Guns + Cars = Hella Fun!

Wow, Russain trailers are reaaaally violent.

Guh?

Review of Indy 4 to follow shortly, but I found this.

Indiana Jones finds the crashed Millennium Falcon in which is the remains of Han Solo?

Guh?

The next big thing?

J J Abrams's new TV show, Fringe, will debut later in the year with a pilot episode costing $10 million.

$10 million? For a pilot?!

Now THAT'S a videogame

That's all kinds of crazy.

Hmmm.

Not convinced.

Backwards Jump

I love Driver. I loved editing replays in the Director's Mode.

Expect more of these.

Another Further Reason Why I Want a PS3

Giant robots fighting.

That'll do me.

They snuck that one out.

The teaser for The Spirit film has been released.

Might not be on your radar, but considering it's written and directed by Frank "300, Sin City" Miller is probably should be.

Film review: Iron Man

Iron Man @ IMDB

I love comics. I love movies. Therefore, I love comic book movies.

So if we go from Blade (taking that as the beginning of the renaissance of the comic book movie genre) it would have to go 30 Days of Night, X-Men 2, Sin City, Batman Begins and Spider-Man 2 in ascending order. Where does Iron Man fit in?

So, weapons manufacturer x war zone + sharpnel in heart = painful dose of reality.

Alright, that's too simple. Robert Downey Jr is Tony Stark of Stark Industries, the weapon manufacturer for the US military livin' the high life. Until, when showing off his weapons in Afghanistan, he gets attacked by terrorists using his own weapons leaving him with his heart powered by a car battery. One big pile of spare parts later, we get Iron Man.

First off performances: Robert Downey Jr is the best casting in a comic book film since Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. He fills Tony Stark and holds the film together. The character could easily have come off as smug but Downey Jr adds a streak of humor that keeps everything going. Gweneth Paltrow as the love interest does her best with an underwritten role, the scenery is only there so Jeff Bridges can chew on it so well.

But that's not what we're here for. We're here for a man in a robot suit beating the crap out of stuff. And in that respect, the film does not fail. Remember Transformers? The best special effects ever?

Beaten. The film looks so real, all the lines are blurred, it's faultless. It's amazing.

So it works. The story is great, the scenes when Stark is refining the armor are great, the dialogue is great. It's great!

Does it beat Spider-Man 2 as the best comic book film ever?

In a word? Yes.

A Further Reason To Purchase a PS3

Suddenly Batman Forever seems a looong time ago.

So a picture of Two-Face from the upcoming Batman Begins sequel has leaked onto the web:



Yeesh. That Joker picture looks like Sunshine and Rainbows compare to that.

Full trailer is now up online as well. Still looking awesome.

Things I Should Have Blogged About if I Didn't Watch TV

1) The viral marketing that Marvel did for their Secret Invasion crossover.

2) The complete lack of any decent film release at the cinema.

3) The release of GTA IV and the lack of it in my house.

4) The new Hulk trailer.

5) How awesome The Doyouinverts are.

I'm not sure if this is meant to be a joke

That's either genius or really stupid.

Hello

Blog has been a bit sparse over the last couple of weeks because I've been driving my ass off getting ready for my next driving test.

Which I failed.

For the third time.

So, one one hand I still can't (legally) drive but I will be blogging more.

Great.

His films aren't that great, but he gives good advert

Awesome.

Me likey special boxes

Look at that: Cloverfield DVD in a special box. Oh, we like that. We like that a lot.

Until we read the release date. June? JUNE?

Just has a though: Father's Day. Time to drop some hints.

Those crazy guys!

Knowledge is power. FOR REAL.

Heard of this one?

Directed by Ben Stiller? Co-written by Ethan Cohen?

Sign me up!

(This, by the way, is the film Owen Wilson should have been in but wasn't due all that trying to kill himself business. Nevermind eh?)

Film Review: Diary of The Dead

Diary of The Dead @ IMDB

So, zombies are cool again. What to do next? Let's, oh, I don't know, get the Granddaddy of Zombie films to make another one.

George A Romero (or glass face if you've seen any recent pictures of him) made Night of The Living Dead for virtually no money, massive success, heralded the extreme horror films of the seventies, birthed an entire sub-genre, made some more zombie films, dropped off the radar a bit. In case you didn't know.

So what do we have here? A re-imagining of Night of The Living Dead, set in contemporary times. Only instead of a farm house in the middle of nowhere it's a group of student film-makers trying to get home. All this is seen from the students perspective as they film their journey.

So far, so Cloverfield. But the difference here is we're watching an actual finished documentary by one of the students. So you get voice-over and music and editing. When this is explained at the beginning, I groaned a bit. Inserting the music seems forced and a bit silly. It helps when about half way through the student filming the action sits down and edits a sequence you saw a few minutes previously. Very web 2.0.

And that's the main thrust of the film, a commentary of todays citizen journalism, weblogs (hello), YouTube, all of that. Social commentary has always been a staple of Romero's film but whilst it does sometimes seems forced and a bit trite at least it's trying to say something. This immediately lifts it above the normal torture porn fare you get these days.

But, nevermind all that high brow nonsense, bring on the zombies! And Romero does and they fuck people up and people fuck them up in various imaginative ways.

Problems: the students are a bit vague and not that interesting. The film feels like it's never building to a climax. The best character in the film is introduced and killed off in five minutes.

But it's good and solid and scary and bleak as anything. Very bleak. The last scene? Bleak.

In a word? Bleak.