Friday, November 28, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog Teaser Trailer
Here is the new internet only musical series by Buffy creator Joss Whedon, it stars Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and Felicia Day (who appeared in the last season of Buffy). This looks pretty exciting.
Why can't we work out our differences? Why can't we work things out? Little people, why can't we all just get along?
After Small Soldiers, Mars Attacks! is another film I saw at cinema on it's original release, but unlike Soldiers seen a few times on VHS, the last time I probably saw this film however is sometime in 1999, so like this is also something else I haven't seen in 9 years until a couple of days ago...
As a Tim Burton movie it rates well above Planet of the Apes, but well below Beetle Juice, Edward Scissorhands, the Batman films, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and Ed Wood, so what I'm pretty much saying is it's far from vintage Burton. This wasn't the only alien attacking earth film of 1996, the other one was of course Independence Day, this of course attempts to be funnier and on the whole as a much more well known cast, among those Jack Nicholson, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito, Tom Jones, Glenn Close, Michael J. Fox and people like Natalie Portman, Sarah Jessica Parker and Jack Black also went on to become more well known.
My main problem with this film is it feels like the cast are having a much better time then the audience, sure it's quite fun seeing a-list stars getting zapped to death but probably not as much fun as it is for the actors and also sometimes the humour seems a bit mistimed. But at the same time there is a lot to like about this movie, like Jack Nicholson's dual roles at the President and a Las Vegas Hotel owner, some of the deaths are fun like Michael J. Fox's and Rod Steiger's and some of the use of colour is pretty terrific.
You feel there was a much better film there somewhere down the line (i.e in the script or in a different cut), but it's still a fairly watchable movie with some good and some not as good as it should be moments. I'd still recommend it but don't expect anything classic.
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Thursday, June 26, 2008
Just what the world was missing...
Following in the legendary footsteps of Dustin "Screech" Diamond and professional wrestlers Sean "X-Pac" Waltman and Chyna comes the latest celebrity with a sex tape, yes it's Mini-Me himself Verne Troyer, nothing against Verne, but it's just these sex tapes never feature anybody I find attractive. TMZ. com have got a bit of the video on which I refuse to link on the grounds of good taste.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
You've got a lot of guts. Let's see what they look like.
I remember seeing Small Soldiers for the first time back in the cinema in 1998 (Christ, ten years ago!), thanks to free tickets that where likely from a magazine or newspaper or some such thing, I remember not been entirely blew away from what I saw on the big screen, I remember enjoying a few moments, it just didn't wow me, so now roughly 10 years later I revisit Small Soldiers for the first time. As father time changed how I'll view the movie.
In those ten years since I've come to appreciate Joe Dante more, become a much bigger Phil Hartman fan then I was then and grown to love David Cross (thanks in no small part to Arrested Development). So will I view the film any differently...On a second belated viewing I enjoyed it more, I didn't find it fantastic by any means. If you don't know the plot to Small Soldiers, it goes something like this, Denis Leary, a very rich toy company boss pressures David Cross and Jay Mohr to come up with something special, Mohr logs on to a military website and buys special microchips, underestimating the power of these chips they are put into a series of action figures - The Commando Elite and The Gorgonites - delivery man Dick Miller later lets Gregory Smith, have a batch of the figures before release date to spice up his dad - Kevin Dunn's shop which doesn't sell anything violent, unbeknownst to Smith, these toys have a mind of their own and the Commander Elite are obsessed with wiping out the Gorgonites...
There is nothing too original feeling about this movie, I couldn't help but draw slight comparisons to Joe Dante's earlier work Gremlins: A young man getting hold of something he really shouldn't have and cause havoc, the Gorgonites are pretty much the Gizmo of the movie, even the relationships between the fathers of Smith's character and Kirsten Dunst's character (played by the legendary Phil Hartman) which was pretty much built on conflict, flight a little bit been there done that. There are some good moments like when Dunst's Gwendy (like Barbie) dolls are programmed with these chips by the Elite and begin to attack Dunst (the Gwendy dolls are all voiced by Sarah Michelle Gellar and Christina Ricci) and I got a kick out of some of the voices, as well as the small roles from Dante staples Dick Miller and Robert Picardo. On a sad note, it's sad seeing the film knowing Phil Hartman was shot by his wife before the film's release.
Overall, it's improved on a second belated viewing but remains nothing to write home about, there's enough to recommend and despite some minor violence it's a good movie for the little ones.
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These are the changes I'm Planning to the blog...
Likely Gone:
- Bask in the Loveliness: Don't fit in the new direction I'm going for
- Great Years in Film: Struggled to have the passion for it
- Great movie scenes: Will not exist in the written form at all now (see below)
- Other probable absentees are Fonzie's Wall of Cool and 40 Things I Love About..., but who knows if they'll ever come back.
More and New:
- Question Time: I (well it's me for now) ask myself a question, like I would be interviewing myself, subjects such as "Do I Consider Myself a Film Snob?
- Trailers: Covering old and new trailers, from films I fear coming or massively excited about to cool exploitation trailers
- Movie Scene of the Day: The new version of Great Movie Scenes where it will just be the scene, probably without any explantation.
- Top 10, Top 20, Top 50: Want to have a little bit more fun with this so it won't be just Top 10 Films for example.
- Assumption Rules: Reviews for films I've never seen (or films about to come out), anything in common with the film is just purely concidential.
- Movie News and Views: Will give more news and views of what I'm excited about or scared about coming to the big screen or small screen.
- Tributes: Have put up many little tributes the last couple of years, but the following will be a bit more in depth, I will start from this moment in time.
Outlaw is the latest film from Nick Love, director of The Football Factory and the Business, these two films seem to pretty much have a love them or hate them vibe about it, both of these movies starred Danny Dyer, likewise people seem to love or hate him and now the two team up again for the third time along with Sean Bean and Bob Hoskins
Before I completely go into the main body of Outlaw, I have to stay the film as got a somewhat similar plot to a script I've been working on - Britain is in decay because of the gang culture, a group of people band together because they simple just can't take it anymore - my script is a little bit more tongue in cheek and clearly references movies like The Wild Bunch, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Untouchables and old kung flicks, but if my script was to be turned into a film, they'd be a fear of some sort of comparison, anyways, I digress...
Something about this movie just didn't click for me, there was some great photography and didn't have problem with some of the scenes, it just felt flat, the camera, which I'm assuming was intending to be almost hand held documentary in it's conception, ended up just mostly been annoying when it just properly couldn't stay still. Sean Bean's motivation for being the Outlaws, was never really explored properly - his he pissed at England, because he served time in the army and saw all them atrocities in far off countries, before coming home, finding his door locked and seeing through the window his girlfriend cozying up with another guy, Danny Dyer's and Lennie James motivations where much more clearler, Dyer constantly felt harrased and bullied in a lot of aspects of his life and James in the fact he was a barrister bullied into not going up against a gangland boss which eventually sees his pregnant wife stabbed
I didn't hate it, but didn't feel blown away by it - I wanted the ending to be The Wild Bunch, but felt it was more Hair Bare Bunch, there was just no spark, couple that with at times annoying camera work and sometimes a little bit serious feeling, it's a movie that just disappoints...
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Come on, sweetie pie. Morning, Elvis. You're a pretty Elvis, aren't you? Yes, you are.
Horror remakes are all the rage these days - The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Omen, The Hills Have Eyes, The Amityville Horror, Dawn of the Dead etc, etc - usually of varying quality, rarely a patch on the original.
A couple of days ago I saw the Halloween remake for the first time, directed by Rob Zombie, who was the lead singer of awful death metal group White Zombie and the director of House of 1000 Corpses, which wasn't bad and The Devil's Rejects which was better. Now the original Halloween, I consider the granddaddy of slasher movies, it was the first true slasher movie of what we've come to love (Black Christmas did beat it by 4 years though) and was clearly an influence on movies like Friday the 13th, so I was pretty much in the camp of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it...", but however I attempted to watch the film with an open mind, I'd like his first two movies enough and not every remake in the history of the world sucks, so what did I think
Well what makes it different from the original, Michael killing his sister Judith while he was 10 years old, was what a 10 minute scene at the very, very most in the original, now this time we get an whole backstory, young Michael Myers (Daeg Faerch) is seen first killing Elvis, a rat in what we assume by the musical choices (Love Hurts, Don't Fear the Reaper etc) is the 1970s, here we see Michael's family, an abusive and crippled stepdad (played by the great William Forsythe), his sister Judith, who is only slightly slutty (Hanna Hall, who played the young Jenny way back in Forrest Gump), a baby sister and a stripper mother (played by Zombie's wife Sheri Moon) who at least is loving towards young Michael, We then see Michael struggle at school with the bullies (led by the kid from the Spy Kids movies). Some short time later he follows the Spy Kid into the forest attacking him viciously with a piece of wood and pretty much killing him dead. On the night his stripper mom needs to go stripping so she asks Judith to take him treak or treating, she decides to stay and have akward teen sex with her boyfriend in her bedroom while crippled step dad gets drunk until he's unconcsious downstairs, young Michael, whose got sweets (so he must have gone trick or treating) decides he's had enough and gaffer tapes crippled stepdad to his chair while he slits his throat, Judith's horny boyfriend goes downstairs to make himself a sandwich and is quickly beaten to death with a baseball bat, leaving half naked Judith upstairs, he feels his sister's leg for a bit before she realises it's her younger brother, a stab in the stomach later, she is crawling all bloody, until he goes crazy stabbing her another bunch of times, he goes to his baby sisters crib and picks her up and takes her outside to wait for there mother, like nothing as happened...
Crazy Young Michael is sent to an insane asylum and put under the eye of Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell), at first Michael doesn't really remember the killings and his mother still visits (probably holding on to her last bit of family), but his becoming obsessed with masks, whilst there he also befriended by Danny Trejo an orderly. After Michael goes crazy killing a nurse with a folk and in the process Michael's mother sees him insane in person for the first time, Michael mother kills herself at home (not sure how much later after the previous event). We cut to fifteen years later, Dr. Loomis is quitting on Michael (now played by Tyler Mane) after he stopped talking for the past 15 years, we quickly learn Loomis as wrote at least one book on Myers and as probably benefited financially from being Myers doctor. Also still working there by the way is Danny Trejo, after new guard Tom Towles (Lew Temple, whose great here) whose a bullying redneck and his equally bullying redneck cousin (Courtney Gains) taunt him and rape a female mental patient in front of him, Myers snaps killing both men, Danny Trejo arrives at the hospital, the kindly warden tries to help him but Myers ends up drowning him, figuratively showing the audience Michael what he is capable of, after a brief stop at the Truck Stop, he kills the legendary Ken Foree before the movie becomes not that much different from the 1978 version (which I'll go into in a little bit).
So there you go, whether you asked for it or not you get a much bigger Michael Myers backstory, and I did like parts of his backstory - Forsythe was great as always and Sheri Moon got to show a different side to her - but did we really need to see behind the mask so to speak, I can live without seeing a massively developed Freddy or Leatherface backstory and could live without a Michael Myers one, so what becomes 10 minutes of the 1978 becomes 40 or so minutes of the 2007 version, but the backstory as much as I am complaining about it, is the best part of the movie, the 2nd part which is more similar to the original features a more spunky Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor Compton), whose performance I really liked and was completely different to Jamie Lee Curtis' original and two similar to the original counterpart sluttier friends (One of them played by Danielle Harris, already a veteran of the Halloween movies appearing in 4 and 5 way back). I have to admit despite some good little performances and camoes in this part (The Devil's Rejects used it's cameos better though) - Micky Dolenz of the Monkees fame having a good little part - it mostly as very little tension, which is a shame, Zombie is showing great talent as a filmmaker, but this overall feels like a bit of step back for him. Kudos for Zombie for using John Carpenter's original chilling theme, a lot of remakes that have an original with a memorable theme you spend most of the movie waiting for that theme and are disappointed if it doesn't come
Overall, disappointing despite some good points mostly in some good performances and I expect I haven't heard the last from Scout Taylor Compton. I'm gonna have to be stingy on the rating here...<> <> <
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God is up there crying!
What I've got here for you lucky, lucky people is the trailer for Disaster Movie from the same people that brought you such "classics" as Date Movie, Epic Movie and Meet the Spartans (I'm not sure if they did Superhero Movie to tell the truth). Something you'll notice from the trailer is the lack of disaster movies spoofed in the trailer, Iron Man? Juno? Hannah Montana? Sex and the City? last time I checked none of these could be classed as disaster movies. But apparently these movies have been making $80-$90 million back from a $20 million budget just at the box-office, so they are gonna keep making these movies until somebody screams stop, these sort of "spoofs" make Spy Hard look classic by comparison never mind Airplane! or the like and to think I live in a world where they'll never probably be a Kiss Kiss Bang Bang 2 or D.E.B.S. 2, but there is one of these a year, shame on you (the people who see this shit at cinema).
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Brains! Brains!
Yeah, I'm back from the "DEAD"... I'm gonna start reposting a lot more in here again including some new bits and pieces... some stuff coming up sooner rather then later!
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Top Eleven Favourite Characters from Shows Still on the Air
*All characters are still on the show as time of writing and all show are still on the air.
BEN LINUS (Michael Emerson)LOST
BENNET (Jack Coleman)
HEROES
CHLOE O' BRIEN (Mary Lynn Rajskub)24
TRACY JORDAN (Tracy Morgan)30 ROCK
PAM BEESLEY (Jenna Fischer)
THE OFFICE (U.S.)
DR. ARCHIE MORRIS (Scott Grimes)
ER
LARRY DAVID (Larry David)
CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM
JULIUS (Terry Crews)
EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS
JOY (Jaime Pressly)MY NAME IS EARL
JANITOR (Neil Flynn)
SCRUBS
BARNEY (Neil Patrick Harris)
HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Lost is Back
Lost is back for it's first episode since the Writer's Strike put a dent in this seasons run and what it great episode it was. The show focused on Ben and it was his flashforward. Ben is easily my favourite character on the show (Desmond and Sawyer would be in my top list aswell) and had a shocking scene when alex was shot in the head by Keamy . So this episode kind of made Ben a hero or maybe not a hero but it give him a personal vendetta and he actually showed emotion in this episode. Terrific.
Friday, April 25, 2008
What I watched on TV: Thursday 25th
Heroes
ER:
My Name is Earl
The Big Bang Theory
The Office
Entourage:
The Coreys: It seems that only after an handful of episodes it's others. Tensions rised between Haim and The Feldmans, which nearly involved them coming to fists with each other and Haim leaving seemingly for good. The show is obviously very manufactured but it was decent in a car crash sort of way.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Exploitation Theatre
I'm just not that big fan of porn, I'm not trying to hide any information here - I seriously get distracted by the bad acting and the unrealistic plots (some lucky fella might call the plots realistic) and I especially hate things like people looking at the camera, one thing I do like about dodgy pornos is of course the dialogue and the music. The dialogue more often then not is hilarious. These last few lines I'm mostly talking about hardcore porn and softcore thrillers, there is one type of "porn" (I use the term loosely from now on) I love - The 70s Sex Comedy Porn -
Now I'm not somebody who watches these sort of films for jolly's (read: wanking) and find it hard to imagine that anybody could or would. One film I saw recently was Eskimo Nell (1975) produced in Great Britian and starring Christopher Timothy (All Creatures Great and Small), Roy Kinnear (Veruca's dad in Willy Wonka) and Christopher Biggins (THAT camp guy) - if that's not a great cast then I don't know what is -
The film's plot is about a director and writing securing the funds for a film from 4 different people/groups and all 4 of them wanting something different, here's what they ask for...
- A family movie involving eskimo's.
- A filthy as hell hardcore porn movie.
- A kung-fu musical featuring Nuns (?)
- A gay cowboy movie (beating Brokeback Mountain by 30 years - though it doesn't feature any of the emotion and unrequieted feelings of that movie - it does include a spanking though)
Most of the films funniest moments come from scenes been shot from the 4 movies, the family movie's dialogue comes across as completely filthy, the unbelievable scenes from the kung fu musical and the performances of the "actors" in the gay cowboy movie.
This film is massively enjoyable with a really excellent performance by Roy Kinnear as Benny U. Murdoch (B.U.M) and the really annoying American actress (I need to look up her name) which help make this a movie I can strongly recommend.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Some Recent Filmmmmmssssssssssss
The Holiday (2006) was a sweet romantic comedy if not entirely memorable, best parts of the movies are Kate Winslet and Eli Wallach's scenes as well as the twist for Jude Law's character. Cameron Diaz' character took a bit of getting used to it and was annoying for the first 40 or so minutes. I think I can recommend it.
Something I've always said about Friday the 13th (1980) is that unlike Halloween is the fact it's not a great movie. Don't get me wrong some of the deaths are pretty cool but the acting is mostly appalling (lead actress Adrienne King in particular), however I did enjoy Betsy Palmer's performeance as Mrs. Voorhies and the Carrie rip off fake ending. I still enjoy this movie though.
Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) however is a rehash of the first movie and is nowhere near as good by any standards, this is the first movie that features Jason doing the killing (without the hockey mask). Pretty uninspired but not completely awful.
Besides all these it's been very television as far as I can remember...
Just finished watching the the first two seasons of the Ren and Stimpy show (aka the John K. years). Really, really funny without some excellent episodes. It's a shame it was never as good as this again.
A great series that never got a massive, massive audience was Dark Angel, watched both series back to back. I absolutely love Jessica Alba so it was a great selling point for me in the first place. Both series are different but both are strong in their own ways. Loved it.
Must of watched some other stuff, just can't remember at the moment...
Monday, April 21, 2008
WWE Smackdown in Sheffield
So last weeks Smackdown event was my 3rd WWE event (all in Sheffield), 1st Smackdown event and my 5th wrestling event ever, I'll have a quick descripition of the day below before I get to the actual show...
I arrived at the train station for 9.40am, I was the last one there with my nephew Dominic, Welkey, Len and his son George where all ready, everybody else had got there for 9 in the excitement even though we'd all arranged to meet for 9.30 (yeah I was late, sue me)
The train to Sheffield took just over an hour and we quickly headed to the HMV in Meadowhall as two superstars where doing a signing there at what we found out was 4 o'clock (WWE.com said 3) - Kelly Kelly and Michelle McCool - it's fair to say Sheffield got the Raw end of the deal on this tour, other towns had the likes of Kane, Randy Orton, Chris Jericho and C.M. Punk - whilst waiting in the cue we found out McCool had cancelled and was to be replaced by Kofi Kingston, it felt a really, really long wait in the queue and in the end I got a Royal Rumble 2008 steelbook and my ticket from last time signed by the pair. I can't complain
After tea we headed to the venue (Hallam FM Arena) via tram and went to the concession stand as it opens earlier before the event for people who didn't get tickets and the like. £15 for a programme is too much for me and the shirts had gone up £5 from last time to £20, so shockingly for the third time I didn't buy anything from a WWE event. We then went outside to queue, we where near the front of our entrance and we queued for over an hour, when the doors opened we where first in, well technically Welkey, Len and George where the first in the actual arena, but I was 4th. We got to our seats and took a few photos posed near the ring, we waited an hour for the show to start... Oh yeah before I talk about the show, it was nearly £10 for 3 beers for the 3 of us, we each did a round (that was nearly £30 for nine bottles of beer. what a rip off!) I forget to mention we where Section B Row 7 GREAT SEATS!!!
Hollah Hollah. Teddy Long opened the event, running down matches in the card, earning his pay cheque. Vickie Guerrero was nowhere to be seen.
Kofi Kingston beat Jamie Noble and Kenny Dykstra in a triple threat match, when he pinned Noble. Pretty good match, quick paced, crowd don't know if Noble is a face or heel though. Me, Len and Welke cheered for Noble, I'm sure he heard is chanting his name.
WWE Tag-Team Champions Morrison and Miz beat Jimmy Wang Yang and Shannon Moore in a decent match, M&M did a good bit on the microphone before the match
Kelly Kelly beat Victoria in a better match then it should have been, Kelly Kelly's pants constantly falling down helped. I cheered (and cheered alone I feel) for Victoria during the match
Mark Henry beat legend Tommy Dreamer, you kind of guessed Dreamer was losing once Henry's music hit. Not a great match by any standards but enjoyable.
Batista and Finlay (w/Horney) beat Zack Ryder and Curt Hawkins in an awesomely entertaining match. At one point the match involved waterpistols (!) and after the match finished the three faces did an irish jig to Horney's music which included Batista putting Horney's hat on (picture above). Wonderful.
Eve Torres came out to throw t-shirts into the crowd. She ain't a bad arm for a dame, which lead us on to intermission.
C.M. Punk beat Shelton Benjamin in a slow match, I did expect better from these two but it was great to see them wrestle in person.
MVP beat Matt Hardy after a bit of cheating. MVP did a "Andy Kaufman" bit on the mic before the match started. Good match.
Undertaker, Kane and Big Show beat Edge, Chavo and Khali in a great main event. I'VE GOT TO SEE UNDERTAKER WRESTLE IN PERSON!!!, Khali is not a wrestler at all but he applied his self well enough and obviously others helped carry the match. Brilliant.
The show ended with Taker doing his pose in the middle of the ring
Then home, the kiddies fell alseep soon because it was a long day. The show was much better then the last show we attended and was seriously a lot of FUN. Great to see a lot of the wrestlers specially Undertaker. Brilliant day.
On a last note, I haven't seen a wrestler wrestle more then twice for the record, these are the 2 times club: Triple H, Randy Orton, William Regal, Edge, Batista, Shelton Benjamin, Kane, The Miz, Tommy Dreamer, Abyss, Christian, Rhino, AJ Styles and Samoa Joe. Any guesses on who will be the first wrestler I see three times!
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