Spider – man, not quite amazing, but not so bad either

It’s a movie review, I don’t really seem to do them that often considering how many movies I actually watch but I saw this today and I felt compelled by the spirits of blogdom to write this for you the reader, are you there? This might contain what may be considered spoilers, but to be honest if you don’t know the basic premise of Spider – Man then you have probably never paid attention to popular culture, because even the aliens on Mars know that Uncle Ben dies...oops

Aaaaaanyway, as you will all know the popular franchise has been the subject of a reboot, in my opinion this was done in the shadow of Christopher Nolan’s Batman series which has seen the comic book movie enter a completely different stratosphere.Marvel are clearly keen to get on that particular gravy train, which I suppose is fair enough, they certainly aren’t doing it purely for the money given the fact that The Avengers made a gajillion pounds this year.

Now, as has been seen many times before, the origin story of any superhero/masked vigilante type can be notoriously difficult to transfer to film. Nobody really wants to see the difficult journey from normal guy to person with super abilities and these films run the risk of being boring in the first half. Thankfully for Spider – Man though the origin of how Peter Parker becomes spandex laden hero is kept tight and constantly moving forward, from the bite from the genetically engineered spider it doesn’t take long before he gets his suit made and starts taking down various street thugs.

Rather than give primary focus to Parker’s transformation, more time is instead given to the background of his family life. It turns out that Parker’s father was involved in some straight up evil scientist stuff in which he and his partner Dr Connors, played by Rhys Ifans set about mixing the genes of various creatures with others to try and create species without any sort of weakness. Connors who is missing an arm hopes to cross human DNA with that of lizards who can regenerate limbs if need be. Inevitably, Parker comes up with the missing link of the scientific equation and Connors thinks he can now grow back his arm. However upon injecting himself with the formula he instead turns into a giant murderous lizard and chaos later ensues with only Spider – Man capable of stopping him.

Overall the film holds its own and fans of Spider – Man probably won’t be too disappointed with the reboot. I feel that Parker is a bit more identifiable than the Tobey Maguire incarnation of before. Andrew Garfield offers up a much cooler and quick witted Spider –Man. Sure Peter Parker is still beaten up at school by a bully whose stereotypical tough guy act is only matched by his equally stereotypical nickname ‘Flash’,but he isn’t quite the total dork of the previous movies, I mean he rides a skateboard and everything and wears a hoody. Those expecting drastic changes though will be slightly disappointed, the biggest difference I can see is the fact that the classic Mary Jane character is replaced by Gwen Stacy played by Emma Stone, and thankfully we aren’t forced to endure her getting captured over and over again with Spiderman forced to save her, she is in fact much stronger and strong willed. I say replaced, I have been reliably informed that Gwen Stacy actually comes first in the comic books, so the movie is actually truer to the comics in that sense.The most interesting difference I feel is the fact that Spider – Man doesn’t actually shoot webs from his wrists, instead Parker creates a device that can shoot a web like substance that his dad had been working on. This means that should these devices break he cannot jump of buildings and swing all over the place (HINT HINT) and so the character is slightly more vulnerable than before. It is these subtle differences that I liked about the film, had they completely changed everything it would probably run the risk of alienating some fans, which this should not do.

I wasn’t really blown away by the movie, but then again I have never been the biggest Spider - Man fan, as I said before it is thoroughly in the shadow of Batman and I just feel it lacks something, but the inevitable sequel might offer up something a bit more exciting. We shall see dear reader, we shall see...

Still I would recommend this movie; you don’t need to be a huge Spider – Man or Marvel fan to enjoy it, though those who are will enjoy the obligatory Stan Lee cameo, which is probably the most amusing one I have seen yet. Nevertheless, this movie was enjoyable at least and I think you should see it, don’t make me turn this car around and take you now!

First one in a while, but this one is extra long and for once it's not me ranting about something!

So, seeing as Prometheus has just hit the screens, I thought I would take a little look back at the previous 3 films in the Alien franchise, i.e. Alien, Aliens and Alien 3. I am essentially reviewing 3 movies in one all of which happen to be over 20 years old. Say what you like about this blog, but you can’t say that I don’t keep up with current trends. Also it will contain spoilers, but come on Alien came out in 1979 and is one of the biggest sci – fi films ever made, if you haven’t seen it by now, you would probably know the story as it is part of popular culture. But anyway, I digress, pay attention now class.

Ok so the first film in the franchise is the Ridley Scott vehicle Alien. The film follows the exploits of the crew of the commercial towing spaceship Nostromo. They have basically been mining space gold and are returning to earth when the ship’s crew is awakened from their hyper sleep as the ship has detected a rogue signal from an unknown planet. From then on chaos ensues, one crew member Kane, played by John Hurt discovers a large room full of eggs, one of which hatches sending an alien onto his face, which then proceeds to impregnate him in the mouth (don’t worry ladies, this sort of thing can’t happen to humans, so please keep up the good work ;)). Anywho, with the alien baby sweetly nuzzling in his chest Kane awakens from his coma only to have the bloody thing burst out of him at the dinner table in one of the most famous instances of bad etiquette ever recorded on film, it also happens to be one of the most iconic film scenes ever made, but that doesn’t matter. Moving swiftly on, this alien grows like a motherfucker and begins to pick off the crew in various ways, helped along the way by the ships android with the extra bastard implant, played by Ian Holm, until our heroine Ripley is the last remaining crew member who successfully manages to beat the alien in the end, YAY!!

Alien is consistently ranked as not just one of the best sci – fi movies ever made, but one of the best movies ever made, a reputation which I think is entirely justified. Alien is quite simply brilliant. I read Roger Ebert’s review in which he made an interesting point that each cast member is considerably older than your average horror movie cast, with Sigourney Weaver being the youngest at 30, this adds a level of maturity to the film and at no point do you see a teenage girl screaming helplessly. There are of course moments of terror for the ship’s crew, but they come across as totally genuine. The cast therefore play their parts extremely well, Sigourney Weaver is obviously a stand out and in many ways this film catapulted her career. However I reserve special praise for Ian Holm who plays the android Ash. The thing is, he is secretly an android, and so his performance is significantly understated and delightfully evil when it counts.

It would also be remiss of me not to mention the special effects of the film; considering this was 1979 they are way above the standard I would expect from a film of that era. But they stand the test of time and even watching it in 2012 you could easily mistake it for a more modern film. There is no CGI here thank god.

Speaking of CGI that moves me nicely on to the sequel Aliens. I only mention CGI in this context because the second film in the franchise is directed by CGI’s biggest fan, Mr James Cameron. However thankfully, Aliens represents one of the rare occasions where Mr Cameron doesn’t completely fuck up his film and viciously beat his audience over the head with it.

The film once again follows the exploits of Ripley, who after drifting in space for 57 years is rescued by the company she originally worked for Weyland – Yutani, who completely refute her story of the aliens and basically tell her she is well mental. The film doesn’t end there of course, but did you expect it to, come on then it would have only been like 40 minutes long. Anyway, remember that planet from the first one where Kane found all the alien eggs? Well it’s only been bloody colonised by humans with around 200 of them living there! I know, that can only end badly, which it inevitably does. The alien race is able to make its comeback when a couple out doing whatever work they do comes across an alien egg and the man is impregnated by the face hugger. Of course he is brought back to the human colony and the alien manages to kill pretty much everyone, aside from one plucky child known as Newt. We are spared seeing everyone get killed as the plot mainly revolves around a group of marines sent in to investigate. Joining them is Ripley, who misses her opportunity to say ‘see, I fucking told you so!’ but instead goes along with the marines as a consultant. Turns out that they don’t just have one alien to deal with, like in the first film, but an entire swarm of the bastards. Much like the first though, the team of marines is slowly thinned  out by the creature and Ripley is again left to be all heroic and stuff, whilst at the same time protecting Newt whom she forms a motherly bond with. Ripley isn’t completely alone, along the way she is aided by several of the marines, such as Private Hudson, played by James Cameron’s favourite actor Bill Paxton, as well as Corporal Hicks played by Michael Biehn, the non-terminator one from Terminator, also, despite her initial mistrust of yet another android Ripley is aided by Bishop played by Lance Henrikksen. Eventually Ripley is able to once again defeat the alien and escape the forsaken planet before it is destroyed and everyone is happy again.

It is notoriously difficult to create a sequel to something that had such widespread success, The Matrix Reloaded being a painful example. Therefore Aliens had only one choice, it had to go bigger and more extravagant that its predecessor, which is does to an extremely awesome degree. Sigourney Weaver is once again brilliant as Ripley and even Bill Paxton puts in a good performance, once you get over how annoying his character is initially. In my opinion Aliens would have been the perfect place to end the franchise, Ripley ends up with a sort of replacement daughter (her real daughter dies whilst she was asleep for 57 years) and the aliens have seemingly been eradicated, but alas clearly some greedy movie execs spent most of what was made from the film on cocaine and hookers and decided to make the threequal, sigh…

I don’t want to dwell much on the third film, because it’s simply not worth it, but anyway here we go!

Having once again been left in special space sleep at the end of Aliens the movie opens with the crash landing of the ship, which results in the deaths of Hicks and Newt, who had both managed to survive at the end of the second film. Ripley is understandably a little upset with this and wonders exactly why the ship crashed. I won’t beat around the bush, the ship crashed because there was an alien on board and it started a fire. The planet she crashes on happens to be a high security prison planet, full of the worst kinds of prisoners available, including murderers, rapists and child molesters. So immediately you lose any sympathy for potential victims of the monster. Nevertheless, the alien proceeds to cause havoc throughout the prison, killing people etc etc. Somewhere along the way, Ripley also realises that she has a chest burster inside her, which makes her go all emo and decide that she has to die to avoid the alien from ever getting back to earth, right after she destroys the alien on the planet first.

That’s about it really, Alien 3 has all the mainstays of a bad horror sequel including numerous instances of individuals breaking away from the group so that the monster can pick them off a bit easier, and lots more fucks, not the sexy kind, the sweary kind. Then there is the extra gore, which has become a staple of horror sequels, in this case it just isn’t necessary. In the first two films there is surprisingly little blood and guts, as the aliens were simply intent on using the humans to breed, in Alien 3 however our space villain appears to be intent on turning this into saw in space and eating everyone’s brains like some kind of terrifying zombie vampire. Also is that CGI I see, because it certainly looked like it and James Cameron didn’t even direct this one!

Another thing that bothered me was the fact that the image of Ripley from is one of a very strong woman, and historically she has become a symbol for the female hero in film. However this reputation is significantly diminished not long after landing on the planet when Ripley randomly shags the dishy British doctor, played by Charles Dance, also known as the bad guy from Last Action Hero. This I found very surprising, I mean I know she had been without a man for what was like over 60 years, but it was kind of unnecessary for the film.

So basically if you want the storyline to be rounded off then watch Alien 3 it does have a pretty definitive ending, although Alien Resurrection kind of starts it all up again, but I am not including that because I don’t think it counts. Otherwise though, just stick to the first two films, they are so much better and if you want you can use the ending of Aliens as the real ending, which is what I do because I am a bit of a loser.

GOODNIGHT EVERYBODY

My review of Derek

Wow this one really is hot off the presses, this time I thought I would write about a TV show, I haven’t specifically reviewed an episode of something before, so this is all new and strange to me, like going to Guantanamo Bay, but without the human rights violations. Anyway, I thought I’d let you know what I thought about Ricky Gervais’s latest television project Derek.

I first saw this Gervais character in a short film that he made a while back. The character was a little different back then, he was religious and had ambitions of being a stand up comedian, he also lived at home with his mother. But with this new show, Gervais has branched out slightly and now Derek is an employee in a retirement home. First things first then, I know he will receive a lot of flack for this show due to the fact that Derek appears to be slightly mentally challenged. However having watched the first episode it is never explicitly said that there is anything wrong with him, and instead I just got the impression that he is slightly socially inept and just a little strange, but he still has a brain and he is still able to interact with people properly.

So what of the people he interacts with? Well firstly there are the numerous residents of the old people’s home that Derek works in, who he seems to genuinely care for. Then there is Hannah played by Kerry Goldiman who Derek clearly harbours feelings for, but doesn’t quite seem to understand them. Then of course there is the character of Douglass played by Karl Pilkington, who basically doesn’t have to act, as the character is essentially Karl. Whilst this really isn’t as funny as Gervais’s other work by quite a long shot, I did enjoy it. Numerous times in his career Gervais has shown that he knows how to evoke sympathy in his characters, he at times makes them annoying to add to the comedy element, but they always seem to have a good heart, such as David Brent, who was just misguided and a bit of a prat, but still a nice guy. That’s what I felt with Derek, forget the fact that he may be mentally disabled, he is a sweet man, and I was genuinely touched by his reaction to the death of one of the old people in the home.

Again I will say this isn’t his best work, for me that’s The Office, but to be fair that’s very hard to top. It really does bug me the amount of criticism Gervais gets, people really do seem to get very jealous of his success. I have read so many reviews of his work with people saying, I wanted to find this funny, or Gervais isn’t funny anymore and should stop doing the same jokes. Will you just go away, it’s so bloody easy to criticise and people really seem to enjoy doing it. Gervais hasn’t changed, he was always slightly smug, but that’s part of the act, and as for using the same jokes, well if it aint broke don’t fix it. Actually I bet you are the same twats who criticised Extra’s for being different aren’t you, make up your minds!

Never mind that anyway, I enjoyed Derek, I thought it was a good attempt from Gervais and I don’t think he was having a go at the disabled in the slightest. He has done some stupid stuff, like using the word mong, but this show doesn’t equate to that, it had thought and it had heart. I don’t think it will be a series, but I look forward to the next episode at least and I think you should too, if you want to stay friends.

The Hunger Games Review!

Ok, I am going to actually try and write something proper here, so all aboard the movie review ship, next stop, fame, bitches and some green!

In what must already be one of the biggest movie successes of the year The Hunger Games is currently topping all of the box offices and has gained several good reviews from fans and critics alike. As I write this it currently has a 7.7/10 rating on IMDB and 85% on Rottentomatoes, not too shabby eh and my first impressions after having seen the film would leave me inclined to agree with these lofty ratings.

I will start by saying that I haven’t as yet read the book series, and so I went into this movie completely unaware of the storyline and any of the characters, bar what I had guessed from seeing the trailers and reading about the actors etc. At first this seemed to be a problem as I couldn’t quite grasp why the children were picked to be part of the Hunger Games, but I gathered that it was a way for the government to exert their power over the peasant classes, something which as a history student reminds me of so very many dull lectures. Other than that little side note the story isn’t difficult to grasp and you are unlikely to get lost as to what is going on.

The basic premise (of the film that is, I am sure a lot more is explained in the book) is that in a post - apocalyptic world you have one capital city populated by a plethora of extremely odd and extravagant people.  Then you have twelve separate districts populated by a lower class who are regularly forced to throw their names into the hat for the Hunger Games, which is an annual event that see’s 24 children between 12 and 18 fight to the death. The more these starving people are in need of food, the bigger the chance they are picked. The story itself follows Katniss Everdeen, who is played by the stupidly hot Jennifer Lawrence, who after seeing her 12 year old sister get picked for the Hunger Games volunteers to take her place in order to save her. There you go; I won’t reveal much more of the plot because that kind of defeats the point.

So what about the film? Well, as I said the film is pretty solid, I was on the edge of my seat for most of it and I genuinely wanted to know what was going to happen next. I found it engaging and exciting. However you can sense a but coming here cant you?

The problem with this movie is that it’s just too damn compressed. I am aware that it must be really difficult to transfer a book to a movie, cutting stuff out and making the story shorter cannot be an easy task. I just felt that had the movie execs allowed maybe half an hour extra onto the film it would have made it so much better. At 2 hours 20 the movie is pretty long, but it still felt like a lot of aspects of the story were left underdeveloped. For instance the character of Woody Harrelson, who when he is first introduced appears to be a surly heavy drinking misanthrope. However as the story progresses that aspect of his character seems to be simply forgotten and he changes completely. It’s not necessarily a bad thing because his character is likeable, but this I imagine is something that is explored in the book a bit more and therefore the movie struggles to take on the responsibility. Still there is good character development in other areas such as the main character Katniss.

Jennifer Lawrence in my opinion does a really good job in this movie, and I am not just biased because she is so damn fine! I thought she embodied the character really well and was able to carry the film considering she was the main focus of the narrative. Other notable performances come from the films male lead Josh Hutcherson as well as Woody Harrelson, despite his lack of character development.

Overall then I would say that this movie has earned the substantial amount of praise that has been thrown its way. I was left wanting more and with another 3 films potentially in the offing I should get what I want. I do also plan to read the books because I am pretty hooked to the story. So yeah, go and watch it, it is worth it, but don’t expect a film that has a definitive conclusion otherwise you will be disappointed.

P.S

I have to say it again, Jennifer Lawrence... damn!

Well look what I found...

Continuing with the posting of stuff nobody will care about, I found this little film scene that I wrote aaaaages ago. It is supposed to be a Zombie film, and this would be the opening scene. It borrows heavily from other Zombie films, so its not exactly unique, and I doubt I will carry on with it as it was more to practice my screenwriting than anything else, but meh here it is anyway. Suppose I should say something funny, ummmmmmm... oh here is one, so like, how can you tell if there has been an elephant in your fridge? A hunter turns up and starts spraying your kitchen with bullets because he wants the ivory! Well fuck you that's the best  I can do.

 [Interior, a small bedroom. A woman gets out of the bed and stands. She pushes her arms up into the air for a full body stretch and yawns. She walks over to the window and opens one curtain without looking outside. In the bed lies a man. He has now stretched out his arms into the space where she was lying.]

Claire: Morning.

[The man makes a grunting noise, he cannot yet muster the strength to speak in his sleepy state.]

Claire: I’m gonna make some tea. Want some?

Richard: Yeah.

[The woman leaves the room, the camera pans around to show the apartment. It is a fair size and just about tidy. A flush is heard in the background. The camera pans back to the bathroom door which opens and the woman emerges scratching her head. Her hair is sticking up in various places in need of a hairbrush. She shuffles into the kitchen. On her feet she wears a pair of Mickey Mouse Slippers. She fills the kettle and puts it on boil. She stands motionless for a few seconds as the kettle begins to make that sound that kettles make. She realises she needs tea bags and sugar. She wanders over to a cupboard. However it is not a traditional kitchen cupboard. It is a full size wardrobe type thing that a person might normally keep coats in. She opens it up and the shelves are stacked with food and other supplies. She grabs a box of tea bags and the sugar. She goes back to the kitchen and gets some mugs out of the dishwasher. She then makes the tea.

Change of scene and we return to the bedroom. The man is now slightly more awake but still in a similar position to how he was before. The camera quickly turns back to the door and the woman re – enters the bedroom. She sits down on the bed and sips her tea. It is still too hot to drink.]

Claire: urgh, I think these tea bags might be off. We are gonna need some more soon.

Richard: Yeah, I’ll probably get some later or something.

[Pause]

We really need to be more careful about use by dates and things.

Claire: Well that’s a bit difficult. Considering how much sodding food we have in there.

Richard: Well yeah but these are kind of strange circumstances don’t you think.

Claire: I find it funny that you care about tea bags. Considering what happened last week.

Richard: Oh God.

[Pause]

Are you still on about that?

Claire: Well, can you blame me?

[Pause]

It was ridiculous.

Richard: I thought you were over that now.

Claire: What gave you that impression?

Richard: Well this is the first time you have said anything since.

Claire: Yes well I’m still annoyed. After Ten years you still don’t know when I’m upset?

Richard: You must be joking? You are harder to read than Lord of The Rings with the words turned upside down.

[Pause. The man chuckles.]

Claire: Why does everything with you have to be a joke?

Richard: Because Michael McIntyre isn’t on the telly anymore.

Claire: You see what I mean.

[Pause]

Just be serious for once. I think this situation warrants it.

Richard: Do you now? [Rhetorical question]

Claire: Well I generally think that what happened comes under the serious category yes.

Richard: Well I can’t afford to think about it too much. Otherwise there is no point.

[The couple continues talking to each other. The camera goes up and leaves the room. It turns to the window and goes out through the glass. It looks at the sun and suddenly turns down to the pavement below. There stand hoards of zombies moaning and stumbling through the streets. The title of the film suddenly smacks into the front of the screen (The Chorus to Pink Floyd’s ‘Goodbye Blue Sky’ plays over flashbacks of the Zombie apocalypse)

Scene ends.

More Poetry Bollocks

I Never Saw Your Face

I never saw your face

You went before I came.

I can’t say that I miss you

You never knew my name.

I know stories of you,

The make me wonder why,

Why I never met you

And why you had to die.

I wonder if you’d like me,

I’d like to think you would.

I have so many questions

I’d ask them if I could.

I hope that you can hear me,

I’m sure you have some too

Wherever you are now,

Let me answer you.

I’m a fairly normal guy

I love to read and write,

I like to watch TV

Right into the night.

You don’t know what that is.

I wish I could explain,

That may not be easy,

You are on another plain.

I don’t know what to say

 I never saw your face,

I wish I could have met you,

Any time or place.

Some serious stuff

So what you may not know is that for two years of university life I studied Creative Writing, and in that time I built up a small body of work. There are a few poems, some short stories, a 10 minute play, I even wrote a scene for a film would you believe. They are mostly shit, but I shall post them anyway. The first two pieces are poems that I submitted for an assignment, I cant remember all the different poetry forms anymore, but I think one of them is meant to be a free verse, which is basically write any way you want, so yeah enjoy them, or else....

Sanctity

Crippled by your sanctity,

It was not your choice to leave.

When will you come back to me?

Pushed towards insanity

 Deprived through bereave

While you only exist in sanctity.

Through dreams I cling desperately

Many questions I weave

Will you ever come back to me?

For fate or for destiny,

You went on that gorgeous eve,

To live a life of sanctity.

On a plain truly heavenly

Too early for me to leave

Maybe you shouldn’t come back to me?

Maybe I can survive with memory

I can live,

 I can believe

That you will exist forever in sanctity.

I sit here for you.

I sit here gazing at your picture,

Not to sound corny – But

Just look,

It’s wonderful

                                                And

You,

You are my embodiment,

You are wonderful.

I sit here and I complain,

You are the guide,

Helping me find the answers,

                                              

I sit here,

Tracing through these torturous  thoughts,

                                             Thinking                                                                                    

What am I doing wrong?

Why couldn’t I see it before ?

                                            Because

I wasn’t looking for it,

You found it for me.

I sit here,

Trapped in my despair,

A soldier in my bunker,

I wait for the next blast.

                                               But

It doesn’t come,

You stopped it...

There was no impact –

                                             You,

You were right!

All I needed to do

 Was sit here,

                                           For,  You.