Frightfully good fun

Last night I had the pleasure of attending a special advanced preview of the remake of “Fright Night” - just one of the many perks of having Sky. I was interested going into this one as I liked the film as a kid, but wasn’t a massive enough fan to be affronted by the idea of a remake. And in fairness, it’s exactly the sort of film that’s perfect for a remake, as it’s not exactly The Shawshank Redemption in terms of plot or depth.

Anton Yelchin is Charley, a reformed geek who’s managed to snare himself an attractive girlfriend. His ex-best friend Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) is convinced that Charley’s new neighbour is a vampire and sets out to try and prove it to Charley. It’s not long before Ed has gone missing and Charley starts investigating for himself; roping in “professional” vampire hunter Peter Vincent (David Tennant) for help.

There’s a lot to like about Fright Night. The script managed to juggle some excellent shock moments with appropriately dark comedy, and it was no surprise to see that the screenplay had been written by Marti Noxon, who cut her (fanged) teeth doing exactly the same dance on Buffy and Angel. Yelchin is a good lead, and his progression from sceptic to believer is convincing. After this, Star Trek and Terminator: Salvation he seems to be the go-to person for reboots/sequels. David Tennant is excellent comic relief, playing a hybrid of Doctor Who and Russell Brand, and Mintz-Plasse does his funny/geeky thing, and could have done with being in a few more scenes.

Colin Farrell is brilliant as the antagonist, although (if the gossip magazines are to be believed) playing a narcissistic villain isn’t too much of a stretch. Whether you buy into that or not, he’s excellent as Charley’s evil vampire neighbour. Toni Collette is great as Charley’s mum, and it’s weird that each film that I see her in she seems to be getting older yet at the same time skinnier. If I had more time I would chart all of her films on a youth/weight axis.

On the negative side, the 3D is completely unnecessary and actually detracts from the viewing of the film. I’m not going to jump whole-heartedly on the anti-3D bandwagon, but producers do need to bear in mind that 3D comes with a 30% light reduction, so scenes that are dark anyway become really difficult to watch. And horror movies are primarily set in the dark so the two aren’t a natural match. There were a couple of scare moments which were completely lost due to it being so difficult to tell what was going on.

The CGI vampires are also a bit unnecessary, I actually found Farrell a lot more sinister when he was acting as opposed to when they’d CGI’d a shark mouth onto him. Charley’s girlfriend is also a little annoying to start with but redeems herself somewhat once they start fighting the vamps.

However, despite the few flaws I thoroughly enjoyed it. It found the right balance between horror and comedy, and if you watch it in 2D I think you’ll get a lot more out of some of the darker scenes (as in brightness not theme). If anything, after the Twilightification of all horror characters lately, it’s nice to see vampires being scary again.

If you like old school horror, definitely worth a watch.

One Hell of a costume

I've already mentioned how awesome Saturday was, so won't rehash that too much. Just wanted to give props to my Mum for what was (I think) a pretty spectacular Hellboy costume. Not only did she make the Right Hand of Doom from scratch, along with the head piece, but she also spent over an hour coating me with red paint.

All in all, I think it looked pretty good. The bitch of it was getting the red out, which I was till doing yesterday. "Oh well," I said at the time, "that's Future Wez's problem".

Stupid Past Wez. That guy is a dick.

Hellboy hanging out with Clark Kent and Ken from Street Fighter. And why not?

The crossover no-one saw coming

Last Saturday was the annual costume BBQ and this year we had the split theme of Heroes and Villains and Mad Men. It was an awesome day as the photo above proves...

Someone needs your help Michael

Finally, Burn Notice is back on UK screens. Playing out like a tongue-in-cheek cross between James Bond and The A-Team, it's fun television and an easy watch. A great antithesis to something like Treme and Mad Men both of which are amazing but require you to follow everything diligently. With Burn Notice you can just switch off and enjoy the fun.


With the exception of Gabrielle Anwar's Irish accent for the first couple of episodes, nothing has jarred with the series. Each week there's a happy resolution, which is probably why it reminds me so much of the A-Team. The bad guys always get their comeuppance, which is great escapism after you've watched something like The Wire. All-in-all, it's harmless fun and thoroughly entertaining.


Plus it's got the man, the legend Bruce "Groovy" Campbell in it. What more could you ask for?

Where on Earth can she be?

Does anyone remember Carmen Sandiego, the thieving cartoon villainess from the late 80s and early 90s?


Don't know why she came into my head, but I hope they finally caught that crazy bitch.


Just saying.

Dressing up is fun to do

Tomorrow marks one of my favourite days of the year...The Annual Gann/Horan Costume BBQ.


Each year me and my friends have an excuse to dress up in film/TV/comic book/any costumes of our choice and then bake in the heat of the English summer (as if) whilst getting sozzled slowly throughout the day.


No guesses why it's one of my favourite days then...  

A decline in Quizzage

The other night we attended the bi-monthly quiz in our local leisure centre. Previously we placed third, after a mighty effort.


This time we only managed fourth. Fail.


However we were only six points behind the winner, so not too shabby.


Still, we've got a long road ahead. The next one isn't until October, so I'll start swotting up...

Magician Improbable

I have a number of theories as to how Dynamo pulls off his magic tricks:


1) He is a warlock
2) He has sold his soul to Satan
3) He has sold his soul to a cross-roads demon (Supernatural reference)
4) He has mutant powers that allow him to manipulate matter on a sub-atomic level (X-men reference)


Either way, it's incredibly entertaining television.

Christmas Fail...

Disturbing news in the paper on Friday. 


Apparently the native population of Turtle Doves in the UK is on a massive decline and soon there might not even be any here at all.


That's gonna make Boxing Day really difficult.


Think about it.

Speaking of scary…

It’s been a good week for scary movies. After my review of Orphan yesterday, today I’m going to run through another film that managed to scare the bejeezus out of me…Insidious.

Let me start out by saying that I enjoy being scared by a good horror movie, and therefore end up watching loads of them. The drawback of this is that because I watch so many, I have become somewhat desensitised and now hate it when lazy film makers fall back on cliché and convention. If you’re lucky enough to be making movies for a living a least put some effort in!

And then something like Insidious comes along. From the makers of Paranormal Activity, the film revolves around parents Rose Byrne and Patrick Wilson who move their children into a new home only for their eldest child to be struck down and fall into a coma whilst exploring the loft. Then when they relocated their unconscious son back to their house, strange things start to happen…

It’s great when a film can scare you, and nowadays it can only do that if it does something original. Whilst the main storyline does play into the cinematic conventions of previous films, the originality here comes from the where the scares are placed, thus the conventional becomes unconventional. What subverts the genre is despite some resistance, the husband is much more accepting of the fact that there are strange things going on (unlike the annoying cliché of the husband refusing to believe even in the face of overwhelming evidence).

Borrow strongly from Poltergeist there’s a real sense of the house turning on the family, and there’s even an older psychic lady joining the fray (played by Magda from There’s Something About Mary), but again part of the reason this works is that they take the plot away from the expected instead guiding it down a route that’s much harder to predict.

There are a couple of genuinely frightening moments that will make you jump (unless you’ve got the constitution of a gargoyle) and much like Orphan the reason it worked for me is the use of implied menace rather than turning the film into a gore fest. It’s ultimately just a really well made horror movie that I can’t recommend enough to fright-fiends.

All in all, definitely one for horror fanatics and not one for the feint hearted. You have been warned…

The thing about adoption

A lot of families who are unable to have children naturally (as well as some that can) choose to adopt. My personal feeling on adoption is that it’s a wonderful thing and if you are noble enough to be able to love someone else’s child as if it were your own then you’re a great human being and there should be more of you in the world. The fact that so many children remain parentless throughout their youth is a tragedy that needs to be addressed. I am lucky enough to have two parents who I’m exceptionally close to, and one of them is not my “natural” mother, yet she has never made me feel like anything other than her own child and never treated me any differently or with any less love than she did her birth children. In a way, the difference has led me form an especially close bond with her, and all the traits I have that mirror hers firmly cements me on the side of “nurture” on the nature/nurture debate.

All this leads me to make clear the disclaimer that the below post is NOT making fun of adoption and my personal view is that more people should consider it.

That’s the serious part out of the way.

Last night I saw the film “Orphan”, which does for adoption what “The Amityville Horror” did for the housing market. Being a massive horror fan, a couple of equally enthusiastic horror junkies had recommended I check it out. And I’m glad that they did (although I’ll now blame the nightmares on them).

After their third child is stillborn, affluent couple Peter Sarsgaard and Vera Farmiga decide to adopt Esther, a nine-year-old they meet when visiting an all-girl orphanage. Seemingly charming and bright, after the initial highs of their first few weeks together wear off, events in their lives take a more sinister turn…

And that’s all I’ll say about the plot. I went into the film not knowing much more about it than I’ve written above, and enjoyed it all the more for it. Going back to the “classic” horror formula that I love, the film remembers that implied violence and the threat of violence are both always scarier than the violence itself. Unlike the torture porn of the Hostel series and Saw II through VII, the scares here come from the fact that Esther (played by a magnificent Isabelle Fuhrman) is genuinely creepy, and creates tension by notching up the freakiness of the events unfolding around the family.

Overall an extremely disconcerting and uncomfortable watch (and I mean uncomfortable in a good way, which all horror fans will understand). Whilst not a “scare-fest” the slow pace of the first half escalates extremely quickly in the second, with a couple of genuine “gut-punch” moments of suspense. The creepiness of Esther plays into the classic horror convention of the “other” being represented by a child, possibly executed best in The Omen and John Wyndham’s novel The Midwich Cuckoos.

If you’re a horror fan I can’t recommend this enough, however, returning to my original point, if you’re considering adopting a child of your own then stay as far away from this film as humanly possible.

No so High ness

Everything about Your Highness should have led me to like it.

I like Danny McBride, especially in Eastbound and Down, a role he is effectively mirroring here. I like James Franco, even though I do find his weird speech impediment thing slightly irritating, and he proved his comedy worth in Pineapple Express. I like Natalie Portman, and again, anyone who has seen the Lonely Island SNL digital short Natalie’s Rap knows she can do comedy. However, despite all of these ingredients the film suffers from the fact that it’s not actually very funny.

McBride plays a not-so-loveable loser of a prince, who’s second in line to the throne and spends all of his time getting high and seducing dwarf princesses whilst his brother (Franco) is off on perilous and heroic quests. Then, when Franco’s fiancée (the oddly attractive Zooey Deschanel) is kidnapped on their wedding day, McBride is forced to join Franco on a mission to save her, on the way joining forces with Natalie Portman, a feisty warrior on a quest of her own.

It’s not especially funny, which is a big problem for a comedy, with several jokes drawn out much longer than they should have been (the minotaur’s penis being the prime example). The film’s plotting isn’t up to scratch – McBride seems to go from cowardly stoner to hero a little too quickly for my taste. There are a couple of good supporting turns – Charles Dance plays a friendlier version of his character from Game of Thrones, and Damien Lewis, who I haven’t seen in anything since Life (which shouldn’t have been cancelled), gives good support as Franco’s wingman-turned-adversary.

Unfortunately, a film which doesn’t live up to the potential of its cast or concept. Which is a shame, as it could have been so much more.

An Unknown Quantity

WARNING: The following post contains spoilers for the film Unknown. If you are planning on watching this (to be fair not great) Liam Neeson vehicle, then stop reading now.

There are a number of problems with Unknown, not least of which is the fact that the marketing campaign behind it seemed to be selling it as another “Taken”, which unfortunately this is nowhere near as good as.

The central story revolves around Liam Neeson playing a botanist called Martin Harris who’s involved in a car accident whilst en route to a science convention in Germany. He wakes up in hospital after being in a coma for a few days, and tries to find his wife, however when he finally locates her at the conference she doesn’t recognise him. His initial confusion is compounded further when his “wife” introduces her husband – someone else claiming to be Martin Harris.

Determined to get to the bottom of what’s going on, he tracks down his unfeasibly hot taxi driver (Diane Kruger) who becomes his side-kick, to work out what happened to him. Then he suddenly becomes the target of several assassination attempts so needs to get to the bottom of what’s happened before he’s murdered…

Whilst not unentertaining, this is much more thriller than action – with a very limited amount of action scenes. Perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t expected an action film of the calibre of Taken, but I did, so I didn’t.

Liam Neeson portrays Harris (version 1.0) as mumbly/incredulous, and January Jones, playing his wife, isn’t in the film enough. Frank Langella is suitably creepy as Neeson’s colleague and Diane Kruger gives Neeson solid support, although it seems to me an unusual choice to cast Germany’s (arguably) most famous actress in a film set in Germany and have her playing a non-German character.

There’s a really good car chase in it (not quite up to Ronin standards) and due to the fact that Harris is a botanist, when he ends up cornered by trained assassins, the tension is palpable, as it’s evident he can’t successfully fight his way out. All of which would make for an entertaining watch. But there was one point that absolutely ruined the film for me, but I can’t explain what it is without being spoilertastic, so you have been warned.

The big reveal is that Neeson is actually a hitman himself, and Martin Harris was his cover identity. When he was involved in the accident, he remembered his cover identity as if it were real. The evil agency he worked for, thinking he’d disappeared, then dispatched another hitman to take the role of Martin Harris instead. Again, this would have been absolutely fine, and whilst not entirely original, would have made for an entertaining twist. But then, during the final battle with the new Martin Harris, Neeson receives a blow to the head which somehow undoes the damage from the previous accident. I’m no Doctor, but surely this doesn’t actually happen outside of eighties cartoons? Wouldn’t the blow to the head not have made his fragile brain even more confused? No, apparently it restores everything back to normality.

Again, I appreciate that there has to be an element of suspension of disbelief when you’re watching a film; but surely this doesn’t apply when you’re lifting plot devices straight from He-Man.

Just saying.

Despicable Minds

Rather than do long, sprawling reviews of Despicable Me and Megamind, for brevity's sake, they can both be summed up in the following sentence:

Despicable Me is not as good as Megamind, which is turn is no where near as good as The Incredibles.

Overall, both only OK.

Except for The Incredibles, which is brilliant and deserved a sequel WAY more than Cars did. Just saying.

Taking the fun out of the heist

What was Idris Elba doing starring in “Takers”? I get that Matt Dillon hasn’t really done anything else since Crash, but Elba has proven with The Wire that he’s a quality actor. Not really sure why he got involved with this train wreck of a movie.

Somehow making a heist movie boring, Takers is a weird mash up of a movie. Leaving you neither rooting particularly for the cops or the bank robbers, you end up watching the whole thing unfold with a detached indifference, not caring whether any of the characters live or die. And Elba feels like he should be in a different movie – the strained cockney-accented arguments between him and his drug-addict sister feel out of place against the US backdrop, almost making you feel like the two of them have been lifted out of a Mike Leigh movie and dropped into the middle of this glossy American pap. Weird.

Matt Dillon is doping a version of the role that garnered him so much attention in Crash, whilst Chris Brown takes some time away from his normal routine of domestic violence to be easily the most annoying character in the film. He’s not the only awful performance in the film though, we also have the always uncharismatic Paul Walker (a poor man’s Keanu Reeves – and that’s saying something) and Hayden (I was in Star Wars, remember?) Christensen tries unsuccessfully to be intimidating.

Avoid.

They don't make em like they used to

The problem with Tangled is that Disney is clearly trying to create a hybrid of a film, utilising the computer animations that were made famous from their collaborations with Pixar, whilst trying to recapture the classic storytelling of nineties films such as Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast.


Unfortunately it only does a mediocre job of both. From a storytelling point of view it's not even in the same league as the nineties classics, sorely missing out on having a comedy villain like Gaston or Iago. From an animation point of view it's technologically fine, but lacks the pazazz of Toy Story or The Incredibles.


All in all, fine but nothing great.


Oh, and no talking animals. Sad times.

Yo get some of this, Knuckle up, Uppercut

I watched "Knucklehead" the other night, part through boredom and partly because I was interested to see if WWE films would be able to produce a film that wasn't primarily action. This was a comedy featuring Paul "Big Show" Wight, and the answer is, yes they can make a film that isn't action, but not very well.

The main problem was that it was too disjointed - the comedy cut away too quickly rather than revelling in the comedic moments. The Big Show was likeable as a gentle giant, but is so big it's difficult to think of him being intimidated by anyone. The real highlight was the ever likeable Wendie Malick as the Mother Superior running the orphanage that Big Show accidentally burns down. 

It's a shame really, as I wanted it to be good.

I was trying to think of a clever pun on "Knucklehead" for the title, but it brought me back to the ill-fated nineties chart attempt by then boxer Prince Naseem Hamed. 

Yeah, that happened, don't try and pretend it didn't.   

A positive role model

Another drunken conversation had me being berated for saying that the Afroman song “Because I got high” had a positive message for kids. But, of course, I’m right.

Just listen to the lyric, Afroman lost his job, because he got high. He gambled away his house, because he got high. He lost his kids and wife, because he got high. He ended up paralysed in a wheelchair, because he got high. Hell, he even couldn’t finish writing his song, because he was high.

If that’s not a strong anti-drugs message telling kids about the potential pitfalls of drug abuse, I don’t know what is.

Just saying.

Inappropriate dinner conversation

The other night, after seeing posters for the new Smurfs movie, myself and some friends began discussing the Smurfs in detail. And I had one question that no-one could answer definitively…why was Gargamel after the Smurfs in the first place?

Sure, the knowledgeable Smurf aficionado can tell you that Smurfette was created by Gargamel to destroy the Smurfs internally via seduction, although if she’s the ONLY female Smurf I’d be amazed that they knew what to do with her; but why was Gargamel trying to catch the Smurfs anyway?

Suggestions included that he wanted to eat them, or that he wanted their treasure, or even that through alchemy he thought he could turn them to gold. I suggested that the whole thing was an Allegory for Hitler and that he wanted to wipe them out in a bizarre cartoon metaphor for ethnic cleansing, which was widely shouted down.

After some research it seems that originally he DID want to turn them into gold, before deciding he wanted to eat them. However, according to the (somewhat tenuous) source of Wikipedia, at one point he is quoted as saying “I don't want to eat them, I don't want to turn them into gold, all I want now is to DESTROY THEM!” Now I’m not one to suggest that the cartoonists were intending a Smurfacaust, but that sounds like ethnic cleansing to me.

I’m always smurfing right.

Tinker, Trailer, Soldier, Spy

So this week's big trailer release is for "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", which is both an extremely well put together trailer and also looks to be one of the better films due for release this year. I'm on tenterhooks waiting for it.


Speaking of trailers, there's also been another of the MH Trailers that I mentioned a few weeks back. This one shows a woman's hand pulling on a glove and then clenching it into a fist before whipping it off screen. Curiouser and curiouser.


You can see the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj3jzc0q070&feature=youtu.be

Oh Captain, My Captain

As I gushed quite enough about The Avengers on Tuesday, today I’ll keep my focus entirely on the actual (non-Avengers) parts of Captain America.

Let’s start off with the fact that it’s good. It’s not Iron Man good, but it’s almost Thor good, way better than some of the Spiderman or X-men movies that have been out in the last ten years, and a country mile better than Green Lantern.

Chris Evans manages to cast off his default wisecracking persona to bring humility and valour to Captain America. I know I said I wouldn’t mention the Avengers, but the character Evan’s portrays will play off against Tony Stark and Thor excellently. And whilst he’s great as Cap, he’s almost better as Steve Rogers, the plucky weakling who’s determined to not get pushed around by bullies. Here we see some excellent CGI, as Evan’s head is superimposed onto the body of a scrawny man-child. It jars a little at first, but that’s only because you know what Chris Evan’s should look like. If he had been an unknown, it would have appeared a lot smoother.

The supporting cast is solid. Sebastian Stan is breaking Hollywood as “Bucky” Barnes, Rogers’ best friend, and I wonder if seeds are being sown for an eventual “Winter Soldier” appearance in the next Captain America film. Dominic Cooper is suitably suave as Tony Stark’s father (or Grandfather, not sure of the timelines on this one), although his accent slips a couple of times. Tommy Lee Jones continues to sleep in Tupperware and gives good support as Steve’s army drill sergeant and Stanley Tucci consistently chews the scenery as Dr Erskine.

Relative newcomer Hayley Atwell manages to be a believable love interest, managing to make the character an attractive and appealing match for Rogers by playing on her strengths rather than making her weak and helpless. Then you have Hugo Weaving, giving an epic panto villain level performance as Red Skull (I’m sure we’ve not seen the last of him).

The film itself is a great balancing act. Book ended by Cap being discovered and thawed out in the present day, the majority of the film is (naturally) set in World War 2. After Rogers gets the Super Soldier Serum he becomes a poster boy for War bonds and then through a somewhat contrived (yet still entertaining) turn of events, he ends up leading a rag-tag team on covert missions against Hydra. Interesting side-note, in possibly the greatest attempt I’ve ever seen to establish an organisation as evil, at one point in the film Hydra is disavowed by the Nazis. That’s right, THE NAZI’S THINK THEY’RE TOO EVIL. Brilliant.

There’s lot’s of cross over with Thor (the same energy cube that turns up at the end of Thor plays a big part in this film), and overall it’s good watch with some solid action scenes.

Although it is primarily all set up for The Avengers.

(sorry).

The wonder of nostalgia

I said yesterday that today I was going to review Captain America, but I had such an awesome time on Monday night that I had to jump the queue and focus on “Super 8” first.

Thanks to the lovely people at Sky Movies, I was treated to a special screening of Super 8 at the Paramount London Head Office in their private screening room. The cinema itself was underneath London and had maybe 40 seats in total. All in all it was a pretty special experience.

And the setting only added to my enjoyment of one of the films I’ve enjoyed most this year. Directed by JJ Abrams, Super 8 is a loving homage to the Spielberg films of his (and my) youth.

Set against the backdrop of 1980, Joe is a recently bereaved teenager who, with a group of friends, sets out to make a zombie movie. His best friend, the movie’s director Charles, manages to convince local girl Alice to be a part of the movie, much to Joe’s delight, and the motley crew head out to shoot some late night scenes, when the evening takes a different turn…

Feeling like a hybrid of ET, The Goonies and Jaws (with a bit of Close Encounters thrown into the mix), the film feels like you are watching a Spielberg film from the eighties but with 2011 special effects. And that made me love it. I’m not sure if a 12-year-old would feel the same way about the film that I did, but for me, that sense of wondrous nostalgia for the films of my childhood had such an emotional resonance with me that I was completely involved to the plot and the characters. Abrams clearly loves these movies too, and the film he’s constructed highlights that affection. You get the sense that he’s making the film he wanted to see when he was in the eighties, although now he’s got the production values to do it expertly.

And the production values are magnificent. The train crash sequence alone stands out as being the best train crash committed to film in years (it may be too early to use the word ever but I’ll be interested to see how it stands up in a few years), focusing on the peril of the central protagonists as they (somewhat unbelievably) escape unscathed as the chaos unfolds around them. And then there’s the magnificent night time scenes of the small town being overrun by the military, which look excellent and give you the real sense of “other” invading a loving community.

The themes of maternal abandonment and paternal distance run throughout, as does the sense of a young man trying to come to terms with his grief and move on. There are some clichéd points, such as the star-crossed lovers, but again, these conventions are so established it’s hard NOT to buy into them, especially when they’re done so convincingly.

The fact that the cast are all relatively unknown helps you to focus on the story being told rather than being wowed by “stars”, and I can envisage a lot of the cast (especially the kids) having long careers ahead of them. Joel Courtney is great in the lead role of Joe and is the lynchpin of the film, and Elle Fanning (Dakota’s little sister) gives an astonishingly nuanced performance as Alice…it seems the Fannings have all been dosed with a Captain America style serum that gives them all outstanding acting abilities. Kyle Chandler (from Early Edition, remember that?) completes the main cast as Joe’s Dad, giving a layered performance as a man haunted by grief who can’t connect with his son, allowing you to flick between hatred of the character and pity for him.

Overall, I cannot recommend this enough, definitely the first “five star” blockbuster of the year, and I’m sure come December it’ll be high up on my favourite films of the year as well. Abrams deftly suspends disbelief, making any cliché or unbelievable moments work within the context of the film, and again this lends it to feel like the Spielberg films I love from my youth. Some people criticised him for copying Speilberg’s style, but I thought I felt like more of a loving homage, especially by the time you get to the end.

Once again, I’ll state that I think I’m EXACTLY the target audience for this, so would love to know what younger viewers felt. I only hope it fills them with the same sense of wonder that Spielberg’s films used to fill me with when I was a kid.

Definitely one I’ll be picking up on DVD for a second watch. Mint.

Some Assembly Required

And with the closing credits of Captain America begins the nine month countdown to May 2012 and The Avengers. It’s been widely publicised that the post credits sting features the teaser trailer for The Avengers, so it’s not a spoiler to talk about it.

A “teaser” in the truest sense of the word, it left me salivating for more. Seeing early shots of Cap, Thor, Fury and Iron Man all sharing the screen at once (and to a lesser extent Black Widow, Hawkeye and a Ruffaloified Bruce Banner), suggests that Marvel’s long term strategy has paid off.

And even if you don’t care for superhero films, and are less than enthused about the idea of The Avengers, you have to give them credit for the audacity of their planning. Not since the Lord of the Rings has a series of films been so well plotted, with the seeds of The Avengers being planted as early as 2008 in the post credit sting of Iron Man.

And when (ever) has a blockbuster featured so many stand alone heroes? Thor, Iron Man, Hulk and Cap have all carried their own films and established their own stories and now, to throw them all together in one huge blockbuster is actually much more groundbreaking that critics will dare to give them credit for. All in all, the epitome of what good planning can be, and emphasises how the comic book way of developing storylines can successfully translate to the big screen. DC should take note.

So what else can we take from the trailer? Well there was a brief shot of Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill, the Avengers assembled in what looked like a briefing room and a shot of Loki surrounded by what looked like armed guards, suggesting he’ll be a major antagonist (continuing on from the Thor sting). Plus of course Tony Stark making a quip about Thor – if they’re smart, they’ll know that the entertainment will come partly from the banter between characters. And in fairness, if anyone can do character banter it’s Joss Whedon.

All in all, very exciting.

I’ll do the full Cap review tomorrow, but in the meantime I’m more than a little excited about next May. It would be rude not to do a marathon of Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America to get ready for it, wouldn’t it?


Avengers...Assemble!

It's the end of the world as we know it

Forget the riots in London, forget the fact that mother nature is turning on us, and forget the fact that the world economy is in turmoil. The true sign that we're facing the end of days came yesterday when Cher Lloyd got to number one.


I'm not going to run through all my problems with her song again, but it's here if you're interested. All I'll say that it's a sad day for British music and I'm sure that it's one of the portents of the apocalypse. Call Sam and Dean Winchester, call Buffy, hell I'd settle for someone calling Torchwood if it's stop this madness.


Yeats once asked: "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" 

Evidently the answer is Cher Lloyd.  

As the saying goes...

..."As one door closes, another door opens".


But is that really true? Surely that only applies if the second door is connected to the first by a piece of string.


Just saying is all.

Growing up is not especially fun to do

Watching “Grown Ups” has officially destroyed all the good will I had towards Adam Sandler after “Happy Gilmore”, “The Wedding Singer” and “The Waterboy”. Gone. Bye Bye.

Now I like(d) Adam Sander. I like David Spade (primarily because he’s an older, blonder version of my friend Steve). I like Chris Rock. Admittedly Rob Schneider and Kevin James less so, but I like the others. This film felt like just an excuse for Sandler and his mates to piss around for an hour and a half, which I’m sure was great fun to film, but was ultimately pretty boring to watch. When you’re watching a comedy that isn’t actually funny it’s a pretty sad state of affairs.

Which made me yearn for the Adam Sandler of old, throwing around such infinitely quotable lines as “you eat pieces of shit for breakfast?” His career has come a long way since he turned a hockey player into a golfer, but I’m not sure if it was in the right direction.

The end of poetry

So, as is the want of my exceedingly short attention span, I am officially bored of doing my weekly poetry corner.


Therefore, this will be the last time (until I get bored with NOT doing it, as is my want). Here goes:


A change in the air
Poetry time finishes
It's over for now


Now, what to do on a Friday instead? 

Darkly dreaming

The problem with this series of "Dexter" is that it doesn't have John Lithgow. 


Which makes sense as he came to a sticky end in the finale of season 4, but still his character brought a new life to a show that had seriously started flagging in season 3. Having Julia Stiles instead just doesn't have the same punch. 


I've not finished the season yet, so it could still pick up, and to be fair so far it has been better than season 3. Although I'm not sure if I like the direction it's heading in. Chalk it up to intended character development (is Dexter finally devolving) or lazy writing, but Dexter seems to actively be going against his code now, and the code was key to establishing him as a likeable anti-hero. Of course we're going to cheer for the guy who murders child killers. But the code originally dictated that Dexter was only going to kill people who the police knew were guilty but they couldn't put away. Now he seems to be actively stopping the police from arresting the right people so he can kill them himself. I hope this is character development and we're heading in to something special.


Also, if memory serves he killed an innocent person last season - a storyline which seems to be all but forgotten. 


That said, I'm quite enjoying watching the master/apprentice storyline develop...I always said Dexter needed a "Robin". In fact, I never said that, as it somewhat defeats the original concept, however I guess it was a natural evolution from the theme of season 4.


Still loving the Deborah one liners though, the highlight of this season has to be "Shit a brick and fuck me with it". Classy.


Still if I've only learned one thing from this season of Dexter, it's that "Lumin" is a brick shittingly stupid name.   

Define "Restraint"

Define restraint:


There's been a teaser trailer for "The Avengers" out for nearly a week, and I'm refusing to watch it until I've seen "Captain America". And it's looking like that's not going to be until Sunday at the earliest.


I know it's a case of mind over matter and I'll kick myself if I cave, but I'm just itching to boot up to Youtube.


Only four days to go.


This is worse than trying to give up heroin (I would guess). 

Seven B

So after ten years and eight films, the cinematic juggernaught that is the Harry Potter franchise has finally come to an end. And other than making millionaires out of Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint and piling even more wealth into the deserving hands of JK Rowling, what do we have to show for the last ten years?

Well, for one thing, it’s British. Yes, Harry Potter is an international brand, and yes the Americans are the ones financing the whole thing, but the Potter films have reached a point now where they’re considered quintessentially British exports. Much like the way Bond is now financed from across the Atlantic; Potter, despite where the money comes from, will always be seen (in the eyes of the majority anyway) as British films about a British icon. Plus, it’s also kept some top Shakespearian thesps employed for the last ten years, and keeps British institutions like Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman and Jason Isaacs fresh in the minds of the Americans. Not to brag, but we really can boast that we produce the best actors in the world, and the supporting cast of Potter has been the proof.

As for the film itself, it exceeded my expectations. I thought Prison of Azkaban was suitably dark and liked it for that, and I thought that HP7a was solid, but on the whole I’m the first to admit that the films have had difficulty living up to the books. Half-Blood Prince aside (which was especially bad), the films have been OK to good, and I suppose that it’s just that as a fan of the books there’s things I would’ve liked to have seen done differently. And whilst that was still true in HP7b (the final battle between Harry and Voldermort being a prime example), I thought that film really worked and was better for it.

One of the reasons for its success (in my opinion anyway) is that once they’ve done the Gringott’s heist and go to Hogsmeade (which I’m guessing probably takes up the first hour), the film effectively become a siege movie between the two groups of warring magicians, with our heroes defending their fort from invaders. The war itself is powerful, as are the gut punch deaths, that I think may really only have an impact on readers of the books. I didn’t love the Kings Cross Station scene, but it served its purpose and I think it only underwhelmed me due to the other stand out moments. The first of which was McGonagall standing up to Snape, which raised goose bumps when she stepped between Snape and Potter. Then there was the truly heart-wrenching montage of the life of Severus Snape, which served as testament to just how awesome an actor Alan Rickman truly is. Finally, there was the development of Neville, a character who has been woefully underused in the previous films. This film saw him transform from a snivelling weakling to a northern Jack Bauer, leaving him feeling like the real hero of the film.

All in all, it’s a great watch. Easily the best film of the franchise and one of the better films of this year (certainly the most “epic”). Further proof to Michael Bay that Blockbusters can have a heart.

Leaving the film the quote I’ll be taking with me is one I saw the other day which nicely sums up the Harry-Ron-Hermoine relationship. “Best friend got the girl. At least you nailed his sister.”

Can you dig it, Sucker?

The other night I was treated to the complete sensory onslaught that is Sucker Punch. I was somewhat hesitant of it going in, based solely on the fact that it’s a Zack Snyder movie where he hasn’t been able to lift the storyboard directly from the source material (a la Watchmen and 300). I thought Dawn of the Dead was OK, but call me a purist, I still don’t believe that zombies should run.

After an interesting beginning (a creepily slow version of “sweet dreams” playing over the protagonist’s attempted murder of her abusive stepfather), the whole thing went downhill pretty quickly. My first clue was when said stepfather dragged the girl to a “home for the mentally insane”. Maybe Snyder was purposely being ironic, but surely it’s either “mentally ill” or “clinically insane”? Isn’t “mentally insane” the only type of insane? Just saying.

Then the film quickly shifted into a weird hybrid of a music video, a computer game and fetish porn. Not one to complain about skimpily dressed ladies, even I thought the costumes were ridiculous. The visual style of the film was stunning and the soundtrack was great, but ultimately when you’re focussing on the cinematography and the music, it usually means there isn’t much else going on, and this was definitely the case here. A classic case of style over substance, all the dragons, robots and Nazi zombies in the world couldn’t cover the lacklustre acting, hammy dialogue and poor plotting.

Awesome soundtrack aside, take away the glossy visuals and you’re left with a pretty boring film. The one (unintentionally) funny moment came when two of the girls were discussing their pasts. “Oh right you’re an orphan. I ran away from home too.” – Pretty sure that’s not the same.

I really wanted to like this, as Snyder’s next film is the 2012 Superman reboot. Based on this, it’s not looking promising.

Can I dig it, Sucker? Not really.