Film Actually Ep053 (145) – Horrible Bosses and The Guard

Hosts: David McVay & Josh Philpott

This week the podcast gets re-numbered, this is now episode 53 or 145 in old money. David and Josh review the comedy “Horrible Bosses” and the quirky Irish film “The Guard”. They also take a look at the new trailer for “The Rum Diaries” and deliver an all new and very personal Lists of Five: Five Actors/Actresses/Directors You Will Watch No Matter What They Do. Film Actually is the official movie podcast of geekactually.com.

If you are an iTunes user, please leave a review. Your comments help us improve the show. This show carries an explicit tag due to infrequent coarse language.

*Note* The Film Actually show is going to take a short break from live shows for about three weeks due to us moving studio. The audio podcast will come out as normal during this time.

Listen or download it here or subscribe to it on iTunes

Make sure you check out our other fine podcast Geek Actually for all your tech and geek culture needs.

Film Actually is recorded live every Saturday. Go to https://geekactually.com/live for the schedule and to watch it or you can also now watch the live show on Facebook – Click here to watch.

Your show notes and links follow:

What We’ve Been Watching

A collection of other things that we have seen throughout the week. Kevin Smith’s “Red State”, “Fast Five” on Blu-Ray and the TV series “Monster” are discussed.

Feature Film Review 1

‘Horrible Bosses’ directed by Seth Gordon and written by Michael Markowitz, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. It stars Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Kevin Spacey, Colin Farrell, Jennifer Aniston and Jamie Foxx.

For Nick, Kurt and Dale, the only thing that would make the daily grind more tolerable would be to grind their intolerable bosses into dust. Quitting is not an option, so, with the benefit of a few-too-many drinks and some dubious advice from a hustling ex-con, the three friends devise a convoluted and seemingly foolproof plan to rid themselves of their respective employers… permanently. There’s only one problem: even the best laid plans are only as foolproof as the brains behind them. Source: Warner Bros.

Our Verdict: A funny but flawed film that succeeds because of a very funny cast.

Watch the trailer here: http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/wb/horriblebosses/

Feature Film Review 2

‘The Guard’ written and directed by John Michael McDonagh. It stars Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle, David Wilmot, Liam Cunningham, Rory Keenan, Fionnula Flanagan and Mark Strong.

Sergeant Gerry Boyle is a small-town Irish cop with a confrontational personality, a subversive sense of humor, a dying mother, a fondness for prostitutes, and absolutely no interest whatsoever in the international cocaine-smuggling ring that has brought straight-laced FBI agent Wendell Everett to his door. Source: Element Pictures.

Our Verdict: A must see quirky Irish comedy with a brilliant central performance by Brendan Gleeson.

Watch the trailer here: http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/sony/theguard/

Entertainment Buzz

They never learn, Piracy doubles when Fox delays.
http://www.slashfilm.com/piracy-doubles-result-foxs-decision-delay-run-shows-availability-hulu/

Johnny Depp and Hunter S. Thompson, a match made in heaven. The trailer for The Rum Diaries.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C75-dj679uo

Lists of Five

This week our Lists of Five: Five Actors/Actresses/Directors You Will Watch No Matter What They Do. There are certain actors, actresses or directors that just speak to you and no matter what they make, good or bad, you will watch it. Here are five of ours.

Just a reminder, because we never like to just make things easy on ourselves, our lists are not necessarily top five lists, they are more or a less a list of film recommendations within the theme of the list.

Feedback

We run through the week’s listener feedback.

The Rest…

David’s “My Year With Movies” blog is on Tumbr

Join us on our Facebook Fan Page: facebook.com/GeekActually or follow Geek Actually on Twitter @geekactually

Make sure you check out our new range of Geek Actually swag at cafepress.com.au/geekactually

The Reel Junkies podcast can be found at weekendronin.com

Brad and Charlie (formerly of “Movie Fan House”) are back, their new site is ReboundRadio.com and their new podcast is “Good Day Sir!”

Rachelle is over at The Funky Film Show, Thursdays on Radio Freemantle 107.9 FM or radiofreemantle.com

Find out about Josh’s other site and to listen to his other show DLC Live go to RawDLC.com or follow him on Twitter @DoGM3At

Our show logo is by Josh Spencer over at Spencer Cartoons at  http://attackninja.blogspot.com

Our opening clip this week is from the 1995 film “Swimming With Sharks”.

We close the show with ‘Boyle Gets Dressed’ from “The Guard” score by Calexico.

Geek Actually Ep144 – Snake and the AR Drone

Hosted by: David McVay, Josh Philpott & Matt White

This week on Geek Actually, Steve Jobs resigns from Apple, the R18+ rating for games is a go in Australia, OS X Lion on USB, rubber Band machine guns, the world’s biggest BLT and Matt brings in an AR Drone for a live demonstration in studio. All this plus the picks of the week and listener feedback. Enjoy.

Geek Actually is the fusion of the old Tech Actually and Geek Actually After Show podcasts. All the tech and geek goodness that you have come to expect from the old shows wrapped up and made easier to swallow as one simple, little, tasty podcast. DeltaKnight (AKA DAvid Murray) continues to supply us with some of the geekiest stories on the web and Josh and David love to play with the tech news.

The Geek Actually show is going to take a short break due to moving studio. The podcast will be back in approximately 3 weeks.

Geek Actually is recorded live on Saturdays around 12pm (AEST UTC+10). Go to geekactually.com/live to watch it live or you can also now watch the live show on Facebook – Click here to watch.

Your show links follow: Continue reading

New Trailer and Poster: Ghost Rider – Spirit of Vengeance

The first trailer for the sequel “Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance” has surfaced and it looks awesome. Filmmakers Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (the “Crank” films, “Gamer”) are known for making batshit crazy films and this looks like it won’t disappoint. Forget the first film, this is not actually a re-boot but rather a re-tooling of the franchise like the second Hulk film. I am looking forward to this.

“Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance” opens in Australia in February 2012.

A new teaser poster also came online for the film and you can see it below. Continue reading

Video Clips: The Guard

Check out these great new clips for the new Irish film “The Guard” that Paramount Pictures Australia has made available to us. “The Guard”, starring Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle and Mark Strong, is a film about an unconventional Irish cop (Gleeson) in a small seaside town that has to help a straight laced FBI agent (Cheadle) stop a trio of drug smugglers from bringing a half a billion dollars worth of cocaine into Ireland.

I had the opportunity to see “The Guard” a couple of weeks ago and I enjoyed it very much. I have always been a big fan of Brendan Gleeson and his portrayal of the hard living, rough around the edges cop is just fantastic. Watch the clips below then go see the film when it opens on Thursday, you won’t be disappointed.


The Guard – Privileged Background by Paramount_Australia Continue reading

Review: Conan The Barbarian

When watching something like Conan the Barbarian it is advisable not over complicate the experience. So first off, try not to put too much thought into plot, a barbarian’s life is really quite simple, there is usually some larger arcing story around him, however, his job consists of saving some girl from some thing while fighting against gods, armies and mystical creatures. The rest of his time is mainly spent lowering the population of slavers and evil doers in his homeland, Hyboria. All of this is usually solved using excessive amounts of hacking and/or slashing.

With Geek Actually, we tend to advise people to switch their brain off in films like this, to try and enjoy it as a simple violent action flick. However, this remake/rebirth/re-imagining of Conan the Barbarian makes doing this very difficult by taking what should be the simplest things to get right, and making them it’s greatest weakness. The problem begins with everything being over produced. Conan is a barbarian sure, this means he will kill a great number of foes as he tears across the planet, however the violence in this film will numb you within the first 20 minutes and from there none of it hits with any real impact. Secondly, in the original mythology Conan lives in a tough world and there are a lot of tough people around him. In this version however, it seems that there is nothing that can even challenge him. With no risk involved, none of the conflicts had him even mildly challenged (bar a fight where he is cheated), leaving the viewer bored and uninterested of its outcome. Continue reading

REPLAY – Geek Actually Live Video Shows for August 20th, 2011

Due to time conflicts there was no “Geek Actually” show this week. Here is the live show of “Film Actually” that was recorded live on August 20th. Because the show is live, you get it here with all the mistakes intact.

The Geek Actually podcasts are recorded live every Saturday from 12pm (AEST) or UTC +10 at geekactually.com/live – You can now watch us live on Facebook by clicking here.

Check the individual audio show post for the show notes. Watch the video below. Continue reading