Why so serious …?

Went to see The Dark Knight last night the IMAX Melbourne.

F*ck me, it was a amazing. At a runtime at almost 3 hours I forgot I was in a cinema watching it on huge f*cking screen.

Heath Ledger? Absolutely fabulous. And its true what they say, he is good in this. Oscar worthy? Definitely yes. He is the Joker, played with such menace and craziness that I actually found him frightening. As someone on a film website said, you’ll never forget his magic trick.

This film is so beautifully crafted and made like a lot of passion with people in love with Batman and his universe. It is flawless and worthy of some prized awards, I can’t fault anything about the film.

Oh and the music by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard? Sublime. I bought the score on CD yesterday prior to going to see it and I put on for the first time this morning and I have been listening to it ever since on repeat. It makes me want to see the film again and again.

Best film of the year.

Best comic book film ever.

Better than my all time favourite – The Empire Strikes Back, probably.

It’s like watching a bank heist; thriller; car chase; mobster flick, but in a comic book universe. Christopher Nolan et al have really upped the ante on the comic book adaptations. They’ve done an amazing job on this. Kudos to them. I’ll be giving them more money when I see it again (and again).

If you can, see it on the IMAX. The cinematography is stunning, the pans of Gotham City and Hong Kong are beautiful. And wait ’til you see the BatPod’s entrance… I want more Batman films. I want the next one now.

To quote another site, this is The Godfather 2 and Empire Strikes Back of comic book films.

Go see it and let me know what you think.

Huey Lewis and the News!

Huey Lewis and the News. Huey Lewis and the News. Huey Lewis and the News. Huey Lewis and the News. Huey Lewis and the News. Huey Lewis and the News. Huey Lewis and the News. Huey Lewis and the News. Huey Lewis and the News. Huey Lewis and the News. Huey Lewis and the News. Huey Lewis and the News. Huey Lewis and the News. Huey Lewis and the News. Huey Lewis and the News. Huey Lewis and the News. Huey Lewis and the News. Huey Lewis and the News. Huey Lewis and the News. Huey Lewis and the News. Huey Lewis and the News. Huey Lewis and the News. Huey Lewis and the News. Huey Lewis and the News. Huey Lewis and the News.

Rock on Huey.

*The song should automatically start, if not select “Pineapple Express” from the MySpace player.

Space Classics with MSO Pops, Melbourne

A couple of Sundays ago we went a long to the Arts Centre, Hamer Hall to watch the second of three concerts from the MSO where they performed music from fantastic films such as the Star Wars trilogy, ET, 2001 and Superman.

It was the same crowd that performed the James Bond themes back in April.

Again the concert was great and a real treat being a film nerd. Mainly for the kids I think, but enough to satisfy the older generation like myself being brought up on those films. I will say that there was a bit too much Star Wars music – yes I just did say that. It would have been good to hear other music from films like Aliens or Star Trek (James Horner). Although it was great to hear “The Imperial March” and ‘Yoda’s Theme’, brought back a lot of childhood memories, of sneaking into mum and dad’s bedroom and peeking at my Christmas presents. I will always remember seeing The Empire Strikes Back vinyl soundtrack in a John Menzies bag.

Actually I don’t think I’ve told anyone that … not even m&d.

GRRR GINNAAAAAAAAAA SMASH!

After seeing The Happening – meh, we went to see The Incredible Hulk. I think its pretty great – great non-stop action sequences, no corny dialogue, no cheesy kids stuff (a la Fantastic Four) and more importantly a film that’s true to the comics – therefore pleasing the fanboys.

Like Iron Man, it was produced by Marvel Studios which basically means they have complete control of these comic book franchises, rather than being at the mercy of some large greedy corporation like Fox or WB. This means they can have superhero team-ups, like in the case of the Hulk – I won’t spoil it but there’s a really cool cameo at the end of the film.

Plus there’s already talk of a Avengers film in 2010, which would team up the Hulk, Iron Man and Captain America – who will have his own flick in the next couple of years. Ultimately, they want all the Marvel franchises back – that means FF, Spider-Man, X-Men all under the same banner, all potentially in the same flick. Pretty cool if they pull it off.

Two for two for Marvel Studios, The Incredible Hulk is as good as Iron Man. Roll on the next films.

Anyway, Edward Norton is great here as David Banner aka the Hulk, as so is the rest of the cast, its great to see the villain – played by William Hurt, not played totally hammed up like John Travolta in The Punisher, or Peter Fonda in Ghost Rider. Played like real characters in unreal circumstances. And there’s little homages to the Bill Bixby TV series of the early 1980’s as well as nods to other characters in the Marvel universe.

Go see it. I highly recommend it.

Welcome to the 21st Century …

SuperAlly just got broadband and bought a webcam.

It’s not happening

“The Happening” is a truly awful film. I can’t believe it was written and directed by the same guy who gave us “The Sixth Sense”, “Signs” and “Unbreakable”, which are really great films. I read prior to seeing it that was pretty bad with a 20% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but hey we wanted to give the film a chance.

So there I was at the start of the film, “please be good”. But of course, it was shite.

The opening was great and truly shocking – people killing themselves, throwing themselves off buildings and you heard the crash and crushing of bones as they hit the street below; another slammed a pencil into her neck. Great start right?

Then the real story started, the main characters appeared and it all went downhill from there. The acting was awful – again I read this beforehand, but I didn’t want to believe this. I like Mark Wahlberg, I liked him in “We own the night” and “Shooter”, but he was wooden in this flick. No excuses, he was terrible. But I can’t help thinking, didn’t the director or the rest of the cast or crew notice this? Was it intentional?

The dialogue was hokey too. A head teacher brings the faculty together after the deaths in New York start. This is how he announces it:

“Alright, there appears to be an event happening”.

Eh? Do people actually speak like that in real life? “Something awful has happened”, would have been better. There are few crackers like that littered throughout the film.

And for a film that bases its premise on the power of nature and science, I found it hard to believe when our heroes are running away from the wind, yes the wind. That’s how we knew that the ‘terror’ was coming, we saw the grass moving.

The deal is that plant life is unhappy with us humans, so they release toxins into the air and these toxins make people kill themselves, but you can’t see the toxins. The problem I had was that the invisible terror attacked people when the story felt like it – some characters were infected metres away from others who survived, yet we are to believe that the terror was carried in the wind. The wind is all around them, but they never got infected. It didn’t make any sense.

This was written by the same guy that scared us with ghosts in “The Sixth Sense”, the terror of an alien invasion in “Signs” and the excitement of seeing a man become a real comic book hero in “Unbreakable”.

What has happened to M. Night Shyamalan?

Anyways, after that crapfest we went to see “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” which wasn’t bad at all. Some great fantasy battle scenes.

I took one for the team last night …

And went to see “Sex and the City” with the missus. Actually it wasn’t bad, I had read beforehand that it had poor reviews but some saying – probably chicks, it was good. I quite enjoyed it.

I wasn’t a fan of the TV series per se, but I tuned in to watch it because it was usually full of nudity and women talking manky. Plus the missus liked it.

I did expect more though, it felt a tad watered down compared to the TV series – less nudity, less swearing, less manky talk. But it was funny to hear “oohs” and “aahs” from the audience around me when a Louis Vitton(sp?) handbag was brought out or anything girly related was on display.

It did feel like I was watching an extended episode – and quite a long one, around 2 hours long. Must have been difficult writing the screenplay for this one – what else can you write that hasn’t been already explored in the TV series (plus they are already talking about a sequel)?

So if you are a chick you should probably go see it, and if you are a bloke go see it with your better half – you get to see boobies.

Ok, I’ve done my bit. I even had endure the “Mamma Mia!” trailer which I wanted to burn my eyes out afterwards. There’s a running joke here, I was taken dragged along to see the West End musical a few years ago, and I absolutely hated it (people around me got up and danced). The the film version looks like my personal hell. I’m not taking one for the team for that one.

The Incredible Hulk is next (perhaps a rerun of Batman Begins at the IMAX).

Harrison Ford …

..was in my dreams last night. I vaguely remember speaking to him walking down a flight of stairs – I think I was back in my old high school. I was telling him I thought he was a miserable bastard, but followed on by saying that I had seen him on stage talking and he was really funny.

I think I then said that I loved his work and I grew up with his films, but this is where it starts getting weird as I seem to remember saying that I grew up and knew a few other actors like Sean Connery. This is where the dream ended.

I never got a chance to tell him how I was disappointed with the latest Indiana Jones film.

Who have you dreamed about lately?

It’s all kicking off in Falkirk…

Good lord. “Armed police deployed in Falkirk“.

I used to stay not that faraway from Glen Village (not really Falkirk) in Rumford, a matter of miles away.

‘Thomas English, who lives in the neighbourhood, described the situation [...] “I looked out of my window and saw the police armed response vehicles,” he said. “It’s usually a quiet, wee place.”‘

“…a quiet, wee place”, aye right. Full of crack dens and brothels probably.*

I wonder what was going on? Got to be drugs related. And who the man was. Do you know him?

Someone of the “tattooed f*ck-wit fraternity” I bet…

*Anyone from Glen Village reading this, I was only kidding about the “crack den and brothels” comment. Just going for the cheap laughs you understand.

Pete Doherty, dead

Well in a painting anyway. BBC News reports that Scottish artist – Peter Howson, has created a drawing which depicts Pete Doherty as dead.

But is it me? If I was shown that image on its own, outside the news article, I would say that it was like any other picture of Pete Doherty I’ve seen. A picture of him smacked out his head.

I had to laugh when I read the following:

‘A spokesman for Doherty said: “Peter Howson has never met Pete as far as I am aware, so I don’t know where he’s getting his inspiration from.”‘

Inspiration from erm… Pete’s life perhaps?