If you stop, you die!

First week back at the academy and it's great to be back in a routine. Even if a new term does mean the begrudged course fees cheque. Richard's final class was great fun, we finished the story exercise which proved one thing, as a class, we couldn't write a good drama but damn we could write some great comedies. The autobahn truck driver hunting for his hamster will live long in my memory. We disappointed Kim in the afternoon with our non-watching of Corrie (except Gavin) but we've got a nice little assignment for Monday which involves watching Corrie and I think the storyline our group has (Dev's) is quite an interesting one. Though in a recent episode, I couldn't help but laugh at Luke Strong's impression of Tony Gordon with the Tony mask on. Hilarious!

Tuesday's class was essentially cancelled but we had Andy's class in the afternoon with William Castle being a key focus in the powerpoint. Oddly, I read only last week in Empire about Castle and I had great fun hearing about his extreme techniques again. I can't help but want to see something similar in cinemas, might have been a nice piracy combatant.

TV

24 Season 6 - I've just finished this and while this season is nowhere near it's best, I have learned that this is probably the best boxset show and does actually get better when watched in 2/3/4 episode batches. I have no idea why, it just is. Now I'm only 1 year and 1 film behind! The final 4/6 were very action orientated, though I ran out of fingers, thumbs and toes on how many times Jack Bauer was arrested only to escape soon after.


Dollhouse - I've only watched the first episode but I can't really say I'm in love with it. It feels like Alias via Whedon. I'll give it a few more tries.


Supernatural - The beginning of season 2 and while it often smells like X-Files, it's the best (the supernatural) episodes. There's nice arching storylines throughout the seasons and thankfully not involving aliens and a missing sister.


Breaking Bad - Entertaining and original almost from the off. Again I've only caught the first episode but comparing it to Dollhouse, I got a feel for the show within 10 minutes and it's a dvd boxset buy already. I'll watch the second episode, only because I'm interested to see where it goes.

UPDATE: After watching the second episode, the show is still really strong. Roll on that boxset!

FILM

Let The Right One In - This film is being praised by every magazine, critic and filmmaker the world over and it wasn't until it's final act that I realised why. It does have a couple of creepy elements, a nice love story and more than a helping of blood and severed body parts but I find it hard to pin the movie to one genre. This I find both annoying and enlightening, annoying in the fact that when someone asks about it, you can't tell them about it in just a few words. It is enlightening in the way that the film has made me consider our reasons for categorising films and that there are some that just can't be pegged and these, are usually quite unique and certainly worth our time. In an age of unlimited horror remakes/rehashes and boring American rom-com's, I'm glad to see that there are some filmmakers who still believe film is an art.

Crank: High Voltage - Art, is not a word you could use to describe Crank: High Voltage (Crank 2 to it's mates). The simple fact of this film is that it's dumb, shallow and thankfully it seems to know that it is. While it's not going to be nominated for any awards, you have to admire that there are some filmmakers who are put on this earth simply to update a genre. The action genre has become tired and it's been a long time since we had classic entries into the genre but the original Crank proved that there's still life in it yet. The film is a great example of brain-at-the-door cinema, you should be going for an entertaining experience with this one and that's exactly what you'll get, with belly loads of laughs thrown in. For those remotely interested, the Canon XH-A1 and HF10 as well as a Sony PMW-EX1 were used on the film. It just shows that with the right style and content, anything can be pulled off on any format. I can't imagine the same camera's being used for serious drama stories but for the frantic insanity of Crank, they work well.

State Of Play - I think I've had my fill of these sorts of films, political-lite thriller films with a lone star fighting the corner of the everyman. It had the odd peak of interest but everything seemed far too choreographed to be truly entertaining. Even the, now past it's prime, tripod-less camerawork couldn't add any sort of tension or involvement for me. A fattened for Christmas Russell Crowe seems to carry on the same character from Body Of Lies, dull and unremarkable. There just isn't enough of the Aussie Annihilator fighting. A re-telling of a TV series seems a little dumb in my opinion, even if it is for the American audiences. It's only a matter of time before a film that is still in the cinema is remade for another audience...Rec and Quarantine were pretty last year.

The Q&A was perhaps the most painful Q&A ever, I could feel the souls of each of the audience members leave across the country. One funny point was director Kevin MacDonald's quote of: "If you want repetition, watch TV", maybe I've paraphrased but c'mon Kev, you've just remade a mini-series! Also, the audience in attendance asked perhaps the dumbest questions, one of which was "How many days did it take to shoot and edit?". Come on, are these people serious? It's a studio movie, it's not exactly going to be filmed in 3 weeks or over 3 years is it?

In short, the film didn't do anything for me at all and neither did the Q&A, I could have lived with the film, had it not been for the final twist but then maybe I should just blame the source material.


Shifty - From the poster and the trailers, it looks like a cheap cockney "GEEZ-A" flick but it is a bit more. The story is based around drugs and drug dealers but thankfully doesn't get too cliched and is nicely contained. If I hadn't been told beforehand that the film was made on a micro-budget, I don't think I'd be able to tell. It looks good and tells the story without being flashy or stylised. A good little film.


The Best Years Of Our Lives - A lovely film, well directed and in beautiful black & white. The story is well-paced, well-told and I feel is still extremely poignant in this age. An amazing film that surprised me and one that I would be worth watching again.
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More soon (such as Coraline on Tuesday!) but to ease the pain of this read, here's a hilarious, well-edited trailer for you: Must Love Jaws.

"They stayed away in droves."
Samuel Goldwyn (we've all now seen one of his films), film mogul.

"The record is spinning again. We're just not on the song we wanna be on."

Final week of the holidays and I've been watching more tv programmes and films than I have previously and here are the results below. This time though they are severely truncated, sometimes because the product was not that great.

Remakes and unnecessary sequels come up throughout this post and on that topic, I'd like to post the "twist" ending to Life On McMars, the U.S. remake which has thankfully been cancelled. Here we go, taken from wikipedia:
At the end of the series, it is revealed that Tyler's 2008 and 1973 realities were both fictitious, created by a computer that is carrying Tyler, Hunt, Norris, Carling, and Skelton on the first ever manned mission to planet Mars, in 2035. The crew he worked with in 1973 were just virtual reality versions of his fellow spaceship crewmembers. His room number, "2B", is his sleeping unit; his old precinct, "Hyde 235", is his identification number; his neighbor, Windy, is the name of the computer A.I.; Frank Morgan, an FBI agent in the series, is the Mission Control flight director. To sustain the crew, their minds were routinely kept active while asleep using virtual reality "neural stimulation" programs of their own choosing, but Sam's choice of a 2008 scenario was changed abruptly to 1973 by a meteor-storm induced glitch in the computer. This conclusion is markedly different from the conclusion of the original UK series, but is still left ambiguous as the first step on Mars depicts Gene Hunt's signature shoe stepping into the sand. In addition there was the anomalous presence of strips of 1973 wallpaper on board the Mars bound spaceship in 2035.

Oh and by the way, the only reason the character is called Gene Hunt is because they are on a "Gene Hunt" to Mars. OH...EM...GEE! How literal can you get? Harvey Kietel turns out to be his dad, Major Tom Tyler. The ending is viewable on Youtube.We should all detox with a re-watching of the BBC series. Roll on that Spanish remake...

FILM

Religulous: A damn fine hilarious documentary about Bill Maher's views on religion and this means it isn't really a documentary, simply a soapbox.


They Live: Great fun. Another John Carpenter film which will go down as a guilty pleasure for me. It's not the deepest movie in the world but it has a nice comment on the hierarchy of society. Worth it for a very real fight between "Rowdy" Roddy Piper and Keith David and some great make-up effects.


Fast & Furious: The 4th in the series and while I didn't love it, I didn't hate it either. It does what it needs to and thankfully, it's better than the third one, thanks to the original cast returning. It's got a good opening 20 minutes but really I can only recommend it to car lovers or boy racers.


Monsters Vs Aliens: Another 3D film and like Bolt, I don't think the story would be worth watching in 2D. The 3D suffered from what can only be described as "ghosting" which is a disappointment, showing that the format is not quite perfect. There are a few good moments and lots of references to classic films such as The Great Escape, Close Encounters and The Blob but it's really just a decent b-movie in 3D.


Dark Water - I was given the DVD of this remake a good while ago only because someone in work wanted rid of it out of their collection, so thankfully, I didn't have to pay for it. It's bad, but only in the way that it is so generic, since it is a remake of another of those Japanese horror films. You know the one's, creepy kid, single parent, supernatural explanation. It'd be worth watching if you hadn't seen The Ring or The Grudge or whatever other J-Horror but otherwise, besides the interesting cast, you'll have seen it all before.

TV

Lost: From strength to strength the show continues to grow and last weeks episode Dead Is Dead, was one of the most answer based shows yet and it even had me feeling really sorry for Ben. I've never been as excited from week to week about a show than I am with this current season.


Heroes: Bad, good, bad, good, bad, bad, bad, good. This seems to be the rough form of Heroes episodes so far but the previous 2 episodes, Cold Snap and Into Asylum have been some of the best, especially this season. Cold Snap had an amazing effects scene involving ice and also very funny Hiro/"Parkman" scenes. C'mon Heroes, only a few episodes left, leave the season on a high!


Red Dwarf: Red Dwarf returned to our screens, YAY! It was without a laughter track, NAY! It was overloaded with CGI, NAY! It repeated a classic story from series 5, NAY! It was overly self-referential, NAY! So what did I think of it: meh.

I adore Red Dwarf. Along with Father Ted, it's the only show I know almost inside out and while it's 10 years since series 8 was shown I was glad to hear there was going to be a 3 parter over the easter weekend. I have mixed feelings about the final product. The show is almost entirely self-referential in it's middle part which was a big disappointment, all it did was tell me that Red Dwarf fans are geeks. It did have one redeeming factor and that was that I felt for the first time since series 2, that the story got back to being more about Lister than anyone else. This was not enough to save it though and I could count on my hand how many times I laughed throughout. The story is simply Blade Runner (and FAR too much of it) merged with the classic Back To Reality episode and that for me, doesn't make a good comeback. It is to the original series what The Phantom Menace is to the original Star Wars saga, unnecessary.

The Guardian says the first episode gained a respectable 2 million viewers but this dropped off to below 1 million for the second episode. Whether you like it or not. Doug Naylor wants to do a 10th (not 9th) series. Personally, I'd rather be left wanting more than actually being satisfied if that makes sense. Comebacks must be stopped.
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More soon! Crank 2 and Let The Right One In on Friday...some beer may be required pre-Crank 2.

"To those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say,
"Don't be economic girlie men!"
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Califonian Governor/actor, speaking at the
2004 Republican Convention - and getting a huge ovation from the audience.

"Stoke me a clipper, I'll be back for Christmas"

Post number 44 and for the next few weeks I'll mostly be posting about how I've entertained myself without the Academy. Before we finished up, I picked up the most recent issue of Empire. Sadly, I was a shallow man and was pulled in by a half-naked Megan Fox on the cover but after a quick flick through, it demanded purchase since it contained some great articles including an interview with J.J. Abrams on the Star Trek reboot and an interview with Charlie Kaufman on Synecdoche (pronounced Sih-NECK-doh-kee), New York. So now I am playing for both of the major movie mags...will I be out twice as much money each month or will I be swinging to one side? Stay tuned!

On top of this, I've been killing time tidying up DVD extras and playing some XBOX 360, namely Fallout 3 and Dead Space (which has lain wrapped in my wardrobe for over a month). Good times and I'm glad of the break much more than I thought I would be, though I'll no doubt be dying to get back by next week! If you're looking for a neat little time killer online, try playing Peggle, it's very simple and very addictive and works well while typing out epic blogs:

Honestly, Try Peggle!

UPDATE: Just finished Dead Space and which was at times, terrifying. I'm glad I experienced it in a dark room with headphones, the odd change of underwear was required.

Over the past week and a half I've been rushing through the entire 8 series' of Red Dwarf in preperation for the new episodes this weekend and the show is just as classic as I remember. The it is renowned for it's lack of continuity but it doesn't stop it being hilarious and a show that pushed the boundaries of a BBC budget long before the Doctor Who comeback. Classic. Roll on Monday, where the 3 new episodes are played back to back.

TV

Battlestar Galactica - The series finished last week so I felt like I should at least start watching this. The 3 Hour "Mini-series" was put in to my DVD player and I made the decision to watch it in two parts, like it was originally screened (using a Battlestar Wiki page as a guide) and before I finished the first half, I knew that I NEEDED to see the 2nd half the same day. The production values for the show are pretty high, the CGI is created by Zoic Studios who are responsible for other great Sci-Fi effects in Firefly/Serenity, Buffy and Spiderman 2 as well as the grandiose The Day After Tomorrow. The show seems to rest entirely on it's characters, something which took me back a bit when watching it, considering that generally TV Sci-Fi seems to be driven by it's alien races, space ships and unintelligable dialogue. The cast seem to fit in very well with no overly familiar cast members, besides maybe Edward James Olmos (Blade Runner), Mary McDonnell (Donnie Darko) and Callum Keith Rennie (you'll know him when you see him). I was instantly comfortable with the rest of the cast since many seemed to be outsiders in this world, much like I am, to that world at least. This in my mind adds to the importance of a somewhat unfamiliar cast for a new show which helps the audience to connect to the story.

The 3 hour pilot gave me a good feel for where the series may go and in the not too distant future, I hope to return to the Galactica and it's crew. The DVD's do seem a tad expensive since, being a completist, I have to own the best version (the one with the most special features) of each which is the Region 1's...


Doctor Who - Well, what started as a mild interest after having been shown an episode in Andy's class, has turned into a slight "hooking" for me, to the show. After renting it from the library, I was sometimes going through 2, 3 episodes a day but only recently I've...ahem..."timeshifted" them and I have to say, I like the Doctor Who flavour.

First though, I'm going to batter you with what I don't like before moving onto my positive thoughts, always end on a high note. The show is quite formulaic, they land on a planet/in a time and have to sort out what's wrong, with the plot usually known pre-credits. Also, the main character, The Doctor, can't technically die which for me, causes a little problem. Recently I've reveled in shows like Lost, where each week, it's believable that any character could die off. I also think that while it's great to see the BBC reaching for the sky in terms of CG effects, they're still nowhere near our American counterparts, at least in Season 1.

Now let me address these negatives. The formula for the show works, and it isn't quite the reset that sitcoms or Bond movies have and often facts, characters and storylines are carried over between "Planet-of-the-week" episodes. Such as Captain Jack. Having a main character who is essentially invincible is flawed but it shows the strength of the shows writing when we can still sympathise with the character and still be on the edge of our seats when this invincible character gets into peril. The Doctor is quite like James Bond in that respect and I don't find the concept as restrictive as I initially thought. The CG effects aren't that great, but I am told that they get better. Sometimes however, the effect has been quite successful.

The first season has a few of the stumbling blocks that most new series has. Setting up the characters and situations is quite laborious but not enough to alienate either new or old Who fans. The season also has a few weak episodes, such as the farting Slitheen, who I felt didn't add anything at all and was merely a poor attempt at toilet humour. Thankfully, by the return of them in a later episode, the farting has almost gone. The stand out episodes for me was the Empty Child/Doctor Dances two-parter which managed to be unsettling and interesting.

In short, I'll be picking up the DVD's to re-watch Season 1 and then carry on through the Seasons and I look forward to doing so, wallet permitting.

FILM

The Spy Who Loved Me: Bond 10 and one that has brought a few great images to the franchise. From THAT opening Ski-chase and the amazing jump that follows (guaranteed to have you holding your breath for a second) to the classic underwater Lotus, it serves as one of the more memorable films. The film is let-down by an almost non-existent baddie who seems to just sit in the one positionthroughout the entire film and a memorable henchman, Jaws, who is vastly underused. The film also has one of the better Bond themes, "Nobody Does It Better" performed by Carly Simon and is one of those few songs that works well without the need for the title sequence but it is to blame for some of the films flaws in terms of score. The score itself is loaded with 70's synth which has dated the film quite badly, much like the blaxploitation did Live And Let Die.

Something else it shares with Live And Let Die is that it has yet another on-train fight sequence which is nicely choreographed and is backed up with little sound effects or music and yet somehow it works. In summary, a better film than The Man With The Golden Gun and on par with Live And Let Die, one of Moore's better Bond's. Probably the best sequence in the film is the Lotus Esprit chase, while it plays best in the context of the film, I thought I would give a little sample here courtesy of Youtube. The one shot that wowed me was between 3:31 - 3:36, where does that helicopter come from?

Knowing - Terrible marketing, Nicolas Cage and generally negative to average reviews, three elements which usually point to a terrible film but much to my own disappointment, I actually liked this. Nicolas 'horseface' Cage, in my opinion, is an actor who seems to only do wrong, at least in the past 10 years and here, he is no different. He seems to struggle to emote, imagine Keanu Reeves with added Ronseal. The film is also bogged down with coincidences, here's the setup: A young girl HAPPENS to win a competition held by her school to celebrate it's opening (in 1959), she thinks they should have a time capsule. The girl HAPPENS to be an outcast and likes to right down numbers. In 2009 (known as "present day" in the film, boy is that gonna date), Nic Cage just HAPPENS to be an astrophysics professor and just HAPPENS to have a son as part of the class who are opening the time capsule. Nic Cage's son, also just HAPPENS to get the sheet with all the numbers on it that Nic Cage just HAPPENS to notice that the numbers relate to great disasters.

That's a LOT of coincidences and there are a few more throughout the course of the film but don't let it put you off. Seriously. There are some great set-pieces, the CGI is far from perfect (some is near I Am Legend bad) but the sheer spectacle of one sequence is quite amazing and shown in one, no doubt difficult to shoot, one shot. The other major disaster sequence is also of note and immediatly evoked another major action movie (you'll know which one when you see the sequence) but did it in such a way to make this sequence it's own.

I plan to avoid spoiling it since it is a new movie but I reckon that it's definetly worth a watch, while it's not a landmark movie or a really great one, I do think that it is comparable to any good disaster movie and is certainly worth a watch. Considering the film has a $50 million budget, it pulls off what it intends to quite well and has a satisfying ending which actually just ran 30-40 seconds too long. There a couple of unintentional laughs in the film but I felt I could let it go since what it set out to do in it's Hollywood turnaround tin, bettered many recent movies of the same genre such as War Of The Worlds, The Day The Earth Stood Still and The Invasion. Worthwhile, at least for it's ideas, spectacle and a little wow factor.

RANT/THOUGHT

I know even the idea of this would be put down by Bond purists but I reckon the way to keep Bond fresh and exciting is possibly by moving him to TV. Now bare with me here. I know Bond film's are entirely spectacle based, people go for the explosions, the sexy ladies, the fast cars and the unrealistic plots, but what about having a Bond, similar to Daniel Craig's Bond who is deeply flawed and certainly layered. Here's how I imagine the series/seasons would play out:

We take the next Bond (I think Daniel Craig is only signed up for another one or two) and have him continue the characters story in television form. The seasons would be of HBO length, so maybe 8-10 episodes a season, meaning that a little more money and time could be spent on each episode. The series would follow along the lines of a Doctor Who season, there will be episodes that stand alone but more often than not, stories may take 2/3/4 episodes to play themselves out. This is a great opportunity for breaking the formula and Bond could meet a Bond girl who he may not bed for an episode or two, great for bringing in the female audience. There will still be action and cars and if any major TV show has taught us anything in the past couple of years, it's that they can pull off just about anything that a film can do. You can't exactly say that shows like 24, Lost or Heroes look cheap and shabby like retro TV does and even more stars are moving to TV for solid work. The idea would result in a less action packed Bond but seriously, after Quantum Of Solace, can't we see that the Bond franchise is running out of new predicaments for our hero to escape from?

The idea would still allow a film to be made, maybe every few years, that would tie in nicely and carry over the TV audience as well as those that would no doubt be opposed to the TV series. Infact, the movie's box office returns would no doubt be able to fund the TV show for a season or two.

Yes, the entire notion is a bit insane and it will never happen but I think it would work, though I bet my idea could be torn to shreds in seconds. This is what happens when I have time on my hands.

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What I need to blog about next time: Recent Lost, recent Heroes, Red Dwarf.

"A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on."
Samuel Goldwyn