Darren's quick 'Iron Man 2' review

Not as good as the first film. Too talky, not enough plot, and, surprisingly, only really two big, memorable action sequences (one at an F1 race in Monaco, and then the end battle). On the plus side: the action and effects are top notch, its mildly funny at times, and I loved the ACDC music!

First few minutes of the new Batman film 'The Dark Knight'

Holy bootleg Batman! Some joker has put the first few minutes of your new movie online!

(I don't know how long the above link will remain, a version uploaded to YouTube was taken down within hours)

Quantum of Solace (007) teaser trailer

'Lost' Bond Theme

This is really interesting. It was the original theme song that was supposed to be used on 'Never say never again', but for some legal reason they ended up writing another one. Its a shame as this one really grows on you (despite being really cheesy in that late 70s/early 80s style!).

Click on Mr Connery's hairpiece to hear the track:

Arthur C Clarke 1917 - 2008

Science fiction author, Arthur C Clarke, dies aged 90

Sadly Arthur C Clarke is no longer with us. I was a great fan of his work. The first time I became aware of him was around 1984, when I was 8, and I became a big fan of his TV series 'Arthur C Clarke's world of strange powers'. The premise was that he investigated, with a scientific eye, all sorts of mysterious phenomena. This was right up my street. Then, a few years later, I discovered the film, then book of '2001: A Space Odyssey', still, in my opinion, the best science fiction film ever made. I agree with the film critic Roger Ebert when he wrote:

'Only a few films are transcendent, and work upon our minds and imaginations like music or prayer or a vast belittling landscape. Most movies are about characters with a goal in mind, who obtain it after difficulties either comic or dramatic. “2001: A Space Odyssey'' is not about a goal but about a quest, a need. It says to us: We became men when we learned to think. Our minds have given us the tools to understand where we live and who we are. Now it is time to move on to the next step, to know that we live not on a planet but among the stars, and that we are not flesh but intelligence.'

Through the years I greatly enjoyed his 'Rama' series of books, which are set around a huge mysterious alien artefact which appears in our solar system, and 'Childhood's End', from which 'Independence Day' borrowed some ideas, but which still remains unique and unsettling. In fact, 'Childhood's End' and the Rama books have had screenplays developed, but haven't yet been made into films, so theres still plenty of Clarke storytelling awaiting the movie-going world. His writing evoked the scope and grandeur of space and time, leaving you with a mixture of emotions from inspiration to sadness.

Here is a clip from 2001. One of the reasons why the film works so well is that its director, Stanley Kubrick, choose to use waltz music with the space scenes. The movement of spacecraft, like planets themselves, is apparently slow, and circular, just like a waltz dance. And the images and music just complement eachother perfectly. Watching it is somehow both soothing and stimulating at once.

Man's quest for fire

Man's distant past is both fascinating and dull. Fascinating because there are still a number of unanswered questions about it. For instance: why, given that ancestors physically identical to us had been around for about 200,000 years, was it only in the last few thousand that we developed civilization? Its dull because for vast tracts of time, Humanity was pretty static. Each generation repeated the same as the last. Even though I'm fascinated by the distant past, I'm sure the future will be a million times more interesting.

This evening I watched a good film called 'Quest for fire', set 80,000 years in the past. The film itself is 'okay', but very well made. However, the thing that fascinated me was in the 'making of' documentary on the disc, they showed how Desmond morris coached the actors in how to move and gesticulate. And, even more interestingly, Anthony Burgess created a whole language for them based on theories about what kind of language and sounds they would have used. You can trace the ancestory of various languages back, and they form lineages and families, just like genetic lineages. So I can see how it might be possible for linguists to take an educated guess, based on that, plus on the shapes of the skulls of our ancestors and the other Human species around that the time (such as the Neanderthals).

The film itself is, as you can guess from the title, about the power of fire. It was, in a sense, man's first technology. And, just as with technologies today, whoever could master it had the power.

Coming summer 2008

Male-friendly film upsets feminist!

The ‘Pursuit of Happiness’ could well be the worst film I have ever seen; and if there is an ounce of feminism in any of the women who were in that audience they too should have joined me huffing and puffing at the gross overt sickly patriarchal American nonsense.

Any film that gets a feminist's panties that much in a twist must be pretty good!

This line of her rant was particularly revealing:

"I found it difficult to empathise with one story about a mans struggle when thousands of women face these issues every day."

Not only do these type of women have absolutely no empathy for men, but they actually get ANGRY whenever they are invited to show any empathy. Cold and narcissistic. That about sums them up.

A Royale Rebirth of the Action/Spy Movie

"The job is done, and the bitch is dead." One of the most famous lines from Ian Flemming's James Bond novels, and it does make it into the new new film of that novel: Casino Royale.

I saw the film on its first showing at my local multiplex last Thursday. You may remember that I strongly disliked the last 007 film at the time I saw it, and wrote an article about it on this site (or the precursor of this site). My main problem with it was that the women were all totally unfeminine and unbelievably athletic. Well, I'm happy to say that Casino Royale totally ditches the fantasy world in which women are stronger than men and can perform all manner of athletic action moves without ever breaking a sweat (a trend in action movies over the last decade - but a happily disapearing one since several female-led action movies bombed over the last few years, including Tomb Raider 2, and Catwoman).

Casino Royale also ditches the recent trend for computer generated action, and fancy computer annimations - such as the ones we've seen at the start of the more recent 007 films, this one does have some computer-assisted annimation in the title sequence, but its also very retro-looking as it uses an animation form called roto-scoping, which is basically where they film real people moving, then use that film to make an animation trace. The combination of these makes it look totally new, yet very classical, like nothing you've really seen before. Anyway, the main action sequences in the film are really well done, and have returned to what made the action of the bond films so special and exciting in the first place: everything is done for real.

As well as the lack of unrealistic female action heroines, we also even have a female who is genuinely feminine in behaviour (at least some of the time, she displays some sarcasm too), and a leading man who has been variously described as jug-eared and putridly ugly. This has to be good for men in general. After all, don't we all want men to be judged according to their skills and actions rather than their looks? The fact that the lead in this film series is now NOT a pretty-boy actor is a good sign, I believe.

What I'm getting too is that all of this feels to me like we've turned a corner in action films now, and, with some reservations, things are improving.

Casino Royale

*Updated*

The full 3 minute animated intro
First 10 mins of the movie after the intro

(I don't know how long the above two links will remain online!)

10 Clips from the film
& on Yahoo Movies
& some behind the scenes footage

The TV Trailers:

# 9 ("That last hand..")
# 8 (Nobody does it better)
# 7
# 6
# 5 (with clips of the animated intro)
# 4
# 3
# 2 (currently MIA)
# 1

The full length trailer
The original teaser trailer (In French!)

Star Trek to return in 2008

As this enigmatic teaser poster states, Star Trek will be returning to the silver screen sometime in 2008. I love the way that these things are announced so far in advance. Unsurprising, of course, as it takes so long to put a movie together. For example, last week the release date was announced not for the next 007 film, but the one AFTER the next one (May 2nd 2008).

In the meantime, here is an article on the next Star Trek movie.

More Hollyweird Crap

We all know that no mainstream movie is complete these days without a 'comedic' moment of a man being slapped in the face or kicked in the balls.

Now comes a movie in which seems to integrate all the elements of modern girl-power into one: the woman is a superhero, plus she gets to spend the movie beating up on her ex-boyfriend. This film (called 'My Super Ex-girlfriend') is called a romantic comedy.

Yes! Beating up on men, humiliating them, and emotionally dominating them is sexy! Romantic! Funny!

Just imagine if a movie portrayed a man beating up and controling a woman as being sexy, romantic and funny.

The good thing is that many men are waking up to these double standards. I was researching this movie on www.imdb.com and lots of people had left comments remarking on it.

Borat is coming to America!

The trailer for the forthcoming Borat film

(Damn, they've taken it down!)

Ok, its back up HERE.

And Borat's homepage is HERE.

X-Men 3

I saw X-Men 3 the other evening and, appart from a fairly clever effect at the beginning which made two of the actors look 20 years younger, I thought it was a load of crap. Just the typical gobby women shouting at men and giving them pithy put-downs. Godess women with their mystical powers that have absolute no connection to the real world. The obligatory man-being-kicked-in-the-balls 'comedy' scene. Young girl calls a grown man a "dick-head". Men set-up to be killed or injured by first having them call the female 'bitch', as though this is then supposed to make the audience *want* them to be killed (this happens twice in the movie).

The other thing with X-Men (and, incidentally, the Harry Potter series) is that the family is presented as an evil, intollerant place, and the group community of the school is seen as the youngster's family. Its pure communism/feminism.

For a far more realistic and intelligent exploration of what Human mutants would be like and how society might react to them, try reading the novel 'The Chrysalids' by John Wyndham.

Primer not Prime

A few posts ago I wrote about the latest 'chic flick' called Prime (a film I would be seen dead watching, thank you). But I did see an interesting film a couple of evenings ago on DVD called 'Primer'.

As I'm getting increasingly bored with the standard Hollywood fare I tend to seek out more obscure films these days. Particularly Science fiction ones. Primer is an independently made film about a couple of men who invent a time machine. Its not your usual, dramatic movie time machine, its a device about as big as a large fridge, which they eventually crawl into for a while, and travel back in time several hours. This allows them to start betting on sporting events and making stock market trades. But it also means that when they come out of the devices, they have to hide themselves in a hotel room as they have to avoid bumping into their doubles (who are still in the present).

The film goes against the typical rules of cinema - the story is driven almost totally by dialogue (whereas in the best films the storytelling is mainly visual), there's no real emotion in the film, no tension, no passion, and there are no memorable scenes. Apparently the film was shot for only a few thousand dollars, which is pretty amazing as the cinematography looks very good. If you like complex, cerebral films that you have to analyze in order to understand, then this may be a good alternative to the mainstream trash of the multiplexes.