Jo's Haunted Eyeball

Changes

noreply@blogger.com (Joanna Neilson) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 12:11:00 +0000

After several years it's finally happened. I'm closing this blog and moving to wordpress, and then hopefully my own .com domain. I haven't been giving this blog the attention it deserved, I kept waiting for my intentions to sort themselves out, and frankly I didn't feel ready to write anything much while I was living in Cambridge. Things are better now we've moved back to Southampton.

I am now moving to these two new blog addresses, and will post updates here now and then:

http://joannakneilson.wordpress.com/
- A site dedicated to some serious writing and a place to link to all my published work

http://hauntedeyeball.wordpress.com/
- A place where I'll still be reviewing books, TV, film and art, and anything else that comes my way.

If anyone's out there, thank you for reading this blog, and please click away to find out more on.

'The Little Friend' by Donna Tartt

noreply@blogger.com (Joanna Neilson) — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 13:27:00 +0000

A quick review here, as I’ve just completed the book which is, certainly, the most useful book for passing time whilst sat on the loo. I swear that that is a compliment – some books just don’t cut it, but this weighty tome has been readable and entertaining. The atmosphere is pervasive, trickling with hot Southern State menace as 12 year old Harriet tries to uncover the truth behind the murder of her little brother several years ago. Her sister sleeps all day, her aunts barely listen to her, and her best and only real friend is a boy called Hely. She draws him into her plans and things soon turn lethal.

SPOILERS AHOY

Harriet is a self-involved, imaginative and believably stubborn twelve year old girl, teetering on the cusp of that world-altering change known as puberty. While she resists this and drifts ever deeper into her own fantasy life, she decides that a n’er do well, part of a clan of worse and even crazier ne’er do wells, was behind the murder of her little brother and sets out to get revenge. The book dips in and out of different characters heads – although thankfully not in the same section break. While this gave a brilliant overview of the small town mentality that Harriet is swamped by, and the unpleasant family life of the man she decided is guilty, it also distracts from being with Harriet all the way through. Her perspective is increasingly deluded and this is diluted by the bobbing between brains that happens here. Without the extra thoughts it’s likely that the book would be considerably shorter, with the bonus of an unreliable narrator in the style of Catcher in the Rye.

The inner worlds of the other characters are brilliantly drawn, however, and add a sympathy for everyone’s private hell and I still found it a deeply involving book. But it’s odd that it doesn’t actually go anywhere. I’d have appreciated a pulpier ending, just for a real sense that something is wrapped up. Maybe I just don’t get ‘literature’, because no sci-fi plot would be caught pulped hanging like this. Criminally (er…) we are left without any resolution for the tragic murder at the start, and that it was actually a maguffin all along, driving the plot but being completely pointless at the last hurdle. We never learn who did it – then again, this isn’t the Hardy Boys! There still some important murders along the way, and these are well drawn and lead to a hugely tense scene. Also, I have to wonder if the Ratcliffe family are indestructible, given what they go through, too. Perhaps all of this was just a dream belonging to her sister, the ever-sleepy Allison, or the dying thoughts of their adorably named cat, Weenie. It’s a shame because it’s a great ride getting there. Perhaps we’re supposed to learn that resolution isn’t part of real life. This is a good slice of Southern Gothic, with snakes, red-necks and the white-heat of a long dreary summer. If you expect anything to be properly tied up, please keep clear.

Despite lacking a full conclusion, there’s still a lot to like. The Little Friend was an enthralling and atmospheric read and I will soon be checking out Donna Tartt’s first book, as it tends to garner stronger reviews than this has.

Doing without live telly - and loving it - Introduction

noreply@blogger.com (Joanna Neilson) — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 13:30:00 +0000

Having successfully moved to a new location, from Winchester to Cambridge, UK, our household (me, boyfriend, cat) made the decision to scrap any of the live TV channels and use Virgin Media Broadband only. This fixed our Sky+ addiction at once, and the theory was that the media we consumed would consist of things we CHOSE to view, rather than letting the burping digital tide wash over us, smothering our willpower with endless flashy adverts, music videos of girls dancing in their knickers, and lots of comedy we'd seen before ten years ago, or didn't really care about. Of course we could have switched Sky off at any time. Yep, works in theory. But there's no end to it, even though, after about two years, we'd caught up on all the repeats of things we'd missed (I was delighted to rediscover Knightmare, the childrens’ sword & sorcery gameshow from the 1980s and early ‘90s, being broadcast on Challenge!) and a lot more guilty pleasures of this ilk soon followed. (Yes, I used the word ‘ilk’, it’s fab). It was fun while it lasted, and very, very bad for the brain.

This isn’t going to be a smug rant about how we gave up watching telly altogether, because frankly we haven’t! But, as even Channel 4 discovered, there's only so long you can repeat something (i.e. Friends) without it becoming a standing joke. There were only so many times even I could watch Sex and the City episodes on Comedy Central without becoming seriously blasé – and yet unable to look away! On Sky, having access to newish movies was a great thing to have, but were they worth the money? They would appear only long after the hype and even the DVD had been released, although this helped to take the film on its merits.

So I'm going to take a look at the alternative entertainment options on offer instead, as without the steady feed of live TV, it soon became clear that the more discerning we were, the more we got out of taking personal responsibility and wilfully choosing what appeared in front of us, rather than becoming hypnotised by flicking channels on the Sky screen. There's something very fulfilling about the media we consume becoming finite, and everything we do watch holds greater value this way. (It might even improve my attention-whatsit.)

On another note, even before we did this, we knew we barely watched the BBC and paid separately for Sky+, and yet the TV Licence continues to maintain its grip on the United Kingdom to a ridiculous extent. Another juicy blog argument, yet again, which is getting more ridiculous as the months and years roll by. It’s easy to deflect into a rant about this, and I’d like to debate that another time as well.
For now, I want to examine the alternatives to live tv (and the BBC) already out there – and yes, one or two of these come from the BBC, but this, I hasten to add, is mainly because they already have a grip on the market and they are certainly not the first choice when we look for something to watch.

Lost in-decision. Choosing where to start.

noreply@blogger.com (Joanna Neilson) — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 17:50:00 +0000

“Then indecision brings its own delays,
And days are lost lamenting o'er lost days.
Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute;
What you can do, or dream you can, begin it;
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe quotes

This blog has usually been about one specific film or TV show at a time, one great thing that caught my attention for the precious few minutes between being awake and being fast asleep having anxiety dreams about zombies, losing a wallet and flying to the Fantastic Planet, usually all happening in the SAME dream and starring actors who'd be charging double rates if they knew where they ended up. But, what to start talking about? Oh, it starts with good intentions - a Lost here (season finalé sucked, let's try and move on) a Halloween (birthday!) marathon there - but I get so caught up by what I SHOULD be writing about that my thought process rebels, and then - nothing gets written. Zip. Nada. Bugger all. And this TRULY sucks. Most writers will probably agree that not writing or being creative for too long leads to the dreaded 'blockage', and it's every bit as ugly and corrosive as something that requires a shedload of Cillit Bang (or dain-unblocker of your choice) and leads to a misery of the inner skull that is just a big whiny heap of nothing. Expunge! Empty! Spew out some prose!!

Yes, well, easy. Easy peasy. It's in there, int he head, rattling around. But there's also Real Life, the potential sucker of the soul. And we LET it do that. We let it trickle into our precious hours, sealing up the arteries of thought so that they shrink, wither, shrivel up and drop like neglected fruit. The only wine you get from this sort of thinking is sour and smells a bit like damp tights that a cat's thrown up on. A DRUNK cat with the runs.

So, to wander slightly away from the 'choice' part of this post, this is one of the reasons writers get depressed. We blame Real Life but in act, it's because we have a fantasy of getting every bit of Real Life sewn up nad in the bag because that' when we can lean back in our computer chair/Starbucks stool, crack our knuckles (always fascinated and repelled by those who can do that) and just Get. Some. Effing. Writing. Done.

But that's bollocks, and you know why?

Writers need Real Life. We need it to mess with us, to toss us around and soak our brains in its juices. Otherwise the writing is like the first draft of a reality TV star's memoir - and like the memoir, the majority of it should be pulped as soon as possible. Real Life provides salt and stock and....onions. Yes, onions. Even though it makes you cry, without it you don't have a decent base for a soup - you've got bits floating in water. So we're back to the vomit metaphor again.

So, I state that we need Real Life, and it fucks with us massively, but that doesn't mean we can't make great soup out of it. We also need to be able to choose what to take from life to MAKE this soup. There are terrible soups out there - and what would you rather have? A delicious, soul-warming broth created over time, with love, attention and or some warmed-up dishwater made in two minutes, which quickly loses its flavour and in the worst possible case, poisons everyone you love?

NOT choosing to write is far more painful than just sitting down and doing it. My head is bloated, cramped, spurting out ideas, characters and worlds, at the worst possible moment. Letting your brain open up and make great stories from the funked-up mixture in your brain - ripped from RL, or how you'd prefer that life to be, is pretty much the only way to stay sane. It's about making decisions. Getting there in the end. Conquering the fear of letting go, because otherwise, you get a lot of backed-up sludge before you can use those pipes again.

So, I CHOOSE to write. I choose NOW, here, to make sure I write. And not just a blog. Not JUST a few words noting my thoughts about the latest piece of pop culture, although that's a good way to write without fear, to let rip with opinion. I choose to make myself do it all, starting now. I CHOOSE to write a book, do an interview, to have something to show for all the good and bad of Real Life as it is so rich, interesting, inescapable and quite often upsetting and jaw-wrenchingly tedious. We might not get out of it alive, but as a writer I want to leave a small, nicely bound manuscript to mark that I was even here. Or, you know, a few hundred MB of text that someone, someday, might want to read again.

There's a long list of things to write about. I'll get going.

“Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe quotes
(And the quote website is a piece of internet genius. Thank you!)

The Inbetweeners Series 3 (UK)

noreply@blogger.com (Joanna Neilson) — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 23:11:00 +0000

Rude, lewd, and too true

The boys sign off on their final series

It's the third and final series of Channel 4's massive hit comedy show, following the last sixth-form year of brief-case nerd Will, hapless and lovesick Simon, shameless liar Jay and the endearingly dopey Neil. Things haven't changed much, although everyone now knows poor Will as 'that guy who shit himself in an exam' which, to be fair, he did in the last series to spectacular effect.

As embarrassing events go, series three almost manages to top the exam-poo within the first episode. Simon's wardrobe malfunction during a fashion show, in speedos, whilst wearing a top hat, is eye-watering and remains a high point of this unpredictable, tightly wound series. They continue to take the piss out of each other, set each other up and act in completely irresponsible ways - except for Will, who tends to bring it upon himself. In fact, each character is a comic work of genius.

Will reaches new levels of humiliation at the Fashion Show,

but he gets off quite lightly, considering what happens to Simon...

Will's naive idealism frequently gets punctured by the realities of modern suburban life - and his less-than perfect mates. Whenever he tries to do the right thing, it comes back to bite him hard - wonder what everyone takes away from that? Jay continues to be rude, mouthy and full of bullshit and bad advice (really, REALLY bad advice), but we completely understand why because his father is a bullying monster, though there's still no excuse for that haircut. Simon sports what is labelled a 'Statue of Liberty' haircut, and has mastered the bug-eyed look terror familiar in frustrated teenage boys everywhere. But at least he gets a girlfried, for a while, even if his one true love, Carli, remains out of reach. Lanky Neil bumbles along, still unable to spot either Jay's obvious lies or to understand a single piece of Will's insightful sarcasm. He's also the most sexually successful of the four, oblivious to the STD he picks up along the way.

Even though they're about to leave school forever,

they still have to be wary of the terrifying Mr Gilbert.

By the show's end things aren't going much better for any of the boys, but then again, they do have their whole lives ahead of them.

Foul-mouthed, shallow, self-obsessed little bastards? If you believe the Inbetweeners, being a teenage boy is mostly about taking the piss out of your mates, trying to buy alcohol and, most important of all, getting laid by any means necessary. However, as with the older cast in Peepshow, this show also has a little more going on under the surface and ends on an almost-sweet comment on the state of male friendship and growing up, with plenty of inventive insults and jokes about shagging Will's Mum inbetween.

Our heroes: (L-R) Simon, Jay, Will and Neil

Oh, and there's a film due set when they're on holiday together - so we haven't left Rudge Park Comprehensive quite yet. They appear to be going to all the way to Crete. Simon will probably be leaving the Speedos at home this time.Until then, there are three series of comedy gold to look back on and enjoy!

Camping and setting fire to Will's possessions is guaranteed to cheer everyone up

Seriously FAB - Thunderbirds 2010 Dir. Chris Thompson

noreply@blogger.com (Joanna Neilson) — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 19:53:00 +0000

It's finally happened. After almost 45 years, there is finally an epic new Thunderbirds film out there. Admitedly it's just over 14 minutes long, but this is a vastly more impressive effort than the 2004 kid's film by ex-Star Trek Number 2 Jonathan Frakes. This, my friends and fellow FAB fans, is the real deal...

Well, mostly.

Yes, it's a fan film, albeit one fully approved by Fanderson. The quality that Chris Thompson and his team have achieved hangs fully on the obvious care, love and enthusiasm that went into it. It's also given a big grain of authenticity by bringing in Shane Rimmer, who provided vocals for the original pilot-extrordinaire Scott Tracy, as the narrator at the start and as the voice of Jeff Tracy near the end. He gives an appropriately epic reading that sends chills up the spine, introducing the new challenges for mankind at the cusp of an Anderson-esque 21st Century. International Rescue, we need you now!

This is a timely reminder, then, of how Thunderbirds could be made huge again by one decent movie. Once you get past the haircuts, TB2010 is actually a very accurate little realisation of the spirit of the original show, and it's hard not to be caught up in the drama and well-executed tension which flows through every frame. While the ever-escalating danger is present, they completely understand how close-ups on faces, the odd eye-roll and a little humour complete the nail-biting tension. It's a terrific effort and one that is clearly crying out for a sequel, and a bigger budget.

While the CGI could be criticised, it's also extremely competent and vital to the story. It also gives a far more expansive view of the International Rescue's incredible, futuristic world. Frankly, setting the rescue in a space station seems very ambitious to begin with, and they pulled it off with a great deal of style and some rather impressive sets for the live action shots.

So, someone out there, give Chris Thompson a massive budget and let's see what Thunderbirds can really do!

District 9 (2009) Dir. Neill Blomkamp

noreply@blogger.com (Joanna Neilson) — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 09:50:00 +0000

Movies at the speed of Sky

Clever marketing is just one of District 9's many strengths

WARNING MILD SPOILERS DO NOT CROSS LINE....

When this popped up on Sky the other week, I was reminded of just how impressive a movie it is, especially when you take its comparatively tiny budget into account! Using the now much-imitated 'hand-held camera' and 'found footage' techniques, at least at first, it has a similar theme to Alien Nation and V, but uses the idea of 'aliens among us' to create something fresh and fiercely new. Best of all, there are no giant smurfs. This is a much harder, heartfelt slab of sci-fi straight out of the 1980s, but with far superior special effects.

It begins assuming we already know the situation, which draws us in and keeps us curious about the unfolding events. Opening on a jumble of interview excerpts with specialists and members of a team, we gradually learn that someone called Wikus has caused a lot of trouble for the authorities in Johannesburg, where an alien spaceship arrived in the early 1980s. The leaderless aliens inside it have been refugees in South Africa ever since they were found, eventually condemned to live in a walled-off shanty town, the eponymous 'District 9'.

Wikus (Sharlto Copely) is an employee of Multinational United (MNU) who are charged with guarding District 9. Wikus appears on more found-footage from some time back, as he explains there is a plan to move the aliens to a new District, whether they want to go or not. He's a cheerful, somewhat naive fella, and clearly a loving husband to his boss's daughter. But what has he done to upset so many people?

What unfolds is a strong contender for someone's worst day ever. Jack Bauer never had to cope with the kind of thing poor, hapless Wikus goes through, and he handles it like every hapless 80s hero would - by getting some truly impressive weaponry and using it on the soldiers who put him in this position. It's the reaction of a man pushed to extremes! The inhumanity of the military and the businessmen is pure Aliens, and it's fantastic to see a film get how that ensures that the alien 'prawns' in District 9 are much more sympathetic.

The aliens look fantastic, and surprisingly easy to tell apart considering how insectoid they appear. They seamlessly merge with the run down shanty town scenery, and here you're amongst the dirt and the squalor, soaking up the heat and stink while the homeless aliens try to live and not get eaten my the distinctly more predatory local gangs. Obviously this situation refers heavily to the evils visited on people living in real shanty towns, making the aliens the underdogs manipulated by humans on all sides.When Wikus joins these ranks, he has to re-evaluate his position concerning the aliens and his own fight for survival. Will he ever get back to his wife?

Made with obvious love and care, this is a remarkable movie that channels the best of the Verhoeven-esque, muscular 80s sci fi movies with a hard edge but a big heart. It is possible to cry at the end, just a little, and that means it's worked brilliantly.

Fantastic aliens, big guns and a poignant finish.
Will the aliens beat us up in the sequel? Can't wait to find out!

Kick Ass (2009) Dir. Mathew Vaughn

noreply@blogger.com (Joanna Neilson) — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 22:37:00 +0000

A battier Batman, a whacked-out Watchmen,

Mathew Vaughn's Kick-Ass is a sweary shed-load of fun!

WARNING: SPOILERS WIELDING FISTS OF RIGHTEOUS COMIC BOOK FURY

Considering that the recent crop of comic book hero flicks have been dark, moody grump-fests or frothy, hi-tech quip-a-thons, it's truly super to find a film that gets the blend of both extreme, insane comic book violence, and the need for characters you can actually enjoy. Kick Ass is a perfectly pitched piece of self-aware super violence, and while not for kids, it's a long way from the bleakest aspects of the Dark Knight, or the tequila-swigging high-life of our beloved Tony Stark.

In fact, it seems to owe a larger part of its inspiration to both 2002's Spiderman and its spot-on spoof, Superhero Movie (2008). The hero, Dave (Aaron Johnson) is steeped in superhero self-awareness, inspired to be a superhero because he can't figure out why no one else would do it. He sucks, but a costume can work some serious magic, and as the callow youth works his way up to full kick-assery, sort of, he comes up against some seriously bad-ass enemies - and their enemies are even worse!

Mathew Vaughn brings a ballsy fresh take on the overused superhero origin story, and as he apparently paid for the whole thing following countless studio rejections, it's even more impressive that this looks and behaves as awesomely as it does. Yes, there's swearing - but it's hardly out of context and it's played for humour throughout. However violent it gets, it's certainly not a disturbing film. It's in the league of 300, where the violence is almost balletic and the baddies tend to deserve it. Watching it is a hyper-real sugar rush, the very best sort. As long as you aren't the kind of person who actually believes a ten-year old girl can go around beating the crap out of fully grown Mob guys, but totally enjoys seeing that happening on screen, then you'll have a blast.

The music is brilliant, as you'd expect from Layer Cake's director! Nice use of Gnarls Barkley, with the song that SHOULD have been in Watchmen, and a lot of love for the spiky bass of the Prodigy, and 28 Days' Later's chilling 'In a Heartbeat', among many others. There is no bad in his soundtrack choices, which are very important for a film as soaked in pop-culture as this one. There are a LOT of pop-culture references, although I think the only ones that will date are the film's obsession with Myspace pages, but that's nitpicking.

The strangest thing about Kick Ass, which separates it from the bulk of Sin City wanabees, is that it maintains a sweet, believable centre. Honest. And, while it's not totally realistic that a girl would forgive a guy for pretending to be gay (which she just assumed, to be fair) because he's also a costumed vigilante - and kinda cute - then jump him in bedroom where he snuck in on her....well, she kinda digs him, so that's OK, too!

David/Kick Ass's friends are also hilarious. The best/worst mates in the world. Plus, I dearly want to hang out in their comic book store cum coffee shop too.

Highly recommended, the best way to spend your designated beer and pizza evening (or fine brie and port, whatever...), and it stays interesting enough to quell the urge to talk all over the top of it. High praise indeed. Open your mind to Kick Ass, and discover a heap of OTT comic book fun that knows exactly where it came from and then does one better.

Kick Ass kicks arse!

That's a good thing.

Scott Pilgrim vs the World (2010) Dir. Edgar Wright

noreply@blogger.com (Joanna Neilson) — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 22:28:00 +0000

The fanboys strike back

Spaced in Canada?

Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) has a problem. He's a twenty-something slacker who plays in a not-quite-crap band and lives in Toronto, and he's surrounded by sarcastic friends and family who all appear just as confused as he is. He's also started dating a seventeen year old schoolgirl called Knives (Ellen Wong), and while she's besotted with him and his band, Sex Bob-omb, he's less than enthusiastic about, well, anything.

Then he gets a vision of a roller-skating girl with bright pink hair, and when he actually meets her for real, his life takes a turn for the stranger. For a start, there's a 'League' of evil-exes between him and her, including former Superman Brandon Routh, and former Human Torch, Chris Evans. Only one thing left to do. Fight!

Apart from the fact that the girl of his dreams, Ramona Flowers (former Miss Mclaine Mary Elizabeth Winstead) at first only seem to date him out of pity, there's quite a lot to like about their fledgling relationship. I still preferred to hang out with his friends, to be honest, but I think that was the point. The others get to be mean to our poor Scott, and he gets to be appropriately baffled whilst performing a role that feels written for a twelve-years-younger Simon Pegg. This is appropriate given the film's pedigree, spawned from the over-caffeinated mind of one Edgar Wright, who brought us the fabulous Spaced on UK's Channel 4, the rom-zom-com Shaun of the Dead (2004), and that Hot Fuzz thing from 2007.

While those films featured most of the cast of Spaced and a few very familiar British TV faces, Scott Pilgrim contains a forthright blend of huge Hollywood actors, mildly familiar faces and complete unknowns. Many of these people are also Canadians, but don't let that scare you. The cameos from the big names was occasionally distracting, but I could see the point of the evil exes being larger than life when pitched against tiny little indie-boy Michael Cera.

He half-heartedly battles his way through each evil ex, gradually getting better ts his trial, while his friends continue to make sarcastic quips. Bryan O'Mally's comic provides the basis for these mash-ups, and the film really is nothing like I imagined it would be. I'd thought I'd avoided a lot of the hype, except for the film's panel appearence at the San Diego Comic Con! After seeing most of the stars talk about Scott Pilgrim, I wanted to love this. There's plenty about it I should love. But it wasn't quite what I was expecting. The hype led me to hope for a ton of non-stop anime-speed, suger-rush fuelled action and adrenaline fuelled fighting. You know, like Crank.

I have high standards!

Scott Pilgrim was, in fact, a great deal slower and weirder with its dreamy, romantic pace offset by a burning bass vibe as Scott Pilgrim's heart is forced to beat harder. Events unfold in an off-kilter sort of way, making this more of a slow burner that occasionally blasts you with surreal, deep rock fuelled delights that rock the fabric of Scott's world. So that much is true. Much of it is very, very funny as well. But I wanted to like it far more - and I reckon that loving it will take a lot more watches on DVD/Blu Ray to truly appreciate just how cute, witty and far out Scott Pilgrim is actually meant to be.

I know there's a good movie in there and I intend to extract it on its eventual release. Until then, you can always watched Spaced again and see how it all began.

Evil exes are almost as dangerous as too-high expectations. Let's try again.

Four down, two to go - Lost marathon continues to Season 4!

noreply@blogger.com (Joanna Neilson) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 23:29:00 +0000

It continues to get better.

I am also truly amazed that so many people stuck with it.

SPOILERS FOR LOST, SEASONS 2-4
WRECK LOST REVELATIONS AT YOUR OWN RISK

After three more seasons, with one fortunately (for my patience) truncated by the 2008 writer's strike, I'm still consistently impressed by how well the sneaky bastards have pulled this off. I mean, it really shouldn't work. In each episode, a tiny piece of the overall puzzle gets unpacked, and another tiny bit gets put away, and we're still no nearer knowing the answer to the BIG questions, mainly, what the hell is the island and what the heck is the smoke monster?

In these seasons we've gradually learned some important character histories. Things like, Kate Austin, the fugitive, blew up her step father because he was beating her mom, only for her mom to turn her in. Like, Locke, the craggy faced walking miracle, who lost use of his legs because of a scam from his evil father. Perhaps I was most amazed, though that they solved the 'why Scottish Desmond calls everyone he meets ''brother"?' question. Apparently, he used to be a monk. Er, OK, that'll do. Sadly, they haven't yet explained why if you're a blonde woman hanging out on the island, your days are probably numbered.

So a lot of questions have been answered. Not enough though. They got around answering any of the big ones in the 4th season thanks to judicious use of flash-forwards instead of flashbacks. Very sneaky. We know they get off the island, or at least some of them do. And that they have to go back! We eventually learnwhy, and that at least part of it is because Jack decided to grow a seriously scary beard.

Incredibly, Alan Dale - AKA Jim from Neighbours for all you UK readers - is here as a major villain. Or IS he? Mwahaha, etc. Mr Dale has carved out a comfortable niche on popular American TV shows, playing dodgy authority-driven men in positions of power. Here is no exception, and he's not that bad at it, either!

There are too many characters to dwell on in this rapid a review. All I can say is, I love the show to pieces, it shows up the flat imagination of a great amount of films (perhaps Christopher Nolan should have taken a shot directing an episode?) and manages to keep the story compulsive and, thrillingly, very watchable. Still can't bear to be spoiled for this. And I would never have lasted if this was consumed one tedious week at a time!

Four down, two to go. Does J J Abrams have access to the meaning of life? After all these hours on the island, I bloody hope so....!

The Final Destination (2009) Dir David R Ellis

noreply@blogger.com (Joanna Neilson) — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 17:38:00 +0000

Movies at the Speed of Sky.

Final film in the the Final Destination franchise? Naaaah....

CONTAINS SPOILERS - IN 3D!!!

I'll happily watch any glossy horror as long as there's no sign of either Malcolm MacDowell or UWE Boll. Thankfully those two haven't yet combined to perform an unpeakably powerful bad film, the suckage of which would probably end a small corner of the universe somewhere near Woking. This is the fourth film in the Final Destination franchise, and they're really making use of the new toy that all blockbusters are using at the moment.

Yep, this is IN 3D! Although, we didn't watch it in 3D, as it was showing on Sky, and so we started shouting out 'in 3D!' every time something came towards the camera for3D! This was funny exactly six times. After that, it got kinda dull. It's still perfect for watching with several people on a slow Saturday afternoon, due to the rather macabre joy of tryng to guess who'll die next and in exactly what way. It surprised us a couple of times, but I found the force of Death worked best when it chased the various obnoxious teens, in less obvious places. Basically, characters being killed inventively in a swimming pool (owchie, btw) or in a beatuy salon (loved the grumpy after hours employees!) make the scenarios more tense than setting it in a garage or anywhere industrial, or a gun shop. Unexpectedness is the key to making this doomed character scenario work. Full marks for use of the car wash!

So, everyone knows the story by now, surely? A group of teenagers are hanging out in a group at somewhere like a plane, a traffic jam, a Jonas Brother's concert (not so far, but my fingers are crossed) until one of them (the main character) gets a vivid premonition of the AWFUL EVENT which will painfully, and gleefully, kill them all in glorious, gory detail, with the main character, and their boy/girl fried, dying last. After this vision the panicked protagonist will make a scene that persuades his friends and several of the more attractive cast memebers, usually anyone who got a speaking role, to join them. They evacuate the potentially lethal situation and everyone calls the lead person an asshole right up until the place they vacated EXPLODES! Lucky, right? But they won't stay that way for very long. That's when the fun starts for the audience.

It's never made clear just who or what sends these visions to the main character, but something we'll just call 'Death' is clearly hacked off about their escape. This franchise is pure genius, as they've managed to get around the 'having a serial killer' aspects of the story and just get to be more and more inventive with the increasingly unlikely killings, which seem caused by Death, Fate, God or the Devil, trying to make sure the survivors start dying in the order originally intended. Great fun for us, at least, so sit back and watch the decapitations, stabbings and immolations commence - in 3D!

This fourth instalment wrings every possible in 3D moment out of its over-stretched plot. First, though, in a bizarre intro it gleeful in shows us the more memorable deaths from previous movies using X-Ray vision, which gives us a perfect look at the luckless characters being horribly maimed and slaughtered as their bones snap and eyes are gouged out. Weirdly it reminded me of a Bond intro, albeit via an old Chemical Brothers video. It's probably meant to wet our appetite for the carange to come, and it doesn't waste much time. In The Final Destination, the survivors have avoided disaster at what was surely one of the most poorly maintained Nascar stadiums in North America. It's a shame each character is about two inches deep, and that's being generous. While I don't expect to care all that much about victims in these horror films - but it never hurts if you actually do - I'm at a loss as to why there are two enormously racist characters in the film, who're there purely to die, thankfully, but even so...two?

Overall, the Final Destination franchise remains less depressing than the Saw movies, which are just 'grinding torture, over-involved Lost-bothering plot, screaming in a room lit entirely by green and yelow, and then repeat until nauseous'. The earlier Final Destination films are a little better at giving its victims some shot at escaping their fate, and it's getting a little old that there's always a lot of persuading involved. The main protagonist keep going 'look, we're definitely gonna die' and their friends keep going 'you're crazy, you're crayzeeeee' before being wiped out by a bus. In fact, the first film's bus death gets a nice homage, but just made me want to rewatch the original again.

It will pass the time, then, but don't expect anything too much and you'll be pleasantly diverted for just over an hour. Maybe it's better in 3D! Somehow I don't think we've seen the last of the invisible hand of fate killing people inventively, which is OK by me -but if you aren't watching this in 3D!, this is best viewed as a drinking game, so that every time there's an obvious 'in 3D' moment, you can make the movie a little better with '5% proof-o-Vision' vision instead. I'd keep the alcohol content low. Trust me.

You're going to get very, VERY drunk....

A nightmare come true - hooray! Darabont's Walking Dead arrives at Halloween

noreply@blogger.com (Joanna Neilson) — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 21:02:00 +0000

It's nearly here! And we finally have an official trailer!

Wow.

I first picked up Robert Kirkman's ongoing survivial horror back in 2003, and it spoke to me and probably every horror and zombie fan out there. Here was someone who got why we liked the zombie apocalypse, and wanted to explore it's survival horror allure right along with us.

The trailer brings up every memorable image I remembered from the first volume of the comic. Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln, AKA Egg from 'This Life' and hapless teacher in Teachers!) is a sherrif, injured and sent into a coma during a shootout. In true John Wyndham (Triffids) style, the poor guy wakes up to find the world has literally gone to hell, and the dead are walking the earth. The good news is that at least they do it slowly. Any similarities to 28 Days Later are merely in the John Wyndham wake up scenes. For a start, these traditional, slow moving zombies mean you can dodge for a while until there are too many, and then they may well eat you - as delightfully shown in the final scenes of this awesome, promising trailer.

Rick heads into the scary new world to find his wife, Lori (Prison Break's Sarah Wayne Callies) but trust me, the pockets of surviving humans can be almost as deadly as the walking, mindless monsters.

This has so much going for it, and already it does what the best comic book and short story adaptations seem able to do (Midnight Meat Train and 300, for instance). It builds up on what you recognise, it gets the point at the core of the story, but at it adds to and improves (possibly) on its source to become something you haven't quite seen or read before.

This may well be me exploding with premature joy and the show itself could be just godawful. However, director Frank Darabont can excel at telling this sort of story, as one of the only directors able to 'get' how make a decent Stephen King movie, his adapation of the Mist was outstanding, as was Shawkshank Redemption. He doesn't shy away from showing humanity at its worst, but also at its best, and he'll need both to make a show about the last vestiges of humanity fighting to survive into a compelling, terrifying journey we'll want to stick with until...whenever the comic finishes. So, forever, basically.

A particularly pleasing thing about the Walking Dead in the involvement of the steely Gale Ann Hurd, who won my loyalty forever for producing not only Aliens and the Terminator - proving she can stand up to James Cameron when required - but also the sublime Tremors! I have a lot of faith in her too. Also it was filmed in Atlanta, on location, so it's authentic and came with a built in tax advantage, apparently.

It's thrilling to see this fantastic comic series getting recognised by the small screen at last, and let's hope Preacher finally gets the showcase it deserves. AMC - who also gave us the fantastic and equally gritty Breaking Bad - may well deliver the most accurate version of a (yeah, ok, it's totally fictional and impossible) zombie outbreak we've ever seen.

It's a drive into hell, and it's coming to America on Halloween, and reaches the FX channel, in the UK, a little after that. Guess where I'll be? Wishing my life away for the blu-ray box set release, hopefully!

Top Ten Birdhouse and memories of Clarks shoes....short one.

noreply@blogger.com (Joanna Neilson) — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 21:47:00 +0000

This is a minuscule piece to round off the weekend, but I love the song Birdhouse in Your Soul by They Might Be Giants, and I think it's odd that this is just one of many TV ads to send a song swinging its way back into the iTunes top 100 singles.

Things have changed a lot since 'magic shoes', which I have particular fond memories of as I wore these as a bridesmaid to a wedding! I get vibes of Ridley Scott's Legend from this ad now.

But, let's hear the original Birdhouse and cheer for the fabulous 'They Might Be Giants'!

Normal posts, with words, will be resumed soon - had a lot of house hunting to do today.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) Dir. Michael-sodding-Bay.

noreply@blogger.com (Joanna Neilson) — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 21:59:00 +0000

Movies at the speed of Sky.
Story so far....

Too stupid to watch to the end....?

I've sat through my share of shitty movies. There are plenty of completely ridiculous summer blockbusters that shouldn't really be worth sticking through to the finalé for, but you hold out to the end you might get a sense of a story completed, and to get an eyefall of the big dragon/explosion/epiphany. This isn't a bad thing, we need a little shiny in our lives. Besides, blockbusters are the barometer of the nation's mood, etc...blah blah blah....

In which case, we're screwed.

This is not a fair review, as I haven't made it to the very end of 'Transformers: Revenge-of-the-long-turd-of-a-title'. I can only review what I've seen up the point where, er...what did happen exactly? I think that the nice robots, the 'Autobots' have been hunting down the evil 'Decepticons', in order to sell more toys and beautiful muscle cars. There are also some vaguely racist 'Autobot' characters who appear first to provide the comic relief, solely by having black people voices and saying 'this is whack' a lot. Worrying.

There's also Megan Fox in a tiny pair of shorts and a seriously repressed Shia Le-whatsit. Both reprise their roles as the boy and girlfriend who thwarted the last film's evilest-bot of them all, Megatron (voiced by Frank Welker, notable as the voice of Slimer from The Real Ghostbusters!) in the last film. The last film was OK, actually. It was dumb, but not excruciatingly so. Not as noticeably as this.

What's wrong with it? Well, so far, I'm about 45 minutes in and am horrified to see there's still about 90 minutes left. I've seen a lot of big CGI pixels bashing each other around whilst not really having a clue who is who, or why. Apparently, the pretty yellow Bumblebee-bot is a bit like an overprotective pet dog that wants to help you get laid. Apparently, colleges are entirely filled with geeks who are super-hackers, and supermodels who want to shag all the said geeks. Except if one of the supermodels is a Terminator 2 ripoff. Which makes no sense given that the robots are supposed to 'transform' into vehicles, not bazooka-Barbies with tongue-chain weapons. Not kidding. There's a lot more blowing up. It's very, VERY hard to give the slightest crap, and I've made it through Bad Boys 2 and Con Air. As I said, I'm not immune totally immune to glossy blockbuster charm - Iron Man 2, anyone? There is no excuse for the state of Transformers, though. It's just a big, greasy mess.

Is it wrong not to watch to the end before reviewing? It's only a film - one that feels ugly underneath, with nothing to offer except vacant girls and big muscley robots. I've seen that before and I think I've seen enough. I think it's actually worse than Van Helsing, which despite being a poor video-game wannabe won a couple points for a frequently shirtless Hugh Jackman (I'm only human), and the sarcastic gadget-producing monk he hung out with. I'm pretty sure that it's worth skipping the final 90 minutes (how are there still 90 mins? HOW?) of Transformers: Revenge of the Moron. Perhaps, if I ever get around to watching the end, I'll be masively surprised and charmed and by it all and feel very, very silly that I ever doubted Michael Bay's awesome directing skillz.

Or...perhaps not.

I might even watch it all, one day, if I'm, like, really ill and bedridden, and all my other films have been destroyed in a house fire, and the telly is stuck on this, and my remote-control finger is broken. Until then, I'm off to be sarcastic about something else, but for now I think I've had a lucky escape.

Finally, the best summary of reasons not to bother is this abridged script, a small work of genius.

Michael Bay makes his biggest mess yet, mistaking vague for hot, and robots for personalities.

Observe and Report (2009) Dir. Jody Hill

noreply@blogger.com (Joanna Neilson) — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 16:26:00 +0000

Ronnie Bernhardt (Seth Rogen) Hapless git of the highest order.

As an actor, Seth Rogen is hard to categorise. I can see why he's considered funny, and even is in some cases, but in many films he really comes across as an uber-defensive, entitled jerk. Then again, maybe that's the point. But too often, what should be laugh out loud funny gets played as mean spirited and doesn't give much reason to even snigger.

For example, here he plays Ronnie Barnhardt, a small time mall cop (there are obvious similarities to that other Mall Cop movie from 2009) who wants more out of life, despite being constantly frustrated by his bi-polar, passive-aggressive mental state. He comes across as misunderstood, but also a bit of a hapless git. His biggest challenge becomes trying to stop a repellant streaker from freaking out the mall customers and he bitterly resents what he sees as interference from the police in trying to catch the guy, and does all he can to mess up the investigation for Detective Harrison (Ray Liotta). He actually wants to be a cop, but he's clearly better off keeping away from real guns. While this part of his life fails to lift off, he gradually makes headway in dating the self-centred makeup counter girl, Brandi (Anna Faris) although it's clear he should be trusting the only nice girl in the whole mall, who works on a coffee counter and gets bullied by her evil boss (a miniscule role for Patton Oswalt). He goes some way to succeeding, but it's almost imposible to root for him.

He doesn't exactly go from zero to hero, either - he gradually evolves from someone you could almost get behind to someone you could cheerfully cross several streets to avoid. Things just seem to happen to him and he takes control in a worrying way that mainly involves beating the crap out of, and in the streaker's case, shooting, anyone who has at one time pissed him off. This fits with Seth Rogen's other roles, which really rely on everyone else being the bad guy who should be made to pay for making him feel a little bit bad about himself. In Observe and Protect there's no Kevin Smith writing to give him a sympathetic character edge, and the black comedy here delivers a bumpy, uncomfortable ride. It tries to be shocking without any real heart, for example the affectionate moments between him and his alcoholic mom are nice, but it's got a cold attitude at its centre and very little to love. I don't think you're meant to get increasingly depressed while you watch a comedy, but that's what happened here. Perhaps it would have worked as a worthy drama instead?!

Anyway, I'll never get those two hours back - and it might be responsible for me watching the other mall cop movie at some point. Or, perhaps, I'll keep away from both of those and go watch Mallrats again!

Don't shop here, run a mile....

Gamer (2009) Dir's Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor

noreply@blogger.com (Joanna Neilson) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 23:28:00 +0000

Use evil mind control on a sweaty Gerard Butler?

Oh, if you insist...

Some times you just can't trust reviewers.

Sure, this one you can - this review is awesome, naturally - but most reviewers just don't get it.

Take Gamer, for example, the result of giving the guys who made Crank and Crank 2 far too much money, and a camera. However, this doesn't mean they make crappy films, and UWE Boll should really take note. What these guys really excell at are fast-paced, speed-freakingly fun pieces of fierce film with a high-concept hook to reel you in. However bloody, silly and violent it appears on screen, it's always obvious how firmly their tongues have been wedged in their cheeks.

It's this cheekiness that sets Gamer apart from the kind of dross it gets landed next to in the big Blockbuster bargain bin. Yes, the film's big, loud and on the surface, very annoying. It's doubtful it will trouble the snot-nosed voters at the Oscars any time soon. But that's because Gamer's having a lot more fun down the pub with all its mates.

So, what's the story? It's simple.

In a near-future society, nano-tech mind control has been created and relentlessly exploited by the entertainment industry. Two 'games' dominate the scene. First there's 'Society', a Second Life sendup with real people being made to interact with each other in any sick and twisted way the blobby gamers can come up with. The other, messed up game is 'Slayers', basically every First Person Shooter video game in the world where the player runs around with a gun, shooting total strangers. Only it's blood-and-flesh reality where the game characters are live convicts, getting forced to blast each other apart by their remote players. The games have become a worldwide obsession, and the most famous survivour of Slayers is the touch-as-nails Kable (Gerard Butler, perhaps filling in for Jason Statham...). He's a convict who is forced to fight for his life every night, and his controller is a teenage boy who owns a very cool 3D computer, controlled by body motion. Naturally, Kable was wrongly convicted (shades of Fortress here) and there's a deeper conspiracy at work that links him to the evil, morally bankrupt Ken Castle (Michael C Hall) who owns both games and most of the world along with it. Only a small protest group known as 'Humanz' are trying to stop the tide of commercialised mind control, and the odds are stacked against them. Of course, Ken Castle has also kidnapped Kable's wife and daughter. So he's evil, ok? Let the battle commence!

While the story isn't remotely new, (it's Fortress, ok? Rebels and everything) the execution of it certainly is. Nothing looks quite like the films these guys make - it's kinetic and wakes you up faster than a bucket of mocha frappaccinos. The sugar rush never lets up. You might think this is a dumb, lowbrow shoot-em-up and at no point does it really try to be anything deeper. On the other hand, it's insightful, dumb fun with a little reminder about being human hidden amongst the gratuitous blood, gore and general sweariness. 'Getting it' depends entirely on how familiar you are with the virtual world they're very clearly sending up and the style in which they do it.Somewhere in here is a little question about how far you would go to play with other people. How healthy is our virtual world? etc. It illustrates this non-too subtley when a man and woman hook up in 'Society', whilst being controlled by two sterotypical fat, repulsive male gamers. It's a depressing look at the dark back-end of the online role play fantasies.

It's actually very similar to Surrogates, which I found fairly bland despite a similar human vs machine high concept. Gamers both effectively gets and shows the attraction of the fast-paced, ridiculous fantasies of online life. There are a few problems with the 'gamer' playing setup, mind you, such as how many death row convicts ready for slaughter are out there, exactly? Gaming has also become a bit of a spectator sport, as surely not everyone can get a go? As a result, it's more like pro-wrestling but, you know, real. Everyone bays for blood in time honored Gladiator tradition. That's the point, and it cheerily lampoons the techno obessions of our time. It's a modern B-movie, basically, and I note that academics love to pore over those like historical social documents summing up the times that the likes of 'Thing From Another World' were made in. Well, Gamer will reach this category in, by modern timing, about four years.

If you give Gamer a chance, it will reward you with unapologetically over the top car chases, a LOT of people being blown up, ladies being very, very naughty and Gerard Butler proving you don't have to be Jason Statham to kick people in the head. If you've spent any time online at all, you'll probably enjoy this. Just, don't take it to seriously. It's a teeny, tiny little bit smarter than it looks.

Beer. Pizza. Superviolence. Sorted.

The Proposal (2009) Dir. Anne Fletcher

noreply@blogger.com (Joanna Neilson) — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 19:59:00 +0000

I propose staying the hell away from this piece of crap.

Ryan Reynolds should stick to fighting Wolverine & Blade

....Sandra Bullock's way meaner than those two

There's not much to say about this humdrum rom-com. It's a flaccid, joyless exercise in forced laughs with a plot that relies on two better-than-this actors trying like mad to dig any comedy at all from a scuzzy mish-mash of the 'Devil Wears Prada', 'Green Card' and, oh, gawd, 'Meet the Parents'.

The short version is: He's a put-upon PA working for tough, no-nonsense hard-ass bitch played by Sandra Bullock (doing her darndest to out-Meryl Ms Streep in 'Prada'). She's a Canadian working in New York publishing, and suddenly requires an even more personal service from Reynolds due to being dumb enough to go abroad whilst waiting for an American Visa. She announces that she and her PA are engaged, and blackmails him into agreeing by threatening to bulldoze his own dreams of being a book editor. So, he agrees and to prove to the non-entity immigration police guy that it's all true, she goes with Reynolds to the family home up in Alaska to celebrate his Grammy's birthday and...well...there's a cute dog in it and you nearly see Ryan Reynold's ass.

Nope, that's it - that's really it. There's so much cringeworthy crap in here that I don't really know how best to start. It's exactly as outlined above. Ryan Reynolds' character (does it MATTER what he's called? At all?) turns out to be a little rich kid who upsets the family applecart by wanting to publish instead of run the Alaskan version of Wallmart with his Daddy. So he upsets the Dad from Poltergeist and Mary Steenburgen from Back to the Future 3. There's a cute white dog that nearly gets eaten by an eagle. Sandra Bullock has some minor clothes-issues and forgets that she's a tough bitch from Canada (from where you think she could handle snow) and she goes all gooey when presented with Reynold's sickly sweet 'family' and their cute dog. Did I mention the cute dog? The fluffball is the main reason to watch this. There's also a grandparent who only PRETENDS to die, which is just manipulative, and rather disappointing given how annoying she is.

There's no real emotion here whatsoever, just bowel-motions.

Without a single moment of real joy in the whole thing, The Proposal lumbers along at the speed of sad and produces a lacklustre feeling of basic despair and a real regret I didn't just ignore everyone's protests and put Legally Blonde or Working Girl on again instead!

This is because I gave it a chance, and it failed to improve at any point.

I like some 'chick flicks' but 'rom-coms', such as they are, tend to suck. This does very little to change my mind. I don't 'propose' you miss this at all, I recommend you burn it, or better yet, don't ever, ever pay for this soggy waste of celluloid. I speak as someone who actually quite enjoyed 'PS I Love You', which just proves that at least with a book adaptation, you have someone to blame and some structure that can often help. Confessions of a Shopaholic is not in this category either, btw.

So....

Sandra Bullock strikes out, but I doubt she's too upset - this has earned something like $54million already....

Weird.

Lost: Season One (TV) 2004-2010

noreply@blogger.com (Joanna Neilson) — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 15:16:00 +0000

What is all the fuss about Lost?

OK, so, we mised it when it first appeared on Channel 4. And when it was on Sky, when we got hold of Sky, about six months later.

When it first aired in the UK five years ago, other half and I had just returned home from a friend's house when we realised - the damn thing had already started - and IT WAS THE REPEAT!

Then a few weeks after this airdate, word filtered down that the show was all about the twists and turns, that no answers were ever given about their island-stuck-stituation, and that no bugger would explain a single thing about that damn polar bear people kept mentioning.

So, increasingly, it sounded as if Lost was either one great head-tease that messed with your sense of closure, or it was about the best thing out there that constantly defied expectations and surpassed everyday network telly by some margin.And it was all produced by that J J Abrams bloke who did the unashamedly out-there Alias, which hadn't held our attention since season two (basically, Sidney got way too many other people avoidably killed every single episode).

This meant that the show was on hiatus for us until:

a) It was quickly cancelled
b) It ran and ran, and got released on DVD, when we'd buy it only after hearing decent reviews.
c) We saw JJ Abrams' cool movie version of Star Trek, hugely enjoyed Cloverfield, heard good thing about his later show, Fringe, and then watched him hold his own against Joss Whedon at ComicCon 2010. Abrams is less keen on 3D, which among other things really impressed us.

Well, ok, so 'c' wasn't in the original game plan, but the combination of those both 'b' and 'c' persuaded us to give Lost a shot. Not the complete, £250 box set (it's since become a tad cheaper) but, you know, the cheap first season, on beautiful BLU-RAY!

And you know what?

I'm hooked.

How these characters get under your skin is one of the bigger mysteries, and how Jack (Matthew Fox) gets away with looking like a butch Adam Sandler is another question. There's a whole mess of questions, and even after a marathon weekend watching the first season, requiring immediate ordering of the second season ten episodes in, we're barely any clearer on WTF is going on on that little slice of screwed-up paradise. Seriously. What is going on? What???

NO SPOILERS - AND ANY SPOILERS GIVEN IN THE COMMENTS BELOW MAY RESULT IN A LITTLE PIECE OF ME DYING INSIDE. AND THEN BEING THROWN AT YOU...

On the other hand - we really, really don't want to know. I've absolutely no idea where all this is headed. The fact that there's five MORE season of this Russian doll plot baffles me. It's obvious that the show is riffing off old-school serials from the 1930s (hey Flash Gordon) with music that brings me back to original Star Trek, Lost in Space, and all the other goodies that kept ten year olds riveted during the early 1990s at middays, Sundays, on Channel 4. Lost is made with a modern sense of character and style, and continuity. However, it's this slowly unfolding story truly hooks you by using people you want to learn more about each time.

It gets away with its ludicrousness because it - and its characters - know full well that the situation IS ludicrous. But they keep going about daily weirdness anyway, because they need to survive. If it is a dream, none of us want them to wake up. If the island isn't on a spaceship, then what the hell does it all mean? No simple answer, ripped from the Twilight Zone, will ever be enough. So what could it be?

There are SO many mysteries to unlock in Lost it's completely compulsive - and we're already devouring the second season. So far it's remained satisfyingly frustrating with its teasing, slowly unfolding explanations, and I'm enjoying that hugely - and I think it's pretty clear what that says about me and the other millions of fans!

To masochist Lost fans who actually watched it in real, unpredictable, advert-splatter network time, I salute you! I sincerely hope it's worth the wait. I can't even put any pictures on this blog as I'm afraid that searching for things on Lost are going to bring up 'how it all ended' type snippets. Yes, I'm late to the party, but I'm determined to enjoy myself while I'm there and let it answer questions in its own time.

The most spoiler-safe question I have is, will Hurley ever lose weight on a diet of crab and mangos? Ever?? He might shrink like Peter Jackson did after the Lord of the Rings movies, and be less awesome as a result, just like PJ...

Enough, on with Season 2 - and hopefully a more regular blog roll will be resumed over the next few weeks despite this troubling addiction!

Paranormal Activity 2! Out 2010...

noreply@blogger.com (Joanna Neilson) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 23:20:00 +0000

CONTAINS SPOILER FOR FINALE OF PARANORMAL ACTIVITY!

Very excited, and terrified, check out the rocking chair and the child only appearing in the mirror at the end.

This could still be really lame. The first one was a slow burner, but it worked. Hopefully this won't do a Blair With 2 and chuck in a load of teenagers and some glossy photography. I think they're keeping to the demonic spirit of the original, though.

Cold Prey (2006) Dir. Roar Uthaug

noreply@blogger.com (Joanna Neilson) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 22:07:00 +0000

The Thing without, er, the Thing.
There's lots of snow and a some tense teenagers, anyway...

What two things work best in horror films? What are the tricks that these films very, very often forget? Well, let's try making the characters just a little likeable. It's a stretch I know, but perhaps make them less like a bunch of whiny brats, and just show us a bunch of nice kids who you're sorry to see go. Secondly, I think the biggest scares come in the anticipation - obscure our vision, keep the characters totally oblivious, and watch the terror roll in. Cold Prey excels in the two conditions above.

But, yes, there's a girl in her undies being terrified...it IS still a horror film

Of course, it depends what you're watching it for in the first place. If you want T&A and naked breasts and blood, then there's a plethora of films out there promising just that. Not all of those are keepers, though.

Making a refreshing change from the usual, then, this Norwegian horror is pretty slick. It seems to have a decent budget (although not according to wikipedia), and although it was very cheap to buy, I was pleasantly surprised at how effective Cold Prey was. It keeps us guessing for the first hour, then the unease creeps in, then the bloody horror follows. It understands the power of hiding what's around the corner, and keeping the reveal secret until the very end. It follows a few of the 'slasher in the wilderness' cliches, but the thick, unrelenting snow and the unusual setting - a Norwegian Overlook - is a good choice.

The snow-swept, incredibly isolated setting adds to the fear!

And it looks gorgeous, too.

I enjoyed it, the subtitles seemed to disappear after a while, and I think being realistically terrified translates well in any language. This is an excellent horror with a little more to it than normal, without being annoyingly pretentious or boring. And it's really not horribly gory. There's enough to make it terrifying without being totally gratuitous. The worst part is really the snowboarding injury that lands them in this mess to begin with. Costing barely a snip to buy, at least two good hours of terror await you!

Struggling to survive...

SPOILERS

I would have preferred to know more about what happened between the little boy going missing and the hotel being closed for so many years, and left with all its booze and power still attached. How does he survive out there? What happened? Perhaps these questions get answered in the sequel, which came with the first one in the boxset. I'll have to watch it very soon and find out!

Terrific Scandinavian horror with non-annoying characters and a fearsome opponent.
A nice change of pace - and nope, I'm never ever going into an old abandoned hotel...

The Killing Room (2009) Dir. Jonathan Liebesman

noreply@blogger.com (Joanna Neilson) — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:25:00 +0000

Blending Saw & Cube with mixed up results

The tagline above is a little misleading. This doesn't really have the hook, the brutality or gutteral nastiness that seemed to guarantee Saw's success (and seven now? Really?) and it doesn't share the totally surreal horrors of the much-overlooked Cube. Instead, this feels like a budget-friendly version of both (and trust me, they were pretty cheap) with a little less imagination and an overinflated sense of its own relevance.

I'm trying to review this without endlessly comparing it to Cube, but I can't help feeling that it performed all this better. The premise is fairly straightforward. Four people turn up to a human testing facility inside a big, white tiled room, where they fill out a bunch of questionnaires. They're briefly joined by the amiable Dr Phillips (Prison Break's wonderful Peter Stormare), and everything seems perfectly straightforward until someone gets suddenly, violently shot in the face.

After this, all bets are off, and survival seems to depend on correctly guessing the answers to the world's most inane questions. So far, so Saw, except Jigsaw didn't work under black ops for the Government (that we know so far...) and this has far, far less gore and violence all over.

Now, I like my nearly bloodless, psychological horror at least as much as the horribly messy kind (and if torture's done too convincingly, it sort of spoils the ~~fun~~ experience anyway) but The Killing Room just falls into the 'not quite enough' category. Not quite enough grossness, not entirely enough tension. Another movie spoiled by whispering, actually. It relies on the growing conflict between the ever-shrinking group of test subjects, and also on the moral quandry faced by Ms Reilly (Chloe Sevigny) who's being interviewed at the testing range by the insane quack, Dr Phillips. He spends the film justifyig the experiments, as it soon becomes apparent that this is simply one of many 'killing rooms' inside a huge building in the middle of nowhere, where people are being manipulated in exactly the same way.

So I get deja-Cube here, only without Cube's magnificent, nihilistic angle of 'it was set up and left to run by itself'.

And, I admit that it's Killing Room, not the many trapped rooms of the above. But my problem with it overall is that the people we meet are completely and utterly trapped - they have no escape possible at all, that's obvious from the moment we learn it's all being staged under the control of the morally-bankrupt scientists, callously observing their struggles. Even Ms Reilly's wildcard interviewee fails to convince. Apart from her eventual decsion, there was still nobody who can possibly save them. This is one of the reasons it fails. The other is the reason for it all happening in the first place.

After soon realising all the characters we met had no chance at all, the only question left of any interest was 'why are they doing it?'. In Cube, there's honestly 'no reason at all' (avoid the sequels, though...) but here the process turns out to be a roundabout way of creating suicide bombers, as the Doctor aims to find people with the self sacrificial gene, those that give their lives for others (as in apotosis). As even Ms Reilly points out, there are better ways of going about this, and it probably isn't by mentally torturing someone until they bug out and try to shoot themselves.

At the end, the survivor gets put into the second phase of the programme, which indicates that brainwashing is now involved.WTF? Did none of these people watch the Manchurian Candidate? Surely that's where you start? It just felt very back to front.

While there's nothing particularly wrong with the movie, it's just not interesting enough for a 'people stuck in one box' concept. There are more interesting interpretations around. I intend to see Fermat's Room at some point, which is another mash of Cube, Saw and the whole claustrophobic, often mathematically obsessed end of the horror genre.

Worth a look, but don't expect the whispers and a sleepy performance from Peter Stormare to fully hold your attention.

Cube is awesome.

The Backwoods (2006) Dir Koldo Serra

noreply@blogger.com (Joanna Neilson) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 21:12:00 +0000

Straw Dogs reborn

The trailer's accurate, most of this is pretty good,

Gary Oldman and Paddy Considine star in this UK-French-Spanish effort

The 1970s produced an odd clutch of movies. The ones that Backwoods specifically refers to hark from the arty exploitation genre. These were low key, had decent actors and usually had one or two brutal elements that the infamous 'Grindhouse' scene would find most agreeable. Top of this list is Straw Dogs, the epitomy of 'city folk vs yokels' movies (up there with Deliverance and Southern Comfort). Backwoods appears to be a very good try at returning to the look and feel of these classic films.

LOOK OUT, SPOILERS AHEAD

This is a European take on the concept, setting it in somewhere almost as isolated as the middle of Cornwall - some woods deep in the Spanish countryside. Two couples return to an old family house for an extended holiday and they also hope to change their fortunes whilst they're there. Unavoidably, the locals are about as friendly as the clientéle of the Slaughtered Lamb, and alarm bells should start ringing when the local perverts start eyeing up the sexy, yet detached Lucy (Virginie Ledoyen). Things start to get really dangerous when the two men discover a young girl with a deformed hand locked up in a filthy barn, and when they bring her back to their house the locals aren't that far behind.

On the whole, the group's decisions seem fairly sensible at the time. They try to leave, they try to reach some authorities, they are repeatedly thwarted by the weather and technology. They are convincingly isolated - and as this is set in 1978, there's no BS about lack of a cell phone signal - they're lucky to find a phone at all! When it all goes to hell, the group just try to get the hell out of the village, right up until they reach the next one anyway. This is an interesting take on the themes from Straw Dogs , and the locals are actually made just a little more human than being just 'monstrous villagers', even if what they did with the girl is definitely, hideously wrong.

The addition of the feral, captive young girl unavoidably reminds one of recent real life cases with a similar moral void. The question here is, does taking action warrant the loss of life involved? Should we interfere? But the ending is ultimately too poorly expressed to feeling particularly satisfying; the events just come to a grinding halt, the tension peters out, and it's a shame, because up until then I'd been engrossed.

There's lots to recommend this - the 1970s look and costuming is dead on, and the two men use accents that feel strangely right, pulled straight from the 1970s, the kind used in sitcoms and realistic BBC dramas fo the decade. The two women's mismatched accents (French and Spanish) occasionally come across as monotonous, which is a shame, but they also give decent performances even if their characters don't do the sensile thing towards the end. Everyone seems to forget they're being chased - except for Paddy Considine's character. If they'd listened to him in the first place, they might have been able to have a nice, quiet break and made friends with the incestuous bunch of locals!

Perhaps the subtles of the English subtitles were what truly failed this movie, although it's honestly worth a look, but see what you make of the finalé as this seems to be its biggest failing.

Awesome recreation of the 1970s era of film, but too much is sadly lost in translation.

Paranormal Activity (2009) Dir Oren Peli

noreply@blogger.com (Joanna Neilson) — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 12:53:00 +0000

Who ya gonna call? No one, it turns out...

Yes, the 'found footage' genre is pretty overused these days. It's cheap, it's 'realistic' and it takes about five minutes to see results. But, in the right hands it can be extremely effective. The trick seems to be not to overcomplicate things. And keep the cast small, and have a decent reason to have a video camera on all the time whilst awful things are happening - as even in Cloverfield it was pushing it.

Paranormal Activity uses all of these strengths to great advantage, and strongly hints that just filming the events has exacerbated the whole problem. It's a slick, streamlined piece of work with a decent pair of actors, who more or less carry the whole thing. Katie (Katie Featherstone) has been aware since childhood of a menacing presence that would stand over her at night. She lives with her boyfriend of three years, Micah (Micah Sloat) in their San Diego house, and he's keen to get the spookfest going. He buys a very expensive videocamera and sets it up to watch their bed at night. He also enjoys taunting whatever might be out there. Idiot.

Their initial footage is fairly boring, but gradually things get weirder, and the first time a VERY LOUD NOISE comes from their attic is extremely unsettling, and it just gets better and better from there. Also, you will want to knock some sense into Micah way before the end. He repeatedly calls out the increasingly threatening presence, daring it to show itself and only making things worse for Katie, and the thing's intentions gradually become horrendously clear.

Due to some slack download time on the PS3 - in HD - we ended up watching this in the middle of the night, when most of this film is set! This definitely helped with feeling the atmosphere, and we weren't brave enough to watch it with the lights out. After all the horror movies I've ever watched, it's still amazing how effective a deep reverby-bassline and a slamming door can be when the people onscreen are freaking out too. It's also a lot better than watching Yvette Fielding scream her head off in a shed in Norwich, too, as you start to really care about this hapless couple.

Highly recommended, as it does exactly what it's supposed to - just have a little patience, and be braver than we were and just TRY to watch this with the lights off! Prepare to be freaked out.

Never Cry Werewolf (2008) Dir Brenton Spencer

noreply@blogger.com (Joanna Neilson) — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 22:27:00 +0000

Fright Night with Werewolves

I've seen Fright Night a grand total of once, but was no stranger to the concept. Think a less expensive Lost Boys with a classic British actor thrown in instead of two Frog Brothers. The plot basically runs that, local kid who watches a cheesy TV show about monster hunters realises that his neighbour is in fact one of the ghastly undead, and he must eventually get help from the washed-up TV star in order to defeat the monster next door. And of course, the authorities won't listen to them and the whole world thinks they're insane.

Now reimagine this in the style of Buffy. That's pretty much Never Cry Werewolf's angle, and the washed up actor this time is the ever-young Kevin Sorbo (Hercules) as a TV hunter who goes around shooting endangered wild animals. As you can tell, the film never takes itself very seriously, and the ceature effects are pretty good. Nina Sobrev is a gorgeous lead as Loren, easy to root for and tough enough to take on the most ferocious of maneating monsters. She also has the required goofy male best friend, who hilariously starts to turn into a wolf-bitch-thing...

The werewolf guy isn't perhaps as dangerously sexy scary as he probably should be, but he is pretty creepy all the same. See, he thinks Loren is the reincarnation of his long lost wife, and hopes to recreate his relationship by seducing and turning her. Gulp. So, basically at one point she ends up down to her sports bra. Luckily she also has a kickass crossbow - but I think these are less use than a really big knife in most movies!

Keeping all the charm of the 1980s classic version, but with better everything, it bumps along at a decent pace and it doesn't look too shabby, either. Comes highly recommended if you're after a piece of lighthearted lycanthrope action, in the spirit of all those cheesy 80s monster movies. And it is way, WAY better than the bloody Wolfman remake.

IT Crowd Season 4 (UK) 2010 Episode One

noreply@blogger.com (Joanna Neilson) — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 21:28:00 +0000

Make mine Moss!

Episode One: Jen the Fredo

Not being much of a Big Brother fan ( I will run screaming from the room), I end up avoiding Channel 4 for most of the summer - which is why I nearly missed the return of one the channel's silliest, most loveable comedy shows. Moss, Roy and Jen are back at Reynham Industries, taking on the corporate world from the safety of their basement.

I was pleased to see that the basement still looks as though Forbidden Planet and Japan had exploded inside it. It's full of references to everything from V for Vendetta to Zelda. Pehaps Moss (Richard Ayoade), the show's uber-geek, is in charge of this scenery? Moss has always been the best part of the show, and is possibly the most deliciously awkward character on the planet, although he's a little underused in this episode. I think he's saving his geek powers for his appearence on Countdown next week.

Instead, the plot revolves around Jen (Katherine Parkinson), who wants a little more to her job than babysitting Moss and a lovelorn Roy (Chris O'Dowd) and applies for the position of Cultural Events Manager (the 'Fredo') at Reynham Industries. Everyone says it's not for her, and she soon discovers why - the businessmen aren't interested in seeing Mamma Mia, they had something a little less disturbing in mind. They want ladies to, er, 'dance' with. So, naturally, Jen turns them over to the care of Roy and Moss. An emotional evening of playing Dungeons and Dragons awaits!

This show still loves its geeks, and the healing power of Dungeons & Dragons bonds everyone very sweetly. Jen has turned into a full on pimp by the end of it, but I think she'll recover, even after she learned what happened to the Godfather's Fredo. Douglas Reynham also survives a visit from the feminist lobby, who awarded him a very unflattering statue, and has to use his charms on Miranda (Dolly Wells), which goes rathr better than expected.

The series has shown steady improvement over the last few years - but it's still very hit and miss. The last season relied heavily on its characters without really doing anything very interesting with them. It still does a good job of filtering topical ideas and making them into true sitcom situations, particuarly the one with the friendly German cannibal!

I felt this episode held together pretty strongly, with a sweet line in thwarted ambition and consequence free sexual harrassment. Of course it was obvious that D&D was going to be used to save the day, but I liked Jen's Fredo payoff right at the end. This is still the best show taking the piss out of the insanity of work since the Office, (UK version anyway), and delights in sending up those who squat at the top of the corporate ladder and those who crouch below it.

A great start to the new season, and you can watch it smoothly on youtube right here!