Inception

I've always been a little critical of Christopher Nolan's movies, not because I think they are bad but because I just haven't felt they lived up to the hype they seemed to generate ( especially The Dark Knight ).

Now along comes Nolan's latest movie Inception and again he's declared a genius and the movie is supposed to be one of the most amazing things to come out of Hollywood in years and this time it's almost true, Inception is a pretty good movie, it really is, I was a little disappointed with the end of the movie because it was the obvious thing to do with this type of film but despite that it was well worth watching.

There is one thing that confuses me, I'd heard that Inception was hard to understand and that the plot was confusing, I can only assume most of the people watching the movie weren't paying attention since they characters were constantly explaining what they were doing and why along with the consequences of their actions, if that was truly hard to follow then I suspect the viewers weren't paying any attention to the dialog spoken by the characters, it all seemed pretty straight forward, at least to me.

Inception is a movie I'd highly recommend and if Christopher Nolan manages to keep producing movies of this quality them his work will be something to look forward to for some time.

Robocop: The Series

I only ever saw a few episodes of Robocop: The Series and if you'd asked me before today I would've told you it was pretty bad.

For a little while now I've wanted to watch the series from beginning to end and it seems the DVDs are pretty cheap these days ( at least they are if you order them from Amazon UK ) so I ordered a set, so far I've only watched the pilot movie and the first regular episode ( which was based on a comic mini-series I also have ) and I thought they were actually pretty decent.

This series was made in the 90's for network television so of course it couldn't be as violent as the movies which I seem to recall was the cause for a lot of complaints and the TV series departs from the continuity established in the movie series.

The pilot movie was written by Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner who wrote the script for the original film and is based on their ideas for Robocop 2 which was abandoned when the studio decided to hire Frank Miller to write the screenplay and I think that's a real shame since with a Hollywood feature budget the pilot would've made a great feature film.

So far I've enjoyed what I've seen but it makes me wonder what one of the cable networks could do with this property if the got the rights to it and the people with the creative vision to do a modern Robocop TV series.

Well we made it.

Well it looks as though we survived Christmas without anyone winding up in hospital - well other than Fiona but she works there, at least this time she wasn't a patient.

Food and drink were consumed and far too much spent on presents but it was a reasonable day.

A movie marathon.

As a result of buying a new Plasma screen TV a couple of days ago I've watched a whole bunch of movies. oddly enough most of them weren't in high definition.


Gremlins - A Christmas eve tradition, it's the closest my daughter can get to convincing me to watch a Christmas movie ( either that or Die Hard ).

Robocop: The Future of Law Enforcement ( pilot movie for the TV series ).

Avatar ( Extended Edition ) - it's a fun movie I guess but I'm still failing to see what all the fuss is about.

Mr Vampire 2 - They don't make them like this anymore and that's a bit of a shame.

Family Guy: It's a Trap - Funny at times and not funny at others but I think three Star Wars spoofs is more than enough.

Lost in La Mancha - This documentary still makes me sad, hopefully Terry Gilliam will get to make his Don Quixote movie one day

John Carpenter's The Thing

Invasion of the Body Snatchers ( 1978 ) - This along with John Carpenters version of The Thing are two remakes of classic movies I really enjoy

Where does he get all those wonderful toys ?

We bought a new TV on sale yesterday, picked up this little number for a $1000 off the recommended retail price and Panasonic currently have a promotion in Australia  where you can get a five speaker surround sound system and blu-ray player for the cost of postage if you buy one of their 3D TVs, I don't need the surround system so I'm going to give to my daughter when it arrives.

This is the TV if anyone is interested

Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner

Last night I watched the Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner and I have to say I was pretty unimpressed.

I always though that roasts were supposed to be funny but this certainly wasn't, you got several comedians (?) and two of Shatner's Star Trek co-stars and the same jokes over and over and over again and they really weren't funny the first time, tasteless yes but not funny, for those who don't know Andy Dick is apparently bi-sexual and George Takai is gay which meant the show was dominated by anal and oral sex jokes which weren't funny.

I'd say this is easily the most disappointing thing I've watched in ages, what ever happened to the good old days when comedy was actually funny ?

More dresden Files

I've finished The Dresden Files I thought the first half of the season ( plus Storm Front ) wasn't very good but after that the remaining episodes of the show were solidly entertaining but I guess by then a lot of the audience had stopped watching which is a shame, there was some great stuff at the end especially episode 11. Things That Go Bump  which despite being an obvious bottle show was the pick of the series for me.

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.

Movies, Movies Movies

The weather was really awful yesterday so I watched some movies

The Expendables
The Losers
The A-Team
Friday the 13th Part 2

Basically, The Losers, The A-Team and The Expendables are basically all the same movie, none of them were groundbreaking in any way but they helped pass the time when I couldn't go outside because of the crappy weather.

I was shocked to discover I own a copy of Friday the 13th Part 2 ( at least I hope I own it and didn't borrow it off someone, I was in a box I hadn't opened since we bought this house over 2 years ago ), to me the Friday the 13th series has always been the under achieving little brother of horror franchises, they've all had their highs and lows but somehow the Friday the 13th films have never really managed any highs, some of them are OK but part 2 isn't one of them.

The Game that Never Ends

This is the game that never ends.

It goes on and on my friends.

Someone started playing it not knowing what it was.

and they'll continue playing for ever just because,
 
 
Yep you guessed it, I'm still playing Just Cause 2, nearly 70 hours in and I'm approaching 60% complete, I generally replay most games but if I ever finish this thing I think I'll be done, it's fun but it's a massive time sink as well.

Secret Origin: The Story of DC Comics

So a package arrives for me from Amazon this morning and I got mildly excited since I was waiting for the new Stargate Blu-ray and I was in the mood to watch the movie again, I opened the package and I found Secret Origin: The Story of DC Comics which confused me since I couldn't remember ordering it, I knew it was coming out but I just didn't remember ordering it, I quickly got online and checked my Amazon account and sure enough I'd pre-ordered it months ago - apparently as I'm getting older my memory is starting to go.

Now it wouldn't be unfair to say I'm somewhat of a comic geek and this movie is right up my alley in terms of documentary subjects, it is a basic overview of the history of DC comics, it covers the origins of the core characters featured in the DC books as well as some of the highs and lows faced by the company and it's creators over the years.

The documentary is narrated by Ryan Reynolds ( the Green Lantern in the upcoming movie based on the DC comic of the same name ), Reynolds makes a less than interesting narrator but this is a minor quibble since I assume it's the writers, artists and other creative forces at the company that the viewer of this program wants to see and here's my problem, I'm pretty sure I've already seen a lot of the interview footage used in this movie in the various special features that have accompanied some of the DC animated movies, sure someone watching this may not have seen those features bust as someone who owns those movies I feel slightly ripped off.

The other thing this documentary lacks is depth, there is just too much history to be crammed into 90 minutes leaving the whole movie ( at least to me ) feeling rushed, at the end of the movie I felt like I hadn't learned anything new and I'm certainly no expert on DC comics and their history.

If you are someone who is new to DC comics and interested in the company's background this is worth a look and I guess it might be worth something to have all this information collected on one DVD rather than scattered over several as bonus features but honestly don't pay full price for the film as in my opinion it's just not worth it, it is a reasonably pleasant viewing experience but wait until you can get it on sale or can rent it or even better watch it for free on TV.

I suspect that this is destined for bargain bins in the near future, also the DVD has no special features, not even some trailers for other DC products and it came in what was the cheapest and flimsiest DVD case I've ever seen.

Next Avengers ( Assemble )

I just finished watching Next Avengers a little while ago and I must say I rather enjoyed it.


I'd read that this animated movie was intended to be more kid friendly than Marvel's other animated features and I'm all for kid friendly as long as that doesn't mean dumbed down and during the opening scenes of the movie that's exactly what I'd thought had happened, thankfully things settled down and Next Avengers turned out to be a fun little film and of the Marvel animated features I've seen one of their best so far.

No-one would have believed..........

No-one would have believed, in the early years of the twenty first century I finally finished watching the first season of War of the Worlds on DVD but even this was being watched by intelligences far superior to our own ( well Paramount / CBS ).

No-one could have dreamed that we were being scrutinized, as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water

And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded consumers with envious eyes; and slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us.

Yes I've finally finished watching the first season of War of the Worlds but seemingly aware of this Paramount / CBS have finally released season 2 on DVD and it would seem the battle continues.

Overall I enjoyed the first season despite it's flaws, sure there were a few dud episodes and this show was b-grade cheese but I enjoy that from time to time and I did enjoy the fact that this series serves as a loose sequel to the classic George Pal movie War of the Worlds.

Fan Documentaries

Re-watched both The Force Among Us and Ringers: Lord of the Fans, I find that I usually rather enjoy these types of films, I'm not sure what it is I find so appealing, perhaps it's just that they feature like-minded people talking about the things they enjoy.

I guess you'd have to a be fan of Lord of the Rings and Star Wars to enjoy either of these documentaries and if you have more than a passing interest in either franchise these may well be of interest to you and I'm sure if you shopped around they could be found fairly cheap.

Superheroes ?

I wondered into a local used bookstore and walked out with three hardcover collections of Nexus, I've only read a couple of issues of the comic as well as a crossover where the character was featured in another series but what little I've seen was enough to interest me, several years later and I'll finally get around to reading some Nexus comics.

Yesterday ( or was it the day before ? - time flies ) I re-watched Iron Man 2, it would seem that was a bad idea, I really like the first live action Iron Man movie and I've re-watched it several times and still enjoyed it, I also enjoyed Iron Man 2 when I first saw it but seeing it again I just couldn't get into the movie, it was just more of the same really and the story seemed a bit lazy really, I can't say I was thrilled with the choice of villain either.

While the story for Iron Man 2 didn't do much for me it must be said that the Blu-ray was pretty and some of the audio was rather impressive, with any luck things will improve for The Avengers movie and a possible third Iron Man film.

Oh how it poured

It has basically done nothing but rain for the last couple of days here but I can't really think what I've done during that time, sure I've played some more Just Cause 2 and read some more Legion of Super-Heroes and watched another Doctor Who DVD but that doesn't seem like much.

That can't be all I've done of any note..........can it ?

Random Stuff

Watched five episodes from the first season War of the Worlds, three more to go and that's finished, Iron Man 2 ( Blu-ray ) and and Doctor Who: The Seeds of Doom arrived in the mail this morning, yesterday I got the first season of The Night Gallery on DVD, I don't think I ever saw any episodes of the show so I'm looking forward to that.

I've also started reading DC Comics' Legion of Super-Heroes Showcase volume three, I've never been a huge fan of Curt Swan's artwork and as these stories all saw print during the 60's they are pretty camp and silly but it has been an interesting read.

I think I need a good book to read, I'm just not sure what type of book I want to read and Just Cause 2 is still eating up huge amounts of my time, apparently blowing up things never gets old.

Get a Life ! ( part 2 )

I've just finished reading William Shatner's Get a Life ! and it was a fun ( mostly ) light hearted read as Shatner talked about fans, fandom, conventions and life as the actor who played Captain Kirk ( at the time of writing ) for over 30 years.

Was this book a fun read ? - yes

Do I feel I have a greater understanding of Star Trek fans and what they find so attractive about the Star Trek franchise ? - no not really, apart from a couple of touching stories this all basically repeats all the same kinds of answers to the question What makes Star Trek so appealing ? that we've all seen / read before.

Do I recommend this book to anyone who wants a deeper understanding of Star Trek and it's fans ? - no not at all.

However having if you want some light hearted observations about Trek, some of it's cast members and the people who enjoy the show then you could do worse than give this book a try.

The Lost Room

Over the last couple of days I watched The Lost Room mini-series and I have to say I was pretty damn impressed.

The show didn't have the biggest of budgets or an A-list cast but it had good solid acting and a fairly original story idea which was something that really appealed to me.

Why is it that when show creators come up with a good idea for a series and manage to produce a great product it's always cancelled before it's time or just not renewed ?, there are plenty of directions this show could have explored given the chance but at least there was a beginning, middle and end to the main storyline, these days a lot of shows don't even get that.

You really really should check it out.

The Dresden Files

Well my A.D.D must really be going into overtime at the moment as I've now started watching yet another TV series on DVD, this time around it's The Dresden Files based on the novels by Jim Butcher.

I've never read any of Butcher's Dresden novels ( or in fact any of his books ) but I've only ever heard good things about them and I was under the impression the show was supposed to be pretty good as well but after four episodes this show has really failed to impress, perhaps it's just that I've read an awful lot of books and comics in my days not to mention watched a lot of TV and movies but so far I've been left with the feeling I've seen it all before, in fact in terms of feeling ( not character just general feel ) this show seems to me to be like a lower budget version of Supernatural.

The Dresden Files isn't a bad show but it's not particularly memorable either, I think there are eight episodes left of the first and only season so I suppose it could improve over it's remaining episodes but as things stand at the moment I'm glad I got the DVDs on sale, I think I'd be slightly annoyed if I paid full price for this series based on what I've seen thus far.

Get a Life !

I've just started reading Get a life ! by William Shatner ( with Chris Kreski ), it's a book about Star Trek fans and fandom and so far it's actually been a pretty interesting read.

The book goes back to the mail campaign to save the show at the end of it's second season and provides some detail on those events and at the moment I'm reading about some of the early conventions.

I don't imagine this will appeal to everyone and truth be told the only reason I have it is because I recently won a bunch of books on eBay and it was included in the bunch I won but it has been a fun read, at the rate I'm going I'll probably be finished in a couple of days

Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist

Right up front I should probably admit I'm not a fan of these types of movies, it's not that I find them confronting or upsetting but if I were to be truly honest with the exception of Richard Donner's The Omen I find these sort of supernatural / occult thrillers to be pretty silly and that includes the first two Exorcist films, I did see the third film when it was first released on VHS to rent and seem to remember liking it but if asked I couldn't tell you much about it.

I was always curious about seeing Dominion, not because it was a prequel to The Exorcist but because of it's place in film history, Paul Schrader was hired to a prequel to The Exorcist and if memory serves me correctly there was to be no gimmicks like spinning heads and little girls vomiting green pea soup but as the film was nearing completion the producers saw a rough edit of the movie and hated it, the decision was made to bring in Renny Harlin to virtually remake the movie from scratch with the idea of making a much more commercial film, I've only ever seen the first half or Harlin's movie so I can't fairly compare the two movies.

Eventually Dominion was screened at a number of film festivals and received an eventual DVD release and while I have to say the quality of the print used to master the DVD was disappointing with evidence of dirt and some scratches which is pretty shocking for a recently made film I rather enjoyed the actual movie.

Basically Paul Schrader wasn't going to make a traditional horror movie and he was open about it, the movie's producer knew that and at the last moment he changed his mind about the type of movie he wanted to make, it seems odd to me that Morgan Creek were ever interested in producing a movie that was so stylistically different to the other Exorcist movies to begin with but at great expense he went about trying to create a movie that was more appealing to traditional horror fans than Schrader's movie.

What Paul Schrader delivered was a thoughtful movie with well realised characters, the kind of characterisation you almost never see in a Hollywood produced horror movie or indeed in most recent Hollywood productions in general, add to the fact there is virtually no gore or action and I can see why the powers that be at Morgan Creek were worried that the movie might not find it's intended audience but what I can tell you is I enjoyed the movie, the ending was a little weak ( but not silly like most similar themed films ), it was a joy to watch a movie where characterisation mattered over jump cuts, CGI and buckets of blood.

I'm sure Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist isn't to every ones taste but I think it's well worth checking out if you get the chance.

I wish I knew how to quit you.

So after a couple of days worth of moderate play I've finished Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare, in terms of story it was fairly predictable right down to the twist ending but that didn't make it any less enjoyable.

This really needs to be developed into a full length game and with The Walking Dead being adapted into a TV series I wonder if this might receive a film or television adaptation as well - I can always hope.

Welcome to My Nightmare

I spent the better part of this afternoon playing Undead Nightmare, the downloadable expansion to the Red Redemption Game, something strange is going on throughout the old west and the dead are rising to devour the living.

This has been a lot of fun so far and I'm kind of surprised this idea hasn't been done before, cowboys vs zombies is sheer elegance in its simplicity, ammunition is scarce as you move from town to town cleansing the undead infestation and if you thought grizzly bears were a pain in the ass just wait until you meet the undead variety.

Zombies have made a bit of a comeback in popular culture over the last few years ( it'd be hard to not to have noticed ) but in my opinion they have rarely been used well or in a creative way and I suppose that's also true of Undead Nightmare but the world they have been dropped into has made this a lot of fun, from what little I've read online I'm already approaching the end Undead Nightmare and I find myself wishing it was full length game rather than just mini single player campaign and a few new multi player elements.

Caitlins 18th Birthday

Well we survived Caitlin's 18th birthday but I guess more importantly she survived it.

I heard her arrive home at about 4:00am this morning and she has to go to work soon, can't say I'm all that sympathetic.

Sarah Jane Adventures: Death of the Doctor

When I first heard Katey Manning would be playing Jo Grant ( Jones ) again I wasn't sure what I thought about it to be honest but within about five seconds of her being on screen she'd won me over, Jo Grant was back and it was like she'd never left.

The chemistry between Jo and Sarah worked rather well I thought and the look on Jo's face when she found out that Sarah had seen the Doctor a few times since she'd left the TARDIS while he'd never gone back to see her was heart breaking, and the look the Doctor gave Sarah when she asked if his last regeneration hurt and the reveal that during The End of Time as he was dying The Doctor actually visited all of his companions, not just the ones we saw on screen.

There were some really nice Jo moments, like when she discovers the Doctor is travelling with a married couple and she tells him she only left because she was getting married and later on when he doesn't tell her that all the Timelords are dead.

507 ?!! oh how I laughed when I heard that, I just bet the fanboys are going into fits over that.

All those flashback and references, heaven for fans of the classic show.

Liz Shaw runs the UNIT (?) moon base, Tegan is back in Australia fighting for Aboriginal rights, Ben and Polly are in India running an orphanage, Harry went on to develop several vaccines and saved thousands of lives ( Sarah speaks of Harry in past tense like he's died as has Ian Marter the actor who played him ) and Dorothy ( Ace ) is alive and well ( you can't have everything ) and runs a company called Charitable Earth and has raised billions for the needy and finally Ian and Barbara are married and Professors at Cambridge who apparently haven't aged since the 60s (?).

I know Nicholas Courtney isn't well but it would've been nice to see the Brigadier, Sgt Benton and Mike Yates reuniting the surviving members of the UNIT family.

Russell T Davies has received a lot of flak over his time as writer / producer on Doctor Who but this was a lovely little gem of a story, hopefully we'll get to see some more like it and I wouldn't mind seeing the return of Jo Grant at some point in the future as well.

M.A.N.T.I.S

I guess it must be at least a year since I picked up the M.A.N.T.I.S complete series DVD boxed set but I've only just this week started to watch it, as far as I can recall the series was never broadcast in my area however the TV movie pilot was released on VHS to rent so I did get to see the pilot but that was some time ago, at least 10 years ago and I suspect it was more like 15.

I could only remember a little of the pilot movie but I do remember really enjoying it at the time, the pilot was included in the DVD set but it hasn't aged well, either that or I've gotten fussy in my old age.

I did remember that the show featured a black superhero who was in a wheelchair when he wasn't fighting crime but when he donned his exoskeleton he became M.A.N.T.I.S and he stalked the streets of Ocean City fighting crime.

There were elements in the pilot that struck me as a little odd, now this film was made and set during the 90's and in this movie the various gangs seem to be ( mainly ) a black problem, in fact the pilot seems fixated on the fact most of it's cast was black and it clumsily tries to address what I guess were issues at the time, even the hero weighs in with an opinion on affirmative action ( it doesn't mean anything unless you earn it ), maybe the writers were trying to be sensitive to race issues but that just didn't work for me.

The pilot was written by Sam Hamm and Sam Raimi but after the pilot was aired they had a disagreement with the network about the direction the show should go in so they left the project and the show went into production without them, apart from the central character the show was a reboot with it's first episode serving as a new ( and inferior ) pilot with an altered origin story, new supporting cast, redesigned costume and based on the few episodes I've watched so far worse writing.

The movie's preaching about social issues was slightly annoying but when Bruce Zabel took over as show runner the show apparently became much more of a light-hearted romp that limped on until it's cancellation at the end of it's first season.

While the pilot movie was far from perfect I felt there was a lot of potential there for a good series and I just don't understand why the producers decided to change virtually everything for the TV series, I've really enjoyed some of Bruce Zabel's other work but so far his work on M.A.N.T.I.S leaves a lot to be desired, I truly hope the show improves over the course of it's first and only season, I've read a lot of mixed things about the show online but I live in hope that things will get better before the end.

The Philadelphia Experiment

I hadn't seen the movie in at least 10 years ( probably longer ) and I'd only ever seen it on VHS so it was somewhat of a revelation to see it in widescreen on DVD, I really enjoyed seeing it again even with the leading couple's terrible acting and dodgy special effects.

The Return

Life is too short to waste on movies like this, I doubt even the most fanatical Sarah Michelle Gellar fan could find anything good to say about it, I had to watch it in three sittings it's so dull and it has a running time of less than 90 minutes.

The Host

This movie starts out well but instead of getting on with the story we get family melodrama and light comedy, it's like the director wasn't sure what type of movie he was making for a while, things do eventually get back on track but by then I just wasn't as interested as I was when the movie first started - I do think film makers need to focus on the story they are trying to tell instead of getting side tracked by different elements, there was room for a little comedy and maybe even some family melodrama if it moves the story along but when it stalls the action like it did in the The Host it only hurts the final product.


I did like the monster design and while the music wasn't bad it did seem a little out of place at the time, there have been some interesting movies coming out of Korea and this had the potential to be a great monster movie instead of merely a good one - a shame.

Goodbye Facebook

I've never had any real use for social networking sites like Facebook and to be honest I can't see many real uses for such sites, I know this is the Internet age and online social networking has become insanely popular but I just don't get it - if I want to catch up or get back in contact with someone I actually do rather than try and add someone to a friends list - does having a list of friends sometimes including celebrities you'll never meet actually make anyone feel good about themselves ?

Today I was actually on Facebook which is pretty rare in itself for me and I found myself thinking that this isn't fun, it certainly isn't useful so why am I bothering ?

I'm a member of several online discussion forums and I really enjoy those but Facebook does nothing for me so with that in mind I deactivated my account - if I could delete it altogether I would but I have no intention of going back, I'm pretty sure I won't be missed since I was rarely on there anyway.

Star Wars: Force Unleashed 2 Demo

I downloaded the demo of Star Wars: Force Unleashed 2 for Playstation 3, I wasn't overly impressed with the first game but I've been reading a lot about the supposed improvements made to the second entry in the series.

Well it's certainly prettier but it terms of game play it seems to be more of the same, of course the demo is only the first level of the game so there is hopefully a lot of fun to be had later on but based on this if I buy the game at all I'll be waiting until it's had a price reduction or is on sale.

If there are better levels in the game it's a shame they didn't release one of those as the demo since the first level is just kind of bland, you do start with a whole bunch of force powers but the actual level itself is just dull.

Bond, James Bond.

I have all the Bond films on DVD and I've re-bought several of them on Blu-ray but I while back I was given this three movie boxset which seems to have the theme of Gold ( all three films feature the word gold(en) in the title ) so the movies included are Goldfinger, Goldeneye and The Man with the Golden Gun.

Basically it was just sitting there and I wanted something to watch so it was a bit of a Bond marathon for me today if for no other reason than I was too lazy to get something else out of the 'to watch' pile.

Heart of an Empire

A documentary about a Star Wars costuming group who do charity events, things turn for the worst when the founder's daughter is diagnosed with terminal cancer.

I must admit I do enjoy these fan made documentaries, most of them try to portray their extreme fandom in a positive light ( and often fail ) but at least they're not hurting anyone ( other than perhaps themselves ) and in this case they actually manage to do something positive.

If this sounds like your type of film it's well worth a watch and it's better than most similar films.

One of those days

Just recieved a massive bill in the mail in regards to the lawsuit, it seems someone is going to make money out of this even if it isn't us.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vagas

I consider myself to be a fan of Terry Gilliam's movies but I'd never seen this one due to lack of interest in the subject matter, I finally watched it and I was entertained for about an hour, it's a shame the movie runs for nearly twice that.

Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro both deliver excellent performances but given the fact that basically nothing happens for most of the movie other than the main characters going on a drug fuelled bender for the entire film I found myself getting bored even with Gilliam's unique visual style.

Shopping

Fiona and Caitlin went away for the weekend and I got bored and was randomly looking at DVDs on ebay,  of course bought a few - still not sure if that was a good thing but it's too late now.

Here's what I got:

The Host - 2 disc version 

The Exorcist ( Japanese release that includes the original version and the newer one that's out on DVD now).

Gladiator - region 1 signature edition

Jackie Brown - 2 disc version

Jin-Roh - The Wolf Brigade

The Killer - 2 disc version

Blade - Japanese version with English DTS soundtrack

Police Story Box set - Korean release with DTS versions of the soundtracks

Sympathy for Mr Vengeance - 2 disc version

Taegukgi

Suspiria - The rare 3 disc American version with the soundtrack cd.

The Descent: Part 2

It was probably a mistake to watch both of the Descent films back to back, I really like the first film and the second one was OK, the problem with a lot of sequels is that they are just more of what you got in the original film, with The Descent: Part 2 there wasn't a lot more that could be done without pretty much ignoring the rules set up in the first film so in this case you spend most of the time re-treading familiar ground.

The Descent: Part 2 wasn't a horrible movie but they need to stop now, the last thing movie viewers need is another series of poor sequels to a good movie, I don't know if the stupid twist at the end is intended to set up a third film but that idea has been done before and done better.

Not a bad movie as such but this is hardly essential viewing even if you are a fan of the original.

Rob Zombie's Halloween 2

I wasn't a huge fan of Rob Zombie's remake of [b]Halloween[/b], I didn't hate it but it really didn't impress me either however nothing could have prepared me for his sequel.

Now that he had gotten his version of the Michael Myers origin story out of the way I had hoped he might do something new with his sequel and I guess he did but it's a shame it was something terrible.

This movie was a mess from beginning to end but worse than that it was boring, I guess Laurie might be the killer in the third film if it ever gets made based on how this film ended but after this who really cares ?

Be Seeing You

I watched the recent remake of The Prisoner last night, to be honest I thought it was a bit of a mess, I did think there were some interesting ideas in play but in their attempt to try and be at least as clever ( and confusing ) as the original series the producers of the remake failed to tell a gripping and interesting story which is a shame.

I did like the new version of the Village and the nod to Patrick McGoohan in episode 1, I also thought Ian McKellen was rather good and I was pleased to see that they kept the original concept of Rover but the story was a mess - such a shame.

Serpico

It's funny, I know this movie is considered to be somewhat of a classic but I'd never seen it before today ( well that I remember ) and I liked it but I felt it lacked in detail.

Serpico obviously takes place over an extended period of time but it felt like watching a movie on fast forward, you can get a basic idea of what is going on but the fine details are lacking and thats how the movie felt to me, it lacked detail.

I think they could've easily added an hour to the running time and used it to flesh out the story, as it is I thought it was a good movie but it could've been great.

If it bleeds we can kill it.

I just finished watching [b]Predator[/b] on Blu-ray, this was the original Blu-ray release and not the new one where they screwed up the remastering.

The only complaint I have is the lack of extras, they could have at least included the extras that were on the 2 DVD special edition version of the movie, as to the comments that there was film grain and some other issues well yes there were but you had to really look for most of them, for a film of it's age I thought [b]Predator[/b] looked really nice and the sound was also rather impressive.

It's a great movie and this was the best version of it I've ever seen it.

Boldly going where plenty have gone before.

I sat down this afternoon to re-watch the 2009 Star Trek reboot, I consider myself a Trek fan but honestly in the cold light of day now that the fan boy anticipation of new Star Trek has died down this movie is a bit of a mess.

Firstly while as a fan of Star Trek it was nice seeing Leonard Nimoy playing Spock for ( probably ) the last time it's the Spock prime scenes that pretty much kill any momentum the story had, rather than trying to appease the legions of Trekkies with all the time travel alternate reality nonsense I think the franchise would be better served clean reboot and not worry about trying to tie things to the past.

Secondly Simon Pegg as Scotty, I'm sorry but he was just horrible and I'm a bit of a Simon Pegg fan, this was the worst bit of recasting done for the movie, they deleted the Klingon sequences but kept Scotty getting sucked up a cooling pipe - WHY?!!

Now the actual story was decent although it needed a few more rewrites in my opinion, Kirk taking command of the Enterprise the way he did was just nonsense and Spock stranding Kirk on an alien planet rather than putting him in the brig was pretty silly as well, the destruction of Vulcan was interesting since it clearly signals this isn't the Star Trek of old which I think is a good thing.

It's not like the movie is a total train wreck but honestly this should have been better than it was, hopefully they do a bit better with the sequel.

Some Australian Movies

I've watched a few Australian movies over the last couple of days.


Chopper
I'd never seen it before, before he got into movies Eric Bana was a second rate comedian on Australian TV and despite all the accolades I just couldn't imagine he'd be a halfway decent dramatic actor - turns out I might have been wrong.

The big disappointment of this movie is that it was obviously a small part of a larger story and just when it was getting interesting the movie ended.

Useless piece of trivia: my wife used to be a community nurse and for a while many years ago and Mark Read's father was one of her patients / clients.


A Man's Gotta Do

The story of a fisherman and part time gang enforcer who struggles to understand and relate to his wife and daughter, I liked the idea behind this movie more than the actual movie.


The Adventures of Barry McKenzie
I have to say up front that I don't like either Barry Crocker or Barry Humphries so a movie starring both of them and co-written by Barry Humphries had zero appeal to me however the clips used in the documentary Not Quite Hollywood looked mildly amusing and that's what it was, very mildly amusing.

Stephen Chow

Stephen Chow's movies have been a bit of a mixed bag for me, there have been a few that I've really enjoyed but there have been a lot of his movies that I just haven't enjoyed at all, as it's turned out I 've watched a few of his movies over the last few days.



The Tricky Master

I would've liked this movie more if they concentrated on telling the story in a comedic way rather than wasting nearly the first half of the movie with oddball comedy that mostly had nothing to do with the plot - the shoe licking was kind of gross.


Fight Back to School

I couldn't really get into this movie ( doesn't bode well for parts 2 and 3 which I also have on DVD ), I watched My Boss My Hero a while back and I liked that movie and I guess I was hoping for something similar to that in terms of tone and story but it wasn't to be and that's a shame since the story of a cop going undercover at a school to revolver a stolen police chief's pistol had potential.

Maybe the sequels will be better.


The Magnificent Scoundrels

Stephen Chow's comedy is pretty hit and miss for me and if I was honest it's been more misses than hits but this was a like able romp that was more situational comedy than the screwball nonsense that seems to take place in a lot of his movies, this was decent if nothing special and I did actually laugh a few times.

Once they got on with it the various characters and the different blackmail schemes they were trying to run were kind of fun

Dark Water ( US remake )

I just finished watching the US remake of Dark Water, I'm not sure how or why but it all went horribly wrong, the movie had a fantastic cast and it seemed to be technically well made and the story was simple enough that I would've thought that it would be pretty hard to screw it up but I was bored by this movie, really really bored.

It's the end of the world as we know it ( and I feel fine).

I finally finished series three of the original version of Survivors today, overall I'd have to say I enjoyed the show, the third series wasn't as good as the first two but it's still worth watching, the third series feels like it needed a couple more episodes to properly wrap up the story properly but I didn't find it as disappointing as the finales of some recent series.

In comparison to the recent remake of Survivors I'd have to say this was the better version of the two, I enjoyed them both but the original series had a more credible interpretation of the aftermath ( in my opinion ) of the plague.

A show well worth watching if you ever get the chance.

Masters of Horror Season 2

It's only taken me a couple of years but I've finally started watching the second season of Masters of Horror on DVD, I really enjoyed the majority of the first season but somehow I just never got around to the second and final season.

I started with the season 2 episode Pro-Life directed by John Carpenter, I'd heard a lot of bad things about this episode but I thought it was OK, certainly not as bad as I'd heard but if this was one of the worst episodes in the season hopefully the remaining episodes will be a lot of fun.

The Sum of all Fears

A decent film that was let down by casting Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan as Affleck is no Harrison Ford or Alec Baldwin for that matter and he just didn't make a convincing here in this movie.

I thought it was an interesting idea to relaunch the movie series and start with a much younger Jack Ryan who could then play the part for several movies if [b]The Sum of all Fears [/b]had been successful which given the lack of sequels I guess it wasn't.

The supporting cast were all great but poor Ben Affleck just seemed out of his depth at the time, it would be interesting to see what he could do with the role now.

The movie is worth a look but probably not worth spending money on.

The Invisibles part 1

I started watching the UK TV series The Invisibles a while back, it wasn't groundbreaking but I liked it, anyway I got to the second DVD only to discover that the disc was faulty - it was obviously a manufacturing problem and a replacement was sent, I sat down today to discover that the replacement set has a faulty second disc, I may have to resort to buying the incredibly over priced Australian region 4 version just so I can see the last three episodes of the series.

In case anyone was wondering The Invisibles is about a group of Burglars who conducted a series of robberies during the 1980's and retired to Spain, now years later homesick they return to England but are trying to keep a low profile since they are still wanted by the police, now with the help of the son of a former associate they have to commit a job for various reasons each episode and stay ahead of the law when all they want to do is retire in peace.

Superman / Batman: Public Enemies

This was a fun little romp, I think they were trying to emulate Ed McGuinness art style since he drew the comics but I don't like his art so a lot of the character designs ( especially Superman ) were ugly as far as I was concerned.

Like I said a fun little story with lots of super powered fights that was let down by some of the visuals.

It was nice to hear some of the older DC Animated series voice actors reprising their roles for this production.

Over the last 4-5 days I've only watched  animated TV shows and movies based on DC comics characters or documentaries about them and their creators and it's been fun but I'm looking forward to watching something featuring real live actors again.

Wonder Woman

I've never been a huge fan of the Wonder Woman character, considering her origin story I felt the character had potential but that was often buried in a feminist agenda that got in the way of the storytelling.

I've enjoyed most of the DC comics produced animated movies but I just wasn't really looking forward to Wonder Woman since it featured a character that I'd previously felt drawn to, that was a mistake.

The Wonder Woman animated movie was great, it had a good story with strong female characters without hammering the equality message to death, I also thought the animation looked pretty damn good as well, this is one of the first animated films where I thought being on Blu-ray actually made much of a difference to the quality of the viewing experience.

At one point I believe there were plans for a sequel to this movie but they have been scrapped due to lower than expected sales - what a shame.

Laptop Blues

As part of Caitlin's upcoming birthday present we decided to buy Caitlin a new laptop which was fine and seems like quite a decent little machine - now.

Maybe it's unreasonable of me but I think it would be nice to just get it out of the box, turn it on and expect to be able to use it, not turn it on and have to wait for nearly two and a half hours while it sets itself up, then of course there's the various updates, removing the crappy trial versions of software that no-one in their right mind would want anyway and finally setting up the wireless Internet access.

When Caitlin gets it she'll be able to turn it on and use it right away and now that it's all set up properly it seems like it'll be a pretty decent laptop but for the price we paid it would've been nice if everything was set up and ready to go.

Shopping

I like comics, I like them a lot, no longer having a local comic store is a pain in the ass, I still pick up odds and ends but I haven't had a regular comic order in years.

Since I'm still interested in various comic characters I try and make a point of buying the various comic related movies and TV shows that come out although I've gotten a bit behind lately.

Today I picked up a huge pile of DVDs and Blu-ray discs based on various DC comic characters.

On Blu-ray:

Green Lantern: First Flight
Wonder Woman
Justice League: New Frontier
Batman: Gotham Knight
Superman / Batman: Public Enemies

I already had a couple of them on DVD but they were extremely cheap

On DVD:

The Batman / Superman movie
Batman: The Animated Series season 1
Batman: The Brave and the Bold volume 1
Teen Titans season 1 volume 1
Teen Titans season 1 volume 2
Teen Titans season 2 volume 1
Superman: A Little Piece of Home
Superman: Last Son of Krypton
Justice League: Starcrossed The Movie
Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman
The Batman volume 2
Batman vs Dracula

That should keep me busy for a little while, I'm really looking forward to seeing some of this stuff.

King Kong (1976)

Last night I watched the 1976 version of King Kong, a movie I haven't seen since the late 70s / early 80s and a movie I remember liking as a kid, in fact I seem to recall it being a pretty big event when it was on TV and it was split over two nights and pumped full of advertising.

This version of King Kong has a bad and I think somewhat undeserved reputation, it's not great by any means but given the time it was made I think they did a decent job of bringing Kong to life even if it was just a man in a suit most of the time, the final confrontation with Kong and the military on top of the world trade centre was nearly ruined by some terrible rear projection work but it wasn't as bad as Charles Grodin and Jessica Lange's performances in the movie.

Instead of making it a period film the producers chose to set the movie in the 70's, the same period the movie was made in and I liked most of the story changes that were made to update the film.

Not a classic film but I think a worthy attempt at re-telling the King Kong story.

The Dungeon Masters

This documentary follows the lives of three fairly hard core Dungeons and Dragons players, at first I thought this was going to be a laugh at the freaks type documentary like Trekkies and it's sequel.

The three main subjects of the film are all damaged individuals whose lives hadn't turned out the way they hoped and they were honest about that, Dungeons and Dragons may have been what they had in common as people but the film really wasn't about the game.

While I don't relate to the people in terms of personal experience I was occasionally reminded of people I know and some of their experiences.

I don't know if I recommend The Dungeon Masters, I enjoyed it but the subjects of the film might not be a group that people can easily relate to.

All the Boys Love Many Lane ( except me )

I remember seeing a trailer for this movie a while back and thinking it looked decent even though it was a teen horror and I think it started out well but it was trying to be clever and intorduce a plot twist towards the end that just didn't work, combine that with the fact that soon after the killing started I found myself getting bored wasn't a good sign.

Overall the movie was predictable and kind of dull but as teen horror movies go I've seen a lot worse, the guy who made the trailer should get an award for his work.

Their Name was Bond, James Bond

I watched the 1954 and 1967 versions of Casino Royale last night, neither of those movies are part of the official James Bond Film Franchise.

The 1954 version was a black and white made for TV production that featured an American Jimmy Bond, other than the fact it takes place in a casino this version doesn't have much in common with the book, the actor Barry Nelson who played the part of Bond wasn't very good but I imagine this was a rushed production and despite it's flaws the 1954 version does have a few nice moments.

The 1967 version of Casino Royale is a mess but it's a watchable mess and it features more James Bonds than you could want in one movie including David Niven, Peter Sellers and Woody Allen.

One thing the film does have is an outstanding soundtrack written by Burt Bacharach.

Neither of these movies resemble the official Bond franchise bit I think they are interesting in their own right.

Noooooooooooooooo !

I've been watching The Invisibles, a fun little show about some retired criminals who are trying to keep a low profile but who have to keep committing various heists each week for various reasons.

Yesterday I attempted to watch the second disc only to discover that it's faulty so while I'm waiting for the replacement to arrive I've been watching Hu$tle, another fun show but it's just not the same.

Seven Swordsmen

I finally sat down and watched the first episode of Seven Swordsmen, it was a little slow at times but they do have to introduce characters and establish the plot so that's fine.


Based on the series trailer and the first episode I think there's going to be some rather impressive action / stunt work, much better than I would have expected in a TV series.

Visually though this is an odd series, it's a matted 4:3 picture that took a little while to get used to, I haven't seen that done for a while and to be honest it didn't look that great on my wide screen TV ( I might even watch the rest of the series on my old 4:3 TV in the bedroom ), I don't know what they shot it on but it wasn't film but then it doesn't really seem like video either so I guess it's some sort of digital format.

Most of the first episode was shot hand held with the occasional very nice crane shot, unless it's a night shot the producers don't seem too worried about lighting so I guess this was made pretty quickly, the camera operator tends to push right up into the actors faces, or shoot from close to the ground so that the viewer is looking up at the action on screen which takes a bit of getting used to since that's not typical for any TV series I've ever seen.

I terms of production value, the costumes props and sets seem to be of a very high quality although I guess they could be re-using items that were originally made for a movie project, there have been several scenes where there has been squads of men in full armour riding on horse back which I wasn't expecting to see in a TV production.

I'm hoping to watch a couple more episodes over the weekend, this is the first serious live action Chinese TV series I've seen so I think it'll be interesting to compare it to western television productions.