For A Few Movies More

The Internet. With each and every passing week the amount of content floating around this magical world of circuits and digital, ah, er, stuff, increases. This unstoppable growth thankfully means that there’s never a drought of new wacky movie related material available for me to fill every one of these Fun Stuff Friday articles with, the bad news is that sometimes there’s so much content that I can’t quite fit everything I want in into one single article. Technically I probably could, but I only have a strict amount of time I can allocate to these assemblies of randomness, so sometimes some interesting stuff has to be dropped. With that being said, I always try to pick only the most interesting and amusing fan art and collectibles currently doing the rounds, so hopefully I can bring to you the absolute pinnacle in the line of zombie Ewok and cute superhero art.

Following on from that ramble, this week I bring to you the most jam-packed edition of Fun Stuff Friday. We have some awesome fan-made art featuring Doc Brown and Darth Maul, some charming 8-bit video game inspired movie posters, a decapitated zombie head that you can hang on your wall, and the creepiest art featuring Futurama’s Leela you’ve ever seen. With that said and done, I’m off to enjoy my weekend and I hope you can do the same. So as always, take and care and watch some movies!

Wow…. Just give me a second to recover and pick myself back off the floor again here. I’ve just come back from a screening of the new Indonesian action movie The Raid and let me tell you, I’ve never felt so exhausted walking out of a movie theatre. Indonesia has never been known for their high quality films, but that reputation changes here. In terms of pure, raw action, The Raid is a modern masterpiece of the genre. Combine the urban combat of early John Carpenter films, the crazy flying kicks of Jackie Chan’s old Hong Kong Kung-Fu films, and the most violent films of John Woo’s directorial repertoire (think Hard Boiled and The Killer), and you still probably won’t have a film that matches the brilliant non-stop orchestra of action seen in The Raid. Make no mistake about it; this may very well be the best action film we’ve seen in the last decade, if not longer.

We may as well get the Raid’s most notable flaw covered early in this review. Amongst all of the brutal hard-hitting carnage, The Raid lays ownership to an almost non-existent plot. Take a ruthless crime boss, stick him in a tenement building crawling with lowlifes and psychopaths, send in a crack SWAT team to extract said crime boss, and you have The Raid’s narrative in a nutshell. There’s not much else to the plot that can’t be summed up in that basic summary. Sure, along the way there might be a few minor twists and turns, however in ninety minutes time when the credits are rolling on the screen, you’ll probably will have all but forgotten these weak attempts at extra depth. This may sound like a major criticism, but trust me, it’s not. There’s one reason and only one reason only you watch The Raid, for the mind-blowing displays of action.

Once every so often, there comes a movie that breaks new ground. A film that exceeds all expectations, blows everyone away, and changes the way we make, and view films. A film that is near flawless in every way. A film that no matter how many times you watch it, you never get sick of it, constantly spotting new details and extra little subtle nuances present in the subtext. Well, it will come as no surprise to you, I’m sure, to learn that “Wrath of the Titans” does not fall into this category. On the contrary, in fact. It is a film so abundantly flawed it is hard to see anything to recommend it. The only ground it breaks is in the film itself, by the ill-tempered monsters that come popping up from out from beneath people’s feet and set about wreaking havoc. The only people it blows away are the easily impressed, and the extras in the film. I’d say I found it disappointing if it weren’t for the fact that my expectations really weren’t that high to begin with. “Clash of the Titans” set the bar nice and low in 2010, and now, two years later, if this sequel has raised it at all, it is by a figure imperceptible to the naked eye. Apart from one or two minor improvements, “Wrath of the Titans” does not seem to have learned from its previous mistakes, opting instead to plod along down the path of its predecessor, on a general heading for the realm of forgettability.

I’m kind of ashamed to admit this, but before watching this documentary, I had no idea the subject for this film had happened. And I don’t have a good excuse for it, except that there are so many summits, conferences, and meetings that are accompanied by some kind of protest or controversy that (sadly) they all kind of blend into each other. Plus, it was ten years ago and I’m now allowed to start blaming my age on forgetting things. What I’m referring to though, are the incidents in 2001 that are the basis for this gripping Italian documentary, The Summit.

The location is Genoa, Italy. The time is June 2001. The event is the 27th G8 Summit. The participants are a mass of protesters, students and journalists, who end up in a huge clash with the Italian police, the Guardia di Finanza (financial guard), and the Carabinieri (military police). As the world leaders gathered for their talks, the protests turned into clashes, which culminated with an uncalled-for storm on a local University, and the death of a young activist that remains a mystery to this day.

The Host

Another film adaptation of a Stephanie Myer novel? Ewwwww! Now with that immature reaction out of the way, I must admit that the concept for The Host actually sounds somewhat intriguing. Following an interplanetary invasion by an army of parasitic aliens, a young woman along with a few others choose to take the fight to these unwanted visitors. There’s also a whole angle involving an alien connecting with the young lady’s consciousness which I’m sure probably leads to another case of forbidden interspecies love, however this still sounds far more interesting than any of the tween sap seen in the Twilight films. I clearly haven’t read the book this was adapted from so I’m unsure if the source material is even any good, but if anyone else out there has then I’d love to know if it’s worth getting excited over. As it stands at the moment, this could go either way, however I’ll continue to remain open-minded and optimistic.

Starring Saoirse Ronan, Diane Kruger and Jake Abel

I’ve been a little strapped for time lately due to my inconvenient day job little by little eating into my movie watching and writing time. So seeing how this review should have been up a week ago, forgive me if the following analysis feels a little on the rushed side. Anyway, here we go! Staying true to the TV series that originally aired in 1987 and starred a fresh-faced Johnny Depp, this modern, big screen re-envisioning of 21 Jump Street once again tells the story of two young, and in this case incredibly inept police officers (Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill), who are tasked to go undercover at a high school in order to crack a criminal drug ring.

This attempt at transforming a reasonably serious TV series from yesteryear into a modern-day slacker comedy might have easily ended in disaster if mishandled. We’ve already seen Starsky and Hutch and The Dukes Of Hazards receive a similar comedic reboot treatment, and we all know how they turned out (if you happen to not know how they turned out, they sucked!). It’s evidently a tough act to take these shows that existed in a totally different era, at a time where completely different sensibilities and entertainment values existed, and then to apply a modern sense of humour to them. Sure, it’s easy enough to poke fun at the source material, but it’s hard to simultaneously adapt many of the show’s dated trademarks and put a fresh spin on them without resorting to cheap nostalgic references to guide the way.  Thankfully 21 Jump Street manages to pull off this delicate balancing act, ensuring it feels an original product that provides plenty of belly laughs, rather than a stale and forgettable rehash.

OK, after last week’s effort a couple weeks ago I felt myself drifting from my roots. You see for that Twitter release Filmblogging I must have edited it about 6 times. Six! I mean the original Filmblogging was an experiment in laziness that didn’t quite catch on, but lived on and now it has become too serious. Too self conscious (kind of ironic given the self analysis theme that it is bound to). So to allay my fan and try to recapture some of that old magic I am writing this episode in one – no editing. What will this mean? Probably that it won’t be very funny. I’ll save time which can be spent procrastinating other more important tasks. Typos that sneak past spellcheck. It might also better represent the diminishing utility of my constant editing and finetuning. For those of you not familiar with the law of diminishing utility please refer to my other project EconomicsBlogging where I explain that the first piece of pizza satisfies much more than the seventh. Likewise this first draft is best served with 1.48 edits before posting and by six it is no longer getting funnier but more than likely worse…(Usually in 1.48 edits I would think up a clever closer to this opening – hey there you go!)

I’m running late for a movie, my computer is about to die and I accidentally deleted the entire original draft copy of this article, so please don’t expect the following mass of barely coherent sentences to resemble a high-point in English literature. Not that it usually is, however if you are holding onto hope that one day one of these Fun Stuff Friday articles is going to be like reading an undiscovered Hemingway novel, then unfortunately you might have to wait just a little longer. Instead this particular entry is going to be a mad ramble to the finish that will most likey make little to no sense (it already doesn’t). But at least it has pictures!

I literally have 1% battery life left, so I’m going to try to finish this quickly. This week we once again bring to you the latest batch of cool and quirky movie-related material that’s currently cycling the Net. As usual we have some more awesome fan art, as well as a couple of particularly unique collectibles. (My computer just died but I’m back!) Anyway, hope you enjoy this week’s Fun Stuff Friday, if you have any feedback or want to point out any more fun stuff that I may have missed, leave a message in the comment section at the bottow of the page. Until next time, stay safe, stay healthy, and watch some movies!

Oh the agony! Oh the torment! I am getting old! I am! There’s no other way of explaining it! The signs are there, appearing in greater numbers all the time. I’m beginning to wear knitwear willingly. Police officers and football players are beginning to look young. I’m actually reading my bank statements. But perhaps the biggest sign of disappearing youth I am displaying is that I am completely out of touch with what is fashionable in the world of today’s youth. Which would explain why I completely failed for foresee the phenomenon that would be the “Hunger Games” franchise. I first learned of “The Hunger Games” late last year while travelling in Scotland. I read a brief preview piece on the film in Empire magazine, and dismissed it immediately as a storm in a teacup. Little did I realise that within months it would be the hot new flavour.

It was inevitable, really. The “Harry Potter” films are all out. The “Twilight” saga will be concluded later this year when the final film is released. The “Tomorrow” series got off to an underwhelming start in 2010, no doubt to the producers disappointment. And the Hollywood version of “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” failed to live up to expectations. Film producers needed a saga to adapt to the big screen and get butts back on seats. And they’ve found it in the “Hunger Games” trilogy, by Suzanne Collins. The books have been wildly successful among teens and young adults, which would explain why this franchise was completely missed by my radar until relatively recently. Needless to say, I have not read the books, but for this purpose that is a good thing. It means I can go into this film completely fresh, and have a completely clear first look at this story, without being a common fanboy constantly lamenting about just how much better was the book.

Let’s get this out of the way with early; Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance isn’t the film it should have been. The early Comic-Con footage aired last year and subsequent trailers that followed gave the impression of a much crazier and more extreme film this time around. And considering the smorgasbord of R-rated insanity directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor have delivered prior to this, it wasn’t a stretch to imagine that this interpretation of Ghost Rider would be a much cruder and entertaining one. Unfortunately somewhere along the line something went wrong. Lacking all of the energy and unique personality the directors’ films usually possess, Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance is instead somewhat of a bore. This is a relatively by the numbers, big-budget studio superhero movie. Sure it may feature a flaming skeleton as the hero instead of a man dressed as a bat or spider, but even this outrageous inclusion fails to make proceedings any more interesting.

I never saw the original Ghost Rider despite it being based on one of my favourite childhood comic character; the reviews were far too overwhelmingly negative for me to feel like I should waste my time. So I can only assume that this sequel picks up right where the last film left off. Johnny Blaze (Nicholas Cage) has retreated into hiding somewhere in Eastern Europe where he feels he can avoid inflicting inadvertent harm to those around him. His daily battle with keeping the demonic Rider in check hits a snag however when he’s tasked with the deed of protecting a young boy (Fergus Riordan) from the Devil’s (Ciarán Hinds) grasp.