Dirty Harry 1971.

When a sniper called "Scorpio" starts shooting innocent people tough cop Harry Callahan is tasked with to track him down.

Aside from The French Connection this was the other great cop film where the main protagonist will stop at nothing to get the bad guy even bending some rules.

Clint Eastwood stars as Callahan, who is tough as nails and very unsympathetic towards Scorpio played by Andrew Robinson (Larry from Hellraiser) who does enjoy playing cat and mouse with the SFPD. Don Siegel takes charge to direct this movie with a good background score and great cinematography. 10+

Magnum Force 1973.

Harry Callahan returns this time on a trail of vigilante police and teamed up with a new partner to take them down but may not be easy proving.

This is like a old school flick that does seem to rely on props looking like a body falling from a building, bike chase on a ship and Clint doing his own stunts as he did with the previous film.

A lot of sequels never match up to its predecessor but this one does with great acting from David Soul, Hal Holbrook Felton Perry, Robert Urich and a young Tim Matheson. It has a great script, with some funny quotes and good shoot outs. 10+

Bumblebee

I really don't get on with the transformers live action films. I walked out of the second. They're sloppily directed, bloated messes that end up throwing action scenes that make no sense whatsoever in between juvenile frat boy humour and ludicrous characters. So its weird to go see a Transformers film that's actually.... rather good.
It helps that Bay has been replaced by Travis Knight, previously known for animated features like Kubo and Paranorman. He has a clear sense of visual storytelling. For the first time I've actually watched an action scene in a Transformers film and didn't lose track of what was going on. It has characters that felt like well rounded humans especially a great central performance from Hailee Steinfeld. Some nice nods to 80's nostalgia including the soundtrack to the original animated feature making a cameo, posters for The Thing and even a poster for Tom Baker era Doctor who. The script keeps things simple and doesn't bog itself down with lore. You can happily ignore the other Transformers and go see this. Worth taking the kids as well as it genuinely feels like the sort of Sci-fi family adventure you'd see in the eighties. Worth seeing.

Off to see this , this afternoon . From what you have said and others this is what a transformer movie should of been like from the start.

Both very different films but both a lot of grimy fun in their own way. :nod:

Glad they were received well. I can't think of (m)any civilians I know entertaining the thought of watching either film, unfortunately.

Decemberdike
 

December 30th

The Girl With All the Gifts (2016)

At first seemingly a rip off of 28 Days Later, The Girl With All the Gifts is so much more than that. Some 14 years after that film it says a lot for the creative minds behind this film that they can come up with something similar yet also completely new.

I don't think i want to say anything regarding the plot - I knew nothing and i'm sure it helped in my enjoyment of the film - but i will say it boasted one or two of the most suspenseful scenes i've seen in years, one in fact was arse clenchingly tense to the point where i was fearful of breathing.

The film has an excellent cast in Gemma Arterton, Paddy Considine, Glenn Close and newcomer Sennia Nanua as the titular girl who was quite superb. It also has some excellent action sequences and plot devices you really won't see coming.

Easily the best 'new to me' film of Decemberdike 2018.

I really rated this when I watched it for the first (and only) time last year. I need to give it another watch at some point.

With Decemberdike drawing to a close, do you have anything special planned for tonight?

Not really. I thought i might go with Leatherface (2017). I fancy an easy watch.

I usually save something i think will be great and then it's crap so this year i thought go with something that could easily be crap and i might be surprised.

My Decemberdike is continuing until Sunday night as i don't restart work until Monday.

Cool. I haven't seen Leatherface myself so can't comment, although it's not a film that I'm bursting to watch either.

How many films do you have left in your pile? I know from previous years that you've had some left over that you haven't had a chance to watch, which I assume get rolled over to next year.

Yeah, there were forty two to start with.

This is what is still in the drawer. Plus i've about fifty other horror films to watch as well. (The fifth one is Witchhammer).