Send A Maniac To Catch One

Demolition Man is a blast. So good in fact, that it's mix of science fiction, action, cops and social satire is way, way better than Stallone's Judge Dredd movie, made 2 years after this.

The film looks great...the Mad Max underworls and the sleek, utopian designs jar perfectly. The cast is supurb...Stallone sends up his action-man persona better than he did in Oscar or Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot. Nigel Hawthorne, Bob Gunton, Rob Schneider, Benjamin Bratt all bring the world to life. Snipes shows what a great villain should be (why carry on making crap, our Wes?)
Bullock, replacing the lackluster Lori Petty in the role, is a star waiting to be discovered. Tough, sexy, naive and skatty...a movie star was born right here.

Stallone's other 1993 movie was Cliffhanger. Sly was at his 90's peak this year, only for it to slide, as it had so many times before, into mediocre dross like The Specialist and Assasains.

He's back next April with his action enemble, The Expendables. The Man doesn't know when to give up...thank god.

There Has To Be Some Way Out Of Here - BSG Ends!

Battlestar Galactica, the reimagining of the 70's Space Opera has ended. And what an amazing finale. The first half contains a massive miltary assault while the second contains a surprise twist... a happy ending!

They managed to wrap up many plot points and I love where they left the surviving characters. Best of all though is how they've left several ambiguities for internet haters and fanboy bloggers to bitch about. Perhaps the best decision is to allow Starbuck to simply vanish without an explaination. Was she a ghost? Part of 'God's' plan?

Which brings me to the final scene. When watching any long-running series finale, I'm intrigued as to which characters, dialogue and image it will end on. In Galactica's case we fast forward 150,000 years to contemporary Times Square (arguably the greatest modern representation of current civilized society) where 'angel' Six and 'angel' Baltar discuss if humanity will once again repeat the cycle of self destruction.

The final dialogue exchange goes something like this:-
'Angel' Six refers to the intervening force as "God."
'Angel' Baltar responds "You know he doesn't like to be called that."
'Angel' Six gives him a look that says to me "Oh, come on. You're not serious!"
'Angel' Baltar replies, with a hint of sarcasm "Silly Me...Silly, silly me..."

The final line didn't register immediately. On second viewing it struck me as an odd line to end on and I was unsure of the context in which to take 'angel' Baltar's remark. I headed online to check out some opinions and was surprised at the backlash against this ending.

Many bloggers seemed pissed that this ending was badly edited and, therefore, confusing. Some claimed to have seen video of the script read-through and that more specific dialigue was edited out of the exchange. Others just hated the whole religious aspect anyway.

So, please, allow me to retort.
1/ Ambiguous endings are good. It's been done controversially before with The Prisoner in the sixties. It sparks debate. Each viewer has to bring their own interpretation to the story. There's no right or wrong answer...even if the writer had a specific meaning in mind. And that, my friends, is Art. Marcel Duchamp's sculpture 'Fountain' has been considered one of the most important pieces of art in the 20th century (it's a urinal signed by Mr Mutt, that hangs in a gallery). There's no explaination stuck on the wall next to it...the meaning is for you to decide.
2/ Even if another version of the script existed, it wasn't the one that was broadcast. The BSG creators are a clever lot. I'm sure they deliberately removed that dialogue to deliberately create ambiguity...to create discussion and debate. Knowing the missing words may help you to decipher a certain meaning, but you'll only shut the door on other possible meanings.
3/The religious aspect has been a part of the show since the pilot episode. It also makes sense to include religion in a show which is commenting on contemporary society. Many world conflicts have their roots in religion and even the most technologically advanced counties are heavily faith influenced (USA, I'm talkin' 'bout you) despite the increase in secularism.

I'm also surprised that so many have automatically interpreted the influence of a higher power as 'God'. When Baltar confronts Cavil earlier, he admits he has no idea what force is at work..it could be a Divine conscienceness or just the unfathomable complexities of nature. The whole finale demonstrates the tension between fate and freewill. The flashbacks show each of the characters making a defining choice (free will)... However, Kara makes the argument that her fate is set and nothing will change her path (so when Zack awakes and interups potential Apollo/Starbuck nookie, was that her fate/destiny?).

As for the use of All Along The Watchtower...it's a great choice. It's a short song, almost mythic in the scene it describes and it speaks about 'change', a theme of the show. Does the song come from God or is it part of the natural fabric of the universe? Well same sex frogs can mate to ensure the continuation of the spieces in some circumstances. Is that divine intervention or is that a safety net in nature's equation? Either way, the colonials are able to seek out Earth (both of them) because of the song.

So how do I interpret that final exchange? Well Six has refered to 'God' since the pilot where 'Angel' Baltar has never done this, and real Baltar has always been skeptical of the description. So when 'angel' Baltar say "you know it doesn't like that name" and Six respons with a scornful look, I think their arguing about the definition of 'God'. Baltar's final line "Silly Me...Silly, silly me" is said with irony, suggesting he doesn't want to get into this millenia old debate again. He doesn't really think he's silly, he just says that to get out of the argument. That leaves the arguement with you, the viewer...

So Galactica fans, does God exist? Thats for you to decide...

Lesbian Vampire Wankers

This is shit.

All the good lines from the trailer are er-edited into less amusing scenes. The director looks like he wants to be making Guy Richie-style action movies...not comedies. The cast are appealing, but its not that horrific as a horror and it ain't that funny as a comedy (and a film with this much swearing and breasts should be funny)

Then again, make that mostly shit.

The girls are babes. All of them.

After the movie I went home from the cinema to IMDB them. And that doesn't mean look them up on the Internet Movie Data Base...

Stifler Is My Role Model Too

Role Models falls squarely into the bracket of touching, relatable...yet foul-mouthed and filthy comedies that Kevin Smith and Judd Apatow excell at recently.
While its not as good as anything by these masters it offers a few hearty laughs, if nothing too original.

Sean William Scott does his usual routine (thank god) and Paul Rudd is amusing as the miserable, sarcastic best friend.

Finally, a prediction; small kids swearing lots are funny. If the young kid that befriends Scott's character maintains his foul mouth and quality of comic timing...we might be looking at the next Eddie Murphy* (let's just hope it ain't Chris Tucker)

*Amendment. I've just seen the trailer for the new Eddie Murphy vehicle "Imagine That. The cheeky black kid appears opposite Murphy in at least one scene...and blows him off the screen. Hail the arrival of a megastar!

Pop Quiz, Hot Shot...

Take a stunning high concept, throw in a movie star who's in his absolute element and a first time director who's hungry to impress, and you get Speed.

It basically mixes the Die Hard style hostage drama with a disaster movie like Airport (but it subverts the disaster into something mundane, like a bus, making it more relatable). There's a clever 3 act structure of elevator, bus and subway train; it stay true to its name (Speed) but keep things moving (storywise and actionwise).

Reeves doesn't have to act much and so demonstates why he's a great leading man and action star. Hopper's career is resurrected by this gleefully manic character. And Sandra Bullock rightfully was launched into the A-list with this career defining turn.

It's non-stop, tense, relentless and fun. It's one of those rare action thrillers that you can take seriously...but have some fun with too.

Question is...what happened to the talent of director Jan De Bont? Before this he was one of the best cinematographers on the block. After this, and the also great Twister, came the awful The Haunting and the average Tomb Raider 2. His next, Point Break 2, doesn't sound promising, does it folks?!

Thunderbirds Should Not Have Gone. Anywhere.

Thunderbirds reminds me of another adaptation of a UK sci-fi property, Judge Dredd. It is designed in a way that is extremely faithful but told in a way that repeatedly shites on the original. Why bother to make it look right if you're not gonna respect the characters or format of the classic series that spawned it?

On the plus side:-
1/ The iconography is maintained. The Thunderbird vehicles, Tracey Island, phe pink Rolls Royce, the International Resu=cue Logo, the control room and the classic theme music...all sends a shiver down the spine when onscreen.
2/ Sophia Myles* as Lady Penelope, along with servant Parker should have had their own movie.

On the negative:-
1/ Someone decided the original format (a disaster movie) wasn't good enough (or cheap enough) and so we get a Spy Kids wannabe instead. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
2/ The kid playing hero Alan Tracey is a talentless cock. Alan is written as headstrong, cocky and arrogent, but as he's the hero, we should like him and root for him. But we most certainly do not like this git.
3/ The original played itself straight, making it appealing to both children and adults. The movie is a pantomime aimed squarley at the kids (a mistake even Spy Kids didn't make). Anthony Andrews as Brain gurns like a Gurning Man while even standouts Lady P and Parker get cartoon sound effects superimposed over their exploits.

Avoid.

(*Sophia Myles 10/10. Posh Totty. Mmmmm.)

America - For Sale!

If you fancy having a laugh at stupid Americans, I can wholeheartedly recommend this recent documentary, I.O.U.S.A.

It basically explains the US national debt; the history, how that debt is broken down, why it's there, what they might wanna do about it and what could happen if they don't.

To quote one guy, 'next to a terrorist detonating a nuke on US soil, it's the biggest threat to the US way of life that exists'. Heavy but interesting.

However, while you're laughing at the gaffs our American cousins have made...you begin to realise that the foundations of the UK economy are probably far worse.

Bugger.

Gripping stuff (made all the more intriguing as it was made BEFORE the current financial meltdown).

You Don't Mass With The Sandman (at least not today)

I'm not a great Sandler fan. He does two characters. Angry Sandler. And Dweeb Sandler (of which I usually prefer the former). He's only made one, true classic; Happy Gilmore. Apart from that, every year brings a Sandler-thon that is either shite (Little Nicky / The Longest Yard / Chuck & Larry) or mildly amusing (Anger Management / 50 First Dates).

Fortunately, You Don't Mess With The Zohan is the latter. There's sufficient activity in the plot to sustain interest and there's plenty of very daft or slightly rude humour (hoorah!).

Plus Emmenuelle Chiriqui is cute (I think I'm gona have to start introducing a cute-factor point system for hot actresses, considering the frequency it becomes important to reviewing a movie...so a 8/10 then...for the chick not the movie)

Is Snipes Serving Time? If So, Is He Undisputed?

Wesley Snipes has made some odd choices recently. Firstly, he decided not to pay millions in taxes. He also has decided in a career in direct to DVD crap rather than pursue indie dramas to remind us of the powerful actor he can be.

It's also a shame the director Walter Hill has faded away in recent years. Perhaps it was sci-fi shite-fest 'Supernova' (where he changed his screen credit to Thomas Lee) that has caused his absence.

So it's great to see Undisputed; a 2002 effort from both parties that sees a return to form for both. Snipes is the undisputed 10 year boxing champion on the inside, at the remote desert facility, Sweetwater Prison. An edgy Ving Rhames is the undisputed worldwide box office champ, imprisoned for rape.

Two things set this apart.
1/ Walter Hill makes Westerns..and so it is with Undisputed. Outlaw from civilization comes to frontiers-town and it's up to the local to drive him out.
2/ Hill isn't just concerned with the 2 boxers and how they view the fight but how the prison and boxing communities relate. Even the big fight is mainly shot from outside the ring; we, the audience, are observers, just like the prisoners and other interested parties.

The film looks good, plays at a pace and Rhames and Snipes are the best I've seen them in yonks. Knockout.

Greetings Programs!!!

I loved Disney's Tron as a kid. And I love it now too.

The script is a breeze with pape-rthin characters skipping from event to event, the dialogue minimal and the logic questionable (so an accountancy program has a conscience, does it!?) Writer/Director Lisberger is no Spielberg. But frankly, who cares.

You've got a small but memorable cast, from hero Bridges, to brillient baddie Warner to square-jaw Boxleitner. You've got a staggeringly original premise (one that no one has dared to copy...well perhaps the Matrix). The production and costume design is some of the best conceived... the light-cyles, the recognizers, the frisbee data discs, etc. The film is layered with religious and socialogical subtext and the visual execution (not computer animation, for the most part, but traditional cell animation) is unique.

We shoulda got a sequel 25 ears ago. Here's hoping the Bridges/Boxleiner one due for 2010 lives up to this lil' beauty.



Above is the teaser trailer for the hotly anticipated sequel, Tron Legacy.

Fillion's The King Of Castle

I make no secret that I hold to the sacred ideal "Nathan Fillion should be in everything". He's a charming, quirky actor who's not afraid to take the piss out of himself. His role as Malcolm Reynolds in Joss Whedon's Firefly is legendary and he's been predictably great in everything else I've seen him in.

Castle is a starring vehicle for The Fillion; a police procedural that plays like a cross between Murder She Wrote and Moonlighting. I've never been fond of cop shows or detective series, no matter how acclaimed they are (CSI, Cold Case, Monk, House)but I love watching sparky love/hate relationships like Lois & Clark or Demsey & Makepeace.

Fillion's crime novelist Rick Castle plays as a Fillion version of Moonlighting's David Addison; cocky, womanising, smug, rebellious and more than a little out of his depth. Stana Katic plays the straight lady-cop role and is capably cute in the pilot (but she's no Maddie Hayes).

It's classily directed by Reign of Fire/X-Files: The Movie helmer Rob Bowman and it's witty script comes from Airforce One/Hollowman scribe Andrew Marlow.

I don't know whether the remaining 9 episodes will be this good, but Castle has a bloody amusing, laugh out loud pilot episode. And Fillion is back. Maybe this will be the break into the big time he deserves.

If I'm Watching The Watchmen, Then Who's Watching Me???

Well, I can't imagine anybody getting a more faithful film version of Watchmen made than Zack Snyder has managed here. It looks like Alan Moore & Dave Gibbon's classic 80's comic book, and apart from a deviation near the end (the squid repacement, better in my opinion) it follows the original surprisingly closely.

Snyder's had to walk the tightrope here; make it accessable to those unfamiliar with the graphic novel and please the leigon of loyal fanatics. He's also had to balance the realities of making an appealing, commercial fantasy movie, with an artsy, thought-provoking ponder-a-thon. And in both these balancing acts he succeeds. The young audience I saw it with weren't restless (although they did murmer after...'that was way long, and I didn't get it'...their fault for being dumb, I suppose).

It is an artsy movie though. If you're expecting The Dark Knight, you won't find a huge action setpiece every 10 minutes to distract you... or a souring Hans Zimmer score to lift you. Score is minimised and period songs occasionally take their place in inventive montage sequences. Snyder has immaculately framed and staged every shot in the film, to the point I'll need to see it again to see what info I've missed. Each frame tells a story; every film-making technique used to communicate the plot and themes.

The cast are great, with Jackie Earl Haley being the standout as Rorschach. Akerman and Goode have come in for critisim as Silk Spectre II and Ozymandias respectively, but to be fair, their rolls just aren't as flashy as their collegues and requires more subtlety and normality.

Emotionally, it's not as engaging as I anticipated, but that's not a critism. That would be like having a go at Kubrick for making 2001: A Space Odessey clinical and intellectual. Or Ridley Scott, when making the challenging Blade Runner (a film Watchmen often reminds me of). This movie contains many subtexts; the nature of humanity. How costumes heroes might really exist, and what happens when their oh-so-human flaws get in the way. The question of self-identity is tackled and the masks we wear to the world. It has to be said this is a very pessimistic work with only a glimmer of light. I was hoping, right to the final frame, that they would keep the book's ending..which fortunetely they did.

But if you like you films to stimulate the mind and the eyeball, you'll like this.

Beam Me Up, Now Goddamit, Now!

http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/startrek/


The latest trailer for the new Trek trailer has me drooling with anticipation. I'm a life long Trek fan and I don't have a problem with them recasting the classic characters (you can't beat Shatner anyway, so why get stressed about it).

The visuals look fantastic, as if Michael Bay himself had directed(k'plow!k'bang!) The effects are epic and the tone of the trailer mythic. This is the age old navel myth...boy goes to sea and returns a man. The mythic image of 'hero looking at sunrise as he contemplates his journey' (like Luke staring at the two suns in Star Wars) is present here, with Pine-Kirk gazing at the partly built USS Enterprise.
The downside is the excellent music here, which provides half of the powerful tone of the trailer, is not part of the score.

Still haven't seen any cast shots yet of Zoe Saladina in Uhura's mini skirt get-up. What, you didn't just think I liked space monsters, did ya?

Hansel, Gretel, Freaky Santa, Mad Priest and stuff

Bloke crashes car, stumbles through the woods and encounters picturesque house with seemingly perfect family. The parents dissapear and bloke can't find his way back to the highway, so is trapped with freaky kids. Cue weird stuff.

Not a j-horror gore fest, more a strange fantasy. Is it real or is he dreaming? Didn't really care, to be honest. Too slow, even for my tastes. And while it's unusual, it could have done with being more outrageous.

Let's see if our talented asian friends can come up with a horror version of Humpty Dumpty.

The Unborn - May the seed of your loin be fruitful in the belly of your woman

The Unborn has its root in J-horror. Substitue a long-haired Japaese girlie for the freaky Jewish kid, and you've got an Asain horror movie. If you've seen one of those, you'll know the plot.

Two things to consider:-
1. Small freaky kids jumping out of the dark screaming, makes me shit my pants.
2. Odette Yustman (of Cloverfield fame) as yummy. She needs to eat some pies, but this is an
actress with a future.

Not original but recommended.

Splinter - Don't worry, you won't feel a prick.

Splinter is a nasty, direct to DVD, little horror movie. When I say nasty, I don't mean cheap and I don't mean crap. Just a cool, savage monster gore-fest.

Criminal couple kidnap nice city couple and they go to a Gas Station, where an evil, blood eatin' fungus starts possessing people and killing the rest. Its a siege movie, where the bad guy becomes hero (Assault On Precint 13 springs to mind), a zombie movie and a riff on The Thing too. It's got the babe from Blade: The series in it and the geek from Road trip as well.

So welcome nasty in to your home.