Top Notch Baddies pt. I

I’ve dealt with some really awful customers recently and inspiration comes from the strangest of places. And I’ve decided to write about some of the best awful characters (does that work?) in films. I’ve sorted 30 bad guys into categories; ‘Evil’, ‘Best’, and ‘I want to punch you in the face/miscellaneous bad people of note’.

To clarify, the evil 10 are pure evil, bad to the bone, soul less beings. The best 10 are baddies and villains that, no they’re not goodies, but you just cant hate them. Be it charm, humour or great planning, at the end of the film there’s more admiration than hatred, if you get what I mean. Then lastly, the miscellaneous 10 are largely characters on screen that are just awful, the ones that make you want to punch them so much they weren’t in the film any longer… They are also characters that just completely suck or are mean to the hero of the film etc etc.

So here goes.. Bad news first?

Top Ten Evil

1. Dolores Umbridge – Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1(I’ve not heard of a single being that does not hate Umbridge with the whole of their heart. She is EVIL)
2. Bellatrix Lestrange – Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 & 2 (She’s crazy but she still killed Dobby and frankly that’s not okay with me)
3. Scar – The Lion King (What the hell man, you kill a guy and then blame it on his son and then tell everybody! Lies! Rumours! and… Bears? Oh My!)
4. Lotso – Toy Story 3 (You cannot smell all sweet and be all pink and cuddly and then try and kill Woody and Jessie. How messed up was that pink little bear!)
5. The Joker – The Dark Knight (The evil guy I actually kinda like because damn he’s smart, and smart + crazy = EVIL MASTERMIND BUAHAHA)
6. King Candy – Wreck it Ralph (Sounds cute but when that thing grew spider legs I wanted to run away. He also tried to crush small girl racers’ tiny hopes and dreams)
7. Silva – Skyfall (Fab!! No he’s crazy but you have to give the guy some evil brownie points for his ace timing and planning. Caused some serious hell raising)
8. Randall Boggs – Monsters inc. and Monsters Uni (By his own fault he lost out at university and then held an overly long grudge and tried to suck screams out of Boo, the most adorable child in film ever)
9. Roy Batty – Blade Runner (pretty creepy really, stuck his thumbs in someone’s eyes and then broke Harrison Fords fingers backwards. Ick. Another nutcase villain!)
10. Mother Gothel – Tangled (She stole sunshine in the form of a royal baby, grounded her for life and got free botox from it. She also tried to sell her and kill the love of her life… *grimace*)

Monsters Uni and Despicable Me 2 [FIXED]

I’ve now seen both of these twice and I feel I should amend my reviews somewhat except I won’t do it sneakily and pretend it was never different (cause I’ve ever done that…)

Anywho! Despicable Me 2 is still hilarious and I love it. I still love Lucy especially and I love how they weren’t afraid to be silly.

Monsters Uni, now I don’t think it’s a 4 I think it’s a 3. I was hoping it would be better than it was but hey it’s too late now. I thought the characters were less annoying and laddish the second time round and I still enjoyed it but this time I realised something I forgot! The music. Ugh, the music is great and I had to download some of it. Here’s one of the tracks:

and…

(this is probably better than the first track)

Not forgetting the beautiful piece of film that was The Blue Umbrella. I’m just going to say that it’s a five star short that was beautiful and also incredibly sweet. The music to that was also fantastic and can be found below:

Monsters University 2D (2013)

Let’s start with the positive, I loved this character (Squishie’s mother) but obviously she didn’t get much screen time. Monsters University is all about Sully and Mike and how they met and went off to work at Monsters Inc. together. So it’s fair to expect a rough beginning and a blissful friendship at the end and that is what you’ll get. Good.

But, I felt like they spread themselves a bit thin. The film felt very short and heavily focused on the scare contest rather than Mike and Sully or the university or any major events advertised in the trailer. I liked the film, I thought it was sweet but in all honesty it failed my family’s test:

Would I buy it at RRP (£10-£14)? No
Would I buy it at sale price (£5)? Probably not…

So why not? Yes it was short, yes it lost focus and yes, I was in no way moved but what else? My main problem was the way I left the cinema feeling so underwhelmed. I thought Mike and Sully’s characters came off a bit obnoxious and even dislikeable. Many people were expecting back stories and in a way you get three. You learn about Randall (for two minutes), you learn about the abominable snowman which was pretty funny (for 5 seconds) and we briefly see Roz (“always watching”). I’m confused as to who this film was aimed at; if aimed at my age group who’ve been waiting a long time for this then why not cover more back story and why not expand on things?

But the good things… I fell in love with the characters involved in their fraternity, Oozma Kappa (OK). Squishie, Don, Terri, Terry and Art were all very loveable and unique. These characters really struck gold with the Disney message portrayed by the monsters films that being different is a good thing and can really work to your advantage. After all, these guys will have a happy ending. They were all very sweet and were given strong, individual personalities that managed to come through in their allotted screen time.

I liked the story that existed and I liked how reminiscent the film made fans feel. I’m sure everyone seeing this film, that like me, liked the first monsters film really enjoyed reliving the characters and places in these films.  I thought it was sweet and would never object to watching it if someone offered but I sadly don’t think I’d buy it. It’s nice to see how Sully and Mike started at the bottom as college drop-outs in the Monsters Inc. mail room and made their way to the top in Monsters Inc.

A good THREE STARS. It’s worth a watch, so don’t let my somewhat cynical review put you off…

Five Film Facts #1

The Breakfast Club was supposed to have sequels every ten years where the club reunited. These plans fell through because Judd Nelson and John Hughes hated each other (slight problem).

Several major scenes in Braveheart had to be re-shot because extras were wearing wristwatches and sunglasses.

Crispin Glover did not return for the Back to the future sequels. George McFly was played by a different actor who wore prosthetic to make him look like Glover and old footage was reused.

While recording the voice of Genie in Aladdin, Robin Williams frequently received calls from Steven Spielberg who was working on Schindler’s List. He would put him on speaker phone so he could tell jokes to the cast and crew to cheer them up. Some of these jokes made it into the animated feature.

Billy Crystal took the part of Mike in Monster’s Inc. because he had turned down the part of Woody in Toy Story and considered that to be the worst decision of his career.