Kinsta presents...

Southern Films Double Bill

2012-01-30T15:30:00.003Z

Once again my film rental service has surprised me by sending out a serendipitous match-up of similarly themed - yet tonally contrasting films - in the form of two movies set in Middle America.

Again I watched them back-to-back – here’s what I thought.

First up was Winter’s Bone, written and directed by Debra Granik – which follows the story of an Ozark Mountain girl searching for her father in order to prevent her family’s eviction.

Amidst scenes of struggling with poverty, caring for her ill mother and two younger siblings – we also see her do a bit of amateur sleuthing and poking around in parts of the tight-knit community she shouldn't - which be inevitably leads to trouble.

A breakout role for Jennifer Lawrence – who has since gone on to roles in The Beaver and X-Men: First Class, and its not hard to see why, as here she is utterly convincing in the role and great to watch. John Hawkes is also a standout, as her unpredictable uncle ‘Teardrop’.

Whilst the film boasts good production design and beautiful photography – especially of landscapes and the harsh surrounding wilderness - the story unfortunately doesn't fully deliver. Despite being touted as a ‘redneck-noir’, the suspense built up doesn't seem to have a satisfactory payoff, and some viewers will be disappointed by the ambiguous and low-key ending.

Directly contrasting to this sombre and realistic flick we have Kevin Smith’s latest film, Red State. Also a genre mashup, this film veers from horror movie beginnings to siege movie, with a few dialogue-heavy trademark Smith scenes thrown in for good measure.

The story involves the kidnap of three teens by an evangelical cult and after a suspenseful and slow first half, the action of the siege in the second half is a direct contrast. Whilst some will not enjoy the messy plot and inconsistent pacing, there aren’t really many films like this out there; Kevin Smith fans especially will be surprised at how different this is from his previous works.

Red State is likely to divide audiences down the middle with this raw and uncompromising picture which contains some genuine surprises in the story that upsets many genre conventions.

A special mention - Michael Parks provides an electrifying performance in this film as the main antagonist Pastor Abin Cooper. One scene in particular (love it or hate it) where he delivers a ten minute sermon - is both terrifying and yet utterly compelling to watch. Rather than him ranting abnoxiously like you would expect, it's the understated normalcy of it all that is truly scary.

Of course, many will bring up the religious and political commentaries that the film offers – but really these are largely inconsequential to its enjoyment.

So if you are hankering for some films chock full of southern accents, check out these two. For a slower paced atmospheric mood piece go for Winter’s Bone – for a more shocking b-movie type feel go for Red State.

30 Jan 2012

Lost in Lost - Season Five

2012-01-25T17:47:00.003Z

[Spoilers ahead: Don’t read if you haven’t watched Lost and don't want it ruined for you.]

Lost was one of those TV series that I watched avidly when it first came out. The first two series were really good - but then the third and fourth started to drag on a bit - and so after the Season Four finale I stopped watching.

Generally I dislike American TV series for the fact that each series has on average about twenty episodes each. As well as the time factor (committing that many hours even for one series of one show is a pretty heavy investment), the main reason I don't agree with this is that I think that with too many episodes the story-telling starts to suffer.

At the end of the day its a money issue – if a show is doing well and has high ratings, the makers want as many people hooked into watching it for as long as possible in order to justify the high budget and start-up costs that a TV series typically such as Lost typically has.*

That makes sense business-wise, but my issue is how the story-telling suffers as a result of having to artificially extend the natural story and/or character arcs in order to accommodate a greater number of episodes. Specifically in Lost, this is done by continually adding more mysteries and unanswered questions (to an already mystery-heavy premise established from the very first episode), continually adding new characters into the mix (whilst bumping off a few every now and then) and showing flashbacks of past events (and also rather confusingly flashforwards) in various characters’ lives.

With Lost finally coming to a close at the end of Season Six, I started watching it again from where I left off (the start of Season Five), as having a definite conclusion to the story has peaked my interest in it again.

And now, at the time of writing, I’ve finished Season Five. And yes, it does introduce new characters and new questions that need to be answered. In regards to timelines too, the show is definitely not friendly for newcomers.

The first half of the season follows two timelines: one being the survivors who were not rescued jumping erratically through time, and the other following the group who did get rescued and how they are coping back in the world three years later. The second half of the season follows these two timelines: the survivors not rescued being stuck in 1977 after their time jumping is halted (where they remain for three years), and the rescued survivors returning to the island in another plane crash resulting in some of them being transported back to 1977 (and joining the others who were originally stranded there) and some of them remaining in the present. Oh, and there are also continued flashbacks from each character’s past to help flesh out/retcon their current motivations. Confused yet?

You can see why Lost is very unfriendly to viewers who haven’t watched it from the very beginning - but in a strange way is more deeply satisfying for those who have, the complexities and intricacies of the story being sustained over all this time being a testament to the skill of the writers.

And it is a well written series. Aside from having to somewhat stretch out the narrative around Seasons Three and Four, with the end now in sight it seems that Season Five is starting to prepare to tie up it’s loose ends and does provide some genuine answers to everything that is happening. Characterisation also remains strong as do the emotional arcs with an average of one tear-jerking moment™ per episode (as has always been the case with Lost episodes since the beginning).

So despite my reservations about long running series, I am excited to start Season 6 of Lost to see how it all wraps up and to finally conclude the story. In an ideal world, Lost would be a perfectly formed nugget of a tale told in two seasons – but for now I just want to see how it all comes together and am happy to sit through eighteen more episodes in order for it to finish properly and get the ending it deserves.

You’ll probably hear my thoughts when I get there.

25 Jan 2012

[*British TV series, by comparison, usually have lower budgets and fewer episodes – typically around six per series. One example is the UK and US versions of ‘The Office’. The original UK version had two series with six episodes each and two ‘Christmas Special’ episodes. The US version initially started with six episodes in Season One, but each subsequent season averaging twenty-five episodes. They are currently airing their eighth season at the time of writing.]

Portal 2 - Narrative Through Design

2012-01-23T15:42:00.004Z

Just finished Portal 2 the other night.
Had I played it last year it would have definitely made the Top 5 Games of 2011 list. Not only that, but I can say it is one of the best games I have ever played.

A follow up to the hit game Portal bundled in Valve’s The Orange Box, it does everything that a good sequel should: expand upon the gameplay, mechanics and narrative of the first game, with everything being bigger and better. Whilst it could have just been more of the same, the game even succeeds in throwing in a few unexpected surprises – with new characters and locations mixing in with the old.

The trademark humour is present and correct too – I can’t think of many other games out there that are legitimately funny as this one is. As well as the return of Ellen McLain’s GLaDOS, the game also features Stephen Merchant as Wheatley and J.K Simmons as Cave Johnson – resulting in a triple threat of perfect casting and excellent voicework.

What I really loved about the game, however, was Valve’s ability to point the player in the right direction and let them know how they need to progress within the game without explicit instructions. There is no HUD display, no on screen control prompts (bar the odd hit square to open door prompt), no on-screen text, no status screen. This is the genius of Portal 2’s design. It is up to you to figure everything out, but at the same time the game design facilitates this without explicit instructions or incessant handholding – which ultimately leads to a far richer and rewarding experience for the player when they do manage to complete a puzzle or find the exit to an area.

The subtleties of design layouts, audio cues, recurring motifs, passing comments by Wheatly or GLaDOS – all help to nudge you in the right direction. Although some of the puzzles had me scratching my head for a few minutes, not once did I have to consult a guide or look up where I had to go to next. That's not to say it’s an easy game. Although at times tricky, all the puzzles can be solved with lateral thought and the logical application of the mechanics you have learned about whilst getting up to this point – something which all puzzle orientated games ought to do, but few actually achieve on a par with the experience that Portal 2 offers.

Similarly, the backstory of Aperture Science, what happened to the old laboratories in the 70s, the fate of its founder Cave Johnson and even the origins of GLaDOS are all slowly revealed to the player, not through reams of text or clumsy exposition, but by environment – as you explore the ruined, desolate and crumbling laboratories deep under ground, the posters and signs on the walls, the recorded messages of Johnson – it all weaves a rich texture to the story that the player feels they discover and piece together themselves rather than just being directly told about.

And that’s really what makes Portal 2 a unique and satisfying experience. After playing the first game and falling in love with it, I didn't think the second could be that much better. In that respect it exceeded my expectations – in my view, Portal 2 is possibly one of the most finely crafted game experiences out there - especially in regards to inferring its narrative through its game design.

23 Jan 2012

Asian Cinema - Revengeance Double Bill

2012-01-20T08:42:00.002Z

Today I watched two rented blu-rays films – somewhat coincidentally they were both of Asian cinema and shared a similar theme - that of Revengeance!*

However both were almost opposite in tone and handled their subject matter very differently.

First up is the Japanese film Confessions directed by Tetsuya Nakashima, a story that starts with the stark revelation by a teacher to her class that not only was the recent death of her young daughter not an accident, but the killers are amongst the students present. The film continues to reveal further shocking truths as the various narrations of events or ‘confessions’ by different characters further expands upon the tale – mostly centred around a complicated revenge plot orchestrated by the teacher as the guilty youths could not be punished justly by the law.

Although the occasional evil genius child machinations akin to Death Note might feel a bit contrived to some – the twists keep things interesting right up until the end.

It should be mentioned that this film is beautifully shot, one of the most visually arresting Japanese films in recent memory - and the haunting score also helps to create an almost dreamlike feel to the entire piece. People can also enjoy it as an expertly written commentary on juvenile crime, the absence of parents and of course revenge (as much of it in a psychological form as well as physically).

On the other end of the spectrum we have I Saw the Devil by Jee-woon Kim - which sees the clash of two Korean acting heavyweights: Min-sik Choi (who starred in Oldboy and Lady Vengeance) and Byung-hun Lee (A Bittersweet Life). After the former murders the latter’s fiancée, a brutal game of cat and mouse ensues, with plenty of blood, violence, torture and casualties along the way.

Both leads are excellent in their respective roles and perfect foils for one another, likened by the director as fire versus ice in their performance styles. This story is centred around revenge as well – whereas Confessions is largely about mood and often very talky, I Saw the Devil serves up plenty of violent action and brutality in its tale of retribution.
Recommended if you are a fan of Chan Wook Park’s films, but others may be turned off by its unflinching nastiness that is pretty relentless throughout. Decapitations, cannibals, being smashed in the nuts with a wrench – its all there.

Polar opposites in tone but both equally chock full of revengeance! Take your pick – personally, I preferred Confessions - its gorgeous cinematography clinched it for me – one of the best films I’ve seen this year.

*Revengeance is defined by the urbandictionary.com as ‘The act of revenge at a rate of at least 2.54 times greater to that of standard revenge and 1.61 times that of standard vengeance’.

19 Jan 2012

L.A.Noire and MotionScan

2012-01-20T08:37:00.003Z

Recently I’ve been playing last years hit game L.A.Noire – and whilst I am enjoying it, I also cant wait to finish it and move on to something else. Here’s why.

Now at the risk of boring you with stuff you already know – I’ll sum up the background quickly. The game is set in post war L.A and you follow the story of a police officer called Cole Phelps who works his way up from a lowly beat cop through to traffic, homicide and various other departments. Whilst there is a huge recreation of late 40s Los Angeles to walk, drive and shoot in, the majority of the time you will either be searching around for clues at a crime scene or questioning/interrogating people.

Now the big draw of this game is the insanely detailed facial animation courtesy of the newly developed MotionScan technology – a way of recording an actor’s performance in incredible detail and reproducing it within the game. Sometimes it’s so good you occasionally forget you are playing a game and are just watched a TV program.

In fact, you could argue that the whole game is built around this technology and as a result, somewhat adversely, lives and dies by it. When you are questioning witnesses or interrogating suspects – a good portion of the game is spent doing this – you are supposed to carefully watch the facial animations to guess if they are lying or not as they spout their testimony. All nervous tics, shifty eyes and other subtle facial gestures are recreated well – it’s just a shame that the actual gameplay surrounding these amazing feats of animation are largely inconsequential.

Every so often after hearing them say something you have a choice of deciding whether or not they are telling the truth, if they are lying or (somewhat confusingly) if you choose to simply ‘doubt’ them – which means you think they are holding something back but you cant prove it. Getting the answer right will give you more details about the case, getting it wrong usually means you get less information. There have been a few times when I knew the person was lying but didn’t know which piece of evidence specifically that you need to refer to in order to confirm this (a wrong piece of evidence selected causes you to ‘fail’ the line of questioning, as would only choosing ‘doubt’ when you were supposed to choose ‘lie’).

Regardless, ‘failing’ the questioning has only very few times led to a ‘game over’ screen – the majority of times it is inconsequential to the flow of the story – the game just carries on to the next scene. On one hand the developers Team Bondi could have made this aspect of the game less cut and dry and really effect the overall outcome of the story – but on the other hand, seeing repeated game over screens and having to watch and listen to all the dialogue every time you fail is guaranteed to have you reaching for the power switch.

The facial animation tech is amazing to watch – it’s just a shame that it couldn't be implemented usefully in any other aspects of the gameplay.

There ARE cut scenes to watch – lots of them – and whilst the facial animation is still brilliant here, the rest of the body whilst adequately mo-capped, is not up to that high standard set by MotionScan, sometimes leading to a jarring effect and the occasional tumbling into the uncanny valley.

The game’s other activities, such as shooting and driving, whilst competent, have been done better in other games and the remainder of the time all you are doing is walking around crime scenes pressing ‘x’ at every object hoping to pick up all the clues so that the story can progress. Whilst at first this investigation can be exciting and intriguing – it becomes rote and mechanical after the thirtieth time you have to do it.

Whilst the city has the appearance of a highly detailed and bustling metropolis, there is sadly nothing to do out there apart from visiting the next location on the current case you are working on (and a handful of very short ‘street crime’ sidequests) – making the whole thing feel strangely empty. Most of the time I found myself skipping the driving sequences entirely by asking my partner to chauffeur me over to the next scene.

This all points back to the MotionScan. Clearly this is what the majority of the development effort went towards (apparently over 400 characters had their faces animated this way) and it’s just a shame that it didn't somehow play a wider role. Perhaps a sandbox detective game was an overly ambitious project to first utilise this technology in?

We can hope that facial animation of this calibre makes an appearance in future games in order to capture more realistic performances from actors – but sadly late last year, despite L.A. Noire selling well, Team Bondi went under and was shut down.

Despite this, I can bet that the technology is sure to return in some form in the future and be utilised in different ways in gaming – although it is sure to be an expensive and painstaking process – L.A. Noire reportedly took seven years to develop. It would be interesting to see who will take on the risk next.

Whilst L.A. Noire is for the most part an enjoyable experience thanks to excellent writing and intriguing story and setting – I don't think I could sit through its lengthy investigations and cut scenes again once I’ve finished it. Which is shame since MotionScan creates animation that is truly astonishing.

To see a demo of the tech and some spiel from the developer, click HERE.

18 Jan 2012

New mixtape up! - Walternate's 80s Simulation mix

2012-01-17T10:02:00.006Z

I’ve just posted up my new mixtape this morning so click on the player below to have a listen.

Walternate's 80s Simulation mix by Kinsta on Mixcloud

It’s another Electro House type mixtape, but this time its 80s styled, inspired both by my love of 80s music but also by the character of Walter/Walternate in the US TV series Fringe.

Being a science fiction based detective show, Fringe introduced the idea of an alternate universe into its main story – in particular one that is very similar to ours in many aspects and yet also subtly different. All the characters that appear in our universe also exist there, albeit most are slightly different in their personality, mostly as a result of their environment and what has happened in their life.

In our universe, Walter Bishop (played by John Noble) is a brilliant yet socially awkward scientist and in the other alternate universe the other Walter – dubbed “Walternate” (also played by John Noble) is a dastardly, ruthless and ambitious genius – now also the Secretary of Defence. The main reason for these wildly differing personalities being the former’s incarceration in a mental hospital for twelve years, and the latter being on a personal quest for vengeance ever since he had his son stolen from him many years ago.

Anyway, the point is that at one point in time these two were very similar and it was these major events listed above that contributed to how they turned out later in life. This is shown in a few episodes of Fringe were it is set in the 80s and we see what happens to both characters.

Anyways… I’m off track again. So this mix is an 80s ‘simulation’ – because although its definitely 80s styled, all the tracks in the mix are actually fairly recent ones – hence the title.

Now a couple of technical notes on the mix.

I used Sound Studio again – and because the software isn’t really meant for this kind of thing, lots of weird annoying things happen when making the mix which usually means I spend a lot more time checking and correcting things in post than in the actual mixing.

Specifically, there are occasional audio spikes that appear randomly causing nasty clicking sounds and in turn, this caused the audio after that to suddenly drop in volume (I think this is an automatic countermeasure). This means I have to go through the track and manually remove all the clicks (usually by zooming in on the wave and editing) – but also annoyingly have to go around fixing all the volume so it’s consistent through the whole mix.

The most annoying thing however, is the randomness. I could have a totally fine mix, and then after having added more tracks and saved over and then reopening the file, would find MORE clicks or volume drops added. Aaargh!!!!

I’ve scoured the interwebs but to no avail. Nobody else has this problem as they don't really use Sound Studio to make mixtapes, nor have I found any similar problems on any forums.

Previously I thought the variable formats and bit rates of different tracks used may have something to do with it and so I converted all the tracks prior to mixing but the problems did crop up eventually as before in previous mixes. I am now starting to think that it may be to do with volume levels and so although I did lower each tracks volume prior to mixing, next time I will put together the whole mix at a much lower volume than usual and just raise it all at the end – or even use an entirely different software to amplify the volume at the end before publishing.

Anyway, that's the idea (a new mixtape is already in the works) so we’ll see if I have better results then. I’ve rambled on for long enough - so if you haven’t already done so have a listen to this mixtape by pressing ‘play’ in the embedded player.

Enjoy!

Oh- and if you want to check out my previous mixtapes click HERE for my mixcloud page, or HERE for a more detailed writeup and links for each one.

17 Jan 2012

Shoe collection - old and new

2012-01-16T08:10:00.020Z

A photo-based post for a change.

As I go through a bunch of shoes in my time and feel kind of sad every time I have to get rid of a pair, I thought it would be good to start to keep a photo record of the shoes I own.

You can click on any picture for a close up or to go into gallery mode.

So here they are in no particular order:

Name: Puma (Felt)
Colour: Black with neon green stripe
Bought: 2008 or earlier?
Status: Retired
Notes: Limited edition felt material with insole artwork

Name: Puma Suede
Colour: Red and Black
Bought: 2008 or earlier?
Status: Retired
Notes: Had the exact same pair in purple also around the same time

Name: Converse Low
Colour: Black with turquoise trim
Bought: 2010
Status: Retired
Notes: My first pair of lows ever

Name: Converse High
Colour: Purple with zebra inside
Bought: 2011
Status: Active
Notes: Really nice but a pain to put on/take off

Name: Nike Dunk Low
Colour: Purple and black
Bought: 2011
Status: Inactive
Notes: First pair of Nikes in a long time

Name: Puma ???
Colour: Shiny purple/pink
Bought: 2009
Status: Inactive
Notes: Got them cheap at TK Maxx. Never been worn. Saving them for a special occasion.

Name: Vans slip-on
Colour: Black with white skull and bones honeycomb pattern
Bought: 2008 or earlier?
Status: Inactive
Notes: First pair of vans slip-ons

Name: Vans Slip-on
Colour: Purple and black
Bought: 2009 or earlier?
Status: Active
Notes: none

Name: Vans Slip-on
Colour: Black with Iron Maiden artwork
Bought: 2009 or earlier?
Status: Active
Notes: Limited Edition 'The Trooper' artwork

Name: Vans High
Colour: Black with Iron Maiden artwork
Bought: 2009 or earlier?
Status: Inactive
Notes: Limited Edition 'Killers' artwork

Name: Addidas Allstars Shelltoes (suede)
Colour: Tan with dark brown stripes
Bought: 2008 or earlier?
Status: Inactive
Notes: Very rare

Name: Converse Low
Colour: Purple
Bought: 2012
Status: Active
Notes: Purple toe piece and thick tongue

Name: Addidas Samba
Colour: Black with white stripes
Bought: 2012
Status: Active
Notes: none

Name: Puma Suede
Colour: Purple with white stripe
Bought: 2012
Status: New
Notes: none

Name: Puma Suede
Colour: Purple with red stripe
Bought: 2012
Status: New
Notes: none

16 Jan 2012

Film Roundup January - Part 1

2012-01-13T15:30:00.003Z

Welcome back to film roundup – the first of 2012!

First up we have spy drama The Debt, about three Mossad agents on the hunt of a Nazi war criminal, the story playing out in two timelines with two different sets of actors.

The older trio (set in 1997) which includes acting heavyweights such as Helen Mirren and Tom Wilkinson are brilliant as usual and could pull off this material with their eyes closed – and the younger actors (of the 1965 story) equally rise to the challenge, with special mention to Marton Csokas and Jessica Chastain as two of the young agents - and also to Jesper Christensen as the sinister Surgeon of Birkenau.

The tense scenes of espionage as well as the unfolding drama of the prisoner scenes and the interplay between the characters keeps the story interesting to watch, as well as the affecting themes of truth, justice and guilt that drive the characters forward.

The order that the story plays out also deserves a mention – as more information is gained by the viewer as the story progresses, new light is shed on past events.

Next up we have Real Steel, a story set in the near future where boxing has been replaced by robot fighting.

Essentially a family drama that happens to be set in the midst of this ’sport’, there are plenty of fun moments to be had. The robot effects are uniformly excellent and fights are weighty and brutal – no problem there. My only gripe is in the technicality of the fighting and how the regulations of the sport are a bit murky and inconsistent. There doesn't seem to be any discussion or apparent rules of how the various machines are to be built (some are much larger than others or have two heads), how they are allowed to be controlled (some are controlled by one person via remote, others by multiple people via a console, some voice activated, some shadowbox, some react on their own…) etc...

Similarly, some fights are over within a few punches leading to the total destruction of a robot, others go on for ages with sometimes hundreds of blows exchanged with little to no damage. Whilst it might sound like nitpicking, the various inconsistencies do pull you out of the realism of the robot boxing. As a result, fight outcomes appear to simply service the needs of the story rather than to convince. A little consistency could have gone a long way.

That being said, kids (and the kid inside of you) will love it – and there are plenty of fights throughout so viewers won't feel short-changed. Hugh Jackman convinces as a retired boxer and Kevin Durand has a hoot (sometimes literally).

Last up we have Footloose – yet another remake of an 80s film, although not as bad as you might have anticipated due in most part to the likeable Kenny Wormald in the lead role – incidentally he’s a better dancer than Kevin Bacon too.

The plot remains largely the same as the original, with certain aspects modernised such as the obligatory ‘urban’ styles now included in the myriad of dance styles in the film. The film feels a bit raunchier and edgier than the original – and yes, that ‘angry dance’ in the warehouse scene is still there – utterly ridiculous and yet amazing to watch.

The central device of the story still seems a bit wobbly: the town has banned public dancing as a result of some teens dying in a car crash after a party? Why not just the drink ban and curfew? Other various anomalies (despite the ban there are amazing dancers everywhere in town – when and where do they get to practice?) although appearing at odds can be forgiven for the sake of the plot. Dennis Quaid does a fair job in the Lithgow role although Andie McDowell isnt given much to do except quietly object. Perhaps the film seems almost more relevant than before as a commentary on youthful expression through dance - now more than ever before with the increase of dance in popular culture today.

13 Jan 2012

The Woman - or 'The Women'?

2012-01-12T17:15:00.003Z

[Spoiler warning: This article contains a discussion of certain plot points]

The long awaited new film from talented director Lucky McKee, The Woman is his first feature film since The Woods back in 2006.

Always one for the bizarre and macabre, McKee’s The Woman is a story about a family man who discovers a feral woman living in the woods and decides to kidnap her and keep her prisoner in order to civilise. Although already sounding a bit ‘out there’, this barely scratches the surface as really the story revolves around domestic violence and abuse and how the true nature of evil can always lurk behind the façade of normalcy.

Introduced in the opening scenes at first as simply a guy suffering from a whiff of douchebaggery, the true extent of the father’s horrific nature and degree of control and influence he has over his family is only revealed as the film goes on – his charming outward persona slowly peeled back to reveal further deepening layers of increasing depravity. What at first seems like almost childlike enthusiasm for his pet project slowly reveals its true sinister nature. It's a stark reminder of how the true psychos in this world aren’t running around with chainsaws or hockey masks but are often hidden away in plain sight – posing in this case as a respectable pater familias.

The real theme that permeates the film however, is the role of women. Whilst the actions of the father character are the driving force throughout the story, it is the various women of the film and their reactions and coping mechanisms that make up the substance of the narrative. McKee regular Angela Bettis as the mother, locked into silent and submissive servitude by the tyrannical father, a psychological prison – a direct contrast to the physical imprisonment of the feral woman, who without the chains is more than able to survive and take care of herself.

We also have the elder daughter, also living in fear – compounded by the early stages of a pregnancy that may or not be by her father’s own hand. The younger daughter too – still innocent but brought up in an environment where it’s taught as perfectly normal to have a person chained up in the basement. And finally the teacher character – who despite having the moral fortitude to intervene in the situation is totally unprepared for what awaits her as truths are uncovered.

Although the film is entitled The Woman as a direct reference to the feral woman, it also refers to all women in the film and how they are viewed and treated by the father – made explicit in the a scene near the end with his rant against womankind and how they are to blame for everything.

The subject of nurture is also a recurring theme throughout and the effect the absence of a mother can have on someone. The feral woman is presumably brought up in the wild from a young age – she cannot speak but is more than able to hunt and kill to sustain herself. Since the mother character’s influence on the family is severely stifled by the father, the son (the only other male role in the film) gradually grows in his likeness – including the more disturbingly sociopathic aspects.

The shocking reveal of the existence of another daughter, referred to only as ‘anophthalmia’, shows a more extreme and direct way of how one is a product of their environment – literally raise by dogs. Incidentally, the father blames the initial condition she suffers on the mother too (‘your shame!’).

The Woman succeeds as a horror movie, one that contains a sharp commentary on gender roles as the usual shocks and gore expected from the genre. With excellent performances all around – most notably from the father (Sean Bridgers) and of course the feral woman herself (Pollyanna McIntosh) – the film disturbs and lingers in the mind long after you've finished watching.

12 Jan 2012

My Top Ten Favourite Films of 2011

2012-01-10T12:38:00.005Z

[Note: This isn’t intended as a definitive ‘best films of the year’ list but personally ones that I most enjoyed the most and would watch (or have already watched) multiple times. You are free to take them as recommendations of what to watch and/or disagree with my choice – it’s just an opinion.]

Now read on for a top ten countdown of my favourite films of 2011…

10) Thor

Directed by: Kenneth Branagh
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston
Summary: Family drama on an epic scale. Impressive costumes and set design in Asgaard, fish out of water humour down on earth. Manages to avoid the cheesiness that the source material could have fallen foul to – Loki’s plight being especially effective.
Choice moment: Thor in a hospital surrounded by medical staff, “How dare you attack the son of Odin!”

9) Attack The Block

Directed by: Joe Cornish
Starring: John Boyega, Jodie Whittaker, Nick Frost
Summary: Aliens vs Hoodies. Succeeds in making heroes of those that are at first presented as villains – really a story about learning responsibility and earning redemption - just so happens to be funny and thrilling too.
Choice moment: “This is too much madness to explain in one text!”.

8) Captain America: The First Avenger

Directed by: Joe Johnston
Starring: Chris Evans, Hugo Weaving, Hayley Atwell, Tommy Lee Jones
Summary: Charming period set Superhero adventure. Full of witty exchanges and presents the Cap in a new light – not just as a larger than life patriot. Also I still can't get over how well they did the ‘skinny’ Steve Rogers…
Choice moment: The montage of Captain America selling war bonds.

7) Source Code

Directed by: Duncan Jones
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga, Jeffrey Wright
Summary: Mind-bending, thought-provoking sci-fi. After this and Jones’ previous film Moon, he’s definitely one to watch.
Choice moment: The slow motion kiss.

6) The Guard

Directed by: John Michael McDonagh
Starring: Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle, Liam Cunningham, Mark Strong
Summary: Witty, hilarious, and irreverent and constantly surprising – and that's just Gleeson’s character. Gem of a film that you may never have watched but would be glad when you did.
Choice moment: “I’m Irish. Racism is part of my culture.”

5) Hanna

Directed by: Joe Wright
Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana, Cate Blanchett
Summary: Mesmerising fairy tale with a unique performance from Ronan. Stylishly shot and scored and filled with memorable characters, both hilarious and terrifying.
Choice moment: The single take ‘tail down to the subway and fight’ shot.

4) Rise of The Planet of the Apes

Directed by: Rupert Wyatt
Starring: James Franco, Andy Serkis, Freida Pinto, John Lithgow
Summary: A prequel/origin story to a franchise that stands on its own two feet. The masterstroke of the film was to present the Apes as the heroes and not as fodder for a monster movie. This film should be watched just for Andy Serkis’ performance as Caesar alone – in my opinion it eclipses even that of Gollum.
Choice moment: “Noooooooo!”

3) Hobo with a Shotgun

Directed by: Jason Eisener
Starring: Rutger Hauer, Molly Dunsworth, Brian Downey
Summary: Sure it’s shlocky, B-movie and Troma-esque in its deliberate trashiness, but Eisener’s homage to a bygone era of 80’s video nasties is also a ton of fun. Filled with colourful characters and hammy performances – only Rutger Hauer plays it straight – but is more effective for it. An iconic role for him comparable to Blade Runner’s Roy Batty and The Hitcher’s John Ryder.
Choice moment: The introduction of ‘The Plague’ and their entrance to the hospital.

2) Drive

Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks
Summary: Slick slice of 80s styled neon noir. Rather than frantic noise and fury of most ‘car’ movies, this one is quiet, restrained and cool in its driving sequences. With a growing sense of inescapable menace punctuated with ultra-violence, the characters edge forward, often knowing they can’t escape their fate. Ryan Gosling is the mostly silent ‘western’ hero of the piece, his character a movie icon in the making. The gorgeous lighting and slick camera work and 80s-flavoured yet modern electro soundtrack are just the icing on the cake.
Choice moment: The cool and calm getaway driving of the opening heist.

1) Black Swan

Directed by: Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Barbara Hershey
Summary: The film that took me by surprise and blew me away. Comparisons to Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue aside, the story is rich with themes and motifs and is played out masterfully – both simultaneously haunting (at times downright terrifying) but also beautiful and uplifting. Part mystery, part psychological thriller, part Cronenberg body horror with an extra splash of sex and death – the film is consistently keeps you on the edge throughout – the extreme attention to detail that Aronfsky employs requiring multiple viewings to fully appreciate.

There are excellent performances all round too, with everyone hitting the right notes of ambiguity when called for, creating a tense unsettling feel. Is Mila Kunis a friend or an enemy? Is Vincent Cassel really lusting after Nina or is he just trying to coax the best performance out of her? Barbara Hershey teeters from suffocating coddling to suddenly flying into a rage.

Of course Natalie Portman in the role of Nina suits the material perfectly – her performance that covers both the roles of the virginal white swan and the sultry black swan as well as the mental breakdown throughout are spot on – and the Oscar she won for the role is well deserved (and I usually don't even like Natalie Portman in films!)

Other aspects such as the cinematography, lighting, production design, costume design, music and the dance choreography are all amazing too.

Some viewers were disappointed by the lack of a clear (ironically) black and white explanation at the end of the film, others who watched it expecting a film about ballet were left horrified and confused at what they just witnessed – for me though, Black Swan was my favourite film of 2011.

Choice moment: There are so many: all of the dance scenes, the horrific nail file scene, any of the Barbara Hershey scenes – just watch the film already!

9 Jan 2012

Film Roundup - December - Part 3

2012-01-10T12:26:00.002Z

At last – the final art of December’s film roundup!

First up we have The Guard, starring Brendan Gleeson in a quirky dark comedy set in the west of Ireland. Without giving away the story but basically he plays a policeman who gets involved in a drug smuggling plot.

Except its not really about that – it's about his character – one so well drawn that despite his own drug usage and self professed ‘whoo-ering’, is extremely down to earth and likeable and most of all: sharp as a tack.

The dialogue is witty and often hilarious – with Don Cheadle, Liam Cunningham and Mark Strong all on top form. Fans of Gleeson’s performance in In Bruges will love this one – similar humour between these two films (the writer/director on each films are brothers!).

Sleeping Beauty showcases a brave performance from Emily Browning (she gets naked a lot and fumbled by rich old men whilst asleep for money), but occasionally misses the mark due to some of her traits as the central character making her unlikable resulting in the viewer distancing themselves from her plight. Some may find the film a bit slow and pretentious but others will enjoy it as a meditation on the fleeting nature of youth and beauty.

Takashi Miike continues to produce work at an alarming rate – this time he tries his hand at a period piece in the form of 13 Assassins. A film of two distinct halves, the first is all moody setup as a group of samurai band together to put an end to the dastardly Lord Naritsugu. The second is one long set piece where the thirteen men face off against over two hundred samurai in a booby-trapped ‘village of death’.

Whilst the film is beautifully shot and the action plentiful, the film could have benefited from a bit more blood and gore (here, pretty tame by Miike’s usual standards); and the pacing could have been a bit better. Most will find the almost hour-long set piece entertaining at first but draining toward the end of it. Perhaps that was his intention all along?

Super is a ‘real life’ super hero story that will have inevitable Kick-Ass comparisons, despite the two films having very different tones. Whilst the latter is definitely still comic book-y in its delivery, Super is far more grounded in reality with a darkly comic and yet gritty tone - to sum up: Rainn Wilson’s character Frank suffers from depression, dons a costume and hits people with a wrench.

Despite committing these violent and sociopathic vigilante acts, the film has heart and we feel for Frank despite his misguided actions. Ellen Paige also appears as a comic book nerd who somehow manages to be even more mentally unhinged than Frank, as his psychotic sidekick Boltie.

Finally, we have the remake of the 1985 classic Fright Night, this time with Colin Farrell in the Chris Sarandon role as the vampire neighbour terrorizing a teenage boy – this time played by Anton Yelchin.

Whilst many have cried sacrilege (when is there a remake when they haven’t?), I enjoyed this film despite a touch of over reliance on CG - especially towards the finale. The story is opened out a little more to various locations and the cast is uniformly great. Farrel brings a distinct animal nature to his role and Yelchin continues to impress with his performances and is slowly building a name for himself as a reliable actor. Christoper Mintz-Plasse is always great despite being typecast and its nice to see Brit Imogen Poots getting a deserved Hollywood break.

Lastly, David Tennant deserves a special mention for totally hamming it up as Peter Vincent who (despite being totally different from the 1985 incarnation of the same character) still hits the spot as a sweary gothic Las Vegas illusionist and vampire ‘expert’.

All in all, a fun alternative to the po-faced twilight movies.

Now the final film roundup is out of the way, next up: my Top Ten films of 2011!

4 Jan 2012

Interesting Pirates Myths

2012-01-05T11:38:00.002Z

A while ago I read some interesting facts about pirates – among them, some common misconceptions.

For example, did you know that the reason pirates wear eye patches isn’t because they've lost an eye?

As well as peg legs and hooks being also extremely rare – there weren’t many one eyed pirates around. In fact, the eye patch was primarily used when raiding other ships. After making it across onto the enemy’s deck, going from the bright light of day into the dark, poorly lit interior of a ship would render you essentially blind - as it would take time for your eyes to get adjusted to the darkness. During which time, any enemies laying in wait down there could easily get the drop on you.

The solution? An eye patch to cover one eye prior to battle - so that once you get down in to the darkened interior you can lift it up and have one eye good to go. A similar piece of advice given to me in my youth on a CCF night exercise (we did that kind of thing at my school) about looking at flares that were shot up in the sky. If you had to look up at them, do it with one eye covered so that you wouldn't end up being blinded in the dark for the next few minutes. Simples.

Other interesting pirate related trivia: pirates didn’t speak with the so-called ‘pirate’ accent that goes ‘Arrrrrr’.
This was first made popular by the actor Robert Newton who played a pirate with a (slightly over the top) West Country accent in the 1950 Disney adaptation of Treasure Island; and has been perpetuated by nearly all other pirates in fiction since, its legacy including the Pirates of the Caribbean movies for the younger generation as well as an ‘International Talk Like a Pirate Day’.

Another quick one – pirates didn't hoard or bury their treasure. Any bounties gained from plundering were promptly spent on much needed supplies for their seafaring, particularly medical supplies which were essential to surviving long sea voyages. There have only been about three recorded instances of treasure being buried and in all these cases it was unearthed pretty much straight away, rendering the action pretty useless.

It makes you wonder just how these myths have became so ingrained and remain inseparable from the idea we have of ‘pirates’ in popular culture today. Why are pirates continually thought of this way?

The answer: they just Arrrrrrrrrr!

Sorry - couldn’t resist.

4 Jan 2012

2012 and the Coming Apocachips

2012-01-03T14:25:00.002Z

And here we are – now in 2012...

The year of the apocachips! Supposing the world does end on December 21st? I guess that would give you extra motivation to stick to your New Year’s resolutions and make the most of this coming year.

As for me, I’ll try and keep the regular updates coming - it’s all about keeping the momentum going – a bit of writing everyday, the easier it gets.

Looking backwards - recently most updates have been film related, but that's because I have been watching a lot of films. I’ve been trying not to simply ‘review’ films (there are a ton of places you can go for that) but try to offer some kind of insight into what interests me about a particular film I’ve watched, or some form of commentary.

The exception to this being the monthly ‘film roundup’ series, which continues to be just a quick glance at what I liked (or didn't like) about a film – which kind of sounds like a review, really. Oh well, at least they are kept short.

In fact, I still have Part 3 of December’s roundup to do – don’t worry, its in the pipeline.

Looking forward - other things beside film related stuff should also be coming up in the future. More games, music and TV related pieces can be expected, as well as more off-kilter stuff like more weird things I’ve learnt and maybe some interesting photos and websites too.

I’m also planning another mixtape at the moment – so when that's ready it will debut via the blog too.

So not really New Year’s resolutions (the real ones are a bit different for me - and secret) - but at least its some kind of statement of intent.

Oh and by the way, the whole apocachips thing is not real – ask the Mayans. It’s just a day when the Mayan calendar rolls around and resets (as its done a couple of times already throughout history) – so don't panic. Don't believe me? Look it up.

Peace.

3 Jan 2012

Drive - Neon Noir

2012-01-03T14:11:00.003Z

A surprise late entry at the nick of time to make it onto the list my favourite films of 2011 is Nicolas Winding Refn’s film Drive, starring Ryan Gosling.

This film simply astounds with its style. Not your typical action thriller, it's a largely restrained affair punctuated with sudden bursts of ultraviolence.

One of the things that first hit me was the 80s styled electro soundtrack (I almost jumped out of my seat with joy when they played Kavinsky’s ‘Nightcall’ over the opening credits), coupled with a brooding synth score by Cliff Martinez.

With the pink GTA:Vice City style titles and flying overhead cityscapes of a neon lit LA, the 80s vibe is set early on.

The lighting in the film is consistently striking. From the aforementioned nighttime driving sequences to beautiful sunrises and sunsets (in particular the scene driving in the aqueduct) it is truly something to behold.

Plenty of slow motion is utilised too – but unlike the overkill of Zack Snyder for instance, Refn uses it often in quieter moments (not during action scenes) to capture the serenity – the calm before the storm.

Whilst this is a thriller centred around a driver (and there are thrilling driving sequences), the majority of the time that we see Gosling’s character in his car it is peaceful and serene - speaking volumes about the character without him having to say a word. Unlike say The Transporter, where The Stath often gets out of the car and engages in raging martial arts, this driver can only really truly express himself within the car. It is an extension of him. Such is his finesse behind the wheel he almost floats around the city.

The Western connections are also very apparent – he is a nameless man, silent and stoic, always chewing on a toothpick. A tragic hero, trying to escape his criminal past but is unavoidably drawn back into violence in order to protect an innocent woman and child (in the form of his neighbour and her son, played by Carey Mulligan).

For all its dreamy quiet there is the brutal violence that acts as its counterbalance. Abrupt, vicious and bloody, the portrayal of violence in this film is never glamourised and is often shown to be grounded in grim reality - all the more shocking in contrast to the film’s gentler moments.

This is a beautifully filmed 80s styled noir crime thriller that manages to be highly stylised without being overly pretentious or filled with brash inconsequential Hollywood action film moments. With a surprisingly effective lead turn from Ryan Gosling, Drive is definitely one of my top films of this year.

31 Dec 2011

Top5 Favourite Games of 2011

2011-12-31T06:53:00.008Z

As 2011 is drawing to a close I will be doing a couple of countdowns of my fav things of the year. In this episode, my top 5 games!

Now as with all these countdowns, it is merely my personal favourites out of what I’ve been playing this year, not any kind of definitive list. And so without further ado:

5) Dead Space 2 (PS3)

The most apt comparison here is what Aliens is to Alien. Similar to the first Dead Space game but everything is bigger and bolder, with more creatures to dismember and more frantic shooting than the original’s more creepy ‘haunted house in space’ feel.

The fact that Isaac now talks and shows his face in this one made me initially feel a bit more detached from the experience, however with a decent story and cut scenes this soon didn't matter all too much.

Dead Space 2 also gets the award for hardest platinum trophy of the year for me – in order to get it you had to complete the game on the hardest setting using ONLY three saves during the entire game. The fact that I persevered and finally snagged that plat is a testament to this game’s enjoyability.

4) NBA Jam (PS3)

A remake of sorts of the old classic (played on the SNES for me), NBA Jam has been updated and improved in every way - yet still retaining that simple yet highly enjoyable gameplay.

It's at its best when enjoyed with friends – the new alley-oop mechanic especially being a joy to pull off when coordinated just right.

Want to see big-head mode Obama jump 30ft in the air over McCain’s head to dunk and shatter the backboard? In this game you can.

3) Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game (PSN)

At first I was slightly disappointed that the game didn't rise up to the high standards left by last years scrolling beat-em up fav Castle Crashers, however in time the depth of the fighting mechanics slowly revealed themselves - especially the more you levelled up.

Being able to smack down enemies and bosses you previously found hard proved immensely satisfying due to the excellent levelling system; and the pixel art and chiptune soundtrack were delightfully retro and yet fresh at the same time - accurately evoking the feel of the Scott Pilgrim comics.

2) Uncharted 2 (PS3)

Why not Uncharted 3, I hear you cry? Well, because I haven’t played it yet! I only got around to playing the second installment of this series earlier on this year and I loved every minute of it.

Great story, acting and animation, beautiful scenery, engaging platforming and shooting mechanics - this game has it all. It's the equivalent of a blockbuster movie for games, but one that ticks all the boxes.

With added multiplayer competitive and coop missions, there is plenty to do even after playing through the story (which I did more than once).

I'm looking forward to playing the third installment soon, even though I don't really know how much more Naughty Dog can improve on the existing formula. To be honest though, I’ll be happy even of its just more of the same – its that good.

1) Dark Souls (PS3)

You knew it was coming didn't you?

I had high expectations of this game after playing the excellent Demon’s Souls last year (also from Japanese developers From Software) but this one still managed to amaze me.

Differing from the hub system of the previous game, Dark Souls presented the player with one huge open world to explore, from crumbling castles to flooded dungeons and eerie hushed forests all stitched together seamlessly. The location is key here – there was a definite sense of place.

Whilst some RPGs have bigger worlds and play areas, you would never find empty expanses here – everything is insanely detailed and serves a purpose to the overall function of facilitating your exploration. If you saw a building in the distance, chances are you could walk to it.

This game is dark too. Both literally - lighting plays a strong role in creating much of the game’s atmosphere; and figuratively – this is dark fantasy. Its all blood splattered, moulding, festering, tentacles and dark gothic spires. Not a comedy orc sidekick in sight.

The music (which only really occurs in boss fights) is also consistently great and adds to the dread, the rush of battle and the eventual elation you feel when facing and then finally overcoming one of the games many gigantic monstrosities. My heart has never pounded so fiercely than in this game's (and precursor Demons Souls') boss fights.

Yes, people are going to go on about the difficulty – but as far as games go – it’s really not that difficult. Having platinumed both Souls games I can say that rather than being unfairly harsh due to bad game mechanics or overly cheap enemies, the game rewards careful progress and thoughtful, calculated movement and combat (when you swing your sword you better mean it!), making every new enemy defeated and every new area discovered an intensely rewarding experience. It’s the kind of game where you can’t wait and yet are simultaneously terrified of finding out what’s around the next corner.

I could elaborate on all of these points for days and I haven’t even started to discuss the character classes and customisation, the blank player-action driven narrative, the souls system, the killable NPCs, the PvE and PvP experience, the sense of isolation - there is no other game experience quite like it.

For those reasons and so many more, Dark Souls is by far the game of the year for me.

30 Dec 2011

Film Roundup - December - Part 2

2011-12-31T06:02:00.003Z

Okay, we’ll keep this quick and zip through as there are going to be another part (or two) after this one.

First up we have Crazy Stupid Love, which includes (amongst a uniformly great cast) Steve Carel, Julianne Moore, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. Although at first glance it appears to be just another rom-com, this one isn’t afraid to go a tone darker in its humour one minute (the marriage an older couple falling apart) and then delight with witty banter the next (Stone’s charming ‘seduction’ scene with Gosling).

Various coincidences, complications and love triangles abound; and despite the lengthy running time (the ending should have come soon after the barbeque scene where all the characters collide spectacularly), this one’s a keeper.

Also starring Emma Stone is The Help, based on the best selling book of the same name. Set around the time of the civil rights movement, the film documents the experience of several black women who serve as hired ‘help’ in rich white families and contains plenty of tear-jerking and heart-warming moments.

Standouts include the two housekeepers Aibileen (Viola Davis) and Minny (Octavia Spencer), but also Bryce Dallas Howard shines as the stupendously villainous socialite Hilly.

Mel Gibson stars in The Beaver - a darkly comic effort directed by Jodie Foster, where he plays a CEO of a toy company who is rescued from the spiral of depression by a talking glove puppet with a mockney accent.

After regaining his family’s affection and turning his fortunes around via the outspoken and can-do attitude of the puppet, it becomes apparent that the thing has a life of its own and is unwilling to relinquish its host.

Despite sounding like a barrel of laughs (at one point this was a purported Jim Carrey vehicle,) this film is actually very dark in tone, with scenes of Gibson attempting suicide and struggling with his mental illness.

Perhaps it is just fate that recent controversial events in Gibson’s personal life add more resonance to his part and make his fall from grace and eventual redemption in the film eerily fitting.

Last up we have Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the fourth entry to the series – actually presented as more of a spin-off, with Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow taking centre stage in the adventure.

Despite having a great cast (Geoffrey Rush’s Barbossa returns, joined by new entrants Blackbeard, played by Ian McShane and Angelica played by Penelope Cruz), the film which should have been an exciting monstrous Squid ends up being a lacklustre damp squib.

The characters are not given much room to breathe and the story lacks any tension or interest. Maybe its time to commit this franchise to a watery grave?

Also can Hollywood please give Stephen Graham a good role, already? Have they not seen This is England?

See you in Part 3 of December’s Film Roundup!

29 Dec 2011

Hanna - A Fairytale

2011-12-29T02:05:00.002Z

Hanna is wonderful.

And I don't just mean the 16 year old, trained from birth assassin – although Saoirse Ronan in the role is indeed wonderful.

The film itself evokes a sense of wonder much like a fairytale, that aptly matches the title character’s own discovery of the world.

Here we have an action thriller shot like an art film via the dreamy haze of a fairytale. At times, such as in one early chase scene, the camera spins dizzily about, disorientating - as Hanna flees in unfamiliar concrete environs.
Another moment sees Eric Bana in a single take shot where it follows him through the streets and then down into a Berlin subway culminating in a frantic fight scene.

In contrast, the intimate moment between two girls is shot in soft lighting and fuzzy close ups.

The cinematography is continually stylish and striking whilst still staying true to the narrative. Hanna has been sheltered (literally) whilst growing up in a wintery forest and the wealth of new experiences hitting her senses (already highly tuned genetically) when going out into the civilised world for the first time, manifests itself in this distinct dreamy, fairytale style.

The music by the Chemical Brothers also adds to the overall effect – frantic electronic pounding one minute, soft enchanting tinkling the next.

Obvious fairytale signposting comes in the form of the Brothers Grimm abandoned theme park featured in the film – but less obvious is the narrative undertones of Hanna discovering who her parents really are and her intended place in the world – a familiar theme of many a fairytale – not forgetting the evil witch role played by Cate Blanchett’s dastardly CIA agent Marissa.

Audiences more used to traditional action fare have been divided down the middle by Hanna – some lauding this mash up of styles, others deriding its lack of grounded realism. But since when have fairytales had to be realistic?

I personally thought it was an excellent and stylish film that succeeded in transferring Hanna’s own sense of wonder and enchantment over to the viewer.

All that's left for me to wonder now is who would win a fight between her and Hit Girl?

28 Dec 2011

The Even Final-er Destination?

2011-12-29T01:28:00.006Z

(Spoiler Warning! This article contains plot points and spoilers for the film Final Destination 5, so in the rare chance that you do actually want to watch it sometime soon, skip this article.)

So, I watched Final Destination 5 the other night. Now most of you are screaming: Why? Why? Would you do such a thing? Well hey - I love the art form and will give most films a chance. Well, except Sex and the City 2 - thems two hours of my life I definitely wouldn't be getting back.

The basic structure of each Final Destination film is pretty much identical and is as follows:

A group of kids escape from some large scale accident due to one of them inexplicably having a vision of it beforehand and then convincing the others to get out of there before it all goes down.

‘Death’, somehow personified as a mysterious force (sadly not as a grim reaper), feels they have cheated him/it and so gets them back by killing them in a series of bizarre ‘accidents’, mostly involving household items or in everyday, unsuspecting locations.

What originally started as a creepy, almost science-fiction horror premise with the first Final Destination movie has ballooned into an increasingly gory montage of elaborate death scenes primarily designed to scare you into thinking that anything and everything around you can somehow conspire to kill you.

Similarly to the Saw franchise, the originality and freshness of the first movie becomes null and void with sequels that solely increase their focus on the deaths at the expense of any meaningful story development. And since the formula appears to sell, who can blame them? Just substitute ‘aeroplane explosion’ for ‘motorway pileup’, ‘rollercoaster malfunction’, ‘NASCAR pileup’ or ‘suspension bridge collapse’ and off you go.

The plots are almost identical each time. In Final Destination 2 they sort of tried to explain the mechanics of it a bit more but then it appears they said screw it - lets just go for more gory and elaborate deaths each time. In this regard, Final Destination 5 doesn't disappoint. The deaths here are possibly the most over the top and gory in the series yet (now in eye-popping 3D, kids! Yay!)

They even get to kill Champ Kind!

However what really bugs me is that some things are just never explained. For example why do these main protagonists (different in each film) have these visions? It cant be ‘Death’ granting them these as then why would he/it get upset and feel the need to redress the imbalance of fate that has been caused?

And what’s Tony Todd’s character have to do with any of it apart from appear randomly and creep them out with gravely exposition?

And why is the fourth entry in the series actually (and rather confusingly) called The Final Destination. What does that make the fifth one? ‘The More Final Destination’? ‘The Even Final-er Destination’?

A trite answer would be – ‘they thought the fourth would be the last one, but then they decided to make more’, - but there is actually a reason for it.

You ready?

Its because the film is actually… A PREQUEL!

Oh Em Gee! Just like The Thing!

For some reason (that again is never explained – save for the filmmakers shouting a-ha gotcha! in the audience’s face), two characters that think they have cheated Death’s plan at the end of the film - board a plane for France.

Which is the same plane that blows up in the first one.

In fact it shows you (with footage cleverly cut from the first film) the original group of kids kicking up a ruckus and getting kicked off the plane shortly before it departs. The plane takes off, blows up and the two ‘survivors’ die horribly, thus spitting in the face of any ‘rules’ about how to survive that the films have tried to establish for the sake of a cheap gimmick.

So the fourth one really was the final one – chronologically speaking anyway. And they couldn't have called this one Final Destination: Origins or Final Destination: Beginnings, as that would have ruined the whole ‘twist’. So they just thought, meh, lets just call it: ‘Final Destination 5’ instead.

So the fourth one remains the awkwardly titled, non-numbered sequel: The Final Destination – but hey, there exists out there Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (the sixth out of nine Nightmare on Elm Street films) and Friday the 13th The Final Chapter and Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (The fourth and ninth of eleven films), so its not uncommon.

The question is, will they keep making Final Destination movies? As the franchise is so lucrative and the story template is becoming simply a matter of copy and paste, this is a very distinct possibility.

But in my view more importantly… will there be numbers in the titles?

27 Dec 2011

The Thing about 'The Thing'

2011-12-27T02:26:00.005Z

(Spoiler Warning! This article contains plot points and spoilers of the most recent version of The Thing, so if you don't want anything ruined, skip it.)

So, I recently watched the remake of the seminal 80s John Carpenter flick similarly entitled The Thing. As any fan of that great film would, I approached this new one with certain trepidation – after all, is there much point in attempting to remake an already awesome film that still stands up to this day?

Keeping my expectations fairly low, I sat down to watch it. It was actually the third time I had attempted to do so, as the first two times I had fallen asleep – not because the film was boring but because it was late and I was watching it in the dark. Anyways, third time lucky – and off we went.

The film centres around a group of Norwegian dudes in an research centre in the Antarctic and they are joined by some American’s as they discover a crashed spaceship and the remains of an alien trapped in ice. I’m guessing you know the rest of how it goes – the alien (or the lifeform pretending to be the alien?) can attack and mimic other lifeforms in order to survive and spread and a lot of the film is about paranoia as they need to try and work out who is infected and who is not.

So far, fairly similar to the original.

Now the first difference here is the female lead – Mary Elizabeth Winsome, miles away from her sassy Ramona Flowers incarnation; and dare I say it a little chubbier? No matter, she still has those big cute eyes that are to die for. And yeah, she gets to run around wielding a flamethrower and not once does she play the role of scream queen… Love it.

Now the creature effects in this film, the majority being CGI compared to the first film’s practical effects, are pretty impressive. The first time you see the creature I sat up and thought ‘damn, this film might actually be really good!’ All the gross morphing and body horror stuff is totally awesome, but it’s only in extended scenes where the creature is running around and such that it looks a tad videogamey. The original’s practical creature effects had an oozing gooey rubbery look to them (in a good way) that the new film lacks, but obviously you can do some much more with a CGI creature and today’s technology – the imagination is your limit, really. The detail in the creature effects here is simply amazing.

Special mention also goes to the sound design – its superb in the film. All squelchy and slithery as well as the hissing moan - all cues taken from the original film and reproduced well.

The central ‘test’ scene is also represented – where they are all in a room and need to determine who is human and who isn’t. Instead of the original ‘blood test’, this one is cleverly replayed as a ‘fillings test’.

Everything keeps going well… until towards the end. When ‘The Thing’ tries to get back to the ship to fly off and escape. Wtf???

Now here's my problem with this whole ending bit on the ship. It just seems really incongruous that what is essentially a killer microorganism parasite thingee has this massive spaceship that it can fly. It just doesn't make sense. Sure, it may have hitched a ride in the body of another alien that the ship belonged to (which explains why the alien crawled from the wreckage – the Thing wanted to find more hosts to spread to) so why did it want to fly away later? Perhaps it just wanted to lie dormant in the crashed ship for other humans to find? But no – it was firing up the engines!

I always imaged the ‘Thing’ to be essentially bacteria of limited intelligence that just reacts to survival instinct and can absorb and mimic other lifeforms. How intelligent is it really? What is its ultimate aim apart from simply survival? Sadly, not many answers come to light.

You see, the thing about The Thing is that the film makers are obvious fans of the original and it appears they have set out to make a film for fans of the original. In fact, so much is playing up to the expectations of the first film that many people who haven’t seen the it will be left a little nonplussed at many details sly nods and references.

For example, some guys are evaccing in a chopper – the one who looks ill and anxious turns out not to be the ‘Thing’ but it's the other, totally normal guy sitting opposite him! Other than deliberately going ‘aha! We tricked you!’ to the audience, it doesn't make sense – why would the ‘Thing’ (assuming it knows what it was doing) want to crash the helicopter instead of letting it take him out of there to a greater populace? Or why did it attack the other guy who was weak and sick and definitely suspect if you were looking for an alien when it was posing as a perfectly healthy and unsuspected human?

The answer: just to turn it around on the audience.

Similarly at the end, when it appears only Ramona and Joel Edgerton have survived (much like McReady and Childs at the end of the original), she turns around and calls him out as an alien and torches him. Despite giving a reason for knowing that (although makes sense) it just seems like the film makers where going ‘aha! Two people survived the end of the last film – you thought the same was going to happen here didn't you!? Well guess what we tricked you again!’ - at the expense of actually crafted a solid narrative.

Lastly, the very very ending is the ultimate taker of biscuits. It shows another Norwegian guy (previously thought dead) did actually survive back at the base and ends up chasing the ‘Thing’ (disguised as a husky) in a helicopter, whilst shooting at it in the rifle. Hang on a minute… that's just like the beginning of the original f-

…Holy shit!!! It’s not a remake at all! It's a PREQUEL!!!

Mind. Blown.

That one I did actually like. From the shots to the score, everything from the John Carpenter movie’s very beginning is recreated perfectly.

But you know what? To anyone who hasn't seen the original film – scratch that, lets call it ‘PART 2’, this ending wont mean a thing as the dog is referenced to only briefly earlier on in the film (where has it been hiding all this time?).

It just seems too much like playing up to fans of the original rather than concentrating on crafting a solid film in its own right. Much like how the actual alien itself acts: certain shots, scenes, set design and narrative beats mimic the original film and poses as a copy of it until it reveals itself at the end as (gasp!) a totally different film after all - a prequel posing as a remake.

And that, my friends, is the thing about The Thing.

Was it a genius move or purely coincidental? Who knows...

(If you are interested, a trailer for the original 1982 The Thing can be seen HERE.)

26 Dec 2011

Film Roundup - December - Part 1

2011-12-27T02:14:00.002Z

Watched a bunch of films this month so thought I'd get an early start to December’s film roundup – so read on for Part 1!

First up we have Paul, starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as two British nerds going on a roadtrip across America to visit UFO hotspots on their way back from ComicCon.

If you are expecting this to be in the same vein as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz you would be mistaken as this film is not directed by Edgar Wright and features a predominantly American cast and setting, not to mention the smoking, swearing titular CGI alien voiced by Seth Rogan. Whilst director Greg Mottola plays the humour very broadly, Paul is presented as a fairly pleasant affair that most will find fairly inoffensive.

That is, unless you are a fairly staunch Creationist and/or Catholic (IMDB boards continue to rage as we speak) as it seems aliens and religion are not easy bedfellows - leading to much anti-religious ribbing within.

Apart from that, the film doesn't hold many surprising turns (with the one exception of an epic cameo of Zombieland proportions), and even the well worn Pegg and Frost chemistry, although always affecting and welcome, is nothing new if you have seen the aforementioned Edgar Wright films.

Next up we have The Devil’s Double – a ‘based on a true story’ tale of an Iraqi man Latif hired to be Uday (son of Saddam) Hussein’s body double.

The story mostly plays out as a gangster fantasy as Latif finds himself surrounded by all the riches, drugs and women that come with the job, but soon comes to realise he both cannot ignore the atrocities Uday causes to those all around him and that he cannot ever escape the job for fear of his life as the threat of harm to his loved ones.

Whilst the film doesn't hold too many surprises, it’s shot in an appropriate golden hue and doesn't hold back on its brutal depictions of violence, drug excess and rape. The real draw to the film, however, is Dominic Cooper, who astounds by playing dual roles of both Latif and Uday, one quiet and dignified, the other a maniacal yet sometimes goofy psychopath. Worth watching just for his performance alone.

Next, we have the long awaited return of horror legend John Carpenter with his haunted mental hospital flick The Ward.

Amber Heard stars as the girl with no memory and makes for a watchable and strong protagonist. Despite the film having an interesting (mostly) all female cast, creepy setting and good old-fashioned ghostly jump scares in its favour, the final reveal isn’t as original as it hopes to be - Sucker Punch and Shutter Island come to mind.

Still, there is no doubt of John Carpenter’s flair, its just a shame the story couldn't have been a bit better.

Last up we have the (yet another) Marcus Nispel helmed remake/reboot in the form of Conan The Barbarian. After seeing Jason Momoa in Game of Thrones, I think he was perfect for the role of Conan, bringing his hulking physique and brooding countenance to the role.

What falls short here however is the mixed tone of the film – they try to go for depicting a brutal epic however most of it is implied only and the violence is pretty tame. If you are going to make a convincing Conan film I expect hacked limbs and decapitations, instead we have Rose McGowan and Stephen Lang camping it up ferociously as the villains. If they wanted to go for a more teen friendly, badly CGed fight with tentacles and (admittedly good CGed) sand demons fight then they should have committed to that all the way. It just feels like the whole thing smacks of compromise.

The same could be said for the story. The ‘origin’ of Conan takes up too much of the film and the plot is full of holes: The villains get all the pieces if the mask and have to wait until Conan is all grown up to complete the last part of the ritual? The villain puts on the mask and it does pretty much nothing? It seems many rehashes of the script during production didn't help matters leading to a mess with the narrative.

I was disappointed with this one as the material has such potential and Momoa can have great presence on screen. It’s just a shame he is not given much to do apart from rote and often tame action scenes and minimal dialogue. With a little more focus this could have been an epic, but sadly due to bombing at the box office a sequel is unlikely.

25 Dec 2011

Captain America - So Damn Likeable

2011-12-24T05:12:00.004Z

Having missed the chance to see Captain America: The First Avenger in the cinema when it came out, I finally got around to watching it last night – and boy what a pleasant surprise. The title says it all really. Everything about Captain America is so damn likeable!

And by everything I really do mean everything. From the story, to the characters and dialogue, everything is just so… well… likeable!

First off, the casting is a treat. Everyone just fits their parts to a tee. Who better to have as a baddie than Hugo Weaving? Hayley Atwell refuses to just simple be the love interest and mixes a delicate vulnerability to her tough girl exterior. Tommy Lee Jones is perfect as the battle-worn Colonel, snappy but with a good heart. Dominic Cooper more than just a cameo appearance with his (foreshadowing his son Tony’s) suave and boyishly cheeky engineer and entrepreneur Howard Stark. Toby Jones and Stanley Tucci (lets face it - always good in whatever they are in) playing up to their roles effortlessly. Every performance is pitch perfect.

This leaves us with Chris Evans. There was a bit of concern prior to release of the film – (he now plays two Marvel characters, Johnny Storm AND Captain America?) but now as far as I am concerned he is no longer the fiery Fantastic Four member but is Steve Rogers. With his earnest desire to do good in the world and standing up to protect the ‘little man’, he inhabits the character perfectly with an old timey sense of morality rather than a misguided blind patriotism that the character could have embodied.

It was great that they worked the emergence of his character into the story so you can see why his character is like that: being bullied as a skinny weakling (the skinny Steve Rogers CGI trickery still amazes me) and his sense of showmanship and panache (and choice of costume) coming from his earlier work in a war bond selling propaganda stage show.

Like X-Men: First Class, having the film as a period piece was a stroke of genius and evokes a definite style and atmosphere implicit in the respective time period. Back in the Golden Age of comics, Captain America did indeed fight Nazis and so it makes sense that his origin story reflected an aspect of that. The existence of the power cube MacGuffin and the advanced technologies of Hydra and Stark Industries also allows for a bit of anachronistic future tech to be included in this portrayal of the 1940s putting a fresh spin on the production design evoking a past/future mash up similar to that of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

On paper, Captain America runs the risk of being a bit of a hokey, 'American as apple pie' character (lets try to forget the terrible 90's adaptation), but the film finds ways to work around this and the genuinely charming script and warming character interactions evokes the golden hue of innocence and escapism of old school superhero comics, making this in my opinion, one of the most sensitively handled comic book adaptations I have ever seen. There were just so many moments that made me grin like I was being back to a little boy.

As stated earlier, everything is just so likeable.

That being said, Captain America is not a film without its flaws. Although starting off as a total badass, the villain Red Skull is not given much to do later on in the film except scowl and run away a lot and despite being presented as a great threat, never really feels like one. His death was a bit low key and slightly disappointing also. The gang of soldiers the Captain recruits seemed to feel a bit like ticking ethnic stereotype boxes and occasionally some CGI was a bit rough around the edges in some action scenes.

Having said that, these are minor flaws in an otherwise complete package of a film – one that also succeeds in neatly leading up to the upcoming Avengers movie. Similar to Thor there are many story links and hints of things to come, most obviously the bittersweet ending to the film that segues in nicely.

The Avengers seems an even more exciting prospect to me now especially since you have all these big characters (with large personalities to match) occupying the same celluloid space.

As mentioned in a previous article, Thor was a decent movie adaptation but I never really had any doubts that Kenneth Branagh could pull it off. However, Captain America proved to be a genuine surprise to me as it greatly exceeded my expectations. Props to Joe Johnston for that – you will definitely be seeing The First Avenger in my top ten films of the 2011.

24 Dec 2011

Film Roundup - November - Part 2

2011-12-24T04:28:00.004Z

Continuing on from a previous article – Film Roundup November! …Part 2!

First up we have the horror movie The Rite starring Anthony Hopkins as an exorcist tasked with showing the ropes to a younger, more cynical priest in training. It starts off promisingly, with a creepy realistic build up, trying to separate the fact and the fiction of what goes on in an actual rite of exorcism.

Despite its attempts to remain grounded in tone, (“what did you expect,” snorts Sir Tony at one point, “spinning heads and pea soup?”) the film eventually falls back into the regular possession tropes such as snarling demon voice cursing and body contortions. Although I’m all for that sort of thing (possession movies probably scare the shit out of me more than any other), the fact that The Rite attempts to distance itself from all that at the beginning but then almost reluctantly falls back on it leads to an uneven tone and presentation.

It would have been better overall if the filmmakers tried to stick to one or the other but Anthony Hopkins is always watchable and does his best with what he’s given.

The Farrelly brothers once reined supreme with high grossing comedies such as There’s Something About Mary and personal favourite Stuck On You, but their output has seemed somewhat low profile of late. Hall Pass, their latest starring Owen Wilson presents the story of two married men getting a allowance from their wives to sleep around on the grounds that a) they can get it out of their system and remain faithful for the rest of their lives, and b) they probably wouldn't be successful in their endeavours anyway.

Although the majority of the film is pretty predictable and jokes fall flat left right and centre, Christina Applegate is the only actor whose performance stands out and Stephen Merchant (whose funniest bit only appears during the credit sequence) seems weirdly out of place in the brief moments he crops up in during the film.

It's a shame really when an exploding poo gag is pretty much the funniest thing in this film.

Continuing on with comedy, I finally got around to watching the highest grossing R-rated comedy film ever: The Hangover. Whilst mildly entertaining, and the best bits inevitably spoiled by people and trailers beforehand (yeah you, Mike Tyson cameo!), the film actually doesn't have that much going for it.

You see, the problem with high concept films like this is that once you know the mystery of what happened you cant really watch it more than once if the actual content within is fairly mediocre - No endlessly quotable Anchorman lines or Zoolander gags here, folks. A quick litmus test on whether or not you will like this film: do you find a naked Chinese man jumping out of a car boot to be absolutely hilarious? Surprising, sure. But comedy gold? Not for me.

Still, its worth watching once and Zach Galifianakis is always endearing in his childlike manner.

Last up we have Kung Fu Panda 2 – featuring a ridiculously star studded cast. Pretty much everyone from the first film returns along with the inclusion of Gary Oldman, Danny McBride, Michelle Yeoh and Jean-Claude Van Damme. If this wasn't an animated film and you had all these people on set it would have been truly unbelievable but alas, most of them probably even get together except for the press junket. Alas, such is the nature of voice over work.

The film itself is pretty competent with superb design and animation; the voice work is great and the fight choreography and action sequences are (as they were in the first film) top-notch. The standout for me was Gary Oldman’s preening, scheming Peacock villain Shen - an original and inspired antagonist.

Although more of the title character Po’s origin is revealed, it’s slightly disappointing that there is not as great a character arc as he had in the first film when he first learnt to fight (now its just about him finding inner peace) and you never truly feel that he has met his match whenever he gets into a scrap. After all, he is recognised by everyone as the fabled 'Dragon Warrior' now.

Still, Kung Fu Panda 2 delivers and proves that Dreamworks is still up there with Pixar producing quality animated CG flicks. Good thing the Kaboom of Doom suffix was dropped from the title. Now that just sounds silly…

23 Dec 2011

Reflections and Duality in Black Swan

2011-12-22T04:02:00.004Z

(Warning: Spoiler Alert! You should probably watch the film first before reading this article as it contains some plot points and the discussion of certain themes. Plus you should watch the film anyway as its really good!)

I actually first watched Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan a few months ago but didn't get around to writing a piece about it at the time (as you could literally talk about this film for days) but felt I should discuss some of its many themes a little as it will no doubt feature in my upcoming ‘favourite movies of 2011’ article.

So, what to discuss? With a film this layered and rich thematically there is so much to choose from: a commentary on artistry and performance, being consumed by a desire for perfection to the point of madness, the overbearing mother and the loss of innocence, the figurative as well as literal metamorphosis into the Black Swan… the list goes on.

Perhaps the most obvious theme presented in the film is that of reflections and duality. Firstly, presented at face value: the ballerina Nina (played by Natalie Portman) is asked to play the dual role of the White and Black Swans in an upcoming production of Swan Lake. She is constantly told by the show’s director that she easily embodies the grace, poise and innocence of the White Swan but not the darker, more free and full of lustful desire character attributes of the Black Swan, thus setting up (in her mind and the viewer’s) a constant self examination of her character and comparison to those around her – after all, one’s identity is often realised and/or put into perspective through comparison to others, whether for good or bad.

It’s no surprise then that mirrors feature heavily in the film. Either directly: in the backstage area, the dance studio, the bathroom or the bedroom – all locations that Nina spends a lot of her time in; or indirectly: reflections in the subway car window, in water, multiple drawings and paintings of her, and the eventual use of a mirror as a weapon.

She is always comparing herself and being compared whether consciously or not and almost every other female role acts as a direct comparison or reflection to her. First and foremost her ‘rival’ and friend Lily played by Mila Kunis. Portraying a carefree, open, confident, tattooed, fast food eating, clubber with an olive complexion, she is a the direct opposite to Nina’s pale, uptight, sheltered and more traditional ballerina. The lines between these two characters are increasingly blurred as the movie goes on and Nina sinks further into madness and into the role of the Black Swan. It is obvious that this character of Lily exists in reality to some degree but to what extent? At times Nina thinks they have spent time together when they haven’t, she thinks she has killed her but she hasn't – her character is as much a reflection of what she wants to be or needs to be herself at the time in order to fully assume the characteristics needed for the role of the Black Swan.

Again, this is a direct comparison to the other dynamic at play in the film in which Nina becomes paranoid that Lily is going to steal her role in the show – just as the White Swan has her love stolen by the Black Swan in the story of Swan Lake. So all at once Lily acts as Nina’s friend, enemy, counterpart, lover, reflection and sometimes even becomes her – in several scenes she even mistakenly sees Lily as herself or even a ‘dark’ version of herself.

To further add to the mindfuck, rumour has it that in certain scenes the actresses briefly played each other’s roles – you will have to watch the film again carefully to catch these bits. Although worlds apart in character, the two actresses purposely share a similar height, build and hair colour which makes this trick very feasible practically but also helps bolster the themes of reflection and duality the film.

As mentioned earlier, other female roles in the film act as comparisons to Nina, whether it’s the old and maligned ballerina Beth whom Nina has previously idolised and now replaced, or her overbearing and protective mother trying to relive her failed youth as a dancer vicariously through her daughter’s successes; both cracked and distorted reflections in the mirror of what Nina sees in herself.

Finally, the theme of duality manifests itself in Nina’s figurative and literal transformation into the Black Swan. Running in parallel to her acquisition of the Black Swan character traits are the Cronenberg inspired body horror scenes of Nina’s rashes turning into gooseflesh, the sprouting of black feathers and bent swan legs. So consumed is she in her quest to become the Black Swan that her mind loses control over the separation of the real and the metaphorical. Following on from this line of thought, the ending makes sense – she feel she needs to die in order to create the perfect Swan Lake performance.

Stepping out of the film, we also see a duality with the Black Swan’s companion piece The Wrestler (2008), also directed by Aronofsky. Although poles apart in their physicality (one is young, petite and lithe, the other old and hulking) the films' protagonists share similar traits of dedication, obsession, physical and mental wounding and ultimately, sacrifice.

One could even (rather cheekily) say that Black Swan is a ‘reflection’ of Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue (1997) that eerily shares many similar ideas and plot points about duality, confusion of identity and yes, mirrors! Whilst Aronofsky admitted he was influenced a lot by the story of Perfect Blue, we could just argue Black Swan is simply a warped reflection in a western mirror.

Now that’s meta!

(For an idea of some similarities these films share, watch this comparison video HERE)

22 Dec 2011

Film Roundup - November - Part 1

2011-12-22T03:21:00.004Z

Got a bunch of films to rattle through so without further ado I present… film roundup November!

First up we have our very own Ken Brannagh’s rendition of the Marvel Comic’s take on the Norse god Thor. Seemingly an odd choice of director to some at first, it is in fact inspired as who better than Wallander himself to elevate what is essentially a story of the family dynamic of the gods of Asgard to lofty, regal and almost Shakespearean heights.

In lesser hands this could have been a distinctly cheddary disaster and yet Brannagh manages to keep the characters fantastical (as powerful deities ought to be) and yet grounded through their oh-so-human flaws.

The other balancing act comprises of half the film taking place in the exquisitely designed mystical realm of Asgard, and the other half on plain old earth, the former being more interesting to watch than the latter.

Chris Hemsworth hits the mark as the titular character as does his antagonist Loki played by Tom Hiddleston. Both provide excellent multi-layered and nuanced performances. Others of note include Anthony Hopkins as Odin (once again, when isn’t he good?) and Idris Elba as the hulking Heimdall.

Unfortunately, with so many characters crammed into the story it is a shame that other great actors such as Stellan Skarsgard and Tadanobu Asano are not given much do to do – and Natalie Portman is a distinctly ‘meh’ presence throughout. Perhaps more can be expected in the inevitable sequel?

But before that we have The Avengers movie to look forward to and at times the setup for that within Thor can be a bit blatant. With an extended role from Agent Coulson as well as cameos from Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye and Robert Downey Jr., it sometimes feels a bit forced. Nevertheless, Thor is an enjoyable romp and a recommended watch.

Nicholas ‘bad hair’ Cage returns again to grace this blog with his coiffeur in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. Not a remake of the 1992 Abel Ferrara Bad Lieutenant but a totally new story, this time set in post flooded New Orleans and director by Werner Herzog.

Now Herzog is known to be a little ‘out there’ as a director. Similarly, although Nicholas Cage gives the occasional dull performances in some of his films, we all know one thing he can act very well is bat-shit crazy. Put the two together and what do you get? Fireworks.

I cant really describe this film other than it is a nightmare – but in a good way. The plot is a jumbled mess as Cage crashes through it all ranting, pointing guns at people and being off his head on drugs more often than he is not. His character is so insanely bug-eyed and shouty that it’s hard to imagine anyone else in the role. In between pulling over youths to confiscate their drugs for personal consumption, threatening old ladies and hallucinating lizards and a break-dancing soul of a recently deceased mobster, you’ll definitely feel cracked out yourself when watching this film.

Not for everybody, but if you feel like something different then give this one a shot.

Finally, we have The Kingdom – a film about a group of US FBI investigators sent to Saudi Arabia after a terrorist attack on a military base there, the majority of the story focussing on how local customs, religion and resistance from the military there all hamper the progress in their investigation.

Although very interesting factually, the film occasionally smacks of ‘American intellect and superiority over belligerent, backwards Arabs’ throughout, so its fortunate that Ashraf Barhom provides the standout role of the film playing a morally conscious Saudi Colonel willing to buck the trend.

The Kingdom may not be to everyone’s taste with a slow middle section but makes up for it its blistering opening sequence when the terrorist attack takes place, and the final half hour where all the shit goes down and the Americans are forced to go in guns blazing.

For more films check out Part 2 of November’s film roundup!

21 Dec 2011

The Rise and Fall of Splatterhouse

2011-11-27T11:55:00.004Z

Having recently played through the reboot of Splatterhouse on PS3, it was a pleasant surprise to find the three original Splatterhouse games available to play on the disc. It led me to read up a little on the history of the games and find out how a potentially great IP such as this has re-emerged on modern consoles just to fade back into obscurity again.

First released in 1988, I distinctly remember seeing the original Splatterhouse in the arcades in Japan as a child and being both disturbed and intrigued all at once. A simple side-scrolling horror beat ‘em-up, the macabre subject matter, copious gore and violence lingered in my mind as being a unique game of its time.

You can watch a longplay of the game HERE. (If you don't know what a longplay is, that’s explained HERE.)

Obviously, by today’s standard the gore and violence of the original games are pretty tame – now everything is just amped up to a ridiculous degree as can be seen from this side by side comparison of posters.

The one on the left is the poster for Splatterhouse 2 released in 1992 and the one on the right is a ‘homage’ version of the same poster but for the more recent 2010 game.

After gaining popularity as cult games, the series was revived in 2010 with the new reboot of Splatterhouse released on consoles. Whilst not really groundbreaking, the game managed to successfully translate the gameplay into an ultraviolent 3D action brawler with more blood than I have seen in any game to date.

I particularly like how it is an entirely new game in itself and yet homages the old games with its setting, characters and enemies as well as love for the horror genre in general, with numerous references to H.P Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Re-animator and Evil Dead.

However the game failed to do well commercially due to two factors – firstly an initial moment of trouble during production when the publisher Namco Bandai dropped the original development team BottleRocket and moved all the production internally.

Despite recovering from this and gradually building up the hype again during production, the second killer stroke came when Namco Bandai hit financial difficulties and dropped all support for the game with no advertising, promotion or demo leading up to the games launch. Further on it was revealed that the whole development team had been laid off.
With lacklustre reviews (some say the lack of payoffs to big reviewers contributed to this) and minimal exposure, Splatterhouse spectacularly tanked and with the development team disbanded a sequel or any future addition to this IP is highly unlikely. You can read all about the debacle HERE.

Although not a massive fan of the Splatterhouse games, I love their style and have an admiration for their legacy – and personally (although this would likely never happen given the events that have transpired) would love to see the main character Rick appear as a guest character somewhere along the line in the Soul Calibur or Tekken Series.

One can only dream…

26 Nov 2011

Film Roundup - October

2011-11-18T23:03:00.003Z

So there was no ‘Film Roundup September – Part 2’ – I lied! Muhahahaha!

Well the lack of recent updates are to blame for this, but also the lack of films watched – but anyway I’ve combined those with last month to bring you… ‘Film Roundup October!' (Insert Fanfare here!)

It’s been a good month as almost all films watched have been exceptionally good and come recommended for you to watch.

First up we have Ironclad, the story of a group of rag-tag men holding off the siege of Rochester Castle from the vengeful King John.

Despite budget limitations, the film excellently portrays brutally gory medieval battle scenes, and boasts an excellent cast - most notably the insane ranting of Paul Giamatti as the King convinced of his divine right over the land (despite having just signed the Magna Carta) and Brian Cox as the grizzled leader Albany.

So if you like your historical epics realistically portrayed with lots of blood, mud and severed limbs, then Ironclad is for you. Oh, and there are lots of Vikings and Mackenzie Crook doing a Legolas too!

You would expect (being a high numbered sequel) that Scream 4 would surely suck some serious ass – but surprisingly in this case you would be wrong. Kevin Williamson is back on board as the script writer, and the deaths are back to good old fashioned no nonsense stabby stabby nastiness that the ghost-faced killer was originally known for.

Once again the film acknowledges its position in the series as well as its place in the modern horror film genre as well but keeps things fresh by boldy stating ‘all bets are off’ – meaning pretty much anything can happen. Anyone can be the killer and anyone can be killed.

This is brilliantly pastiched in the opening film within a film within a film that sets you on edge right from the get go. So despite not reaching the heights of the original Scream (released all the way back in 1996!) Scream 4 is an unexpected worthy entry to the series.

Next up we have Norwegian ‘found footage’ film TrollHunter, which despite the seemingly action packed trailer, takes a good while to actually get going with not much happening during the first half of the film. Many will be put off with the slow pace and having to deal with (God forbid!) subtitles as the story follows a trio of student film makers documenting the exploits of a man who claims to be a secret government sanctioned troll hunter.

If you can persevere through the slow first half then you will be rewarded with troll action in spades as the effective CGI, tense set pieces and deliberately open ending more than make up for it.

Apparently a Hollywood remake is in the works. No surprise there, then.

Trick ‘r Treat is a great Halloween movie because it is one of the only films out there that is actually about Halloween and not just a story that happens to occur on that day. That's one of the great things about it – the love of that holiday season is very evident and comes across very strongly throughout the movie.

Four different stories are presented, sharing characters and criss-crossing timelines (similar to Pulp Fiction) that keep the pace varied and naturally make you want to piece together the order of events.

Highlights include an effectively creepy Dylan Baker, a pre-True Blood Anna Paquin, a grizzled Brian Cox (again!) and the birth of a new horror icon – the pumpkin headed boy Sam. Or else it would have been if only studio politics hadn’t severely limited the films exposure upon its very limited release.

Still, this film is worth hunting down if you are looking for something to watch next Halloween.

Finally, we have Source Code – a mind-bending feature from Moon director Duncan Jones. Part Groundhog Day style whodunit and part exploration of quantum physics as well as the existential ponderings on ‘souls’, the nature of one’s consciousness and alternate realities – Source Code has a lot to take in on the first viewing.

Whilst the mystery involving a terrorist attack is wrapped up pretty neatly, the greater question of the fate of Colter Stevens (played effectively by Jake Gyllenhaal) and the ending will have viewers pondering all sorts of questions about what really happened and the science behind it.

But don't worry, you can also just enjoy the film for what it is on face value with great performances and thrilling action – Source Code comes highly recommended.

18 Nov 2011

Modern Warfare 3 - They Did What?!

2011-11-18T22:42:00.003Z

(WARNING: This article contains big story SPOILERS so please do not read if you don't want to know what happens in the game’s Singleplayer Campaign.)

The juggernaut that is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has already smashed all records as the best selling game of all time. Even more astonishingly, I read today that MW3 has just broken the five-day sales record for any movie, book or video game that has existed EVER.

It would seem then that the game had better deliver.

Personally, I loved the game – having been slightly disappointed by Black Ops I found it good to be back and continuing the Modern Warfare story that concludes the events following on from the first two in the series.

I even played through the campaigns of MW1 and MW2 to reacquaint myself with the epic narrative before diving into the third instalment. Kind of like watching a film trilogy back to back. It was very epic and I’m glad I did it – my new big TV and surround sound headphones further amplifying the experience.

However, this article isn’t a review of the game, its actually about a specific thing that happens in the story that left many an internet fanboy enraged, saddened and confused – and my take on it. Last chance to back out if you don't like spoilers…

Ok… here goes.

On one of the missions towards the game the unthinkable happens.

Soap dies.

Now, the Modern Warfare games do have a history of killing off popular characters such as Ghost or even characters you are actively playing as such as Allen or Roach. But this seemed different.

Firstly, following the moment Soap gets injured you have to help carry him for a fair distance throughout the level, before he finally expires (incidentally this is something you also did earlier in the game but back then you end up getting him the medical attention he needed and thus saving him).

Secondly, Soap is probably the most popular Modern Warfare character (having been the main character used by the player in MW1 and as your mentor/leader in MW2 - voiced by Kevin McKidd) and having him die was a major bombshell for most players.

When witnessing that moment I stared open mouth in disbelief. ‘What!? They killed Soap!?’

I felt myself welling up as Captain Price (played by Billy Murray AKA Don Beech from The Bill) loses it, unable to accept his death.

Now although the death of Soap is indeed tragic, I stand by the developers Infinity Ward for their decision for the following reasons:

Having Price die instead would have had less of an impact emotionally on the player as it borders on the cliché. As the duo of Price and Soap have fostered the father/son dynamic over the course of three games through constant quipping and camaraderie, it would be no surprise (narratively speaking) if the older one died, leaving the younger to want to avenge him and thus ultimately replacing their mentor.

The phrase ‘no parent should outlive their children’ rings true here and makes the situation all the more tragic and Price’s actions at the end of the game in hunting down Makarov become more of a personal vendetta and the ending all the more cathartic for it. In fact once the deed is done, Price isn’t even concerned for his own safety or escaping, he just sits there in front of Makarov’s hanging body and whilst smoking a cigar, his driving purpose now complete. World War Three was over at the end of the previous chapter but now his personal fight is too.

The tragedy of Soap’s death at the time of his passing is further compounded by the revelation that your character Yuri has some previous connection with Makarov (referred to by him as ‘old friend’) and therefore the player feels directly responsible for their beloved Soap’s death, an ingenious if a little contrived move by Infinity Ward - as it turns out you aren’t really.

I think Soap’s death can be justified in the game as it throws a curveball at the audience (who would probably have been expecting a major character like Price to die instead in this game) to create a shocking event in the story that you genuinely didn't see coming and makes the denouement at the end all the more satisfying for it. And besides, the reality is that warfare is cruel and harsh and bullets and explosions don't discriminate when you are in the thick of battle.

Being a dedicated hardcore soldier and unlikely to have a normal life and family outside of his work, Soap was a son to Price in all but name and the tragedy of war is conveyed through Price’s (and the audience’s) feeling of utter loss by bucking convention and pulling the rug out from under the player and their expectations.

Players of the game should be right in feeling outrage and sadness at this story event and if they feel even a miniscule amount of what Price must have felt then Infinity Ward have succeeded in making us feel empathy for the characters.

So although I loved Soap and was saddened at his death in the game, I feel ultimately it was the right thing to happen in terms of making the narrative of Price's revenge on Makarov more effective.

(You can watch the whole scene from the game HERE).

17 Nov 2011

Return

2011-11-18T22:30:00.002Z

Okay, so I’ve been away for a while – almost a month, but hear me out. I have excuses, see! Yeah, enough of this lameness, I need to get back on it again, stay focused and disciplined - cos that's what its all about really isn’t it – aside from just gabbing about random stuff I like, which is just a bonus really.

So yeah, the excuses…

Firstly, I have been super busy with work stuff – not only have been doing lots of filming and editing (and still a fair amount to do) I have been travelling up and down the country cramped up in car full of people and luggage. Sardines would be mocking me with their amount of leg room.

Not only within the UK, but we also drove to Belgium. That's right BELGIUM – that country in Europe. By Car.

Anyway it’s all good fun even though it was super long. Combined with other work related things this explains half of why I haven’t updated this blog in a month.

The other half can be summed up in two words: Dark Souls.

What’s that you ask? The spiritual sequel to my favourite game ever Demons Souls, Dark Souls has met my high expectations and exceeded them. Seriously, this game is awesome.

I wont go into too much detail about what makes the game so good (as I may save that for another write-up) but lets just cover the main points.

Firstly, its super addictive. The game itself is pretty challenging but infinitely rewarding because of it. Although death can come swiftly and often it just makes you want to keep playing regardless to regain what you've lost and to overcome the obstacles in front of you having returned with one of the most precious of commodities within the game: knowledge.

Now this isn’t some in-game currency or stat, by this I mean the actual knowledge the player has of what traps are awaiting around the corner, enemy placement and attack patterns, boss weaknesses etc… Since everything in the game has the capacity to kill you easily, knowledge literally is power, allowing you to evade death just that little bit longer and inch forward further into the depths of the game.

Anyway, I’ll write more on this later but just to say I have spent many hours on this game (hence the lack of blog writing) finishing the game over three times in a row (to get the Platinum, natch!). Needless to say this game has surpassed Demons Souls to become my most favourite game ever.

So yeah, hopefully Ill be able to get back on the regular updates for your reading pleasure now that I’ve finished with that game…

For now….

8 Nov 2011

"I'm gonna sleep in your bloody carcasses tonight!" - Hobo with a Shotgun

2011-09-29T16:48:00.004+01:00

Now Hobo with a Shotgun is the very definition of a Marmite film – you will either love it or hate it. I am very much in the former camp and hence this write up – just so I can put this film in context before you decide to go and watch it.

Of course this film will not be suited for everyone – it’s violent. And I mean really violent with lots of blood, gore and dismemberment - but we’ll get to that in a minute.

Story wise, the title pretty much says it all – the film follows the tale of a wandering Hobo who arrives in a town that happens to be overrun by brutal gangsters, petty criminals running amok, corrupt police and quick to mob civilians. After intervening in a confrontation, the Hobo is brutally punished. Instead of accepting his lesson of intimidation, the Hobo decides enough is enough and goes on a vigilante killing spree with a shotgun, determined to clean up the town at all costs.

Now at face value it doesn't seem all that interesting - that's why it took me by surprise so much when I watched it for the first time. I was literally blown away. Firstly the violence – the portrayal is not only very bloody but very brutal – just a few examples include a baseball bat lined with razorblades, a gun pointed point blank at a baby and let’s not forget a certain scene involving a bus (one of the more controversial scenes in the film).

Having said that, this film is deliberately made in the Grindhouse style (a la Machete, Death Proof and Planet Terror) and so the violence, although very much over the top, is often schlocky and slightly comic in its delivery (think it terms of Ichi the Killer or Braindead). In fact, the story and characters are decidedly comic book in their presentation, especially the villains who are the nastiest but also most strangely appealing villains I have seen in films for a long time. I mean these guys haven’t even heard of a moral compass. They just don't care.

…Which fits in nicely with the vibe of 80s excess that permeates the film. The film is awash with various fashions, neon stylings and music of the 80s and filmed largely with a handheld camerawork and a gritty filter; and is a clear homage to Troma flicks such as The Toxic Avenger.

A more modern day comparison to the tone of the film would be the current wave of Japanese splatter films such as The Machine Girl and Tokyo Gore Police, so if you have seen and enjoyed those films then this one is highly recommended.

Similar to Machete, this film originally started its life as a fake trailer for the Death Proof/Planet Terror double bill Grindhouse – but where it differs from Machete is that it manages to expand upon and transcend the trailer instead of merely making a 90min version of it. As well as the aforementioned 80s styling’s being added there is one big added factor that I have yet to discuss.

He goes by the name of Rutger Hauer.

Most noted for his superb roles in films such The Hitcher and Blade Runner, Rutger playing the part of the Hobo grounds the film with a downplayed performance that lends the character gravitas but also anchors the film so it doesn't fly off too far into absurdity. Rutger is a force to be reckoned with and shows real heart in a film that is filled with characters that often gleefully show that they have none. I mean this guy can expound acres of his character without even saying a word – he’s that good! Moreover, the father daughter relationship between the Hobo and Abby (the requisite prostitute with a heart of gold) provides a delicate counterpoint to the rest of the film’s carnage, which makes it all matter. Put simply, the film just would not work as well without Rutger as the Hobo.

If you want a quick comparison, check out the original fake Grindhouse trailer here with the actual feature film trailer here.

So all in all a recommended film – and I haven’t even mentioned THE PLAGUE yet. Yes, when THE PLAGUE (so awesome they deserve capital letters all the time) turn up a good way into the film, the whole thing steps up a notch. I wont ruin it for you but these guys are awesome. Also watch out for cameos by Ricky from Trailer Park Boys and David Brunt who played the Hobo in the original fake trailer.

So if you don’t mind a bit of bloody violence in your films then this is one to watch. Despite some rough edges, uneven acting across the cast and the limited budget occasionally showing through, for me personally this film was shocking and refreshing in equal measure as there is not much else like it currently out there. Coupled with the 80s music and aesthetic that I love (that Bricklin!), makes Hobo with a Shotgun a sure-fire contender for placing in my top ten films of the year.

29 Sep 2011

Film Roundup - September - Part 1

2011-09-22T23:15:00.002+01:00

Since there are a few films already this month I’ve decided to split September in two, so keep reading for the first part of September’s film roundup!

First up, we have Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows - Part 1 which, whilst boasting the expected high production values and stellar cast, remains largely a fan service film which proves to be nigh on incomprehensible for those who haven’t seen the previous films in the series or read the books.

Whereas earlier Potter films were presented much more as fun standalone family romps, Deathly Hallows suffers heavily from relying on assumed previous knowledge as well as a decidedly unfamily-friendly gloomy darkness, pensiveness and angst that pervades the entire picture.

Of course the stakes are much higher now in the story and (I can only assume) the film follows the tone of the book closely and it is interesting to see how much it has shifted in tone since Chris Columbus’ Philosopher’s Stone (AKA Sorcerer’s Stone).

Despite its dreary nature, there is one highlight which takes the form of a short animated interlude explaining the origin of the Deathly Hallows, which strangely contains more charm than the rest of the film.

That being said, it has made me interested in seeing The Deathly Hallows - Part 2, if anything just to see how it all concludes, but as a movie watched on its own it’s pretty unsatisfying.

Next up is low budget British horror flick Salvage, filmed in Merseyside (on the old set of Brookside no less – fun fact for you kiddies!) about a mother’s desperate search for her daughter amidst a quarantine by armed forces due to an unidentified creature that escaped from a nearby beached container.

This film successfully overcomes the usual problems associated with low budget horror films by focusing heavily on the character’s plight and only showing the ‘creature’ very sparingly. Some may not enjoy the family drama elements and feel short changed by the lack of action and gore but I personally enjoyed it.

Neve McIntosh, who plays the mother, is the best thing about this movie and her performance is outstanding. Not a great film by any means but worth a watch if you don't mind low budget horror with good acting.

Similarly, another low budget horror is presented in the The Silent House (La Casa Muda) from Uruguay. Filmed entirely on location in one house on a digital camera with only three actors, this is pretty much as low budget as you can get.

The interesting part here, however, is the way the film is presented – in one long continuous take. Although this premise is not entirely original (see Rope and Russian Ark) and also unlikely to really have been filmed in one take due to filming logistics, the edits are disguised well and it does lend a unique sense of immersion with the film as it is all played out in real time.

Whilst the technical skill of the cinematography is impressive, the actual story is not and with the exception of one scene (utilising photo flashes for scares) the majority of the film is a damp squib with the almost obligatory ending ‘twist’ being highly unoriginal. Only worth watching for the purported single take film presentation - if you have an interest in the more technical aspects of film such as that.

Recommended to me as being one of the best martial arts films ever, I recently watched Ip Man. Telling the story of Yip Man, famous for his Wing Chun and being one of Bruce Lee’s mentors, Ip Man boasts great fights scenes and choreography but is mired somewhat by its overly heavy political message of the Chinese being enslaved by the Japanese during the War.

Reading up on it, it turns out that the events portrayed in the film are mostly fictional which is a shame considering the film is presented as a biopic. Having said that though, Donnie Yen is fantastic as always and the film is still worth watching once if only for the fight scenes.

As for it best martial art film of all time? Not even close. My personal favourite still remains Iron Monkey, which coincidentally also has Donnie Yen in it.

Finally in our roundup we have Attack the Block, based on the similarly ridiculous match-up of Cowboys and Aliens by pitting ASBO yobs against aliens.

Whereas Cowboys fails in its bland and muddled presentation, Attack the Block sparkles with its astute characterisations, witty dialogue and memorable performances. It’s usually very difficult for characters who we see mugging a young woman at the beginning of the film end up as characters we empathise with and root for, but director Joe Cornish and his young cast manage to pull it off with ease.

The aliens themselves are striking in their design and the action suitably bloody showing that you can still make things work effectively on a non-Hollywood limited budget. Special mention also goes to gang leader Moses (played by newcomer John Boyega) whose brilliantly nuanced performance belies his limited acting experience.

That concludes Part 1 of the September Film Roundup, with Attack the Block being the recommended watch.

One film that I left out of the roundup is Hobo with a Shotgun but only because it deserves a write up of its own! Stay tuned!

20 Sep 2011

Roller Coasters

2011-09-18T16:22:00.004+01:00

One of the perks of my work is that I get taken to places for free and enjoy stuff that other people usually have to pay for – case in point: Alton Towers.

Having finished work early there, we had about an hour to dash about and go on a few rides before closing time.

Now, much to everyone’s surprise, I’ve never been to Alton Towers before and upon walking around it I was notably impressed. Not because I’ve never been to a theme park before (I’ve been to my fair share over here and abroad) but by the simple fact that there is so much greenery there.

You see, differing from the various concrete and steel monstrosities of a lot of other theme parks, Alton Towers was built on the grounds of a ‘semi-ruined gothic revival country house’ (not my words but the words of wikipedia!) and so is built around pre-existing gardens, forests, lakes and expanses of grass, not to mention the old country house structure itself.

The family outing potential here is huge as there is something for everyone – if you don't like the rides you can just explore the picturesque area to your hearts content.

But really, most people come here for the roller coasters, and Alton Towers, although holding no current records (cos I look up stuff like that), prides itself on having its fair share of ‘world first’ roller coasters.

Anyway, on that particular day we only had time to go on three of these rides: Thirteen, Air and Nemesis. What follows is a brief rundown of each.

First up was Thirteen, or using its frivolously hip correct spelling ‘Th13teen’.

The set-up was great: being described as a ‘psychoaster’, this ride was designed to scare you in unexpected ways.

*SPOILER WARNING! Skip to the paragraph after next if you don't want to know what happens in this ride!*

The ride starts off fairly standard – a seated coaster with banks and hills travelling through the forest area until the train comes to a complete stop inside a dark crypt. This is where the ‘worlds first’ element takes place, as the car suddenly drops, first a tiny amount and then a bigger five metre drop, all in pitch black. The ride then hurtles backwards through the darkness until it emerges back outside into the light.

The thrills of this ride came mostly from its surprise elements and not knowing what was going to come next but just as a roller coaster was fairly tame. Recommended if you are looking for something different.

Next up, we went on Air the ‘flying’ coaster, dubbed so as the ride takes place with you leaning forward in the prone position so as to get the full effect of the scenery whizzing past beneath you. Having taken the extra queuing time to have the privilege of sitting in the front-most carriage I can tell you it was well worth it.

Not only does the prone position offer a new experience of flying above the ground, when the ride corks you end up going headfirst backwards and upside-down. As far as roller coasters go, this is the closest you will get to the experience of flight and is thoroughly recommended.

Finally, we have Nemesis – an oldy, but a goody. Built back in 1994, despite its age Europe’s first inverted coaster is still a BEAST. There are corks and inversions aplenty and the ride uses its surroundings such as caves, trees and waterfalls to make the ride more dynamic. Oh, and did I mention all the water in the area is pink? Gnarly!

The ride can be a bit rattley at times due to its age and you do feel slightly dizzy stepping off of it but that's to be expected really after what it puts you through.

So all in all I would recommend Air the most of the three, followed my Nemesis. Just going on these rides has reignited my interest in extreme roller coasters and may now make it my mission to try and go on some of those world record holders.

13 Sep 2011

Week in Review

2011-09-14T18:30:00.002+01:00

Aaaaaargh!!!

A noise signalling annoyance and frustration at my inability to keep to my schedule and maintain a harshly disciplined writing regime.

It’s often been the case where on certain days “I just don't feel like it”, “can’t be bothered” and more frequently, “Its okay, I’ll just do two tomorrow instead to make up for it” crop up all too often. Curse you blog!!!

Some people can just sit and write, more often than not its just inane blathering crap that's just not interesting to anyone whatsoever except the writer themselves. I know I need to stick to the principle of “just write” but at the same time I have the urge to temper this with a compromise to ensure some semblance of quality in the resulting text.

My compromise is that I can read over what I have done once and once only before posting it up, leading to a relatively untouched piece being presented, albeit without stupid spelling mistakes, (relatively) good grammar and the actual content being at least half interesting to read.

Even though this post itself is just me just spouting blathering crap in an attempt to make up at least 300 words… oh well!

To be fair I have been coming out of ‘holiday time’ recently and more into ‘work time’ and a lack of a regular schedule does hinder me. Some people might recommend a set time slot each day in which to write but I’m afraid that just doesn't work for me (unless I am paid for doing it – that's another matter entirely!). As well as the aforementioned irregular work schedule, the idea of having a specific hour in which you are forced to write just doesn't work for me.

The idea of having to slog out some writing when you really don't want to and your heart is not in it is really counterproductive to where I want to end up – that is to genuinely enjoy the daily writing process.

I also want to get back into more fiction again – even though there is a time and place for that and which will not be uploaded to this blog – just to let you know.

Anyways, time to regroup, refocus and come back out, guns blazing.

“You can do it, Nicky! You can dooooooooo iiiiiiiiit!!!!!”…

13 Sep 2011

Hamad From Space

2011-09-14T18:18:00.005+01:00

If you were a billionaire what would you spend your money on? What extravagances would tickle your fancy?

Sheikh Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Nahyan has decided to write his name in the sand on an island he owns in the Persian Gulf – so large that it can be seen from space. Yep, you read that right FROM SPACE.

If you don't believe these pictures included here you can even look it up for yourself by typing in “Al Futaysi, Abu Dhabi” in googlemaps!

Spelling out his first name “HAMAD”, these letters stand half a mile tall and two miles long and instead of just being written in the sand like any other doodle on the beach, these letters are dug out to form waterways that absorb the encroaching tide, with the waters flowing in up to the ‘M’.

How much do you think it cost? No one really knows, as it has never been officially stated – although being one of the richest men in the world I am sure he’s no that bothered. It remains to be seen if he will follow through with the rest of his name in full although that may be slightly overkill.

Did Hamad just want his legacy to live on forever by etching out his name on our planet’s surface? Did he want aliens to know his name? Whilst his motivations are not that clear, it has been revealed that he has a penchant for big things – one report stating that he had a custom truck built – the world’s largest, so big that it had four bedrooms inside the cabin. And I somehow can’t imagine them to be small bedrooms either.

Other reported extravagances include the ownership of around 200 cars, including seven Mercedes 500 SELs painted in the different colours of the rainbow, apparently stored within a giant pyramid.

Despite these ridiculous spendings, he is also said to be a well-known philanthropist in medicine and continues to donate funds to that cause, so I guess that kind of balances out his lavish splashing of cash.

What do you think?

If you were in his shoes would you do the same? I probably would have leant towards a more universal (rather than personal) sign. A smiley face perhaps? Nah, that's already been done on Mars. A universal sign of silliness it is then – a cartoon penis two miles long? Done!

6 Sep 2011

Film Roundup - August

2011-09-01T22:50:00.004+01:00

Welcome to the August edition of film roundup!

I’ll try and link each film title to a trailer on youtube that you can peruse if interested in said flick. Because you are lazy and I am kind like that.

First up we have Nicholas Cage’s bad hair appearing yet again in Season of the Witch. While looking adequate (the production design, not Cage’s hair – still dodgy) this supernatural medieval romp remains fairly lacklustre up to its disappointing conclusion.

The blaxploitation parody of Black Dynamite is a good idea in theory but is ultimately a one-note joke – something that should have been a five minute sketch instead of being drawn out for an hour and a half.

Similarly, A Town Called Panic is commendable for its charming rough animation style but there’s only so much shouting and squawking in French one can take before it starts to severely grate.

Also on the animation tip is Gnomeo and Juliet, which despite having the most amazing british enemble cast this side of a Harry Potter film, just ends up being a bit yawnsome and by the numbers. Unfortunately, the star-crossed lovers don't both commit suicide in the end – oops, did I spoil it for you?

Another CGI film out recently is Rango – and whilst the characters and setting are inspired (Johnny Depp as a gangly chameleon with the gift of gab in a western), you cant help but feel this movie was destined to flop as it was marketed to children but is presents itself as more adult-oriented in its occasionaly dark themes, jokes and weirdly grotesque characters.

Next up we have Richard Ayoade’s directorial debut Submarine. Whilst being a sharply observed and lightly humorous coming of age drama, the unlikeability of some of the characters somewhat undermines the audience’s ability to really care about the outcome. Those looking for appearances of underwater vehicles will be sorely disappointed but this film is worth watching just for Paddy Considine’s character and his extraordinary mullet which should receive a screen credit in its own right.

Taking it back to the old school, 1980 to be exact - where we have Bob Hoskins being gangster – literally! He plays a likeable mob boss in The Long Good Friday, which although seems a bit dated now, is still a thoroughly engaging and recommended watch. Hoskins, Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan – they all look so young! The music is pretty good too.

Moving into horror now, British flick Wake Wood is an interesting story of pagan rituals to bring back the recently deceased. Despite its great cast you can’t help but feel that this was destined more for TV than as a feature film.

The Wolfman, the remake of the classic Universal monster icon is kind of the opposite. Despite the odd casting choice of Benicio Del Toro, I liked the gothic atmosphere and Stan Winston’s werewolf effects are great. Anthony Hopkins is solid as always (when isn’t he?) – just make sure you see the Director’s Cut if you can as its reportedly far superior to the regular ‘theatrical cut’.

Finally, we have the monumental disappointment that is Cowboys and Aliens. I really wanted to like this film, I really did. Although the right ingredients were there, the film just didn't gel together as a whole and by the end of it I found myself not caring. The story holds no surprises, the alien design is uninspired and Harrison Ford (grumbling his way through the entire film) and Olivia Wilde are both sadly wasted.

Daniel Craig does get a plum role as a badass amnesiac cowboy but its not enough to lift the film beyond being a thoroughly mediocre affair.

That’s it for this month’s film roundup. Until next time!

1 Sep 2011

From the Military Perspective - Battle: Los Angeles

2011-09-01T22:44:00.002+01:00

Recently, I was pleasantly surprised at Battle: Los Angeles – a film about an alien invasion, presented very differently from the norm and to great effect.

Hang on… alien invasion? Hasn't this been done to death already? Well, the answer is both yes and no.

You see, this film differs itself by presenting its story entirely from a military perspective.

The majority of ‘invasion’ films do indeed feature the military, but as well as being portrayed as hopelessly inept and/or serve as antagonistic to the main characters, they are often sidelined to focus on the story of ordinary civilians caught up in these extraordinary circumstances.

In Battle: Los Angeles however, the story follows a platoon led by Marine Staff Sergeant Nantz (played by Aaron Eckhart) and their mission to journey into the invaded area of Los Angeles to rescue civilians shortly following the initial attack.

Whilst most films of this ilk require a huge suspension of disbelief by their very nature, Battle is portrayed more realistically in that it shows the military react to the immediate situation and deal with events as they unfold using the protocol, tactics and weaponry that they would in any modern day hostile enemy situation.

In fact, I would go as far as to call this a war movie that happens to have aliens in it rather than as science fiction. Think of it more like Black Hawk Down rather than Independence Day.

Rather than being faceless goons, the soldiers are portrayed as very human characters and despite all the fear and confusion abound in this crazy situation they carry on regardless as this is what they do.

I mean, lets face it - if an invasion were to take place it is these soldiers that would be on the front line to deal with it – not civilians.

Another thing I liked about the film was that it wasn't overreaching in its outcome. There is no final minute deus ex machina that causes the entire alien force to be toppled, no one quick resolution that repels all the alien invaders.

Despite suffering heavy casualties, the platoon manages to complete their mission as well as discover how to gain the upper hand in a once outgunned conflict. They might have won the battle, but the war is ongoing, albeit filled with a new hope that they may now emerge victorious.

Of course the film is not perfect, there are some cheesy moments and it's a shame to see Michelle Rodriguez continually being typecast, but all in all Battle is a refreshing take on the genre.

The best scene of the film doesn't even feature any aliens, just Aaron Eckhart painfully recounting in perfect detail all the names and ID numbers of the men who were killed in his last mission after a soldier in his command questions his regret over those who died.

Battle: Los Angeles is by no means an amazing film, but definitely an interestingly different take on the tired ‘alien invasion’ blockbuster - and the special effects are pretty good too.

So check it out if you are interested.

Oo-rah!

31 Aug 2011

Week in Review

2011-09-01T22:36:00.003+01:00

Another Week in Review article!

Although really that's a bald faced lie as it has been a month since I wrote the last one and there are about eleven articles to look over rather than simply a weeks worth.

Anyhoo – this is for introspective and critical purposes and to see if I am going in the right direction just so I can maintain my focus and improve and not just keep chugging on and never looking back once I’ve banged out an article in my typical ham-fisted fashion.

So on one hand, I do need this review to make sure I’m not just writing, uploading to the blog and then never looking back - but to critique, look at ways I can improve and progress.

On the other hand, I shouldn't dwell too much on trying to get things perfect (often a fault in my writing at the expense of actually getting anything done) as at the end of the day this blog is just supposed to be for practice and habit forming.

So a quick look back and review to take stock of where I am and then move on to bigger and better things – the best approach for this methinks.

General notes – as mentioned previously, I have kept away from personal details of my life and the majority of articles seem to be about films, music, gaming and the odd internet found oddity here and there – so far so good.

I generally try not to ‘review’ films and music etc… as there are a million places on t’internet to search for such things, but instead I tend to write only about aspects I find interesting – like an Oompah Loompah that has fallen into the chocolate river: keeping things short and sweet.

Well, I’ve almost filled my word quota and haven’t even got to the main point of the Week in Review yet! So…

Reading back on some previous articles have made me cringe but like I said, learn and improve!

Logistics wise, I’ve been pretty slack on doing one article every day, but sometimes I can do two or three a day no problem, depending on how busy I am. I guess it all comes down to balance and as long as I end up with around five articles a week (roughly one for every weekday) that should be a pretty steady work rate. It’s all about the discipline – my main problem when it comes to writing.

As for the pictures, I now upload straight to the blog as clicking on the picture wont take you to my photobucket account and you can actually look at the original size of the pic by doing so.
I have thought about multiple pics for certain posts but have ultimately decided against it for two reasons.

Firstly, I feel that just having one picture at the top of each article is more iconic (unless its an article like this and I end up just grabbing random shiz off of google) and also reduces clutter so the text is in a single body.

Secondly, I want to focus on the writing and be able to illustrate the majority of my points through that rather than relying too much on visual aids. At the end of the day, this is not a multimedia exercise as such but a writing one and so I want to stay true to that.

Finally, what can you expect in the future? More articles on film are in the pipeline (my favs, classics scenes) as well as more internet oddities for you to peruse.

So stay tuned dear reader! Until next time!

31 Aug 2011

Banksy - Pulling the Wool Over Your Eyes

2011-08-25T00:44:00.003+01:00

Banksy it seems, will always remain an enigma. No one knows his identity, and yet he is one of the most recognised artists in modern Britain, largely through his achievement of taking the reviled art of ‘graffiti’ and making it the now publically acceptable ‘street art’.

What’s the difference? Where do we draw the line?

In the film Exit Through the Gift Shop ‘directed’ by Banksy, what starts out as a film you expect to be about Banksy himself, turns out to be about another artist ‘Mr. Brainwash’ or (‘MBW’ for short) who attempts to follow in his footsteps and become a street artist himself.

Now we all know about Banksy’s pieces provoking thought and turning conceptions on its head - so what about this film? As well as the initial ‘trick’ of having the film be about another artist, the film throws up questions about the nature of ‘art’, the fashions it goes through, herd mentatility and how someone can (as MBW does in the film) go straight into the business end of it - seeing it more as a means to an end rather than the process?

Is the film itself a Banksy ‘piece’? Is MBW even real?

The flipside to Banksy’s shenanigans is presented in the Channel 4 documentary Graffiti Wars in which underground graffiti legend King Robbo talks about his long standing feud with Banksy after the alleged desecration of a 25 year old King Robbo piece – a severe faux pas in the writing scene.

Robbo laments how Banksy’s ideas are stolen from other artists, how his stencils are a too easy a method delivery and how his ‘street art’ is now recognised as 'legitimate' and protected in London whilst all other graffiti is painted over and erased.

This further fuels the debate of what is classed as art and what is not. What makes the leaders of the graffiti scene wallow in obscurity whilst Bansky has become a household name?

This kind of discussion would be better suited elsewhere so we wont be delving into it here, but it seems generally that people cannot agree on an objective answer.

And why should they? After all, it's subjective; some people just seem to feel the answer after looking at a piece as it creates a gut emotion within them.

Perhaps this is why Banksy can so easily continue to pull the wool over our eyes.

23 Aug 2011

Capturing the Emotion - Rise of the Planet of the Apes

2011-08-25T00:37:00.002+01:00

(Spoiler Warning! If you don't want to know what happens, stop reading now!)

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is an awesome movie.

Sure, the technology for this kind of thing has been around for a few years now, but what elevates this beyond other CG heavy flicks is that the special effects are integrated so well on an emotional level.

Of course, watching the revolution of an army of ‘clever’ apes on the screen is great fun, but for me, the crux of the film hinges on the central character Caesar’s emotional state to explain why he acts the way he does and the path that ultimately leads to the apes taking over.

And he does this. Just through his physical acting and facial expressions.

Andy Serkis needs an oscar for this.

For those of you who don't know, Rise was filmed in a similar way to Avatar or the Uncharted games, where actors are mo-capped and facial performances recorded at the same time. So everything you see of Caesar in the film (bar the ridiculous ape stunts of course) is Andy Serkis’ performance – and in my opinion, this blows Gollum out the water.

As well as Lord of the Rings, Serkis played the title role in King Kong and Monkey in the game Enslaved (which you can read about here) which pretty much makes him the go-to guy when you want an ape in your film.

In fact, if you think about it, Rise couldn't be made (well) any other way. Humans acting as apes in prosthetics would be stiff and too rubbery (remember those unmoving lips from the original Planet of the Apes films?), real monkeys would be a nightmare to wrangle not to mention their inability to accurately act the emotions (which as previously mentioned makes this film so great).

The only other option is animated CG – but that alone wouldn't be enough, you need the human in there – the human side of Caesar as he grows in intelligence. The human side so we can relate to his emotional state and be with him on the journey he takes throughout he film.

Which makes the ‘No!!!!’ moment more shocking than ever – the entire audience literally gasped at the cinema where I saw it.

Other things I like about the film include sly nods to the other Apes films, such as news of a rocket going missing in space, the Orangutan character (Dr.Zaius, Dr. Zaius!), Caeser riding a horse, as well as that iconic ‘damn dirty ape!’ line popping up.

So although the action and the spectacle is enjoyable to watch (the police attempt to hold off the advancing apes on the Golden Gate bridge – duh, its only the world’s biggest climbing frame, what did they think was going to happen?), the emotional core and how it was brilliantly realised through motion capture proves to be the most arresting element of this film and allows it to rise above all others to be the best film of the summer.

23 Aug 2011

Introducing... Debian Blak

2011-08-20T00:01:00.003+01:00

When I first listened to Debian Blak's music, it sounded like much of the dubby electronica that I used to listen to back in the day, but the more I listened and the more it started to seep into my subconscious, the more it became apparent to me: the production quality of Debian’s music is sublime.

For one, the sounds are layered so intricately, utilising synths as well as instruments and vocals - all combined together in an irresistible concoction that is presented in an understated way that belies its complex arrangement.

Most electronic/dance music is blighted by its repetitious nature and yet the way Debian layers his sounds and tweaks his samples or messes around with the percussion and vocals using glitching and scratching always keeps things fresh, making it more akin to painting on a canvas – you can hear the elements being introduced in each track gradually, and then you get to witness them blend together, creating a different picture entirely, often in the most unexpected ways.

Perhaps this understated build-up of each track giving way to its devilishly complex arrangement partly accounts for the album’s title A Hint of Menace.

Take, for example, the track Tantalise. Although it starts off with crisp dry beats, by the end of it you feel like you are standing drenched in a warm rainforest.

Anna Stott provides breathy guest vocals on Take Me On evoking a balearic ambience, whilst TISW (Today I Should Win) haunts with piano chords tinged with the slightest shades of sadness.

Every one of the six tracks on the album offers a different listening experience whilst still maintaining a definite Debian Blak stamp of identity - something that is no mean feat in this day and age of copycat cut and paste dance music.

So even if you don't really listen to this kind of music I urge you to go here to listen to or download Debian Blak’s new album for free - something chilled for you to listen to in the cool evenings of these dying embers of summer.

You can listen to any of the tracks and/or download them here. If you like it, spread the word and let your friends know – as I’m sure the uniquely talented Debian Blak is sure to blow up in the near future.

Besides, its free music… and you cant argue with that!

19 Aug 2011

Longplay

2011-08-18T13:17:00.004+01:00

Nostalgic for the games of yesteryear?

But cant be bothered to dig up that dusty old console, faff around with emulators or just don't have the time and patience to play these old games?

Then there is the perfect solution for you… Longplay!

Youtube is gradually turning into an archive for anything and everything recordable, from music tracks, movie scenes and trailers to famous news footage… the list goes on.

And now there is Longplay – recordings of old games played through from start to finish for the enjoyment of the viewer. Differing from speedruns (where the player attempts to finish the game as fast as possible), Longplay simply plays through these games fairly normally, making it more relatable for anyone who grew up playing said game.

And what a nostalgic trip that can be for some gamers – for me its mainly the SNES era, but there is plenty of old stuff too such as Amiga and arcade game emulations for the older folk.

There is a huge collection here and nearly all video have the original music and sound effects as well as intros and ending – very thorough indeed!

Speaking of music, you also sometimes come across gems like this that you never knew existed (seriously, what rockin’ music!) just by checking out random games.

Due to certain account privileges, this channel can also host more recent and longer games –some videos being many hours long. That's right, hours!

Want to watch a playthrough of Final Fantasy VIII in its entirety? No problem! It’s insane!

Shorter games are not a problem but who has that much time just to sit and watch an RPG from beginning to end? I guess at the end of the day they are just there for reference/posterity’s sake.

For many, I guess it fulfils the need for someone to reminisce of the experience of playing a certain game from their past again without needing the commitment of time and effort to dig them up and play through again.

Alternatively you can go through a game you've never been able to finish before and get to see the final boss beaten and the ending or see what happens in a game that you always wished you played back in the day but never got round to.

Ah nostalgia!

Followed by….

Ooooooaahhhhh… SAVAGE!!

17 Aug 2011

Folding T-shirts The Japanese Way

2011-08-18T13:10:00.003+01:00

There’s another way to fold t-shirts?!!

Yes folks there is, although apparently the most efficient way to pack is to roll everything up – but that's another story entirely.

Although this method of folding can be a little confusing at first, it is quick and efficient once mastered so let me outline it here for you.

This was first shown to me by my good friend Tom, but apparently this is how it’s done in Japan. Anyway, onto the instructions:

1. Lay the t-shirt down flat, with the front side up and turn it so that you are looking at it from the side.

2. Imagine a vertical line that cuts the t-shirt across the middle. You want to use the thumb and forefinger of your right hand to grab the t-shirt about three quarters of the way up this line. Lets call this point A.

3. Now with the thumb and forefinger of your left hand, you want to grab a spot parallel to point A at the top end of the t-shirt (so it should be near the collar area but slightly further up). Lets call this point B.

With us so far? Now comes the tricky part…

4. Point B passes over where you are holding point A, all the way over to the bottom end of the t-shirt. We will call this point C. (Note: all three points should be in a straight line).

5. Hold points B and C together and then pull point A through and out from the middle towards you. If done correctly (and with the use of gravity as you hold it out in front of you) the t-shirt should start to resemble a rectangular shape.

6. Lay the shirt down and fold it once in half towards you and you should end up with a perfectly folded t-shirt.

Confused? Well, screw it – just watch this video instead!

As anyone who knows me well can attest, I own a ridiculous and wholly impractical number of t-shirts. I do like to keep them neatly folded so this method has proved very useful to me.

Now, unless you haven’t already been fumbling along in an attempt to follow my inept instructions, go try it out now!

17 Aug 2011

Enslaved - The Epilogue

2011-08-18T12:49:00.005+01:00

Before we start… SPOILER WARNING!

If you don't want to know what happens at the end of the PS3/Xbox360 game Enslaved: Odyssey to the West stop reading here.

If you don't plan on playing the game or have already finished it – read on!

So a brief outline of the game – set in a ravaged post apocalyptic world, the story is very loosely based on the Chinese folk tale Journey to the West.

So you have characters such as Tripitaka, Monkey and Pigsy represented in a reinterpreted human form (no Sandy unfortunately though) as they escape slave traders, battle vicious mechs and make their way across the wasteland. So far, pretty standard.

Now the Epilogue scene at the end of the game is where it gets interesting.

Having chased down ‘the slavers’ to their base Pyramid, Monkey and Trip are confronted with the truth – Pyramid is actually rescuing humans from the wasteland and plugging them into an artificial reality where they can live out their days as they did pre-apocalypse. The model for this reality is based on one man’s life experiences and memories (glimpsed as obscure flashbacks throughout Monkey’s journey) embodied here by Andy Serkis.

Although Serkis also plays the character of Monkey brilliantly, it is this performance of his as ‘Pyramid’ that surprised me. Although some have called out the live action footage as being jarring when mixed in with the in-game graphics, I think it works here as to me it represents the ideal, the perfection of memories of the past and how it compares now to the desolate future.

Furthermore, you can really feel the sadness in his voice, not just in terms of an artificial intelligence trying to preserve itself but with a real fondness for humanity that has been lost during the war and the humanity that will be lost if Monkey and Trip decide to destroy Pyramid as they had come here originally intending to do.

It all really boils down to the philosophical argument of whether you would prefer to live out a life of pain and suffering in a ‘true’ existence or be in a false reality where everything was perfectly preserved the way it used to be, an idea which has been explored repeatedly from Descartes to The Matrix.

This opens up more philosophical questions such as the nature of ‘truth’, whether or not Pyramid can be justified in acting for the greater good and with whom the choice ultimately lies.

Although this ‘Epilogue’ scene of Enslaved was a shock ending to the game for some, I consider it to be a bold move on behalf of the game developers. Brilliantly realised by Tameem Antoniades and writer Alex Garland, this downbeat ending leaves things open and makes you think – did they make the right choice? What is going to happen to all those slaves once they are freed? What is to become of Monkey and Trip?

Although well received critically, the game’s underwhelming sales means that a sequel is now unlikely. Besides, Ninja Theory, the Cambridge-based developer is now currently hard at work on developing the reboot of the Devil May Cry franchise.

You can watch the whole ‘Epilogue’ scene below.

17 Aug 2011

Film Roundup - July

2011-08-18T12:41:00.005+01:00

Film Roundup time!

So we start this edition of the roundup with Insidious, a horror film from the creators of the original Saw, James Wan and Leigh Whannell. Whilst it does start in sufficiently creepy form with sudden loud scares and a few ‘did you see that?’ moments during the quiet build-up, the last half an hour or so seems fudged due to budget constraints and tying up loose ends. Still, if you like the haunted house movie genre then this is a worthwhile watch.

Zach Snyder’s Sucker Punch, with its over the top action scenes and sumptuous visuals – truly breathtaking on the big screen, but the effect is diminished somewhat on home viewing. Although I do like this film (the design and production is fantastic) the story holds up less well on repeat viewing- and the dramatic scenes seem to be put there to bolster the action sequences instead of the other way around as it should be.
Still, you can’t complain when the girls kick so much ass – even if it is all just make believe. Oh and not so much slow-mo next time, Zach!

What is it with Nicholas Cage’s bad hair in movies? Drive Angry is another such example – a film despite a nod to its grindhouse influences fails to fully satisfy. It does have two things going for it however, the insane hotness of Amber Heard and the ever-watchable William Fichtner clearly having more fun than anyone else in this movie.

Other quick stuff – Jason Statham returns in another generic contract killer flick The Mechanic, Colin Firth does a sweary Hugh Grant impression in The King’s Speech, Seth Rogen is a dick that you actually find funny simply for being a dick in The Green Hornet, the enticing combo of Andy Serkis and Simon Pegg unfortunately fall short of the mark in the disappointing Burke and Hare; and finally, Disney’s Tangled impresses in its entirety, with great CG animation whilst retaining its old school Disney charm.

That's it for this roundup – some films I have left out due to me wanting to write separate articles on them. Watch this space!

11 Aug 2011

Film Roundup - An Introduction

2011-08-18T12:33:00.002+01:00

So a quick introduction to this section – which would be better to get it out of the way if I decide to make it a regular article.

This isn’t meant to be blanket coverage of recent films that have come out - or necessarily to review films (read Empire magazine for that or visit their website). Rather simply it is just to inform you of what I’ve been watching recently and a quick description of what the film entails. I may even give a recommendation at the end of the article of one film that you should watch out of all the films discussed – even though I hate telling people what they should and shouldn't watch. After all, everyone has different tastes.

Before we start, I would quickly like to mention that the films I mention are by no means exhaustive of what I have watched recently (I will be selective in what I write about) as otherwise I will literally be writing forever.

Also, I wont go too in-depth with each film – if I want to discuss it in more detail I will do so in its own article (for example with Limitless).

Finally, I am averse to ‘hating’ on things and so will not be unduly cussing things out – so if that's what you came here for, you are shit out of luck. It’s all love, baby!

I wont go too much into describing the synopsis of each film (unless the film itself is quite obscure) – but instead just a brief comment on each. You can click the title of each film to link to it on IMDB for more info or to watch trailers etc…

I may also link certain clips from youtube if there is something particularly of interest.

I will also endeavour to not include spoilers, however if I feel there may be one involved it will be clearly marked.

Anyway, on with the roundup – starting in the next post!

11 Aug 2011

Why I Love Films (the short version)

2011-08-18T12:23:00.004+01:00

As you can probably guess, I watch a lot of films. And I mean A LOT.
Shockingly so.

I love stories. We all do. We as intelligent humans tell them to each other all the time every day, often without even being aware of it. They come in many shapes and forms, as an anecdote, a piece of advice offered, a journal entry, song lyrics, an excuse – stories are all around us – we ARE stories in ourselves.

But anyway, lets keep this light-hearted as I can ramble on way too long about such topics and the aim in this blog is to keep things short and deliciously sweet.

The reason I love films is, firstly, they have the ability to draw on huge canvases with world-class talent in every aspect involved (direction, acting, writing, cinematography, music) etc… in order to tell their story. Now obviously we are talking in generalities here as not all films are well-made, cohesive and polished products but the point I am getting at is that they have the potential.

This is because there is so much money involved in the movie business these days that the boundaries are constantly being pushed, both technically and artistically. Sure, people can argue at the sheer amount of dross being produced out there, but that's because more films are being made in general and for a wider audience. It's the law of averages.

The second main reason why I love films is to do with their length. Generally ranging from 90mins to 150mins, for me that gives adequate time to be long enough to tell a satisfying story and yet not too long so that you start to lose focus and interest. Long enough to get emotionally invested in the characters but not short enough so you don't feel like you are wasting your time in what is essentially a passive pastime.

I could spend more time comparing the merits of the film format against that of TV or books but really that would be starting to go off topic. Really, this was meant to be an introduction to my film roundup that is coming up to the next article.

So yeah – that was (very briefly) why I love films.

11 Aug 2011

Deadliest Warrior Update

2011-08-18T12:06:00.004+01:00

An update on Deadliest Warrior then… didn't think I would be doing that so soon.

So I haven’t been watching it for a while, but recently I’ve started to watch a few episodes again to catch up. Some things have changed, others haven’t. But at the end of the day Deadliest Warrior is still one of the most ridiculous yet entertaining shows out there.

So yeah, pig carcasses are still getting hacked and gel torsos bludgeoned, but in two recent episodes I’ve seen, more modern killers have been pitted against each other – namely in ‘Mafia vs Yakuza’ and ‘Green Beret vs Spetznaz’ – which means the introduction of… guns!

So that switches up the game a bit in itself and seeing the killing power of guns used out there in the world today makes you feel slightly uneasy in a way that watching someone lob a ninja star does not.

Other things that have changed: the computer nerd Max Geiger is starting to come out of his shell a bit since the series started. He is getting a bit more input in contributing his advice and opinions as well as continually cheering and whooping like an adolescent boy when a bomb goes off. Actually, no wait - they all do that.

The fight reconstructions at the end are also getting more elaborate. Now whilst they still have to make sure they cycle through all of their weapons at some point in the fight, now they seem to include more story and setting; for example a Pirate finds a treasure chest of gold and has to protect it from a Knight; or they have scenarios of five-on-five squad brawls (in the episodes where lots of guns are used).

The macho boisterous smack talk continues – although I suspect the producers actively encourage it and edit the show to make it look more scathing. I wonder if a fight has ever broken out on set?

And now it seems all the more personal, as we get actual Mafia and Yakuza descendents and former Green Beret and Spetznaz special forces guys represent their respective sides – so I presume the smack talk for them would be much more personal.

As for the guessing game of who is going to win as each episode goes on? I’ve been mostly right so far but sometime I wonder if American’s bias comes through sometimes.

I’m only half way through the first season and there are three! It’s interesting enough but can I really sit through it all? Find out next time on… The Deadliest Warrior!

7 Aug 2011

Uncharted - Superior Shooting Mechanics

2011-08-18T11:51:00.005+01:00

So I just finished playing Uncharted 2. Before that I also did the first Uncharted. Twice.

The reason being that I was collecting all the trophies and finishing the game on ‘hard’. Anyway, after that you still need one more trophy to get the Platinum – in order to do that you need to finish each game on ‘crushing’ difficulty. As in ‘it will result in your crushing defeat’ or ‘so difficult it will crush your soul’.

Sod that. For now.

You see I do want the Plat, but it was pretty stressful at points playing through the game again on ‘hard’ so I’m not going to attempt it anytime soon. What I did want to talk about was the gunplay mechanics in the game.

The shooting mechanics in the game is comprised of a solid cover-based affair, something that becomes more apparent on the ‘hard setting’. Basically, if you are caught out in the open you will get shot up.

So you have constant duck in and out of cover, taking mercenaries out with you little pop shots, but also utilising blind fire, run-and-gun and shooting/grabbing people whilst you are handing off of a ledge – all pretty useful in different situations.

You see, all gun battle in this game have to be thought out tactically. Rush in and you’ll get gunned down by enemies that have flanked you. Stay stuck in one place and they’ll throw a grenade over to where you are hiding.

It’s quite easy to beat regular enemies with up-close hand to hand combat but if you engage an enemy whilst any one else with a gun is around? Chances are you wont make it.

You also have to take into account which particular long range and short range weapon you use, as you can only carry one of each (rather realistically) as well as saving stronger guns to take out guys with body armour or riot shields.

Oh, and don't forget to pick up the best weapons and stock up on ammo when you clear out the area. You’ll need as much help as you can get going into the next intense scenario.

So yeah, I like the shooting mechanics – its fun. Things never play out exactly the same way twice. And boy did I die a lot in that game. So yeah, I wont be playing through those two games any time soon. Well, until the third comes out. Then I might just try and go for those two Plats again.

1 Aug 2011

The Week in Review

2011-08-18T11:40:00.003+01:00

So this is supposed to be a recap of the weeks post – mainly to explain, discuss and perhaps elaborate a bit on what has passed.I think writing something absolutely everyday kind of sucks in its rigidity so I’ve decided the best thing to do would be to do five articles – one per weekday – and then use the weekend for the overview (like the one you are reading now) and for uploading them (if I don't do it on that specific day).

As you may have noticed- two things. Firstly, it has taken longer than a week for the last seven posts. So yeah, I was playing catch up for a while. But I think this new ‘five articles a week’ idea is a bit more flexible – not going to be too strict with it – as long as there are at least five things to upload per week that should be ok (not counting the roundup).

Secondly, the date of the post and the date written in the post (at the end of the article) differ. That's because I uploaded all the new articles at once this evening. So yeah, as long as the dates that the articles were written correspond to the five-a-week that should be ok.

That's also indicative of my blogging style. I don't like the straight ‘to blog’ writing at present, I actually prefer writing things out in Word first. But at the same time I don't like to spend too much time editing and re-writing these articles so that will be kept as a minimum.

Links to videos, pics and websites are fine too – at the moment for pics I am using photobucket but I noticed that there is an add picture option to upload images to the blogger directly. Maybe I can investigate that as having to deal with a photobucket account is an extra chore.

As for style and content, there has been only a little variation so far – most noticeably in the Guardian Scheme article, but I’m still finding my feet and once the logistics of regular blogging are all sorted I can start to get a bit fruitier with different styles.

I’ve also gotta come up with a labeling system for my articles. Another thing for the to do list!

So until next time dear reader!

1 Aug 2011

The Overkill of 2012

2011-08-02T22:28:00.002+01:00

So I recently watched the film 2012 directed by Roland Emmerich.

Known for his other flicks that incorporate greater and more ridiculous scenes of disaster (from Independence Day through to Godzilla and The Day After Tomorrow) this one is certainly up there on the biggest scale. The technical achievement here of both practical effects and CG is truly astounding and has to be mentioned for its achievement.

The amount of time and effort put into the thousands of special effects shots is certainly impressive, but is there such a thing as too much destruction?

Thrilling at first, then overly familiar and then to the point of ad nauseum, destruction goes on and on and on… Toward the end my eyes started to glaze over. My brain seemed confused – on one hand the sheer spectacle leaping around before my eyes was telling me I should be thrilled and excited but the fact that there was just so much of it throughout the film started to render it all a bit impotent.

Sometimes I even felt a bit guilty as I thought of the hours of work that hundreds of people had put in only for me to simply go ‘meh’. Another building topples over – so what?

The other thing that seems counter intuitive is the way in which the main characters always only JUST escape whatever threat is closing in on them. For example, they JUST manage to drive under a falling building or they JUST manage to take off with their plane as the runway collapses. Sure, this makes for exciting cinema but the sheer repetition of this gambit ultimately renders it useless as you know that in any threatening situation the main characters are faced with they are going to - yep you guessed it – only JUST escape it by an inch… AGAIN.

So is there such a thing as too much destruction in a movie? Yeah, sure. And to be honest the only reason I wanted to watch this movie was to see the scene mocked by Dara O’Briain (you can watch it here).

Which, after all, doesn't even happen in exactly the way he describes it. Bloody comedians…
Roland Emmerich himself has stated that he is officially disastered-out after this film and doesn't want to do anything more like this. After watching this film, you will probably feel the same.

1 Aug 2011

The Electro Fighter Mixtapes

2011-08-02T22:11:00.003+01:00

In this article, I want to talk briefly about each of the mixtapes I have made so far. The software I used is called Sound Studio and it is only available for Mac, although it is just a fairly simple sound editor so I am pretty sure there are similar things out there for PC users.

I have made other mixtapes and short mixes for use in dance shows previously with this software and so I was pretty used to editing with it but the beat matching and then cross fading and cutting and equalising were further challenges I had to meet.

Anyway, here’s is a short description of each mix to date.

Electro Mix 1 – Dec 2010

As you can see by the imaginative title, at the time I didn't really know how far I could go with this – if anything it was just a test to see if I could actually make a DJed mix using this editing software.

Similarly, the track selection was a little more random and unfocused than later mixes as at the time I only had a very limited number of tracks to choose from. Two tracks from Daft Punk’s TRON soundtrack featured as bookends as well as multiple tracks by Chromeo and Tigersapien. In later mixes I have tried to be more diverse and not repeat artists.

As far as mixing goes it wasn't too bad but as of yet I haven’t uploaded this one to Mixcloud.

Super Electro Fighter II Turbo – Mar 2011

With my second mix, Electro Fighter was born! Combining my love of TRON and Street Fighter, I wanted the cover art to be somehow a crossover of the two – something which became a running theme for the cover of other mixes.

I also had a collection of Street Fighter samples from a previous audio project – some of which I started to use in this mix.

Again, I used a TRON track as an intro. I wanted to use Armoury from the album but then having re-watched the film I found that using a direct sample from the film with its vocals and sound effects was far more fitting.

I found this mix to be far more consistent in terms of mixing and track selection.
This was also the first mix I uploaded to Mixcloud. You can listen to it here.

Super Electro Fighter III Third Strike – May 2011

Continuing the theme here with more great tunes – focussing more this time on tracks with vocals. There was no TRON intro this time, but the influence clearly remains with a cheeky sample tucked away right at the end.

For some reason, during this mix I had some problems with the track formats I used to edit in (.m4a and .aiff) that either led to annoying clicks over the music or sudden dips in volume that occurred at random. Although I really like this mix in terms of song selection and mixing, the sheer amount of going back and fixing things and repeatedly testing different formats and ways of saving as a result of these problems was really frustrating.

We got there in the end though. The mix can be heard here.

Electro Fighter III vs Pop Remixes – The Fête of Two Worlds – June 2011

Whilst looking for tunes to use in various mixes, I came across loads of good remixes of well-known pop/rock songs and thought it would make an interesting mix.

The title comes from another similarly barmy crossover – the Marvel vs Capcom games – the series that originally started as Street Fighter vs X-Men.

Remixes range from tracks that were fairly similar to the original but with a dancey edge to ones that were totally different in their remixed form, which provides a nice variety I think. I even put two totally different remixes of the same track next to each other –Ellie Goulding’s Starry Eyed.

This mix was fun for me. Although it could be a little cheesy and tongue in cheek at times, I genuinely like the tracks used.

Perhaps this one will appeal more to those that aren’t that much into dance music – there are many surprises thrown in there to keep you listening.

This mix can be heard here.

Future mixtapes?

At the time of writing, I am planning two further mixes. Super Electro Fighter IV Tournament Edition – featuring all new tracks; and also another ‘concept’ mix – a mix entirely made up of alternate remixes of previously used tracks in the first three mixes.

The reason for the latter is that I often found myself having to choose between multiple remixes of a particular track, so this will be a chance to go back and use some of those. I also think it will make an interesting listen to those that are familiar with my previous mixes – one for the fans if you will.

I’m sure I’ll write and update when these mixes are ready.

27 July 2011

Making Mixtapes Again

2011-08-02T22:06:00.002+01:00

Of the many creative endeavours I occasionally partake in, one is making dance music mixtapes.

Years ago I used to DJ as a hobby – decks, vinyl the whole shebang. Back then not many people used CD mixers, mp3s didn't even exist and pretty much all beat matching and mixing was done by ear. I owned 2 sets of deck, mixers and stacks of vinyl but had to eventually give it up due to the sheer expensive of having to continually purchase new vinyl just to stay up to the minute.

The internet too was not too prolific then either, and so the only way I could hear new music was to stay up to record late night radio shows or listen to a selection of vinyl in a record shop. All in all, it proved too much of a drain in finances and when I ended up going abroad for my second year at uni, my career as a DJ was put on hold indefinitely.

As time went by I dabbled more widely in my musical tastes including hiphop, soul, electronica, rock and metal. I listened to pretty much everything – but the progressive house music that I mainly DJed gradually faded away for me.

In the past couple of years, however, with the growth of iTunes previews, youtube and sites such as Soundcloud, exploring different artists and their music has become easier than ever and most recently I’ve been getting back into Electro music. With that my desire to create mixtapes came back again.

As I also became more proficient in using certain sound editing software, I realised I could create mixes like I used to back then, but this time using mp3s and being more precise and creative with my mixing.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I have made four of these mixtapes since December 2010, three of which you can currently listen to now on Mixcloud.

At the risk of sounding like an old man… kids today really don't know how much the internet has changed our lives even in the past decade… grumble grumble…

26 July 2011

Deadliest Warrior

2011-08-02T21:54:00.002+01:00

Apart from the odd episode in passing, I’ve never really watched the American channel Spike TV’s show Deadliest Warrior, but having recently finished watching the first season of Game of Thrones, I was in search of something new to sate my bloodlust.

Now this programme is a good watch simply in terms of its sheer ridiculousness. For those of you who don't already know - the basic premise is this: each episode compares two types of warrior plucked from somewhere throughout history and pits them against each other in a hypothetical fight to the death.

Throughout the episode, the various weapons for each side are compared in categories such as long, medium and close range and then the effectiveness of killing and/or maiming of these is measured using “modern scientific techniques”, which more often than not is using the weapon on a dead animal carcass or a ‘gel torso’ standing in for a human body.

So far, so gory – most guys have some kind of morbid curiosity about what type of damage these things really could do. Where the show really becomes ridiculous though, is the sheer amount of bravura macho posturing that goes on during it.

You see, instead of particularly boffin-y scientists or fusty old historians approaching things from a calm and intellectual point of view, each warrior’s side is represented by a modern day fight expert (or at times an actual descendent) or two, who fiercely believe that their warrior is greater than the other and stubbornly do their best try and prove so.

Each episode therefore often descends into a dick-swinging slanging match of the juvenile ‘my sword is bigger than your sword’ type nonsense or, ‘see that? That's your guy’s head’, before smashing a skull with a hammer or something.

At the end of it, when all the data is collected on a laptop and plugged into a specially made computer program made by ‘Slytherin Studios’ (hellooooooo nerds!) the simulation is run to see which of the two competing warriors would win in a one-on-one fight repeated a thousand times.
We all know that staring at the resultant bunch of numbers would make for a dull finale and so instead, they show a reconstruction of such a fight for our viewing pleasure. For example, we see a Samurai strolling through the countryside when ‘bam!’ – he randomly runs into Viking.

Immediately they fight in the most dramatic and drawn out way possible making sure that they utilise the COMPLETE RANGE OF WEAPONS that were studied at during the show.

Laughable though this series is – it cant be denied that its fun to watch. I mean who wouldn't want to see ‘Spartan vs Ninja’, ‘Pirate vs Knight’ or more shockingly, ‘IRA vs Taliban’?
For further enjoyment, place bets at the beginning of the show to see if you can guess the outcome!

25 July 2011

Guardian Scheme

2011-08-02T21:47:00.003+01:00

Recently I was in London for the weekend with a few friends and we needed to be put up for the night. A friend of a friend said he had enough space at his and that we could crash there.

Apparently he had loads of room and so we hopped into the car and headed over to the postcode he had given.It was about 1.30am as we got out of the car we found ourselves outside a huge warehouse. A few minutes later Rich, who lived there, came trundling around the corner on his Boris Bike, flashing us a cheeky smile.

“Here it is”, he said gesturing to the building. “Give me a sec to get in and then I can let you in the back”.

Moments later we were in and wandering around. What hit me first was its school like structure with its numbered doors, labelled bathrooms and multiple staircases. His room was fairly spacious and having set our bags down there, Rich took us on a quick tour around.

And there it was – the space that took up the majority of the building – a massive empty hall stretching on and on – so big that our voices echoed.

“I can’t believe you actually live here.” Someone said to Rich, staring in wide-eyed wonder.
It turns out that his accommodation was organised under the Property Guardian Scheme that allowed people to live in buildings such as this for low rent in order to deter squatters and vandals and for basic maintenance of the property. This particular building used to be an archive of some sort but now, as all of the materials had been removed, a vast open space in the middle of the building was all that remained.

Most of the room was empty but here and there were various animal sculptures crafted out of various materials, which only added to the surreal feel of the whole place. They belonged to an artist that lived there - one of around 12 other tenants none of whom we saw for the entire time we were there.

We made our way past the felt elephants and fibreglass crocodiles to a lounge area – and sat down on sofas to relax in conversation for a bit and put on some music from a stack of old community records that were piled and shelved in one corner.

“Lets go up to the roof”, someone suggested.

“Sure”, said Rich and we followed him up a flight of stairs.

There, on the floor above, was another massive open hall exactly like the one on the floor below – causing us to wig out all over again. We found out that there was yet another similar room in the basement level. What was someone to do with all this space? Having lived in modest accommodation for most of my life this was very exciting for me.

At the top of the stairs we exited to an outer walkway and then came to a metal ladder affixed to the side of the building. Rich had gone back to get something and so my companions and myself proceeded to climb the ladder and went up on to the roof. The London night sky lay before us, clear and twinkling. It was exhilarating.

Somewhere in a different part of the roof a hatch opened and Rich climbed out and joined us. We sat at the edge of the building for a little while, not too close edge - as there was just a sheer drop and looking down would result in that funny feeling in the pit of your stomach.

Before settling down for the evening, we checked out the basement room and ended up turning the lights out and playing with a glow in-the-dark Frisbee. Come on, you know you would too.

24 July 2011

Limitless Techniques

2011-08-02T21:41:00.007+01:00

Neil Burger’s Limitless is an interestingly made film for me, particularly through the varieties of techniques it employs to convey information and ideas to the viewer.

Briefly, the story centres around this deadbeat guy who comes into possession of a miracle pill that lets him access the full capability of his brain and thus achieve things in life he never thought were possible.

During the film, the effect this pill has on Eddie (played by Bradley Cooper) can be easily shown in terms of the results it produces; for instance the money, women, popularity, career and general lifestyle successes he accrues.

However, what is harder to show on film is the way in which the pill works and the effects it has on his Eddie as it kicks in. How can you convey these abstract ideas in a way that makes sense to the viewer? One obvious way in which this issue was tackled was through the use of Eddie’s narration. At times, he directly describes what is going on, but beyond this lies the more interesting stuff.

For a start – cinematography and lighting: Eddie’s regular life is presented in drab and cold green, blues and greys, but when he takes a pill his world is literally illuminated – bright, sunny and clear: a better place to be.

When he first experiences the pill’s effects, he sees another image of himself walking where he was moments before, to imply a heightened sense of self awareness- manifested directly here as an out-of-body experience.

This is also shown through time slowing down, sounds being amplified and certain details in the environment being zoomed in on- none of which are presented as being literal but help to get across the idea of Eddie experiencing a heightened sense whilst on the drug.

More outlandish effects used in some scenes include: letters of the alphabet falling around him as he types away furiously on his novel, the ceiling tiles flicking through stock market information and the various fighting techniques he had seen on TV in the past flashing through his consciousness as he employs them almost instinctively for the first time during a brawl in the subway.

My personal favourite though, is the ‘zoom through multiple shots’ sequence that is used twice in the movie, most noticeably during the opening credits. The camera zooms through shot after shot of bustling New York City giving the illusion of one long seamless take. With so many sounds, sights, lights, people – all with their own incredible minutiae of detail, seemingly going on forever. Drug or no drug - even in just one night and one city, the possibilities presented here are truly limitless.

21 July 2011

This... is... BLOG!

2011-08-02T21:20:00.005+01:00

This… is… BLOG!

Okay, now read that again, but this time imagine the person saying it is King Leonidas, AKA Gerald Butler, AKA Geraaaarrd Butler (if you are American), in the film 300 and he is just about to boot that guy down the well.

Okay, ready? Go!

This… is… BLOG!

Boom! ‘aaargh’ – slow motion falling… you know the rest.

Anyway, the point here is to illustrate my own personal war cry to… er… myself. You see, I’ve always wanted to write - but as with any skill you can never really grow and develop without practice.

So this is my practice - this blog. A place for my personal manifesto of writing 300 words a day to take shape in. Documented proof that it’s happening. Originally, I wanted to start on the first day of 2011 or the next day after my birthday (you see my skills of procrastination at work here…) but to hell with it – 20^th July is a good a day to start as any!

Okay, any questions? You in the back - reading the computer screen!

‘What will I write about?’

Well, anything and everything, really. It can be an informational, an opinion piece, a review, a work of fiction, whatever I feel like at the time. However, as well as writing a variety of pieces, I also endeavour to explore different writing styles - so don't think I’ve lost the plot if I decide to switch it up again.

On a side note – whatever I write about or in whatever style, I will try not to delve too much in to personal matters as: a) This is not a diary and reading a recounted tale of how you missed your bus and had to wait in the rain and blah blah blah is a cop out, not to mention MEGA BORING to you the reader; and b) I am sick to death of people pouring out details of their personal life all over the internet, crying out for attention and then moaning about the creeps and trolls who inevitably gather having invaded their privacy.

So, each entry will be at least 300 words long and should be labelled with what kind of piece it is. There may be an odd pic or two in there to as we all know how monkeys and babies like to point at pictures and coo.

So let the writing commence! Let the words fly worth – so many that they blot out the sun! If that happens… Then we will type in the dark! Hohoho… aaaaaand cut!

20 July 2011

God of War Collection Review

2010-02-01T13:51:00.002Z

For those of you who are interested in that sort of thing, I have guest reviewed the God of War Collection on PS3 on my mate's game review website.

Check it out here:

Haven't updated my own blog in a while but I should be on it pretty soon.

The Sacrilegious Scorn + Vampire Hunter D

2009-08-16T21:22:00.009+01:00

Video Editing: 3 music videos - a retrospective (Part 2 of 3)

--- Project Info ---
Track Title: The Sacrilegious Scorn
Artist: Dimmu Borgir
Film: Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2001)
Completion Date: Dec 2007

This was my second major video editing project and this time I was a lot more ambitious. First off, I actually did almost all of the planning before even starting the editing as I knew exactly what I wanted to set out to do.

I had tried live action previously so this time I wanted to use an animated film to see how it would differ. Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust was ideal for me as it has been one of my favourite animated films since seeing it years ago and I knew the film pretty well - which helps considerably when you come to plan which sequences and shots you want to use.

The vampire imagery of the film went well with Dimmu Borgir's 'The Sacrilegious Scorn', a black metal song tinged with gothic and melodic elements. There were a couple of songs I could have used from their album In Sorte Diaboli, but I chose this one as there were many bits in the song that I could play with in regards to editing as well as distinct shifts in its structure and mood.
(note: At the time I also picked the song because at the time there was no official music video for it. A few months later the official video did come out as Dimmu Borgir decided to release the song as a single. Why not peep that video on youtube for a comparison? ;) )

Story-wise, half way through the planning stage I had an epiphany.
I had always wanted to include the love story between the characters of Meier Link (the main vampire of the film) and Charlotte (the 'kidnapped' girl) to some degree - although this was only really a subplot of the film.
The main character, simply called 'D' takes up most of the screen time and the majority of the set pieces include him to some degree. Currently, on Youtube they are countless anime music videos and many of Vampire Hunter D. This would usually have put me off, but at the same time I was pretty sold on using the film.
And then it came to me...
'What if...' I said to myself, 'this video focused on just Meier Link and Charlotte... and D wasn't even in it at all...!'
This would serve me in two ways. Firstly, to distinguish my videos from ALL the other Vampire Hunter D videos out there by not showing scenes of D at all; and secondly, it would allow me to take the scenes with Meier Link and Charlotte and use them to craft my own narrative that differs from what actually happens in the film.

So there you have it - the story of Meier Link and Charlotte presented in the video is pretty different from the one in the movie - those who have seen the film previously will definitely notice this.
I also had the additional idea of having the character of Gilbert bookending their story as if to make out that the whole thing is a drug induced dream that progressively gets wilder - another concept that is completely different to the film.

Anyway, here are a few notes on key bits of the video that are of interest:

- The bats flying in at the intro - these are actually different scenes from the movie stuck together in a single sequence - its regrettable that the resolution drops and results in some 'blocky' bats when it gets particularly hectic but that was unavoidable. The bat noise was taken from a particular scene in the movie and lengthened to cover the whole sequence.

- Meier Link baring his teeth to 'aah' out of the moon. (Note: with the exception of the bats at the very beginning all sounds in the video exist in the original Dimmu Borgir song).

- The first bookend featuring Gilbert getting injected as he "enters" the dream. It works well with music and is re-arranged interestingly from the original context of the movie.

- The heavy drums coming in with the carriage thundering on was a good combination I think. It sets the tone for Meier Link's arrival. Similarly, the cuts to him laying dormant inside and the beat hitting of the crosses being crushed and water freezing was particularly effective.

- Conversely, the first melodic part of the song heralds the onscreen arrival of Charlotte, as Meier Link comes to get her.

- The choral part coming in when Charlotte is in front of the mirror - introducing the love story element between the two. I like the lingering shots of them here. In the film this an indication of their mutual love. In the context of my video it can be seen as Meier's vampire seduction of Charlotte.

- The carriage driving away marking the 'abduction' of Charlotte. Fits perfectly with the music - as does the subsequent sequence involving the carriage driving up to the castle and into its grounds.

- Meier Link speaks! With animation, at times the heads are static and just the mouth is animated to make the character speak. With clever cutting and the repetition of certain frames, I was able to make Meier Link match the voice speaking on the track.

- The zoom through the mirror on beat.

- The piano part coming in as Charlotte starts to ascend the stairs - also Meier baring his fangs (all on the original track).

- Cutting away to the flowers on the coffin (taken from the ending of the movie) when Charlotte is being bitten - symbolising death.

- Gilbert crying out - hitting that scream but also to remind the viewers we are still in his 'dream'.

- With the arrival of Carmilla at the end (representing the downfall of Charlotte) I wanted lots of images of vampires and teeth cutting in as the 'dream' reaches its pitch.

- Carmilla opening her eyes on beat.

- The 'talking' trick is repeated here for the old man.

- Carmilla crawling towards the viewer and the showing Gilbert's frozen eyes at the end finishes the video abruptly after the climax. The limp hand holding the syringe falling to the floor was always the way I wanted to finish the video since I first thought of using Gilbert as the bookend. Very effective as a final image.

Conclusion:
On the whole an improvement on the last video.
Although the preparation did take a long time, I am pleased with the end result - particularly with being able to craft my own narrative from the available material.

Here is the video for your viewing pleasure:

Coming next:

The Truth of Edge + Vexille
Video Editing: 3 music videos - a retrospective (Part 3 of 3)

--- As I Destruct + Ultraviolet ---

2009-06-19T22:25:00.006+01:00

Video Editing: 3 music videos - a retrospective (Part 1 of 3)

--- Project Info ---
Track Title: As I Destruct
Artist: Threat Signal
Film: Ultraviolet (2006)
Completion Date: July 2007

My first go at video editing proper. The project started out after I watched the film Ultraviolet, directed by Kurt Wimmer (of Equilibrium fame) and starring Milla Jovovich, and was kind of annoyed at how although visually very striking, the film was let down by hammy acting, underdeveloped plot structure and characters and an over reliance on CG.

Although the film was released in the UK, not many people know about it due to its limited success. So I had an idea of 'what if I could make a music video using Ultraviolet and make it look Ultra-cool'? After all, the action scenes were all there - I could just remove them from the context of the film and create my own storyline.
So that was the basic premise: for people to watch it and go "wow- that film looks cool, I wanna check it out", even though the actual film was not.

Threat Signal are a small metalcore band from the US and I knew that I wanted to use one of their tracks for this video due to their songs being both hard and melodically epic at the same time. I picked As I Destruct as I already had in mind which scenes would go with which parts of the song - such as the zoom and slice intro, the getting dressed scene and the guitar solo bullet dodging scene.
The rest of it, I pretty much did as I went along after importing many scenes into iMovie, many of which I didn't end up using.

There are some bits of the video that are still scrappy but on the whole I am very pleased with the result as it was my first effort and I managed to communicate many of my ideas well. The video has over 70,000 views on youtube (at time of writing this) which probably has to do with Threat Signal being a small band and anyone looking for videos on them will most likely run into this.

Some of my favourite bits are:

- The zoom onto the roof top at the very beginning and the guard falling on beat.

- The getting dressed scene soon after that. Sets the tone well and shows that Milla means business.

- The first fight scene where she is smashing the guard's armour - interesting because the actual sound from the film is present here and you can hear the smashing sound at times.

- The injecting and screaming scene - although these are actually two different scenes in the movie (oh the wonder of editing...)

- The bike sliding on the lyric '...tiiiiiime to gooooooo...' and the following rooftop shooting scene. My favourite shot in the entire movie is of Milla standing on the roof and 'gun-fu' shooting the guard below her.

- The bullet dodging guitar solo scene. Fits so well with the music - although the sequence did need considerable editing to make it so. If I could change anything about this scene however, I would make a smoother transition into the beginning of the scene.

- The body scan scene with cut-aways - I dont know quite why but the 'triumphant' feeling always gets me here.

So on the whole I am happy with the end result as I achieved what I set out to do - create a video that makes a not so cool film into one that looks very cool.
I'm also proud of the fact that I managed to create a slightly different narrative in my video than that of the film. Something which is returned to in my later videos.

Here is the video below:

Coming next:

The Sacrilegious Scorn + Vampire Hunter D
Video Editing: 3 music videos - a retrospective (Part 2 of 3)

Video Editing: 3 music videos - a retrospective

2009-06-19T22:15:00.003+01:00

Last week, I completed work on my third video editing music video project.
'What in the hell is one of thems?' - I hear you clamour out in want of an explanation.

Well, settle down and let me tell you...

I love music.
I love films.
Music videos are kind of cool, especially the ones which successfully manage to convey the passion and emotion of the music; Ones that tell a story and can communicate themes and ideas without having to expressing them in words.

I've always loved the idea of telling a story to music and since I usually lack the resources and patience to film things myself, what better way to make a music video that to edit an existing work?

So with that idea in mind, I set about attempting to make a music video using a 700MB .avi DVDrip file of a film, an .mp3 and iMovie HD.

It turns out there are actually hundreds, if not thousands of these kind of (shudder) 'fan made' music videos out there on youtube. I have watched a few but grew bored and frustrated with the majority of them.
Many of these were simply just made up of whole scenes or sequences from the film cut together with no thought to story, coherence, musicality, etc...

So whenever I set out to edit a video I keep in mind the following:

1) Does the chosen music marry itself to the chosen film? Not just in terms of style but also thematically - I also tend to pick music and imagery that builds and packs an emotional punch.

Choice of film - I try to use films that aren't too well known, but also not so obscure so that people can never track the original down. Again, for me, the film has to have parts that move me to a certain degree or feature striking imagery that I think will go well to music.
Personally, I don't think that the choice of film matters as much as the choice of music for the simple reason that the film footage is going to be edited and so you can mould it largely to your liking. A good example of this is my first video of Ultraviolet. But more on that later.

Choice of music - More important than choice of film in my opinion, for the simple reason that the music is not edited.
Therefore, it already has its own emotional beats, lulls and climaxes and so on, and it is up to me to fit the images to the music in a pleasing way.

2) What story do i want to tell? A rookie error in making a video is to just pick the 'best bits' of the film, or as they are known in the industry: the 'money shots'.
Always at the forefront of my mind is the importance to tell a coherent story, one whose emotional beats are inextricably tied to the music and not just a random collage of images taken from the film because they 'look cool'.
William Goldman says that in film-making you must "kill your babies" - in other words the spine of the story you are telling is paramount. In this case, even if you really want to put something into the video (for example a cool action sequence), if it doesn't make sense in terms of the overall story you want to tell - you have to get rid of it - you have to kill your baby...

For each of the 3 video editing projects i have undertaken so far, I have approached them with slightly different aims in mind.

Here are the three projects in order of completion with some notes on each, as well as a link to the video itself. I will be writing about each in a different post.

1) As I Destruct + Ultraviolet

2) The Sacrilegious Scorn + Vampire Hunter D

3) The Truth of Edge + Vexille

Its been a long time coming...

2009-06-09T15:44:00.000+01:00

Yes it has been - but I've finally gotten around to starting it.

So this is the grand unveiling of Kinsta presents... a place where I can talk about my ongoing and recently completed projects.

The purpose?

Hopefully, to keep interested parties updated on forthcoming projects as well as breaking down some of my finished items with an explanation of the hows and whys and wherefores. You may be enlightened - you never know.

Mainly, however, this is for me. To get my thoughts out of my head and into writing. A central location for my creative output other than my cerebral cortex. The confines of this bubbling vat can be somewhat claustrophobic at times and I need room to vent.

Anyway, enough of this babble. Move on...