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orloprat
Reviews
Beyond Loch Ness (2008)
"The Water Horse" it ain't...
I have to admit that I'm a sucker for monster movies, particularly of the "aquatic beast eats people" variety. Here is a modern example of the genre, and folks, it ain't bad at all.
It is very conscious of it's roots. It's ancestors are films like "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms", and "The Giant Behemoth", both staples of my childhood. The monster is not really a plesiosaur, as the cryptozoologist in the movie calls it, but a real Hollywood fantasy beast, and a darned cute one at that. Against all the notions of modern paleontology it waddles about on all fours, belly to the ground and head held high. It owes it's appearance to the earlier films' notions of what "dinosaurs" looked like, and owes more to the nineteenth century reconstructions of Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope than it does to actual scientific fact. All for the better. This isn't "Jurassic Park", this is "Oh my god there's a monster loose and we gotta stop it!" movie.
An old fashioned monster movie with modern cgi, and a goodly amount of blood n' guts. I have no problem with gore in movies like this. It's only a movie, boys and girls, it's special effects, and my reaction is usually not "yuck! No sleep for me tonight" but rather, "that's interesting,I wonder how they did that?" Does that make me a bad person? I think not.
An interesting story, decent production values, adequate acting, and every cliché in the book all add up to a funfest for watery creature fans everywhere. And the baby monsters are a real hoot. A nice refreshing change from the slew of copycat teen slasher and torture porn flicks we've been bombarded with lately.
I had a good time watching this one.
Waterloo (1970)
Bolt action rifles
It's time to clear up the "bolt action" rifle" thing: Most of the visible muskets in the film are facsimiles of flintlocks that were actually used, French Charlevilles and British Brown Bess muskets. However, Russian Moisin Nagant bolt actions were used as "filler", carried by troops not meant to be seen in close-up. This makes sense, since the Nagant has a musket like look to it, and mounts a triangular bayonet, as did the flintlocks.
In some scenes, however, the bolt action rifles are accidentally seen, such as when a French soldier climbs over the wall at Hougemont.You can see the bolt and the distinctive magazine.
Ugo Pericoli's research sketches for the film were published many years ago in a book called, I believe, "Armies at Waterloo". They show the great care taken to assure authenticity in uniforms, weapons, and equipment.There are some small errors; the British troops would have had covers on their shakos, but the badges and cords shown are correct, just not worn in battle. The Old Guard did not fight in full dress as shown in the film. They usually did, but at Waterloo they wore their campaign dress, overcoats, unadorned bearskins etc. But these are probably artistic decisions made by the filmmakers, not true "innacuracies".