The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo – Niels Arden Oplev
To begin this review, I’ll talk about my recent urge to start reading again. I’ve been a book man myself before in the past, I’ve read quite a few books, maybe not the ones where people are meant to read like Ulysses, The Great Gatsby or To Kill A Mocking Bird or even Charles Dickens work, but i like graphic novels, funny novels and stuff by people who i like, for instance, I’ve read all of Kevin Smith’s books, plus Russell Brand’s biography. I like to be entertained in a different kind of way with a book. And I’ve also read (and who hasn’t) the Dan Brown books, plus all of the Harry Potter series, so as you can tell, I’ve just read Children’s book or teenage books, not great adult novels that challenge you. Now at the moment, a few books will come to mind that are bestsellers or are the books that will probably mark this decade as cultural phenomenon, especially the Twilight saga and Harry Potter. But another group of books that have hit the market with a large European following is The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo written by the late Stieg Larsson, the Millennium trilogy as they have been named which recently have been made into a film of the same name, and here is the review for that film. I have not read the books or know anything about them, just that they have been getting praise for a lot of factors.
The film follows the story of Mikael Blomkvist an investigative journalist who after being found guilty of false information about a company, is sentenced to three months in prison. But before he begins his time, he is offered by Henrik Vanger to investigate a murder that happened many years ago, one of his brother’s daughters who went missing, and he wants to find out why and if the missing case is really a murder. Mikael tracks all the family members’ history and begins to find out more about the family. Meanwhile, Lisbeth is a hacker who is following Mikael because of the company she works for and soon helps Mikael with the case by giving him clues and evidence. Mikael tracks Lisbeth, they meet and they begin a teamwork effort into finding out more evidence for the missing girl. Along the way Lisbeth is sexual abused by how new legal guardian, Mikael is attacked several times, Lisbeth and Mikael form a connection and it ends up with a twist ending, where all the evidence points towards one person. It has a great ending and the action really spices up. It has a great pace for a long film, and it isn’t boring, rather the opposite. The abuse scenes are quite a lot to handle, but handled a way that isn’t distasteful.
On a last note, it’s a good film, a good watch and it doesn’t get boring at all. A surprisingly good script, with some good acting, an overall good effort. I haven’t got a bad word to say about it. It does what it says on the tin. A modern European thriller detective movie.
7/10
Simon Childs
Youth in Revolt – Miguel Arteta
Michael Cera’s plan of world domination seems to be continuing with his latest film, Youth in Revolt, a teenage, coming-of-age comedy about a young man wanting to be better at life, wanting to improve his skills with the ladies. It’s something a little different for Cera, playing two characters, and one being completely different to what you’ve expected from the shy, lonely guy he continually plays throughout his career. There has been a lot of criticism towards Cera seemingly playing the same kind of character in most of his work, but if your that good at something, why not? Many actors before played the same role, the infamous actors such as Marilyn Monroe clearly play the same person but because they are excellent at it, it’s okay. But as you can see, the more and more Cera plays the lead role, taking the film in the direction he wants, he’s becoming an overall better actor and learning new tricks and styles that will hopefully be seen in later work, especially the upcoming Scott Pilgrim vs. The World where reports suggest a much more mature performance from the Arrested Development actor.
But back to Youth in Revolt, a great little indie flick that showcases Cera in a new way playing Francois as well as playing the 16 year old Nick Twisp, a shy outcast with interests in different things and an eccentric family life. His family go on a cavern holiday and meet Sheeni, the girl of his dreams, they soon fall for each other, but Sheeni has a thing for bad boys, so Nick imagines a new personality for him to use, named Francois, with a deeper accent, a moustache and who’s French, Nick has two sides to himself, one for Sheeni and one for everyday life. It has a lovely romantic storyline involved and it’s defiantly laugh out loud funny in certain parts and does have a good ending, but for some reason, i just didn’t like Sheeni, i just couldn’t get over the fact how much of a dick she is. There are some nice cameos here too with Zach Galifinakis as Nick’s step Dad, Steve Buscemi as his real dad, Ray Liotta who plays a police officer and Justin Long as Sheeni’s old brother. A great little support cast.
Overall, a great film, it’s funny, it’s heart warming and it shows a good performance from Cera especially his take on Francois, the French boy. All his scenes wearing the moustache was pretty funny and i reckon it might become the film before the pinnacle moment of his career where he finally explodes onto the scene of being one of the best comedy actors, maybe not drama actors but defiantly in the realm of comedy. And who knows, the Arrested Development movie could be another great film for Cera too moving him into the position of head of the family, not Jason Bateman!
7/10
Simon Childs
Part 4: Directed by Graham Yost
A pick up in pace was needed from the last episode and here it kinda delivers. It’s not what i wanted, but I’m sure it will lead onto new things. With one of the lead characters now back in America, the attention turns to Eugene Sledge and Robert Leckie as they fight in the battle of Cape Gloucester, showing Leckie showing the strain of the war and how it’s affecting him and with Sledge being trained and finally joining the war. It’s a good mix of humour with emotional attachment to the characters as they brave against the horrible conditions that plague the soldiers, especially with the last quarter of the episode showing Leckie in the establishment for soldiers who are either mentally u
nstable or who have bodily disorders, such as Leckie’s chronic bedwetting. After seeing more Marines like him with severe cases, he realises that he needs to leave and join his crew again. The fact of knowing that people out there who are worse than him is hurting him and he wants to finally get rid of the Japanese in these fights he’s being sent to. Next week’s episode should be good to see where they go next, to see the next island they must fight on and perhaps, Basilone will be shown in his adventures back home. And i must say, i enjoyed the scenes where you can see the physical toll it has on the men in the jungle, where the jungle itself is the enemy. It’s a harrowing thing to think about, not just the people trying to kill you but the environment you’re in as well is trying to harm you.
Simon Childs
Red Dead Redemption - Xbox 360 and PS3
Made by the fine developers at Rockstar, well a combination between Rockstar North and Rockstar San Diego, a new massively open world action-adventure Western video game has sprung onto the scene, stealing the year’s nominations and awards for the game of the year and possibly beyond. This game is called Red Dead Redemption. A game you’ve probably heard of and you know plenty of people who have it on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 and a game that threatens to take hours and hours of someone’s life away. Perfect. Just what you expect from Rockstar, being famed for such clas
sics as Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne and the somewhat up and down series of Manhunt. The company is known for its open worlds, but here, for the first time, the Wild West is explored here, covering a massive terrain, taking a good 15 minutes to cover from the east side of the map to the west. And it’s all done on a horse or a carriage, no cars or bikes to speed away. Here everything is turned on its head, and it makes a refreshing change.
The story follows John Marston, in the 1911, he is taken away by government agents to investigate former gang members that he was in, and otherwise his family will be in grave danger. It’s a common plot here, but in these times, it’s something different, and the player is thrown right into the deep end being shown the world around him. And quickly you begin to side with John and the connection you have is very deep for a video game character. He’s a villain and a hero, and with the choices you make in the game, this can change. If you want to kill animals, kill people in the local towns, steal horses or rides, cause general havoc you can, but you’ll known for this behaviour and people will act differently and of course, you’ll be tracked by the sheriffs of the towns and have a bounty over your head. Now if you help the townspeople, save people’s life’s and go general deeds for strangers, you’ll be given fame and fortune an
d people will be instantly nice to you. So it’s totally up to you how you play this, for me, i was the good guy. I didn’t kill many strangers, only ones that tricked me. Fucking tricky people who stand there wanting help, you get off your horse and then they try to kill you and take the horse. It’s shocking. But that’s what i like about the game. It’s that clever.
All the reviews you’ve read, all the comments your friends have made, the game is quality, throughout it never drops, it may take a little while to getting going in how hard the missions are, but it’s totally worth the pay off. Now i haven’t finished the game yet, but I’ve had a good 12 hours of play with the game, more than enough to finish a regular game like God of War 3 or something similar, but here, at least 50 or 60 (depending how good you are) is needed. The look of the game is stunning, especially with the PS3 engine, the sun setting over the desert landscape is truly spectacular and has one of the best looks for a game I’ve seen on the console, except for Uncharted 2, God of War 3 and Final Fantasy 13. I have not played the online multiplayer but i hear it’s very addictive, but sadly i have my addictions elsewhere with Call of Duty and Fifa. I might check it out one day. But if you have a PS3 or an Xbox 360, and you have a good week or two to spare over the summer, this game is defiantly worth the money. And with the recent announcement of Additional Downloadable Content with new side missions and a mode where people are zombies, yes, zombies, the game could have another 20 or 30 hours thrown on top. Almost as bad as a Final Fantasy game!
VISUALS: The visuals are at the forefront for video games and it’s a high benchmark to follow. You’ll fall in love with the way the game looks 19%
SOUND: A great soundtrack, mixing the Wild West sounds of horses and the environment to the music thrown in along with the sometimes amazing voice acting 18%
GAMEPLAY: Mixing the great points of GTA with the gunplay of Uncharted, it’s evolved the genre to new heights 19%
LASTING APPEAL: Let me know when you’ve 100% the game 20%
SPECIAL FEATURES: Online multiplayer and with up and coming DLC packs 18%
94%
Simon Childs
The Shinjuku Incident - Derek Yee
Being a massive Jackie Chan fan, well of his martial arts work, not his latest amount of releases like The Tuxedo, but Police Story, the original Rush Hour’s, i heard about the newest and supposedly Chan’s best feature film of recent times, The Shinjuku Incident. And now you may be wondering what makes this film different to all the rest, what stands out about it that will want you to rent or buy it and watch it several times. Well it’s because for the first time in Jackie Chan’s career, he’s acting. He’s performing without his moves, without his feet and fists, but with his mind and emotion. It’s a great change for him and shows that Chan is both an acting legend and a fighting legend. With the recent release of the newly remade Karate Kid, Chan (which you’ll find out more about in the next couple of weeks with a review of) clearly takes lessons from this film to add a new dimension to his work, mixing his martial arts background with his newly found acting chops. It’s a refreshing change. And so The Shinjuku Incident deserves its credit and deserves its applause.
The film follows Chan as a Chinese immigrant newly in Japan after searching for his fiancé and living with his “brother”, he finds that life for the Chinese is very difficult in the suburbs of Japan, where police, gangs and regular town folk are against you. After saving a policeman’s life, Chan’s friendly mentality soon changes when he wants to become legal in the country and begins different scamming jobs where he works with his “brothers” and they soon find themselves with more money. Unfortunately one of his scam means trouble for his “brother” Jie, who has his hand sliced off and cuts to his face. After swearing for revenge, Chan goes to the place of the man who did this to his brother, and he cuts of his hand and also saves a leader of one of the biggest gangs in Japan. This leads to Chan being employed for him and a whole heap of trouble erupts. I won’t ruin the ending but it’s pretty amazing how it all ends up. Really does spring up on you. It has an original storyline which makes it even more impressive and for an Asian cinema release, you can tell the American influences in the filmmaking but at the same time defiantly has the feel of Chinese cinema making.
Overall, a great little film that i had no idea about that I’m sure you’ll enjoy. It’s a great introduction into Asian cinema that doesn’t have weird incest storylines or horrific horror involved, well maybe just the scene where the hand gets cut off, but that’s about it really.
8/10
Simon Childs
Green Zone - Paul Greengrass
Touted as being a Jason Bourne rip-off with obvious political meanings, Matt Damon’s summer blockbuster of the year Green Zone, which was somewhat under the radar when released, arrives on DVD this month, and here is a review that may shock you. I liked the film. Many people are slamming this film, calling it boring, political, predictable ending, a poor script and mediocre acting, but i think it’s a rather good action film steeped in modern warfare involving issues that have not been explored in cinema lately. We’ve all seen films that parade war to be bad, to be worthless and scream the hidden meaning that every war is pointless. Yes, i totally agree that war is unnecessarily in most situations, where violence isn’t needed, but here the WMD argument, if there really was Weapons of Mass Destruction, and if the American army really needed to invade Iraq to find these weapons or if it was a ruse just to take control of the country. Talking about a subject that has made massive presence in the media in the past, well the last ten years or so since 9/11, it’s a subject that i know a little information about but not entirely sure of. I haven’t researched the subject, but I’ve just picked up a thing here and there.
The plot of Green Zone follows Matt Damon who plays Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller who is in Iraq investigating places where WMD’s are said to be, where intelligence has pinpointed areas which are “hot”. After going to these places and finding nothing of the sort, Miller begins to question the intelligence. And from there, the whole plot unravels, revealing bad intelligence, hidden meanings behind the war and dodgy connections in the army and the CIA. It starts off slow but slowly builds up having scenes of action involving shoot outs and the team searching the areas to then cutting to the heads of the departments talking, trying to figure out what’s going on. Through in a storyline involving a reporter who leaks the information about WMD’s existing, you soon begin to understand that maybe WMD’s never existed and that Iraq was invaded for other reasons. It has a great ending and a great end set piece involving Miller going rogue, finding one of the last Iraq Army higher ups and trying to help him. Some great acting by support cast Amy Ryan, Brendan Gleeson and Greg Kinnear, but Matt Damon clearly steals the show, being this is a Matt Damon vehicle.
Many people may argue that this is a Bourne 4 with political meanings, but i don’t think it is. Bourne films are more about the action and the chase, here it’s more about the overall image, and action only occurs when it’s needs to to further the story. So go check it outs, it’s worth a watch.
7/10
Simon Childs
The Road - John Hillcoat
Over the vast amount of films I’ve reviewed so far, the amount of blockbuster hits, the number of small indie flicks that blew me away to the pile of shit films that fill the gap in-between the good ones, The Road was a hard one to pinpoint before i finally sat down to watch it. And coming away from it, sadly it falls into the category of being a film that I’m just not interested in, it didn’t excite me, it didn’t entertain me. I know what it was trying to do, it was trying to encourage emotion the audience, show them a realistic storyline where they understand the realness of a situation of the world ending and civilisation collapsing and how hard it really would be. There have been a massive explosion of films recently showing a post apocalyptic world like The Book of Eli, 2012, Legion to a certain extent, and all of them give a take on how the average man or woman would cope. It’s becoming very boring now and the formula seems to be the same where the strong man takes control and looks after a family, a woman or a child.
The plot follows a father played by the awesome actor Viggo Mortensen, who i have much appreciation for, and in this film, he does play a heart breaking performance and it’s great, but it’s just a shame it’s a boringly paced film. I come to see something that entertains, that sits me down for an hour and a half or longer and takes me into a new world, shows me things I’ve never seen and just dream almost. Well that’s my view on cinema, it’s a form of entertainment, like a television show, or an album or theatre, and I want to be happy afterwards, I want to feel fulfilled. Anyway back to the film, a father played by Mortensen and a his boy played by the up and coming child actor Kodi Smit-McPhee who you’ll be seeing in the next massive film Let Me In, the remake of the fantastic Swedish film Let The Right One In, and how they survive in a world where shits gone down, and most people are dead, towns are deserted, houses destroyed, people turning into cannibals, it’s horrible. And through the use of flashback, the story of the family, where the mother kills herself and the two must survive no food or water, and how the little things matter. Throw in some runnings with some evil characters, some funny parts and some pretty dramatic sad parts, it’s very slowly paced.
So overall, a pretty boring film, i can’t write much more about a film i had no interest in and that I’m sure you’ll find the same unless you find it all attractive and like the fact it’s all doom and gloom. True the cinematography is good, the setting is doom-y and lovely and stuff, but it just doesn’t cut it for me.
4/10
Simon Childs
Part 3: Directed by Jeremy Podeswa
Moving away from the war scenes, the marines now find themselves down under, in Australia, back on turf with no conflict or fighting, but with women, alcohol and luxuries. When they first arrive, it’s a massive shock noticing the hundreds of people who have come out to see them and cheer them on. It only leads to them wanting to be young again, chasing tail and drinking. With the three separate storylines, each one having different problems, with one receiving the highest honour, the medal of honour, the one chasing a woman, and the other seemingly trying to marry another. It follows the path of each very well without being too distracting or boring and keeps the pace up. By having this episode the light humour in-between the death and destruction, it shows the two lives the soldiers live, the one for killing and the one for socialising. And this episode marks the first sex scene and as you’d imagine from HBO it’s pretty graphic. This also shows that the marines are starved of their natural human ways, and sex is something they’ve gone without for many many months, maybe even years. It’s more emotional than sexual in this scene. But later on, more sex scenes appear and i guess it shows the true nature of being a Marine at war. A good in-between episode, which i expect to pick up next week.
Giant Pennies and Dinosaur Statues:
Okay, so I’ve been promising our mysterious benefactor, one Mr. Childs, that I’d do this column. I made this promise a good five or six months ago. And, the lazy **** that I am, I’ve never gotten round to doing it. But, on this warm night in June, with my body clock all out of whack, I’ve decided I may as well use this free time to divulge to you the first in a series of articles detailing an introduction to the world of comic books. Week by week I’ll be talking to you about the current status quo of the comic book industry, how I got into comics, what comic books are good for reading if you’re just starting out, and some comics that I’ve been reading recently.
Yes, I share an office with Batman.If I may, what will follow here is a very general, almost patronising account of the current worldview of comic book culture. Time was, a lot of people thought comic books were the domain of children and sad, lonely men who can’t get laid. This is, well, stupid. Stupid, completely wrong and not a nice thing to say at all. Since as early as the late 70s, comics started taking on a darker tone, reflecting real world problems and slowly being aimed at a more mature audience. Even that sentence isn’t totally true, as adults have been reading comics just as long as kids have. The kids who grew up reading about the new and exciting exploits of Batman, Superman et al, became adults and continued reading. The writers themselves were adults, so how could they not put in their adult views, emotions and political views into their work? Many comics in the 70s dealt with the Vietnam war, moving beyond the propaganda-esque comics of the 40s (Superman fighting Hitler, anyone?) and detailing a realistic view of the most unpopular war in history. As the 80s hit their stride we were given stories about the AIDs epidemic, drug abuse, child abuse, and many more darker themes besides. But I digress.
Watchmen, one of, if not the most, revolutionary comics out there.
As soon as “Watchmen” hit the shelves between ’86 and ’87, a lot changed. This was the turning point. No longer was everything like an Adam West “Batman” show, with all the “baf-bam-pow” cheesiness. No, sir. After Watchmen, we were fully presented with utterly (and scarily so) human characters. Of course, this was two – three years before I was born, so I’m giving this information to you second-hand. But the evidence is there – Watchmen, for the past twenty years, has spent much of that time in some of the highest positions on The New York Times’ bestsellers list. You know, that list dominated by esteemed literature and the like. Anyone who has ever read Watchmen has nothing but praise to sing about it.Whether you’ve seen the film or just heard about it, what everyone should do is go out and read it. A 12-part “maxi” series, with a beginning, middle and end – Watchmen concerns a mostly-defunct team of vigilantes living in an alternate 1980s, one where Nixon stayed on for an extra term, and tensions during the Cold War are so intense that both the USA and Russia have their finger planted just above that doomsday button. It’s a world where vigilante “superheroes” emerged in the twenty-year period between the 40s and the 60s, and their successors helped to win the Vietnam war. The story offers a real-world look at what power and responsibility could do to people with the best of intentions. In this story, the heroes are sometimes indistinguishable from the villains. This is where the strength of the comic lies. But let’s not forget the expert multi-layering, the subtle background themes, the real-world commentary, the expressive art, and one of the best lines in comics, ever.
“I did it thirty-five minutes ago.”Alan Moore, the writer of Watchmen, has been hailed as one of the greatest comic book writers of all time. He’s British to boot. Moore is also responsible for “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”, a stellar run on “Swamp Thing”, and “V For Vendetta”. Dave Gibbons was revolutionary in his artwork – adopting nine panels a page, for every page, this technique was astounding; he wasn’t trying to shock you with awesome art and page layout, “look-what-I-can-draw”... he was merely laying the art out in perfect sequence, letting the story grab you by the balls (or whatever you’ve got down there) and then topping it off with great art. I’m not going to go too far into detail about Watchmen as it’s been much-discussed elsewhere. Another notable comic of the 80s was Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns”. You may recognise the name – he is the man responsible for “Sin City”, “300”, and some of the best “Daredevil” you will ever read. “The Dark Knight Returns” is critically acclaimed – it’s a story of Batman, Bruce Wayne, being an old man. The plot is pretty basic – set in a dystopian future, Batman comes out of retirement to fight crime. But there’s much, much more to it than that. Lauded by many as one of the best comics around since it’s publication, DKR remains a timeless piece of work – and, was another of the building blocks of comics getting darker, grittier, and more true-to-life. Well, as true-to-life as you can be when dealing with a guy who dresses up like a bat and jump off rooftops in his car, which also looks like a bat.
This image has become iconic since it’s debut as the cover of #1.
These seminal comics are a great discussion point as we can now discuss what followed in comic book history – the 90s, and the Noughties. One important, the other... not so much. The 90s were basically horrendous for superhero comics. Hammy art took over, with big muscles, big guns and lots (and lots) of pouches being the flavour of the week... and decade. The grittiness of Watchmen and DKR were amped up to 11, with many comics going over-the-top.
Rob Liefeld, the “writer” and artist, was big in the 90s, and one of the biggest perpetrators of this kind of art. He made thousands, if not millions, of dollars. But his art is awful. This remains one of the biggest mysteries in comic book history.
Writing took a massive backseat, and Crossovers took hold. The crossover, essentially, is this – if you understand the concept that all of Marvel Comics’ books (for example) exist in the same universe (Spider-Man, X-Men, The Avengers, Fantastic Four, etc etc) then a crossover would be when you have all these characters teaming up to stop some big world-threatening menace. Whereas, say, you’d be reading one book – Fantastic Four maybe – to get the whole story of a crossover, you would also have to get Spider-Man and X-Men. It’s a big financial move, a way to get more money off you. Now, fortunately, we have good crossovers, so more often than not, it’s worth the money. But in the 90s – it was sh*t. It was so sh*t. As previously mentioned, it was all about crappy art with worse writing. Add to that they’d print multiple versions of the same comic, except with a different cover – called a “variant”. This introduced a whole collectible aspect, and soon enough Marvel was looking at the bad end of bankruptcy. But that’s an article for another time. There were some good stories of the 90s, and I look fondly back at a few – the 90s was when I started out reading comics, and I was just a little kid at the time – so some of these crossovers I look back at with really fond, nostalgic memories. Re-reading them recently, however, is shocking – after the comic book world had experienced the greatness of stuff like Watchmen, it was hard to believe that comics had regressed like this.
The Onslaught Saga, a crossover I remember loving as a kid, does not stand the test of time.
So, at the start of the year 2000, things weren’t looking too great for Marvel. There was a lot of structural change happening within the company editorially, and they knew they had to do something to save themselves from bankruptcy. DC Comics were not fairing much better, only staying afloat because they were/are owned by the massive Time Warner corporation. But superhero comics were pretty crappy across the board. Marvel, to stay afloat, auctioned off the film rights for their characters – for example, they sold the X-Men rights to Fox, Spider-Man to Sony, etc etc. And, when Fox decided to make an “X-Men” film, we all know how that turned out. People started turning to the comics because they saw the films, and the writers of the comics started evoking the films. For example: in the comics (and as I’m sure a lot of you will remember from the awesome 90s cartoon), Spider-Man had mechanical web-shooters. When the film said that he had organic web-shooters, the comics changed to this idea. The X-Men are known for their colourful, unique costumes – but when they were all wearing black leather in the films, they all started wearing the black leather in the comics.
“New X-Men”, published in July 2001, reflected a lot of what the movie created, and was much more besides.
Personally, I don’t know what happened. Something clicked in these creators’ minds, and all of a sudden we were getting great comics across the board. Artists got better, writers got seriously crazy, and some of the best comics you could ever read were published in the first decade of the 21st Century. Lord only knows what’s coming next. Obviously we’ve now had a string of great comic book movies – The Dark Knight, Iron Man, etc, and comics have been flung into the public purview. It’s now even deemed pretty cool in some social circles to read comics, a huge leap forward for those fans who were belittled for sitting in their “parent’s basement” (I hate that stereotype) doing nothing but poring over these great characters, who offer us good morality tales and awesome escapism from the dreary tic-tac-toe of our lives.
The Dark Knight offered us a great comic book film, all the while drawing in curious strangers to the art form... yes, comics are an art form.
I’m going to delve more into this past decade of comics in the next instalment, but for now, let me tell you – life is good for the average comic book reader. Really good. All I’ve spoken of here are superhero comics for the most part – there are so many more independent comics out there that branch out to many different genres – romance, horror, sci-fi... and heck, I’ll probably cover those too at some point. More and more people are flocking to comic book stores, more and more Waterstones are stocking “graphic novels”, and I’ve got many more people to talk shit about comics to. Hopefully you’re one of them, if you’ve carried on reading this far.
Comics can now be found pretty much everywhere.
Take away this message, dear readers – go read Watchmen. Go read The Dark Knight Returns. Comics are for everyone. They always have been. Come back here next week and I’ll give you more recommendations. Because once you read those two, you’ll be crying out for more - and my friend, there is much, much more to be read.
Dan Woburn
Nowhere Boy - Sam Taylor-Wood
A massive Beatles fan, been playing Beatles Rock Band, listen to the early albums like Please Please Me, watched the documentaries about the band from the beginning and have even spent an evening on Wikipedia just researching every detail about the band and then i saw this, recently released on DVD, the early life of John Lennon, played by Kick-Ass himself, Aaron Johnson, and how he began the band The Quarrymen. I knew it had received some good reviews, and was expecting an accurate, funny, interesting story in how Lennon became the man he was, and how he met Paul McCartney and the rest of the band. I was expecting some good music, some entertainment, and some light hearted fun. Unfortunately i came away unhappy and not fulfilled in filling the huge gap of information that i wanted to receive in the way of John’s upbringing and him becoming John mother flipping Lennon.
The story follows John as he lives with his Dad and his girlfriend whilst he is at school. The relationship he had with his Dad was very special, you can see the deep emotional love they had for each other and how the Dad influenced John into becoming a musician. After the Dad dies early in the film, sorry for the spoilers, John becomes a tearaway, meeting his biological mother and becoming close to her whilst becoming further away from the woman he lived with, his step-mother. He flunks at school and after listening to new types of music, wants to form a band with a few of his friends to get money, to get famous and to get girls. He successfully forms a band, and they play well together, but with more people going to see them perform, fellow musicians also want in, and beg to play with the band, one of these people is the one and only Paul McCartney. They join forces in the band, and you can instantly see the connection and how they perform excellently together, even from an earlier age and i think the actors they got to play these two were spot on, Aaron Johnson as John Lennon, and Thomas Sangster as Paul McCartney, even though Sangster is very weedy at that age.
So overall, it’s a disappointing film, and i was expecting a lot better as what the reviews beckoned for it to be, but sadly, some reviews are utter shit sometimes, and you can’t always believe what you read I guess.
5/10
Simon Childs
Bunny and the Bull – Paul King
After seeing the posters in tube stations, seeing trailers on the TV, and seeing behind the scene featurettes, i finally got to see Bunny and the Bull on DVD and I’m glad i have. I was worried i was going to miss seeing this film because of rubbish cinema times, but after watching it, and loving pretty much every second, i can reveal that this film is awesome. It truly lives up to its reviews and fame it gained from the underground scene in which The Mighty Boosh is the film of chose, Camden is the place of choice and Top Shop is the clothes of chose. It all follows a trend in which “young” people are meant to be a part of. But luckily, the film deviates from this trend and creates a new form of cinema that i haven’t seen before. It continues the trend of British cinema but adds a twist, something that is unexpected. The plot moves along quickly but at the same time is confusing to follow. It doesn’t have a direct path, nor does it finish properly at the end, there isn’t a fairytale ending.
So moving onto the plot, Bunny and the Bull tells the story of a road movie, kinda, where Stephen played by the excellently emotionally detached human being Edward Hogg, recalls the story of his year of travel in the past with his best friend Bunny, played by Simon Farnaby, a scene stealer. The ascetics of the scene are all constructed using objects in Stephen’s flat, inanimate objects which come to life and form the memories and hallucinations. On their journey, they visit various places which are strange and wonderful, meet various people, both crazy and delusional, and end up trying to win the heart of a woman they meet named Elosia. Throw in comic appearances by Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding (The Mighty Boosh) as a dog-loving Russian tramp and a Spanish alcoholic ex-matador, with also a surprise appearance from Richard Ayoade, Moss from The IT Crowd, and the film is exciting, surprising and very fun all at the same time.
The way it moves from being serious to funny is perfectly done, where the audience are pressured into seeing sad, but get those genuine feelings, like throughout most of the film, i was rooting for Stephen’s character by how hard done he was and how unlucky he was in every situation thrown his way. I really haven’t got a bad word to say about the film, it’s surprisingly good and the style is defiantly unique which you may fall in love with. Go check it out now!
8/10
Simon Childs
Part 2: Directed by David Nutter
Leading off straight from part 1, the action turns to Basilone and the 7th Marine, landing on Guadalcanal and helping to keep the airbase that will ensue victory for the Americans. It’s a long and bloody battle, leading to many men being killed, but due to Basilone with his steer determination and willingness to fight, along with the help of his marines, they kill thousands of Japanese soldiers and the airbase is safely American. In-between the fights, the closeness of the group is shown, where they wait until the fighting begins again, just waiting, making jokes, smoking, reading letters sent from back home. It’s a horrible life to lead and when seeing the amount of death and carnage, it surely gets to you, and it’s shown in how a couple of soldiers can’t handle th
e war and begin to lose their minds. You can tell by just watching these sequences that a lot of thought and money has gone into it, with every scene having a function and being set out perfectly to continue on the story. With two episodes of war and fighting in the island, and the Japanese army now moving away, it seems that The Pacific will either follow a different battle somewhere else or keep following these soldiers as they dock to new places. And i especially like the scene at the end where they enter the ship that finally comes to pick them up, and they are recognised as being heroes back home. The joint expression of honour and sadness is played very well in how these soldiers look along with the fantastic score which throughout this episode is astounding. Looking forward to the next instalment and wondering where it will go next!
LEGO Harry Potter – Various consoles
Welcome readers to the brand spanking new Video Game twice-monthly review that will be unleashed in this fine month of July. So from now on, two games a month will be highlighted for your pleasure, and will cover most platforms, but mainly staying with the PS3 and X-Box 360. For the first review, we have an early peek at LEGO’s latest instalment in their famed series of turning recent films into the LEGO world’s we’ve always been craving for more of. After huge success with Indiana Jones, Batman and the most popular of the series, Star Wars, the newest addition to the franchise is the huge cultural and generational definer, the book series about the boy who lived and the film series that started the new wave of cinema goers, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter. Yes, Harry and his friends are now turned into LEGO and we the gamers will traverse through each year of Potter’s education. Starting when he first joins Hogwarts, the school for Wizards until when he duals with Lord Voldemort for the first time. LEGO Harry Potter covers the first 4 years, covering Harry Potter and the Philosophy’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and finally, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
For each of these books/film, LEGO
have turned them on their heads and shortened them, involving the main storylines filled with action and suspense, with the films being turned into 6 acts. Each act covers a chunk of the films, mainly with learning new spells, meeting new teachers and wizards in the wizarding world, developing the relationships you have with your friends, and facing off against evil. All of these topics are covered heavily in this game, but you may find that it takes a lot of time to cover everything within that year. With LEGO being renowned for creating games that have longevity in how many collectable items there are, here Hogwarts is turned into a massive playground, where various spells and tricks are used to open new doors, destroy enemies, use building blocks to reach new heights and so on. It’s hard to describe the amount of time we will have trying to 100% the game, it’s almost on par for the likes of Final Fantasy, where it certainly challenges the more hardcore gamer, even though these series are aimed at the younger audiences, even myself, being 20, found it engaging and entertaining.
The cut scenes used here are very funny and charming, which help with the large nature of collecting everything and hitting everything you see on scene. It does take a long time to move onto the next chapter or film/book. I only reached up until the middle of the third, with not completing the game entirely. Even just doing up to the third book/film, i man
aged to knock up about 20 hours of game play, maybe even more with the secret levels and secret missions. And this game also emphasises the use of friends and multiplayer, where a friend can jump in and help you in certain missions. A great new feature, which i would love to see in other games is the use of split screen, where normally, the screen is split and a massive black line is produced in the middle causing you to see less and finding it much more of a challenge to move around freely, but here, if the characters are near each other the line goes away and the whole screen is viewed. I’m not sure it would work in larger area games, but it does a massive favour to the game play.
Overall, an engaging, charming and funny game which continues the tradition of solid game making by LEGO. I look forward to the next 3/4 years in the Harry Potter universe, especially with the last of the films being released at the end of this year and next year.
VISUALS: For a LEGO game it sure has a great looking shine that slicks all the way through 17%
SOUND: At times annoying but others, the sounds of the film melt into the scene and its wonderfully enjoyable 15%
GAMEPLAY: Gone has the times of annoying falls into a random pit or getting stuck, perfect! 18%
LASTING APPEAL: You've got a few hours of collecting all the bolts and collectables 18%
SPECIAL FEATURES: A few special levels, but no online multiplayer 13%
81%
Simon Childs
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief – Chris Columbus
A teenage novel turned into a film. A common thing nowadays, it seems any children’s or teenage novel released, and a group of people enjoy it, the studios are now snapping up to make mega dosh from. I really hope these trends stop soon, it’s becoming boring and predictable, and we’ve already had the huge explosion of Harry Potter and Twilight. I want more adult themed kinda stuff, shit that doesn’t make sense you know. I can’t imagine films like Donnie Darko or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ever coming from novels, because they are too much to handle, which is why the gap between films like Harry Potter and Twilight will never be classic filmmaking, rather just cult classics for a new generation of film goers. But, sometimes, a film can come out of this whole thing that changes the game, creates the difference between a clear definition of cash-cow and genuinely for the audience, and Percy Jackson & The Olympians seems to want to be the later, creating a new exciting franchise that i would love to see more being made in the future.
The film tells the story of the family of Greek Gods, Zeus, Poseidon and Hades, the three brothers that rule the Heaven, the sea and the underworld. A rule had been made where the sons and daughters of these gods, made with humans would be abandoned and left on earth to fend for them and have powers from these gods. As well as these gods, demi-gods also have sons and daughters where they have connections to their powers. Introducing Percy Jackson, the son of Poseidon, one of the most powerful humans on Earth, but he is a teen at school, who soon learns that he is much more powerful than he first thought, where the people around him know of his secret and help him become who he is meant to be. After Zeus’s powerful weapon, the lightning bolt is stolen, many blame Percy, including Zeus who threatens to destroy the human race if the bolt isn’t returned in a set amount of time.
It’s a great plot, with different twists and turns and for a film advertised for teenagers and the younger audience, it holds up well, really well. Has a great cast with the likes of Steve Coogan, Sean Bean, Kevin McKidd, Pierce Brosnan, Catherine Keener, Rosario Dawson and Uma Thurman all performing well, doing the best they can. It has some great action scenes and a good pace. It’s a real surprise, i guarantee you’ll find the film exciting and a good Sunday night film.
7/10
Simon Childs
Solomon Kane – Michael J. Bassett
A release that wasn’t paraded with much attention when it came out in the cinemas, i didn’t read any articles about it, watch any trailers, see any behind the scenes action. This DVD release of Solomon Kane was only recommended to me by a friend who believed it to be better than it deserved to be called. I’m going to give it a chance and watch it, and if it is a surprise hit, then great, I’ll spread the word and make sure others watch it, but if it proves that the tags and labels it was given are well deserved then sadly this film will fall into the depths of hell. Well not literally, but it will fall into the £3 HMV sale that seems to sell films that have been watched by an average of 6 people. Half of them by accident.
So moving onto the plot, Solomon Kane follows Solomon Kane, a former warrior for the Queen’s guard in olden times England. He kills, he slaughters, and he practically is a one man army until he fights death himself. The reaper has come for Solomon but Solomon escapes and leads a peaceful life, ending the conflict and violence in his life. He goes into hiding. After being expelled from the monastery he lives in, he returns back home to his former kingdom which he left as a teenage boy after accidently killing his brother. On his way back, he finds a family, who help him after being beaten up. Several towns on their travels have been demolished; lay a waste with dead bodies and rubble. The family are then attacked, leading Solomon to become the man he used to be and kill the people who are involved. This is the basic plot, a few plot twists and several massive fights, which include three different enemies at the end. You’ll be surprised how he managed to kill them all and save the day.
Its okay, not great. It does have the setting look of Lord of The Rings, but the money isn’t there and the adventure seems to dip in excitement, from parts that are fast moving and at a great pace, then cut to slow, boring, religious sub-texts within scenes that seem to drag on a lot longer than they need to. The acting is okay, the lead James Purefoy plays it well, it’s a shame he has no one to bounce off of in terms of villain or friend of Solomon, like in Lord of the Rings, Aragorn has a band of people to work with instead of being by him throughout most of the film. I wouldn’t recommend it, very dull.
4/10
Simon Childs
44 Inch Chest - Malcolm Venville
The writers of Sexy Beast return with another look on life for older geezers, instead of the holiday getaway and crime, here we have, a more realistic turn of a man losing his wife and marriage and having an emotional breakdown. It has the witty dialogue, the common phrases, bundles of swear words and phrases that you’ll be repeating on a regular basis and has sequences that are from the mind of the lead character, Colin, played by the wonderfully broken Ray Winstone. His look of London gentleman on a holiday in Spain suits it well, and having a hard man like him, being in a history of films of being the “bruiser” you feel the emotion more, you feel the heartache and the breakdown. He may just sit down in a chair for most of it, but he does talk, it’s very intellectually and spiritually, giving real meaning to the film and creating a better bond between you and the character. It all takes place in a disused house in the middle of what seems like a rundown area of London. Only flashbacks change the scenery and at the beginning where the kidnapping takes place. The setting suits the action taking place, adding to Colin’s dismay.
The supporting cast here round up the film, not given an amazing amount of inspiring dialogue, but do it well enough to create different personas and have different effects on Colin. Tom Wilkinson and Stephen Dillane play Archie and Mal, two friends of Colin who seem to talk the most, helping him with his situation and calming him down. These two seem the most intelligent and down-to-earth. Then John Hurt plays Peanut, a fucking mad man who swears every line he has. He rips into Colin for turning into a mess, and he isn’t afraid to tell him. He seems the most outspoken, telling him to kill the man who cheated with his wife. And finally Meredith, played by Ian McShane, who brings the comic relief in how he is a gay gangster, which seems to irritate Peanut and upset him. The scenes with these two teasing each other are laugh out loud good, it’s a shame other parts are lacking.
The whole point of the film is about the true feelings of love and how a woman can damage another man very easily. It’s not seen in cinema that much, very rare, but here it’s affective. Colin’s wife cheated on him with another man, leading for her to leave him. So throughout the film, the man who did it is locked up in a wardrobe in the disused house, as they seem to talk and make a plan of what to do. It’s a small concept but works. It’s a shame that parts of the acting and dialogue let it down. It’s boring in parts, long winded, but it’s clever.
6/10
Simon Childs
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo – Niels Arden Oplev
