Movie Review – Paranormal Activity

Answer this one question, what’s better, to see the horror? Or to imagine the horror? Your answer to this question will dictate what you think of this film.

This film is not a blood and guts horror movie, let’s get that straight right from the get go, there is very little blood and no gore. It is not a movie that is going to have you jumping in your seats like the trailer suggests, this movie wants to creep you out bit by bit making you more and more uncomfortable in your seat.

The Road Review

“You ever wish you could die”

“No, you can’t wish for such luxuries in times like these”

So I went to watch a special screening of the film The Road. I knew nothing of this film or the book it was based on prior to the screening so did not know what to expect. The film is based on a book by Cormac McCarthy who also wrote No Country for Old Men which I thought was a very good film. It stars Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce and new comer Kodi Smit-McPhee who plays Mortensen’s young son.

The Road is a post apocalyptic story of Mortensen and his son travelling across a desolate and dangerous America to try and get to the warmer coast of the south with just a shopping trolley filled with all they have. It starts off 10 years after an unknown incident destroyed the world. One day there was a big flash of light and then nothing. Firstly I have never watched a film that portrayed such a dark, bleak, emotional and frankly frightening view of a post apocalyptic world. Often with films such as I Am Legend you still get a glossy, bright sense of things thrown in with destroyed building and famous landmarks. In The Road, America is desolate and barren. There’s no energy, food, animals, vegetation and tens of millions have died. The remaining humans are basically slowly starving to death and it’s everybody for themselves.

Their journey is an emotional and powerful one with Mortensen’s character having flashbacks of their lives leading up to the big flash and the early days after the world is destroyed. They have to scavenge for food, clothing and places to sleep while avoiding the various dangerous individuals including groups of militia while discovering the horrors of what people starving will do to survive. On their journey they meet a few characters including an old man travelling alone played by Robert Duvall. The quote at the top of this review is from a conversation between Mortensen and Duvall. Mortensen while trying to survive also knows he needs to teach his son to be able to live in this harsh world who as a 10 year old has a natural naive view of things and doesn’t fully understand the dangers around him as he wants more company than just his father.

I can’t just class this film as a drama alone and would have to add thriller, adventure and even horror to it. Some may find it a bit of a slow burner which seems to be a trend with the author for those that have read or watched No Country for Old Men.  I did find it a little too slow at times but still very powerful and emotional. This was truly the only time I have ever watched a post apocalyptic film and left the cinema thinking God forbid I would ever have to live in such a world.

When the film finish I’ve never been in a cinema that remained so quiet during the credits. Half the audience quietly left amongst some whispering while myself and the other half just sat there watching the credits made even more eerie and emotional by the lack of music for the first couple of minutes, just the credits rolling silently.

Score 7.5/10 – Maybe not a cinema film for some but definitely worth watching.

Reviewer – Amaechi Oduah

The Road will be released 8^th January 2010 in the UK and 25^th November in USA.

Men who stare at goats – Review

The Men Who Stare at Goats, based on a book by Jon Ronson is about the U.S. Army’s look into weaponizing psychic abilities, is a dark comedy / buddy road movie; think that sounds like an odd combination, well, that is just the tip of a very odd iceberg.

Up – Movie review

Disney Pixar often imitated never duplicated proves again why it sits on the top of the mountain when it comes to 3d movies.

Up is the story of Carl Fredricksen on a voyage to South America by way of a homemade airship in memory of his late wife and Russell who ends up coming along for the ride after believing a joke too much, on the way they meet exotic birds, a mad adventurer and a pack smarter than your average dogs.

Movie Review – Tokyo Gore Police

Set in the Tokyo of the future this movie tells the story of Ruka, an agent of the privatised police force whose father was killed in front of her as a child and who specialises in taking out “engineers”. Engineers being people genetically mutated so that any part of their body that gets injured grows back as a weapon. You shoot off a criminal’s arm it immediately grows back as an organic chainsaw. Cut off the top of someone’s head and it’ll grow back with pistol barrel eyes which shoot pieces of brain at you. Bite off someone’s manhood and he’ll come after you with his 3 foot long cock cannon…. You still with me here?

The Art of Star Trek coming soon from Titan Books

TITAN’S GOING TREKKING!

Revealing The Art Of STAR TREK® For The First Time!

Titan Books is thrilled to announce a new deal with CBS Consumer Products to bring fans an amazing, official, behind-the-scenes compendium to one of 2009’s hottest movies – STAR TREK: THE ART OF THE FILM!

Director J.J. Abrams was characteristically tight-lipped pre-release, keeping all the details of the fantastic film closely under wraps. Now, Abrams has given Titan his seal of approval to reveal all on the incredible production, unveiling for the first time all the behind-the-scenes workings of the film, from start to finish.

Written by New York Times-bestselling author Mark Cotta Vaz, in close co-operation with the film’s production team, Star Trek: The Art of the Film is a lavishly illustrated hardcover celebration of that new vision, tracing the evolution of the movie’s look. Encompassing a stunning and totally unseen array of pre-production paintings, concept sketches, costume and set designs, unit photography and final frames, the coffee-table tome also includes an exclusive foreword from J.J. Abrams himself.

Starring Chris Pine as Captain Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, Karl Urban as Bones and Zoe Saldana as Uhura, with Eric Bana, Winona Ryder, Leonard Nimoy, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin and John Cho, Star Trek has been a critical and commercial smash hit worldwide. Hardened Trekkies and newcomers alike were thrilled by Abrams’ state-of-the-art action epic, which both respected the legacy of Gene Roddenberry’s archetypal modern myth and forged ahead into an exciting future of its own.

Priced at $29.95 / £24.99, this collectible volume is set for release on alongside the DVD and Blu-Ray releases on November 17th 2009. The movie is essential viewing a and this is the essential companion.

© 2009 Paramount Pictures Corporation. ® & © 2009 CBS Studios Inc. STAR TREK and related marks and logos are trademarks of CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Review: Harry Potter 6

I went and saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at a midnight showing and had a great time. The people who go to those midnight releases are the biggest Harry Potter fans and we all revel in each others nerdiness. The experience was fantastic the movie,however, was just okay. It was by no means bad, but it wasn’t great. Some people have been saying that HP6 is the best film so far and I have to disagree. I would say that it’s more like 4, 5, and 6 are all on the same level for me. While I enjoyed certain parts of each film, I also had problems with them also.

I’m going to go into a more spoilerific review below but basically, should you go see this film? Hell yes. If like me you are able to handle the fact that the movies are never going to be quite what you want, then you should have a great time. The key with the Harry Potter films is not to expect too much from them, instead just enjoy in the experience.

If you want a more in depth review complete with spoilers follow with me…

Transformers 2 Review

NO SPOILERS

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, how much you like a movie greatly depends on your expectations. I expected Terminator Salvation to be amazing, so when it was just okay I was really disappointed. I expected Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen to suck ass, so when it was just okay I was pleasantly surprised.

I went and saw Transformers 2 a few days after the opening so I heard a lot criticisms before hand: it was too long, it was cheesy, the plot made no sense. I have to say all of these were pretty much true. But as long as you can deal with its issues Transformers wasn’t all that bad. Worth seeing in the theaters? Sure, if only for that the action sequences are amazing to see on the big screen. Worth seeing a second time? Definitely not, once was enough for me. Overall, what else do you expect from Michael Bay?

Follow me below for a more spoilerific review…

Red Mist – Film Review

Ok, I’ll kick us off with a quick plot overview.

Kenneth, played by Primeval’s Andrew Lee Potts, is a socially awkward and pretty messed up morgue worker who has a crush on one of the young trainee doctors at his hospital named Catherine. Seeing her and her friends in a bar he offers to walk her home and is ridiculed by the other medical students who he then threatens to expose having seen them take hospital drugs for recreational use. To deter this they trick him into consuming alcohol mixed with a cocktail of pharmaceuticals, the result of which is that he slips into a deep coma. Feeling guilty about this Catherine sneaks into his hospital ward and gives him a mix of untested “wonder drugs” which instead of waking him trigger out of body experiences which Kenneth then uses to get his own back on the people who wronged him.

Terminator Salvation Movie Review

After I’ve seen a film I will often talk anyone’s ears off about what I did and didn’t like about it. I’ll ramble on about the acting, the cinematpgraphy blah, blah, rinse and repeat.

At the end of the though it comes down to one simple question.  Did the film entertain me?