The Back to the Future I timeline - anomalies

Cracked have posted one of their amusing video's regarding a flaw with the first Back to the Future. Of course there are several, but the flaw they point out took me some time to understand. In the end I laid it out as follows.

We start with the original timeline and its inhabitants that I'll refer to using a subscript OT. In this timeline Doc_OT hits his head invents the flux capacitor, and build the time machine. Marty_OT watches his father George_OT being picked on by Biff_OT and hears about how his mother Lorraine_OT fell in love with his father after being hit by her father's car. Now things get fun.

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Gamer film review

A film based on making a real-life first-person shooter how could I resist? Well given the poor reviews quite easily, but hey what do the critics know so many seem to be snobby about 'video-game' films and sometimes they can still be entertaining even if they're not 'good'.

Either way I held off watching this, but Channel 5 gave it a network première on Sunday so I thought to record it and give it a go.

The premise is simple - technology has developed that allows remote control of other people; these people essentially get paid to rent their bodies out to strangers. This develops into pitting death-row convicts against each other in a real-life first person shooter video game. The story follows one of these convicts who is approaching the 30-game threshold that would mean they would be set free.

It should be an easy switch-your-brain-off-and-enjoy-it film. It's not. Disjointed direction and a plot that staggers from one action sequence to another with plot points appearing and disappearing as soon as they've been actioned. An attempt at character development has been crudely shoe-horned in along with a moral message about giving up power and control to others. Acting is phoned in and the script isn't even bad enough to be interesting and not cheesy enough to be placed in the "so bad it's good" category. Even the action sequences aren't that good; explosions and fast-paced shooting, but the poor direction and editing leaves it a sodden mess.

There is however one good point about this film... it's only 95 minutes long. So if for some reason you do decide to watch it you've only wasted an hour and a half of your life. Just a really bad movie.

The Invincible Iron Man, and Doctor Strange DVD reviews

Wondering through Morrisons I was surprised to see copies of The Invincible Iron Man, and Doctor Strange animated DVDs I guess all the Avengers Assemble has warranted stock. At £3 apiece they've been something sitting in my Wish List for a while so I picked them up. Always handy for the Bratii if we're that bored, not that I've any interest in these films myself ;-)

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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

In a fit of madness I decided to watch "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" I just wanted something light to watch and for some reason couldn't remember anything about the plot of this movie except something to do with a  magnetic box.

Since watching it again I now realise why I didn't recall much about it - my brain was acting to protect itself.

Just from the first half hour this is what I had to contend with.

Okay I can live with movie physics. Sure a magnetic box will attract gunpowder from metres away and so strongly that it will pull it towards itself before it manages to fall under gravity, but at the same time won't attract the overhead lights, weapons, or crowbars of the people around it until they remove the wooden lid.

Putting such a highly magnetised on the flatbed of a metal vehicle and not have it attracted to the metal sides and being able to slide it on and off is perfectly understandable.

Wandering off into the Nevada desert rather than tracing the tracks back to the base and, presumably, a working telephone is fine. As is setting off a nuclear detonation so close to an army base filled with whoo-whoo artefacts.

Nothing wrong with surviving such an explosion by getting into a freezer; hey we even know it was lead-lined because the camera stops to show us. Getting out unhurt to share a comedic moment with a gopher is just one of those things that happens right?

However it took just one scene to show me that the writer and director simply didn't care or just weren't doing their damn jobs. Indiana is being questioned by the FBI and is asked if he can identify the women in charge. He responds with

"Tall, thin, mid-30s, carried a sword of some kind, a rapier, I think" 

Hey so what? He's trying to answer the question isn't he?

Well perhaps because Indy worked out she was from the Ukraine by her accent which might have helped narrow the field down a little. Maybe telling them that she boasted about having been awarded the Order of Lenin three times and received the title of "Hero of Socialist Labour" might serve to identify her. Or maybe failing all of that just telling them that she's called Dr Irina Spalko which is how she introduced herself to him at the beginning of the film. But hey at least he was paying enough attention to determine she carried a rapier.

Plotholes I can try to ignore - how did the conquistadors obtain a skull from a room that requires a skull to open it? How did a landmark next a waterfall remain untouched for 7,000 years?

Same goes for lack of information - who exactly attacked Indy in the graveyard and why? Did those inhabitants of the lost city live in those mouldings?

But not paying attention to your own film's chronology during the writing or even editing phase - that's unacceptable.

Twilight

I've not read any of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight novels; nor had I seen any of the films based upon them. Flitting around the internet sides were drawn up - those who thought they were awful and those who thought they were amazing.

A couple of weeks ago one of the terrestrial channels decided to show it and I stuck it on to record so I could form an opinion for myself.

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Rental Subscriptions

While looking into film/game rental methods it seems they're operating using the same schemes as the telecommunication and energy companies - offer variable plans that differ in slightly non-comparable ways. As such if you know exactly what you want they're great, on the other hand if you just want to be able to rent films or games it's head-scratching time. Oh and of course digging out the small print is a must.

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Krull

I watched the film Krull over the weekend I hadn't seen it in a long time. Wow I'd forgotten just how bad it is; and this isn't a 'so bad it's good' type of thing either.

Poor scripting, hammy acting, a McGuffin and deus-ex-machina heavy plot, with both logical and plot-level inconsistencies. But look at who stars in it - Liam Neeson, Robbie Coltrane, Freddie Jones, Bernard Bresslaw, Francesca Annis - just how could it be so bad?

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A studio's vision

What is it that would cause a studio to buy the rights to something and then say "Wouldn't this be much better if we removed all the things that made this copyright recognisable and replaced it with something else?"?

Imagine if Warner Brothers had bought the Harry Potter rights and then said "I'm not sure about all this magic and it seems a bit too British. What if we set it in America and made it about training young kids to be cops? What's Steve Guttenberg doing these days?" -

"You're a cop Harry and a thumping good one to I'd wager considering your parents"
"But I can't be a cop Steve"
"Oh no has anything ever strange happened to you that you just can't explain?"
"Well there was that time I tackled that kid who was shoplifting"
"There you go then"

Quite mad who would do something that bizarre? Why hello Warner Brothers is that a shiny Akira licence you're holding in your hand? Would that be the quintessentially Japanese anime that you're turning into a live-action movie set in New York with all the main character being recast as white westerners? It is; are you insane?

Who's that with you? Oh hello Walt Disney Company what's that you've got there? Oo is that the rights to Agatha Christie's Miss Marple character? You know the one she created specifically to prevent adaptations of her work from removing or youthifying the elderly characters she used. Who are you going to get to play the frail octogenarian? Thirty-eight year old Jennifer Garner; well gosh that makes sense.

Limitless film, sounds familiar

I caught a trailer for the new film Limitless the other day - guy takes a pill which makes him smarter and uses that to make himself successful.

I thought "That sounds familiar, haven't I read that story somewhere before?"

The film is based on the novel The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn published in 2001. Which would answer my question except I haven't read that book.

Picking through the memories I finally reach Lest We Remember by Isaac Asimov a short story published in 1982 in which a guy gets an injection that aids his memory recall and which he uses to push his way up through a company to make himself successful.

I'm sure they're two very different stories, just been bugging me.

And the award goes to...

... the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science for once again managed to convince the media world that their awards ceremony still holds any relevance to anything.

"Well I wasn't that bothered about seeing The King's Speech but now it's won four Oscar's how could I not see it?" Yeah right.

Star Wars 1 the Phantom Menace - detailed review

I watched the Phantom Menace again the other night; it's not one I've watched often. On occasion I pop in the DVD and get as far as the opening scrawl before coming to my senses and putting something else on; this time I persevered.

I now realise what I've been saving myself from each time I hit the eject button; this film is even worse than I remember. Those who respond to the negative criticism this film garnered often state that it wasn't shot for adults raised on the 'original' series, it was shot for those approaching it for the first time - the kids. They're wrong.

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Inception review

I can see why there's a mixed response to the film Inception. It deals with the blurring of lines between the dream world and the real world, the conscious and subconscious; it throws the viewer into these worlds and tries to pose deep philosophical questions. Except it doesn't.

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Toy Story 3 review

Out cheap on Blu-ray I picked it up and managed to watch it over the weekend. Is it as good as the previous two - yes. It is better - no.

The story itself is almost a rehash of the second dealing with the growing up of the toys' owner and the ultimate fate of any toy - landfill, donated or atticed and as per usual I won't go into too many details for spoilers sake.

Essentially Andy is going to college, but what to do with his old toys that are languishing in his toy chest? Needless to say after some confusion the toys are sent to be discarded, escape their fate and choose to be donated to a children's play centre where they will be played with every day, every week, every year with no worry over being discarded as the children grow older.

Of course things aren't always as they seem.

All in all this is a fitting conclusion to the trilogy that has built up on previous themes; perhaps it's just me though but it wasn't quite as tear-provoking as the second. Jesse's Lament always tears me up.

Star of the show, as many have mentioned, is Ken as voiced by Michael Keaton.While both Lotso and Big Baby have been invested with decent characterisation it's Ken that steals every scene and provides so much of the humour.

Stand out scene in both terms of impact and sheer graphical joy - Death by Monkeys! Just perfectly realised however graphically this doesn't put a pixel wrong anywhere

What can I say? As a trilogy this is nigh-on flawless, but it's the fact that each film also stands alone that elevates this to immortal heights. Buy it for your kids and they'll be showing it to theirs.

Predators review

Let me blunt - every single director could learn from Robert Rodriguez. The man can take a bunch of B-C (and lower) actors and produce a film that not comes out on or below budget, but makes a continuous turnover at the Box Office, not just at the opening weekend before word-of mouth and reviews get around because it truly is worth watching. That's talent! Predators is no exception.

Nominally a sequel, but you don't need to know anything about the previous movies to enjoy it. We quite literally jump into the action as we follow an unconscious guy freefalling out of the sky and into a jungle. The action doesn't let up, tension is kept high and despite the fact we know about the Predators they don't make any real overt appearance until the middle of the film.

I'd really like to go into details of the plot, but that would really spoil things so just the basics - there's more than one person who's been dumped here and they're not alone. What does set this film apart from the current helping is the lack of computer special effects - they exist but they're not there to grab your attention with how well they're done they are there just to keep the story moving and that's it.

I'm trying to think of any part where it drags and am drawing a blank, everything is used to push the story and more importantly the characterisation a item that can often be missed in such 'action' movies. Rodriguez also isn't afraid of the odd sly reference to the first film, the musical score particularly stands out in this regard; it is the Predator track and crops up at just the right points to emphasise the film.

Ignore Predator 2 this is the true sequel to Predator. Enjoy.

Hot Fuzz review

Yes it's an old film now, but I'd read the Simon Pegg interview in the Radio Times regarding "Burke and Hare" and thought "I fancy watching Hot Fuzz" so I did.

It 'd be easy to categorise this (and Shaun of the Dead) as a spoof; that'd be wrong. The spoof seems to take the clichés of its target and exaggerates them to absurd proportions to make them funny. This takes the clichés of action films and plants them in the soil of reality which makes them funny. It's not a spoof, it's a tribute.

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Transformers movie review

Yes I know it's old, but I was re-watching it and after "Shaolin Soccer" and 2012 I felt a quick recap necessary.

What can I say about this film? Well if you teach any sort of film-making class this film should be near the top of your list as an example of the art of direction, cinematography and pacing and all because of that old adage - "You don't realise how much you appreciate something until its gone". Yep this film should be taught as a how not to do it.

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A night in with a film

Dark and miserable looking outside last night I decided to stay in. I didn't fancy reading and sans PS3 that meant a film; but what did I fancy?

Something that didn't make me think - so out goes "Donnie Darko" et al. Hmm action, but no zombies; out goes "Resident Evil: Extinction". Something light; out goes Bourne. After 2012 something that won't make me wince every five minutes due to plot illogic; out goes "Transformers" and "Die Hard 4.0". Something a couple of hours long that won't make me want to continue; out goes "Battlestar Galactica".

I ended up with "Shaolin Soccer" and I'm glad. The dubbed version because I couldn't be arsed with subtitles, but still a wonderfully made film with so many nods to the styles of other genres such as Westerns and musicals. Though what does it say when I find the idea of footballs catching on fire or players leaping 50 feet into the air less mind-bending than most of the events in 2012 or Die Hard 4.0?

I mean of course it's stupid, but this is an obviously fictional universe (the bad guys are called "Team Evil" for Christ's sake) yet everything conforms to its own internal logic. It's just a delight to watch with so many 'this is a film' in-jokes. I still laugh at the scene where Chow is crawling on the football pitch it's almost "Police Squad" level.

I'm not sure if I prefer this to the other Stephen Chow film I own "Kung Fu Hustle"; tough call. "Shaolin Soccer" makes me laugh more so I'll go with that.

2012 movie review

I finally got around to seeing the movie 2012; it's not bad. The acting and script are a bit ropey (or downright terrible in places), but the cinematics and direction are noteworthy. But to enjoy the movie I had to turn off a whole chunk of my brain - the logical science based bit.

A quick recap of the plot - a scientist discovers that the Earth's core is heating up which will lead to disaster for the planet. The world's governments get together and start plotting a solution which leads to a big engineering scheme in China. Jump a few years and our hero a divorced father of two limo driver learns about this scheme and determines that he's going to save his family. And that's it, but with lots of destruction and things going boom and tender heart-warming scenes.

Now we get into spoilers and the parts that made my brain ache. Non sciencey ones first - the sheer level of coincidence.

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District 9 review.

Managed to catch District 9 on blu-ray last night. Not bad, not bad at all. Shot in the form of a documentary interspersed with unbroadcasted 'real' footage it deals with the events 20 years from the point when a spaceship comes to a halt over Johannesburg and turns out to be filled with what amounts to alien refugees. Basically a cynical look at "Alien Nation". Rather than near-human aliens we have "prawns" and instead of attempts to integrate them they end up segregated in a ghetto.

The documentary footage switches between man-in-the-street and talking-head cut with shaky news footage. With the 'real' footage being what you'd expect from a standard action film. It blends well and contrasts between actual events and PR and provides a nice breather between the action without giving away the main storyline.

The ending may seem a little deus ex machina though, but it was all foreshadowed if you pay attention.