February 2009 Archives

Giant alien robots beating the hell out of each other seemed like an odd concept for a movie back in 2007 and surprisingly it worked!

Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and their mechanical allies will be blasting back onto the silverscreen this summer. But until then, enjoy this first look trailer...

Clint Eastwood challenges political correctness and subjects which have become taboo in the modern world such as racism in his last lead outing.

Eastwood plays bitter old Vietnam veteran Walt Kowalski. Walt has just lost his wife and is facing an uncertain future when his children decide it may be time for him to move out of his Detroit dwelling and into a retirement home.

And his hatred for his Asian neighbours makes his brooding nature even more bitter when Thao from next door, steal his 1972 Grand Torino car.

Can he help the young offender move away from his thieving ways? And can Thao help Walt change his racist attitudes?

Gran Torino is in cinema's now.

Not to be confused with the cartoon series where a brightly-coloured panther trys to eludes the 2D equivilant of Inspector Clouseau at every turn, The Pink Panther 2 is the follow-up to the 2006 remake.

Steve Martin reprises his role as the bumbling French detective in this slap-stick sequel.

Inspector Clouseu is now working outside the museum where the invaluable Pink Panther diamond is kept on display -- writing and handing out parking tickets for a living thankS to his boss Chief Inspector Dreyfus (John Cleese).

Tired of his fall from grace Clouseu decides to quite and leave France. But as soon as his foots out the door, the Pink Panther Diamond goes missing again.

If you did not see the first film then you did not miss much. Steve Martin gives a few cheap laughs in what is probably one of the worst series of movie remakes in history.

The plot is flimsy and so too are the jokes. Although if you have children they will probably enjoy this light-hearted offering.

Written and directed by Richard Jobson
Starring Dougray Scott, Alistair McKenzie and James Anthony Pearson

Hidden gems are, I'm told, a very hard thing to find at film festivals. So being my first time at any sort of film festival I wasn't expecting to find any sort of gem at the Glasgow Film Festival last night. I didn't.

I found a Scottish diamond.

New Town Killers, due for general release in June, premiered at the Glasgow Film Theatre last night and was shown to a packed audience attending by invite-only.

Shot over a period of 5 weeks and costing around £600k to make, Richard Jobson's latest effort tells the story of the young, unemployed Sean McDonald (James Anthony Pearson) and his perilous attempts to get his sister Alice (Liz White) out of debt from the local Edinburgh mob.

Two private bankers (Scott and MacKenzie) offer Sean the chance to clear his sister's debt on the condition that he can hide from them for 12 hours. Sean accepts the offer and soon realises it's a tragic game of life and death that the bankers will stop at nothing to win.

Written before the credit crunch struck last year, the film's plot is an extreme parable of the world financial crisis- evil bankers picking off the poor one-by-one with the incentive of cash, simply because they can.

Dougray Scott's malevolent presence helps flow the film forward and in a style similar to Ledger's Joker, Scott's character is shown as unrestrained chaos.

James Anthony Pearson is great on screen and shows a whole other side of his talents with the some of the stunts he took part in.

The Filthy Tongues and the Flykillers (who scored the film) kept moving the film forward in it's excellent soundtrack.

However props must go to Jobson and his technical crew. They have managed to create magic on a shoe-string budget and a film that is certain to become a cult classic of Scottish Cinema.

Three headed dragons and immortal terracotta warriors galavanting about trying to cut everyone's heads off, no it's not the latest Harry Potter film it's the third movies in the Mummy series.

Brendan Fraser returns to one of his more funnier, yet heroic characters as archeologist Rick O'Connell and instead of raiding the tombs of dead pharochs with a war-complex who wants nothing more than to become immortal and rule the entire world, he's off to China fighting a dead emperor with a war complex who wants wants nothing more than to become immortal and rule the entire world.

Its been several years since the second film and it does feel that some of the shine has worn off the latest offering.

The story works well and delivers a lot of good action early on but this later dissipates into pointless pacey scenes of conversations between terrible actors who can't act.

Evy O'Connell (played superbly by Racheal Weiss in the previous two movies) has been replaced by Maria Bello who appears to have no emotions other than mediocre happiness and flatly delivered lines.

Luke Ford who plays the now grown-up Alex O'Connell, son of Rick and Evy of course does little to add weight to his and some of the other actors ailing performances. He has a personality as deep as a dried up puddle and fails to do anything useful all the way through. He must of got it from his mother's side of the family.

John Hannah bucks this trend however by reprising his role as Evy's bumbling brother. In fact it is him and Brendan Fraser who carry the rest of the disasterous cast through to the end.

But if you feel you can tolerate some of the more annoying characters then the plot does certainly do the film justice, bar the silly three-headed dragon.

They didn't have any of that nonsense in the first two films so why do they need it now?

Benjamin Button may have taken three awards at the BAFTA's but to many fans disappointment they weren't quite the top acolades they felt it deserved.

The truth is maybe it did.

Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) is born old and begins his life as a young child living inside the mind of an eightie-year-old's body. As everyone around him grows older, Benjamin gets younger.

During his childhood (albeit in the guise of an old man) he meets a young girl called Daisy.

The two remain friends for years before Benjamin finally becomes young and fit enough to leave New Orleans. Through the years Benjamin writes to Daisy and tells her of his many adventures before the two finally meet up again aged forty.

The acting is definitely what holds together what sometimes becomes a thin plot and the performances of Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett and many of the other characters are what keeps an emotional grip on your attention throughout.

But there are moments when interest in the plot starts to dry up which can you leave you feeling a bit fed-up half way through. Benjamin Button is one of those films that is spoiled only by the fact that it is twenty or thrity minutes too long.

Medieval blood-thirsty vampires and grumpy, snarling man-sized werewolves clash in the third (and probably final) film in the Underworld series.

Rise of the Lycans is a prequel to its predecessors and a decent one at that too.

If you have never watched the series before then you won't feel you like have missed much when you see this one.

But fans of the first two may be left disappointed as the second movie pretty much nailed the plot for this one down to a fine tee without even having to use any flashbacks or other plot devices beyond word-of-mouth storytelling between a handful of characters.

The vampires have come to power in the medeval world by enslaving the Lycans (werewolves) and treat the beasts as little more than servents.

It does not take a geneous to work out what happens next as the plot smells more suspicious than a ned with a crowbar. The werewolves of course, finally decide that they've had enough and rebel against their pompus-pale skinned, garlic-hating masters.

The leader of the werewolves, Lucian falls in love with the vampire king's daughter Sonja and compliates the already bloody-war even further. He's going to be mad when he find out...

Personally I don't see what the fuss is about, if werewolves want the same minimum wage and better working conditions as the rest of us, then why should they not be allowed too?

If you like blood, the occult, special effects and supernatural beings beating the crap out of each other then this will be your cup of tea -- or blood.

You can see a trailer for the film below.