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Film Review – Hitchcock

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‘A love story about one of the most influential filmmakers of the last century, Alfred Hitchcock and his wife and partner Alma Reville. The film takes place during the making of Hitchcock’s seminal movie Psycho.‘

Hitchcock_BannerAlfred Hitchcock. Even people who aren’t into film have usually heard of him; and you can bet they’ve heard of his most popular film Psycho. But despite what you may have heard, Hitchcock is not really about the making of Psycho. It is instead a look into the psyche of the great director, and the sometimes tumultuous relationship he has with his wife Alma. This is a movie that looks at the price of fame on Alfred Hitchcock, and those around him. An incredibly personal tale of obsession and the darker nature of the human psyche, as well as how often we take those around us for granted.

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The Best and Worst of 2012

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With the new year kicking off, it’s time to look back at 2012; a year that brought a close to Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy and the Twilight franchise as well as kicking off a new trilogy in the form of The Hobbit. Marvel’s multi-movie continuity experiment payed off with The Avengers taking over $1 billion at the box office, and studios continued to push 3D – re-releasing everything from Titanic to The Phantom Menace in a bid to rake in some extra revenue.

There were a lot of great films this year, but if I was to write about all of them my hands would probably fall off. So I’ve narrowed down the field to a few standouts. Without further ado, let me present my awards for 2012; like the Oscars, but without any of that pesky credibility.

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Film Review – The Avengers

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‘Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. brings together a team of super humans to form The Avengers to help save the Earth from Loki and his army.‘

The AvengersMarvel’s experiment with a shared movie universe has been defying the odds for a while; the various Iron Man, Captain America and Thor movies have each been successful in their own right, and even the less than stellar Hulk movies have pulled in a reasonable income. But the real question on everyone’s mind was whether anyone could pull off a movie that featured all of these characters without feeling like a complete mess. Happily, Joss Whedon is up to the task; delivering a solid movie that doesn’t quite live up to the hype (could anything?) but never fails to entertain throughout. Continue reading →

Film Review – Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

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‘The IMF is shut down when it’s implicated in the bombing of the Kremlin, causing Ethan Hunt and his new team to go rogue to clear their organization’s name.‘

Going by the example of the Mission: Impossible series, it would seem that a secret agent can only succeed when they go rogue from their agency. This is a tried and true trope of the genre, but it would be nice to see at least one of the four movies in the franchise move away from this setup. In Ethan Hunt’s latest outing, it would seem that the whole agency has been disavowed by the government after a particularly bad screw up at the Kremlin. It is up to Ethan, along with his prerequisite team of Tech Nerd (Simon Pegg), Hot Girl (Paula Patton) and Mysterious Guy (Jeremy Renner) to save the world once again from the bad guys through a series of thrilling chases, death-defying stunts and last-minute luck. Continue reading →

Film Review – The Hunger Games

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‘Set in a future where the Capitol selects a boy and girl from the twelve districts to fight to the death on live television, Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her younger sister’s place for the latest match.‘

Given the enormous success of the Harry Potter franchise and the fact that the Twilight films are about to wrap up, it was inevitable that Hollywood would find another young adult novel franchise to mine in the hopes of continuing the gravy train. While Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy doesn’t have the high-profile of its predecessors, there is still a massive inbuilt audience for any film adaptation and the studio has banked on that with a reported $100 million+ budget. Unfortunately, the filmmakers have relied far too much on the source material; leaving the film a confusingly mediocre experience that feels like it should have been so much more. Continue reading →

Wing Commander Saga: The Darkest Dawn Released

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After nearly 10 years, the fan developed project Wing Commander Saga: The Darkest Dawn has been released to eager Wing Commander fans around the world. The Darkest Dawn is a fully standalone game that uses an enhanced version of the Freespace 2 engine to give players a chance to step back into the Confed universe with two campaigns, 55 missions, a full cast of voice actors, cut-scenes, varied ship and mission types and much, much more. Continue reading →

Film Review – John Carter

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‘Transplanted to Mars, a Civil War vet discovers a lush planet inhabited by 12-foot tall barbarians. Finding himself a prisoner of these creatures, he escapes, only to encounter a princess who is in desperate need of a savior.‘

John Carter

Given the ridiculous number of Tarzan adaptations to grace the big screen over the last century, it’s amazing that there hasn’t been a big screen adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ other epic series until now (apparently there was a direct to DVD movie in 2009). There have been many attempts over the years to bring this project to life by various studios, but the story always remained the same: ‘the technology isn’t advanced enough to do it justice.’ It’s curious that an animated version never made it off the ground, but now we have the next best thing, a CGI filled blockbuster directed by Pixar’s Andrew Stanton. Continue reading →

Game Review – Mass Effect 3

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‘Mass Effect 3 plunges you into an all-out galactic war to take Earth back from a nearly unstoppable foe – and how you fight that war is entirely up to you.‘

Mass Effect 3

Around 7 years ago I remember talking to a friend in the industry about the possibility of a Knights of the Old Republic 3 from Bioware; continuing the fantastic franchise and making up for the terrible ending of KotOR 2. ‘Not going to happen,’ he said. ‘They’re working on their own sci-fi IP instead.‘ We talked for a while about what a stupid idea this was. Why start something completely new when you have such a fantastic established universe to play with? In 2007, we learned why. Continue reading →

Spartacus: Vengeance – A Place In This World Review

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‘Under Spartacus’ leadership a villa is liberated. Oenomaus, however, decides to throw himself into the brutal pits.Despite his wife’s protests Glaber decides to support Lucretia’s prophecies.‘

While the opening of the second (Gods of the Arena was a prequel) season of Spartacus felt like it was trying to play catch up, A Place In This World seems to be laying the ground for things to come. There were some fantastic moments in this episode, but the pacing of the show is suffering from needing to cover too many characters. One of the strengths of the previous series’ was the focus on a very small group of characters that audiences grew to love (or hate) with a passion. Continue reading →

Spartacus: Vengeance – Fugitivus Review

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‘Spartacus realizes that becoming the leader of a mass of freed slaves can be challenging and he struggles to keep the rebellious group intact when news of Claudius Glaber’s arrival in Capua reaches him.‘

Spartacus: Blood and Sand was one of the big surprises of early 2010. Unlike Starz’s other disappointing series Camelot, Spartacus‘ stylised combination of blood and sex served as the flavour of the show rather than the substance. Andy Whitfield’s titular character had great screen presence and a stellar supporting cast including the likes of John Hannah and Lucy Lawless which made for a riveting series of double and triple crosses that led to a satisfying and brutal finale. Unfortunately, it was announced during the gap between Season 1 and 2 that Andy Whitfield had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. The show creators, rather than taking the easy route of recasting decided to shoot a prequel series – Gods of the Arena – that turned out even better than the original. Sadly, Andy lost his battle with the disease last September; he did however give his blessing to the man who is filling Spartacus’ big shoes: Liam McIntyre. Continue reading →