Well it ain’t no Pitch Black, that’s for sure. It’s like the characters from the first film were transplanted into a whole different universe. It’s a hokey film with grand ideas and epic scale and is quite pompous and ambitious in its own low budget way.

That’s not to say I didn’t like it. I did, after a fashion. I’m just not sure why. The production design was good and the action wasn’t bad. Vin Diesel didn’t hold back but we know the character now and there were no real suprises. Which is a double edged shiv in its own right.

Jury’s still out on this one for now.

Go Paula!

Go Wasps!

Just found out that they were filming scenes for the next Harry Potter film in the woods behind my house at the beginning of August. Typical that I only found this out now.

Perhaps they could have used my dog as one of the wild beasts lurking in the woods.

I don’t know why I didn’t go and see this in the cinema considering how much I enjoyed Vol 1. In some ways I’m glad I didn’t because I didn’t really enjoy this as much.

Vol 2. is quite different from Vol 1. There’s more dialogue and less pace. We find out more about Uma Thurman’s character and we finally get to meet Bill. But the general problem is that this is film-making by numbers. This is a self confessed homage to the great spaghetti Westerns and Hong Kong martial arts films of old but it doesn’t really add anything new. You know what’s going to happen and there aren’t really any surprises. The script is heavy handed and while the dialogue is typical of Tarantino, the writing is generally lazy. What little character development takes place is conveyed through the dialogue rather than the actions of the characters.

But all that being said, it’s not a bad film. It’s just by no means a great film nor, from my memory, a good follow up to a first part that was full of energy and pace. Watching both films back to back may make a difference to how I feel about both fims but until then I would say that this is worth watching if you enjoyed the first one and if there isn’t anything else in the video shop that catches your eye.

First impressions of Doom 3?

Sweeeet! Graphics are fantastic. The environment is superb. The animation is excellent. The guns are, well, a bit limp.

Doesn’t quite yet feel like Doom but does feel a little more like Aliens than the AvP games did - but that maybe down to the sheer detail of the environment and the very, very, very stunning graphics.

I should make a quip about how comic book films are like buses these days but at the moment it seems that a good job is generally being done at bringing our favourite comic book heroes to the screen. Admittedly, you got some dodgy ones like Daredevil, The Punisher, Catwoman and Spawn it seems that these are the exceptions rather than the norm these days.

Hellboy is not a comic I’m familiar with but I really, really enjoyed the movie. The premise is simple – during WW2, the newly founded Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense interrupt a Nazi occult ceremony that, if successful, will bring about the end of the world. Obviously. During the ceremony a baby demon is brought to earth and rescued by the fledgling BPRD and christened, appropriately enough, Hellboy. Fast forward 60 years and Hellboy is now a 7 ft tall, red skinned demon working for the very same organisation that took him in.

Like Spiderman 2, one of the things which sets Hellboy apart is the ‘human’ aspect of the characters. Despite Hellboy being a badass demon with a big badass gun, these aren’t what define him. When we first meet him, he has fallen out with his adopted father (Professor Bruttenholme, played by the great John Hurt). Not in a “we’re at war” sense but in a stroppy teenage “we’re not talking to each other” sense. Hellboy regularly files down his horns so that he’ll ‘fit in’, he gets jealous and petulant and is just as victim to all the emotions that we feel as, we well, we are. It’s a credit to the ability of Ron Perlman who plays Hellboy under all the (absolutely incredible) make up that we can believe in Hellboy as a character rather than just a shallow, two dimensional figure.

If I have any criticism of the film it’s that there wasn’t enough. I’m not sure what of, but I just felt that there could have been more of something. It might possibly be that I wanted to see more of what the characters could do. Or it could be that I wanted the villain, Rasputin, to be more threatening and ominous. I didn’t really think that they made the most of him and he isn’t going to be the most memorable of villains. Then again, the Nazi assassin Kroenen makes Darth Maul look like a wimp! Still, this is just nitpicking and while it would mean I would’t rate Hellboy as a five star film, it didn’t hamper my enjoyment of it.

There is a lot of humour in the movie and I found myself chuckling away while watching it. The action is great and there are some superb set pieces. Guillermo Del Toro (who is a much better director when left to his own devices – compare Blade 2 to The Devil’s Backbone) does a great job of both writing and directing and I dearly hope that he stays on board for Hellboy 2 which I’m sure will get made.

A long overdue review!

According to the rules, sequels are never as good as the original. But rules were made to be broken and Spiderman 2 is certainly as good as the original if not better. Not only that, but it’s one of the best comic book movies that’s been made. Now that might put people off from the start but what I also really liked about Spiderman 2 is that, despite the action scenes, despite the special effects, despite the fact that it’s a superhero movie, this film is essentially about the characters. Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker faces up to plenty of adversaries in this film but what’s different is that they are supervillains that we have all faced; debt, relationships, finding a balance to our lives and wondering what the hell we’re meant to be doing.

That’s not to say that there aren’t some spectacular fights between Spiderman and this films foe, Dr Octopus, marvellously played by Alfred Molina. There are great action scenes but for me, the emphasis of the film wasn’t the imminent danger to the citizens of New York but the struggle that Peter Parker had in coming to terms with who he was and what he was meant to be doing. Although there are some scenes that have all the subtlety of a sledgehammer in the way they moralise (actually, only one in particular), there are others, such as Peter Parker explaining to Aunt May how he feels responsible for the death of his Uncle that I found very emotive and quite out of place in a film of this genre.

The performances are good all round. They are all suitably over the top but hell, it is Spiderman. Special mention should go to J.K.Simmons reprising his role as J. Jonah Jameson, the tyrannical editor of the Daily Bugle. He has some of the best comic moments and some of the great lines in the film. But the true hero of the film is the director, Sam Raimi. Spiderman 2 is definitely a Sam Raimi film (as opposed to Spiderman which was a film directed by Sam Raimi) and he brings many of the techniques and skills that he honed on his earlier films to bear on this blockbuster piece. You’ll recognise them because they’re all the bits which seem very cheesy and over the top. Or his leading man is taking a fantastic prat fall! Normally, that would be bad thing but under Sam Raimi’s guiding vision, you can rest assured that it’s totally intentional. This is the man who gave us Evil Dead 2 for crying out loud, one of the funniest, scariest movies out there.

Spiderman 2 is a great sequel and a great comic book film. I can’t wait for Spiderman 3.

So I played for half the match on saturday - or at least, two quarters as we played four 20 minute quarters rather than two 40 minute halves. Final score was 74-0 to us and far from letting the team down, I opened the scoring with the first try of the season. Yay - go me!

I still ache like a big aching thing - mainly because I took a big hit and got whiplash so the main challenge for today is to be able to turn my head more than 45 degrees in either direction. I’m sure my chiropractor will be pleased to see me again - it’s been a while.

And then I socialised with the team at a post match barbecue which all got very messy at about the time the absinthe shots came out…

This amused me immensely

Links that are amusing me but are wrong. So very, very wrong.

If you are easily offended then don’t look. Oh - and what are you doing here?

Sex Pageant in Georgia
The Missionary Position (Work Safe)