GregHorrorShow: The Films Of 2013

I have been fortunate enough to see some fantastic films this year, so I have plenty of movies to shout about 🙂

I thoroughly enjoyed Haywire, which I thought was a great action flick with some awesome fight scenes. Hanna and Skyfall also impressed me, although I’m not sure Daniel Craig will ever top Casino Royale as Bond.

I saw some wonderful documentary films, namely Senna, King Of Kong, Indie Game: The Movie and Grounded: The Making Of ‘The Last Of Us’. Senna was a great piece of film-making, I can’t recommend it strongly enough. Of course I love games so the others were always going to be on interest to me but King Of Kong was brilliant. And to see what the actors went through to nail some parts of ‘The Last Of Us‘? Wow!

Jeff Bridges never lets me down and True Grit was no exception. Along with Matt Damon, Hailee Steinfeld and Josh Brolin he gave a great performance to make this a must watch. I absolutely loved Wreck It Ralph and this is one of my children’s favourite films of the last few years.

Django Unchained was a fun ride and I enjoyed Jack Reacher, despite Tom Cruise being *nothing* like the character from the books. Reacher stands on it’s own two feet though and Child’s writing proves that it can still work without the character’s imposing stature.

My favourite film of the year was a total surprise to me, as I hadn’t really enjoyed any other Richard Curtis films. About Time really struck a chord with me though and I love anything time travel related so that probably helped as well. It’s a great rom-com with a few neat twists on the time travel mechanic.

I finally got around to seeing Super 8 which I thought was great and reminded me of The Goonies, which is never a bad thing. Another contender for film of the year was Rush, which had stellar performances from its cast and an unbelievable (but true) story of two warring F1 drivers back in the 1970’s. Top stuff.

So here is the full list of films that I’d recommend from those I saw in 2013:

• Haywire
• True Grit
• Senna
• Hanna
• Wreck It Ralph
• King Of Kong
• Indie Game: The Movie
• The Raid
• About Time
• The World’s End
• 300
• Dead Space: Downfall
• Grounded: The Making Of ‘The Last Of Us’
• The Other Guys
• Dark Knight Rises
• Super 8
• Skyfall
• Rush
• Jack Reacher
• Django Unchained

What have you guys seen that stood out? Anything you’d recommend checking out?

The Raid – Review (Film)

I had heard only good things about The Raid from friends and various film blogs. I’d seen the director interviewed about his love of games and it seemed like the kind of film where you can enjoy, switch off and get blown away.

Thankfully The Raid didn’t disappoint, delivering a high octane mix of heavy gunfire and martial arts.

Taking place in Jakarta (the capital and largest city of Indonesia) it is the story of Rama, a cop in the city and father-to-be. His squad is called to an apartment block being run by a local crime lord and they are tasking with going in and flushing out any criminals that may be inside.

It’s a great premise and with the squad going up the building floor by floor it allows director Gareth Evans to put a lot of spectacular set pieces into action. A lot of those are gun based battles in corridors and stairwells but there is plenty of fist fighting action to be had as well.

Characters in The Raid use the traditional Indonesian martial art ‘Pencak Silat’ and there are some great fights in the film. If you’re not someone that likes gore it might be best to avoid this one though, as there are gunshot wounds and snapped bones all over the place.

The story itself wasn’t really anything special, unfortunately. And the film appears to have fallen into the same trap many games do in that the action is glorious but there isn’t much behind it to back it up.

The Raid certainly delivers a popcorn action punch and if you’re looking for some fun fighting/gun action then you could do a lot worse than this. I look forward to seeing what Gareth Evans comes up with next.

Rating: 8/10