say thank you for giving my life meaning, substance and direction, plus the courage and fortitude to sit through some pretty terrible films all the way to the end, just so I can then share this pain with others here.
My scoring system. I score in multiples of 10; anything more granular hurts my head. However, if a film has something intrinsically special about it I add an extra five. 70 is my base score for a decent film that I enjoyed but probably wouldn't miss much if it vanished from existence tomorrow. This is quite high, but I mostly watch things that, for better or for worse, I've bought a copy of; and I try not to buy things I don't think I'd like much. Anything that gets less than 60 is terminated by me in an exceedingly cruel and heartless fashion, unless I've a specific reason for keeping it. (And I do seem to be very good at finding excuses for doing the latter, which isn't helping at all to make my living room look less like a forgotten branch of Blockbusters.) Anything that gets 90 or more I upgrade to the highest definition disc or digital copy possible if I don't already own it. Simples!
TV Series. I don't rate these. This is partly because I'm just not capable of condensing several seasons into one paragraph of flippant comments. Also, it's a big commitment to watch a TV series all the way though. This means I only do so if they're really good, which then unbalances my scores here with too much TV near the top of my list. TV should have its own section, like games do.
A failure in almost every way modern science has found to measure it, I spend my hours digging gardens, mindlessly delivering delivery vans and trying to keep The Man at bay. At other times I listen to music, watch films, play games and go to mostly punk and ska gigs, to try and hide the fact that I've got no friends. I live in a place I call Cactus World. Like most concepts that outlive their original purpose, Cactus World is an ill thought-out but increasingly complex muddle of canonical contradictions, fuelled by a mixture of decent alcohol (vegan cider, 'interesting' beer and Guinness), movies, games and music, which encapsulates the sneaking suspicion that basically I'm a talentless nobody, living as a parasitic observer of life rather than as a participant in it.
I learnt everything I need to know about life from watching Tom & Jerry, Laurel & Hardy and Star Trek, growing cacti (and other succulents), reading Thomas Hardy, going hiking/camping, playing Traveller (it's a role-playing game), listening to punk and owning a guitar I will never learn to play.
On a more technical note, I'm on a mission to write up to 600 characters of mostly irrelevant, superficial, ill-informed, uninteresting and unamusing rubbish about each film I own as I watch it, with a special (management speak alert) laser-like focus, on cats, cacti (and other succulents), chainsaws, decapitations and general badassness. (You know what I mean, the sort of low grade, background noise that the Internet allows people with no talent, understanding or considered thoughts to publish). I imagine this probably infuriates many real movie buffs who take these things seriously and actually know something about their interest; but please, just try and roll with it.
I have noticed that some people (probably accidentally) press the 'star' button by what I've written. To them I say thank you for giving my life meaning, substance and direction, plus the courage and fortitude to sit through some pretty terrible films all the way to the end, just so I can then share this pain with others here.
My scoring system. I score in multiples of 10; anything more granular hurts my head. However, if a film has something intrinsically special about it I add an extra five. 70 is my base score for a decent film that I enjoyed but probably wouldn't miss much if it vanished from existence tomorrow. This is quite high, but I mostly watch things that, for better or for worse, I've bought a copy of; and I try not to buy things I don't think I'd like much. Anything that gets less than 60 is terminated by me in an exceedingly cruel and heartless fashion, unless I've a specific reason for keeping it. (And I do seem to be very good at finding excuses for doing the latter, which isn't helping at all to make my living room look less like a forgotten branch of Blockbusters.) Anything that gets 90 or more I upgrade to the highest definition disc or digital copy possible if I don't already own it. Simples!
TV Series. I don't rate these. This is partly because I'm just not capable of condensing several seasons into one paragraph of flippant comments. Also, it's a big commitment to watch a TV series all the way though. This means I only do so if they're really good, which then unbalances my scores here with too much TV near the top of my list. TV should have its own section, like games do.
Recent Ratings
Check out SpikyCactus's...
| 60 20% | They Came Back (2004) - Mar 19, 2023
"Top badass moment? The start of this film; it reminded me of 09:30 on any weekday, when useless old people swarm (slowly) to their local bus stops, free bus passes in hand, to greedily hog all the space that’s needed by people who actually contribute to society by working. After that, this film takes a great idea and does nothing with it. At all. And worst still, it knows it, because it introduces lots of interesting plot threads that it then takes nowhere. No cats, chainsaws or decapitations."
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| 65 29% | The Initiation of Sarah (2006) - Mar 11, 2023
"Top badass moment? Some people take cosplay way too seriously. If you like clichéd power chords over shots of students on a campus, you're in for a real treat. A place where everyone is beautiful, even the dorky ones. Like a long-lost, failed pilot for Buffy, it’s decent enough eye-candy but very, very average and family-friendly. The start is terrible, I’ve seen sleeping kittens put up more of a fight than that women does. One plus point: Summer Glau. :-) No cats, chainsaws or decapitations."
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| 80 78% | Death Sentence (2007) - Mar 05, 2023
"Top badass moment? It's always the quiet ones. If Travis Bickle had sex with The Terminator (the technical details of that aren't important right now) Nick Hume would be their offspring. As a vegan, I hate to admit that I really enjoy a good portion of Bacon and this plateful doesn't disappoint. The story's simple and plot colander-like, but this is a great revenge movie, which takes just enough time to allow us to care for him before he really gets going. No cats, chainsaws or decapitations."
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| 60 20% | Lost Gully Road (2017) - Feb 26, 2023
"Top badass moment? Watching a Millennial trying to light a fire; a pitiful experience both hilarious and shocking. This is competently made film, but it takes forever to get going, although it does eventually become pretty creepy with its “The Entity” vibe. A movie of few words and even fewer that add anything to it, but plenty of lingering shots of electricity supply wiring, parrots and ferns. The caterers get a most impressive listing in the credits, too. No cats, chainsaws or decapitations."
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| 50 8% | Xue mei gui (1988) - Feb 26, 2023
"Top badass moment? A guy doing martial arts in his wheelchair; how can that not be badass? Kit-Ying's having a bad day, even managing to fall over running away from baddies so they catch up. At least she’s in the company of originality, because that’s clearly not having a good day either. All the men are the sort of scum that a few squirts of Cif Bathroom Cleaner aren’t going to sort out, although the ending does provide KT with a somewhat pyrrhic victory. No cats, chainsaws or decapitations."
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| 60 20% | The Hotel New Hampshire (1984) - Feb 12, 2023
"Top badass moment? The Radicals - providing an endless supply of quotable bullshit. This film is probably better than I’m giving it credit for, but as it contains too much of the surreal humour that makes Monty Python not funny and an ongoing joke about flatulence, it was always going to struggle with me. I was also disappointed to learn so little about the hotel business; I doubt Travelodge is going to be frantically remodelling its SuperRooms™ in response. No cats, chainsaws or decapitations."
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| 70 45% | Timecrimes (2007) - Feb 05, 2023
"Top badass moment? Never thought “Picture This” could sound so unsettling. To work, this film requires the main characters to behave (and I’m being uncharacteristically charitable here) very stupidly at times. So meet Héctor, an obviously overpaid, under-achieving, zero initiative middle-manager. He's going to be pissed the next time he mows the lawn and runs those scissors over. :-) And the table his wife wanted - cheap-looking and ugly; glad it got smashed. No cats, chainsaws or decapitations."
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| 70 45% | It Comes at Night (2017) - Jan 28, 2023
"Top badass moment? No, it doesn’t. And it doesn’t in the day either. A teen has weird dreams and gets the hots for the first woman he sees, plus what happens to regular folk once access to Netflix is lost. This film reminded me of Christmas; great build-up, then it descended into a morass of poor-quality family time, annoying neighbours and paranoid feelings because you got the crappiest present. It did however, make me try (and fail) to book a Covid booster. No cats, chainsaws or decapitations."
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| 70 45% | Green Lantern: Emerald Knights (2011) - Jan 22, 2023
"Top badass moment? A planet puking green sick on another. Worth watching for Atrocitus’s speech; I doubt a career in nursing or diplomacy would suit him. Then there's “The diversity of the Corps is its greatest asset." Really? So say the few dozen, old blue men who run it. But overall this movie gets the green light from me. (I know, I'm so funny.) I also suggest using just green light in your viewing space, for a truly immersive experience. 1 decapitation (Ardakian Trawl), no cats or chainsaws."
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| 80 78% | The Guard (2011) - Jan 15, 2023
"Top badass moment? The chance to see a real antihero in action. Brendan Gleeson is the unpleasant and unpredictably offensive, yet sympathetic Sgt. Gerry Boyle, pissing on the grave of Harry Callahan and invoking the spirit of “Shaun of the Dead”. In fact he manages to get the film an 18 Certificate, without there being any gratuitous sex, nudity or gory violence, which is pretty good going! We also get to see what a world class police service the Garda is. No cats, chainsaws or decapitations."
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