The Blahblahblah Family DVD Guide: Part 4 War Movies

The Blahblahblah Family DVD Guide is a sporadic, long running feature here on the blog, with three chapters so far completed: Science Fiction, Westerns and Horror. A full explanation can be found on the Guide Contents Page but it is essentially a response to an Australian DVD guide filled with terrible recommendations.

I was watching the reconstructed version of Samuel Fuller's The Big Red One when the urge to write another chapter of the DVD guide overtook me. It turns out that the original guide that I am mocking didn't even have a chapter dedicated to one of the most popular and prevalent styles of film making. Instead there is a brief subsection of the classics chapter featuring 9 movies and 7 quick picks that include 5 of the main 9 movies. It makes no sense.

The few rules I have placed on this feature:
1. Movies that have become a part of the public consciousness will not be included. If you need a guide to tell you whether to watch these movies then you've been living under a rock.
2. Movies that are primarily another genre such as comedy or romance will not be included. If you flip to this section chances are you aren't looking for a comedy or a romance.
3. Must have been released at the cinema longer than 2 years ago, otherwise you'd just hit up the new release section of your local video store. I shall use 1 June 2009 as the cutoff date.
4. Animation and films not in English will be discounted for pretty much the same reason as other genre. And they have their own chapter.
5. Anything with less than a 4 star rating isn't good enough to be in a guide to the best movies available and will be cut.

In deciding that War movies warranted a full chapter I replaced the superfluous "When You Can't Rent Indiana Jones" chapter and boosted the quota to 20 films to make it comparable to other chapter. Rob Lowing's selections were all 4 or 5 stars for once but equally unusual for Rob Lowing he included a non-English film (Battle of Algiers) in his chapter, which if I remove so as to be within my own rules leaves me a nice healthy 12 films to recommend.

The original 9:
All Quiet on the Western Front ****
Coming Home ****
Dr Strangelove *****
Gallipoli *****
Platoon *****
Saving Private Ryan ****
The Battle of Algiers *****
The Longest Day ****
The Red Badge of Courage ****

I'm not typically a man who heads to the War section of Starland, my local video store, but I can appreciate that the best ones are not about the violence but about the frailties of men and the absurdity of it all. In recent times there have been some truly great pieces of cinema, almost the complete opposite of the epic movie filled with explosions and gun fire that you might typically expect from a Hollywood war picture.

Starland Video Beaconsfield Without Stopping The Car

The Hurt Locker and Beneath Hill 60 are good English language examples of that, released too late to be included under the rules set out almost 2 years ago. Downfall, The Counterfeiters and Black Book are three powerful pieces of cinema from outside of Hollywood that should be considered 'must watch' classics, whilst Clint Eastwood made Letters From Iwo Jima, a fine WWII picture, entirely in Japanese and was a much better film than its companion Flags of our Fathers.

Other films not included primarily for rule number 1 (public consciousness) are Apocalypse Now, Lawrence of Arabia and The Great Escape, whilst I was initially going to include the post-WWII movie The Good German as I love any excuse to include a Steven Soderbergh movie on a list of recommendations, but left it out as it felt like cheating.

The first three were quite easy choices considering one of them was the inspiration behind the post and the other two also feature Lee Marvin, star of the recent BBBG book review Lee by Crime Factory Publishing. Samuel Fuller's The Big Red One was flawed due to studio cutting upon original release but was reconstructed in to an R-rated semi-autobiographical meditation on the horrors of war which also features Lee Marvin re-enacting the moment he was wounded during WWII. The Dirty Dozen plays like a WWII version of The Expendables whilst Hell in the Pacific is a fascinating drama featuring Toshiro Mifune.

Stanley Kubrick is next, his Kirk Douglas starring Paths of Glory is a powerful retelling of events in France during WWI that stands as a statement on the absurdity of war. Another of the great yet reclusive directors, Terence Malick made a fine war movie the same year as the bearded hack Spielberg released his own award hogging film and subsequently got overlooked I feel. The Thin Red Line has been called a hauntingly realistic view of military and moral chaos in the Pacific during World War II. Who am I to argue with that?

I thought I should at least include one film each from the UK and Australia, the country I was born in and the country I live in. Went The Day Well? was filmed during WWII and was based on a Graham Greene story that doubles as propaganda, a tiny English village is invaded by German troops posing as Royal Engineers. Kokoda is an Australian film from 2006 about the battle between Australian and Japanese soldiers on New Guinea during WWII.

David Lean made more than one movie featuring war; The Bridge on the River Kwai, adapted from the Pierre Boulle novel, is the multiple Oscar winning story of some British PoW's in Japan during WWII. A Bridge Too Far, directed by Richard Attenborough and featuring an all star cast is one of those tales of failure that the British can do so much better than America and captures perfectly the futility of war. Make of that what you will. Yet another master director, Billy Wilder, also turned their hand to the genre, his Five Graves To Cairo was only his second directorial effort but demonstrates his talent throughout, unfairly criticised on release it still managed to earn three Oscar nominations.

The last two choices offer slightly different views of war. David O. Russell's Three Kings set during the first Gulf War is filled with great performances, humour and action. Robert Altman's M*A*S*H is very nearly discounted for being part of the social consciousness but I have a feeling that this is owed to the TV series more than anything else. Personally I think Donald Sutherland and Elliot Gould in this Korean War comedy doubling as a critique of the pointlessness of the Vietnam War is one the best films about war that I've ever seen.

12 war films of differing styles and content, it doesn't capture the entire history of film but it's a fairly great overview of War pictures in the English language. It's not all viscera and American heroics but if you like that kind of thing there's still hundreds more to choose from.

Here's the final chapter recommendations:
All Quiet on the Western Front (****)
Coming Home (****)
Dr Strangelove (*****)
Gallipoli (*****)
Platoon (*****)
Saving Private Ryan (****)
The Longest Day (****)
The Red Badge of Courage (****)
The Big Red One (****)
The Dirty Dozen (*****)
Hell in the Pacific (****)
Paths of Glory (*****)
The Thin Red Line (*****)
Went The Day Well? (****)
Kokoda (****)
The Bridge On the River Kwai (*****)
A Bridge Too Far (*****)
Five Graves To Cairo (****)
Three Kings (****)
M*A*S*H (*****)

Agree or disagree with the choices I've made? Which, if any, of the original nine would you get rid of? Any preferences for war movies hat I haven't mentioned? Leave me a comment, let me know.

The Blahblahblah Family DVD Guide: Part 3 Westerns

Quite a few of you good readers may be new to this feature as the third installment of my guide to DVD's has been sitting on the shelf for a while, ignored until brought up in conversation in the blahs recently. So finally the second longest series of posts I've had planned has been added to by Chapter 19: Westerns.

For a bit of background in to what this is please see the blahblahblah DVD guide page and for those who missed it, Chapter 1: Science Fiction is found here and Chapter 2: Horror here.

Westerns, the one true American genre of movie making that gave rise to the storytelling trope of the Black Hat. Of all the genres of film this is one that I've never really taken a shine to, I think part of it has to be that I'm not American, the other part is that the classical western epitomised by the work of John Wayne is riddled with cliche from the earliest days of movie making.

Recently I've been reading some western/noir crossover pieces of fiction and seen a few films so it seemed like as good a time as any to discuss the better films of the genre.

From a little bit of research it seems as though this genre is as wide as noir in terms of sub-genres and off-shoots, some so fascinating that I feel the need to impart this wisdom to you. For example did you know that in Soviet Russia the propaganda machine created the Red Western and the Ostern in response to Western Propaganda? Some were set in America and others using the genre tropes to tell stories of the Russian Revolution of 1917.

The American Acid Western came about in the 60s with a series of films that "express a counterculture sensibility to critique and replace capitalism with alternative forms of exchange." And these sat alongside the Revisionist Western in which audiences were encouraged to question the simple black white/white hat dualism and the morality of using violence to test one's character or to prove oneself right.

Of course the most famous of all genre evolutions would probably be the Spaghetti Westerns that made Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood famous.

In more modern cinema you could look at Serenity, No Country For Old Me and Brokeback Mountain as being shining beacons of what can be done with the genre. The more art film conscious amongst you might even bring up the feminist western Meek's Cutoff for inclusion in this discussion but I haven't seen it so I can only apologise.

The few rules I have placed on this feature:
1. Movies that have become a part of the public consciousness will not be included. If you need a guide to tell you whether to watch these movies then you've been living under a rock.
2. Movies that are primarily another genre such as comedy or romance will not be included. If you flip to this section chances are you aren't looking for a comedy or a romance.
3. Must have been released at the cinema longer than 2 years ago, otherwise you'd just hit up the new release section of your local video store. I shall use 1 June 2009 as the cutoff date.
4. Animation and films not in English will be discounted for pretty much the same reason as other genre. And they have their own chapter.
5. Anything with less than a 4 star rating isn't good enough to be in a guide to the best movies available and will be cut.

For this chapter those rules make things a little difficult. Three pages are given over to seven movies as follows:
Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid *****
High Noon *****
My Darling Clementine ****
Open Range 2003 ****
Shane *****
The Alamo 2004 ***1/2
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre *****

Now this chapter also has a sub-section 10 More Great Westerns! which should allow me to actually make some recommendations for this chapter. Rob Lowings ten quick picks are:
Dances With Wolves
Devil In The Sun
Fistful of Dollars
Gunfight at the OK Corral
Jeremiah Johnson
Stagecoach
The Big Country
The Magnificent Seven
The Searchers
The Wild Bunch

I think you're already noticing that Rob Lowing has left out some big names in an attempt to mix things up a bit with this list and I'll probably have to do the same. I think I will replace The Alamo on the grounds that it only got 3.5 stars and therefore isn't worth the space in the book, completely ignore the fact that Stagecoach and a few others should have been an automatic inclusion in the original seven and then get as close to ten quick picks as possible with my limited nowledge of the genre.

Movies that are currently part of the collective consciousness and therefore not open to consideration for conclusion should be few and far between thanks to the way the genre has died in terms of popularity. No Country For Old Men is the first one that I think of as being that popular, alongside that I shall place the entire Eastwood/Leone Dollars Trilogy and Unforgiven. I'm not sure how much people remember Unforgiven but if ever a western from the 90s was to be remembered it would be that one.

I want to say where the hell is Rio Bravo in that original list Mr Lowing? Do you not realise that it is one of Tarantino's favourite films and therefore automatically brilliant? How about The Sons of Katie Elder that was remade starring Mark Wahlberg as Four Brothers? Too obscure for your audience perhaps?

City Slickers is a comedy western right? and Three Amigos! was supposed to be funny yeah? Any movie that involves Kevin Costner automatically gets discounted due to the fact that I don't like the guy. Anyway out of those who object to that statement who wouldn't say oh hey it's Kevin Costner this western must be worth watching? Heaven's Gate is actually worth watching, and not just for the infamy of it all but I couldn't possibly put it in this book because it's so long it could be a mini-series.

My eleven picks for the western chapter, based on my own personal tastes as at the date of posting are perhaps the most obvious and thefore most accessible to the general public. Getting Eastwood out of the way first we start with High Plains Drifter from 1973, the tale of a gunfighter hired to protect a town from a group of bandits, damned by John Wayne for being too violent and portraying the heroes of Wayne's movies in a bad light this was directed by Eastwood and is his first great film. The original 1957 Glenn Ford adaptation of the Elmore Leonard story 3:10 To Yuma is also guaranteed a place because of it's more authentic approach towards adapting the master storytellers short.

Hombre means man! Paul Newman is Hombre! is one of my more favourite taglines from recent memory, beating out Hud in the Paul Newman stakes by the fact that it is another Elmore Leonard movie and I've actually seen it, 1967s Hombre is another revisionist western with a strong female character and a powerful yet subtle performance from Newman. Also adapted from a piece of literature, this time from E.L. Doctorow, Welcome To Hard Times came out the same year as Hombre and is still receiving mixed reviews. It's dark and bleak and from the point of view of that most un-western hero, the coward.

The rest of my selections are all pretty modern, if you're looking for some insight in to the golden period or classic westerns this is not the DVD guide for you. However if you're looking for interesting, powerful and most importantly well made American cinema I'm your man. To varying degrees these next three picks are some of the finest films made in America in any genre in the past ten years. There Will Be Blood is the film that made me pay attention to Paul Thomas Anderson, the opening sequence is one of the most mesmerising I ever remember witnessing, it puts David Lean to shame in terms of scope of vision and grand execution. The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford probably suffered with being released the same year as There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men but was still a haunting study of the weaknesses of man and the terrors of frontier era America. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is the only feature film directed by Tommy Lee Jones and is a modern telling of a traditional western story in a contemporary Texan setting and is sadly a relatively unknown movie. Why he hasn't directed further movies is beyond me.

Two of the finest young directors of the 90s working in very different styles both made two very very good westerns. The idiosyncratic minimalist director Jim Jarmusch made an Acid Western thirty years after El Topo and in Dead Man he gives us a violent and surreal western that portrays the traditional "red injuns" in a sympathetic light. The debut feature that brought Rebel Without A Crew director Robert Rodriguez to the attention of cinephiles was the Mexican language western El Mariachi, this led to what was essentially an American remake with a much larger budget, Desperado.

The final two picks are both revisionist pieces but are worlds apart in terms of style and visuals. Nick Cave wrote the screenplay for the Australian western The Proposition, it's bloody and brutal and was included by Rob Lowing under the horror category for some unfathomable reason. Great cast, great performances, looks amazing thanks to the Australian desert locations and quite unforgettable. McCabe and Mrs Miller on the other hand represented a further string in the bow of auteur Robert Altman after the incredibly funny "war" movie M*A*S*H he deconstructed the western before moving on to noir. One of many amazing performances from Warren Beatty from that period of cinema history enhances what is without doubt my favourite western ever made.

So that gives me 11 picks to add to the six left from Rob and whilst seventeen movies from the entire history of the western genre means there's an awful lot of gaps I think I've established that westerns are a lot more than black hat vs white hat with these. Perhaps readers will be encouraged to explore the misunderstood genre further?

Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid (*****)
High Noon (*****)
My Darling Clementine (****)
Open Range (****)
Shane (*****)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (*****)
High Plains Drifter (*****)
3:10 To Yuma 1957(****)
Hombre (*****)
Welcome To Hard Times (****)
There Will Be Blood (*****)
The Assassination Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (****)
The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada (****)
Dead Man (****)
Desperado (****)
The Proposition 2005 (****)
McCabe & Mrs Miller (*****)

Agree or disagree with the choices I've made? Which of the original seven would you get rid of? How many of the ten quick picks would you have kept? Leave me a comment, let me know. I'd prefer to cut Open Range because of Kevin Costners involvement and some others until I've seen them but that would go against the rules. It's especially tough when I look at all those films that I had to leave out.

The Blahblahblah Family DVD Guide: Part 2 Horror

The second installment of my guide to DVD's has been sitting on the shelf for a while whilst other less time consuming things took precedence but finally the longest post I've ever written has been matched by Chapter 2: Horror.

For a bit of background in to what this is please see the blahblahblah DVD guide page and for those who missed it, Chapter 1: Science Fiction is here.

Horror is a genre that at face value doesn't appeal to me. Our first instinct when we think of horror movies is some guy with a big knife mindlessly killing people and those movies are just not up my alley. I've seen a fair few in my time and more often than not I fail to disengage my sense of realism and find the fact that she always runs upstairs instead of out the front door to be just a little too stupid and predictable.

But that is first reactions. Recently I saw Ben Wheatley's Kill List (review kept here) and then rewatched the British classic horror Wicker Man and I saw how I could make this chapter work.

A few rules I shall place on this:
1. Movies that have become a part of the public consciousness will not be included. If you need a guide to tell you whether to watch these movies then you've been living under a rock.
2. Movies that are primarily another genre such as comedy or romance will not be included. If you flip to this section chances are you aren't looking for a comedy or a romance.
3. Must have been released at the cinema longer than 2 years ago, otherwise you'd just hit up the new release section of your local video store. I shall use 1 June 2009 as the cutoff date.
4. Animation and films not in English will be discounted for pretty much the same reason as other genre. And they have their own chapter.
5. Anything with less than a 4 star rating isn't good enough to be in a guide to the best movies available and will be cut.

The Guide lists:
Eight Legged Freaks (****)
Frailty (****)
House of Wax 1953 (****)
Identity (****)
Jaws (****)
King Kong (****)
Open Water (****)
Red Eye (***)
The Proposition (****)
The Ring 2 (***)
The Thing (*****)
Van Helsing (***)
White Noise (***)
Blade 2 (***)
Blade Trinity (***)
Constantine (***)
Dawn of the Dead 2004 (****)
Hellboy (****)
Resident Evil: Apocalypse (***)
The Exorcist (*****)
28 Days Later (*****)
Underworld (****)
Saw (****)
Saw 2 (***)
The Hitcher 1986 (****)
Wolf Creek (*****)

That's 26 movies, 9 of which Rob Lowing only gave three stars so aren't really worth recommending. Plus I must take offense at being told that some of those movies are horror movies in any sense of the word. The films Hellboy, Underworld and King Kong are more like action/adventure movies, I certainly don't remember feeling any fear. Identity may technically be about a serial killer but it's more of a psychological thriller, along with Frailty. And The Proposition is a brilliant and enjoyable piece of beautiful Australian cinema but horror, it is not.

Removing another 6 films from the original list leaves a measly 11 considered horror movies worth watching and of those 11 I can't really argue with any of them, apart from maybe Open Water which was a bit of a let down and massively hyped. Having said that it's a totally different type of horror to Saw or slasher movies and I would be happier watching that again than something like Saw 9.

15 horror movie recommendations? That's a huge beast of a task. Horrifying perhaps? I can't believe I went there.

This is really quite tough, Ringu and Audition from Japan are two of my absolute favourite scary movies but they're Japanese so I can not include them for my western audience. Films like John Carpenter's Halloween, Wes Craven's Nightmare on Elm Street and Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre are all excellent examples of what the genre can be but have been remade, rebooted, had sequels, had prequels and generally been done to death that it's quite conceivable that they are three movies that are part of the social consciousness.

First I'm going to add my personal choices, those movies I instinctively go to when I think of a good and enjoyable horror movie.


I've already mentioned The Wicker Man (1973) in this post and it's fitting that the inspiration for the post be the first inclusion. A truly horrifying sight, the first time you see the Wicker Man itself on top of that hill and you know what's about to happen. A movie filled with intrigue and mysticism, you're sucked in to this seemingly innocent police procedural peopled with bizarre characters and you leave on a truly horrifying note. I hate that Nic Cage version, it's an awful dumbed down, idiotic remake that should never have been greenlit. Don't Look Now, the Donald Sutherland & Julie Christie psychic thriller is also from 1973 making it a pretty good year for disturbing movies. It is a very creepy movie that's loaded up with atmosphere and strange unexplainable happenings in small increments until you're left haunted by what you've just experienced for years afterwards.

The two most important horror movies of my lifetime come next, one made the genre cool and the other made nighttime walks in the woods with the explicit intention of scaring the shit out of each other a regular weekend excursion.

The importance of Scream in reviving an entire genre is incalculable. It's post modern referencing of the tired old cliches and the young hip cast having "real" conversations turned it into the Pulp Fiction of horror. Kevin Williamson really understood and had a clear love of everything that had come before and his script combined with Wes Craven's direction has led to what feels like a million remakes, sequels and ripoffs of the entire history of slasher movies, none of which could have happened without Neve Campbell. The Blair Witch Project truly was a phenomenon, it's utilising of the internet alone was ground breaking but the way it blurred the lines of documentary and fiction was also very exciting from a film making perspective. Take a look at movies like Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity, they wouldn't exist if it wasn't for this movie. I was tempted to include it in the social consciousness group of movies but it feels like the movie has been forgotten a little and it deserves a lot more than that.

Picks 5 and 6 are probably a little less well known, although Rob Zombie has gone on to great and not so great things in the genre so his debut may well ring a few bells with you all.


I cannot recommend House of 1000 Corpses highly enough, as far as movies at the slasher end of the genre go this is without a doubt, hands down, my favourite. What is most apparent when watching it is how much Rob Zombie loves classic horror movies, it's like it's instinctively a part of who he is, all of the great aspects are there. The film hits the right beats and it's suitably graphic and gory and most important bloody scary for a modern audience. The Devil's Rejects was also a superb piece of film making but I just didn't enjoy it as much as this one. Dead End is one that I always recommend, it seems to have gotten lost amongst the multitude of movies that all hit around the same time. It's a French/American co-production about a family driving a back road on Christmas Eve. It's both humourous and scary and very well made on a low budget. Starring Alexandra Holden and Ray Wise with a brief appearance from Karen Black I very much enjoyed it and everyone I've screened it for has too.

6 down already, but that's the easy part out of the way. 9 left. How about a pairing of movies with dead in the name? It's a popular word in horror circles after all.


The movie that launched Sam "Spider-Man" Raimi and set Bruce Campbell and his chin on to the world. A humourous yet serious horror movie shot on the tiniest of budgets that forced an incredible amount of ingenuity out of the film makers. Mocking and becoming part of the genre at the same time The Evil Dead might not be as slick as The Evil Dead 2 but it's arguably a better movie for it. George A. Romero is the Godfather of zombies and a horror list that allows a Zack "300" Snyder remake to be feature but not recognise the importance of Romero's earlier much more intelligent work would be making a mockery of itself. The Night of the Living Dead is where it all began, stumbling slow moving zombies may not be as scary as ones filled with rage that just can't wait to eat your brains for some viewers but if it's good enough for Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg it's good enough for me.

Two movies that came either end of the 70's wave of New Hollywood pictures demonstrate two complete different approaches to horror, but exceedingly scary in their own way.


David Cronenberg's The Brood is an eerie disorientating film about a crazy woman undergoing psychotherapy which causes her anger to manifest as little mutant children that kill anyone she's upset with. Freaky and disturbing. Roman Polanski's second best film is next, Rosemary's Baby features a woman being raped by none other than Satan himself. Unlike The Exorcist this late 60's horror is a lot more subtle with it's brooding macabre atmosphere.

Five to go. Three pre 60's classics next. Two cornerstones of the genre and one movie that doesn't have Jeff Goldblum in it.


Nosferatu, often called the very best of the Dracula adaptations, despite them not being able to afford the rights to adapt Bram Stoker's classic horror novel. The iconic imagery alone means that this one should be seen by lovers of both horror and the vampire legends. No sparkles here that's for sure. Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's monster is another icon of the horror genre. I feel certain that there's more people alive today who have seen the Brannagh/De Niro version than this one. Just look at the makeup and tell me that's not exactly how you imagine the monster when you think about it. Vincent Price as The Fly had to beat the remake, yes the Cronenberg version was disturbing but the effect that the original had on the movie industry and the shocked viewers together with it's much stronger message (anti television among other things) makes the original a much better choice. And you can always watch Jeff Goldblum afterwards.

Now my final picks may be slightly controversial if you're a horror fan. But for one of them I asked a lot of people who came through my shop in the last few days what their favourite scary movie was (and none of them got the Scream reference so I'm not sure how meaningful their responses were) and the other I thought outside of the box.

Interestingly the majority of bookshop customers questioned mentioned a Will Smith film as their favourite horror movie, it is a well known fact that I love Will Smith movies and I probably wouldn't have thought to include this one in this list, so I go on record as stating that there was no prompting from the interviewer to try to get this included. I really enjoyed the film but what did my customers think when asked why it was scary? "Being alone, the last person alive" versus "those zombie things were fucken scary." Those two responses means I am useless at picking horror movies and that in my new opinion I Am Legend is one of the better horror movies ever made; it meshes that horrible psychological fear with that shit your pants horror that other movies have one or the other of and makes for a thoroughly enjoyable movie. So on to the final movie to be added to the blahblahblahgay family DVD guide, Requiem For A Dream. You won't find this movie in the horror section of any video store or anywhere that classifies movies BUT for me the way the lives of these people spin in to oblivion is one of the most horrifying things I have ever experienced, even more so on film than in the original novel. It's fantastically well made and the acting is superb and should definitely be watched but don't expect an uplifting experience. It's the kind of movie that makes you want to hold your loved ones close and promise yourself that nothing will ever cause your life to fall so low.

With the decisions made I have a 26 movie horror chapter for the guide. I'm a little disappointed that I couldn't think of a suitable horror movie "for the whole family" but you can't have everything.

The chapter will read as follows:
Eight Legged Freaks (****)
House of Wax 1953 (****)
Jaws (****)
Open Water (****)
The Thing (*****)
Dawn of the Dead 2004 (****)
The Exorcist (*****)
28 Days Later (*****)
Saw (****)
The Hitcher 1986 (****)
Wolf Creek (*****)
Requiem For A Dream (****)
I Am Legend (*****)
The Brood (****)
Rosemary's Baby (*****)
Nosferatu (*****)
Frankenstein 1931 (*****)
The Fly 1958 (****)
The Night of the Living Dead (****)
The Evil Dead (****)
House of 1000 Corpses (*****)
Dead End (****)
Scream (*****)
The Blair Witch Project (****)
Don't Look Now (****)
The Wicker Man 1973 (*****)

I know there's got to be some arguments over some of this. What did I do wrong? Can any of you name a great horror movie that's suitable for kids? Leave me your thoughts in the blahs below.

The Blahblahblah Family DVD Guide: Part 1 Science Fiction

OK, out shopping over the weekend and I came across a piece of gold in a bargain bin. The Sunday Age/Sun-Herald Family DVD Guide, marked down from $29.95 to $3. Flicking through it I was amazed at the array of terrible opinions held by the reviewer and thought it would be a fun feature on the blog every now and then.

The blurb states that it is "the ultimate family dvd guide with suggested viewing for every member of the family. Whether you're after a film for a family pizza night, a teenage slumber party or want to impress the love of your life, this user-friendly guide will help you find the perfect DVD."

I can just imagine the scene now

Him: "Hello my love, I stopped by the video shop on my way home, thought we'd get dome Chinese delivered and put our feet up"
Her: "Oh wow, I was having second thoughts about our relationship but now you've brought home Hidalgo let's make a lifelong commitment to each other. How ever did you think to rent that?"
Him: "Rob Lowing in my new DVD guide gave it 4 stars and called it solid entertainment that will have both of us cheering on a horse"
Her: (Thought bubble, Viggo is rather delicious)

So, here's what we're gonna do: Leah is gonna pick a chapter, and I shall attempt to appraise the selections and offer some replacements. First chapter selected is Science Fiction. (note: the book has a separate chapter for comicbook/superhero types which could easily be considered sci-fi and it also dedicates a sub-chapter to Star Wars so when you find yourself as shocked and amazed that there is no mention of the holy trilogy of sci-fi film as I was then that is why)

I guess it was almost inevitable that she would choose this chapter first, we're becoming sci-fi geeks as the months fly by, led by my fascination with those Grandmasters Asimov and Heinlein and more recently cyberpunk creator William Gibson.

The Guide lists:
Alien vs Predator (***)
Back To The Future Trilogy (****)
Blade Runner (*****)
Code 46 (***)
Escape From New York (*****)
I, Robot (****)
Johnny Mnemonic (***)
Metropolis (*****)
Minority Report (***)
Pitch Black (****)
Serenity (****)
Stargate (****)
T2 (*****)
T3 (****)
Day After Tomorrow (***)
Fifth Element (*****)
Hitchhiker's Guide (***)
The Island (***)
Man Who Fell To Earth (****)
War of the Worlds (***)

It's not comprehensive, it's not particularly imaginative and it's got quite a few shocks in there.

T3 with 4 stars? Perhaps I was alone in thinking that that movie was awful?

I wasn't a fan of Minority Report or The Island but giving them the same 3 star rating as the truly abysmal Johnny Mnemonic is more than a little harsh. I'm not suggesting that either of those movies deserved much more than a "for fans" recommendation but that the Keanu film should have been given a "miss" recommendation.

And on that subject why have a book of recommendations if you're going to take up valuable space with your opinions on what's terrible? I love to rant and frequently have to reel myself in from writing a negative post instead of a review of something I enjoyed but I'm pretty sure you should get as many 5 star movies as possible in a book like this.

The inclusion of the classic Metropolis feels like a nod to film history more than a recommendation but giving it 5 stars and a "must see" rec may be selling his audience short. What does he say about this masterpiece from Fritz Lang? "Hardcore movie buffs (that's me and probably some of you) will stampede to get this restored version of the famed 1927 movie. There are gaps in this black and white silent story (black & white! silent! I'm not watching this movie!) of a rich man who falls for a factory girl in a brutal, futuristic society (cue for all those Jason Statham fans to tune back in.) But outstanding visuals and the rich remastered score make this a treat to watch."For me that's not exactly a go out and see this movie level of review.

So he's listed 20 films in his sci-fi chapter, 8 of which he doesn't even think many people will enjoy. So lets remove them and Terminator 3 as well because that feels like a paid for inclusion.

That leaves 11 films, of which I haven't seen Escape From New York, Serenity and The Man Who Fell To Earth so I cannot judge. So my challenge is to recommend 9 science fiction films currently available on DVD. I won't lie to you, at this point that sounds like a daunting task.

A few rules I shall place on this:
1. Movies that have become a part of the public consciousness will not be included. If you need a guide to tell you whether to watch these movies then you've been living under a rock.
2. Movies that are primarily another genre such as comedy or romance will not be included. If you flip to this section chances are you aren't looking for a comedy or a romance.
3. Must have been released at the cinema longer than 2 years ago, otherwise you'd just hit up the new release section of your local video store. I shall use 1 June 2009 as the cutoff date.
4. Animation and films not in English will be discounted for pretty much the same reason as other genre.

First things first - I do love Hitchhikers myself and would always recommend it to fans of Douglas Adams or non-fans but as it's already been labelled as "for fans" by The Guide I shall have to think outside the box.

So straight up I will cut The Matrix and Men In Black from the shortlist as well as all of the Alien movies and the original Terminator. If you've got to this point there's a fair chance you have seen or decided not to see these movies already. The reboot of Star Trek falls in to this category as it is my experience that minds are made up on Star Trek, so that includes all of the old films too.

Movies reluctantly cut due to being too new are District 9, Pandorum and Gamer. Despite my constant cries bemoaning the dearth of quality science fiction films getting released I think these three getting cut for being too new is a slap in the face. As it is for one of my favourite movies of recent times, Moon, which should be seen by everyone.

Comedies such as Ghostbusters and Galaxy Quest are science fiction based but I cannot tell the good people who buy The Guide to go watch them for their science fiction content. This also applies to the Bill & Ted movies.

Such quality animated films as Akira and Ghost in the Shell must be moved to one side and perhaps I am underestimating the readers but A Scanner Darkly is going to have to count as an animation for these purposes. I would love to get more people watching City of Lost Children but it's in French so no can do.

With Metropolis already in the list there's not a huge amount of room for old school classic movies so I am thinking I should try to not pick so many. Narrowing down to the original Day The Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet, 2001, Fahrenheit 451, Soylent Green, Logan's Run, Omega Man, the original Planet of the Apes. I am immediately inclined to dismiss 2001 for being too odd for most audiences and the two films that have recently been remade (despite both being appalling) as I can't imagine most casual viewers wanting to see those stories again despite them being much better. I'm gonna only pick one Charlton Heston movie - Soylent Green over Omega Man - and then Logan's Run as my other classic pick as it's one of my personal favourites.


7 to go. Paul Verhoeven made three kickass sci-fi films in English; Robocop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers. I loved all of them for different reasons but I'm gonna go for Total Recall for the Arnie effect and Starship Troopers not least because it's the best adaptation from a Heinlein or Asimov book (I, Robot does not count) but also because both of these films stand up on repeat viewings as being extremely enjoyable. So that leaves 5...


I'm giving at least one pick to a family film but do I pick Tron or The Rocketeer? Instinct says The Rocketeer because of that recent Tron sequel but I'm just not sure.

Terry Gilliam has made some great fantastical science fiction films, there was always going to be one space on this list for him.Twelve Monkeys beats out Brazil for accessibility in my opinion so to keep one Gilliam film on the list the one that is most watchable gets the nod. And if you're told that there's a movie with Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt you will turn in to the man from Del Monte.

I'd love to add Wim Wenders' Until The End of the World but only because I really want to see that movie sometime not because I know it's great. So I'll leave it off for this edition. With 3 picks left I'm gonna have to throw another Arnie movie in to the mix, The Running Man sure it's not for everyone but this is a popcorn movie with a message that is relevant even today.


The prevailing theme of these picks has been action. Action movies galore. But science fiction is much more than that so my last two picks are going to be less about action more about science. So despite my love for Dark City and Repo Man they will not make the list. Which leaves me with a 4 film shortlist and only 2 spots left in the book.

Gattaca
Cube
Primer
eXistenZ

This task is tougher than I imagined. I thought it would be difficult to find 9 but actually it's been difficult to narrow it to 9. I'm gonna pick Gattaca because I think I was always going to pick Gattaca. It's a thinking man's movie that is impressive in its idea and impressive in its execution. The there is Primer. The most un-action science-fiction movie there is. Whilst this film will twist your brain in knots even on the second viewing you'll also come away having enjoyed it (not all of the people and not all of the time.) There should be room for tiny indie films in these lists, broaden people's horizons with them, don't you think?


And that concludes the juries deliberations, the Science Fiction chapter of The Blahblahblahfamily DVD Guide will contain the following:
Back To The Future Trilogy 1985 (****)
Blade Runner 1982 (*****)
Escape From New York 1981 (*****)
I, Robot 2004 (****)
Metropolis 1927 (*****)
Pitch Black 2000 (****)
Serenity 2005 (****)
Stargate 1994 (****)
T2 1991 (*****)
Fifth Element 1997 (*****)
Man Who Fell To Earth 1976 (****)
Rocketeer 1991 (****)
Twelve Monkeys 1995 (*****)
Gattaca 1997 (****)
Primer 2004 (****)
Running Man 1987 (****)
Total Recall 1990 (****)
Starship Troopers 1997 (****)
Soylent Green 1973 (****)
Logan's Run 1976 (****)

Agree or disagree with the choices I've made? Do any of the original cut 9 actually deserve higher ratings thus keeping their place in the guide? Leave me a comment, let me know. I'd prefer to cut Serenity and The Man Who Fell To Earth until I've seen them but that would go against the rules. It's especially tough when I look at all those films that I had to leave out.