Roger Ward

As you all know, I’m not a yank (thank heavens!). But I’ll just say, I enjoyed the superbowl for what is was. As someone who is more used to the constant non-stop play of AFL Football, it was a little boring stop startish for me, but that last exciting play certainly made the long sit worthwhile. It certainly was an entertainment specticle though with a ripper ending, but still reeked of style over substance. I also find it a bit arrogant to call a team the World Champions when your about the only bloody country that plays the sport professionally, but I digress.

As for those superbowl spots didn’t last long did they? No matter, here are some direct QT links in 1080p HD, they look stunning on a HD display, so long as your PC has the grunt.

• Transformers 2 Superbowl Spot
• Star Trek

Well, it’s just over seven hours until the the yanks have their biggest annual sporting event in the superbowl and it’s late here in Australia. But good news, superbowl spots have gone up for several movies. More importantly though the Transformers 2 spot is online. Transformers was a film I totally enjoyed upon release, the perfect popcorn vehicle which didn’t take itself too seriously like so many other comic book/television show adaptations.

Now finally the next film is on the horizon and we can see a little bit of what to expect. Let me just say, Devastator looks KICK ASS! Weird, but KICK ASS nonetheless.  Oh, BTW Click the HQ link within the clip to view in HD. SD Vision is so rubbish these days!

What are you waiting for? CLICK, CLICK, CLICK!

Still reading??? Well that must make you a Star Trek nerd also, here’s one for you:

Personally though, Pixar’s new film really looks like total fun, much like Wall-E, Cars & The Incredibles before it!

Enough with the stupid lists I hear you say! Okay, but one more. This time it’s my favorite movies of the year. Every year it seems to me that it gets harder and harder to pick 5 of my favorite movies. Not because there is so many good ones, but because there are so many BAD ones. Sadly were living in a World of sequels and terrible remakes because the movie studios are not wanting to take a risk and that’s a sad thing. Regardless, here are my top 5 films of the year. Happily you won’t find rubbish like: What Happens In Vegas, Love Guru, Zohan or Speed Racer, you’ll find films that are much, much better!

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Another Christmas has come and gone and with it almost another year. So how did you score on your Christmas haul? Yes, Yes. I know it’s supposed to be about family and togetherness and all that. But it’s also one of the most commercialized holidays ever sadly. Christmas just doesn’t seem as fun as it was when I was a young fellow. It’s still good to know that my rellies know what I like and I cleaned up well on the Blu-Ray movies side of things at least. Now I just need to find time to watch my new prezzies.

Hollywood. Home of wonders. Home of original, fascinating films, films that take you to an amazing place for a few hours away from the ups and down of this World. Twenty years ago, that statement was pretty much true. Today though, that Hollywood, has died. Today we have a majority of films that don’t take any risks. Today’s Hollywood uses the motto, “what is old is new again” So in typical Hollywood form, here we have what would have been an original film, if this was 1964!

I Am Legend is a remake of the 1971 film, “The Omega Man”. Which in turn was a remake of the 1964 film, “Last Man On Earth” So if you’ve seen either of the two previous films, you can skip past the synopsis section of my review and get to the meat of my opinion. For those of you in the Ritalin chewing, iPod listening, car thief generation who thinks who thinks 300 is masterpiece theatre, read on.

Robert Neville (Will Smith) is that last known man left on Earth. We see in the prologue that in 2009 a virus began spreading around the Earth. He’s the only survivor of this virus that was originally designed to cure cancer. Why is he the only one left? For the next three years, Neville sends out radio signals in the faint hope that there is someone else out there, no one answers. It’s around this time that we realise that Neville isn’t really alone. The virus which wiped out the World’s population have all mutated into a sort of half man-half vampire race known as “The Infected” I’ll just call them “emo’s” from now on.

Neville decides to take matters into his own hands. He realises that the only way he is to save humanity, is to seek out these “emo’s” at night and drag then back to his lab in order to try and cure them and hopefully, in turn, correct the terrible mistake that almost caused humankind’s extinction. But there is a problem, time is running out for Neville and he’s vastly outnumbered! Will Neville be captured by the “emo’s” and have to endure a lifetime of rubbish My Chemical Romance music? Or will he smack some sense into these goth wannabe morons?

Seeing that this is a remake, I’m immediately taking off one star from my final score because I’m sick of remakes. Remakes shit me. A remake of this size and price means that there are two or three less expensive “intelligent” movies that could have been made in it’s place. Instead, what we have here is a remake that isn’t overly bad. But it’s not overly great, it certainly could have been worse. Firstly, Will Smith was a good choice for this film. He definitely is the easiest to connect with compared to Charlton Heston and Vincent Price, so you do actually care somewhat for the character and his predicament.

Another plus is that it’s not as cold a story as the previous films. Sure, the subject matter isn’t happy, but it certainly pulls you in more than the previous films did. Effects wise, the film is impressive, especially in the opening scenes. Suspense is handled well by the director. Taking cues from the “How to make a suspense film” handbook. The director manages to cause quite a few moments of scares and jumps for the audience when “emo’s” jump out from the dark showing there stupid teeth and making various noises with hammers.

A big plus for the previous films for me was the minimalist style in which they were made, you do feel like they are really alone in the World. The filmmakers didn’t have massive budgets to create their respective Worlds, so they had to improvise to create this feeling of desolation the main characters were experiencing. The new film feels like the city switched off the lights for the filming of the required scenes and that once “cut” was yelled, the World would return to normal. Maybe that is what makes the new I Am Legend more accessible & more comfortable compared to the originals.

Given the storyline requires quite a large stretch of our imagination, the director, Francis Lawrence has done quite a good job of modernizing this already well traveled road. The acting is good, the cinematography is beautiful, there are quite a few genuine “scare” moments also. I Am Legend deserves success at the box office. It’s not a great film, but it’s entertaining. And hopefully this will introduce a new generation to the originals.

In The Shadow Of The Moon is one of those films that will sadly get “overlooked” by the majority of moviegoers who would rather sit down and watch a bunch of sweaty men hack each other up while not grasping the vague homosexual undertones of 300.

Thankfully for that small percentage of moviegoers who don’t steal cars, wear hoodies or stab people, here is the best film of the year so far… And it’s a documentary no less!

In The Shadow Of The Moon tells the story of those Astronauts who went to the moon, in their own words. Today the feats of these men aren’t appreciated by today’s younger generation, in fact most young people today probably wouldn’t know much about the moon at all considering how good the education system is today! Utilizing new remastered footage unearthed from the NASA vaults combined with already seen material, those days of the space race are brought back to life in the Astronaut’s own words and they tell a powerful and at times quite poignant story.

Starting off right at the beginning with Gagarin’s first trip into space and the majesty of Apollo 11. To the successful disaster that was Apollo 13 and through to the final act of Apollo 17. In the Shadow Of The Moon is one of those special films that does what it intends to do, take you back to another time when anything was possible and that there was something that is so sorely missing from humankind today, goodness.

These interviews with Buzz Aldrin, Alan Bean, Eugene Cernan, Michael Collins, Jim Lovell, John Young, Charlie Duke, Edgar D. Mitchell, Harrison Schmitt and Dave Scott are inter cut with brilliant new footage that really brings the story of these men alive. You see that getting to the Moon was no easy feat, for us it was an achievement, for them it was an ordeal at times, but it’s something that none of these men would want to take back. Even though many years has passed since the great voyages to the moon, and age is beginning to show on these heroes, their spirit and enthusiasm hasn’t waned one bit in the intervening years. If there was one and only one negative that I can take out of this film is the notable omission of Neil Armstrong. But I know this isn’t the fault of the filmmaker, Armstrong has always been a noted recluse when it comes to his and mankind’s greatest achievement.

The sheer enormity of what these men achieved with the assistance of hundreds of thousands of other individuals is still an amazing thing to behold even today, and while these efforts are by and large forgotten by the general public, to me it is the greatest achievement mankind have ever embarked upon which should NEVER be forgotten. The quality of this remastered footage, inter cut with excellent and personal interviews, coupled with a uplifting score from Phillip Sheppard make this the best film of the year for my liking. Do yourself a favor and give rubbish like 10,000 B.C., Meet The Spartans or Fools Gold a miss. In The Shadow Of The Moon is film-making at it’s finest!

There was a time when the computer animated film was a well crafted, well written, throughly enjoyable cinema experience. That was a long time ago. Now we have a glut of computer animated films from various studios all trying to grab our movie dollar. So far this year we’ve seen the likes of Shrek 3, Surf’s Up, Meet The Robinsons, Ratatouille and now Bee Movie.

With one exception, most all of this years batch of computer animated fare have been nothing short of average. Bee Movie is no exception, as Ratatouille has been the one shining light in the dung heap that is the computer generated film.

Bee Movie’s premise is it’s first undoing. While the story is your typical animated fare, it just becomes a stupid farce that perfectly stereotypes the American way of life. Barry B. Benson, (Jerry Seinfeld) is a bee who’s just graduated from bee college. Now that he’s graduated, he’s a little upset that he only has one option in grown up bee life, making honey!

One day Barry takes a trip away from the hive to see the outside World. In the big bad World he’s almost killed, but his life is saved by a Human called Vanessa (Renee Zellweger). Slowly their Human/Bee relationship grows, Just to insult the audience’s intelligence even more! As Barry’s life outside the hive grows, he discovers that humans generally exploit bees for honey. So doing what all Americans like to do, including bees apparently, Barry decides to sue humans due to how we treat them!

Bee Movie isn’t all bad. It’s only 99% bad, 1% good. Some of the voice actors in the film are excellent. Chris Rock and Ray Liotta most notably, but their screen time is all too short, plus I didn’t know that bees were Jewish, but Sienfeld’s voice is just plain annoying for a bee. I know I would swat him if he was buzzing around me!

Now I know some of you will be saying that I’m a hypocrite because Ratatouille is about a man and a rat who cook together. But with Pixar being Pixar, story rules, and Ratatouille’s story was just done a whole lot better, and with heart! Bee Movie’s story on the other hand isn’t. Why spend over one hundred and fifty million dollars on an animated film that says to kids that suing someone is the way to go. No wonder America is the most litigious nation on Earth!

This movie could have been so much more. It could have been a movie made with heart like a Pixar film, but Dreamworks and Paramount have decided to give us so much more….. Rubbish that is!

Ironman Blu-ray

Got this in the mail today, sadly not delivered by the hot delivery chick. Regardless, this will make for a good Saturday evening viewing after the grand final. Hopefully the cats can get home over the hawks in the grand final to win there second flag, but I’m not overly confident unlike last year.

No guesses of what I’m going to be doing tonight. This morning the HOT post office delivery chick (stuff political correctness!) we have servicing this area knocked on my door with my Amazon package. Woohoo as Homer Simpson would say. Neighbours, you’ll be staying up late with this noise!

Transformers Blu-Ray Disc

CGI Lameness

I had the chance to watch Beowulf tonight. It’s not the type of film that I would rush out and see even though it’s a Robert Zemekis film. I received the movie in the post yesterday for free as part of my Empire magazine subscription. So free is free isn’t it. So I sat down to watch it.

Robert Zemeckis is to me one of the better Writer/Director’s that has been working in Hollywood these last 30 years or so. Whether it be Science fiction, Comedy or Drama he has always seems to get the best out of the source material he has to work with. But it’s just not the case with Beowulf. But, on the flip side, the under 25 demographic is going to Love it, because they’re idiots!

Zemeckis has had a couple of misses, but primarily his work has been a solid affair. Never has this been more true than with films like Cast Away, which featured a brilliant turn by Tom Hanks in a heart breaking, yet poignant story of a man who loses everything in an accident which strands him on a desert island for four years, only to lose everything dear to him again when he finally gets home. Contact too was a brilliant film adaptation of the Carl Sagan book of the same name that certainly does what a movie is supposed to do, and that is entertain!Lately though, like some other Directors, Zemeckis has getting on the technological band wagon of 3D cinema and motion capture.

He first used the motion capture technology on his previous film, The Last Express. While technically the film looked wonderful, there was something missing for me. As such I didn’t feel as connected to the characters as I feel I should have been. Plus the story was a bit “cold”. Maybe it’s an American thing to enjoy this film more, I understand the book is very popular over there. Using the same motion capture technology from The Last Express, Zemeckis has gone to the Old English poem of the same name, and in proper American film making tradition, taken some bits from it that seemed interesting and then basically made the rest up because it’ll be more impressive to look at for the under 25, Ritalin fueled car thief demographic..

So anyway, onto the plot. During celebrations congratulating the construction of a new Hall, Grendel (The freaky Crispin Glover) comes out of his cave because apparently he doesn’t like loud neighbours. So instead of doing the polite and civilized thing of knocking on the door and asking them if they could turn down the music a bit. Grendel does the typical American thing and goes inside the Hall and kills nearly everyone until they’re DEAD! Grendel seems a bit like a weirdo, but he does have a hot mother in the form of Angelina Jolie!

Anyway, to cut a long story short the ubiquitous hero Beowulf (Ray Winstone) rolls into town with the intention to take out the monster and make the land happy again so he can be a hero. (Because it’s apparently easier to lay all the virgins if you’re a hero!) Really that’s it, the film doesn’t require much thinking as it’s made for the iPod generation. It meanders around for a while, uses quite a few average plot devices and the limps home to a pretty average ending.

On the whole I am probably disappointed the most by this amongst all of Robert Zemeckis’ films. It has the depth of a 2 year old’s paddling pool that’s filled with wee. Ray Winstone’s acting was wooden at best and when you add his annoying voice to the mix, you just don’t really care about the character. And this IS the title character we are talking about!

I’m quite concerned now that some Directors maybe putting technology above story. Much like technology and flashy graphics has destroyed originality in the gaming industry. The same thing is becoming true for the film industry. I don’t want a movie that’s rubbish being covered up by good graphics to become commonplace. Probably too late isn’t it. I didn’t like it, but because it is all flash and substance it definitely would appeal to your pants on head retarded, under 25, Ritalin fueled car thief for 2 hours while he takes a hit of crystal meth!