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442. War of the Worlds (-#20)

Posted on March 22, 2026 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, this week with special guests Niall Glynn and Jason Coyle, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every second Saturday at 6pm GMT, with the occasional bonus episode between them.

This week, Rich Lee’s War of the Worlds.

Department of Homeland Security officer Will Radford is struggling to maintain his relationships to his two grown children following the loss of his wife. Radford has latched on to surveillance as a means of control, allowing him to be ever-present in their day-to-day lives. However, a routine shift at his desk takes a turn for the worse when NASA reports some strange phenomena. Radford is about to witness a massive alien invasion through his computer screen.

At time of recording, it was ranked 20th on the list of the worst movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The Bottom 100 | Tagged: aliens, Amazon, capitalism, cia, conspiracy theories, homeland security, Ice Cube, internet, paranoia, rich lee, screenlife, surveillance, surveillance state, tech, war of the worlds | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Predator

Posted on November 19, 2013 by Darren

Predator is an absolutely brilliant piece of work. It’s elegantly constructed, beautifully directed and cleverly written. Perhaps the smartest thing about Predator is the way that it so fantastically plays on audience expectations, offering the perfect bait-and-switch, teasing a jungle adventure in the style of Schwarzenegger’s Commando before morphing into something else entirely. It’s so well handled that the film’s reputation and prestige has done little to dampen its thrills.

A predator stalks…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: afghanistan, alien, aliens, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Berlin, Carl Weathers, Central Intelligence Agency, Chicago Blackhawks, cia, Dutch, H.R. Giger, Health, Horror film, james cameron, John McTiernan, Libya, monster movie, Nashville Predators, predator, Richard Anderson, Stan Winston, Universal Monster | 4 Comments »

Who We Are In The Dark: Zero Dark Thirty & Torture…

Posted on January 21, 2013 by Darren

That Zero Dark Thirty should come under fire for its use and portrayal of torture is not surprising. The film deserves to spark debate about how we respond to these sorts of threats, and critically examine our claim to the moral high ground. However, the debate seems overly simplistic. It has been suggested that the controversy over torture cost director Kathryn Bigelow a Best Director nomination, and that’s a shame. The fact she’s felt to the need to respond to these relatively shallow commentaries is less than heartening.

Zero Dark Thirty has a lot to say about torture. It’s a lot of thoughtful and insightful and nuanced stuff, and Zero Dark Thirty actually gets to the nub of the issue, very clearly condemning the culture of “enhanced interrogation”, in a way that is much more effective than any of the commentators seem to realise.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Abu Ghraib, Academy Award, Central Intelligence Agency, cia, dark knight, Dianne Feinstein, Jason Clarke, Kathryn Bigelow, Osama bin Laden, Torture, United States, war on terror, Washington Times, Zero Dark Thirty | 3 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Burn After Reading

Posted on September 18, 2009 by Darren

I caught Burn After Reading last night and sat down with my aunt and uncle to watch it. Sure enough, it was as divisive among us as it was among everyone else – my aunt hated it, my uncle enjoyed it and I loved it. My aunt claimed nothing happened and the cast was full of over-actors, my uncle was relatively satisfied with his viewing experience and I was delighted to see the funnest Coen Brothers film since The Big Lebowski.