Yeah, I enjoyed it.

The first of the summers comic book/superhero films is here (we’ve got The Incredible Hulk, The Dark Knight, Hellboy 2, Hancock and The Punisher 2 to come) and standing tall astride the top of the Box Office charts. I thought it was pretty good but that’s mostly down to the actors involved: Robert Downey Jr. was great as was Jeff Bridges as his Nemesis and Gwyneth Paltrow as his erstwhile assistant-slash-unrequited love interest. Incidentally - am I the only person on the planet to not think less than fuzzy thoughts about her as an actress?

There’s been a lot of criticism of the films pacing, saying that the second half was much slower than the start but personally I couldn’t see it. Perhaps it’s because, unlike most superhero films, there was much more character exploration. Tony Stark’s transformation into Iron Man also represented a change in his character from amoral to moral coupled with an awareness that his life is actually rather empty, illustrated pretty well by the fact that he seems to be far friendlier with his robots than the people around him. Of course, being a comic book film, it’s not exactly going to be a character driven piece and I’m happy to say that the action scenes were pretty good too. It’s just a shame that we saw most of the good stuff in the trailers which left very little new stuff to see. What will be interesting to see in future sequels (already announced and pretty inevitable considering it’s one of Marvel’s biggest properties although I don’t think I’ve personally ever read any IM comics) is whether they explore the darker side of the character, his descent into alcholism and his sometimes dubious politics.

All in all, Iron Man is a good start to a summer that is chocka full of potential. If this turns out to be the worst film of the summer than I am going to be a very happy bunny.

Doomsday is a peculiar chimera of a movie which makes you wonder if writer-director Neil Marshall has been told he’s allowed to make one final film and no more after that (begrudging gratitude to Master Pedant Lyle for continuity checking) and has decided to make a zombie movie or perhaps a film set in a dystopian future Britain or, better still, a post-apocalyptic future Britain like the one in 28 Weeks Later with a virus killing everyone but perhaps we could, you know, wall them up in a city like they did in Resident Evil, better still, a whole country and there could be punks and cannibals and cannibal punks like in Escape From New York or Mad Max and we could have a chase with a cool car and a load of buses and trucks with spikes and razors on them just like in Mad Max 2 or maybe Mad Max 3 with the Thunderdome where two people fought in an arena, you know, “Two go in, one comes out” or was that Gladiator – yeah, Gladiator was a cool film with like, swords and armour and riding on horses and the horses could have laser beams coming out of their eyes that would go pachow! Pachow! and… wait, no, that would be silly. So many good ideas and I don’t know which one to choose because they’re all so great – hey, wait a minute -what if I did them ALL?

The film itself isn’t actually that good even so I found myself enjoying it. Then again, how can you not love a film that’s so blatantly ripping off classics that it even calls two characters Miller (after George, director of Mad Max) and Carpenter (after John, director of Escape from New York) Indeed, how can you not love a film that introduces the rowdy crowd of cannibal punks to the riffing beats of “Kings of the Wild Frontier” by Adam and the Ants, followed immediately by the head honcho strutting onto the stage accompanied by the melodic strains of “Good Thing” by the Fine Young Cannibals(!) before bringing on fat men in kilts dancing to the Bad Manners version of the Can-Can (I kid you not) all leading up to the spectacular spectacle of Sean “My Dad Was Doctor Who” Pertwee being burnt alive and eaten. Even the final showdown is set to splendid Frankie Goes To Hollywood cover of Two Tribes. Let’s face it, walling up Scotland is also a good idea so this film is not entirely without merit!¹

I’m not sure I’d recommend anyone to go and see this unless it’s with some mates and you had a couple of beers and have a laugh. I don’t even think it’s going to become a cult classic when it’s released on DVD because it’s just not quite cool enough, even though it does have an exploding bunny quite early on. I hope it does because in some ways it deserves to be a fondly-remembered film even if it’s just for Marshall’s sheer audacity in actually making it - it’s just a shame that the script is not quite as sharp or as funny as his debut feature, Dog Soldiers and that, in my honest opinion, is what’s going to consign this to the bottom of the DVD bargain bin in a years time.

¹I don’t mean it really. Some of my best friends are Scottish or at least they would be if I had any.

Yeah, it was pretty good. I enjoyed it which I’m glad about because I still had reservations about it going into the cinema but I came out happy.

Spoiler filled review when I can be bothered.

I started writing a fucking long-winded, pretentious post examining and dissecting the Alien films when the realisation that it was all a load of guff. What it boils down to is that Aliens are cool and the first two films in the franchise were fantastic. I mean, it’s 1979 and people are still reeling after the runaway success of Star Wars and its aliens, especially the lethal yet lovable Chewbacca when all of a sudden, Ridley Scott and Dan O’Bannon come along with the godking of biomechanical nightmares himself, H.R. Giger, in tow and say “You think that’s cool? Wait till you get a load of this!” and unleash a terrifying vision of extra-terrestial horror on us.
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Although it’s been on release in the States since Christmas Day, this weekend sees the UK release of Aliens vs Predator: Requiem, the sequel to the hit 2004 movie, Alien Vs Predator. Yes, that’s right, the hit movie - despite being slated by both critics and fans, the film made more money relatively in terms of box office takings than any of it’s predecessors, nearly doubling it’s $45m budget in the US alone.

Like the sad geek that I am, I was originally going to watch all 4 Alien films, both Predator films and the first AvP before the weekend but, after multiple discussions about the merits and qualities of both franchises on a few messageboards around the ‘net (none, I hasten to add, being fan sites), I figured it would make more sense for me to spout nonsensically about it all on the only site that counts - this one here.

Then, if you’re really, really lucky, I might even give you a review of the film after I go to see it on Saturday. (It has already been universally panned by most people so I’m not expecting it to good - but as you will find out, it’s not a concept that I think will ever be executed well.)

Despite watching loads of films lately, I haven’t reviewed any here because I seem to have committed myself to wittering on about 20 video games that I like rather than writing a couple of posts to summarise all of them like more sensible people have and so therefore tying myself up in a never fucking ending series that only two people are reading and that isn’t really that original anyway.

So here as a brief list of films that I’ve watched lately that I thought were pretty good and worth watching. Here’s a run down with an ever so brief synopsis of what they’re about:

Crash (2006 version): Racism is bad, mkay!
Requiem For A Dream: Drugs are bad, mkay!
21 Grams: Life is bad, mkay!
The Proposition: Australia is bad, mkay!
Stranger Than Fiction: Tax is bad but cookies are good, mkay!
John Carpenter’s The Thing: Shapeshifting creatures from another planet that disguise themselves as dogs or humans are bad, mkay!¹

Not the most cheery bunch of films but there we go. I’m sure I’ll try to discuss them individually soon.

¹Yeah, okay, I haven’t just seen this for the first time but I still think this film carries an important message that we ignore at our peril.

First proper trailer for next years Batman film, “The Dark Knight”, is now online.

You can watch it here.

Quite frankly, it’s fucking fantastic. Heath Ledger’s Joker is, so far, as far removed from Jack Nicholson’s interpretation as Bale’s version of Batman is from Micheal Keaton. So far, if there’s one blockbuster I absolutely must go and see next summer, it’s this.

It’s been a while since we’ve had any decent trailers and I’m not about to spoil things now. Instead you get a preview of a fucked up, highly gory Japanese film called Machine Girl. It’s after the jump as you may not want to watch if you aren’t into over-the-top, shlocky gorefests.
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Blade Runner is my number one, all time favourite film.

As I may have already mentioned, I’d have a hard time putting together a top 20 list of films but I am scribbling this simple fact on the wall: Blade Runner is at the top of the list. I mention this because yesterday the “Final Cut” edition of Blade Runner was released and I’m holding out for a relly to buy me the 5 disc box-set for christmas. I don’t own a copy of BR on DVD at the moment because there just wasn’t a release worth my money but now that Ridley Scott has gone back to revise the film, do the commentaries and throw in a mega fuck load of extras, it’s finally going to grace the shelves of my collection.

What follows are my thoughts about the controversial issue of whether Deckard is a replicant or not. (There are spoilers but come on, this is a 25 year old film. If you haven’t seen it by now, you never will!)
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I need some more scary films to watch as I’m running out so it’s recommendation time.

But before you head off to the comments box, let me qualify what I’m looking for. I don’t want slasher flicks, torture porn or anything which is predominantly gore over substance. Not that I mind gore so don’t worry about that. Basically, I’m looking for stuff that’s weird scary, occult scary or supernatural scary.

Examples? Well, here are the obvious ones: The Exorcist, The Changeling, The Wicker Man, Rosemary’s Baby and most of the stuff that I’ve been reviewing on here recently. I know there’s a lot more Dario Argento stuff I should have watched too (pretty sure that I’ve seen Suspiria and Inferno but was probably quite drunk) so that’s on the list already.

There’s one more condition: it needs to be available on DVD. Preferably via LoveFilm.