Man on the Sofa from Eleventy8

Paul and Samir finish the Sergio Leone Dollars Trilogy, the movies that Clint Eastwood a Hollywood super star!

Samir's Tuco's costume and impression was totally unscripted, credit to him for making the effort.

Music used in this video was Spike T Jones - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly (Remix).

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Italian: Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo, literally "The good, the ugly, the bad") is a 1966 Italian epic spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood as "the Good", Lee Van Cleef as "the Bad", and Eli Wallach as "the Ugly". Its screenplay was written by Age & Scarpelli, Luciano Vincenzoni, and Leone (with additional screenplay material and dialogue provided by an uncredited Sergio Donati), based on a story by Vincenzoni and Leone. Director of photography Tonino Delli Colli was responsible for the film's sweeping widescreen cinematography, and Ennio Morricone composed the film's score, including its main theme. It is an Italian-led production with co-producers in Spain, West Germany, and the United States. Most of the filming took place in Spain.

The film is known for Leone's use of long shots and close-up cinematography, as well as his distinctive use of violence, tension, and highly stylised gunfights. The plot revolves around three gunslingers competing to find a fortune in a buried cache of Confederate gold amid the violent chaos of the American Civil War (specifically the New Mexico Campaign in 1862), while participating in many battles, confrontations, and duels along the way. The film was the third collaboration between Leone and Clint Eastwood, and the second with Lee Van Cleef.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was marketed as the third and final instalment in the Dollars Trilogy, following A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More. The film was a financial success, grossing over $25 million at the box office, and is credited with having catapulted Eastwood into stardom. Due to general disapproval of the spaghetti Western genre at the time, critical reception of the film following its release was mixed, but it gained critical acclaim in later years, becoming known as the "definitive spaghetti Western".

The team are suffering with post-Christmas fatigue. We all manage to keep it together though, and despite Justin and Samir feeling fatter than before the break, we present using the usual formula.

Don't know why Paul considered the pronunciation Valken instead of Walken... Christopher Walken is clearly an American.

By the way, Jenny Flex is actually Alison Doody. The same actor that was in India Jones and the Last Crusade, you know, the German that did both Indy and his dad... Filthy bitc... 😜

A View to a Kill is a 1985 spy film and the fourteenth in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions, and is the seventh and final appearance of Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Although the title is adapted from Ian Fleming's 1960 short story "From a View to a Kill", the film has an entirely original screenplay. In A View to a Kill, Bond is pitted against Max Zorin, who plans to destroy California's Silicon Valley.

The film was produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, who also wrote the screenplay with Richard Maibaum. It was the third James Bond film to be directed by John Glen, and the last to feature Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny.

Despite receiving mixed reviews from critics, who frequently took umbrage with the effects of Moore's advanced age on his performance, it was a commercial success, with the Duran Duran theme song "A View to a Kill" performing well in the charts, becoming the only Bond theme song to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earning a Golden Globe nomination for Best Song.

The first movie review of 2022. Paul and Samir discuss the Clint Eastwood movie, For a Few Dollars More.

How accurate and powerful were guns in the 1800s? Would a bounty hunter really walk away from their share of $20,000? And will Samir be considered for the next bond role?

For a Few Dollars More (Italian: Per qualche dollaro in più) is a 1965 spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone. It stars Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef as bounty hunters and Gian Maria Volonté as the primary villain. German actor Klaus Kinski plays a supporting role as a secondary villain. The film was an international co-production among Italy, West Germany, and Spain. The film was released in the United States in 1967, and is the second part of what is commonly known as the Dollars Trilogy.

After the box-office success of A Fistful of Dollars in Italy, director Sergio Leone and his new producer, Alberto Grimaldi, wanted to begin production of a sequel. Since Clint Eastwood was not ready to commit to a second film before he had seen the first, the filmmakers rushed an Italian-language print of Per un pugno di dollari to him - as a version in English did not yet exist. When the star arranged for a debut screening at CBS Production Center, though the audience there may not have understood Italian, they found its style and action convincing. Eastwood therefore agreed to the proposal. Charles Bronson was again approached for a starring role, but he thought the sequel's script was too like the first film. Instead, Lee Van Cleef accepted the role. Eastwood received $50,000 for returning in the sequel, while Van Cleef received $17,000.

Screenwriter Luciano Vincenzoni wrote the film in nine days. However, Leone was dissatisfied with some of the script's dialogue, and hired Sergio Donati to work as an uncredited script doctor.

The film was shot in Tabernas, Almería, Spain, with interiors done at Rome's Cinecittà Studios. The production designer Carlo Simi built the town of "El Paso" in the Almería desert; it still exists, as the tourist attraction Mini Hollywood. The town of Agua Caliente, where Indio and his gang flee after the bank robbery, was really Los Albaricoques, a small "pueblo blanco" on the Níjar plain.

It's Christmas, so what better reason to drag out Die Hard, a movie that everyone on the planet must have seen by now!

Watch, Paul, Justin & Samir talk about this action classic, starring up and coming actor (at the time), Bruce Willis.

Die Hard is a 1988 American action film directed by John McTiernan and written by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza. It is based on the 1979 novel Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp, and it stars Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Alexander Godunov, and Bonnie Bedelia. Die Hard follows New York City police detective John McClane (Willis) who is caught up in a terrorist takeover of a Los Angeles skyscraper while visiting his estranged wife. Reginald VelJohnson, William Atherton, Paul Gleason, and Hart Bochner feature in supporting roles.

Stuart was hired by 20th Century Fox to adapt Thorp's novel into a screenplay in 1987. His finished draft was greenlit immediately by Fox, who were eager for a summer blockbuster the following year. The role of McClane was turned down by a host of the decade's most popular actors, including Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. Known mainly for work on television, Willis was paid $5 million for his involvement, placing him among Hollywood's highest-paid actors. The deal was seen as a poor investment by industry professionals and attracted significant controversy before its release. Filming took place between November 1987 and March 1988, on a $25 million–$35 million budget and almost entirely on location in and around Fox Plaza in Los Angeles.

Expectations for Die Hard were low; some marketing efforts omitted Willis's image, ostensibly because the marketing team determined that the setting was as important as McClane. Upon its release in July 1988, initial reviews were mixed: criticism focused on its violence, plot, and Willis's performance, while McTiernan's direction and Rickman's charismatic portrayal of the villain Hans Gruber were praised. Defying predictions, Die Hard grossed approximately $140 million, becoming the year's tenth-highest-grossing film and the highest-grossing action film. Receiving four Academy Award nominations, it elevated Willis to leading-man status and made Rickman a celebrity.

Die Hard has been critically re-evaluated and is now considered one of the greatest action films, and is also often named one of the best Christmas films. It revitalized the action genre, largely due to its depiction of McClane as a vulnerable and fallible protagonist, in contrast to the muscle-bound and invincible heroes of other films of the period. Retrospective commentators also identified and analyzed its thematic concerns, including vengeance, masculinity, gender roles, and American anxieties over foreign influences. The film produced a host of imitators; the term "Die Hard" became a shorthand for plots featuring overwhelming odds in a restricted environment, such as "Die Hard on a bus". It created a franchise comprising the sequels Die Hard 2 (1990), Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), Live Free or Die Hard (2007), and A Good Day to Die Hard (2013), plus video games, comics, and other merchandise. Deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress, Die Hard was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2017.

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Paul reviews Finch, starring Tom Hanks. Released in 2021, this review will have some spoilers. Justin and Samir had other arrangements.

The solo reviews allow Paul to experiment with new techniques and equipment. So expect something a little different if you're watching this, and let us know if you liked it.

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Finch is a 2021 American post-apocalyptic science fiction drama film directed by Miguel Sapochnik from a spec script written by Craig Luck and Ivor Powell. The film stars Tom Hanks and Caleb Landry Jones.

The film was announced as BIOS in October 2017. Filming took place throughout New Mexico from February to May 2019. The film was scheduled to be released in theatres in the United States by Universal Pictures on October 2, 2020, but was delayed several times due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was retitled Finch, sold to Apple TV+, and was released on November 5, 2021. The film received mixed reviews from critics, with critical acclaim given to Hanks' performance, visuals and overall charm, but criticism for lack of originality and innovation within the post-apocalypse genre.

Chapters:

00:00 - Intro

00:21 - Synopsis & Cast

01:23 - Facts & Trivia

06:52 - Observations

08:25 - Final Thoughts

16:23 - Score

* Dedicated to Grace, who died on December 13th 2021 *

To conclude our Predator movie review playlist, we finish with The Predator (2018).

We have a guest with us this week, Henry is back. He couldn't stay away and wanted a chance to get a huge weight off of his chest. You can find Henry on his YouTube channel, 'The Bond Geek'.

Also, an honourable mention of AVPCentral.com. A very useful website built and run by Janno. Paul and Janno engaged in conversation via Instagram, which ended-up with them talking about web development. Anyway, AVPCentral.com and look for AVPCentral on Instagram 👍🏻

Paul rants, Justin rants, and Samir saves the best till last. Join us as we talk about the utter disappointment that was, The Predator.

The Predator is a 2018 American science fiction action horror film directed by Shane Black and written by Black and Fred Dekker. It is the fourth instalment in the Predator franchise. Black had a supporting role in the original film, while John Davis returns as producer from the first three instalments. The film takes place between the events of Predator 2 (1990) and Predators (2010). Starring Boyd Holbrook, Trevante Rhodes, Jacob Tremblay, Keegan-Michael Key, Olivia Munn, Thomas Jane, Alfie Allen, and Sterling K. Brown, it follows a group of PTSD-afflicted soldiers and a scientist who must team up to fight off an invading pair of Predators and discover their plans for mankind.

Talks of a new Predator instalment began in June 2014, with Black being confirmed as writer and director; much of the cast signed on between October 2016 and January 2017. Filming took place in British Columbia from February to June 2017, with the climax being re-written and re-shot in July 2018 following poor test screenings.

The Predator premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 6, 2018, and was theatrically released in the United States on September 14, 2018, by 20th Century Fox, in IMAX and Dolby Cinema, as well as standard formats. The Rotten Tomatoes critical consensus calls it "another missed opportunity". It grossed $160.5 million worldwide on a $88 million production budget, becoming the highest-grossing film in the franchise.

We're here, we're back on Bond and we're raring to go! Octopussy (1983), loved by a lot of Bond fans and grossed more revenue than the rival, Never Say Never Again in the same year.

We discuss the effectivity of red Lycra during a siege situation. Samir tells us that Kabir Bedi had a property in Hampshire, UK, and Justin explains how a plane on a stick was used in the opening scene. Paul mentions the Tarzan swing, multiple times!

Octopussy is a 1983 spy film and the thirteenth in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions; it was the sixth to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It was directed by John Glen and the screenplay was written by George MacDonald Fraser, Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson.

The film's title is taken from a short story in Ian Fleming's 1966 short story collection Octopussy and The Living Daylights, although the film's plot is mostly original. It does, however, contain a scene adapted from the Fleming short story "The Property of a Lady" (included in 1967 and later editions of Octopussy and The Living Daylights). The events of the short story "Octopussy" form part of the title character's background and are recounted by her in the film.

Bond is assigned the task of following a megalomaniacal Soviet general who is stealing jewellery and art objects from the Kremlin art repository. This leads Bond to a wealthy exiled Afghan prince, Kamal Khan, and his associate, Octopussy, and the discovery of a plot to force disarmament in Western Europe with the use of a nuclear weapon.

Octopussy was produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson; it was released four months before the non-Eon Bond film Never Say Never Again. The film earned $187.5 million against its $27.5 million budget and received mixed reviews. Praise was directed towards the action sequences and locations, with the plot and humour being targeted for criticism; Maud Adams's portrayal of the title character also drew polarised responses.

Following on our Predator franchise reviews, we land on Predators, 2010 release starring Adrien Brody.

Predators is a 2010 American science fiction action horror film directed by Nimród Antal and starring Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Alice Braga, Walton Goggins, and Laurence Fishburne. It was distributed by 20th Century Fox. It is the third instalment of the Predator franchise.

The film follows an ensemble cast of characters, including Royce (Adrien Brody), a mercenary who appears in an unidentified jungle among other proficient killers. They find that they have been abducted and placed on a planet which acts as a game reserve for two warring tribes of extraterrestrial killers, and actively look for a way to return to Earth.

Producer Robert Rodriguez had developed a script for a third instalment as early as 1994, although it was not until 2009 that 20th Century Fox green lit the project. According to Rodriguez, the title Predators is an allusion to the second film in the Alien franchise, Aliens (1986). The title also has a double meaning, referring both to the extraterrestrial Predator creatures and to the group of human characters who are pitted against them. Principal photography for Predators began on September 28, 2009 and concluded after 53 days; filming took place in Hawaii and then in Austin, Texas.

Predators was released in the United States on July 9, 2010, grossed over $24 million on its opening weekend, and has since grossed over $52 million in the United States, with an estimated total of $127 million worldwide.

Straying from Cannon?! Yep, we did it; mostly down to Paul not being able to stomach another Roger Moore Bond movie.

So, this week we're back with Sean Connery as Bond in the Kevin McClory version of Thunderball, Never Say Never Again.

Never Say Never Again is a 1983 spy film directed by Irvin Kershner. The film is based on the 1961 James Bond novel Thunderball by Ian Fleming, which in turn was based on an original story by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham, and Fleming. The novel had been previously adapted in a 1965 film of the same name. Never Say Never Again was not produced by Eon Productions, but by Jack Schwartzman's Taliafilm. The film was executive produced by Kevin McClory, one of the original writers of the Thunderball storyline. McClory retained the filming rights of the novel following a long legal battle dating from the 1960s.

Sean Connery played the role of Bond for the seventh and final time, marking his return to the character 12 years after Diamonds Are Forever. The film's title is a reference to Connery's reported declaration in 1971 that he would "never" play that role again. As Connery was 52 at the time of filming, although nearly three years younger than incumbent Bond Roger Moore, the storyline features an ageing Bond who is brought back into action to investigate the theft of two nuclear weapons by SPECTRE. Filming locations included France, Spain, the Bahamas and Elstree Studios in the United Kingdom.

Never Say Never Again was released by Warner Bros. in October 1983, and opened to positive reviews, with the acting of Connery and Klaus Maria Brandauer singled out for praise as more emotionally resonant than the typical Bond films of the day. The film was a commercial success, grossing $160 million at the box office, although less overall than the Eon-produced Octopussy, released earlier the same year.

They Live, a documentary about life on earth. 🌍

Well, not really, but it might as well be! Justin and Paul talk about this one, Samir was off selling his soul to the alien overlords.

They Live (titled onscreen as John Carpenter's They Live) is a 1988 American science fiction action film written and directed by John Carpenter, based on the 1963 short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" by Ray Nelson. Starring Roddy Piper, Keith David, and Meg Foster, the film follows an unnamed drifter who discovers through special sunglasses that the ruling class are aliens concealing their appearance and manipulating people to consume, breed, and conform to the status quo via subliminal messages in mass media.

The film was a minor success at the time of its release, debuting #1 at the North American box office. It initially received negative reviews from critics, who lambasted its social commentary, writing and acting; however, like Carpenter's other films, it later gained a cult following and experienced a significantly more favourable critical reception. It is now regarded by many as a largely underrated work. The film has also entered popular culture, and notably had a lasting impact on street art (particularly that of Shepard Fairey), while its nearly six-minute alley brawl between the protagonists has made appearances on all-time lists for best fight scenes.

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