Kevin Thomas

It's been a while. Life is a rollercoaster, but some of us suffer motion sickness

2020-01-16T05:10:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted on my blog for a very long time now. But, I've recently taken up a new hobby and want to share the resulting output with the world; painting. I started around October last year and it's since become a daily habit/ritual/obsession, call it what you will. How and why I came to paint is a story for another time. I saw the Julian Schnabel film At Eternity's Gate a couple of weeks ago and there was a scene where Van Gogh, played by Willem Dafoe, speaks with a priest played by Mads Mikkelsen. In the scene, Van Gogh explains that when he paints, he forgets everything else and feels so far away from everything. It was something that I could certainly relate to when it comes to what painting does for me. I've set up an Instagram page, which is @kevin_thomas_art and updated listings in my Etsy shop here.

Here is a selection of some of my paintings from the past few months.

Inspired

2017-03-01T15:55:00.001-08:00

I've started writing another novel. Well, to be honest I'm writing two. Watch this space.

SUMMER MOVIE PREVIEW 2015

2015-04-21T13:31:00.005-07:00

Well, I say summer. Let's just say we'll use that as a focal point and work around it - it is only April after all. There are some very big crowd-pleasing franchise releases this year, so here's my rundown.

It's already had its World premiere, but Avengers: Age of Ultron will doubtless be one of, if not THE most popular films of this year (until a certain release in December). Its success is assured with a long line of Avengers-canon films already in the pipeline for the foreseeable future. With another Marvel-universe release following a couple of months later, I'd predict that the mid-credits scene for this one will introduce Ant Man, but I don't know. If you usually stay behind for the post-credits scene, you might want to know that it's been revealed that Age of Ultron doesn't have one this time.

Following fast behind will be the return of Max Rockatansky with Tom Hardy taking over from Mel Gibson in Mad Max: Fury Road. Words wouldn't do justice to the visceral thrills that the trailer promises with original helmer George Miller seemingly afforded carte blanche to justify the film's greenlight after such a wait. Hardy is contracted for another couple subject to how this one fares, so I'd suggest fans should flock to see it. What it does have in its favour on that front is that it's likely to be mainly dialogue-free with rarely a moment's downtime when it comes to the action, which should serve an international audience well.

Another franchise that hasn't been on the screen for a while is that one with the dinosaurs. Jurassic World is attempting to revitalise the action on Isla Nublar with Jurassic Park now having been open to the public for the last 10 years. I'm sure it'll be better than Jaws 3, which had the similar basic premise, but will it be able to reach the heights of the classic original? It's a new cast with BD Wong being revealed as the only returning cast member. He played the scientist featured in the velociraptor laboratory birth scene in the original, so don't worry if you can't remember him. Chris Pratt leads the new cast, following on from his star-turn in Guardians of the Galaxy resulting in him being touted about as a possibility for the Indiana Jones reboot. As long as it improves upon Jurassic Park 3, that's what I say.

Yet another sequel/reboot on the horizon is Terminator: Genisys with Schwarzenegger returning to the role that made him famous. I feel that I already know too much about this from the trailers. So, if you're familiar with the first two (never mind 3 and Salvation) and you're interested, I won't say too much about it in case you'd prefer the spoiler-free approach. It's not the only film you can catch Schwarzenegger in during the upcoming months. In what looks like somewhat of a departure from his usually fare, he takes a step into Arthouse cinema in Maggie. He stars as father who protects his daughter, played by Abigail Breslin, when she becomes infected with a zombie virus. That doesn't make it sound like it's going to be too different from his usual big-budget action movies, but if you check out the trailer you'll get what I mean. It's more of a dramatic horror with it seemingly drawing something from him probably similar to his performance in End of Days.

Shifting the focus to unfamiliar works origin-wise, I'll start with The Age of Adaline. Blake Lively takes the lead in this fantasy-drama-romance as a woman born at the turn of the 20th century who stops aging after an accident at the age of 29 and stays that was for 80 years. It's not ageing backwards, but the premise reminds me of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

If you're up for an extreme special-effects spectacle à la 2012 or The Day After Tomorrow, Dwayne Johnson stars in San Andreas as a rescue-helicopter pilot making a treacherous journey to rescue his estranged daughter in the aftermath of a massive earthquake. Visually it is very striking and will hopefully turn out to be great entertainment, but these kind of films have the potential to be terrible. Personally, the director's filmography doesn't instill me with excitement, but there's a 1st time for everything.

Something that should be entertaining, considering the parties involved, is Spy, the latest comedy from director Paul Feig (Bridesmaids & The Heat), whose next film will be the long-awaited/dreaded Ghostbusters reboot. Collaborating in what would be the 3rd time from the aforementioned 4 is Melissa McCarthy. As long as the script was good, Feig should have had an easy job prising a solid ensemble performance from a cast that includes Jason Statham, Rose Byrne, Jude Law, Bobby Cannavale, Allison Janney, Morena Baccarin and Miranda Hart.

As I said, this Summer is full of returning successes. Amongst them you'll also find Ted 2, Sinister 2, Insidious Chapter 3, Mission Impossible 5, a Fantastic 4 reboot, Magic Mike XXL, a Poltergeist remake, Minions without Gru and a National Lampoons Vacation reboot sans Chevy Chase.

Movie Review: LOST RIVER

2015-04-15T03:18:00.002-07:00

Lost River is a dark and suspenseful semi-futuristic fable from début writer-director Ryan Gosling. It's set in a run-down American town that seems to have been left behind by a worsening economy. Mad Men's Christina Hendricks plays a single mother of two, desperately trying to save her family home from being repossessed and demolished by the bank. She takes on a mysterious job offered to her by Ben Mendelsohn's villainous bank manager as a means to earn extra cash to repay her arrears. The job turns out to be a performer at a torture-themed nightclub. Her son, played by Marvel's Agents of Shield's Iain De Caestecker, tries his best to contribute by scavenging copper from derelict properties scattered amongst the deserted areas of the vicinity. However, this angers the local thug, played by a shaven-headed Matt Smith of Doctor Who fame, who has laid claim to all of the copper as his own.

It's a simple story with unfortunate encounters stimulating cat-and-mouse conflicts between its characters. Its setting is grim and mainly devastated yet the film is consistently visually-arresting. I'm a big fan of Nicholas Winding-Refn's films, with whom Ryan Gosling collaborated by starring in Drive and Only God Forgives. It seems that Gosling shares a similar style when it comes to the tone on display here. Elements of horror are then introduced with a slight adjustment in tone and visuals suggesting an influence akin to David Lynch. The film brings compelling mystery with little signs of hope emerging from a disturbing story. The performances are solid and it's an ambitious piece that has the potential to become a cult favourite in the future.

It's not perfect but at 95 minutes it's the right length for this nightmarish modern-day fairy-tale about family and survival. I imagine that the original cut, before the film was picked up by a distributor, was much longer and has been subject to compromise. I remember seeing a clip months ago that hasn't ended up in the version released. It's a promisingly brave directorial début from Ryan Gosling, a piece of Arthouse cinema that won't be to everyone's tastes for the same reasons I gave when I reviewed Only God Forgives a couple of years ago, but Lost River was right up my street.

Lost River is in cinemas and available On-Demand now.

Unfinished Business: A Flash Fiction Short

2015-03-24T12:17:00.000-07:00

“UNFINISHED BUSINESS”

Following a dignified service, the mourners had filed out of the church after the coffin, which had now been lowered into the grave.

Stephen stood beside the grave and looked around at the hypocritical presence surrounding him. He could have laughed, but he refrained. He was aghast at how so many people could be so brazen as to show up at the funeral of someone that they had previously treated with such appalling disrespect.

The rain was pelting down, but he could not feel it. The sky was as grey as the faces of the mourners standing at the graveside.

He looked at his mother and felt a pang of heartbreak as he saw the tears flowing from her near-bloodshot eyes. His sister, Joanne, was standing next to her, practically holding her up by the arm the that she had wrapped around her.

Unsurprisingly, there was a sombre tone to the occasion but, more than anything, Stephen was overcome with a sense of anger. He was incensed that one man in particular had decided to make an appearance amongst them.

Scott Danielson was unashamedly lining up behind one of Stephen’s old friends, Gabriel Michaels, preparing to participate on the formalities that involved throwing a handful of earth onto the coffin in the grave before paying his respects to the grieving family. Stephen gritted his teeth and stared at him, but Scott did not look his way.

After a few seconds, Stephen scanned the rest of the gathering. His Uncle Harry was whispering something to his cousin, Donna, and his Aunt Deborah was speaking to the Vicar. Then he caught a glimpse of an unfamiliar face.

There was a woman standing beside his Uncle, someone he did not recognise. She stood out from the crowd as she was wearing a beige knee-length skirt over a white blouse and a grey cardigan. Everyone else was wearing black. He was surprised he had not noticed her earlier. She was mid-thirties, pretty. Moments later, the mystery woman noticed that Stephen was staring at her. She smiled.

Taken aback at her acknowledgement, Stephen blushed. He looked away, embarrassed as she began to approach him.

“Morning,” she said to him. “I’m Maria.”

“Stephen,” he blurted after a brief moment of hesitation.

“How did you die, Stephen?”

Stephen scowled. “I was murdered, but it was made to look like a suicide.”

“I’m sorry,” Maria said. “So, you’ve got unfinished business too, huh?”

“Too right I have.” He looked at Scott once again and glowered. “I got knocked out in a fight when I found out that my best friend had been sleeping with my fiancé. She’s not here today, but he’s had the audacity to show his face. Turns out I was found on the bathroom floor with my wrists slit. I didn’t do that.”

“That’s awful.” Maria turned to see who Stephen was glaring at. “Is that him?”

“It is.”

“What a nerve,” she said.

Stephen shook himself and looked Maria in the eye. “Anyway, what happened to you?” he enquired, realising he was being rude by not expressing an interest in his new-found acquaintance’s situation.

“Car accident. Two weeks ago now.”

“And you’re still hanging around?”

“We’ve all got unfinished business to take care of, Stephen.”

“I suppose,” he said. “You learned anything about haunting the living since you passed?”

Maria looked in Scott’s direction again and grinned. “Sure, I could teach you a few things.”

Excerpt from novel, DISPOSITION

2015-02-25T13:46:00.000-08:00

dis-po-si-tion (noun). A habitual inclination; a tendency

Having spent the week executing what turned out to be the fruitless task of interrogating suspects, Liza felt it was reasonable to take the afternoon off for an appointment with her psychiatrist. There had been a couple of anxious occurrences of recognising a couple of men amongst the stills from the videos of the people of interest. She remembered them from one-off encounters that she had arranged at a hotel through the internet. She called in sick on the day of one of the interrogations and strategically arranged to be stuck in traffic on the day of the other one. It was unusual for her to shirk her responsibilities, so nobody questioned her inconveniences to be anything but genuine. However, she was accustomed to keeping things to herself, despite the strain she felt.

She had been seeing Dr Simone Anwar for the last five years after being referred to her by a colleague. As well as heading her own practice, Dr Anwar occasionally consulted for the police as a forensic psychologist.

Liza found the psychiatrist's office waiting-room to be a peaceful place; somewhere to contain the calm before the storm. There was never anyone else sitting there but her. The patients were scheduled in a way that ensured they didn't overlap. One patient never saw another unless someone was unnecessarily very early for an appointment. Liza appreciated the privacy. As she sat alone, she periodically stared at the two oil paintings hanging on the green walls adjacent to the chair.

The first painting that she gazed upon was the lone silhouette of a rambler scouring the countryside. Liza was always drawn to the large shadow that he cast. The painting on the opposite wall was a landscape portrait of tumultuous waves crashing against the face of a tall cliff on a sunny day, with a lone cloud hovering in the blue sky above. Liza had been staring at the painting for years and was still not decided as to whether she should have been imagining standing at the top of the cliff looking down at the crashing waves or staring out at the seemingly endless ocean on the horizon. On that Monday afternoon, she was thinking that it was more likely that she felt like the lone cloud in the sky when her mobile rang in her coat pocket. It was Morgan Stone, so she answered the call with a despairing sigh.

"Can't you just give me a break?" she said. "Just one afternoon, for crying out loud."

"I know, but it's important," Stone reasoned without apology.

"I'll be the judge of that. What do you want?"

"Where are you?"

"What do you want?"

"I've got a new lead."

"Great, but, couldn't that have waited? Stone, give me a break. Deal with it yourself and don't bother me until tomorrow at the earliest."

Liza terminated the call and switched her mobile off, cursing Stone for disrupting her serenity. She focussed on the painting of the cliffs again and tried to compose herself. A minute or so later, Dr Anwar opened her office door.

"Liza, sorry I kept you waiting," she said.

"Don't worry about it," Liza said. "That's what the room is for, isn't it?"

"That's certainly a positive way to look at things. Come in."

Dr Anwar extended her arm to point the way. She was in her late forties and had a warm yet firm manner. Every time Liza had seen her, she was wearing a black suit and heels over a white blouse with a wide collar.

The office was four times the size of the waiting room and almost the same size as Liza's apartment

"It's been a while," Anwar said as Liza entered the room.

"I was doing well, or at least I thought I was. I thought I didn't need the therapy as much, but then I had a relapse."

"You'd better sit down."

"On the clock already?"

"Well, I do have other patients. It's your time, so make the most of it."

There were no paintings hanging on the walls in the office, just framed certificates of Anwar's qualifications. The decor was bland; a desk, a bookcase containing reference books, two chairs and a couch. Liza always sat in a chair facing the chair where Anwar sat.

"So, a relapse, you say," the psychiatrist prompted. "Would you care to elaborate?"

"You know what I mean."

"I recall us establishing the conjecture that your condition was ultimately a very subjectively measured one. You eventually insisted that a specific criteria for defining it was absent."

Liza rolled her eyes and conceded to Anwar's point. "Okay, that's right. Maybe society has the problem and I'm just projecting a cultural aversion towards sexual liberation."

"Is that how you feel about it? You resent having to feel shame?"

"I was just responding sarcastically to what you said."

"Tell me about your relapse, as you call it."

"I just gave in to it. Saturday before last," Liza said. "I hadn't been with anyone for about a month and it was just nagging away at me, like an itch I couldn't scratch. I tried satisfying myself to ward off the urge, but it's just too insatiable. After a while, it starts to interfere in the everyday stuff. I get tense at work and, you know, I don't interact well with colleagues. So, I just threw caution to the wind, logged on, had a few drinks and arranged a date. As easy as that, I had an intimately dispassionate encounter that very night."

"So, you acknowledge that surrendering to your compulsion doesn't result in satisfaction. You're saying it doesn't appease the need?"

"We're going over old ground here, but, okay. Yes; exactly. It's like I give in to it because there is a brief moment where the tension fades, but it just makes things worse when I reflect upon it in the cold light of day. Then, there seems that there'll just be one thing that'll sort me out again."

"And a self-perpetuating cycle ensues," Anwar added.

"Exactly."

"Have you kept up with your medication?"

"I may have eased off during the last month or so."

"May I ask why? I didn't advise you to."

"I wanted to eliminate the side-effects. It's hard to be effective at my job when I'm losing interest and I stop caring all the time. I usually love my job , but recently I haven't taken much pleasure from it and I don't want to talk to anyone."

"That's called anhedonia," Anwar interjected. "It's a common side-effect of the antidepressants that I prescribed you, but it usually passes in time. You should give them another chance."

"I got by without them for years. What is it they're supposed to do exactly?"

"What? The tablets? You know what they're for. You wouldn't have taken them to start with otherwise. And another thing; you really think you were getting by?"

"Just remind me."

"Okay, I'll play along and indulge whatever game you're playing. It's your time after all. If you need me to explain that the antidepressants will suppress your relatively excessive sexual urges, I can do that."

"Relatively excessive, you say?"

"It depends whether you're measuring your behaviour against social norms or not."

"How do they work?" Liza asked.

"What do you mean?"

"What's the science behind them?"

Anwar frowned as she paused for a moment, unclear as to why Liza was uncharacteristically testing her. She seemed more embittered than usual.

"Why are you so interested in the science?" Anwar enquired.

"I want to know what the other potential side-effects are. What harm could they do to me?"

"So, you blindly engage in a lengthy string of sexual encounters with strangers, risking infection, disease and who knows what else in the process, and now you claim to be concerned about what medically prescribed drugs can do to you?"

"Maybe it's because it's the only risk I've been able to control lately. To everything else, I yielded. The drugs have been what I chose to stop."

"Yes, in a sudden fashion, which by proxy put an end to your sexual abstinence."

"How do they work?" Liza insisted.

"They're called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. They're a psychotropic drug that correct chemical imbalances in the brain. They specifically block serotonin from being reabsorbed by the nerve cells in the brain, therefore releasing it and lifting your mood as a result. Liza, you know this, surely."

"And there I was thinking it was just Prozac," Liza said with a smirk.

"Prozac is just a brand name for fluoxetine," Anwar corrected her. "You're on Paxil, which is a brand of paroxetine."

"Am I pissing you off, Doctor?"

"No. Let's just say that your hostility is quite infectious this afternoon. I'm sorry."

One of the symptoms Anwar had been treating Liza for was a condition called hypersexuality. When the therapy sessions started, Liza thought it was going to be a short-term arrangement. Five years had since passed and it seemed that she was still going to be in need of Anwar's services for quite some time to come. Hypersexuality was the label that Anwar applied to Liza's dysfunctional preoccupation with casual and non-intimate sexual encounters. They still had not established what the probable cause for Liza's condition was, and Anwar stressed that maybe they never would.

After apologising for allowing her professionalism slip, Anwar remained silent and waited for Liza to resume the conversation. It was around thirty seconds before Liza broke the silence.

"I've got a new case," she said. "A murder. You probably saw it on the news."

"The woman found in Sutton Park?"

"That's the one."

"There's a lot about her we haven't made public."

"You know that whatever you tell me stays in this room."

"I know. It's just, well, some of the details are a bit close to home."

Anwar stayed quiet, leaving the talking to Liza.

Liza continued, "We found videos and photographs of her with lots of different sexual partners. You could argue that she makes me seem normal by comparison. So, obviously, she's being called a slut and a whore by anyone who comes across the evidence. It's clear that she was discreet enough to keep her Messalina complex a secret while she was breathing. Of course, everyone's in shock now, especially her husband. I try to appear indifferent. I can't explain to them that I understand where she was coming from."

"Why not? You can control how much you reveal."

"They'd probably call me detective nympho, or something as equally derogatory."

"I see. It's unfortunate you don't feel that you can provide an informed insight with confidence."

"If a man was just as promiscuous, he'd be hailed, celebrated even. A man's ego can't deal with a woman having a greater libido than his, so then the double standard is applied."

"Moral regard, as quite often conveyed either frankly or indirectly by society, is most certainly malapropos and doesn't support your affliction. It's up to you to improve your situation, Liza. Yes, I'm here for your therapy, but the rest is your responsibility. Open your mind to the world's possibilities outside the sex-related experiences. Concentrate on emancipating yourself from your addiction and seize control of your actions. That will put you on course for achieving true satisfaction."

"You make it sound so easy, Doctor."

"I know it's not. Start by taking your medication again. You're in no position to cut it out as drastically as you have. Maybe in time we can look at reducing your dosage, but now isn't the time. I'll write you another prescription. On one hand, you're saying that it's affecting your work. But, on the other hand, you're restraining the use of your experience when it could benefit your investigation."

"Okay, sure," Liza conceded. "Whatever you think will work."

"I don't make any promises, Liza. Didn't you mention something about a holiday a couple of months ago?"

"Well remembered, yes. Or was that in your notes?"

"You said it was booked for sometime around now, didn't you?"

"Five nights in Lanzarote in about three weeks' time, which I'm thinking of cancelling. I'm too busy with work."

"I'm sure they could cope without you for a week."

"I'm sure they'd be glad that I wasn't there for a week."

"So, why don't you go as planned?"

"I could take a holiday anytime."

"You say that, but then you also say that you maybe can't take this one because you're too busy."

"I'll think about it."

"I hope you do."

***

LAST MINUTE OSCAR PREDICTIONS

2015-02-22T12:00:00.001-08:00

I think this year is going to prove to be mostly predictable, but we'll find out in a few hours...

Best Director

The Nominees
Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Birdman
Richard Linklater, Boyhood
Bennett Miller, Foxcatcher
Morten Tyldum, The Imitation Game

Should Win

Linklater for the dedication and consistency over 12 years.

Will Win

Iñárritu.

Best Supporting Actress

The Nominees
Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
Laura Dern, Wild
Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game
Emma Stone, Birdman
Meryl Streep, Into the Woods

Should and Will Win

Arquette. Obvious.

Best Supporting Actor

The Nominees
Robert Duvall, The Judge
Ethan Hawke, Boyhood
Edward Norton, Birdman
Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher
J.K. Simmons, Whiplash

Should and Will Win

Simmons. Obvious.

Best Actress

The Nominees
Marion Cotillard, Two Days, One Night
Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything
Julianne Moore, Still Alice
Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon, Wild

Should and Will Win

Moore. Again, obvious.

Best Actor

The Nominees
Steve Carell, Foxcatcher
Bradley Cooper, American Sniper
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game
Michael Keaton, Birdman
Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything

Should Win

Would be hard to argue against Redmayne.

Will Win

Michael Keaton is probably in the lead, but it could be a flip of a coin here.

Best Picture

The Nominees
American Sniper
Birdman
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Selma
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash

Should Win

"Boyhood." Come on, it took 12 years to make and it's brilliant.

Will Win

Odds are that Birdman will take it. I've seen it twice and could easily watch it again, so wouldn't mind either way.

BOND IN MOTION

2015-02-20T10:56:00.002-08:00

During a recent visit to London, I was looking for something to do on a Thursday afternoon and came across the London Film Museum in Covent Garden, where the Bond in Motion exhibit is currently based. If you're a 007 fan, I'd highly recommend it. It's the official exhibit of the vehicles that have featured in films and is the largest of its kind in London. The latest James Bond film, Spectre, has started filming and will be released in November with Bond driving the new Aston Martin DB10. Only ten are being produced and it was designed especially for the new film to mark the recent fiftieth anniversary of the company's involvement in the franchise.

The day that I visited the exhibit coincided with the first on-location footage from Austria being released, revealing that Bond will once again battle villainous henchmen in the snow, as in On Her Majesty's Secret Service and For Your Eyes Only amongst others. As always, it's a globe-spanning mission with other filming locations including London, Mexico City and Rome. At this early stage, the premise for Spectre is still unsurprisingly vague: A cryptic message from an unlikely source sets James Bond navigating the layers of a sinister organisation known as SPECTRE. As M continues fighting political pressures that threaten the future of MI6 Bond draws closer to uncovering a hidden truth that threatens to destroy everything he has fought to protect. Of course, all of the key players from Skyfall are returning (Daniel Craig, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw, Naomi Harris and Rory Kinnear) and new cast members include Two-Time Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz, Monica Bellucci, Lea Seydoux, Dave Bautista and Andrew Scott. It's too soon for news on who'll record the theme song, but my bet would be Adele returing to follow-up the award-winning Skyfall. With Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes also returning behind the camera, it's doubtful that it’s going to disappoint.

Anyway, back to the Bond in Motion exhibit at Covent Garden. Adult tickets are £14.50 each and, as I say, this is quite a treat if you've seen all of the Bond films with child and family tickets available. None of the items on display are replicas. Every vehicle is the original high performance one used in filming, most of which are on loan from EON productions' archives. Some of them have been restored whereas a couple of others are still in the write-off state that resulted from the chase at the start of Quantum of Solace. It's not just cars. There are loads of the gadgets, weapons, aircraft, aqua vehicles, motorbikes and other props from down the years, including passports and a driving licence (he had 4 penalty points on it). Most of the vehicles are accompanied by a large screen showing the scene for which it's most famous. I'd say that the BMWs featured in the Dalton years have dated, but the timelessly classic Aston Martin takes centre-stage and all of the glory. Some of these vehicles have provided some of the most memorable images in movie history, such as the speedboat from Live and Let Die, the submersible Lotus Esprit from The Spy Who Loved me, Goldfinger's Rolls Royce and the Q Boat that raced along the Thames in The World is Not Enough.

The exhibit also gives you a glimpse of the creative process from pre-production and how the artistry on the storyboards has changed over the years with never-seen-before concept drawings, script pages and miniature models also on display.

It was highly enjoyable and fascinating to be in the presence of iconic items from movie history with plenty of photograph opportunities.

DAVID FINCHER

2014-10-12T07:55:00.001-07:00

Do you have a favourite director? There may be a few that you may have recognised to have achieved a significant standard in the world of film-making, but I have a favourite and it is David Fincher. In such a short and recent period of time, he has been behind some of the best films ever made. Straight off, I'll mention Fight Cub and Seven.

As for his background, he started early, practicing his craft amongst friends with the use of an 8mm camera. At the age of 18, he got a job with George Lucas' special-effects company, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), between 1981 and 1983, contributing to the matte photography of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom as well as The Never Ending Story, whilst serving as Assistant Cameraman on The Return of the Jedi. After that, he went on to become a very successful figure in the direction of TV commercials and music videos before his shot at helming feature films came along.

Off the back of his achievements in the direction of music videos, he was presented with the opportunity to direct the third film in the Alien franchise, starring Sigourney Weaver. His bad experience in the production of that film is well-documented and I will not elaborate on it further here. It was a film that he would have walked away from had it not been a major production with a budget of $60 million in 1992. Three years later, his proper debut arrived; the iconic serial killer horror-thriller Seven with Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman. I shouldn't need to explain Seven, apart from saying that if you haven't seen it you need to. Seven re-established his reputation and was followed by the psychological thriller The Game, starring Michael Douglas. That is what I see as the start of his contribution to the comparison I'd make between him and Alfred Hitchcock. In an elaborately plotted story, the film succeeds in making us empathise with a character that you wouldn't usually root for. The Game continued to establish Fincher's distinctive style and, whilst entertaining enough, does not really compare to his following production.

Fight Club arrived in 1999. The adaptation of the Chuck Palahniuk novel wasn't seen as a major success at the box-office, but has since become a cult classic. On release, the visceral film wasn't received well by the studio and went on to uphold their concerns with conflicting reviews and disappointing box-office results. Similar to the journey of The Shawshank Redemption a few years earlier, the film went on to achieve overwhelming success and a cult following when released on DVD/Video.

He went on to direct 2002's Panic Room with Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart, which he acknowledged was more mainstream compared to his other films; a popcorn movie about survival. It's an entertaining piece about a mother and daughter hiding in their house's safe-room when criminals break in, needing to access the room in which they're hiding in order to get to the fortune they seek. He referred to the script reminding him of aspects of 1954's Rear Window, again linking back to the comparisons I make between him and Hitchcock, with the opening titles of Panic Room sharing the style of those you'd associate with a Hitchcock thriller.

It would be five years until his next film, the masterpiece that is Zodiac. Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr led the cast in the adaptation of the true story behind the unsolved investigation of a serial killer in San Francisco during the late 60's and 70's. It's a detailed and intricate film, which was heavily researched by Fincher prior to production, and the result could be described as something akin to the 1976 film All The Presidents Men.

His next film was a departure from his usual adults-only material as he teamed up with Brad Pitt for a third time on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, leading to his first Academy Award nomination for his direction. The adaptation of an F Scott Fitzgerald short story, which had been in development since the 80's, Benjamin Button was a fantasy drama with Brad Pitt playing the lead character aging in reverse with Cate Blanchette playing the love of his life.

A couple of years later, Fincher directed what many refer to as the Facebook film, The Social Network. Starring Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield, it tells the story of the legal battle that played out concerning the founding of the social media website. It received universal acclaim and resulted in Fincher receiving another nod at the Oscars. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin was deservedly awarded for his adaptation of the book, The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal. The score for the film, created by Trent Reznor, from industrial rock bank Nine Inch Nails, and Atticus Ross was also awarded and resulted in the partnership producing the scores for Fincher's following films. Their signature sound effectively drives Fincher's version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and his most recent, Gone Girl. One of the things I love most about Fincher's Dragon Tattoo is the opening titles sequence. It sets the tone with stunning cyberpunk visuals accompanies by Karen O's powerful vocal over a Reznor and Ross-produced rendition of Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song. The film is technically superb and brilliantly acted by an impressive cast headed by Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara. Yet another tour de force.

His most recent release was Gone Girl, which I heard him describe in an Empire podcast as a satirical adaptation of a supermarket thriller. I read the novel earlier this year and was gripped from start-to-finish. Referring to Hitchcock once again, I remember thinking that it would be exactly the kind of story that he would make a good film from were he alive today. A few months passed and Fincher's Gone Girl, from the screenplay adapted by the author of the novel, Gillian Flynn, did not disappoint. It was everything that I had hoped it would be and I wouldn't be surprised to see it result in another Best Director nomination early next year.

David Fincher's next project will be another collaboration with Gillian Flynn; an American remake for HBO of the channel 4 TV series, Utopia. It'll be his second television project after the brilliant Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright Netflix series, House of Cards.

All of Fincher's films have a distinctive look and feel to them and once again, in summary, to explain why he's my favourite director, his amazing CV includes: Seven, The Game, Fight Club, Panic Room, Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Social Network, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Gone Girl.

Inspiration from the Movies

2014-08-27T07:13:00.002-07:00

People find movies inspirational for all sorts of reasons and take away all sorts of motivations from those that strike a chord with them. Some take away lessons on life, finding characters that overcome the odds or stand up against oppression and adversity. However, the inspiration that this post is going to focus on isn't from a classic like Dead Poets Society or The Shawshank Redemption. I recently took inspiration from the film 'Chef' written by, directed by and starring Jon Favreau.

Chef was released in cinemas this year and was a heart-warming, uplifting film about a chef who reignites his creativity when he starts a new business after losing his restaurant job as a result of a clash with a high-profile food critic on twitter. Favreau plays the successful chef Carl Casper with Dustin Hoffman playing the owner of the restaurant that he works at, where Scarlett Johansson is the waitress. When everything goes wrong, his ex-wife presents him with the idea of taking an old truck and turning it into a successful business. He's joined on his trip across America by his faithful colleague Martin, played by John Leguizamo and his tech-savvy young son, Percy.

Full of lively and infectious music, fun, optimism, fantastic food and Robert Downey Jr, I'd say this movie is certainly a crowd-pleaser. Be sure not to see it on an empty stomach though. Of all the things I took from this film, it was the inspiration to make a Cuban sandwich, aka a Cubano.

This film inspired me to buy a cafe-style sandwich press, specifically the Breville VST025, and a meat thermometer. You see, in the film, when Casper stops making the same old menu that his boss insists he sticks to, he finds his niche with Cubanos. After seeing them, and having them described on the screen, I just had to make one. I found the recipe online and share it with you below.

It's all down to chef Roy Choi, co-producer of the movie and founder of a branded fleet of taco trucks and owner of several restaurants in Los Angeles. At the heart of the sandwich is his Mojo pork recipe. To start with, in large bowl, whisk 2/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil, a tablespoon of orange zest, half a cup of freshly squeezed orange juice, half a cup of freshly squeezed lime juice, 7 minced cloves of garlic, 2/3 cup of coriander leaves,1/4 cup of chopped mint, 1 tablespoon of minced oregano, 1 teaspoon of cumin and 1 teaspoon each of salt and pepper. Then you add 1.8 to 2.7 kg of boneless pork shoulder. Turn the pork until well coated all over before transferring it all to a large, re-sealable plastic bag. Place the bag in a bowl and refrigerate, turning occasionally, for between 12 to 24 hours.

So, that's quite a bit of preparation before you roast it, uncovered, in a preheated 425F (220C) oven for 30 minutes. Then baste it with the pan juices. Reduce the heat to 375F (190C). Roast, basting every half hour, until the instant-read thermometer inserted in the centre registers 160F (71C), for between 90 to 120 minutes. Then you've got your sandwich filling to slice as you want.

Heat 6 thin slices of normal, supermarket-standard ham and the sliced Mojo pork on the sandwich press. Cook, turning once, until warmed and browned in spots, for just about 1 minute and then rest them on a plate.

Cut a large white baguette into three or four pieces and split lengthwise. Butter the cut sides generously and toast on the press until lightly browned, which should take a minute or two. Then put them aside and layer the bottom of the buns with the pork, ham, slices of Swiss cheese and pickles (I omitted the pickles). Next, brush the inside of the bun tops with mustard, close the sandwiches and generously butter the outsides. Place on the press and cook until the cheese melts and the outsides are browned and crispy, which should take around 3 minutes.

Boom!

What are the movies going to inspire me to do next?

Chef is released on DVD, Blu Ray and On-Demand from 4th November 2014 in UK (where I live) and is one of the most enjoyable movies to arrive this year.

My New Novel: Disposition

2014-05-20T11:42:00.001-07:00

Here it is. After three years of writing, my third novel is complete and available either as a download or paperback. It's quite different to my first two novels, especially my second one, Barren Endeavour. Where that was a historical thriller about a farmer getting caught up with gangsters in New York, Disposition is a modern-day piece of general fiction set in Birmingham.

It started out as a story that I can best describe as something akin to the 80s movies St Elmo's Fire or the 90s movie Reality Bites, with a hint of Very Bad Things. It then took a turn towards the dark side, as my stories usually do, and developed into a murder mystery. The way it's turned out, I could identify influences stemming from thrillers including Basic Instinct, The Killing and Dragon Tattoo. The theme of compulsive behaviour then came to the fore. We don't always have a tendency to do the mature thing. Then I stopped at around 93,400 words when it just felt that I'd reached the perfect place to stop.

Available Now on Amazon

Synopsis:

A group of friends and their partners reunite at a house-warming party during a time that proves to be the epicentre of a tumultuous period in their lives. They wouldn't want each other to know about their navigational struggles through the complexities of life, but unavoidable conflicts are imminent.

Things will never be the same again for all involved. Secrets and lies simmer before friendships and marriages collide amongst lustful betrayal and tragic discovery.

David hasn't told his friends that his wife has left him, while Greg is very open about the fact that he's separated from his and he's happily moved on with a younger woman. Marcus has an open marriage and is using it to his advantage as he attempts to blackmail his way to a promotion at work. Calvin's life seems perfectly content, but could this be too good to be true? Then there's Joel, a police detective investigating a murder, which has ties to more than one of their group, uncovering the hidden depraved behaviour of those that he thought he knew better.

Past indiscretions resurface and a murder investigation ensues, revealing that the age-old cliché, that it's a small world, is often startlingly accurate.

Set in Birmingham, England, DISPOSITION is the third novel from D K Thomas.

Here are some of the links for Amazon, which is not an exhaustive list. It is also available through Amazon's marketplaces in Australia, Canada, France, Italy, India, The Netherlands, Japan, Mexico. Spain and Brazil.

Click here to get the Kindle edition on Amazon.com

or Click here for Amazon.co.uk

The Paperback is available here on Amazon.com

The Paperback is available here on Amazon.co.uk

Hidden Gems

2014-05-06T16:43:00.001-07:00

Many of my posts have served as previews of promising times ahead, so I'm going to focus on the good times that have passed. With the multitude of films that are released each year, it is inevitable that some of them fail to show up on your radar or linger in the shadow of the blockbusters before falling between the cracks.
Some are forgotten about and some never find a place in your consciousness in the first place. You could call them hidden gems, the films that time forgot, underrated classics, whatever you like. There'll always be something out there that you haven't seen that holds a special place in the heart of the person who'll unreservedly recommend it to you. Sometimes you'll wish that person had reserved their recommendation, but that's movies for you - forever dividing opinion. If you're already familiar with those that I mention, great, I'm glad. Many won't be. Also, my taste is very eclectic, as I'd imagine would be the case for most film fanatics, so I'm sorry if my selection isn't for everyone.

To start with, I'll cover some that you may have missed as recently as last year. Short Term 12 impressed me last year. It tells the story of a supervisory care worker at a treatment facility for troubled teens, played by Brie Larsson, hiding her own troubles from the past and present. There's uplifting drama, played out with a range of fleshed-out characters, balanced perfectly with tragedy and heartbreak. However, if you want a film without any sadness whatsoever, another that didn’t get the recognition it deserved last year was The Way Way Back; a very enjoyable, feel-good, summer-set coming-of-age comedy drama. It's about a shy teenager spending the summer at his mother's boyfriend's holiday home in a seaside town, and it reminded me of the kind of film I would have watched growing up in the eighties. Other films that grabbed my attention last year included the extraordinarily vague Upstream Color, which left much open to interpretation, and Neil Jordan's engaging vampire drama, Byzantium, starring Saorise Ronan and Gemma Arterton. But, that was last year, and there's still time for these films to get noticed (even Blade Runner and Shawshank Redemption were flops at the cinema when they were released).

For another lesser-known film featuring the nocturnal undead of the fanged variety, you could look back to 1987 and find Kathryn Bigelow's directorial debut, Near Dark. The word vampire is never used and the mythology remains vague, as it's not established whether they are vulnerable to the usual threats such as garlic, holy water and so on. What is clear is that they are immortal, dependant upon blood for sustenance and definitely keep 'odd hours.' It's more of a road movie than a horror and could certainly be described as a film that the term cult-classic would have been coined for, different to the more mainstream vampire flick released that year, Joel Schumacher's The Lost Boys. Joel Shcumacher's portfolio has range, from the iconic Falling Down and the compelling A Time to Kill to shockers like Batman & Robin. One of his smaller movies was one of Colin Farrell's earlier movies, Tigerland, in 2000. It's a gritty movie with an independent-feel, shot on hand-held digital; unlike anything you'd expect from Schumacher. Tigerland was the training camp that US soldiers would go through before being deployed in the Vietnam war during the sixties and seventies, but it's not really what could be simply described as a war film. That would be like describing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest as a prison movie. Colin Farrell shines as Bozz, the rebel with an ethos akin to Yossarian from Catch 22, with a performance that paved his way to stardom. While I'm pointing out star-turns in early roles, I'll mention What's Eating Gilbert Grape from 1993. Johnny Depp takes the lead, but this was the movie in which Leonardo Di Caprio broke through as his mentally-disabled brother. It's a remarkable film and earned Di Caprio his first Academy Award nomination a few years before hitting it big with Romeo & Juliet, that one with the ship and his ongoing collaborations with Martin Scorcese. Another film frrom the nineties that I'd like to cite would be one starring the lead from one of Di Caprio and Scorcese's most successful collaborations; The Departed. Matt Damon plays a law student, pulled back into the dangerous wold of high-stakes poker, in Rounders, after an old friend, played by Ed Norton, is released from prison. I remember first watching it on my little TV in the Halls of Residence during University, gripped after renting it on video from Blockbuster. John Malkovich is magnificent as Teddy KGB, the Russian responsible for running one of the underground establishment that they frequent on the poker-playing circuit, and the movie benefits from a strong supporting cast comprised of Gretchen Mol, Jon Turturro, Famke Janssen and Martin Landau. It's one of the many that provides the thrills through the tension that it conveys. On that score, 2011's Margin Call also succeeds. It's set at a Wall Street investment bank during the start of 2008's financial crisis and focuses on the psychological implications of transpiring events for the key figures involved at the bank rather than the technicalities. It's completely engaging and well acted by Zachary Quinto, Paul Bethany, Stanley Tucci, Demi Moore, Kevin Spacey and a scene-stealingly over-the-top Jeremy Irons. However, it's not a patch on one of my favourite outstanding ensemble-cast films, Glengarry Glen Ross. This again includes Kevin Spacey, along with Ed Harris, Jack Lemmon, Alan Arkin, Jonathan Pryce, Al Pacino and an iconic scene driven by Alec Baldwin. Released in 1992, Glengarry Glen Ross focuses on a few hours at a Real Estate office. The pressure to sell is high, the salesmen have reached desperation point and it's masterfully written by David Mamet. It was the film that brought Mamet to my attention. He's got a very distinct style as a screenwriter and playwright, applying rhythm to his realistic dialogue. His well-known works include The Edge, Ronin and The Untouchables, but you should check out The Spanish Prisoner,Heist and Spartan. For me, those showcase his ingenuity when it comes to plotting and telling a story.

And finally, many may have seen Prisoners, starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhall last year. It was directed by Denis Villeneuve and evoked a strong reaction from those that I've spoken to and from the reviews that I've read. A film that packs an even stronger punch would be Villeneuve's previous movie, academy-award-nominated Indendies from 2010. It's a very powerful drama with a mystery unfolding for brother and sister twins following the reading of their mother's will.

I'd like to revisit this subject again in the future and mention others that I feel are underrated classics and hidden gems. I'm always on the lookout and hope that many new discoveries come to my attention before then.

Cross the bridge

2014-01-22T10:31:00.001-08:00

I heard this track by Mint Royale last Sunday, which must be one of their latest. The tingling bells at the start have featured heavily on BBC One's programme introductions since the new year, but what follows is an inspiring voice-over monologue from Willem Dafoe.

As well as being a decent tune, I'd say it speaks to us all. I chose to cross the bridge today and then burned it down. That is to say, I did something I hadn't done before and now there's no turning back. I was fed up of all of the clutter - inside and out of the house. Inside, I've got so much sensitive paperwork that it would take months to shred it all. It's tempting to just put it in the bin for recycling, but you never know what can happen. In the age of identity theft and fraud, it would most probably be a dumb move. The thing is though, the amount that I've got would take months to shred. I haven't got the time, commitment or the tolerance to withstand the boredom threshold to do what's required. I've found old, mouldy nets and curtains under the stairs that have been taking up valuable storage space for about ten years. These things have to go. Then, outside, there's the three dead Christmas trees that I haven't got rid of yet. I would chop them up and put them out for the fortnightly garden waste collection, but the council don't offer this any more.

So, I bought a garden incinerator. It's one of those steel bins with a hole to emit the smoke on top. Yes, I'd prefer to dispose of my waste without the emissions, but I going to be considerate about which time I choose to burn stuff. I'll make sure it's not a time when people are going to have stuff hanging out on their washing line and all that. I could stuff the manky old curtains into bin bags and leave them out for the rubbish men, but I think it's better to disintegrate them rather than have them taken to landfill. It was a good start. I've made some space and I've begun to get rid of some of the clutter. It's the way forward - getting rid of what I don't need.

I'm also going to have to 'cross that bridge,' as the lyric goes, and do something I haven't done before once I've finished editing my new novel. I don't know what that something is yet, but it's linked to marketing. I'm close to having 'Disposition' ready for distribution and I'm hoping its going to reach further than 'The Ellroy Deflection' and 'Barren Endeavour' have. It's a challenging marketplace, emphasised by an article I read this week. Most writers earn less than £600 a year apparently. CLICK HERE to read it. Its not surprising. Watch this space...

MOVIES OF 2013 REVIEW

2014-01-15T11:14:00.001-08:00

Box-office-wise, 2013 was cinema’s biggest year yet. Leading the way was Iron Man 3, taking over $1.2 billion as it became the 5thbiggest film of all time. Clearly, the comic-book superhero movie genre is the biggest genre for the studios alongside the family-favourite animated features. Thor: The Dark World saw the successful return of another Avenger and we’ll see him again in 2015 when the Avengers re-assemble.

But, before that, Steve Rogers will have another entry in the series with Captain America: Winter Soldier next year as well as the movie debut of The Guardians of the Galaxy arriving in the summer. Zack Snyder’s Superman-reboot Man of Steel did well enough this year to ensure a return in 2015, with Ben Affleck and Gal Gadot recently cast to join the sequel as Batman and Wonder Woman. Another group of superheroes set to stick around would be the X-Men following the success of Logan’s second solo outing this year in The Wolverine, next year’s epic-scale sequel/prequel Days of Future Past with another sequel, Apocalypse, already greenlit for 2016.

A long loved-character that seemed to have transformed into a superhero this year was John McLane in the disappointing A Good Day to Die Hard. Bruce Willis’ tough New-York cop seemed to have superpowers of invincibility during his trip to Russia to rescue his secret-agent son. I was defiantly willing myself to like the film because I’m a huge fan of the series. But, there’s no denying how bad it was. I’m in two-minds as to whether I want a 6th entry, which is inevitably going to happen because of the amount of money this one still made. On the one hand, this was bad and maybe enough's enough. On the other, I’d really like to see the franchise redeem itself with a return to the standard of previous instalments. Disappointments this year, however, were few and far between. On the other end of the scale, there were plenty of triumphs and, without a doubt; the film of the year was Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity. Not only was it an amazing technical achievement, but it was a gripping thriller with an outstanding career-best performance from Sandra Bullock. It won’t pack as much of a punch on the smaller-screen, so I’d urge you to catch this one in 3D on the biggest screen available if you can.

Now, I haven’t seen all of the films released this year. So, before you accuse me of omitting to mention a few that may have impressed you this year, I’ve been told good things about Captain Phillips, Philomena and Prisoners, which I look forward to seeing in the new year.

What I was first-in-line for on the day it came out was Rush, portraying the true story of the exhilherating rivalry between racing drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda. If you don't know their story - lucky you. Ron Howard's made a lot of good films, but I'd say this is his best. You don't even have to know anything about Formula One motor racing to enjoy this one. It was expertly written, shot, scored, acted, directed and it's out on Blu Ray and DVD at the end of January 2014 if you want some enthralling entertainment. Other fantastic dramas that you should check out, if you didn't catch them, would include The Place Beyond the Pines, The East and Mud.

Some of my favourites this year have been visually-stunning offerings from some of the most artistically-visionary directors in the business today. The first was a film from Nicholas Winding-Refn, which divided audiences and critics alike, called Only God Forgives. I gave my thoughts on it back in August, so click here for my review. Another film that divided opinion was Terrence Mallick's To The Wonder, which might have just caught me the right mood as I wasn't a fan of last year's Tree of Life at all. Then there was Chan Wook Park's English-language debut with Stoker, an excellent gothic drama written by Wentworth Miller (Schofield from TV's Prision Break). Park's most famous film was 2003's Oldboy, of which Spike Lee's remake was released recently. I had been looking forward to it, but the reviews were terrible. So, I didn't bother. Many of Oldboy's reviews have cited Sharlto Copley's villainous performance as one of the worst of the year, which is surprising considering I'd say he was the villain of the year in Elysium. Elysium was one of the sci-fi hits of the year, amongst Star Trek Into Darkness, World War Z, Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Pacific Rim and Oblivion, which was a relief after the tedious and predictable After Earth from M.Night Shamaylan.

If, like me, you enjoy a good scare, there were a few crackers to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up - Mama, Evil Dead, Dark Skies and The Conjuring. But, if you'd prefer a good laugh, some of the more successful rib-ticklers this year were Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa, This Is The End, Warm Bodies, The Heat and The World's End. I hope I'm not wrong, but I took Pain and Gain to be a comedy, even though it's a Michael Bay film, and it featured one of two subtle crowd-pleasing performances from Mark Whalberg, with the other following in the comedy-actioner 2 Guns. The only remaining comedy from my list has only just been released. I haven't seen Anchorman 2 yet, but I don't doubt that any fan of the first is going to love this one just as much.

In summary, here are the films I enjoyed the most this year:

10. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

9. Frances Ha

8. The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug

7. Stoker

6. The Way Way Back

5. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

4. Only God Forgives

3. Les Miserables

2. Rush

1. Gravity

Movie Review: The Lone Ranger

2013-07-26T16:22:00.000-07:00

I’ll start by saying this is a strange one. It may already be well on its way to becoming a worldwide flop in that it’s set to lose Disney around $150,000,000, reminiscent of what happened with Disney’s John Carter of Mars last year. However, it’s by no means a bad film.

After seeing the trailer a couple of times beforehand, I’ll admit that I wasn’t keen in the slightest. That trailer did not do the film any justice. Don’t judge it by that and embrace the film for the entertaining surprise that it turns out to be.

It may be a Disney western, but it’s far from The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin or The Apple Dumpling Gang. Parts of it certainly belong in a Jerry Bruckheimer production, but not in a Disney one – until now that it.

It is essentially an origin story about how an upstanding lawyer becomes the legendary masked ambassador for justice. The story starts in 1934, where Johnny Depp’s Tonto recounts the tale of The Lone Ranger to a young boy. The introduction of the man who will become the titular hero, John Reid, played by Arnie Hammer, sets the tone and suggests he’s a buffoon underneath his well-presented appearance. It’s clear that comedy is on the agenda. It turns out that he’s just a naively upstanding stickler for the rules and is about to discover that his by-the-book nature will only go so far. The moments of slapstick scattered throughout are successful and induce a chuckle for the majority.

In the first half, the tone of the film changes whenever Depp’s Tonto appears. The role does not seem much of a stretch for him, but you can’t fault him for that. It’s a typically Depp performance which mostly leans towards the deadpan delivery of Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean with the intensity of Raoul Duke from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

It’s a family film, but isn’t suitable for younger children. It’s frequently violent with flashes of terror, including a scalping when a home comes under attack from a gang masquerading as Native Americans, headed by William Fichtner’s Butch Cavendish. Then there are the unexplained psychotic rabbits, which appear in the background of a couple of scenes.

It’s a shame about the bloated middle as the first half an hour flies by and the final twenty minutes are tremendous, featuring an exhilarating action sequence accompanied by the famous William Tell overture that is synonymous with the masked hero.

The Lone Ranger is released in cinemas on 9th August in the UK, is rated 12A at 2 hrs 29 mins and I’d give it a 3 out of 5. It is already on general release in many other countries worldwide.

The Future of Cinema

2013-06-05T15:39:00.000-07:00

What does the future hold? Look at the differences between the ways films were made just thirty years ago compared to how they are now. People were probably saying cinema was in trouble back then as well, but the technological advances of recent years have helped cinema endure and will continue to do so further ahead than you can probably imagine.

Performance and story are still the key to success, of course, but the technological changes are enhancing the experience and giving moviegoers reason to part with their cash. Furthermore, the quantity is set to improve within the foreseeable future. For decades, movies have been filmed at twenty-four frames-per-second and then projected onto the big screen with a shutter system showing the same frame a couple of times, boosting the overall frame rate and reducing signs of flicker being visible to the audience. When a 3D movie is filmed and put on display at twenty-four frames-per-second, strobing and judder can become more apparent. Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy has been filmed at forty-eight frames-per-second as well as in 3D. James Cameron has said that the next two sequels to his record-breaking smash, Avatar, will be shot at sixty frames-per-second. It could be argued that Cameron embraces these advances more than any other filmmaker. When he made Terminator, in 1984, they used stop-motion animation, miniature models and glass paintings for the special effects. These days, all the effects are digital and he doesn’t shoot on celluloid anymore. When explaining high frame rate movies, Cameron has said, “If watching a 3D movie is like looking through a window, then (with this) we’ve taken the glass out of the window and we’re staring at reality.”

Of course, this will mainly apply to the mega-budget mainstream offerings. Hollywood is run by accountants and the target market has to be catered for. But, the recent film festival at Cannes emphasises that the artistry in filmmaking is just as strong as ever. The independent film system continues to provide a stream of talent and promises to go from strength to strength as the medium becomes more accessible. Emerging talent is usually recognised and a fraction are sometimes lucky enough to become embraced by the studio system. Christopher Nolan and Duncan Jones cut their teeth on the independent circuit before moving to the studio system. More recently, following the success of his low-budget indie hit Monsters, Gareth Edwards has been given the task of helming the big-budget behemoth that is Godzilla.

Another avenue for independent filmmakers is the internet. If you look hard enough, you’ll find impressive shorts that you would expect to have been made on a much larger budget than they actually have been. Again, this stems from the technological advances in the tools available.

As movies become more accessible, viewers crave more quality content as the selection becomes saturated. Movies now have to stand out to succeed and strike while the iron is hot. Iron Man 3 was available to pre-order on Blu-Ray and DVD before it was even released in the cinema. These days, when something is released on DVD, it is simultaneously available via an On-Demand service as well, with the gap since it cinema release now averaging three months. Taking this further, British filmmaker Ben Wheatley recently announced that his new film, A Field in England, will be simultaneously released in the cinema, on DVD, available On-Demand and screened on Film Four on the same day. It’ll be interesting to see what happens. Will people still pay to see it at the cinema or buy the DVD when they can watch it free on Film Four the same day?

MOVIE REVIEW: John Dies At the End

2013-04-09T16:25:00.001-07:00

In the first five minutes, our hero, David Wong, tells us that he once saw a man's kidney grow ten nipples, tear itself out of a ragged hole on his back and go slapping across the kitchen floor. But that's another story. The fact that such things can be omitted from this imaginatively trippy voyage is testament to how phantasmagoric the following hour-and-a-half is going to be. When we join him, David seems to have already grown accustomed to the other-worldly events occurring around him. He has a story to tell and the full attention of reporter Arnie Blondestone, played by Paul Giamatti. David presents a cynical front as he restrains his reactions to the mind-blowing developments at the start of his account. His best friend is John, and this could essentially be described as a buddy-movie, aside from the realization that defining it is as so would not do it justice.

David comes to John's aid one night when he is suffering from the hallucinogenic effects of a drug called Soy Sauce. The title of the movie proves not to be far from a spoiler when David starts to receive phone-calls from John's beyond-the-grave future-self, whilst in John's presence. Suffice to say, if you're looking for a linear story, forget about it. What we are given is lingering yet snappy dialogue with jittery editing to accompany the frenetic situation that David falls into. Soy Sauce, the drug, heightens David and John's abilities to the extent that they can anticipate the future, read minds, and even travel to alternate universes.

Much of this movie is an experience requiring you to just strap in and go with the ride. It is frequently unclear what is real and what is David's hallucination. Glynn Turman, who you may remember among other things as Mayor Royce in The Wire, sums up it up as stuff being real and not-real at the same time. He believes Hell is the grease-trap of the Universe and we are not capable of perceiving what could be down there. This movie tries to give us an idea.

Cue telepathic dogs driving cars before it is left to David to save the world from impending doom. Users of Soy Sauce are being sent through time and other dimensions to return as something alien. This all plays out straight-faced with a commitment to its surreally comic narrative, confident and self-assured to become a cult favorite. A handful of reliable veterans support emerging young talent

By now, you should have decided whether John Dies At The End is going to be to your taste or not. If you enjoyed the director Don Coscarelli's previous offerings, such as Bubba Ho-Tep or the Phantasm series, you should certainly give this a shot. If you can already sense it's not for you, I'm glad that I've saved you the aggravation.

Tonally, its humor is comparable to Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness and features creatures the likes of which you would expect to find in a Cronenberg film. But, to give it its due, this is an original genre-bending comedy that you should not expect to make sense. Enjoy it for what it is and soak in the insanity as a handful of reliable veterans support the emerging young talent leading the way. It boasts a fresh vibe that you would associate with an up-and-coming young filmmaker, not someone who's been making movies for over thirty years.

MOVIE REVIEW: Rust and Bone

2013-02-20T15:12:00.002-08:00

Rust and Bone begins with a father and his son. Alain, played by Matthias Schoenaerts, is travelling across France. Times are clearly tough, and desperate measures are called for when it is also clear that Alain is a devoted father who will do whatever it takes to provide for his son. Whatever they are leaving behind must have been an inferior existence to strive for the situation they have found themselves in at the start of the film. Their destination is Alain's sister's, where they are being welcomed to stay with her and her husband. They are only just getting-by themselves and their charity is not going to extend further than putting a roof over the heads of Alain and their nephew. However, Alain's prospects are thin on the ground and far from promising. All he seems to have going for him is that he was a boxer when he lived in Belgium. Nevertheless, he is given a job as a doorman at a nightclub, where he meets our other lead character, Stephanie. Played by Marion Cotillard, Stephanie is alone at the nightclub when Alain comes to her aid during a fight she is having with one of the establishment's male revelers. He drives her home and their connection is the seed for the blossoming bond that follows.

We then follow Stephanie. Just when we're amazed at how she makes her living, captivated even, tragedy strikes.

Cotillard was awarded with her Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role in 2008 and was only the second woman to do so for a non-English-speaking part behind Sophia Loren. In Rust and Bone, Cotillard gives another acclaim-deserving performance here; exactly what can be confidently expected from her now. She is one of the finest actresses in the business and is going to have a successful acting career as long as she desires.

Returning to the story, Stephanie makes contact with Alain and it proves to be the best decision she could have conceivably made at the time. It is a life-changing time for them both. They become an amazingly positive influence on each other and their relationship becomes far from a straightforward one. However, Alain still has his own responsibilities to attend to and he becomes involved in illegal, high-stakes street-fighting, He is fighting, not for the glory, but for the money. He's good at it and it's his best chance to provide for his son.

Rust and Bone is a powerfully engaging and emotive story about recovery. It tells the fateful story of a bond between an emotionally handicapped man and a physically handicapped woman, whose support for each other develops and progresses throughout the film's fleeting 120 minutes running-time. At the end of those two hours, you'll feel ready to go through the experience again despite the abundance of heart-wrenching scenes you've just witnessed. It's a magnificently engrossing tour-de-force demanding your attention.

(TRAILER)

OSCARS 2013

2013-01-12T16:37:00.001-08:00

So, the nominations have been revealed. This year the field is wider than it's been for a while. The media is leading with the headline that Lincoln is the favourite to sweep the board because of the amount of nominations it has received, but remember how many nominations Gangs of New York had compared to what it took away. Still, I'd probably agree that Lincoln is going to win big, even if it wasn't my favourite from what I've seen so far. Daniel Day-Lewis is a sure thing for Best Actor with nobody else in with a chance. I would love for Hugh Jackman to win, but you know - it's Day-Lewis and he's going to make history by being the first to win the award three times. Most of the time, you don't even need to see the films to predict which will win. A lot of the time it's down to which has the best campaign or the best press. Do the Academy members who vote have time to watch all of the nominees? When you see actors interviewed and asked what their film of the year has been, most of them admit they've been too busy working to watch any.

Here's my betting slip for the awards:

Date	Bet Type	Details	Result
12/01/2013	Single To Win	Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook) @ 1.44 Best Actress Best Actress	Pending
12/01/2013	Single To Win	Les Miserables @ 11.00 Best Picture Best Picture	Pending
12/01/2013	Single To Win	Lincoln @ 1.80 Best Adapted Screenplay Best Adapted Screenplay	Pending
12/01/2013	Single To Win	Zero Dark Thirty @ 1.25 Best Original Screenplay Best Original Screenplay	Pending
12/01/2013	Single To Win	Frankenweenie @ 3.00 Best Animated Feature Best Animated Feature	Pending
12/01/2013	Single To Win	Daniel Day Lewis (Lincoln) @ 1.10 Best Actor Best Actor	Pending
12/01/2013	Single To Win	Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln) @ 2.20 Best Supporting Actor Best Supporting Actor	Pending
12/01/2013	Single To Win	Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables) @ 1.10 Best Supporting Actress Best Supporting Actress	Pending
12/01/2013	Single To Win	Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty) @ 3.25 Best Actress Best Actress	Pending
12/01/2013	Single To Win	Lincoln @ 1.25 Best Picture Best Picture	Pending
12/01/2013	Single To Win	Steven Spielberg (Lincoln) @ 1.25 Best Director Best Director	Pending

There are just two categories where I've placed two bets - one for which I think will win and another for which I want to win. Les Miserables would bring in the biggest return, but that's because it's very unlikely. Tom Hooper doesn't have a Director nod, so that says a lot. I'm split between Jennifer Lawrence and Jessica Chastain for Best Actress. Chastain has worked very hard in the last couple of years and has an impressive body of work already. Anne Hathaway winning for Supporting Actress will be a very satisfying moment. I haven't seen all of the nominated films yet - only four of them. I will have seen all of them by the time the awards arrive, except for Amour as that has come and gone now. I was hoping that Skyfall would at least get a nomination, but instead I'll settle for the title track winning for Best Original Song.

As for the omissions. Ben Affleck will have his day (or two) in the future and The Hobbit still has two films left in the trilogy (Lord of The Rings didn't win big until Return of The King). This year has been the first time that a Christopher Nolan film hasn't received any nominations since Insomnia - but, of course, he's not done.

MOVEMBER AT THE MOVIES

2012-11-10T15:37:00.000-08:00

During November each year, Movember is responsible for moustaches appearing on thousands of men’s faces in the UK and around the world.

The aim of the event is to raise vital funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer and testicular cancer.

I shall be participating in Movember along with my colleagues at RBS, Brindley Place, Birmingham (click here for more info). To commemorate the occasion, here I’m highlighting some of the most memorable and prominent moustaches from the history of cinema. If you think of any obvious omissions from the list, please leave a comment below.

1. WILFRED BRIMLEY: Probably most famous for his role as Ben Luckett in Cocoon, Wilfred Brimley’s facial hair has graced the screen many times in films such as The Firm, The Natural and Hard Target.

2. TOM SELLECK: Brimley appeared in the Kevin Kline comedy In and Out, which could have resulted in mustachio-overload if Tom Selleck had not gone for his out-of-the-ordinary clean-shaven look. Otherwise, the moustache is what Selleck was famous for on the small-screen asMagnum P.I., and it also featured in his big-screen outings like Three Men and a Baby.

3. BURT REYNOLDS: After stamping his name on the 1970s and 1980s with roles in the classic Deliverance and crowd-pleaser Smokey and The Bandit, Reynolds gained critical acclaim and an Oscar nomination for his role as Jack Horner in 1997’s Boogie Nights.

4. SAM ELLIOTT: Another man you rarely see without a moustache is the classic vision of the American cowboy that is Sam Elliott. With his commanding deep voice, he observed The Dude’s misadventures in The Big Lebowski, assisted Patrick Swayze as a nightclub bouncer in Road House, played a renegade cop in Blue Jean Cop and was Wyatt Earp’s brother, Virgil, in Tombstone.

5. MANDY PATINKIN: Currently appearing as Saul Berenson in the consistently brilliant Homeland, Mandy Patinkin’s mustachio mention is courtesy of what he says is his most favourite of all the characters he’s played; the Spaniard in The Princess Bride, where he utters the ever-quotable line, “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”

6. DANIEL DAY-LEWIS: The moustache has been a prominent accompaniment to Day-Lewis’ dramatically emotional performances as the intimidating and domineering characters Bill ‘The Butcher’ Cutting inGangs of New York and oilman Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood.

7. BEN STILLER: Sporting a handlebar to behold in Dodgeball as White Goodman, Stiller previously had a mustachioed cameo in Anchorman as Arturo Mendes in the fight between local news teams that escalated quickly. I mean, it really got out of hand fast!

8. PAUL RUDD: Another character from Anchorman is one of Ron Burgundy’s colleagues on the Channel Four news team, Bryan Fantana. Of course, Burgundy’s moustache merits a mention, but Fantana is listed due to his link to Movember. He names his parts; specifically The Octagon, flanked by James Westfall and Kenneth Noisewater.

Once again, if you want to make a donation or learn more about Movember, click here.

Literary Evolution

2012-09-24T13:50:00.002-07:00

I noticed over the weekend that one of my novels, 'The Ellroy Deflection,' had received a review on Amazon.com. It was a detailed, fair and honest review courtesy of Leapin' Literary Lurkers from Oregon, who gave the novel a rating of 3 out of a possible 5 stars. It was exactly the kind of feedback that I had been looking for and, whilst criticism can sometimes sting, the constructive comments were gratefully received. Glancing at the reviewer's other reviews, it is clear that this assessment originated from someone who does not exercise a great deal of restraint in expressing their opinion. The brutally forthright analysis was appreciated and will certainly enable me to address what I would agree are atrocious errors in my work. I had re-read the novel several times with a view to eradicate any mistakes before feeling what I thought was a feeling of satisfaction, however slightly deluded. It seems that I was always going to suffer literary blindness when it came to certain verb tenses and embarrassing spelling errors (Santa Clause and Spinal Chord are highlighted as examples by the reviewer). When I've got the money to spare, maybe I could employ the services of an editor or proof-reader to give my work the professional standard that it is currently falling short of. I am also still pursuing an agent, one company at a time.

I am proud of The Ellroy Deflection as my first literary effort. Whilst being pleased with the story and the recognition that its 'twists and turns' has received, I am aware that it has its flaws. I may have been over-zealous with regard to the amount of characters and peripheral storylines, something I was able to address in my second novel, Barren Endeavour, which readers have told me they prefer. So, I'm glad that my writing is improving with age and experience. My third novel should redress the balance with regard to the reviewer's comments highlighting the thread of chauvenism in The Ellroy Deflection, labelling it as disturbing. It was not my intention for the tone of the novel to become the literary equivalent of an early Guy Ritchie movie, but I have since noted the prominence of male characters in The Ellroy Deflection and have focussed on taking remedial action in the process of writing my current novel. The streak of chauvinism was intentionally inserted with the attitudes leading to the downfall of many of the characters. Ultimately, the moderating role is given to a woman. My latest novel is now under the working title 'The Disposition of Adults,' and is an altogether more balanced affair, both gender and theme-wise.

As I say, as long as I can continue to come up with the storylines and plot to keep people interested, I'm not too concerned about the problems identified in The Ellroy Deflection. My style and skills have naturally improved in the years since completing The Ellroy Deflection. We're living in the age of the ebook and print-on-demand, so thankfully the errors are not permanent and can be altered. I welcome further reviews...

From Page To Screen - Movies adapted from novels

2012-08-08T15:49:00.001-07:00

It 's probably the same for most but, when I read a book, I see the movie play out in my mind. Books are a major source for some of the best movies that get made. Adapted successfully, the transition from page to screen has given us some of the most iconic of movie characters. Sherlock Holmes, Hannibal Lecter, Harry Potter, Lisbeth Salander, Bridget Jones, James Bond, Michael Corleone, Jack Ryan - they all began their journeys into our consciousness on the page. However, as we know, the passage from hit bestseller to blockbuster is not always a smooth one. One of my favourite books is Philip Pullman's The Subtle Knife, the middle of his fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials. It was the most emotional and epic of the three novels and would have made an excellent movie. Unfortunately, the failure to adapt its predecessor into a good movie destroyed any chances of a sequel following. Hopefully, one day long in the future, someone will decide to take it forward and do justice to the trilogy.

There are some authors whose work always seems to be suitable for film. Stephen King certainly stands out as probably the most prolific storytellers to have his novels and short stories take to the screen. I'd be leaving out so much to list The Shawshank Redemption, The Shining, Misery, Stand By Me and The Green Mile amongst the movies adapted from the results of his typing. For all of the great adaptations of King's, it should also be pointed out that there are plenty of awful movies to have emerged from his work as well.

John Grisham is another regular on the shelves as well as the multiplexes, his stories generally revolving around the justice system. Since his novel The Firm headed for the big screen with Tom Cruise as it's star in 1993, his novels have continued to make the journey, with his 1997 novel The Partner currently being adapted by a screenwriter.

One of my favourite authors is Michael Crichton, whose passing in 2008 meant we lost one of the most imaginative writers of modern times. His high-concept visions leapt from the page, beginning with The Andromeda Strain in 1971 and leading to such diverse experiences as Jurassic Park, Rising Sun amd Sphere.

Another great writer whose work the movie studios took inspiration from was Philip K Dick, who died in 1982 aged 53. It's because of him that we ended up with Blade Runner, Minority Report, Total Recall and even The Adjustment Bureau as recent as 2011.

But what about the future? Which authors are writing the stories that will sell to the studios? Which established novels are crying out for an adaptation? Which classics are just unfilmable?

I've read a coupe of Jo Nesbø novels recently, The Redbreast and Nemesis. Martin Scorsese has signed on to direct an adaptation of the seventh in the series of his novels featuring hardboiled Oslo detective Harry Hole. There has been a wave of Scandinavian crime on the page as well as on the screen recently with Henning Maskell's Wallander series and Steig Larsson's Millenium Trilogy amongst them, The second of Larsson's trilogy, The Girl Who Played With Fire, will follow on from the success of David Fincher's version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara reprising their roles.

It's a dream that a novel of mine one day becomes successful enough that it is adapted into a movie.
For now, if you want to visualise the movies of tomorrow today, check out the following novels:

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, The Passage, The Uglies, Fallen, Maximum Ride, Blood Meridian, The Great Gatsby, The Perks of being a Wallflower, Heist Society, The Maze Runner, The Host, Forgotten, The Giver, The Hypnotist, Beautiful Creatures, Ender's Game, Odd Thomas, The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Society, The Devil in the White City, World War Z, The Dogs of Babel, Alfred Hitchcock and The Making of Psycho, Back Roads, The Alchemist, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, The Big Biazarro, The Boston Stranglers, Cell, The Creed of Violence, The Dark Tower, Beautiful Disaster, The Wolf of Wall Street, City of Bones

If you know of any more, please let me know...

2012-07-18T15:58:00.003-07:00

Jane Was Here by Sarah Kernochan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There's a story behind why I ended up reading this book. I was on my annual holiday down in Constantine Bay, Cornwall, back in May this year. I was reading an interview with Clark Gregg in Empire Film magazine. He was featured because his recurring character, S.H.I.E.LD. Agent Phil Coulson, was returning in The Avengers. The article revealed a couple of surprising things about him. As well as learning that he is he married to Jennifer Grey (Dirty Dancing), I discovered that he has had quite a successful screenwriting career as well - The Harrision Ford and Michelle Pheiffer movie What Lies Beneath being referred to specifically as something he co-wrote in the article. Anyway, "what has all of this got to do with anything?" you may ask. The very next day, I noticed that a lady who had begun to follow me on Twitter that day had a profile which described her as an Oscar winning filmmaker, screenwriter and author of paranormal suspense thriller Jane Was Here. My new follower's name was Sarah Kernochan. Intrigued, I searched google to find out if she had done anything I had heard of. Indeed, she had. Her first screenwriting credit had been for the Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger movie 9 1/2 weeks. She also co-wrote the 1993 Richard Gere and Jodie Foster movie Sommerbsy, but I was amazed to learn that she was credited with co-writing What Lies Beneath. It struck me as an astonishing coincidence, and it just goes to show how small a world it is with so many unlikely connections emerging within such a short space of time. It had only been the day before that I had been surprised at Clark Gregg's involvement in What Lies Beneath and now I had been found by the lady who had passed the draft onto him to take forward (I sent her a message about it at the time and she replied that she had only met him once. She did the draft and he took over when she left to work on another film.) So, it just seemed right that I bought her novel. It was like something from that Kiefer Sutherland TV show, Touch.

It took about a month, but the novel arrived. After reading it, I felt compelled to share my story and what I thought about the novel.

Jane Was Here is a multi-layered story about the arrival of a young woman in a small town affecting the lives of many of its residents. Whilst it has the potential to seem like the author has chosen to fill sections of the novel with pointless plot strands shooting away from the main plot, nothing is unnecessary and everything is ultimately significant. The young woman brings a mystery with her, which imaginatively fuses the past with the present whilst addressing reincarnation, religion and fate. It may be Sarah Kernochan's screenwriting talent that contributes to the vivid way in which this suspenseful tale is told. The reader is compelled by the twists thrown along the puzzling path towards the far-reaching climax. As Past and Present powerfully collide, the author masterfully takes the reader on a breathtaking ride. With a mixture of well-formed characters, this is one recommended read that fate thankfully brought to my door.

View all my reviews

2012 in The Movies - A Truly Great Year So Far

2012-07-16T17:07:00.001-07:00

2012 could be the best year we’ve had for movies in a long time. My initial opinion was formed by a glance at the blockbuster highlights, but the supporting offerings are certainly doing their bit to back my conjecture. Coinciding with Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures celebrating their 100^th anniversaries, it seems to me that the bar has been raised.

Recent years gone-by had seen the frequency of my trips to the cinema diminish, but 2012 has brought an abundance of ‘event’ movies demanding to be seen on the big screen. It is rare this year to come across a month where you cannot find a crowd-pleaser. Maybe it’s because of how relatively dire last year’s selection was, but this year’s revival provides probably the most interesting selection since 1999. I’ll remind you, that was the year of American Beauty, Fight Club, The Matrix, Magnolia, The Sixth Sense, American Pie, The Blair Witch Project and Toy Story 2, amongst others.

So far, this year has given us Joe Carnahan’s The Grey, in January for instance, with Liam Neeson on stunning form leading a group of stranded oil workers in a struggle for survival when they are hunted by a pack of wolves in Alaska. When it was released, Carnahan suggested it be re-released in cinemas later in the year so that Neeson would be eligible for Best Actor at next year’s Oscars. He was last nominated for playing a completely different kind of role as Oskar Schindler in 1993. Since then he’s been a Jedi Knight, Scottish Highlander Rob Roy, Revolutionary Irish Leader Michael Collins, The voice of Aslan in Narnia, One-Man-Army in Taken, Batman’s nemesis Ra’s Al Ghul and a God in Clash of The Titans, in which he played Zeus, brother to Ralph Fiennes’ Hades

With Voldermort behind him, Ralph Fiennes, in his directorial debut, brought political relevance in a vivid and intelligent adaptation of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus. Meanwhile, Daniel Radcliffe left his spectacles behind and played the grieving widow in the spine-chilling Woman in Black, showing there’s a promising career still ahead.

Then there’s been The Hunger Games, which turned out to be an essential modern science-fiction action-adventure blockbuster satirising modern principles in a dystopian-future setting. It was as accessible to the teen audience, which the novel upon which it was adapted from was aimed, as much as the mature.

2012 has not been without its glitches however. Disney lost around $200million with John Carter. It was not the big-screen E.R. spin-off for Noah Wyle’s character from the Chicago-based hospital drama after all, but a fantasy-romance adventure of an American Civil War soldier transported to Mars. Fortunately for Disney, The Avengers subsequently assembled and are still breaking box-office records worldwide.

Nobody can deny how much of a box-office draw Will ‘Mr Summertime’ Smith is, yet he’s had a four-year hiatus since his arguably underwhelming drama Seven Pounds. He’s back and, despite it’s relatively luke-warm reviews, Men in Black 3 is pulled the audiences in, ten years after the sequel that nobody thought would lead to another.

Men in Black 3 opened in a month when the Cannes Film Festival showcased more filmmakers adding to their respectable pedigree, opening with Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom. Similar to previous Anderson movies, Moonrise Kingdom boasts an encouragingly bold and eclectic cast, with Bill Murray returning for a sixth collaboration following Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Darjeeling Limited and The Fantastic Mr Fox. Joining him are Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Keitel, Frances McDormand and other Anderson alumna Jason Schwartzman.

The end of the year will see the conclusion to the Twilight Saga when Breaking Dawn Part Two hits. In the meantime, its two stars presented their latest work at the festival. Robert Pattinson stars in Cosmopolis, directed by David Cronenberg. He plays a 28-year-old billionaire assets manager travelling across Manhattan in a stretch limo on his way to getting a haircut. However, this being Cronenberg territory, his day deteriorates into a chaotic journey as various characters rip his life apart. It’s the first Cronenberg movie in ten years that hasn’t starred Viggo Mortensen. However Mortensen and Cronenberg’s partnership could increasingly be likened to De-Niro and Scorcese, Burton and Depp, or Almodavar and Banderas. Whilst in London promoting A Dangerous Method in February, Mortensen popped into Empire Magazine’s office to participate in a webchat. My wife is a huge fan of his and, since she was conveniently off-work that day, she decided to ask him if there was any news on a sequel to 2007’s Eastern Promises. Astonishingly, he replied and she was on cloud nine for the rest of the week. Schedules permitting, Eastern Promises Part Two may be on the way. He said, “I wouldn't say it's a definite, but it's looking more possible that that may be our next job together. But you never know with David, because he always has several projects in the works, hoping that one of them will come to pass.” Meanwhile, Mortensen played Old Bull Lee alongside Twilight’s other star, Kristen Stewart, in an adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s celebrated novel On The Road.

So far, I’ve only covered the first half of the year. I haven’t even mentioned the summer, when it always gets tasty. Awesome is a word usually inappropriately overused, but on this occasion it would slot in perfectly as a description of next season’s forthcoming attractions. Following that, it doesn’t let up until 2013, when hopefully the quality will continue. At a glance, and in my humble opinion, there are at least thirty-four obvious must-see movies in 2012. Then you also get the unexpected sleeper-hits and surprises along the way.

Ridley Scott's Prometheus kicked off the summer in style. I’d say it's one of the grandest films released so far this year. Whilst it received a mixed response from cinemagoers, I thought it was an outstanding piece of modern cinema. Many were expecting another ‘Alien’ film in the vein of the Sigourney Weaver series, but this is truly an original story, distancing itself from the xenomorphs (the alien monsters from the Weaver movies) and delving into a mysterious adventure controversially addressing evolutionary theory and spiritual beliefs. It is not the horror film that many may have been expecting, but it still has moments of suspense and scenes to make you squirm. When I came out of the cinema, I was quick to point out certain inconsistencies with 1979’s Alien. In Alien, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt and Veronica Cartwright discovered the bodily remains of what became referred to as the ‘Space Jockey’ in a derelict spaceship. Prometheus is set thirty-odd years prior and involves a team of scientific explorers finding a derelict spaceship identical to that which will later be found by the crew of Alien’s Nostromo. However, it would not be a spoiler to reveal that these two ships cannot be the same one after all. Excuse my geekiness for a moment, but the planet in Alien is called LV426, whereas the planet in Prometheus is called LV223. It’s not essential to the plot and far from obvious to the viewer – it’s just an example of how the movie has been written. The writer, Damon Lindelof, was one of the showrunners on hit TV show LOST, so the use of vague and mysterious mythology scattered throughout should come as no surprise.

Another much-loved and respected franchise returning this summer is the Bourne series, which made an action star out of Matt Damon. The fact that he does not feature in the latest instalment, The Bourne Legacy, may concern fans of the previous trilogy. However, trailers centring on another CIA operative, Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), suggest that his character would give Jason Bourne more than a run for his money. It boasts a stellar cast, with Edward Norton and Rachel Weisz joining returning contributors Joan Allen, Albert Finney, David Straitharn, Scott Glenn and Paddy Considine (one of whom was shot dead in The Bourne Ultimatum, suggesting events are tightly interwoven with those previously witnessed). Renner’s star-power is on the rise after last year’s Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol suggested he could front the series moving forward sans Tom Cruise. He played ace-archer Hawkeye in this year’s The Avengers, but his breakthrough performance came in 2008’s The Hurt Locker, directed by Kathryn Bigelow - winner of most of the Directing awards that year with the movie subsequently winning Best Picture. So far, the movie she will be releasing later this year is still untitled, yet I can tell you that it stays in Middle-Eastern territory with a thriller focussing on Navy Seals tracking down Osama Bin Laden.

In the meantime, another one of the most innovative of directors working today brings closure to his saga of Batman movies this month with The Dark Knight Rises. As far as I’m concerned, this is The Film of the Year. Be prepared for its epic-scale being matched by its running-time at 2hours 44minutes. The cast of the series was already very impressive with Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine. Carrying through to The Dark Knight Rises, the ensemble cast improves further with Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Marion Cotillard and Joseph Gordon-Levitt joining under Christopher Nolan’s direction. I don’t need to say much about this one - it’s going to be huge.

Versatile Blogger Award!

2012-06-08T15:44:00.002-07:00

I received the Versatile Blogger Award (VBA) from blogger, Kate from Kate's Reads

Click here to see her post.

Kate has provided an explanation as to what it is all about:

THE VERSATILE BLOGGER AWARD (VBA)

What is it?As far as I can tell — details are rather sketchy and only the creator knows for sure — this lofty-sounding award is basically a mutual admiration society where bloggers recognize their peers for writing quality blogs that touched them in some way. The VBAs honor the blogger rather than specific posts. It’s a chance for bloggers to pat themselves on the back like the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences does with the Oscars. Until someone starts giving out Blogscars, the VBAs will have to suffice.

What are the criteria?
If you are nominated, you’ve been awarded the Versatile Blogger Award. I nominated 15 outstanding bloggers below. Congratulations!

Thank the person who gave you this award. That’s common courtesy.

Thank you, Kate, I'm very grateful for your recognition.

Include a link to their blog. That’s also common courtesy — if you can figure out how to do it.

This is a link to Kate's BLOG: http://kates-reads.blogspot.co.uk/

Next, select 15 blogs/bloggers that you’ve recently discovered or follow regularly. (I would add, pick blogs or bloggers that are excellent!)

The envelope, please…

Nominate those 15 bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Award — you might include a link to this site.

And my nominees/winners are (in no particular order):

1. Morgen Bailey's Writing Blog by Morgen Bailey

http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/

2. My Name is Sarah by Sarah Elle Emm

http://sarahelleemm.blogspot.co.uk/

3. All For Writing by Desiree

http://yronton.blogspot.co.uk/

4. Blaire Kensley by Blaire Kensley

http://blairekensley.blogspot.co.uk/

5. Dangling on The Edge of (In)Sanity by Renee Miller

http://reneeamiller.blogspot.co.uk/

6. The Adventures of Caitlin in Wonderland by Caitlin Darrell

http://caitlinedarrell.blogspot.co.uk/

7. The Writing Bomb by Jeff Bennington

http://thewritingbomb.blogspot.co.uk/

8. Writer Girl by Megan Cooley

http://megan-writergirl.blogspot.co.uk/

9. Jarrett Writes by Jarrett Rush

http://jarrettwrites.blogspot.co.uk/

10. Reading and Writing are Fattening by Marla A Madison

http://marlamadison.blogspot.co.uk/

11. Do You Write Under Your Own Name by Martin Edwards

http://doyouwriteunderyourownname.blogspot.co.uk/

12. The Daring Novelist by Camile Laguire

http://daringnovelist.blogspot.co.uk/

13. Rebecca Burgess Taylor by Rebecca Burgess Taylor

http://beckytaylorbooks.blogspot.co.uk/

14. The Tainted Archive by Gary Martin Dobbs

http://tainted-archive.blogspot.co.uk/

15. The Vandal by Derek Haines

http://www.derekhaines.ch/vandal//

Well done everyone.

Finally, tell the person who nominated you 7 things about yourself. Here we go...

1. LOST was, and always will be, my favourite TV show.

2. I work full-time as a Mortgage Adviser.

3. I'm a good cook, even if I do say so myself. I can't understand how someone could say they can't cook. I belive that, as long as someone follows the recipe, anyone can do anything.

4. I drive a Blue Motion VW Golf.

5. I got married in Mauritius in 2005.

6. At time of writing, my wife has torn her achilles, which has bled and then bone has calcified around it. So, today she went to the fracture clinic and is now wearing a bulky boot to take the pressure off when she walks. It's going to take a long time to heal, if ever, so it's going to mean a lot of changes. No driving for her, more responsibilities for me.

7. I was on TV quite a lot because of the following clip. Check out the 1 minute 16 seconds mark, and that's me. It was used on a lot of news reports, tv sports shows, etc, all over the world. It was the end of the first game of Wales' Grand-Slam-Winning 2005 Six Nations campaign. It was quite burst of adrenaline and I had a thumping headache from all of the excitement about 30 minutes later.

There you go