Could the World Fall?

Movie Review: Priest (2011)

2011-06-05T17:22:00.000+01:00

Priest (2011): If you recall my review of Legion, I wasn't such a fan of it. It was a film about the apocalypse, featuring angels shooting each other with submachine guns, that somehow managed to be completely and utterly boring. That film starred Paul Bettany as the main character and had Scott Stewart as the director. Well, because that worked so well, they've reunited one year later for Priest, a film set in a dark and doom-ridden future where the Catholic church has got all awesome and violent. At some point the humans had a war against vampires and the Church employed these soldiers of God, the Priests, to win said war. When the war was won, the Priests were deemed surplus to requirements and disbanded. This film follows Bettany's character, known simply as Priest, as he uncovers the comeback of the vampires and tries to rescue his niece after she is kidnapped, his brother (played by Stephen Moyer, who is smart enough to appear in about two scenes in total) is mortally wounded and his sister-in-law is killed.

The film fails for the same reasons that Legion did: it's just not that interesting. Visually the film is very drab, often taking place in either dungeons or Western settings, which I suppose is appropriate, but that style was done to death rather recently in The Book of Eli. In fact, most of the film can be knocked down with similar comparisons, as the entire film wouldn't feel out of place in the Underworld series. The only thing the Underworld series had going for it was Kate Beckinsale in her outfit and instead in this we get Paul Bettany running around with a cross tattooed on his face. Maggie Q's in it but if you want to ogle her you may as well watch Nikita, which is more entertaining than this film. Priest even takes the whole tedious hybrid theme from the Underworld theme, because that wasn't done to death in three fucking films.

Also an annoyance is the vampires. Why? Because they're not vampires. They're random CGI monsters. They don't like the sunlight but apart from that, they're just icky beasts. In fact, they resemble the Future Predators from the television series Primeval. We do eventually get one more conventional vampire, but that's at the film's culmination and the rest of the film is focused around these monsters and their albino human charges, so you get none of the actual interesting issues previously explored in the vampire genre and instead you get them stripped down to their most animalistic form, which makes for a nice action sequence but doesn't make for a particularly interesting story. The vampires from 30 Days of Night were ruthless monsters, barely human, but you could find motivation in them to explain their evils. In Priest they may as well be demons or hellhounds or magic aliens from the land of ZzogGx 56. They're rubbish.

Priest is a film that has learned nothing from the mistakes of Legion. Paul Bettany is a decent enough actor but he needs to stop making these shit films because there's only so many he can do before his stock seriously drops. He's just doing enough to save his credibility because his performances aren't really bad, but the rest of the film around him is utter garbage. Two thumbs down.

Movie Review: Hanna (2011)

2011-06-05T14:15:00.000+01:00

Hanna (2011): Remember in Kick-Ass, when the little girl started shooting and slashing all the bad guys to death and calling them cunts? Oh, how we laughed. That's a bit shocking but it's mostly hilarious, we said. I'm LITERALLY laughing my arse off, rolling on the floor laughing. Well, Hanna takes that concept and applies it to a thriller chase movie, succeeding thanks to a few outstanding performances.

The film begins in Finland, where we see the titular Hanna (Saorise Ronan), a 16 year old girl, wounding a deer with an arrow before finishing it off without a second thought. We soon meet her father Erik (Eric Bana), who spends the first moments of this film looking homeless until he sorts himself out. Erik is training Hanna for something, constantly challenging her both physically and mentally, frequently going over a cover story should Hanna ever need it, because people would probably have one or two questions if you explained you lived in the snowy wilderness of Finland with a hairy man. References are also made to a mysterious woman (Cate Blanchett) who's going to kill her for a reason we're not initially privy to. When Hanna declares herself ready, the chase is on. The film's loaded with excellent action scenes where Hanna destroys nameless military goons with ease, plus the odd moment of comedy as Hanna fails to fit in with "normal" people having spent all of her life as a recluse.

The performances in this film are particularly strong and push the film from what could easily have been a slightly mindless movie into a very intense experience. Hanna herself is incredibly emotionless, like a robot programmed to survive, and that performance is an extension of Bana's, whose character combines the "emotionless assassin" with a fatherly twinge. One of the more bizarre performances is that of Tom Hollander, last seen on your television screens as a bumbling comical vicar on the BBC's Rev, who plays a murderous, whistling, bleach-blonde German henchman, a worthy second in command for any villain!

Hanna could easily have been B-movie fodder, perhaps starring the likes of Paul Walker. It could have been any chase movie, there's loads of them. Fortunately, the casting is tremendous and lifts things up to the next level and the movie never gets boring, it's always full of energy. Any slower sequences don't last an excessive amount of time and you always get the feeling that you're on the brink of things kicking off in a big way once again. Two thumbs up.

Movie Review: X-Men: First Class (2011)

2011-06-05T01:57:00.000+01:00

X-Men: First Class (2011): This year is a busy year for fans of comic book movies. In the coming months we'll see the release of Green Lantern and Captain America, hot off the heels of Thor, so X-Men: First Class, jammed in between those films, faced a challenge when it came to standing out from the pack. Not only that, but it was charged with restoring credibility to the X-Men subcategory of cinema following the disappointing conclusion to the main X-Men trilogy and the flawed Wolverine film. Thankfully, Matthew Vaughn has managed to go a considerable distance to achieving that, albeit with one or two minor flaws. And, shockingly, the quality of the posters has been proven to not represent the quality of the movie itself...

This film follows the origins of the relationship between Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr, otherwise known as Professor X and Magneto respectively (and played by Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in the original movies), also providing backstory on previously seen characters like Beast and Mystique while introducing new ones such as Sebastian Shaw. The acting from the main pair, Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy is tremendous, evoking memories of the previous performances while making them their own. McAvoy combines Xavier's intelligence with youthful charm, whereas Fassbender's interpretation of Magneto is more raw, less of a "thinking man's supervillain" and more of a flawed superhero, trying to work out the rights and wrongs of the world after being dealt such a poor hand in his youth.

The supporting performances are generally good. Kevin Bacon as Shaw is appropriately dastardly and the additional detail added to the relationship between his character and Magneto is very well done, setting a darker tone for the rest of the movie. Jennifer Lawrence was more annoying than anything, but Mystique in general has never really been that interesting of a character to me anyway. January Jones' performance as Emma Frost is not a standout one either, but she certainly looks the part and contributes more than enough as Shaw's arrogant second in command. Nicholas Hoult is pretty good as Beast, although his post-transformation appearance did get a few laughs - not a shock, he looks like Sully from Monsters Inc., not an issue that can be avoided really.

After that the characters fall into the usual X-Men trap of being rather underdeveloped and ten-a-penny. Some, this is for the best. Riptide looked a bit boring so I didn't really care to know much more about him. Azazel, on the other hand, is a massive man who... well, he's the Devil, basically. Well, not technically, but he's the spitting image of the lad (that lad being the lord of the underworld). I'd like to know SOMETHING about him. Many of the younger members of the X-Men team are kind of annoying in the way that young people are, what with their youth and exuberance and everything, and they fare poorly compared to their superior colleagues to the point where whenever there's a "mutant clubhouse" scene with the kiddywinks you're just waiting for Chuck 'n' Erik to pop up again and be awesome. I recall this being a bigger issue in some of the original X-Men films but it's still an issue here.

Some of the visuals in this film are particularly entertaining, and almost all of them involve Magneto being absolutely badass and destroying groups of villains, be it slashing them up with coils of barbed wire, pulling them along the floor and kicking them in the face, or destroying a cruise liner with the anchor's chain. You'd be hard pressed to find a better example of a superhero being made to look more ruthless and powerful, it's outstanding, and Magneto's cold persona shines throughout, building to the climactic scene with Xavier and Magneto, actually bettering the comics in a manner which I won't elaborate on for the sake of spoilers. If there's to be one defining thing this film succeeds in, it's making us sympathetic for Magneto and it allows us to understand the torn friendship between the two main characters in later instalments.

Overall, this ranks as one of the better films in the X-Men franchise and is a very good film. It still has some of the same issues as the others but they can be overlooked because it's generally good entertainment with some incredibly strong performances from the usual suspects, and the SUPER SECRET NO SPOILERZ PLZ cameo got a big laugh so yay! Two thumbs up.

Movie Review: Legion (2010)

2011-05-05T00:22:00.001+01:00

Legion (2010): You might not think it at first, but a bit of apocalypse can be bloody entertaining. Stuff blowing up, people dying, chaos all over the place. It's usually good for something, at least in television and films. Probably not recommended outside of those mediums. I'm a long-time fan of the TV show Supernatural, which is focused around a lot of that crap. Demons and angels and all that nonsense, it's very good, so you would have expected me to look forward to Legion, which on paper is very similar to Supernatural. In execution, it really isn't. The majority of the film is set in a little diner way out in the middle of Who The Fuck Knows, America. It's all peaceful, until a nice old lady comes in, eats a raw steak, tells a pregnant lady her kid's gonna burn, calls everyone else a load of cunts and bites a guy's throat out before crawling on the ceiling like a spider and getting shot dead. That, understandably, shakes everyone up a bit. Turns out the big man upstairs isn't so happy with us nowadays. Remember the great flood, Noah and his big arse boat and that? Yeah boy. Course you do. SUPER successful bit of business. God's a smart guy, so guess what. SEQUEL. He's sending a load of angels to wipe us out. Except, for reasons nobody really explained properly, the pregnant girl's kid guarantees humanity's safety. If the kid dies, we die. Paul Bettany's an angel who's turned against pops and is trying to help, ripping his wings off and all that kerazy nonsense.

The film fails on several levels, but one fundamental thing that even some of the worse filmmakers have managed to satisfy: It's really, really fucking boring. Here you have a film based around THE END OF HUMANITY, and instead it's like one big action sequence followed by 20 minutes of tedious sitting around and shite forced dialogue with characters staring out into the dark waiting for the next big set piece. I'm not sure that Michael Bay can even tie his own shoelaces but in his films he just goes mental with the special effects and you're at least guaranteed a loud noise or bright light that will keep your eyes open for the majority of the film's running time. This has none of that. It's dull both in the content of the script and in an aesthetic sense. None of the characters are particularly easy to like, I think technically we're supposed to like The Pregnant One and The Boy One, but other stereotypes featured are The Dad One (played by Dennis Quaid, oh dear), The Teenage Rebel One, The Uptight Mum One, The Thin Black One and The Fat Black One. Some live, some die. No tears were shed. The only moments of entertainment come from the aforementioned evil granny and a later scene involving a similarly evil child. These are high comedy. I suspect those were intended to have a comedic edge. I suspect the filmmakers wanted there to be other plus points. Don't think they succeeded with that one. Two thumbs down.

Movie Review: Total Recall (1990)

2011-05-02T01:12:00.004+01:00

Total Recall (1990): So after finding out that Minority Report was initially pitched as a sequel to Total Recall, what better reason than to watch said Arnie film? After all, it's science fiction, it's early 1990s, it's Arnold Schwarzenegger. How can it go wrong? The answer is, well, not really. It's exactly what it sounds like: A 1990s science fiction film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The film focuses on a man in the future (again, 20whatever) named Douglas Quaid, played by Arnie. He's just an average bum, working on a construction site. BUT HE'S NOT. How boring would that be, if he was just an average bum. OR IS HE. And there we have the question throughout the film. Yer boy Arnie's got aspirations of going to Mars. To display this, the opening scene sees Arnie on Mars in a space suit with some woman. He falls down a hill (more of a slight incline), then his eyes bulge and he wakes up screaming. This makes him decide "Mars is for me", so yeah, he's pretty thick. His wife, played by Sharon Stone's, not so happy about this. Probably because of the bulging eye thing. So he decides to go for some new experimental treatment that will implant memories of him going to Mars. Except it doesn't work, and halfway through the procedure he goes a bit mental and they throw him out, eradicating all records of him even being there. When he wakes up, he gets attacked by people he considering his friends and gets messages informing him he's actually from Mars and he's not who he thinks he is. The film goes on to detail his attempts to work out who he is.

Uh, huh.

The future in this world's much more entertaining that Minority Report, although it's a whole lot freakier. As you see above, there's a woman with three tits. There's also a main character who reveals his brother, a small baby-like organism attached to his stomach. I say baby-like, it's basically a talking baby. And said baby gets shot in the fucking head, which is the closest to that that I have ever seen in a film. There's also a man with a head that's all, like, folded up, but that could probably happen so that's not as funny. The film's also loaded with quality Arnie zingers, which is really what you employ the man for. You've got the best, "You think this is the real Quaid - it is" followed by relentless gunfire, plus the classic "You wouldn't hurt me, I'm your wife" followed by a shot to the head and "Consider that the divorce". The film is relentlessly corny but that's all part of its charm and it's thoroughly entertaining. The bits toward the end where they deal with some shit about mining on Mars are a bit of an afterthought despite their best efforts (until the final scenes, really) and the ending's a bit of a cop out but the stuff around the middle concerning Quaid's identity where he's on the run is rather good. The film's not one of the best but it's completely entertaining and a lot of fun. One thumb up.

As an aside, I have to document my love for Arnold films where he's just given a normal stereotypical American name and profession, yet he looks like Arnold and he sounds like Arnold. He's Jimmy Smith but he speaks with a thick Austrian accent. Nobody ever points it out. Nobody makes fun of it. Nobody notices it. Not even his American wife or his American kids, who appear unaware their father is Austrian. I love Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Movie Review: Minority Report (2002)

2011-05-02T00:26:00.000+01:00

Minority Report (2002): There's shedloads of films set in the future. In said future, we have it all. Wheels? Pah, stuff your stinking wheels. Who needs wheels, mate? We can fly! What? You actually have physical screens for your TVs and movies? Wake up, granddad, we have holograms to handle that shit. Oh yeah, and did I mention the shoes with the electronic laces? Yes indeed, this is a well-covered subject in film, which is why Minority Report doesn't stand out on paper, but in execution this is a fine mesh of Hollywood special effects and genuinely interesting storylines.

The year is THE FUTURE, 20somethingorother. I forget. Not that far in the future, no aliens yet (that we know of). The cops are really smart here because they can tell when someone's gonna commit a murder before they do it thanks to these three mutants who can see the future. Sitting in a swimming pool all day allows them to pool their thoughts together, because it would, wouldn't it. Relaxing and that. Tom Cruise is one of said policemen, until it turns out he's apparently gonna murder someone. He's not so happy about this (understandably), and a chase begins. The scientific stuff at the start is done fairly well, it sets the scene, establishes all the characters to the basic roles - Cruise is the good guy, Colin Farrell's the bad guy, Max von Sydow's Tom Cruise's mentor and confidante. It's easy to zone out when they get into the technicalities of it all with the bald people in the pools and that, mostly because the main one, Agatha, reminded me of the lead queen one from the Borg in the Patrick Stewart Star Trek stuff. However, when the chase kicks in the film becomes very entertaining as it builds to the supposed murder. The film has a twist that makes you rethink the way you've previously perceived major characters and one scene in particular really caught me by surprise.

The ending of the film is the only really contentious thing, as it is more conventionally happy than you may think, in contrast with the rest of the film which is all rather dark, the film being drab in appearance and rather bleak and dystopian overall. The film focuses a lot on determinism, whether we can change our future or whether it's all mapped out for us, and combines this with a look at the extreme "police state" seen in the film, where an overly-authoritative regime completely eradicates murders but also seems to reduce the overall quality of life for the citizens that are being protected. There's also the idea of the precogs, the mutants who predict the murders, not being allowed a decent quality of life, essentially being kept as slaves. These threads are all mostly tied up nicely at the end, although these ending in a more dramatic "negative" manner would surely have made them more memorable because the positive note it ends on mostly leaves the viewer empty in what was an otherwise very interesting film. Two thumbs up.

Movie Review: Catfish (2010)

2011-05-01T21:52:00.001+01:00

Catfish (2010): I'm no big fan of horror films, as will soon become apparent. My fear of things that go bump in the night is well known, particularly among the group of four friends who went with me to the pirates section of Madame Tussauds in Amsterdam (which we visited in between getting madly stoned and whatever else it is you do in Holland, weep and yelp Denish Bergkamp! I suppose). This was no pirate exhibition, this was putting a load of perverts in tightly-packed cells, turning the lights off and getting naive (fuckin' idiot) tourists to walk between them. What's this got to do with Catfish, you may be asking. This film creeped me out much, much more than any Dutch pirate could ever aspire to do.

Catfish is a documentary film by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost focusing on photographer (and Ariel's brother) Nev Schulman's ongoing relationship with a young girl named Abby who contacts him by email and posts him watercolour paintings of his own photographs. As things develop, the friendship goes onto Facebook and we're introduced to Abby's mother and half-sister Megan in addition to various other friends. The family member we hear most from is the mother Angela, which is fairly innocent on the surface. The film, on this level, is rather tame, it's just some girl who likes painting and is being encouraged by her mum. However, things become increasingly creepy as Nev's relationship with Megan becomes deeper while more and more holes appear in the family's story. The truth of the family becomes apparent with about 40 minutes remaining as opposed to the very end of the film, and simply allowing the utter absurdity of the situation to set in is rather horrifying as we see that what we'd been told is, in fact, completely false. You sense that this isn't just the audience's emotion - at various points members of the filming trio attempt to bail, varying from quitting the project as a whole to simply going back to the car to avoid the awkwardness.

What was most amazing to me was the text at the end updating the audience on what had occurred after the film's conclusion which adds another twist, revealing that even some of the film's revelations were, in fact, not altogether true. Catfish is a film that is nothing on the surface but becomes a very interesting and slightly frightening insight into the more peculiar members of our society and the webs of lies that can be spun with the use of social networking platforms. Whether it's all real or not I'm not sure, and I'm not going to spend much time deconstructing that particular facet. It's presented as a documentary and, in this case, I'll take it at face value, even if one of the more blatant messages of the film is to do exactly the opposite of that. Two thumbs up.

Movie Review: Thor (2011)

2011-04-30T00:04:00.004+01:00

Thor (2011): The latest in the Avengers series of films by Marvel, Thor introduces the eponymous hero, "the God of Thunder", ahead of his appearance as part of the super-powered team in the forthcoming Avengers film, where he'll be a starring character alongside Tony Stark/Iron Man and Steve Rogers/Captain America. I'll say at the start of this that I'm not a massive fan of the comic book character. I don't have anything against the story but it's not the most interesting tale to me. With that said, I actually really enjoyed Thor. The film deals with Thor's banishment to Earth and subsequent return to thwart the meddling of his twisted brother Loki and handles it well, combining a decent story with the usual special effects we've become accustomed to from these big Marvel films. This film faced some difficulty with the fact that it's supposed to be based around characters who are used to magic and all of those slightly supernatural shenanigans yet the character's supposed to fit into the same universe as the technology-based superheroes as Iron Man and Captain America and fight alongside them, and this is handled well with a decent but not excessive amount of comedy, not to shy away from the absurdity of the situation.

One thing I was pleasantly surprised by in this film was that nobody seemed to lag behind in the acting department. Tom Hiddleston's performance as Loki was probably the best as he excelled as the conniving yet physically weak brother of the titular hero (and his superpowers are deceptive magic, aka the powers that shite weak characters have in video games, unlike Thor who just goes about hitting crap with a big hammer). Chris Hemsworth could easily be dismissed as "the big muscular action hero" but when he's required to be a bit lighter he comes across as genuine and portrays the character as much more than a powerhouse, and his slightly awkward relationship with Natalie Portman's Jane Foster is nicely executed. Not to mention the little cheeky cameo in the middle of the film by - WHOOPS SPOILERS - Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye, which raised a little smirk in the cinema. Signs look good for that character too!

Overall this is a really good effort. It's probably not as good as the first Iron Man, I'd have to rewatch that one, but I was pleasantly surprised. It's certainly in the "good" category of superhero films, for sure. Two thumbs up.

2011 in Cinema
1. Thor
2. Paul
3. The Green Hornet

Movie Review: Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)

2011-01-14T18:47:00.004Z

Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973): The final installment of the original series sees Caesar, now in charge of the apes, maintaining the peace following a nuclear war that's destroyed cities and basically fucked everything right up. Despite going a bit mental at the end of the last one, he's generally an alright leader. Humans seem to work alongside the apes, although they probably don't have complete equality as is pointed out quite quickly. Eventually the apes come into conflict with surviving humans and contrasting methods between the various ape subcultures come to the forefront, which really form the central theme of this film. A lot of it is based around the key ape law, which states that while humans kill humans, an ape may never kill another ape. Introduced in this film is the militaristic brute gorilla Aldo (referenced in the previous film, "the ape that said no") who is particularly trigger-happy and human-hating. This contrasts greatly with Caesar's pacifistic way of life.

I'll get the good points out first: This is done fairly well, and one of the final scenes where Aldo and Caesar DO BATTLE is actually fairly gripping. However, that's one of the only good things I can say. To say this sequel was limp doesn't cover it. It's just boring, boring, boring. And by boring, I mean really boring. Bereft of excitement. Have a sleep in the middle, you'll have a blast. It was clearly made for no money whatsoever, seemingly based in one campsite for the majority of the film, and by this point in the series the novelty of human beings having a skirmish with apes involving guns and nets is incredibly hackneyed. The dialogue is pretty lame and Caesar's son Cornelius (these names are just cyclical, just get reused every few generations) is the Scrappy Doo of the series, i.e. the annoying little cunt. At least this Cornelius had the courtesy to die, Scrappy never even gave us that pleasure. Two thumbs down.

This does put me in a quandary, because this film is no good. However, is it worse than the second in the series, Beneath the Planet of the Apes? Beneath had Charlton Heston but it also had incomprehensible science-fiction mumbo jumbo I believe the cast improvised on the spot. This one had apes doing battle atop a giant tree but it had absolutely nothing else of any worth. I'm edging towards Beneath being the worst of the series because it really annoyed me.

Final series rankings (best to worst): Planet of the Apes, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Beneath the Planet of the Apes.

Movie Review: Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)

2011-01-14T17:55:00.004Z

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972): The fourth film in the Apes series continues to build from the timeline established in the third film, set presumably a decade or two after baby Milo was born and raised as a circus ape. We pick things up with the prophecy coming true: All of the world's cats and dogs have died (as a result of a plague brought to the Earth by, guess who, the space chimps) (no no, not the stars of the ultra-successful film Space Chimps) (nooo, not the stars of the sequel either, Space Chimps 2: Zartog Strikes Back). Apes have been introduced as the pets of choice, except they're not just pets. They seem to do all sorts of jobs, including cleaning, waiting on tables and the like. They're not happy about it either. I'm just guessing that bit.

More amusingly, there appears to be only two attires for the apes in these films. Half of them wear green tracksuits like hairy Eastern-European gangsters from Grand Theft Auto IV. The other half wear bright orange jumpsuits, as if they've all received ASBOs and as a result all have to simultaneously pick litter. The one to buck the trend here is Milo, who later adopts the name of Caesar. Raised by Ricardo Montalban (obviously, he's not gonna miss out on that trend), he's been hiding his extra intelligence for his entire life. When he realises he can't keep the secret forever in the face of humans abusing his mates, things go tits up and there's CONFLICT.

This film did very little for me. It wasn't overly bad but it just didn't represent much of a step forward. The main villain isn't that much different to the main villain from the first film, the ape sympathisers aren't much different either, and this time instead of two strong leads we've just got Roddy McDowell on his own. It just felt like we were treading over the same ground, making this film largely unnecessary. The eventual ape uprising comes about after Caesar turns into a sort of primate Terminator, complete with a sweet leather jacket at the start of the film, and that's amusing, but it's all pretty soulless. McDowell has a good go at it, as he has in all of the films he's featured in over the course of the series, but that isn't good enough to make this anything worth watch. One thumb down.

Movie Review: Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)

2011-01-14T00:38:00.004Z

Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971): Let's face it. The second Planet of the Apes film was pretty bad. It really wasn't required. As if to illustrate this point, they ended the film by blowing the fucking Earth to smithereens, putting the kibosh on any future attempts to squeeze money out of the franchise. Except that didn't work, and we got a third one. And you know what? It's not that bad. This installment reveals that Zira, Cornelius (back to Roddy McDowell) and some other dude called Dr. Milo survived the explosion by finding the old spaceship and somehow time-traveling back to Taylor/Brent's original time, i.e. the present day. I know there's an element of "Don't ask" to time travel but there's too much left unanswered here. All attempts to link the second and third movies are mostly convoluted and ridiculous and just reek of a massive deus ex machina, so I just ignored all that shit and moved on. The poor links between these films really does show how little planning went into the franchise. Instead of leaving loose ends to link to potential new films it's as if they made a film, released it, then realised they'd quite like to make another and had to invent some convoluted connections between them.

The film starts off as basically Apes in the Big City. Gasp, as an ape drinks champagne! Marvel, as an ape goes to watch a boxing fight! Observe, as an ape takes a warm bath! That takes up a good chunk of time, but then the film gets serious, as it's revealed that Zira is pregnant and there's debate over the consequences of the child for the future uprising of the apes, all while creating a delightful paradox for people to sweat over. After all, this child of Zira and Cornelius could lead to the ape uprising, leading to the birth of Zira and Cornelius in the future. This is where the plot is at its best. The two main leads, Zira and Cornelius, are likable, familiar characters and really carry things. Roddy McDowell's particularly entertaining. The man was born to play an ape. More specifically, a nervy, eccentric, wide-eyed ape. He's like a simian C3-PO. The humans who aid and go against the two are also worthy additions, with the main villain Dr. Hasslein being suitably menacing throughout, aided by his Jogi Low-esque appearance. Bloody Germans. Ricardo Montalban has a minor role as the owner of a circus who helps the two apes which is good fun.

This is the second best Apes film I've seen so far. It's not a patch on the first, lacking in its deep social commentary and underlying messages, but there's nothing much wrong with this. I did find it amusing to find out that Sal Mineo hoped that this film would do for him what the first did for Roddy McDowell. In the end, Mineo hated the makeup and his character was killed off rapidly. On the other hand, McDowell's in four and a bit Apes films. He may as well have just kept the makeup on and lived as a chimp, to be honest. One thumb up.

Movie Review: Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)

2011-01-13T15:04:00.004Z

Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970): You know how I really liked Planet of the Apes, the original one? Yeah. I'll start off with the basics: this isn't as good. It's not nearly as good. In fact, they're not in the same league. Remember how I thought the special effects were alright in the first one but anticipated them getting worse as we progressed through the original series? Yeah. That happened. This film picks up right after the end of the first one, except Charlton Heston didn't fancy doing much in this one so instead we get Brent, who is Heston's Taylor character in all but name. Okay, Taylor's a bit more of a sex pest, but apart from that, generally the same. They look pretty much the same (distinguished in this film by Taylor remaining beardless), both tag along with Nova, both run away from apes, both astronauts. In fact, if I were to make assumptions I'd guess they spent very, very little time conceiving the character of Brent. I get the impression Heston would have done pretty much the same stuff as he did, but then he turned down the lead role and they thought "We need a new lead character. "But who could it be?" "Astronaut, crash landed on the planet, doesn't know exactly where he is, discovers monkeys rule the place." "Worked before, why not again?"

That aside, about halfway through the movie it takes a ludicrous turn as Beneath the Planet of the Apes becomes a strange, extra cheap episode of the original Doctor Who as Brent stumbles upon humans living underground. Except these humans have psychic powers, for some reason. You know that Doctor Who episode, where Tom Baker was held hostage underground by psychic mentalists. He was wearing a loincloth and a scarf. Maybe they never got around to that. This leads to a lot of scenes where the weird dudes close their eyes (to concentrate on psychic powers, obviously) and the special effect of choice is to play a high pitched sound effect. Brent goes ARGH and falls over, or attempts to rape Nova or whatever the violent act of choice is at that time. These humans (who have peelable skin, surely the next step in our evolution) have a big bastard of a bomb that they're prepared to use on the monkey fellas. Due to their mind control they can create all sorts of weird illusions, like walls of fire and tears of blood coming from a large ape statue (done with the same paint you'd paint airfix models with). Anyway, all of this made very little sense to me and by the end of it I really didn't care. Roddy McDowell wasn't even in it so we got some other guy chimping about as Cornelius. Tragic. Two thumbs down.

Movie Review: 127 Hours (2010)

2011-01-13T12:39:00.002Z

127 Hours (2010): Amazing story, isn't it? Man goes messin' about on some rocks, gets his arm stuck behind this big old boulder, has to cut his arm off, survives the whole ordeal. However, if you'd have asked me whether this would have made for a good film, I don't think I'd have said yes. It's not overly action-packed, for a start. Apart from the amputation and the genesis of the experience - i.e the boulder falling down - there's not much to it. In order to get this to work you'd need a couple of things. One, a good director. Two, a good lead to actually play the guy, and in Danny Boyle and James Franco (as mountaineer Aron Ralston) you get those things in 127 Hours. The film uses a number of interesting, quirky techniques to get its point across, using flashbacks to illustrate the events that have lead Ralston up to this point, the friends and family he's left behind, but also using flash-forwards to hypothetical situations. For example, at one point it torrentially rains, flooding the canyon which Ralston is stuck in and he has a hallucination that the water has freed his arm. In another situation he envisages a pulley system around the rock actually succeeding. This, and other interesting visual effects - shots from the inside of Ralston's rapidly-emptying water bottle, a curious sequence in which Franco interviews himself on a video camera as if he's the guest on his own talk show, Scooby Doo being a recurring character in hallucinations - really get you inside Ralston's mind as he loses it in this seemingly hopeless situation.

One thing the film really got across was the utter horror of the situation beyond the hideous nature of the amputation. I'll be honest, I found the bits where Franco was simply standing there, fruitlessly attempting to pull his arm from behind a rock, more disturbing than the actual bloody violence. It really conveys a harrowing sense of despair and creates the claustrophobic environment in which Ralston was stuck so when he finally does hack his own arm off it's less of an act of self-mutilation and more an attempt at survival, so you kind of have to encourage him as he does it. The amputation is recreated in amazingly disgusting detail, aided by tremendous additional effects, such as the sound of a bullet being fired from a gun as he cuts through tendons in his arm. You feel Ralston's pain, you go on that journey with him, so when he succeeds in getting free at last after five days of pure hell you can't help but be filled with emotion. It's a definite tear-jerker at that moment. James Franco's performance is absolutely stunning, a definite Oscar contender if not winner. Not every actor could carry this type of film (and seriously, it's pretty much all him, the co-stars aren't in any danger of stealing the limelight) but Franco's performance is flawless.

Overall, this is one of the best films I have ever seen. It wrenches at your gut, it tugs at your heart-strings (whatever they are), it does all sorts of stuff to all sorts of body parts. This is a triumph in every single way. I know this is technically a 2010 film but what the fuck, it came out over here in 2011. So I think I might have my best film of 2011 already. Two thumbs up.

2011-01-11T20:30:00.004Z

I got MUTV yesterday - in the process, actually having to converse with another human being over the phone, an ordeal in and of itself as I tried to get an extra channel while fending off attempts to upgrade to Sky+ HD/3D/6DXL/WD40. I did this because I really want to see more of the United youth team and reserve players, I don't think the MUTV online service lets you watch the games online and you don't really appreciate players holistically when you watch the meagre scraps that are YouTube clips and compilations.

So anyway, the first game I saw yesterday was the Youth Cup game between United's academy and the Portsmouth youngsters. I won't give a full report, just a wee baby one, but this was a very commanding victory that ended 3-2, a much more even score than the performance warranted. United dominated most of the game outside of some early energetic Pompey attacks and the late comeback, but the comeback shouldn't have been a shock since Pompey had apparently come back from 5-0 down to draw 5-5 if the commentators are to be believed.

As for individual players, a few stood out. Will Keane is absolutely excellent and if he continues to progress at his current rate I can see him becoming a first team player at some point. He had a couple of goals ruled off for offside in addition to the one he got, one of which was miles onside anyway. Paul Pogba's long range strike was tremendous and his passing throughout impressed. Ryan Tunnicliffe is a proper box-to-box midfielder, obviously trying to mould himself on someone like Darren Fletcher or Roy Keane (as he's often compared to), he had a good game. It was a generally strong performance from the team, helped by Tom Fry having a bit of a nightmare in the Pompey goal. Overall, I'd say the star performer was Paul Pogba. Also, John Cofie for failing to win a penalty at about 25 minutes and not dropping the issue for the rest of the game. He was absolutely furious.

Movie Review: Planet of the Apes (1968)

2011-01-11T19:17:00.006Z

Yeah. We're not stuck in 2010 anymore. Going back to something even you might have seen, grandad.

Planet of the Apes (1968): I knew this was going to be tremendous from the very first scene. Charlton Heston cutting a monologue (well, a message to Earth, but nobody's listening Charlton! You may as well not bother!) and chewing the scenery. His performance in this film is so completely and utterly over the top that that particular idiom doesn't cover it. He didn't just chew on the scenery. He extensively prepared it, cooked it through, garnished it, poured a bit of gravy over the top and dove right in, consuming the entire thing. The production team were absolutely furious. That, I should note, doesn't have a negative effect on the film. It really helps it. Here you have this strange caricature of a man struggling to get to grips with this absurd world where the monkeys are running the show and it just seems appropriate. The other performances are alright but have no doubt. Charlton's yer main man.

I was particular impressed with the production of the film. It really didn't seem particularly dated. The ape makeup looked very good, not ropey in the slightest, even when they began talking. I wouldn't have much of an issue with it from a production standpoint if it came out today. It's most definitely not just a film with people wearing monkey suits, some on horseback with shotguns. Apparently the last shot (SPOILER ALERT) (BTW, WON'T SPOIL WORLD WAR 2 EITHER) of the Statue of Liberty was done by blending in a painting of the scenery with the actual filmed shot, which is incredible. It doesn't stand out at all. Apparently the later movies in the series have less funding and, while they'll inevitably be worse, I'm hoping for something that resembles a 1980s British television show. Yes. People wearing monkey suits. Two thumbs up.

Movie Review: Shutter Island (2010)

2011-01-11T13:35:00.006Z

Forgot I'd watched this.

Shutter Island (2010): This is a film I really wanted to see originally but was put off by the mixed reception it received when it first came out in the cinema. It's true, it's not up there with Scorsese's best works, but it's an interesting and well-made piece of work. The gist of it is that Leonardo DiCaprio teams up with Mark Ruffalo and they go and investigate this mental hospital on a weird island, run by Ben Kingsley (well, duh). As the film progresses we realise that things aren't quite as they seem and we discover the backstory of DiCaprio's character in chunks. I should start by saying that I was unfortunate enough to stumble across the plot twist soon after the film came out so I was very much spoiled there. With that in mind, the eventual revelations became obvious. Hints were dropped frequently and consistently to an almost amusing degree, so I think it will be a more rewarding film for those who go in with no prior knowledge, perhaps even requiring multiple viewings. That aside, all of the performances are very good and the soundtrack is suitably haunting. My main criticism is that it just didn't hook me for the entire tenure and at times lost my attention. It's fairly slowly paced by design, attempting to build the tension, but I thought it was a bit too slow. The film lacks the deep impact that the likes of The Departed and Goodfellas have had but as an attempt at a simple film noir-ish type of thing, this is a good effort with a standout performance from DiCaprio as a man losing his mind and a great showing from Michelle Williams as his wife. One thumb up.

Watching Planet of the Apes now. Not the new one with ol' Marky Wahlberg in it, the old one. Gee, I hope there's not a twist at the end of it. Monkey Abraham Lincoln will most likely not make an appearance, which is good.

Today's TUNE: "Do It Like A Dude" - Jessie J

2011-01-10T21:25:00.001Z

Video for this is well suspect.

FA Cup: Manchester United 1-0 Liverpool

2011-01-10T08:35:00.010Z

Another narrow scoreline but I felt United were deserved winners yesterday against Liverpool. The penalty was debatable; I thought there was contact and Agger kinda dug his own grave by sticking a foot in, but Berbatov definitely made the most of it. I can use the first bit of that sentence to justify it but if I'm to be objective for a moment, if Fernando Torres had done that against Jonny Evans I'd be absolutely furious.

As it happens, Torres did play against Evans, and instead of taking advantage of him like a predator in the night he allowed Evans to discover his form from two seasons ago and keep him well and truly quiet. Ferguson has said that Jonny has been back to his best in training lately, perhaps discovering a bit of confidence again, and while it'd be easy to say "Well, it's just the off-form Torres", that same off-form Torres gave Evans the runaround in the league fixture and won a penalty off him. It didn't hurt that Evans was playing alongside Ferdinand, who is definitely the cooler head of the Vidic/Ferdinand pairing. Jonny's issues have usually stemmed from losing his concentration and not reading a situation correctly, perhaps letting the ball bounce when he should have attacked it or standing off when he should have tried a tackle. Ferdinand kept things together, Evans followed his lead and it all worked out beautifully.

One of the most bizarre things for me was the choice of man of the match for this one. I've gone for Ferdinand who's kind of an obvious choice, him and Vidic are always up there, but aside from that I have to say that a lot of the more derided players decided to show up. Evans as mentioned had his best game in a long time and Michael Carrick, who's quietly come into some form since he gave Pablo Hernandez the ball in the Valencia game held the midfield together nicely without giving away stupid balls as he occasionally has done in the past. Ryan Giggs hasn't been criticised but he also had a tremendous game and still has incredible pace, and Tomasz Kuszczak, while I don't think he will replace Edwin Van Der Sar, did a commendable job and has in the last few games when he's been called into action. It's nice that Ferguson is giving him the opportunity to prove himself instead of overlooking him in favour of Anders Lindegaard. ITV gave the award to Berbatov which is slightly absurd, but I don't think they put much thought into that so let's not complain too much. He had a good game, the usual quality he's provided this season, but there were much better candidates.

The Gerrard red card was completely justified as far as I'm concerned. The only people who I've heard defend it are the minority of Liverpool fans (read: TalkSport listeners) who like to invent rules to explain why it wasn't a red (ranging from "he's not that sort of player" to "it's a 50/50 tackle") or ex-professionals who still behave like it's the 1970s where you could shoot a man with an AK-47 and get away with at most a stern talking-to. I don't care if it's a 50/50 tackle. It can be 60/40, 70/30, 99/1. Jumping in like that is dangerous play and the people leaping to Gerrard's defense only have a leg to stand on because Carrick didn't suffer a serious injury. The same absurd logic applied for the Tiote tackle in the Newcastle/Stevenage match. It was a wild tackle. The rules of football do not state that winning the ball constitutes a good tackle. If you win the ball but do it in a dangerous manner that's not on. People were making that absurd argument about some of Nigel De Jong's wild tackles, saying "Well he won the ball", ignoring that in the process of winning the ball he snapped Hatem Ben Arfa's leg. But that's alright, he touched the ball.

People keep knocking United, saying they're playing poorly in all of these matches, but I can't agree with that for the home games. Away, absolutely. United have underperformed and some of the teams have played out of their skins, knowing they can have a good go. Fulham, Everton, West Brom, Birmingham for a bit, Aston Villa. At home I don't agree with that assessment at all. Most of the performances have been professional. Would I prefer United to kill the game and score a million goals? Of course. I think a lot of the criticism stems from the lack of the one talisman this season. A couple of seasons ago it was Ronaldo. He scores all of the goals, he's awesome, he's the main man. Last season it was Rooney. He scores all of the goals, he's awesome, he's the main man. This season, who is there? Instead of one man doing the work it's been shared around. Berbatov has scored more this season than he had in either of his previous two seasons at United. Ji-Sung Park's been scoring and contributing a lot. Nani provides goals and assists. Rafael da Silva, who I think is one of the best right backs in the league, is always running up the touchline and has got a lot of assists in addition to learning how to defend. Anderson is benefitting from his more advanced midfield position. Chicharito is scoring whenever required, showing a proper poacher's instinct and scoring a lot of crucial goals. The workload has been spread around the squad. I'm sure a loss will eventually come and people will begin declaring that it's gone tits up for United but getting this far undefeated without kicking into overdrive with such an allegedly poor squad says something. Maybe they've just rode their luck for the entire season so far. Or perhaps they're not as bad as the critics are saying.

Player Ratings: Kuszczak 6, Rafael 7, Ferdinand* 8, Evans 8 (Smalling 7), Evra 7, Nani 7, Carrick 8, Fletcher 7 (Anderson 6), Giggs 8, Berbatov 7, Chicharito 7 (Owen 7)

Movie Review: The Expendables (2010)

2011-01-08T16:28:00.002Z

The Expendables (2010): I thought this was pretty gash, to be honest. On paper, sure, sounds good. Sly Stallone, that fella from Rocky and Rambo. Jason Statham, been in those wacky Crank and Transporter action films. Steve Austin, he once pinned THE ROCK, and he's got some acting chops. And I know what they were going for with this, to hark back to the stomping action films of yesteryear, but once you get past the nostalgia of all these old names together in one film, it's pretty poor. The nostalgia ends very quickly, probably once Bruce Willis and Arnie have been on. The only good action sequence that comes to mind right now was when Jason Statham sat at the very front of a plane (in front of the cockpit) and started shooting at some soldiers. Nothing after that or before that was particularly awesome or memorable, quite the opposite to Machete. The double act stuff between Stallone and Statham is often quite good and Jet Li's ongoing demands for more money were amusing enough but I ended up being fairly bored after the first half an hour. The plot wasn't gripping enough to keep me interesting and the action wasn't absurd enough to compensate for that. Two thumbs down.

Today's TUNE: "Starstrukk" - Marina & The Diamonds

2011-01-08T16:26:00.000Z

2011-01-07T11:46:00.003Z

Didn't do a blog post after United/Stoke so I'll just do a quicky now.

This was probably one of those games where people are gonna say United weren't any good but they won just because we didn't win 4-0 or 5-0 but I can safely say that the win was more than deserved. Stoke offered nothing apart from an aerial threat and fouls. Their one threatening moment produced their one goal. Aside from that, it was pretty comfortable and should have been done and dusted by half time. Hernandez continues to show why he's one of the steals of the season, his goal was utterly absurd (as most of his goals tend to be, like Bebe's wacky goals except he means to score them that way) (okay, maybe not that Chelsea one), he could have had another if he'd converted that flying volley off a Nani header and he was crucial for Nani's goal. His turn was marvelous. He might be the best finisher in the team, although Berbatov and Rooney are better in the buildup play so they're superior overall, but Hernandez is gonna get the goals. Nani didn't do too badly in that particular exchange either. The Nani and Rafael combination is pretty frightening at times, especially when Nani's in the mood to track back a lot as he was on Tuesday. It's still too early to be anointing us champions considering we still have to play Arsenal away, Spurs away, Liverpool away, City at home, plus Chelsea at home and at Stamford Bridge. Lots of games to go. Not a bad position to be in, mind. "We're shit and we're top of the league" indeed.

Ratings: Kuszczak 6, Rafael 8, Vidic 7, Smalling 7, Evra 7, Nani 8*, Gibson 6 (Carrick 7), Fletcher 6, Giggs 7, Berbatov 7, Chicharito 7 (Owen 6)

I'll be honest, just that result aside, this week couldn't have gone any better. When I say that the only disappointments, and I mean the ONLY disappointments, are that Tom Cleverley and Danny Welbeck got injured, that should tell you how good it was. Arsenal and City drew with each other, Chelsea lost, Liverpool lost, Spurs lost. The City/Arsenal game was somewhat amazing because this is the second time this season that City have parked the bus and played for the draw, which is fairly impressive for a team that costs so much and has so much attacking talent if they decide to deploy it (I'm looking at Adam Johnson here). I've read a few people compare them to, say, Inter at the Nou Camp last year, but at least Inter were winning going into that. They were defending a winning position. What I'm sayin' is that the Roman army didn't win wars by staying in the tetsudo formation. They had a go at winning the battles 'n' all. At least this one had some excitement, mind. This fixture last year - also 0-0 - was one of the worst games of the season. Literally the only highlights were Shay Given injuring himself, leading to City bringing on that Faroe Islander man, and a VOTE FOR EBOUE banner.

Which reminds me. Emmanuel Eboue. Mr. Motivator costume. Live on Sky Sports. What better way to celebrate their 20th anniversary than to dress like a man from 1991?

Anyway. Absurd revision hours for exams have lead me to listen to the last few days of the Radio 1 breakfast show, hosted this week by Zane Lowe. I've not heard his regular show but he's sure as fuck better than Chris Moyles, if just because when you tune in you're 95% certain to hear a piece of music. Whether you like it or not (I usually like it), it's music. If you listen to Moyles, which I do for about 15 minutes when I have 9AM lectures, the music fits into the other 5%. 95% of the show will be crap banter. Apparently that's some people's cup of tea. Makes for a fun Twitter search though. On one side of the ring, people saying how good Zane Lowe's show is. On the other side, people clamouring for the return of "Moylesly". The latter are a dangerous subculture for sure.

Watched some movies. Will review them in a bit if I can remember much. The Expendables was one of them. I did not like.

Today's TUNE: "On My Own" - Yasmin

2011-01-07T11:33:00.001Z

Movie Review: Black Swan (2010)

2011-01-04T00:45:00.003Z

Black Swan (2010): This was a mixed bag of sorts, but in the end it was good enough to warrant my attention. The premise of this film is that there's a ballet production of Swan Lake. Natalie Portman's character is up for the main role and is perfect for the "White Swan" role whereas Mila Kunis personifies the "Black Swan" side of the character. Throughout the film we see Portman's character descend into madness, to put it bluntly, discovering a darker edge to her character, and by the time the film reaches its peak it's very enjoyable. I'd say the final act of the film, which comes after a sex scene (woo lesbians), is where the film is at its best. It's also where it's at its creepiest, although for me the film never ran over into "scary" horror territory. Black Swan is at most unnerving and weird but not scary. The movie prior to that is fine albeit unremarkable, although I suppose that's setting the scene for the final crash, establishing Portman's character's frailties before fully exposing them at the film's conclusion, although it wasn't the most interesting of setups. But to be honest this is just worth watching for Mila Kunis being utterly filthy. She could probably read the Third Reich and make it sound dirty. I don't think they give out awards for that. Well, Oscars anyway. One thumb up (+ one cock).

DanLowth @ FlickChart.com

Movie Reviews: Inglourious Basterds, Machete

2011-01-03T20:40:00.005Z

Inglourious Basterds (2009): I was kinda shocked when looking at my FlickChart "list of shame" or whatever it's called, which lists highly-ranked movies that you haven't seen, and at the top of my list was Inglourious Basterds. Not only was it quite recent unlike most of the other films on the list, most of the reviews I'd read hadn't praised it completely. Safe to say, it wasn't universally positive stuff. So I watched it and yeah, it wasn't perfect. But I still really enjoyed it. The film's split up into several chapters and individually these chapters are superb. The dialogue is fantastic, particularly the one set in a bar with Basterds going undercover as Nazis. When viewed collectively I don't think it all gelled perfectly but the component parts were great. Brad Pitt's character, by the way, would have fit right into Machete. Two thumbs up.

Machete (2010): This was, well, different. It was completely and utterly absurd, a proper B movie, and completely by design. The violence was like something out of a hack-and-slash video game, the characters were cartoon characters in live action form, the sound effects were massively cliched and the dialogue was so campy. The fact that the film involved some notable faces, Robert Deniro, Lindsay Lohan, that Frank guy off Lost who got hit with the submarine door, made it all the better. Not only that, but they had a film involving Jessica Alba (internationally-known sex symbol) and Michelle Rodriguez (the woman who always plays the role of the butch tough woman) (read: lesbian) and made Michelle Rodriguez into the sexier of the two, which is probably worth some sort of award alone. I'm not a big fan of this type of movie but this was good fun. Needed a bad guy to get crushed with an ACME anvil at some point, though. One thumb up.

DanLowth @ FlickChart.com

Movie Review: The Social Network (2010)

2011-01-03T02:04:00.010Z

I've just finished Social Network, so here's a cheeky little review. Yeah, suck it Ebert. Blow me Kermode. New kid in town. Nah, but srsly, will keep it short.

The Social Network (2010): I really, really enjoyed this film. I think I probably have a mild form of ADHD, my attention span is nonexistent, so you can assume this was gripping by the fact I watched the first hour and 40 minutes without checking the time, messing with my phone, anything like that. I just watched the film. Part of the reason the film was so enjoyable was the audacity of the subject material. They'd taken the origin story of a fucking social networking website and turned it into a gripping drama. No extravagant set pieces needed, just a good script about some contemptible young nerds, and that's exactly what was provided. The only character you were left feeling any sympathy for was Eduardo, for obvious reasons. The rest of them come across as, to varying degrees, dickheads.

Jesse Eisenberg plays the nerdy character in most of the films I've seen him in, most recently Zombieland, but if the Zombieland nerd is the lovable, amusing nerd, his take on Mark Zuckerberg is like the darkside of that character. Andrew Garfield was also tremendous, which is funny considering so many shit on him after it was announced he was the new Spiderman just because at the time nobody had heard of him (save those who watched Red Riding and that shitty Doctor Who two-parter he was in). I was also surprised at just how competent of an actor Justin Timberlake proved to be. Not only did he not stand out for negative reasons, he was genuinely impressive.

This isn't the type of film I'd usually go for so I didn't go in expecting to be blown away but in the end this is probably one of the best films of 2010 in my opinion. If only it weren't for that damn Inception. Toy Story 3 'n' all. Drats. Two thumbs up.

DanLowth @ FlickChart.com

2011-01-03T00:01:00.004Z

The New Year has seen some top notch footyball. Not that I've seen much of it on account of my absurdly fucked up biological clock (I really need to sort that out at some point in the next week or so). However, a number of things have been getting in the way of that. Mostly TV and films, elaboration on that in a bit probably.

But yeah, I missed the first half of the United/West Brom game, and it sounds like that was a wise decision. It was actually partly by design, like a university lecture that you don't actually have to attend, don't really want to attend but feel in your gut that you have to. The easy solution? Sleep through it. The recent away matches have filled me with dread and everything I've seen of the first half suggested it followed that pattern. The second half was similar but at least the last ten minutes at 2-1 up didn't follow the pattern of about seven other matches this season and we didn't concede an equaliser.

I suppose it all works out in the grand scheme of things, what with the Lee Bowyer goal against us in the previous game, but whatever. If the game showed us one thing it's that Gary Neville's time is up, as it probably has been for many years. This season alone he's been torn apart by Matt Jarvis, Jerome Thomas and Matt Etherington. All are decent enough players, probably some of the better players in their respective teams, but Rafael is by far and away the first choice right now and I'd probably have Fabio and even Wes Brown ahead of Neville at this point, solely because they can run at a speed faster than glacial drift.

I did regret not catching the Villa/Chelsea game though, if just for the rollercoaster of emotions I can only imagine the Sky team were going through. Chelsea went from fallen champions to championship material back to fallen champions all in the span of about 10 minutes.

For now, I'm catching up on random movies and TV (while burning on with The Shield, obv). For now, Social Network. Then Shutter Island and Expendables. Also, Primeval on ITV. I've watched the first episode of the new series which was alright, especially the bizarre moment when they played that S Club 7 song while Hannah Spearitt was running around battling a dinosaur, but nothing remarkable. The CGI was more noticeably amusing but that might just've been due to extensive closeups of the creatures. So they should probably avoid that.

2010-12-31T21:53:00.007Z

Hibernation's not normally something undertaken by human beings. But I did it goddamnit. Me and my Shield DVDs. Together. Romantic stuff. I'm not going to wax lyrical about The Shield because it started like 8/9 years ago and was going for the better part of the 2000s so everyone's already raved about it more than enough, but I will say that the praise is completely warranted.

The show isn't a slow burner like I've found The Wire to be (gotta get through those box sets at some point too), it's full of action and is completely gripping. I do like how even just in season two I'm completely and utterly confused over which characters to like and dislike. Some of them are obvious - Aceveda's a bit of a dickhead, Danny's generally alright - but the rest of them are somewhere in the middle. Dutch is obviously the man though. A complete and utter dweeb. Fuckin' funny, though.

I dare any of you to watch this and tell me that Vic Mackey is not the man, albeit a fictional one.

2010-12-29T14:56:00.002Z

So I didn't just make one impulse buy. I made two. Mr. HMV (Ian HMV, probably) has made a killing out of me this week. I picked up Transformers: War for Cybertron (360) for about 20 quid and Enslaved: Odyssey to the West for a similar price, 25 or so. I haven't played Enslaved yet, when I do I'll try and write some quick thoughts about it, but I have played an hour or two of Transformers and this has to be said - it's actually really quite good. It's not reinventing the wheel, in essence the game is the Gears of War engine with big bastard robots in place of Marcus Fenix and Dom, but that's not a bad base to create your game on. The environments are also very samey, but that's to be expected. You're playing as gigantic fighting robots clubbing each other about on a planet made almost entirely of metal from what I can deduce. It's unlikely to feature levels based outside of that, perhaps a garish level based in an ocean, or an Amazonian jungle. It's just not happening. Anyway, it's good.

Have about a million DVDs to post to lucky eBayers. Should probably try and do that at some point. In addition to revision and swimming through the sea of football that continues to flood into my vision. I have also decided to make a concerted effort to listen to more music in 2011 and try and keep up. 2 January will mark the end of that.

2010-12-28T19:45:00.002Z

Either we're the champions elect or we're slipping. God knows what to believe. Was gonna write a nice happy blog about the 2-0 win over Sunderland. Delightful images would be used, emoticons, smiling faces going :-D, cheerful and inspirational tunes by popular recording artists such as Kool and the Gang. Then we've just had the 1-1 draw with Birmingham, yet another draw plucked from the jaws of victory. I'm not as furious as I was after the Fulham and Everton draws but that's just because it's becoming a running theme and I'm becoming a little bit bored of it all. I could complain but the only real criticism I have is that the team was a little bit too happy to sit back and absorb the pressure, just like they did against Everton, instead of just keeping possession when for large portions of the match they had Birmingham pinned back into their own half. With that said, we're top of the table with at least a game (for some two) in hand over the nearest rivals so it's not the worst position to be in. Hopefully we can win the next two league games. Stoke at home should be easy enough. West Brom away, smart money says a draw. Fuck.

Might make a comfort video game buy. Transformers: War for Cybertron it is. Dad made a similar random buy, just buying a random cricket game for the 360. Seeing the pride on his face at making it "past a level", amazing. Granted, said level was one of about two dozen steps on the tutorial. I say "one". It was the second.

2010-12-26T18:35:00.001Z

Alright day as Boxing Days go, I suppose. Why? Because I did fuck all, saw United win in a fairly dominant fashion, then I proceeded to do fuck all when I got home. Well, I also retrieved my razor from my student house after going without it for a week, encouraging the filthy beard, but there’s literally nothing else to that anecdote. It’s surely a culdesac of despair. Might do a proper United report tomorrow if I can be arsed.

I will now proceed with attempting to recover from my third cold of December (this week’s specialty symptom: sore throat/no voice) and starving myself to restore some equilibrium to the food consumption for the month. May go and buy some box sets, it seems appropriate.

Christmas money going on DVDs of The Shield and Scott Pilgrim and The Wire.

FOR THE BABY JESUS.

Manchester United 1-0 Arsenal

2010-12-13T19:54:00.004Z

Well that was somewhat satisfying. Perhaps not as emphatic as it could have been but who cares, a win’s a win and that was fairly business-like as far as those big games go. I was very nervous prior to the game, what with Samir Nasri being touted as the new Lord King of Professional Football and all that, plus this was United’s first match against one of the main title rivals in the league, and I think they came out of it rather well. Which is kinda funny, considering how all season United have been written off as a poor side. Clearly, terrible. They just keep winning though. How annoying, inconvenient and quite frankly rude of them.

A lot of the credit for the win has to go to the midfield five, a good tactical move from Ferguson. I’m a massive Berbatov fan but I can see why Ferguson opted for a 4-5-1 and Rooney is much better suited for that formation than Berba, who works best with a strike partner in a 4-4-2. You could even have done 4-3-3 with a front trio of Berba, Rooney and Nani, but that would have meant sacrificing a midfielder, and the midfielders on this occasion did a very good job. Anderson is finally meeting the high standards expected of him and he did it in a big, important game here which is even more impressive. Hopefully his form continues because he’s been good for a while now since he came back. Fletcher was his usual combative self and really played a vital role in United winning the physical battle in the middle. Carrick was his usual hot-and-cold self but he generally contributed. Nani was a bit wasteful going forward but tracked back when he could, not only helping in the midfield but lending a helping hand to Rafael too. However, Ji-Sung Park may have been the best player on the field. Not only did he grab a good goal but he never stopped running and trying. And he wasn’t a headless chicken either, he was getting involved with everything and was one of United’s better attacking forces. Outstanding. Makes me depressed to think I ever doubted him after his poor start to the season, :-/

The defence deserves a lot of credit too, obviously. They made dealing with some of Arsenal’s attempts at goal look ludicrously easy, simply clearing balls out of the box with no issues, often reducing the likes of Andrey Arshavin to fringe shots from outside the penalty area that dragged wide. Vidic and Ferdinand are probably the best defensive partnership in the world and the full backs were similarly tremendous. Patrice Evra had a good game and seeing him charging forward on his own in injury time was quite a sight. Rafael was also impressive. He’s still slightly naive when it comes to keeping an eye on his direct opponent, like when Gael Clichy would be allowed to wander down the wing with little attention being given to him, but his pace and persistence allow him to make up for that most of the time. Great little player.

Player Ratings: van der Sar 7, Rafael 8, Vidic 8, Ferdinand 8, Evra 8, Fletcher 7, Anderson 8, Carrick 7, Fletcher 7, Park 9, Rooney 7

2010-12-12T17:37:00.002Z

Hey all. Just texting this bad boy out. Attempted many blogs over the years (and there have been so many years). None have survived. This doesn’t bode well for this one. But we’ll see. I theorise that if I combine all of my daily Twitter posts into one blog post that may be acceptable as a form of blog entry. Probably won’t help me achieve much. A pointless exercise, most likely. I’ll try and not do that.

I will write a lot about football and occasionally television, however. That I can guarantee. If you like neither of those things, first of all, fuck. Secondly, you probably shouldn’t read this blog. Yeah. GTFO. More specifically, there’ll be posts about Manchester United. That rules out a certain percentage of football fans too. I’m really cutting into my target demographic here.

Arsenal vs. United tomorrow. I will write. And we will win. Probably.