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Phantoms (1998)
An adaptation worth watching
I remember reading the book and thinking after the first hundred pages, "This is crap." The film fast forwards the first hundred pages in a matter of minutes...to a fault. They earlier scenes of horror seem random and senseless, as if no one has any idea overall of what to do but just shove old school practices into your face. Unfortunately, most people (those who haven't read the book) won't realize that all that effort was for the sake of the bored "Ancient Enemy" who is just playing its is prey. It's hunger is satiated. It's lust and desire satisfied. The only thing left is it's enormous ego. One thing that translates well from page to screen is hubris and the downfall it entails. Minor things will scrape against your skin (like a shot of sudden nightfall, followed by another shot in full daylight, or the fact that guns have infinite ammo and don't require reloading...or how a young Ben Affleck is a former FBI agent turned small town Sheriff at the ripe old age of 25) In the end, it holds up well more than 15 years later. I love the fact that the Ancient Enemy can assume the form of anything and everything it has consumed, as well as the thoughts and ideas from what it has devoured. There are so many other films that will waste your time, this isn't one of them........thought the last minute could have easily been cut out.
Z-108 qi cheng (2012)
Not terrible, but not great either, like a Chinese Resident Evil
Intro begins with your typical scientific breakthrough news clips with opening credits. Now, before I continue, I should state that I watched this movie without English Subtitles, so I didn't get to follow much of the story, (the zombie outbreak is explained through Chinese characters), but after living in China for almost 4 years I understood some of what they were saying.
The first moment where you think "should I turn this off and just watch something else?" is minutes into the film, but stick through it. The woman is incredibly stupid, acting as if it's the first time she's seen zombies when it's clear the whole city of Taipei has been devastated by them. When her rescuer arrives, that's when you're left a bit intrigued.
The biggest problem I found was the sound. There are moments where you think "this scream metal music should be louder to accompany the action" but it's not and the kicks and punches sound like they were done using an old Casio Keyboard. And the human actors making zombie sounds is bad..."and you should feel bad"-Zoidberg
Sex plays a heavy part in this film. If you've ever watched apocalypse films and thought "If that were me, I'd be hording beautiful Asian woman and raping them on a daily basis" well then this films for you. In fact, I'm tempted to believe that the zombie apocalypse was just a front for the director to fulfill his life long dream of directing snuff films. I just watched "I Spit On Your Grave" and that film has nothing on this one. These scenes will give you that uncomfortable boner that you hope no one else watching with you will notice.
But...the action sequences fall flat. The jokes seems as if they were written 15 years ago (KEVIN SMITH REFERENCE????) and you don't really give a crap about who dies, in fact when they do die you barely notice since there's constantly new characters thrown in that I can't even remember what happened to Sniper Chick (a staple in China) or the little boy's Mama. There's a black guy in there who jumps around everywhere, even when he doesn't have to, but he's kind of likable.
I wasn't surprised at all that this film managed to find a Japanese villain, after all, it is a Chinese film, but those who have never lived in China wouldn't get it anyway, so it's a plus for me.
I'm left with some questions in the end though, as I'm sure those who watch it will have, such as WHAT HAPPENED TO THE DAUGHTER??? and Why did that guy become a RESIDENT EVIL BOSS FIGHT AND WHY DID THE OTHER ZOMBIES ATTACK HIM. In the end, it's just another zombie movie from a different perspective. I need to learn more Mandarin.
TL;DR Moderate budget Taiwanese zombie flick with a low budget minded)or (or experienced) film crew
Father Ted (1995)
God Awful
I wanted to be fair so I watched all episodes in the three seasons of this show and I only laughed once, while chuckling perhaps twice that in the 25 odd episode run. It's just not funny. The characters are completely one dimensional, and worse, extremely annoying. A few shows in, you know exactly what they are going to say, destroying whatever punchlines this poor excuse for writing had in store. Pretty much every episode is copy/pasted from the last one. You got Father Ted, who's the "normal" guy, and the other three. If your idea of hilarity is some dirty old man yelling "DRINK! FECK! ARSE! GIRLS!" all the time, then I guess this bland show is for you. In case you are wondering which episode I thought was actually funny, it was "A song for Europe," when Dougal and Ted are writing their song. None of the characters develop at all during the course of the show. The closest is when they give up their vices for lent, and you see a different side of Father Jack. It would have been nice if Dougal wasn't a complete "fecking" moron all the time. It's frustrating really, along with Mrs. Doyle. I've watched other Britcoms and I liked most of them (yes I know it's from Ireland). I started watching it to have a talking point with my European friends, since most of them love this show. I was hoping I would like it, but it turns out I didn't. A lot of people seem to love it, and good for them, but I feel it just isn't entertaining at all.