Edmund Lester

I picked up three films the other day from a new distributor (by that I mean one I've not bought before) called Brain Damage Films. The three titles - all of which looked my kind of awful - are Silent Bloody Night, Death of a Ghost Hunter and Prey for the Beast. Well this evening I decided to try the first of these. It's a German film, although the actors (I'm using the term roughly) speak in heavily accented English. The story has two men in small town have sex with a woman they meet in the woods. This act seems to kick off a series of revenge murders by her family. The plot is pretty awful to be honest. Not a single jot of originality. The acting is bad, but then again the actors are hampered by having to act in a foreign language, and the effects are seriously bad - all you have to do is wait for the decapitation shot and you'll know exactly what I mean. But despite all this it has a definite B-Movie charm. You don't expect these movies to be any good. It's n...

Another night, another horror film. Tonight's selection is Shutter, an American film set in Tokyo - I'm guessing it's another J-Horror remake like the Ring or the Grudge. It doesn't matter particularly as I haven't seen the original so I am able to judge this on its own merits. Well it's ok. Essential a photographer and his new bride travel to Tokyo where he has a fashion shoot assignment only for a ghost, literally, from his past - return to torment him and kill his friends. It stars a group of people I've never heard - surprisingly no Sarah Michelle Gellar - although I did half-recognise the lead actor. Not enough to make me head to IMDB to see what else he's been in mind you. It's Joshua Jackson in case you have heard of him. He's not bad, can act reasonably well - certainly more than enough for a film like this - it's not Shakespeare after all. Rachel Taylor plays his wife and also does a decent job. She certainly sells the scenes when sh...

About two years ago we came up with the plan of selling this house and buying a new house with my wife's parents. Something decently sized for the four of us. So we emptied the house of a lot of our stuff - we are both mad collectors - and put it all in storage. The photographs were taken, the brochure created and house went on the market. And then the recession happened and virtually no one came to look. For over a year we waited, nearly two. And nothing happened at all. Not even close to a sale. Well one guy did decide to put in a silly offer. He wanted us to knock 40% off the price and this was after we'd already reduced it by 25%. So we decided not to move. We weren't moving to get somewhere new anyway. We like the village where we live. We just wanted more room. So we hired an architect, told him what we want and he drew up the plans. They were submitted and now we wait. Hopefully someday we will get the go ahead but that's up to the council's planning departme...

I don't like musicals, never have done. My mother watched an awful lot of them when I was a kid and it has put me off for life. Okay there are a couple I like. Rocky Horror is one obvious example , Blues Brothers is another but generally I am not a fan of the format. I do watch one from time to time though. I've seen Evita - well made but not my thing. I saw a musical of Jeckyll and Hyde some years back with Paul Nicholas and it was well done but I still didn't like it. I watched Moulin Rouge, at my wife's request, and thought it wa sokay for a musical but still I didn't like it. I've also encountered bits of others but never finished them. Hell I didn't even like Tommy the Film and I have been a fan of the Who for thirty years. So Repo: The Genetic Opera had a lot to overcome if it was going to get me to like it. Okay it was horror which I definitely like, but it was still a musical. Well I've watched it. I even managed to get all the way to the end. An...

I've been an cricket fan for years and, being English, an England fan. Now I've happily watched them beat the Australian team this summer 2-1 in the Ashes test series and then unhappily watched them get soundly beat 6-1 in the one-day international series between the same two teams. So I had little if any hopes for the team in the Champions Trophy this week in South Africa. Well two matches in they've won them both - and this is against Sri , one of the most explosive run-scoring teams in the game, and South Africa, the tournament favourites who are now out. This is the same team that earlier in the year were beaten by Holland in the Twenty-20. Unbelievable! I can smile for a bit. They probably won't go any further but they've made it to the semis.

When I was a kid I used to watch a lot of Grand Prix. About ten years ago I gave it up, feeling it had become a little formulaic. Well a little over a year ago I changed jobs and a number of the guys in the new company are Formula One fans. I listened to their conversations after the races in the 2008 season, and then in the run up to the 2009 series. So I decided to give the sport a go again. Well, much as I am told that the 2009 season is a bit dull in comparison to earlier years I am hooked. Okay this might be down to the fact that ten years away has made it fresh for me. And also the fact that the technology has moved on so much, both in terms of the cars and the TV coverage. But when it comes down to it I am enjoying this. I try to watch the qualifying when I can - as it can often be the most exciting part of the racing weekend. I watch the whole of the race and even stick with it through the interviews, post-race analysis national anthems - even the dull British one just played. ...

This was a film I was very wary of watching. I like the original. It's a classic of 1950s sf. And the new version starred Keanu Reeves. Now I am not as down on Keanu as most people. Ok he's not the greatest actor in the world, but he's okay if he's in the right part. I thought he was quite superv in the Matrix. I simply cannot think of anyone who would have been more suited to that role than him. He had the look nailed down perfectly. But I then remember him in Kenneth Branagh's Shakespeare film "Much Ado about Nothing". In general he worries me when I see his name on a film but balance it with a realisation that more often than not I've found him to be good. Well fortunately he was good in this film. His understated acting suited the part. The role needed an almost Terminator-robot style of emotionless logic and he delivered it. As for the film. Well I loved the new Gort. The massive increase in size was perfect - genuinely scary feeling. The plot was...