Friday Round-Up

Okay, we start the round-up this week with the double feature of Troll and Troll 2. It's weird that they package them together now that everyone knows they're not related at all. It's also weird that Troll 2 was named to ride on the coattails of Troll, but it's completely the other way around now - no one cares about a bad movie unless it's the absolute worst movie ever made. And really, both of those descriptions are true. Troll is really, really bad, and Troll 2 is infinitely worse - but wouldn't you know it, I liked the second one way more. I have nothing to say about Troll except don't bother, but I might write a little bit about Troll 2 next week. So bizarre.

I accidentally left Hot Fuzz off my round-up last week, but don't worry, I watched it again this week - this time, with the Edgar Wright/Quentin Tarantino commentary track (it was the Sandford Police commentary last week). I feel like I need to listen again with a notebook because they mentioned so many movies that sounded interesting. The only one that stuck in my mind was Twisted Nerve, but it's not available on Netflix. Quentin told an interesting anecdote about the opening scene of Reservoir Dogs, so I took a look at that, too. 

Kidulthood was surprisingly good - it felt like a grittier episode of Skins but better. I was impressed by the script, written by Noel Clarke - I only know him as Mickey in Doctor Who, which couldn't really be further from Kidulthood. Clarke wrote and also directed the sequel, Adulthood, which should be worth a watch. Finally, I saw Scott Pilgrim vs. the World this morning. Like with Inception, I was a teensy bit disappointed - probably building it up too much in my head - but unlike Inception, I think my opinion is going to improve over time. I'll go into it more in my second-day thoughts tomorrow, but here are the bullet points: visual effects were stunning, cast was absolutely perfect (especially Kieran Culkin, Aubrey Plaza and Ellen Wong), and the soundtrack was amazing. So why was I disappointed? Not sure yet. Perhaps the ending... but I'll try and figure it out by tomorrow.