MSU

This is in keeping with the Egyptian and Tibetan Books of the Dead, which both feature a small Peruvian Bear with a penchant for marmalade sandwiches and a particularly hard stare as being a guide to the afterlife.

113 Freddy vs Jason -- At this point in the series, I don't really care anymore and if anything having Jason run alongside Freddy just underlines what a dull character he's become. It's not the worst Friday the 13th movie, it's not the worst Nightmare on Elm Street movie, but other than obvious cash grab is obvious, I'm struggling to find a reason for it existing. 4/10 with an entire point for the vertigo zoom. 114 Friday the 13th -- The 2009 reboot that no one was asking for has two cold openings. Two. The backstory gets its own backstory. Kinda smacks like they were struggling to fill an hour and a half. What remains isn't all bad, and the references to Julianna Guill's "perfectly positioned nipples" were amusing and entirely correct. But again, why bother? So that's the end of the Friday the 13th marathon. Out of the 12 movies, I probably liked two, thought another two were somewhat enjoyable, and the rest, including this, were pretty forgettable. 5/10 115 Jaws -- Back on the big screen! I couldn't get out of my pit in time to catch the IMAX presentation so I had to make do with the 3D. I've never been a fan of 3D. The only movie I thought it added anything was Avatar. It wasn't bad here. It didn't add anything but it didn't really spoil anything either and after 20 minutes I forgot all about it. This is the first time I'd seen Jaws on the big screen and I highly recommend it. Everything seems to work that little bit better. You get a better sense of the Orca's isolation, the panic on the beach scenes and the vertigo zoom are incredible, and even old Bruce manages to look less mechanical. Still wish I'd seen it on IMAX or just a regular screen, but as we approach its 50th anniversary, it's really remarkable how this story has stood up and batted away attempts from pretenders. 10/10 116 The Ballad of Lefty Brown (#60 in the A24 series) -- Aw, boo. The A24 catalogue has dropped from Showtime so I need to start renting these from Amazon or iTunes now. I think this is a mission in Red Dead Redemption 2, sadly not one of the standouts. Bill Pullman is great as Lefty, a bit of a sidekick who goes off to avenge the murder of his buddy Ed, the local lawman and newly voted Senator, played by Peter Fonda. The further Lefty travels, the closer to home the story becomes. Really good cast, lovely to look at, but it's a dull couple of hours. Despite it's $8m budget, it pulled in a mere $8k at the box-office and received no marketing backing from A24. There are worse movies, which makes it all a bit weirder. Why people invest in movies is a mystery to me. 117 Barbarian -- Tess (Georgina Campbell) arrives in Detroit in the middle of the night ahead of a job interview the next day. She checks in at her Air BnB to find that there has been a double booking and Keith (Bill Skarsgård) is already there and against her better judgement, she accepts his offer to spend the night anyway. If you are going to see this, I recommend avoiding anymore information than that and to go in with your patient hat on. It's probably the best horror movie I've seen this year, certainly the most enjoyable. 8.5/10

I'm assuming he missed.

It's also the lead story on the Rugby League section of BBC Sport. I always assumed she was more a Union girl.

For me, that will remain a private matter between me, my internet service provider, and a sock.

Witchell next.

It's on sombre moments like this when I like to take some quiet reflection and wonder how Chris De Burgh is coping right now.

Same. Nicholas Witchell really could talk uninterrupted for days without saying a single thing.

I am. I'm a bit of an Aronofsky fanboy anyway. Mrs MSU hates Brendan Fraser so I might be seeing it on my own.

Yes! It's a bit of a series homage to him smashing another one into a tree in an earlier outing but it's particularly funny in this one.

The Ricky Gervais bit was worth it for the pause to take a swig from his bottle. Loved the bit about him and his son co-writing a joke neither of them fully understood.

Somehow watched 11 movies this week so I'll keep it brief. 102 Friday the 13th: A New Beginning -- Utter pish after the entertaining FInal Chapter and no Jason. Why bother? 3/10 103 Fall -- An annoying YouTuber and her annoying pal get stuck up the top of a massive TV tower in the middle of nowhere. 'Mon the vultures. 4/10 104 Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives -- Cracking fun that decides to be funny on purpose rather than by accident. It's like Friday the 13th meets Police Academy or something actually funny. 8/10 105 Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood -- Addition of a telekinetic character is a mistake. Bulk of points awarded for the sleeping bag into a tree kill. 3/10 106 Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan -- The Paramount years for the franchise go out with a whimper as Jason takes forever to get to Manhattan on a boat. Not fun, not funny, very boring. 2/10 107 Lady Bird (#58 in the A24 series) -- Fly away home. 10/10 108 The Disaster Artist (#59 in the A24 series) -- James Franco playing a guy who can't act, eh? Fly not so close to the sun, o Icarus, lest your wings melt. Only so many laughs you can get from "Oh, hi, Mark" but it's a surprisingly big number. 6/10 109 Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday -- New Line decides to get rid of Jason for long periods in favor of a worm transferred orally from one host body to another and isn't sexual in the slightest. Still better than Takes Manhattan bt it's close. 3/10 110 Wings (#1 in the Best Picture Oscar series) -- Two and a bit hours of silent cinema is a bit of a slog, but they packed an awful lot in. Clara Bow is extraordinary. 6/10 111 Jason X -- Shite, but enjoyable shite and contains the best kill in the franchise (face into liquid nitrogen). It's Jason in Space and I don't hate it. I don't hate it quite a bit, actually. 6/10 112 Three Thousand Years of Longing -- A djinn explains the stories of his life to Tilda Swinton who for some reason sounds like Alan Bennett. 7/10

It’s deja vu all over again.

Is there one of hers you would recommend as an introduction to her work?

Echo and the Bunnymen coming up at the Fillmore in Detroit next Friday. I'm pals with their sound engineer so there's a chance of Access All Areas passes which sound pretty grand and exciting over and above it being my first gig in about four years.

Rhaenyra dishing out the telts to Daemon was my highlight of the second episode. Paddy Considine doesn't look like he should be starting any long books and when he pegs it, shit's going to hit the fan big time.

094 Beast -- I get that it's a monster flick and that it's basically Idris Elba Punches a Lion, but the lion must have been inspired by the shark in Jaws The Revenge because this dude is out for revenge against the Elba and his family. There's a lot of it shot with the camera over and behind Elba's shoulder making it feel like a video game and not helping blend the CGI environment. Remarkably stupid, not fun, and if he's dead, David Attenborough will be rolling in his grave. 2/10 095 The Florida Project (#56 in the A24 series) Sean Baker has a real eye for capturing authenticity, perhaps no better than here where the misery of a neverending cycle of poverty is offset against the bliss of being six years old and spending summer getting into trouble with your friends. The movie plays out in an area of Orlando that's a few miles away from Disney but for these characters it might as well be a few light years. The contrast between the lives of the folks at the Magic Castle Motel and the tourist of the Magic Kingdom wouldn't be starker. Life below or near the poverty line is no fantasy and Baker presents their reality as it comes with little in the way of judgment. It's bleak stuff for the most part but Willem Dafoe, Brooklynn Prince, and Bria Vinaite are all astonishingly good. 9/10 096 Friday the 13th -- Got chatting to a friend about these movies the other day so decided to go through the series and break up the A24 stuff for a bit. I'd forgotten how boring an awful lot of it is. Establishing shots go on far too long. Scenes, for example, of what should be frantic setting up of a barrier on a door are shot in a more relaxed manner. All of this contributes to a pacing issue where all the kills are squeezed into the first hour and then the denouement is stretched out over the final 30 minutes. Still a slasher movie, it's more a whodunnit as we don't know who the killer is until the final act but unfortunately, the reveal of it being Mrs Voorhees, the mother of the dead boy from 1957, makes absolutely no sense either from a logistical point of view -- she assumes her son has been dead for two decades but he's somehow survived in the wilderness alone and they've never made contact -- or a practical one -- there's no way this wee woman in her pristine wooly sweater is throwing anyone through a window. 5/10 097 The Killing of a Sacred Deer (#57 in the A24 series) Yorgos Lanthimos writes and directs this (sort of) retelling of a Greek tragedy that can best be described as intentionally weird. Colin Farrel plays Steven, a cardiologist who becomes oddly close to Martin, the son of a patient who died during an operation. From buying the kid presents to inviting him to dinner with his wife and two kids, Steven seems to allow Martin to ingratiate himself more and more with his family until matters take a turn for the worst when Steven's son loses the power of his legs and begins to refuse food. Throughout the movie, all the characters deliver their lines with a very stale precision and will frequently take a conversation in an unexpected direction, such as Martin asking Steven's daughter if she is on her period or describing his own underarm hair. It's unsettling and obviously deliberate, which makes you wonder why Lanthimos has insisted on taking it in that direction. The tone created certainly keeps the characters at arm's length which perhaps forces the viewer to focus more on the situation and keep emotion away from assumptions and decisions. Maybe that's the point. Could easily have turned this off it I hadn't been in the mood for it, but I ended up really enjoying it. 8/10 098 Friday the 13th Part II -- The movie opens with Alice, the survivor from the original, having a nightmare as she handily dreams a recap of the first movie and then we witness her swift dispatch as Jason manages to track her down somehow, stow a severed head in her fridge for some reason, and then introduce an ice pick to her temple. Twelve minutes in and we've added even more confusion to what is already a baffling mythos. Despite the fact that it's largely a cookie-cutter remake of the original, this first sequel is a better affair. The pacing has been sorted out, there are a few genuine jumps in here, and there's a moment near the end when this movie's Final Girl is holding a door closed with all her might when she realizes there's an open window right behind her that demonstrated that the makers know about tension after all. There are more boobs and even a bit of floof to keep the dads happy in between all the senseless killing. 6/10 099 Friday the 13th Part III -- The year was 1982 and the number of dimensions was 3. This was the first Friday the 13th movie I ever saw so I'm happy to skim over some of its shortcomings in favor of nostalgia and through that lens, it stands up pretty well. Jason isn't dead (shocker) and we have another bunch of teenaged holidaymakers up for a bit of horny fun camping near a place where several massacres have taken place within living memory. It's interesting to note that, of course, Jason gains his now famous hockey mask in this movie, but what I'd forgotten was the mask was originally practical-joker Shelly's, who used it in a hilarious stunt where he scared a lone woman sitting on the edge of a dock at night by donning a wetsuit and a harpoon gun and slipping on the mask. How a hockey mask helps its wearer breathe underwater is anyone's guess but I wonder how close we came to Jason Voorhees's standard garb being a scuba facemask and oxygen tanks. In other words, not even the mask makes sense in this franchise. Anyway, it's in 3D and it was the 80s so that means actors sticking clothes poles, yoyos, joints, eyeballs etc into the camera at every possible opportunity. I can't imagine this was Avatar levels of 3D forty years ago, and today in 2D it all looks a bit shit. But it's cheesy and it seems in keeping with a script that gives the impression that everyone is in on the joke here. In fact, this whole movie for the most part feels like a giant wink at its audience. The kills obviously take advantage of the new technology so at least feel a bit more fresh and inventive. 6/10 100 Friday the 13th The Final Chapter -- Remarkably, through almost 50 summers on this planet, I'd never seen The Final Chapter. This adds a certain something to the equation that is reminiscent at least of surprise at some of the events and kills. This time, the group of horny teens have moved into a lakeside house next door to Trish Jarvis and her younger perverted brother Tommy, and we also have the introduction of a potentially mythos-busting relative of one of Jason's previous victims out for revenge. Despite its reliance on familiar tropes (morgue worker eating while examining dead bodies) and stupid decisions (female going skinny dipping alone at night when the person she was expecting to meet wasn't there) and downright WTF moments (worst time for a haircut in a horror movie ever) it manages to work pretty well and is the high watermark so far. 7/10 101 Samaritan -- In a superhero universe, masked vigilante hero, Samaritan, and his equally masked brother and nemesis, erm, Nemesis, have an epic fight in a blazing warehouse because of reasons and in the aftermath, he is thought to have died. Twenty years later, 13 year old Sam has cause to believe that his reclusive neighbor, Mr Smith, is in fact the legend himself. Stallone at 70+ still has a warm place in my heart and he puts in a decent, energetic shift here, while Javon Walton as Sam is great. The CGI is pretty poor throughout but it's not bad enough to be amusing or seem deliberate so it always jars and distracts, and it gets a wee bit too gimmicky when it begins to reveal all its secrets, but it's just over 90 minutes long, the story is followable with a little attention, and it doesn't end with half an hour of things blowing up, so it has quite a lot in its favor. 6/10

You're off to a great start with this, well done! I really like the opposition perspective idea. You getting it listed on Apple Podcasts?

Very good. FWIW, I liked your title animation too.

If only there was a way to not have sectarian singing.

The real life restaurant in Connecticut is also shite.

AMC showed the finale twice back to back last night and I ended up watching both. I think it took me to the second viewing, once I'd got a little bit beyond the sense of "well, what am I supposed to do now on Monday nights?" to appreciate how in keeping with the rest of the show that final episode really was. That's Saul, folks.

090 Prey -- The Predator sequel I never know I needed. Inexplicably denied a theatrical release in favor of appearing on Hulu. The premise is an excellent overlay on to the Predator formula as a young Comanche woman, with ideas of becoming a hunter like her brother, sets off to kill a mountain lion after seeing what she thinks is a sign in the sky but is actually the Predator's Joe Baxi dropping them off. Benefits from having a Native American and First Nation cast, has characters you care about, is thrilling and tense and all round a great way to spend an hour and a half. Some of the CGI is a bit ropey, but I'm nitpicking. I loved this. 9/10 091 Good Time (#54 in the A24 series) A weird, bleak, tale from the Safdie brothers that comes across as a bit of a hybrid between Dog Day Afternoon and Rain Man. Robert Pattinson plays Cassie, something of a failed criminal who steals his mentally disabled brother, Nick, from a therapy session and the two of them rob a bank which predictably goes wrong. Nick is caught while Cassie is dragged further and further down the whirlpool as he travels around New York at night trying to get the money to get his brother out. It's a story that's likely to make you want a shower about halfway through and then twice again once it's over. There's nothing much redeemable about Cassie apart from his misguided love for his brother. The soundtrack made me want to kill my ears with fire. 6/10 092 Woodshock (#55 in the A24 series) I like Kirsten Dunst and I understand that this movie was a bit of a labor of love for her, which makes me sad because not only is this movie really bad, it means that Kirsten Dunst doesn't know a shit movie when she sees one. Kirsten is Theresa, a woman who assisted her ill mother to suicide with a joint spiked with poison. In the weeks and months after this, Theresa, who conveniently works at a weed dispensary is thrown further into a pit of despair when she gives the wrong customer another suicide joint. She then plays Russian Roulette with further suicide joints and has some hallucinogenic experiences where things get weird. Directed and written by Kate and Laura Mulleavy, this appears to be their one and only credit and this is a good thing. After twenty minutes, I had already had my fill of pretentious tedium and the remaining hour and a bit was a slog. 3/10 093 Bodies Bodies Bodies (#118 in the A24 series) It's like a Gen Z Knives Out or real-life Among Us whodunnit movie as a small group of teens, and one fortysomething dude, gather in a house for a party ahead of a hurricane. Among the drink, drugs, and dancing, and a guest they wait to arrive, when the power goes out they decide to play a murder mystery game called Bodies Bodies Bodies where one of them is secretly assigned the killer of the group and the others have to deduce who that is. When one of them is found proper dead, suddenly they're playing the games for keeps. Aside from the Knives Out comparison, the movie is influenced by any number of murder mysteries that take place in a fixed location during a storm, with a bit of Scream-esque slasher jumps thrown in for good measure. The USP is really the generation of the characters and their collection of anxieties, neuroses, and hobbies, and their inability to connect with each other without thumbs hitting touch screens. The movie is perhaps a bit guilty of becoming too self-aware but it gets a good bit of comedy from this so I guess it can be forgiven. I still haven't worked out how I feel about the ending. 6/10

086 It Comes at Night (#51 in A24 series) This is like The Road for people who aren't quite ready for the full desperate experience of actually watching The Road. It's the old unspecific apocalypse trope again, where a disease has rampaged through the world leaving only a few scattered survivors living in isolation and in fear of the unseen menace around them. Where The Road basically asked, what's the point of having morals and being a good guy if we're all doomed, this takes a step back and wonders what happens to our innate sense of trust, and our compulsion to protect our loved ones in those circumstances. These are all worthy questions and It Comes at Night paints a pretty realistic answer, albeit a crushingly bleak one. 8/10 087 A Ghost Story (#52 in A24 seres) I get why people can and do hate this movie. It's for those reasons and many more that I adore it. Who knew that Casey Affleck under a bedsheet watching Rooney Mara silently eat a whole pie could move me to tears? It's one of my favorite movies of the century. It's so sad, so profound, so achingly beautiful to watch. It's pretty much perfect. 10/10 088 Menashe (#53 in A24 series) Menashe is a middle-aged widower living in a ultra-orthodox area of Brooklyn. His young son is living with his former brother-in-law on his rabbi's instruction until he cqn find a new wife, which he doesn't want. Fairly depressing stuff is lightened somewhat by Menashe attitude and it's shining a light on a world I know nothing about, so was fairly interesting. 5/10 089 Bullet Train -- So very stupid, but it was a fun watch. Brad Pitt plays a thief who is given the job of stealing a briefcase from a Bullet Train going from Tokyo to Kyoto but it turns out the train is full of assassins, hit men, and other assorted ne'er do wells who all have their own missions in which the briefcase is relevant. It's entertaining enough, with some great cameos, but it's impossible not to wonder why there are so few Japanese people on this train, why does the conductor not notice any of the rampant destruction taking place on his train, and who would've expected so many Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends name-checks (actually, this was probably my favourite bit). 6/10