As I slipped into my black armoured jacket, pulled on my mask and fired up the ignition, I had to remind myself that I am not, in fact, Batman and that my bike is not, in fact, the Batpod and does not come equipped with missile launchers with which I can blast cars out of the way as I speed back home to the Batcave - err, my flat.

The Dark Knight is fucking awesome. There, I’ve said it. I don’t really need to say anymore because that’s all you need to know and all I can get my head around to tell you. Ah, what the hell - here’s some more (surprisingly spoiler free) thoughts.
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I finally got to see “The Mist” last night. First things first - I feel compelled and duty bound to warn anyone who’s an arachnophobe that The Mist doesn’t carry a warning but very obviously fucking should do that the film contains spiders. Fuck that “Warning: may contain mild peril” shit – if a film has those eight-legged freaks in it then I for one would like to fucking know about it before I sit down in a large, dark auditorium. That being said, even as someone afflicted with that particular phobia, I didn’t find it too bad as the beasties in question neither look like or, more to the point, move like real spiders. Alright, so I did keep my feet off the floor but generally, it wasn’t as bad as, well, Arachnophobia or, um, other films with monster spiders in (like Eight Legged Freaks which I still haven’t seen and can’t imagine ever doing so even though I really want to – how perverse is that?)

Anyway, aside from that heads up, overall I really enjoyed The Mist and would recommend it to anybody who likes horror films. More after the jump including potential spoiler-ish details.
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I wasn’t very enthralled by the trailers for The Incredible Hulk until one of the last TV spots appeared that, I don’t know, just made me a little more curious. I’d read good things about the film and decided that there were worse ways of spending an evening.

I’ve got to say that I really enjoyed it. It’s not as good as Iron Man and is very different to Ang Lee’s more ponderous version and, overall, I’d say it’s a better film for it. It doesn’t try to be so clever which is probably a good thing considering the subject matter. Man turns into green monster when he gets angry and smashes everything up. I’m not a big fan of the comic but the film really worked for me.
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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a film that needs no introduction and if it does then I don’t know why you’re reading this. It’s been out for a while so most people have seen it and those who haven’t may already be aware of the reputation it’s garnered because of a particular scene that has been immortalized in a new phrase that is currently doing the rounds of the internet.

Skip to the end: the film’s not bad but it’s not great either.
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I’m not entirely sure what to say about this film apart from WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED TO MY HEAD?

Set in 1980’s Berlin, Possession charts the falling apart of a marriage between Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill (fresh from his success as Damien Thorn in Omen 3). Directed by the slightly wayward Polish director, Andrezj Zulawski, this film has a questionable script, some of the most over-the-top acting I’ve seen in a while and possibly the worst private investigator in the history of cinema. But - and this is a very important but - it works. Sort of. It’s surreal, bizarre, surreally bizarre and, occasionally, bizarrely surreal. Like Eraserhead but with less singing hamster ladies lurking behind the radiator and more tentacles, people going insane and pink socks.

Think of it as a marriage guidance video directed by H.P.Lovecraft and that might stop you wondering who slipped mescaline into your cocktail.

Watch it if you like a splash of weirdness and chaos on your cornflakes but avoid if you prefer order and reason to rule your world.

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.

What a fucking dull film.

It’s a shame that a franchise that started off so well has probably been euthanized in its prime by a poorly scripted, whiningly ‘emo’, disappointingly tedious film - suffering from obvious studio-executive interference, a lack of fresh vision and ambivalent performances (except from Thomas Haden Church as Flint Marko who was about the only sympathetic character in it - oh, and J.K.Simmons and Bruce Campbell were good value as always).

I have nothing else to add.

I watched this a couple of weeks ago but it’s taken me this long to work out my thoughts about it. Two things are certain: firstly, it is a great, great movie; secondly, I still have absolutely no fucking idea what it’s about.

This is a David Lynch film. You could probably describe it as arthouse but I feel that classification is so pejorative that I wouldn’t call it that. It is surreal, it is expressionist, it is totally off the wall. It also has a cracking soundtrack featuring David Bowie, Marilyn Manson, Trent Reznor, Smashing Pumpkins, Rammstein and, of course, old Lynchian stalwart, Angelo Badalamenti. I could spend more time talking about the soundtrack, which I understand, than the film.

I’m going to be discussing spoilers after the jump so if you want to see this without knowing anything, don’t read any further. It’s worth watching if you like fucked up films that defy conventional structure and narrative and will make you think. It’s worth watching if you liked Wild at Heart or Blue Velvet (or even Donnie Darko or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and want to take it up a notch). It’s definitely worth watching if you’ve taken any hallucinogens (although Tabula Rasa is not culpable for any bad trips you might experience). It’s definitely not worth watching if you like a movie to have an understandable story, a nice clean ending with all the plot points resolved and no questions left unanswered.

Once again, spoilers ahead. You’ve been warned.
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“Them” has a lot going for it in terms of acting, direction, photography and, above all, sound. It does what it’s trying to do - build a sense of tension and suspense - very well. The use of sound is particularly effective in generating the atmosphere of the piece.

So what it’s about? A French couple move to Romania (she’s a language teacher, see, and he’s a writer). They’ve moved into this big house situated in a remote location outside the town where she works. One night, they have an unexpected, unwelcome and unseen visitor and so begins a terrifying game of hide-and-seek. And that’s it. Seriously, that’s your lot. A couple on the run for the best part of 70+ minutes.
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