Angry Movie Lurker Honest Review 64: Haywire 2011 (3 STARS)

Beautiful freelance covert operative Mallory Kane is hired out by her handler to various global entities to perform jobs which governments can't authorize and heads of state would rather not know about. After a mission to rescue a hostage in Barcelona, Mallory is quickly dispatched on another mission to Dublin. When the operation goes awry and Mallory finds she has been double crossed, she needs to use all of her skills, tricks and abilities to escape an international manhunt, make it back to the United States, protect her family, and exact revenge on those that have betrayed her.

Gina Carano.

This is an action movie which starts half way through and goes back and then continues on, the lead actress (Gina Carano, former MMA and was ranked third in the world in her weight category at one stage, was the Gladiator "Crush" on American Gladiators and currently trying acting in this Stephen Soderbergh movie), the movie is a little slow at times but is made up for by the fight scenes which while not Bourne quick are good all the same and she prefers the close combat way out most times, it's a double cross movie with a some revenge thrown in, she's been given a good cast around her with Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender etc......

Gina doesn't do too bad with the role and I hope she's given more in the future, the locations are good especially Dublin as she was running by places I did bouncer on the door and places where I was a chef (memories), the action when it came was good, the story was a little weak but it's well worth a watch especially if you like Gina (she's very beautiful).......

The one word ending made me smile.........

15mm Peter Pig Dictator and Bodyguard and......

....Franonia!

Good weekend as I saw 2 movies on Sunday at the cinema (3 in total last week) as my friend turned up (Vinnie) and we hit the movies (Haywire and Underworld: Awakening 3D, my first ever 3D movie experience), nearly got involved in a altercation with a fecking couple who talked through nearly a whole movie but they backed off and will review the movies this week and next.....

The figure you see below may represent me when I started to run a small country in the late 1990's on the borders of the middle east and Africa but I can't say exactly due to the CIA saying I still owe them!

I've decided it will be a hypothetical country (maybe) and region but the figures and vehicles will be real with rebels, insurgents, security contractors, US forces and Franonian troops, etc.....

Below is a Peter Pig dictator figure with IDF figures representing the bodyguard and GAZ jeeps as transport...already started to design a flag.....

...and of course I realise I'm bonkers!

20mm Painted WW2 British Infantry Platoon.

British infantry platoon painted up for the What If? Operation Sealion gaming, figures are mostly SHQ (which were awful sculpts, so much flash and distortion........ ) and some Blitz Miniatures (good stuff)...

....picture quality is the usual poor quality but I think it's for the best as these are not Ray's best work!

Terry Pratchett: Snuff

SWMBO's birthday was recently and among the multitude of gifts she got was this by Terry Pratchett (nice as it saved me buying it as I am a big fan), read it in a couple of days, more Sam Vimes out in the sticks defending goblins, fighting injustice and being a git......

If you have never read Pratchett I recommend this author unreservedly as one of the best out there and the Discworld series which now stand at 39 books I believe are some of the best reads out there especially the City Watch and Witches series.....highly recommended.

Terry Pratchett does humour like no-one else....

Having problems deleting and adding blogs, anybody else having this trouble and if you did how did you fix it?

28mm Modern Civilians for Zombie Gaming 4...what are their chances?

I may not have taught this true but according to The Walking Dead if one of them shoots the other then they will get away while they feast on the other larger one maybe.....

....both figures are from Foundry.

Looks like a reporter but wait what is that on his belt, maybe a badge, a cop, armed, street smarts, not too many donuts.......7 out of 10.

Mafia Don, too many meatballs, street smarts, tough, ruthless, rich but no henchmen........3 out of 10.

Angry Movie Lurker Honest Review 63: The Guard 2011 (4 STARS).

...it's gets 5 STARS if you're Irish because there's some things you understand better......

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.

Brendan Gleeson plays Gerry Boyle, a garda sergeant in a small village in Connemara outside Galway who to put it mildly is a bit of a git but a funny git, this movie made me laugh quite a lot because maybe I understood it by better by being Irish but it's over the top with it's storyline but maybe nothing else, a very enjoyable movie and with a good ending.

There are good performances from Mark Strong, Liam Cunningham and Don Cheadle and from the the Irish cast but Brendan who taught at my secondary school before acting got him is brilliant and on top form.

Like Gerry says "Like the fat man said, if you have to be careful not to drink too much, it's because you're not to be trusted when you do". 

The guard in the title refers to the national police force of the Republic of Ireland who are called Garda Siochana which literally means "Guardians of the Peace".

20mm Soviet WW2 Anti Tank Platoon Platoon...

.....now with added troops and crew that were lost and found in a zombie scenery box! The figures and crew are from PSC and are based on the European Battlefield rules.

Playing Favourites or Favorites.........put the bloody kettle on!

This has been going around the wargaming blogs, it shows what gets fellow bloggers ticking and not just about wargaming and our hobby.........

Wargames Period :- The Sengoku Samurai period is my favourite and I have a reasonably large collection of figures, scenery and books and followed closely by WW2 in several scales and several times....

Scale :-  For me it has always been 25/28mm but finances can dictate the hobby now but the injection of quality 28mm plastic figures has helped a lot......

Rules :-  I hate rules especially complicated rules unlike some of the rule addicts I've come across through gaming and blogging but my favourite are Games Workshop's Lord of the Rings rule set. I got into these when the young fellow started collecting the figures and I helped him out by painting the good guys (Saruman and the Urak-Hai) so he had an opponent and loved the easiness of the rules and I have used them for dark age skirmish, pirates, samurai and possibly modern......

Board Game :- Don't get to play boardgames any more but my favourite to this day is Shogun but I do get in the odd game of chess.....

Figure Manufacturer :- I used to be an awful Wargames Foundry whore in the day but they went to hell in a hand basket but I had figures from every range they did at one time or another, I used to decide a range to paint by what they made at one stage...... my favourites now are Perry Miniatures, Peter Pig and CP Models (I buy quality rather than the cheapest and most suitable, I will avoid periods if there are no good figures for the period).

Opponent :- Who else could it be at this time but the lunatic Ray over at his blog (I start a blog and he copies me, most of my ideas have ended up on his blog because you can't tell him anything but he's a good lad and got me into the Rejects all those years ago.... I feel nauseous for some reason). We compete in some way over anything and I mean anything.......

Books :- I read a lot of books (one year at a security gatehouse I went through several hundred, there was a library right next to site and things were quiet.....)

Tom Clancy: Anything with Jack Ryan and Red Storm Rising.......

David Gemmell: Anything the man wrote really but Druss will always be my favourite.....

Antony Beevor: Brilliant and interesing military author...

James Clavell: Shogun and his others are good also.....

Jack Higgins: Quality easy fiction with a lot of Irish shenanigans going on at times....

Robert Jordan: The wheel of time series but it's dragging on a bit....

Terry Pratchett: Anything from Discworld.....the man's a genius!

There are lots more but the quality of a book to me is the ability for it to make me want to read it again....

Movies/TV :- Now I love a good movie or TV show so I'll keep this short if I can...

Band of Brothers: The best and most watched....

Kingdom of Heaven : The directors cut version only....

Lucky Number Slevin: A movie about revenge....

Dead Man's Shoes: A movie about revenge.....

I love old movies like Freebie and the Bean, The Wind and the Lion or popcorn like Taken, Rambo, The Expendables or foreign masterpieces like The Killer, Yojimbo, Ran, Seven Samurai, A Better Tomorrow, anything with Laurel and Hardy, of course a bit of zombie with Dawn of the Dead (original) , Zombieland and 28 days later,  diversity is the name of the game......

 Art :- I love a lot of military prints especially anything by Angus McBride but once while wandering  round an art gallery in Ireland (I was dating...ok) I found a painting by an Irish artist Francis Danby called the Opening of the Sixth Seal, I have a copy at home hanging on a wall but the original is huge and needs to be seen up close.......

PS3 :- I am a PS3 whore and love FPS shooters but I am currently banned from using a mike by SWMBO and the neighbours 3 or 6 doors down usually know when I'm playing as I have been known to let my feelings be known......currently wandering around MW3 causing mayhem!

This is me.......

Miscellaneous :- I love A-10 Warthogs, Pamela Anderson, Tiger tanks, Apache helicopters, the charge of the Scots greys in the movie Waterloo, the helicopter scene from Apocalypse Now, SWMBO, good cleavage (women only), sad music, loud music, burgers, Johnny Cash, Ireland, good chips (fries to the US readers), drums and percussion, coca cola (no substitutes or diet), american football (Chicago Bears fan since 1985), decent porn, truth and the smell of napalm in the morning.......

Rant :- I hate liars and hypocrites, the way some figure manufacturers treat us the customer like we're dopey fuckers with the quality of product they send out and expect us to bodge it together and expect holes and excessive flash to be a worth challenge (it's not,it's like McDonalds with their pictures of the burger as in not what you end up with and wonder what the fuck happened), politicians (if you say you want to be one you should be culled), most lawyers, bankers, stock traders.........

....there's a lot more but I'll leave it at that!

Dudley Constable, 20mm Operation Sealion Scenery so far....

Have started sorting out my What If? Operation Sealion table for a game, it's a wargaming set up rather than a dedicated display like some of the beauties you see at shows. Only civilians and some home guard have been placed on the table, the area is in a bit of crisis after what they believe are random bombings of the area.

The year is 1941.......Hitler hasn't invaded Russia, the French fleet ended up in German hands, only 3,000 troops got away at Dunkirk, Germany has not Allied with the Japanese, the United States have not entered the war, the Luftwaffe concentrated on;y on the RAF and airfields etc......

Dudley Constable is situated on the south coast of England, a picturesque, quiet corner of England but for how long......

No real close up shots as most of the figures have been seen before but if you want close ups Mr. De Mille can be contacted and they can be arranged....

Harbour area....

Cottage hospital staff help the wounded....

Bomb craters dot the area......

The village green and cricket club area...

A pill box needs to be manned....

The docks under guard...

A VIP comes ashore with escort after his craft is damaged?