Stargate ( 15th Anniversary Edition )

Has it really been 15 years since Stargate was released ?, I have clear memories of going to see the movie at the cinema and it certainly doesn't seem like it was 15 years ago.

I've always enjoyed Stargate despite it's somewhat typical action movie climax letting things down a little at the end and I've owned several different versions of the movie over the years including the disastrous first Blu-ray release of the film, thankfully the 15th Anniversary Edition is an outstanding release in terms of picture and sound quality and easily the best release of the movie I've seen.

I was a little disappointed with the extras on the disc but the quality of the movie makes up for that, this is the release of the movie fans have been waiting for.

Police Academy 1-7

I've always had a soft spot for the first Police Academy movie and I thought it's first sequel was OK but from then onwards the series suffers a sharp decline in quality, I was recently able to pick up the entire film series box set rather cheap.

Over the last few days I've watched all seven on the movies and my opinion remains pretty much unchanged, the first couple of movies are decent but watching the rest of the series was pretty hard work at times, there have been rumors of a new Police Academy movie floating around for a while now and I'm not sure that's a good thing, if done right ( and the series has always had a lot of potential ) it could be a lot of fun but if it's bad then it'll be just another Police Academy sequel.

10 000 BC

I haven't been overly impressed with any of Roland Emmerich's movies since Stargate, I guess as big dumb popcorn movies they do their job and all of his movies are a visual feast but I find they are very light on story for my taste and the same was mostly true of 10 000 BC but I did like it better than most of his recent output, in fact it reminded me of Stargate at several points during the film.

I picked this up for $5 new in a collectors tin with a film cell so I guess it wasn't well received or at least didn't sell all that well on DVD, ordinarily this is the type of movie I'd catch on TV rather than pay any money for but it was worth the price I paid.

Some of the location shooting done for the movie was rather pretty and it was nice to see some model work instead of just CG used for the special effects which makes a nice change from most recent movies.

Unlike most of Roland Emmerich's movies I could see myself watching 10 000 BC again at some point, it's by no means a great movie but is a decent one.

The Non-Event

Well I've finally managed to limp through the first 10 episodes of The Event, I kept hoping the show would get better, there was plenty of running around but honestly nothing much actually happened, I believe the show is on hiatus until next year and based on the half-assed cliffhanger I'll be shocked if many viewers return when the show does, I seriously doubt I'll be one of them.

Aeon Flux

From a production design viewpoint this is an interesting movie but otherwise Aeon Flux was a mess.

Neverwhere

Over the last couple of days I've been watching the BBC television series Neverwhere which was written by Neil Gaiman.

I'd been aware of Neverwhere for some time, I've never read the book but I had heard that Gaiman was interested in producing a film based on this series and I can see why, there were some interesting ideas in Neverwhere but the series was severely hampered by it's low budget and I think a moderately budgeted movie exploring the same ideas could be interesting. - as it stands I think I could only recommend the Neverwhere TV series to die hard Neil Gaiman fans and having never read the book for all I know they might hate it.

Toy Story 3

I'm not sure but maybe I'm a heartless bastard.

Last night I watched Toy Story 3 with my daughter, I'd heard reports that it was an amazing movie that was incredibly touching and would make you cry at the end - well I didn't cry !

I'm not saying that Toy Story 3 is a bad movie, far from it , in fact I enjoyed it but it just wasn't the amazing movie I'd heard it was and by introducing a sympathetic character into the film with no motivation other to play with and love toys they telegraphed the ending to the movie long before it happened so that it wasn't a bittersweet but a logical conclusion to the film.

Toy Story 3 serves as a fine conclusion to a series of films and hopefully Disney / Pixar have the wisdom to end the series here rather than run the franchise into the ground.

I did enjoy Toy Story 3 but I found the movie predictable and to some extent more of the same, the opening sequence was a lot of fun but then the movie settles down to deliver more of the same antics that we saw in the first two films and for my money never quite manages to equal Toy Story 2 in terms of viewing pleasure.

I must mention that the Blu-ray looked and sounded great and I thought the Day and Night animated short was sheer genius.