Man on the Sofa from Eleventy8

Joker, Paul's pick this week. Suitably dark and miserable, for today's current climate. Trust Paul to pick this movie 🤡

Joker is a 2019 American psychological thriller film directed by Todd Phillips, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Scott Silver. The film, based on DC Comics characters, stars Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker and provides a possible origin story for the character. Set in 1981, it follows Arthur Fleck, a failed clown and aspiring stand-up comedian whose descent into insanity and nihilism inspires a violent countercultural revolution against the wealthy in a decaying Gotham City. Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen, Glenn Fleshler, Bill Camp, Shea Whigham and Marc Maron appear in supporting roles. Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, Joker was produced by Warner Bros. Pictures and DC Films in association with Village Roadshow Pictures, Bron Creative and Joint Effort.

Phillips conceived Joker in 2016 and wrote the script with Silver throughout 2017. The two were inspired by 1970s character studies and the films of Martin Scorsese (particularly Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy), who was initially attached to the project as a producer. The film loosely adapts plot elements from Batman: The Killing Joke (1988), but Phillips and Silver otherwise did not look to specific comics for inspiration. Phoenix became attached in February 2018 and was cast that July, while the majority of the cast signed on by August. Principal photography took place in New York City, Jersey City and Newark, from September to December 2018. Joker is the first live-action theatrical Batman film to receive an R rating from the Motion Picture Association.

The Boys From Brazil, Samir's choice for this week's movie review. Will we be bored to death, or surprisingly entertained? Well, I guess you'll have to bloody watch/listen and find out! 🤬

The Boys from Brazil is a 1978 thriller film directed by Franklin J. Schaffner. It stars Gregory Peck and Laurence Olivier, and features James Mason, Lilli Palmer, Uta Hagen, Anne Meara, Denholm Elliott, and Steve Guttenberg in supporting roles. The film is a British-American co-production and is based on the 1976 novel of the same title by Ira Levin. It was nominated for three Academy Awards.

Young, well-intentioned Barry Kohler stumbles upon a secret organization of Third Reich war criminals and Neo-Nazis holding clandestine meetings in Asunción, Paraguay and finds that Dr. Josef Mengele, the infamous Auschwitz doctor, is with them. He phones Ezra Lieberman, an ageing Nazi hunter living in Vienna, Austria, with this information. A highly sceptical Lieberman tries to brush Kohler's claims aside, telling him that it is well known that Mengele is living in Paraguay.

Time Bandits, one of Paul's favourite childhood movies. Finally, we get to review it! Paul has been wanting to talk about this movie ever since the channel started.

Time Bandits is a 1981 British fantasy adventure film co-written, produced, and directed by Terry Gilliam. It stars Sean Connery, John Cleese, Shelley Duvall, Ralph Richardson, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Michael Palin, Peter Vaughan and David Warner. It tells the story of a young boy taken on an adventure through time with a band of thieves who plunder treasure from various points in history.

In 1979, Terry Gilliam was unable to set up the film Brazil, therefore proposed a family film. Time Bandits was co-written with fellow Monty Python Michael Palin, financed by ex-Beatle George Harrison's HandMade Films and filmed in England, Morocco and Wales. The film was released in cinemas on 2 July 1981 in the United Kingdom and on 6 November 1981 in the United States. On its initial release, the film received mainly positive reviews from critics, opening at number one at the weekend box office in the US and Canada, and by the end of its run grossing $36 million on a budget of $5 million.

Gilliam has referred to Time Bandits as the first in his "Trilogy of Imagination", followed by Brazil (1985) and ending with The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988).

Raiders of the Lost Ark, introducing Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. Was Indiana a hero, or was he just a selfish pawn used by the US military?

With fresh eyes in a 2022 context, let's do what the young generation do, and deconstruct this movie so that it's ruined forever... Just kidding. 😃

Raiders of the Lost Ark is a 1981 American action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Lawrence Kasdan, based on a story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman. It stars Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, Ronald Lacey, John Rhys-Davies, and Denholm Elliott. Ford portrays Indiana Jones, a globe-trotting archaeologist vying with Nazi German forces in 1936 to recover the long-lost Ark of the Covenant, a relic said to make an army invincible. Teaming up with his tough former lover Marion Ravenwood (Allen), Jones races to stop rival archaeologist Dr. René Belloq (Freeman) from guiding the Nazis to the Ark and its power.

Lucas conceived Raiders of the Lost Ark in the early 1970s. Seeking to modernize the serial films of the early 20th century, he developed the idea further with Kaufman, who suggested the Ark as the film's goal. Lucas eventually focused on developing his 1977 space opera Star Wars. Development on Raiders of the Lost Ark resumed that year when he shared the idea with Spielberg, who joined the project several months later. While the pair had ideas for set pieces and stunts for the film, they hired Kasdan to fill in the narrative gaps between them. Principal photography began in June 1980 on a $20 million budget and concluded the following September. Filming took place on sets at Elstree Studios, England, and on location mainly in La Rochelle, France, Tunisia, and Hawaii.

Paul of Eleventy8 talks about Casino Royale, the 1953 Ian Fleming novel. Casino Royale introduces us to James Bond 007.

Casino Royale is the first novel by the British author Ian Fleming. Published in 1953, it is the first James Bond book, and it paved the way for a further eleven novels and two short story collections by Fleming, followed by numerous continuation Bond novels by other authors.

The story concerns the British secret agent James Bond, gambling at the casino in Royale-les-Eaux to bankrupt Le Chiffre, the treasurer of a French union and a member of the Russian secret service. Bond is supported in his endeavours by Vesper Lynd, a member of his own service, as well as Felix Leiter of the CIA and René Mathis of the French Deuxième Bureau. Fleming used his wartime experiences as a member of the Naval Intelligence Division, and the people he met during his work, to provide plot elements; the character of Bond also reflected many of Fleming's personal tastes. Fleming wrote the draft in early 1952 at his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica while awaiting his marriage. He was initially unsure whether the work was suitable for publication, but was assured by his friend, the novelist William Plomer, that the novel had promise.

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Top Gun: Maverick, finally! We delayed this movie review because someone died recently. So for those of you that were interested in seeing what we had to say about Top Gun: Maverick, here you go, waiting over! I bet you can't f'ing wait 😜

Top Gun: Maverick is a 2022 American action drama film directed by Joseph Kosinski. It is the sequel to the 1986 film Top Gun and the second instalment in the Top Gun film series. Written by Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, and Christopher McQuarrie, the film is based on a story by Peter Craig and Justin Marks. It stars Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer reprising their roles from the original film, alongside Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, and Ed Harris. In the film, Maverick confronts his past while training a group of younger Top Gun graduates, including the son of his deceased best friend, for a dangerous mission.

At the last minute, we decided to talk about Queen Elizabeth II, who died on the 8th of September 2022.

To those of you that expected our Top Gun: Maverick review, sorry about that.

Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during her life and served as monarch of 15 of them at the time of her death.[a] Her reign of 70 years and 214 days is the longest of any British monarch and the longest recorded of any female head of state in history.

Elizabeth was born in Mayfair, London, as the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth). Her father acceded to the throne in 1936 upon the abdication of his brother, King Edward VIII, making Elizabeth the heir presumptive. She was educated privately at home and began to undertake public duties during the Second World War, serving in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. In November 1947, she married Philip Mountbatten, a former prince of Greece and Denmark, and their marriage lasted 73 years until his death in April 2021. They had four children: Charles III; Anne, Princess Royal; Prince Andrew, Duke of York; and Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex.

When her father died in February 1952, Elizabeth—then 25 years old—became queen of seven independent Commonwealth countries: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon (known today as Sri Lanka), as well as Head of the Commonwealth. Elizabeth reigned as a constitutional monarch through major political changes such as the Troubles in Northern Ireland, devolution in the United Kingdom, the decolonisation of Africa, and the United Kingdom's accession to the European Communities and withdrawal from the European Union. The number of her realms varied over time as territories gained independence and some realms became republics. Her many historic visits and meetings include state visits to China in 1986, Russia in 1994, and the Republic of Ireland in 2011, and visits with five popes.

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Get Carter is our next movie review. Samir picked this one, he likes the old movies best.

Get Carter is a 1971 British crime film written and directed by Mike Hodges in his directorial debut and starring Michael Caine, Ian Hendry, John Osborne, Britt Ekland and Bryan Mosley. Based on Ted Lewis's 1970 novel Jack's Return Home, the film follows the eponymous Jack Carter (Caine), a London gangster who returns to his hometown in North East England to learn about his brother's supposedly accidental death. Suspecting foul play, and with vengeance on his mind, he investigates and interrogates, regaining a feel for the city and its hardened-criminal element.

Producer Michael Klinger optioned Lewis's novel shortly after its publication and made a deal with the ailing Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) to finance and release the film, making Get Carter the last project to be approved by the studio's Borehamwood division before its closure. The production went from novel to finished film in eight months, with principal photography taking place from July to September 1970 in and around Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead and County Durham. Hodges, Klinger and Caine intended to create a more realistic portrayal of violence and criminal behaviour than had previously been seen in British films: Caine, who also served as an uncredited co-producer, incorporated aspects of criminal acquaintances into his characterisation of Carter, while Hodges conducted research into the criminal underworld of Newcastle (in particular the one-armed bandit murder). Cinematographer Wolfgang Suschitzky worked with Hodges to give scenes a naturalistic feel, drawing heavily on their backgrounds in documentary films.

Mad Max, Justin suggested this one out of the blue. A real odd one to pull out of his ars.. hat!

So, why not, Join us, or don't, as the Eleventy8 team reviews the movie that helped make Mel Gibson a Hollywood star.

Mad Max is a 1979 Australian dystopian action film directed by George Miller and produced by Byron Kennedy. Mel Gibson stars as "Mad" Max Rockatansky, a police officer turned vigilante in a near-future Australia in the midst of societal collapse. Joanne Samuel, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Steve Bisley, Tim Burns, and Roger Ward also star. James McCausland and Miller wrote the screenplay from a story by Miller and Kennedy.

Principal photography for Mad Max took place in and around Melbourne and lasted for six weeks. The film initially received a polarized reception upon its release in April 1979, although it won four AACTA Awards. Filmed on a budget of A$400,000, it earned more than US$100 million worldwide in gross revenue and set a Guinness record for most profitable film. The success of Mad Max has been credited[by whom?] for further opening up the global market to Australian New Wave films.

The film became the first in the Mad Max series, giving rise to three sequels: Mad Max 2 (1981), Beyond Thunderdome (1985), and Fury Road (2015). In 2020, a fifth film, to be titled Furiosa, was announced.

Based on the overwhelming success of our last episode of 3 Blokes, 3 Topics (dripping with irony), we decided to do another one.

Mostly due to the fact that the three of use can't decide what movie review, we're going to sit around and just talk for a while. The idea is that the three of us each think of a topic of conversation, and none of us know what that is until we go live on the night.

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DISCLAIMER (Because you have to these days 🤡)

We are by no means experts on anything, so take our comments and thoughts at your own risk. And if you are perpetually offended, we don't care, listen to something else!

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