Welcome to a brand new feature on Hope Lies at 24 Frames Per Second, whereby I outline the “lesser” happenings in the world of my viewing habits. Late at night I tend to start watching films that I never finish, and so this will be the occasional article where such fare appear. Films already covered by quality reviews that bear repeat viewings will largely reside here too, unless I find something worth writing a new piece on.

This past week I have watched a couple of throwaway comedies. I started watching Pineapple Express, the Judd Apatow produced comedy one evening, but didn’t make it past the first 40 minutes. Not a fan of Seth Rogen and stoner comedies, I haven’t felt compelled to return to the film. Similarly I revisited a childhood favourite on Sunday night, National Lampoon’s Vacation. Having seen each of the Vacation flicks numerous times in the past they all appear to have blurred into one, and I found myself remembering much more of this first film than I expected to. It still has its moments, but Chevy Chase reaches almost Seth Rogen levels of annoyance to my mature eyes, and the familiar actual proved unwelcome. Again I didn’t make it the whole way through, but the theme tune “Holiday Road” managed to implant itself into my brain for the best part of the following day. I’m going to check out European Vacation one night this week.

In advance of The Cineastes screening of Big Trouble in Little China I took in a viewing of the recently written about They Live. i like They Live a lot, I think its a great, fun film, and one that doesn’t take itself too seriously. I actually watched it with John Carpenter and Roddy Piper’s audio commentary, which proved a good listen.

Over the weekend I picked up a Clint Eastwood box set, simply because it was a great price and contained a film that I had long thought out of print White Hunter, Black Heart, which is a film that I will be taking an in depth look at in the future, possibly as part of a double bill with John Huston’s The African Queen, of which White Hunter, Black Heart was a thinly veiled look at the behind the scenes of. Anyway, this box set contained a number of random other Eastwood flicks, with the downright strange Burt Reynolds team up City Heat being the first one I decided to have a brief look at. Its one of those films that give people a bad impression of Eastwood (although City Heat isn’t directed by him. That honour goes to Richard Benjamin), an early 1980′s action comedy affair that lacks the heart of the likes of Bronco Billy and Honkytonk Man, but proved fairly watchable at 11.30 at night. And while its hardly enough to truly impress, there is a really nicely designed 1930′s boxing match, a really nice shot of a saxophonist performing at a funeral and Burt Reynold’s genuinely fascinating wig (his characters entrance, in which he drives a convertible whilst holding an umbrella is fairly memorable too). Ultimately though, the film comes across as the bastard love child  of Chinatown and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

More films of lesser interest next week.