I was in a bar earlier having a pint and listening to some heavy metal when I looked up and saw a giant lady, she was over six feet tall at least, not terribly skinny and her midriff was right in my line of sight. She had massive hair and was wearing very tight white spandex trousers with some sort of two-tone leopard print on them and not much else. Basically she seemed to be stuck in 1986. Nothing wrong with a person loving the alternative fashion delights of the 80’s, unless they’re alive of course, in which case there’s a hell of a lot wrong with it.
For some reason I thought of Snakes On A Plane…I didn’t immediately think of Snakes On A Plane, that was the end of the thought, but to put it into reverse - everybody probably thinks that SOAP should have done better at the box office considering it got more free publicity than any cheesy horror movie ever thanks to its name. Hell it’s known that Samuel L Jackson nearly pulled out of publicity for the movie because the studio wanted to give it the more pedestrian title of Flight 121.
Upon release the media were all over that movie, I remember it making prime time 6 o clock news just because of the name. It should have actually done a lot better than it ended up doing, problem was it wasn’t very good, I know this because I was unfortunate enough to see it in the cinema, I bet Satan has it in his dvd collection for eternal torture purposes. So yes it bombed, but not that badly as it made its money back and more - 30 million bucks or so in the US alone. Now I tend to believe that all the free publicity in this case actually worked because Flight 121 wouldn’t have made half as much money as Snakes On A Plane. You can probably get an incredibly bad movie to make more money just by giving it a better name. Not a huge amount of money, but more than you’d think.
Now I haven’t seen that recent movie Teeth, nor do I really need to because I know someone who has. Teeth completely bombed at the box office, Hiroshima bombed, less than half a million in the US and not much more elsewhere. A little surprising because I thought that movie had a lot of free publicity too, for obvious reasons. But then I realised it didn’t really get any free publicity at all because not everyone is into movies that much and would have known what it was about.
The self-descriptive properties of the name Teeth aren’t all that great, the movie might as well have been called Dental Appointment at 2pm.
However, had the studio had given it a better name…who knows? Which leads me back to the large lady in tight spandex. When I looked up and saw her middle area, for some reason the words “Scary Vagina” popped into my head. That’s what they should have called Teeth, they probably could have turned that $400′000 into five times the amount with those two simple words.
I saw Wall-e yesterday, I’ve never been a fan of Pixar movies….none of them have really done anything special to my bones, which is understandable because they are primarily made for and appeal to kids. Well…kids, plus most of the female population, gay guys and the odd lemon to be more elaborate.
It has to be said that the Movie House on Belfast’s Dublin Road is never the best place to see a movie, especially on Screen 1 because they still haven’t cleaned off the stain where somebody threw a Coke at it about 8 years ago and there’s always some annoyingly loud drunk people who stumbled in from Wetherspoons, but looking past all that this movie is beautiful. It’s the first Blu-ray movie I shall buy when I get round to HD movie buying, it really is that good. Right from the start you also realise that this is a bit different than the Toy Stories and talking animals that we’ve come to expect, which is a blast of fresh air. The first half of the movie is pure artistic and sonic wonderland, the latter stages….not so much, but I guess you have to please everybody.
There’s a great sense of solitude and loneliness for a large part of the beginning, sure there’s the “fun” bits that you would expect, but they seem more like light relief than crowd pleasing moments. A surprising lack of dialogue is refreshing and the fact that the cockroach character is modelled on an ACTUAL cockroach, which cannot talk but yet you can’t help but feel some sort of empathy for, is a real lesson in characterisation. He/she/it makes you glad that CG sidekicks don’t always have to be the most annoying thing on the fucking planet.
So yes, without spoiling too much it’s damn good. There’s lots of forward thinking (world of fat people) humour in it and talking robots with cool sounding voices. Every time Eve spoke it reminded me of Portal, which can only be a good thing because I loved that game.
Heath Ledger didn’t just play The Joker, he was The Joker.
Apart from The Dark Knight being in my opinion the overall best comic book movie to come out in probably the last forever there’s lots more reasons to be happy that it’s so successful. There is nothing in that movie for kids, it’s darker than any 12A movie ever released. After seeing that film I don’t think a typical 12 year old would take too much away from the experience other than confusion and horrible nightmares of some guy in clown makeup trying to cut their face off. But the main reason why it’s good that TDK has grossed the GDP of a small country is that it paves the way for more darker comic book movies in the future. Which leads me to the next bit of cool…
Darren Aronofsky is apparently making a new Robocop - It’s such a strange combination but I quite like most of his films so this should be interesting if nothing else… What’s also weird is that Aronofsky was in line to do Batman Begins before the Nolan’s got it but was also making cool art/cult films before now seemingly trying to reboot a major comic book (in this case heavily inspired) adaptation. They should continue with the contemporary social satire of the original….but less of the, admittedly hilarious “Robocop is basically the story of Jesus Christ” parallels that are mentioned in the audio commentary of the dvd.
Now Robocop movies were never triple A to begin with but it better be Robocop for adults and not any of this fun loving shite that they went with on the last few, when I think of Robocop I think of that scene in the original where the ED-209 goes apeshit in the board room and shoots some dude like 57 million times….and then in the directors cut he shoots him some more. Any sort of violence on that level is absolutely fine, it doesn’t really even have to be over the top Verhoeven-esque, just as long as it’s satisfying and makes you feel slightly uneasy for a while. It all bodes well though because Requiem For A Dream did make anyone who watched it feel uneasy for about an entire week after they saw it.
I’ve had no money to buy any new games recently due to my eternal post-graduation job hunt, but everyone should play/get Braid by any means possible. Just read some of the review quotes on that page to convince thyself.
Yeah…somebody forgot to tell the new Lara Croft model that in promotional shots for the new Tomb Raider game she should definitely NOT do this. Here’s a video of her talking about herself with unintentionally funny extreme closeup towards the end.
That’s about it, I need to go wash my eyes after seeing that Lara Croft photo again.
I had all these really witty titles thought out in my head for this particular post concerning the new Will Smith superhero flick. Because I’ve never been that fond of Smiths work. The problem is, when I came up with said titles, I hadnt actually seen the movie.
Now that I have seen it I’m faced with a dilema. You see, Hancock is good. Not great or even totally awesomely good, but its at least 50% good. Its almost as if its two different movies stapled together in the middle.
The basic premise is this. John Hancock ( Will Smith ) is an unhappy, alcoholic superhero who is living in his own world. He has saved numerous lives in LA over the years, but in doing so has caused widespread property damage costing the city millions of dollars. The public has had enough of Hancock, and want him to either stop or move to another city. One day, Hancock saves Ray Embrey ( Jason Bateman ), a public-relations spokesperson whose attempts to market his world-changing “All-Heart” charity aren’t gaining traction, from being run over by a train. Ray feels he owes Hancock his life, and he makes it his mission to change Hancock’s public image for the better.
Smith plays the grumpy, drunk Hancock so well that he’s actually a very likeable and endearing guy. The cleaned up version is still a bit of a departure from Smiths usual roles, but you can start to see some of the old Big Willie Stylee ( I hated typing that ) creeping through. Its around this time that Ray’s wife Mary ( played by Charlize Theron ) starts to come into the storyline in a much bigger, and unexpected, way. Which isnt a totaly bad thing as it tries to set up a backstory and offer some explination as to who Hancock is and where he came from. The thing is, it all seemed a little too thrown together. I would have been much happier sitting through the whole 90 minutes watching the flawed Hancock trying to deal with his situation while still doing his best to save the city.
All in all, the director ( Peter Berg - The Rundown, The Kingdom ) did a pretty decent job on this. Its funny, has the odd thoughtful moment here and there, and is certainly action packed. The acting really cant be faulted and it looks rather good with top notch special effects. It has also been left wide open for the sequels to come pouring in. If only they didnt want Hancock to change. I say we need more dirty, angry, washed up drunks as superheros!
Everyone knows horror movies are generally going downhill. Its pretty much a given. But when I finally saw the trailer for new flick Teeth :
I couldn’t help thinking the premise had been lifted straight from the Pillow Pants scene in Kevin Smiths Clerks 2. Check it out! (Warning! The Clerks 2 link probably shouldnt be viewed by anyone. Its just possible some people might find it offensive. The fools)
I’ll get this out of the way from the start. I’m a Hulk fan. The comic books, the cartoon show, even the old Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno series and movies. I however hated the 2003 ‘Hulk’ movie.
So when I heard there was a new movie in the works I wasn’t hoping for very much. I was somewhat wrong. Ed Norton does a terrific job as Bruce Banner and completely overshadows Eric Banas performance of five years ago. Indeed the whole cast is pretty much top notch. My only problem was Liv Tyler (Betty Ross) who’s entire contribution to the movie seemed to be “There there! Calm down! Everything will be alright!”. But what of the actual Hulk?
Again, its a vast improvement on the 2003 monster. They opted to not go with a likeness of Ed Norton which was the only real choice they could have made, (Unless of course they were shooting for a likeness, in which case they messed up. In a really good way) its not overly huge, and manages to convey a whole lot of emotion for a CGI green guy that isnt Shrek. And then there’s the major factor that had me won over. In the 2003 movie, you dont actually get to see the Hulk until 42 minutes into the proceedings. Which made it seem like nothing was happening for a very long time. This one seems a lot more fluid, and while it has its slow parts also, you dont really seem to miss the 2 hours passing by.
If you’re lost for something to do some evening I’d say give this one a shot. If you liked the 2003 Hulk you’ll like this too. If you’re slightly more evolved and hated it, you’ll see a vast improvement in this. And watch out for the Mr Downey Jnr cameo at the end! Lets hope they dont make a total mess of the Avengers movie!
Oh, and check out the size of the popcorn! Thats some good eatin!
Dave
(All photos are from Yahoo Movies. Except the Popcorn which is modelled by the lovely Sarah)
I had all these really witty titles thought out in my head for this particular post concerning the new Will Smith superhero flick. Because I’ve never been that fond of Smiths work. The problem is, when I came up with said titles, I hadnt actually seen the movie.
