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Jumping the Sharks at the Smock Alley Theatre

Jumping The Shark is the moment when an established show changes in a significant manner in an attempt to stay fresh. Ironically, that moment makes the viewers realise that the show has finally run out of ideas. It has reached its peak, it will never be the same again, and from now on it’s all downhill.

tvtropes.org

Jumping the Sharks is a small, quirky play. Essentially a one-man one-act play following the triumph and decline of a Hollywood big shot as he waits in what must be limbo while outlining the seven core stories, it banks a lot on the central performance of Don Wycherley. Wycherley, an actor you might recognise from Perrier’s Bounty or Sweeney Todd, gives the play his all as former television executive and now dearly departed Nick Cross, managing to seem a convincing and charming conversationalist on a sparse stage. His delivery is truly impressive, inviting the audience to overlook some of the sleight of hand the play uses, and helping the hour breeze by.

Swimming with sharks...

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The Why of Sci-Fi…

“Science-fiction” is one of those genres which finds itself consistently boxed in by film fans. Mentioning that hyphenated word calls to mind images of “warp speed”, space ships, transporters, aliens, time travel and all manner of weird genre devices. It’s part of the reason why so many film viewers attempt to stay away from the genre – I have encountered more than a few people will dismiss a science-fiction film or television show off-hand because it must be camp or ridiculous. I remain convinced that this is the reason that Battlestar Galactica never got the attention it deserved (with advertisements on my local channels playing down the fact that it happens “in space”). However, what is science-fiction when you boil it all down?

Are viewers spaced out by sci-fi?

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Non-Review Review: Sunshine

Sunshine is a science-fiction movie. Well, duh, you proclaim, looking at the screenshots or having read the plot synopsis, it’s about a bunch of people in space flying to the sun. Of course it’s science-fiction! It’s hardly a comedy or musical! However, I’m talking about something more essential than its setting or its superficial elements. Although the story of a bunch of astronauts planning to reignite the dying star at the centre of our solar system may distract you, Sunshine works so well because it grabs the sorts of philosophical ideas at the heart of the best science-fiction: it’s an exploration of the conflict between the rational and the irrational, the logical and the emotional and the place of man and his understanding of the world around him. It’s movie that is far smarter than it pretends to be.

Going for gold...

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Non-Review Review: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is a decently-made little thriller. It’s interesting that David Fincher has been selected to helm the inevitable English-language remake of the film, as it feels like a spiritual companion to se7en. While that Fincher thriller concerned itself with a broken world populated with seven flavours of deadly sin, this Swedish film is only really interested in one. It’s a brutal commentary on what it suggests is a harsh and repressively misogynistic society, one that victimises and commoditises women. However, it veers a little bit too far into sensationalist territory – fixated on the idea that men in positions of authority are inevitably sexual sadists – and its contents make for excedingly grim viewing.

Never quite gripping...

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Too Much of a Good Thing: Why Inception Might Be Best Left as One of a Kind…

Apparently Warner Brothers want a sequel to Inception. That’s a long way from the earlier rumour that Inception was a “gift” to Nolan, almost a sort of bribe in order to keep him on board for Batman 3 (or, as it shall henceforth be known, The Dark Knight Rises), and one that the studio was never really 100% certain about. While I’m delighted the movie turned out to be successful enough to warrant a sequel, I can’t help but hope that it is never produced or released.

This announcement knocked me for a loop...

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Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengers – New Avengers Vol. 3-4 (Hardcover) (Review/Retrospective)

This is the eighth in a series of comic book reviews that will look at the direction of Marvel’s continuity (and, in particular at their “Avengers” franchise) over the past five or so years, as they’ve been attempting to position the property at the heart of their fictional universe. With The Avengers planned for a cinematic release in 2012, I thought I’d bring myself up to speed by taking a look at Marvel’s tangled web of continuity.

And now we’re entering a continuity-heavy area. You have been warned. As if we’ve been in a continuity-free zone for the past couple of weeks, remarks you, trusted reader. This is where my little experiment to venture deep into the heart of Marvel’s comic book continuity becomes a little bit more complicated and a little bit more difficult. Whereas the first part of Bendis’ run on New Avengers was relatively stand-alone (while still drawing on decades of events and continuity), it’s at this point the series becomes irrevocably intertwined with the on-going events at the heart of the Marvel Universe. It’s been described as “a spine”, and that’s pretty much exactly what it is: it’s a support structure which ties together the big Marvel events year-on-year, a thread that joins events like Civil War and Secret Invasion and Siege to each other and the greater fictional universe.

Wolverine learns the hard way not to bring claws to a gun fight...

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Non-Review Review: G.I. Joe – The Rise of Cobra

I never grew up with G.I. Joe. For me it was Batman: The Animated Series or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. To me, this franchise was just a bunch of generic toy soldiers – in fact, I didn’t even know that they had separate names or defining characteristics. So I come to this movie without a sense of nostalgia or a familiarity with the core product. So, Stephen Sommers’ adaptation of the popular multi-media franchise to the big screen is my first major exposure to the product, and it left me feeling like I’d spent two hours watching a guy playing with toys, rather than making a movie. One of the characters even has a “kung-fu grip”.

It's a black-and-white world...

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Where Have All the Good Movies Come From?

I know I wasn’t alone when I claimed that this summer had been (with a few big exceptions) a massive disappointment for movie fans. In fairness, with a few bright spots, 2009 wasn’t exactly an above-average year either. However, myself and the better half have been going to the cinema fairly consistently over the past number of weeks and I have to admit that I’ve been more consistently impressed by films like The Social Network, The Kids Are Alright, Easy A and The Town than I have by any run of films in at least the last year. Is it just me, or are things finally looking up?

A veritable feast of good cinema...

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Non-Review Review: Easy A

“Just once I want my life to be like an 80’s movie, preferably one with a really awesome musical number for no apparent reason,” Olive – our plucky teenage protagonist – moans at one point, before sadly reflecting, “But no, no, John Hughes did not direct my life.” However, her life really isn’t that far off. Easy A recalls, in the best way possible, all those great teenage comedies from the eighties, like The Breakfast Club or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. It isn’t that it’s a generic imitation – it works very well on its own merits, and selling it as a nostalgic trip doesn’t do the movie justice – rather that is displays a genuine understanding about the facts of being a teenager growing up and the way that social interactions work at that age.

Funny, my hairdresser gave me the same advice...

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Halloween Costume Fan: Tim Burton’s Superman

With all the buzz around the up-coming Snyder/Nolan Superman reboot, it’s easy to forget that there was a planned relaunch of the franchise in the nineties, at the hands of Tim Burton – who cut his superhero teeth with Batman. Nicolas Cage was planned to play the Man of Steel and Kevin Smith has shared many anecdotes about the ridiculous studio demands (polar bear sentries! giant spiders!). However, special effects creator Steve Johnson has revealed the costume designs he had planned for the character for the nineties reboot (titled Superman Lives!with mandatory exclamation mark!) Check them out below, or visit his facebook page for a closer look.