• Following Us

  • Categories

  • Check out the Archives









  • Awards & Nominations

The X-Files – Alpha (Review)

This July, we’re taking a trip back in time to review the sixth season of The X-Files and the third (and final) season of Millennium.

After a couple of misfires in the first few seasons, The X-Files had most steered clear of “classic” monsters. The first season had struggled with werewolves and ghosts and cryptozoology in Shapes and Shadows and The Jersey Devil respectively. 3 had been the show’s first “true” vampire episode, and had ended up as a bit of a mess. Perhaps it indicated that The X-Files was not a show that did “traditional” monsters particularly well; or maybe it was just a sign that the creative team were still figuring out how to make the show.

There was some evidence that the show might have been getting better at this sort of thing. In the fourth season, Elegy had been a (mostly) effective traditional ghost story. In the fifth season, Bad Blood had demonstrated that it was possible to make a good episode of The X-Files about vampires. Perhaps it was time to try another werewolf story. After all, the budget on The X-Files was bigger than it had ever been. There would likely be no better time to tell a classic werewolf story. Sadly, Alpha is anything but a classic werewolf story.

Hungry like the wolf...

Hungry like the wolf…

Continue reading

Hardy Bucks Poster…

Universal Pictures Ireland just sent over this latest poster for the Hardy Bucks movie. A big-screen adaptation of the hit RTÉ comedy show, the film sees the boys taking their adventures on the road, to Europe. The film is being released here on February 22nd. Click the poster below to enlarge.

hardybucks

Mondo Poster Monster Mania!

I do love Mundo. Yet I have still to buy one of their distinctive poster redesigns. That might change, if I can get my hands on one of these, a collection of Universal Monster Movie poster redesigns from some wonderful artists. I especially love Francesco Francavilla’s take on The Invisible Man. Anyway, I had the pleasure of picking up the Universal Monster Movie Blu Ray Collection, and I’ll be jumping into it over Halloween. That said, it looks pretty fantastic, and these posters are a great way to celebrate some of the truly iconic creature features Hollywood has produced.

Check out Mondo’s Dark Knight Rises Poster…

Mondo are great even if – as somebody who lives in Ireland – I’m relegated to simply posting screenshots of their distinctive alternate posters. They did a whole bunch of alternate posters for The Avengers, which were awesome. And they’ve done one for The Dark Knight Rises.

The artwork on this is by Jock, who is one of the most distinctive Batman artists working. If you want to see more of his work, you could do a lot worse than picking up The Black Mirror, which is also one of the finest Batman stories of the past few years. (If not, you know, ever.) Just sayin’ is all.

Celebrating 100 Years of Paramount in Poster Form…

I’m a sucker for a bit of movie nostalgia. To celebrate 100 years of Paramount, Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles have released this special and stylish poster counting down many of the iconic films they’ve released over the years. While I’m not too ashamed of how I did, I’ll freely confess that I didn’t quite get all of them. Might make a nice game over the weekend. Anyway, check it out below and click to enlarge. Awesome.

Mondo’s Alternate Avengers Posters

The wonderful folks at Mondo have produced a series of character posters for The Avengers. I’m a big fan of graphic design, and I love the stylised approach that they’ve taken to these characters. There’s apparently only a tiny number of them going on sale some time soon (with Hawkeye and Black Widow already sold out), so it might be worth keeping an eye out for the others on sale. They really are quite awesome.

Is It Just Me Or Does The Artist Backlash Seem a Little Half-Hearted?

The annual Oscar race is a process so predictable that it could be a movie formula all of its own. You have your initial race to nominations, with various films falling at certain hurdles, leaving you with a fairly well-spaced field. You have the frontrunner surging ahead, but a dark horse waiting in the wings. And, every year, you have a very eager publicity industry ready to launch a very vehement attack on that frontrunner simply because it has the tenacity of pulling ahead. This year is no different, and The Artist seems to be seeing its share of controversies. However, these seem to be unfolding simply because it’s expected at this point in the race. I can’t help but feel like any of the attacks on The Artist are anything more than half-hearted.

Barking up the wrong tree?

Continue reading

Moon and Source Code Posters from South by Southwest…

I know I’m late to the party on these, but they are still cool enough to share. Especially with Source Code out this weekend. Basically, these are the posters designed by Ollie Moss for Duncan Jones’ two films at South by Southwest. Appropriately enough for a festival named in honour of Hitchcock, there’s a definite vibe to these posters which reminds me of the great man. Not that the films don’t remind me of him either. Anyway, check them out below.

What if the Best Picture Posters Told the Truth?

Truth be told, I’m a little behind this week. I took a trip down to Sligo at the weekend and I’m preparing for a film noir blogothon next week (stay tuned). So posting this week may be a little… scattershot. Anyway, in a nice way to tie into those wonderful BAFTA poster redesigns from last year, this year we have – courtesy of theshiznit.co.uk – a simple question: what if this year’s Best Picture nominees told the truth, up front? Instead of vague names like Winter’s Bone or Inception or The Fighter… well, that last one’s pretty spot on… but what if the movies just told you everything you needed to know, on the poster? They might look like this…

(click to enlarge)

Continue reading

Yay! My Word (and Poster) is My Bond…

I’m just doing a bit of housekeeping at the moment, as I’m away on holidays from today. Don’t worry, there will still be daily reviews and stuff, so don’t worry about your movie nerd fix.

Anyway, just a quick note to say thank you to the guys over at Anomalous Material. I won a competition a few months back and got the snazzy James Bond poster pictured below. Good old Quantum of Solace. Anyway, the poster arrived yesterday and I thought I’d say thanks. If you aren’t reading them, you probably should be.

If you want a look at the poster, click on the image below.

And, in case you’re wondering what a “quantum of solace” is – apart from the logical “smallest quantity of solace which can exist independently” which isn’t really much of a meaning so much as dictionary definition – here’s a snippet of a Bond story in which Ian Fleming explains it:

The governor paused and looked reflectively over at Bond. He said: “You’re not married, but I think it’s the same with all relationships between a man and a woman. They can survive anything so long as some kind of basic humanity exists between two people. When all kindness has gone, when one person obviously and sincerely doesn’t care if the other is alive or dead, then it’s just no good. That particular insult to the ego – worse, to the instinct of self-preservation – can never be forgiven. I’ve noticed this in hundreds of marriages. I’ve seen flagrant infidelities patched up, I’ve seen crimes and even murder forgiven by the other party, let alone bankruptcy and every other form of social crime. Incurable disease, blindness, disaster – all these can be overcome. But never the death of common humanity in one of the partners. I’ve thought about this and I’ve invented a rather high-sounding title for this basic factor in human relations. I have called it the Law of the Quantum of Solace.”

And, while I’m riffing on the movie, check out the following spoof theme for Quantum of Solace. It’s much better than what we actually got:

I love the lyrics, particularly:

Sometimes I wish Roger Moore would come back
With an underwater car or some kind of jetpack
Or a hover-gondola
And a Union Jack

Forget it mate, it’s not the Eighties
He’d rather kick you in the face
We got a new Bond for the Noughties
Because the world’s a terrible place

So true.