Road Trips

The Road: Depressing, but not unrealistic, film about survival in a nuclear winter scenario, reminiscent of Oryx and Crake in terms of pointing out that, action movies to the contrary notwithstanding, this wouldn't be terribly exciting and would mostly involve fear of death by starvation, death by cannibal gang, or death by perfectly treatable infection. Nonetheless manages to suggest some hope for the survival of the species.

Magnum Force: The original Dirty Harry film was like a right-wing revenge fantasy: this one is similar, but making the point that Harry has his limits. Also entertaining for hitting every single Seventies trope you can think of (hijackers, Jimmy Hoffa, pimps, homosexuality, swinging...); if this weren't a contemporary film, you'd accuse it of exploiting cliches.

Total Recall: The general sense of Philip K Dick's exploration of reality versus fantasy is there-- however, since Dick's story was less than 30 pages long, this film expands it out with almost Peckinpahesque sequences of ultraviolence, which, given the "fantasy" theme, actually works surprisingly well. The other surprising thing was how retrofuturistic it all looks, which is a weird experience, because I consciously remember when it just looked futuristic.

Movie count for 2012: 45