Posted on July 13, 2009 by Darren
I’ve finally gotten to see all the five Best Picture nominees for the 81st Academy Awards. I’m honestly disappointed it took me so long, but that’s what happens when a flood of prestige movies hit the cinemas over three weeks in January and the Academy doesn’t even pick the good ones. I’m honestly not sure how I feel about the contenders, in retrospect. The previous year’s awards featured a fantastic line-up – Juno, No Country for Old Men, Atonement, Michael Clayton, There Will Be Blood – that hit just about every demographic and represented the awards at their best. This year, we got a closed shop.
The statuettes are actually quite creepy when you get to looking at them...
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: 2009 oscars, 81st academy awards, academy awards, AMPAS, best picture, films, frost/nixon, milk, Movies, Oscars, slumdog millionaire, the curious case of benjamin button, The Dark Knight, the reader | Leave a comment »
Posted on July 13, 2009 by Darren
Even four years after is original release, The Dark Knight casts a pretty big shadow. Not only is it the best Batman movie ever produced, and easily one of the best stories to feature the character in any medium, it’s also a wonderful piece of cinema on its own terms. Christopher Nolan is an astounding craftsman, and one who constructed his superhero sequel without ever feeling the need to dumb down. The Dark Knight is a wonderfully effective and stunningly constructed piece of popcorn cinema, but it’s also the most profound and engaging (and, importantly, even-handed) meditations on the War of Terror that Hollywood has produced. It’s bold and accessible, but it’s also intelligent and engaging. More than an astoundingly impressive blockbuster, it’s just a superb piece of cinema.
It all goes up in flames…
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: aaron eckhart, batman, batman begins, christian bale, Christopher Nolan, dark knight, film, gary oldman, gotham, harvey dent, heath ledger, joker, Movies, non-review review, review, two face | 4 Comments »
Posted on July 13, 2009 by Darren
It’s a year since The Dark Knight arrived on cinema screens, smashing various records and earning a massively positive critical and commercial reaction. The Bat himself turned seventy earlier this year and his influence over popular culture shows no sign of fading – even if Bruce Wayne is ‘dead’. Over the next week, to celebrate these two facts, we’ll be running a series of articles looking both at the film and the character – from a review of the film to a look at the iconic status of the Joker and why we love the Nolan franchise so much, as well as thoughts on where it might go next and an obituary for a character who has enjoyed an incredibly varied seventy-year existence in countless mediums.
All this stuff is pre-prepared, so it won’t interrupt our coverage of other pop culture happenings. In the meantime, what better way to kick off proceedings than with a review of The Dark Knight?
Not bad for an OAP...
Filed under: Comics, Movies | Tagged: batman, bruce wayne, comic books, dark knight, dc comics, features, The Dark Knight | Leave a comment »
Posted on July 13, 2009 by Darren
Finally got to sit down and watch Milk, despite it being on my DVD shelf for just over a month now. Tonnes of Oscar nominations and two wins, so it’s got a lot of hype to live up to. Was I satisfied with the latest effort from director Gus Van Sant? Was I ever.
Got Milk?
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: best actor, biography, gay rights, gus van sant, harvey milk, history, josh brolin, milk, milk film, Movie, non-review review, Oscars, review, san francisco, sean penn | 4 Comments »
Posted on July 12, 2009 by Darren
I’m a nerd, but also a legal nerd, so it was quite unlikely that the lawsuit over the rights to Superman would pass completely without me making some sort of comment on it. The outcome isn’t really what’s most striking, though – at least from looking at coverage of the case. Off the back of the arguments made, it’s kinda disturbing how the forces behind Superman view the overgrown boy scout.
Superman uses his X-Ray vision to read between the lines of the judgment...
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Filed under: Comics, Movies | Tagged: alan horn, clark kent, dc comics, lawsuit, siegel v. warner brothers, superman, superman lawsuit, superman movie, superman returns, superman sequel, Warner Brothers | 1 Comment »
Posted on July 11, 2009 by Darren
That was… intense, in a word.
I really didn’t come to the miniseries expecting too much. The first two seasons of Torchwood had been entertaining – for the most part – but nothing special, and seemingly lacking the va va voom of its older sister series. The promise of a more mature and considered Doctor Who was more-or-less unfulfilled – unless you consider nudity and sex jokes to be mature. Then Children of Earth aired.
Frobisher initially thought the alien ambassador was full of hot-air...
Note: This review contains spoilers. Really. Lots and lots of spoilers. If you want a recommendation: go watch it. It’s the best sci-fi you’ll see on TV this year. Then come back and talk about it.
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Filed under: Television | Tagged: 456, aliens, bbc, captain jack, children of earth, doctor who, drama, john barrowman, miniseries, peter capaldi, review, russell t. davies, science fiction, Television, torchwood, torchwood: children of earth, whoniverse | 3 Comments »
Posted on July 10, 2009 by Darren
I’m so used to watching American television and movies that I’ve almost forgotten what it feels like not to know what happens next. The era of the internet means that anything that has aired anywhere is up for discussion anywhere. Sure, you’ll have the odd spoiler notice, but most American web sites take that down once the episode has aired. If you want to participate in the discussion about the shows, you have to jump into the pool of information already circulating out there. So, when Torchwood did the unthinkable during its five-episode run this week (I won’t elaborate here, for any readers in countries still to receive the show), I was shocked.
I promise I won't reveal whose body this is...
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Filed under: Television | Tagged: american, american television, bbc, britain, children of the earth, internet, Ireland, irish television, spoil, spoilers, Television, torchwood | Leave a comment »
Posted on July 10, 2009 by Darren
We knew it was coming. A solid reason to hold out for Christmas – Warner Brothers has announced the motherlode of Watchmen DVD’s. The Ultimate Edition we’ve known to be coming for a while has been confirmed and – despite Zach Snyder’s protest that it would be a bare-bones set – it looks to be massive. Five disks, all inclusive. To quote the great Keanu Reeves: Woah…
Those paying for The Director's Cut must seem quite blue right now...
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: absolute edition, blu ray, dc comics, directors cut, DVD, films, Movies, ultimate edition, watchmen, watchmen: ultimate edition, zack snyder | 2 Comments »
Posted on July 9, 2009 by Darren
… aka, I love you even more, Roger Ebert!
That man really hates Transformers 2 – in case you didn’t read his response to those critics of critics. Or maybe it was the announcement of a Viewfinder and an Asteroids movie within the same week that led him to publish a list of his most-anticipated toyetic movies in the years to come. It is awesome and totally worth a look at the link. Anyway, one of his ideas was so fiendishly brilliant I couldn’t resist doing a draft mock-up of the poster…
I give you Marbles: The Movie, with Ebert plot summary below…
Alternative Tagline: "Get some balls"
Marbles! Secret of the Universe! Nicolas Cage plays an astrophysicist at MIT who intercepts the feed from the Hubble Space Telescope and determines that the stars in the sky are in fact giant, brilliantly-glowing marbles. Enhancing the digital information, he discovers a giant thumb and forefinger in the abyss beyond space. They hold an aggie.
Filed under: Movies | Tagged: asteroids, films, games, marbles: the movie, Movies, nicholas cage, poster, roger ebert, toyetic, toys, transformers 2, view master, view master movie, viewfinder | 1 Comment »
Posted on July 9, 2009 by Darren
I have to admit, my family’s hooked to Torchwood: Children of the Earth playing on the BBC at the moment. For those unfamiliar with the concept and execution, it’s a five-part epic that is playing at 9pm every night this week. It’s the type of television event that shows why the BBC might just be the best broadcasters in the world – the show is perfect for the format. The tension is elevated by the fact we know the run will end on Friday, the budget is clearly there for all the spectacle and all the talent involved is top notch. It’s the kind of thing that I wish that RTE might pick up on, even once. The really beautiful thing about this run is that manages to demonstrate that not only are the Beeb doing something very well, but they’ve been doing it well all along. From what we’ve seen so far, Children of the Earth can hold its head high with all the other great science fiction events the channel has pulled off over the years.
Back in black...
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Filed under: Television | Tagged: a for andromeda, bbc, children of earth, children of the earth, david tennant, doctor who, miniseries, quatermass, rte, sci-fi, science fiction, survivors, Television, torchwood, torchwood: children of earth, torchwood: children of the earth, whoniverse | Leave a comment »
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