"That's it, man. Game over, man, game over!"
- Private First Class William L. Hudson, Aliens
The movie blog that really wants you to buy HITCHOLOGY
Showing posts with label aliens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aliens. Show all posts
Sunday, 26 February 2017
Wednesday, 14 May 2014
Godzilla
This review originally appeared on the Virgin Movies website. I thought about writing another one in a slightly different style for The Incredible Suit, but time is a precious commodity. I'm not getting any younger and I still haven't climbed Mount Fuji, written a bestselling novel or made love to a supermodel in a Ferrari. I mean, I'm not going to do any of those things now, if ever, but the principle stands.
Making a monster movie these days is an unenviable task. It's nearly twenty years since Jurassic Park, almost thirty since Aliens and knocking on for forty since Jaws, and pretty much every effort in the past two decades to replicate the artistic and commercial success of those man-vs-unknowable-beast touchstones has met with varying degrees of failure. The latest attempt, Gareth Edwards' 21st-century update of kick-ass kaiju Godzilla, comes frustratingly close to achieving the legendary status its eponymous titan deserves, but lacks the heart and soul of the films it so obviously reveres.
Wisely pretending that Roland Emmerich's 1998 stab at reviving Godzilla never happened, Edwards' take pays a respectful homage to the themes that spawned the Japanese original sixty years ago. Nuclear radiation is still A Very Bad Thing, and when it appears it's responsible for the creation of a terrifying threat to mankind, only one hundred-metre tall hero has the power to prevent total wipeout. (Of humanity. Not the TV show.)
But before the monster mash can begin, we need a cast of humans to provide the necessary exposition, heroism in the face of apparently insurmountable odds, and screaming. Bryan Cranston is Joe Brody, a former nuclear plant worker with a conspiracy itch he's been scratching for fifteen years. His son, Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), is a soldier, husband and father whose skepticism about his dad's crusade withers when it's vindicated in destructive, terrifying style. Ken Watanabe, meanwhile, is the expert to whom everyone turns when the plot needs explaining, and if he were here now he'd tell you that an ancient fear has awoken in the shape of MUTOs (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Objects), and it would be wise if we all took cover under the nearest sturdy table.
The thought of Bryan Cranston sharing screen time with Godzilla is almost unbearably tantalising, and it's the potential of that meeting between gigantic acting talent and gigantic CG lizard that suggests Godzilla might be more than just Pacific Rim minus the robots. Tragically though, the film fails to capitalise on that potential by not featuring enough of either star. Cranston is sidelined in favour of Taylor-Johnson, who's a blank, emotionless substitute, while Big G occupies far less screen time than the MUTOs. They may be undeniably impressive antagonists but, well, whose name's on the poster, guys?
Fortunately Edwards conjures some incredible set-pieces for his creatures, with the first appearances of both MUTO and Godzilla providing terrific bursts of cinematic thrillery: a panning shot from inside an airport's departure lounge may be the most gleefully exciting thing we'll see all year. And when the inevitable final-act smackdown rolls around, preceded by the eerie HALO jump you saw in the trailer, you know you're in the hands of a filmmaker with talent to burn.
The downside is that it takes so long for the 'zilla thrills to arrive: each time the main attraction threatens to turn up the excitement to deafening volumes, Edwards cuts away to more scenes of puny humans yapping about electro-magnetic pulses or standing around stupidly refusing to leg it from rapidly-disintegrating cities. Nobody wants to see two hours of monsters punching each other, but when the star of your show is God-frickin'-zilla, at least let the big guy roar some more.
Also unfairly shoved into the background are any characters without a penis: Juliette Binoche, Elizabeth Olsen and Sally Hawkins all get short shrift, which in 2014 is an embarrassing and insulting waste of formidable talent. Gareth Edwards, and screenwriter Max Borenstein, are evidently fans of Jurassic Park and Aliens - entire scenes in Godzilla are dangerously close to crossing the line between homage and rip-off to Spielberg and Cameron's masterpieces - but they've failed to pick up on their predecessors' provision of crucial, meaty female roles. It's all very well winking at the audience with a character called Elle Brody - just one letter away from Chief Brody's wife Ellen in Jaws - but what Godzilla could really do with is an Ellie Sattler or Ellen Ripley to balance out the testosterone.
There's much to enjoy in Godzilla, and a lot of it is down to watching Edwards - on just his second film as director - grow as a master storyteller. But he's not quite there yet, and he needs a better story to tell than this one. A sequel would be welcome, but it'll need more heart, more soul, and much more Godzilla.
The Godz must be crazy! etc.
Making a monster movie these days is an unenviable task. It's nearly twenty years since Jurassic Park, almost thirty since Aliens and knocking on for forty since Jaws, and pretty much every effort in the past two decades to replicate the artistic and commercial success of those man-vs-unknowable-beast touchstones has met with varying degrees of failure. The latest attempt, Gareth Edwards' 21st-century update of kick-ass kaiju Godzilla, comes frustratingly close to achieving the legendary status its eponymous titan deserves, but lacks the heart and soul of the films it so obviously reveres.
Wisely pretending that Roland Emmerich's 1998 stab at reviving Godzilla never happened, Edwards' take pays a respectful homage to the themes that spawned the Japanese original sixty years ago. Nuclear radiation is still A Very Bad Thing, and when it appears it's responsible for the creation of a terrifying threat to mankind, only one hundred-metre tall hero has the power to prevent total wipeout. (Of humanity. Not the TV show.)
But before the monster mash can begin, we need a cast of humans to provide the necessary exposition, heroism in the face of apparently insurmountable odds, and screaming. Bryan Cranston is Joe Brody, a former nuclear plant worker with a conspiracy itch he's been scratching for fifteen years. His son, Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), is a soldier, husband and father whose skepticism about his dad's crusade withers when it's vindicated in destructive, terrifying style. Ken Watanabe, meanwhile, is the expert to whom everyone turns when the plot needs explaining, and if he were here now he'd tell you that an ancient fear has awoken in the shape of MUTOs (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Objects), and it would be wise if we all took cover under the nearest sturdy table.
Someone get Cranston some conspiracy cream for his conspiracy itch, stat!
The thought of Bryan Cranston sharing screen time with Godzilla is almost unbearably tantalising, and it's the potential of that meeting between gigantic acting talent and gigantic CG lizard that suggests Godzilla might be more than just Pacific Rim minus the robots. Tragically though, the film fails to capitalise on that potential by not featuring enough of either star. Cranston is sidelined in favour of Taylor-Johnson, who's a blank, emotionless substitute, while Big G occupies far less screen time than the MUTOs. They may be undeniably impressive antagonists but, well, whose name's on the poster, guys?
Fortunately Edwards conjures some incredible set-pieces for his creatures, with the first appearances of both MUTO and Godzilla providing terrific bursts of cinematic thrillery: a panning shot from inside an airport's departure lounge may be the most gleefully exciting thing we'll see all year. And when the inevitable final-act smackdown rolls around, preceded by the eerie HALO jump you saw in the trailer, you know you're in the hands of a filmmaker with talent to burn.
The downside is that it takes so long for the 'zilla thrills to arrive: each time the main attraction threatens to turn up the excitement to deafening volumes, Edwards cuts away to more scenes of puny humans yapping about electro-magnetic pulses or standing around stupidly refusing to leg it from rapidly-disintegrating cities. Nobody wants to see two hours of monsters punching each other, but when the star of your show is God-frickin'-zilla, at least let the big guy roar some more.
There's much to enjoy in Godzilla, and a lot of it is down to watching Edwards - on just his second film as director - grow as a master storyteller. But he's not quite there yet, and he needs a better story to tell than this one. A sequel would be welcome, but it'll need more heart, more soul, and much more Godzilla.
Thursday, 3 June 2010
Bwwwoooooooowwwwww Didididididididi Bwwwwwooooowwwwww*
Every other movie blog and his dog have already made this point, but that's never stopped The Incredible Suit in the past so I don't see why it should now. Anyway you shouldn't even be reading any other movie blog so if you've already seen this you've only got yourselves to blame. I'll keep it brief and to the point:
If you amble over to the official Inception website you can hear a sniplet of Zimmer's actual score, which is reassuringly Zimmery and points to an inevitable soundtrack purchase come July.
The Incredible Suit is increasingly of the opinion that some of the music being used for trailers these days is good enough to be released on a compilation of its own. One of the Star Trek trailers used this piece by trailer-music-go-to-guys Two Steps From Hell, which - despite being alarmingly similar to Zimmer's Batman Begins score - would have sat quite comfortably with Michael Giacchino's eventual (and excellent) Star Trek soundtrack:
So the campaign starts here for the creation of a trailer music album which I propose to call "Now That's What The Incredible Suit Calls Trailer Music That Doesn't Feature In The Film Or On The Official Soundtrack", which will feature Bishop's Countdown from Aliens as a bonus track because it's been used in almost every sci-fi trailer since 1986.
*Thanks to Jo Stroud for transcribing the Inception trailer music lyrics
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- The music on the Inception trailer is great
- It's not from Hans Zimmer's score, which probably isn't even finished yet
- It's by some chap called Zack Hemsey
- Here it is without Leonardo DiCaprio wittering all over it:
If you amble over to the official Inception website you can hear a sniplet of Zimmer's actual score, which is reassuringly Zimmery and points to an inevitable soundtrack purchase come July.
The Incredible Suit is increasingly of the opinion that some of the music being used for trailers these days is good enough to be released on a compilation of its own. One of the Star Trek trailers used this piece by trailer-music-go-to-guys Two Steps From Hell, which - despite being alarmingly similar to Zimmer's Batman Begins score - would have sat quite comfortably with Michael Giacchino's eventual (and excellent) Star Trek soundtrack:
So the campaign starts here for the creation of a trailer music album which I propose to call "Now That's What The Incredible Suit Calls Trailer Music That Doesn't Feature In The Film Or On The Official Soundtrack", which will feature Bishop's Countdown from Aliens as a bonus track because it's been used in almost every sci-fi trailer since 1986.
*Thanks to Jo Stroud for transcribing the Inception trailer music lyrics
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Wednesday, 24 March 2010
The Incredible Suit's 30-Minute Freeze-Frame Challenge #10: The Empire Strikes Back
The 30-Minute Freeze-Frame Challenge is a futile, inane experiment which judges a film's merits entirely on how good it looks at 30-minute intervals according to arbitrary and indistinct criteria applied by The Incredible Suit. For previous challenges, click the links on the right.
Thanks to The Incredible Suit viewer Anthony for suggesting we test the midichlorian count of The Empire Strikes Back, marking the fourth of the only 15 completely perfect films ever made to appear in the 30MFFC. I'd say "may the fourth be with you", but that would be neither funny nor relevant, so I won't.
The Empire Strikes Back is so full of iconic moments and images it makes me weep every time I see it that something so beautiful could, by a sheer fluke of timing, be made in my lifetime. However, as we have seen, even the majesty of The Godfather and the terrifying glory of Aliens weren't enough to make it through the 30-Minute Freeze-Frame Challenge in one piece. Will Empire escape from the jaws of a giant space worm or will it be frozen in carbonite and hung on the wall of a massive talking turd's palace?
Note: These shots and timings are from the 1997 Special Edition, the only one of the trilogy not to be rendered laughable by Mr Lucas' nonsensical tinkerings. I tried it with the original version too. It failed.
0:30:00 You can't park there sir, can't you see this is a giant metal camel crossing?
1:00:00 Luke is so confident in the force that he wanders round Dagobah with his eyes shut. In the next shot he walks into a tree. (I did something clever there, did you get it?)
1:30:00 I think that's Darth Vader in the middle there, but to be honest it could be Batman. Or Severus Snape. Or the chick from the Scottish Widows advert.
Result:
OK, I'm bored of the 30-Minute Freeze-Frame Challenge now, as I'm sure most of you were nine weeks ago. Let's call this the end of season one, and I'll bring it back some time in the future if the fanbase demands it. Keep sending in your suggestions though so I don't have to do too much thinking, and please tell all those people who've been avoiding The Incredible Suit every Wednesday for the last two months that it's safe to come back now.
May the fourth be with you.
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
The Incredible Suit's 30-Minute Freeze-Frame Challenge #9: Aliens
The 30-Minute Freeze-Frame Challenge is a futile, inane experiment which judges a film's merits entirely on how good it looks at 30-minute intervals according to arbitrary and indistinct criteria applied by The Incredible Suit. For previous challenges, click the links on the right.
To be clear, these shots are taken from the 154-minute Special Edition, which is really the only version worth watching unless you've only got 137 minutes to live, in which case watch the original cut. But don't pause it because you'll die before the end.
0:30:00 This shot, as you should damn well know, is from the scene where Bishop does 'the thing with the knife'. I don't know if it's good enough to pass the Challenge, because despite being from an iconic scene, in and of itself it's not all that, is it?
1:00:00 I could stare at this picture for hours.
1:30:00 This one, not so much. I do like the lighting though. It's Ripley in literal and metaphorical Hell, innit.
2:00:00 I don't know about this one either. Again, in the context of the movie it's a great scene, but the image is a bit gloomy and I can't see Ripley's perfectly sculpted face clearly enough. What's an Incredible Suit to do?
Result:
I'm just not sure. The pressure's too much. I'm leaving it to you lot to decide if Aliens passes or fails the 30-Minute Freeze-Frame Challenge. The frustratingly vague rules are buried somewhere in this post if you need them, or you could just make it up based on your own guts. That's what I do.
Aliens: Pass or Fail? Vote here!
Thursday, 13 August 2009
Trouser-Browning Terror
Glorified Hovis salesman Ridley Scott is apparently preparing a prequel to his masterpiece, Alien. As you know, Alien is a completely perfect film, which clamped itself to the face of moviedom, shoved a tentacle down its throat and left a little something in its belly, which burst forth from the very ribcage of cinema in the shape of Aliens, another completely perfect film.
Aliens then went on to do a big sloppy poo on the lounge carpet, which appeared to be called Alien Cubed, and that poo had a little worm living in it which became Alien Resurrection, but we do not speak of such things here at The Incredible Suit.
Having put you off your lunch, let me get on with this prequel nonsense. Much as I love Alien, Ridley Scott is one of those directors – like Tim Burton and Martin Scorsese – whose films I blindly look forward to and hope will be fantastic, despite knowing full well that they frequently turn out to be a bit cack. Blade Runner? Not bad, but hardly the second coming it’s made out to be. Gladiator? Overrated. Hannibal? I’d rather eat my own brains.
So I’m afraid I can’t get excited about an Alien prequel. If it absolutely must be made (it mustn’t) then I suppose Scott’s the man to do it (or James Cameron), but I can’t see how it’ll work. Alien and Aliens succeed because we identify with the humans and share their trouser-browning terror at the prospect of an unsolicited trepanning at the hands of a vicious space beastie. But for a prequel to work it would have to show how the Aliens got involved with the ‘Space Jockey’, the fossilized, horribly violated creature we see near the beginning of Alien in the derelict spacecraft. Personally I’d rather not know; I can make up my own backstory for him. Maybe he was an intergalactic pizza delivery boy who turned up at the Aliens’ house 45 minutes late with the wrong topping and forgot the garlic bread, in which case he got everything he deserved.
Aliens then went on to do a big sloppy poo on the lounge carpet, which appeared to be called Alien Cubed, and that poo had a little worm living in it which became Alien Resurrection, but we do not speak of such things here at The Incredible Suit.
Having put you off your lunch, let me get on with this prequel nonsense. Much as I love Alien, Ridley Scott is one of those directors – like Tim Burton and Martin Scorsese – whose films I blindly look forward to and hope will be fantastic, despite knowing full well that they frequently turn out to be a bit cack. Blade Runner? Not bad, but hardly the second coming it’s made out to be. Gladiator? Overrated. Hannibal? I’d rather eat my own brains.
So I’m afraid I can’t get excited about an Alien prequel. If it absolutely must be made (it mustn’t) then I suppose Scott’s the man to do it (or James Cameron), but I can’t see how it’ll work. Alien and Aliens succeed because we identify with the humans and share their trouser-browning terror at the prospect of an unsolicited trepanning at the hands of a vicious space beastie. But for a prequel to work it would have to show how the Aliens got involved with the ‘Space Jockey’, the fossilized, horribly violated creature we see near the beginning of Alien in the derelict spacecraft. Personally I’d rather not know; I can make up my own backstory for him. Maybe he was an intergalactic pizza delivery boy who turned up at the Aliens’ house 45 minutes late with the wrong topping and forgot the garlic bread, in which case he got everything he deserved.
My point is, the story would require the complete absence of humans to remain plausible, and the only successful movies not to feature any actual, genuine, living, breathing people are the High School Musical films.
There are dozens more obstacles in the way of this project, so if Ridders pulls it off it’ll be a minor miracle. In which case I’ll be only too happy to blog about it and say, “I told you it would be brilliant”, and that’ll be the poster quote you’ll see at bus stops and train stations the world over.
The Incredible Suit's Top 5 Ridley Scott films:
1. Alien
2. Blade Runner
3. Thelma & Louise
4. Er…
5. Hmm.
Of course what I really want to know is: What’s your greatest Ridley Scott film, like, ever? I know, let’s do a poll! Which reminds me, The Breakfast Club was your favourite John Hughes film. You’re wrong. Weird Science is tiptops.
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Sunday, 9 August 2009
Stomach-Churning Pole Dance
You know who you are. I know who you are.Listen: True Lies was directed by James Cameron and stars Arnold Schwarzenegger in his least believable role as a husband and father leading an unlikely double life as a secret agent. It famously features Jamie Lee Curtis doing a stomach-churning pole dance in her smalls which immediately negates all the good work Cameron did for ladyfolk with Aliens and the Terminator movies.
True Romance was directed by Tony Scott and was the first script written by Quentin Tarantino in his inimitable, already-tiresome style. It stars Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette as two crazy kids trying to flog a shedload of questionably-sourced cocaine to a Hollywood bigshot while being mithered by the ghost of Elvis.
While it’s probably fair to say True Romance is better than True Lies, that doesn’t mean it should win a poll in which it wasn’t even nominated. That’s just silly.
This week’s poll is: What’s the greatest John Hughes film, like, ever? Now, please don’t confuse The Breakfast Club with Breakfast At Tiffany’s. Sixteen Candles does not feature Bruce Willis dragging Mos Def through New York, that’s 16 Blocks. And Uncle Buck is not about a 20th Century astronaut frozen for 500 years only to discover that everybody is dressed like they’re at a 1970s swingers’ party.
Honestly, you guys. Must try harder!
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Thursday, 6 August 2009
Trapped In A Dustbin
It’s about this time of the week that the world waits with baited breath for the results of The Incredible Suit’s weekly poll, and I satisfy that demand with a meticulously crafted graphic representation and poetic prose hewn from the mightiest oaks of wit and arranged on the screen with the care of the world’s most careful carer of things.
Unfortunately some berk has set the end of the poll for 24 hours later than usual, so you’re going to have to come back after 5pm on Friday to discover what the readers of The Incredible Suit deemed The Greatest James Cameron Film, Like, Ever! Except you won’t, because I know for a fact that at least half the people who voted for True Lies, which is currently in the lead, thought they were voting for True Romance, which wasn’t directed by James Cameron and has nothing in common with True Lies apart from the fact that there are some people in it, talking. So a fat lot of good that poll is.
Unfortunately some berk has set the end of the poll for 24 hours later than usual, so you’re going to have to come back after 5pm on Friday to discover what the readers of The Incredible Suit deemed The Greatest James Cameron Film, Like, Ever! Except you won’t, because I know for a fact that at least half the people who voted for True Lies, which is currently in the lead, thought they were voting for True Romance, which wasn’t directed by James Cameron and has nothing in common with True Lies apart from the fact that there are some people in it, talking. So a fat lot of good that poll is.
It doesn’t matter anyway because I watched Aliens again recently and can confirm that it’s far and away Cameron’s best work. It’s a 10 out of 10 perfect action thriller that feels like spending two and a half hours trapped in a dustbin while the most terrifying nightmares your mind could generate try to get in and eat bits of you that you’d really rather keep hold of. And I should know, I’ve stayed in the Formule 1 Hotel in Liverpool.
So with no poll result to announce and no new poll to kick off because I haven’t thought of anything yet, I’ll have to pull something else from the sleeves of The Incredible Suit. Hello, what’s this? Why, it’s something incredible! It’s a cheeky song written by Joe Cornish for BBC 6 Music’s Adam & Joe Show! If you’re living in a state of blissful ignorance of the Adam & Joe show (if you can call that ‘living’), it’s a weekly work of such sublime genius you could fatten it up, put a suit on it and call it Alfred Hitchcock.
It’s off air for the summer so don’t pop a sprocket trying to find it. But when it’s back, at the very least download the weekly podcast and listen to it on the way to work, especially if you’re the kind of person who likes to freak out fellow commuters by spontaneously snotting yourself with laughter for no apparent reason.
Anyway Joe wrote this song for the show’s Song Wars slot, which I haven’t got the arsedness to explain right now, but it’s basically a theme song for the latest Bond film, Quantum Of Solace. Yes, they did it about nine months ago but they’ve just put it on their website to download for nought pee, so I recommend you do so. Adam wrote one too but sadly it was like Moonraker to Joe’s Goldfinger. Sorry Adam, I know you’re reading this.
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Sunday, 26 July 2009
Grand Poobah Of The Cosmos
Self-proclaimed King Of The World and crackpot genius James Cameron has announced that he's going to give us the chance to watch 15 minutes of his new film, Avatar, for free. Make no mistake, Avatar will be the most hyped movie of the year. Forget Bruno, forget Harry Potter, forget Satanic Sluts III: Scandalised; Avatar will be the film of 2009, because it's Cameron's first film for a decade, it'll have groundbreaking effects that'll make your eyes dribble out of your face and it'll cost 700 bajillion dollars and make a wazillion times that much back.
However, it's not out till December, and Cameron wants us to be eating, breathing and farting Avatar constantly until then. So he's taken this unprecedented step of, rather than a boring old trailer, granting us a free 15 minute fix of eye-heroin to tide us over until he can provide a full-on, heart-attack-inducing geeksplosion for Christmas. What's more, he's going to do it in IMAX and 3D cinemas just to be sure our brains totally liquify and trickle out of our bottoms.
I suppose it makes sense; Avatar's a massive science fiction extravagasm set on a planet populated entirely by bonkersness, so the last thing he wants is people watching clips on their phone in an office in Grimsby. If you ask me though, this exercise is fraught with danger. What if we don't like what we see? A three-minute trailer is rarely bad enough to put us off something we're probably going to see anyway, but a 15 minute taster could convince us that actually, this all looks a bit silly, I don't think I'll bother thanks. Cameron had better be sure what he's showing us is worth leaving the house for or he might be waving ta-ra to all that moolah come December.
What's more worrying is that I fear a new dawn in movie trailerage. Currently we have to endure 30 minutes of adverts and trailers before a film; if this idea takes off we'll be there for hours, and by the time the movie starts we'll have forgotten what we came to see. People will have to book two days' holiday and pack a change of underwear just to go to the pictures.
I'm looking forward to Avatar but I can't see myself watching 15 minutes of it four months in advance; that's like eating a roast potato for breakfast then having a full Sunday roast at teatime. Pointless. Also, Cameron has a long way to go to impress me. Aliens is fantastic, but T2 and True Lies sag in the middle like a badly cooked souffle, and Titanic, no matter how much cash it hoovered up, is just an enormous pant-pudding.
But what do I know? Avatar will probably be the greatest thing since sliced bacon and the 15 minute experiment will win Cameron a Nobel Peace Prize. As long as he doesn't proclaim himself to be Grand Poobah of the Cosmos when he collects it I don't care.
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However, it's not out till December, and Cameron wants us to be eating, breathing and farting Avatar constantly until then. So he's taken this unprecedented step of, rather than a boring old trailer, granting us a free 15 minute fix of eye-heroin to tide us over until he can provide a full-on, heart-attack-inducing geeksplosion for Christmas. What's more, he's going to do it in IMAX and 3D cinemas just to be sure our brains totally liquify and trickle out of our bottoms.
I suppose it makes sense; Avatar's a massive science fiction extravagasm set on a planet populated entirely by bonkersness, so the last thing he wants is people watching clips on their phone in an office in Grimsby. If you ask me though, this exercise is fraught with danger. What if we don't like what we see? A three-minute trailer is rarely bad enough to put us off something we're probably going to see anyway, but a 15 minute taster could convince us that actually, this all looks a bit silly, I don't think I'll bother thanks. Cameron had better be sure what he's showing us is worth leaving the house for or he might be waving ta-ra to all that moolah come December.What's more worrying is that I fear a new dawn in movie trailerage. Currently we have to endure 30 minutes of adverts and trailers before a film; if this idea takes off we'll be there for hours, and by the time the movie starts we'll have forgotten what we came to see. People will have to book two days' holiday and pack a change of underwear just to go to the pictures.
I'm looking forward to Avatar but I can't see myself watching 15 minutes of it four months in advance; that's like eating a roast potato for breakfast then having a full Sunday roast at teatime. Pointless. Also, Cameron has a long way to go to impress me. Aliens is fantastic, but T2 and True Lies sag in the middle like a badly cooked souffle, and Titanic, no matter how much cash it hoovered up, is just an enormous pant-pudding.
But what do I know? Avatar will probably be the greatest thing since sliced bacon and the 15 minute experiment will win Cameron a Nobel Peace Prize. As long as he doesn't proclaim himself to be Grand Poobah of the Cosmos when he collects it I don't care.
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Friday, 10 July 2009
A Big, Cheesed Off Fish-Man
Good news, everyone! Not only has this week’s poll seen a record-breaking TEN votes, but the winner is a film of which The Incredible Suit heartily approves!
Yes, you, The People, have voted in numbers to rival viewers of The X Factor, and by crikey it was close. The search for The Greatest Remake / Reboot / Re-imagining, Like, Ever has seen Moulin Rouge!, Casino Royale and Something Else I Hadn’t Thought Of come an excruciatingly close joint second place to Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan’s unspeakably good update of the Batman franchise which was left twitching in a puddle of its own liquid faeces by master job-botcher Joel Schumacher in 1997’s Batman And Robin.
This was a difficult vote because, as Satine pointed out in her comment, I failed to specify whether you should be voting for your favourite film from the list or the film which most successfully updated the original / previous version, and in the end I just left you to it. You’re big boys and girls after all.
And while I believe that Moulin Rouge! is a better film overall than Batman Begins, I do think that Nolan’s film performed a near miracle in resurrecting a franchise so devastatingly rogered into oblivion that nobody expected to take it seriously until some time in the 2030s.
So well done Bats, and on a personal note I should like to open myself up (not literally you understand, that would be horrible) and tell the world that the scene in which a young Bruce Wayne tells Alfred that it’s his own fault his parents died, my vision goes a bit misty and I feel a sudden urge to breathe in sharply through my nose. Make of that what you will.
With my recent witterings about aliens in the movies fresh in your minds, this week’s poll is: What’s the greatest movie about aliens, like, ever? The Incredible Suit’s Top 5 (and therefore the only five that matter) are:
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey
2. Alien
3. Aliens
4. E.T.
5. Close Encounters Of The Third Kind
I would have put Cloverfield in there but there’s some debate over whether or not the monster is of alien origin or just, you know, a big, cheesed off fish-man.
Happy voting!
Yes, you, The People, have voted in numbers to rival viewers of The X Factor, and by crikey it was close. The search for The Greatest Remake / Reboot / Re-imagining, Like, Ever has seen Moulin Rouge!, Casino Royale and Something Else I Hadn’t Thought Of come an excruciatingly close joint second place to Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan’s unspeakably good update of the Batman franchise which was left twitching in a puddle of its own liquid faeces by master job-botcher Joel Schumacher in 1997’s Batman And Robin.
This was a difficult vote because, as Satine pointed out in her comment, I failed to specify whether you should be voting for your favourite film from the list or the film which most successfully updated the original / previous version, and in the end I just left you to it. You’re big boys and girls after all.
And while I believe that Moulin Rouge! is a better film overall than Batman Begins, I do think that Nolan’s film performed a near miracle in resurrecting a franchise so devastatingly rogered into oblivion that nobody expected to take it seriously until some time in the 2030s.
So well done Bats, and on a personal note I should like to open myself up (not literally you understand, that would be horrible) and tell the world that the scene in which a young Bruce Wayne tells Alfred that it’s his own fault his parents died, my vision goes a bit misty and I feel a sudden urge to breathe in sharply through my nose. Make of that what you will.
With my recent witterings about aliens in the movies fresh in your minds, this week’s poll is: What’s the greatest movie about aliens, like, ever? The Incredible Suit’s Top 5 (and therefore the only five that matter) are:
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey
2. Alien
3. Aliens
4. E.T.
5. Close Encounters Of The Third Kind
I would have put Cloverfield in there but there’s some debate over whether or not the monster is of alien origin or just, you know, a big, cheesed off fish-man.
Happy voting!
Thursday, 9 July 2009
Aliens = Full Awesomosity
In what can only really be seen as a direct result of yesterday’s post about District 9, a bigger, louder, more alieny trailer has been released onto the interwebs, presumably specifically so I can direct the viewers of The Incredible Suit towards it.
While it’s very kind of the filmmakers to do this just for me, I have mixed reactions about this trailer and may have to tone down the unrestrained confidence I paraded around yesterday like those boys at school who were first to show off their underarm hair, the smug morons. Who’s laughing now, eh? WHERE’S YOUR GROUNDBREAKING BLOG, YOU HAIRY KNUCKLE-DRAGGERS?!
Er… anyway, there are things I like about this trailer. The spaceship hanging in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t, to quote Douglas Adams, and the guy who gets accidentally sprayed in the face in what seems like a comedy moment but looks like it might have horrific consequences are particularly unsettling.
But then it all goes a bit Transformersy and there’s some kind of robot bashing things about willy nilly. Given the choice I generally prefer aliens to robots (Aliens = full awesomosity, Transformers = full crapulousness), so unless District 9’s robot is just an alien in a robot suit then my confidenceometer is veering tentatively away from ‘unreservedly convinced’ to ‘mildly concerned’.
So I think I might back off from bleating about District 9 for a bit. That way, if it’s rubbish I can say “well, I did express reservations in this post ”, and if it’s tremendous I can say “well, I did predict it would be in this post ”, and in either circumstance I can turn up the smuggery. That’s the beauty of blogging, you can express every wildly disparate facet of an argument and later on you can selectively point people to whatever post turned out to be the least nonsense.
Anyway here’s the new trailer. Make your own mind up, let me know what you think and make sure you tell everyone I was right when it comes out in September.
While it’s very kind of the filmmakers to do this just for me, I have mixed reactions about this trailer and may have to tone down the unrestrained confidence I paraded around yesterday like those boys at school who were first to show off their underarm hair, the smug morons. Who’s laughing now, eh? WHERE’S YOUR GROUNDBREAKING BLOG, YOU HAIRY KNUCKLE-DRAGGERS?!
Er… anyway, there are things I like about this trailer. The spaceship hanging in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t, to quote Douglas Adams, and the guy who gets accidentally sprayed in the face in what seems like a comedy moment but looks like it might have horrific consequences are particularly unsettling.
But then it all goes a bit Transformersy and there’s some kind of robot bashing things about willy nilly. Given the choice I generally prefer aliens to robots (Aliens = full awesomosity, Transformers = full crapulousness), so unless District 9’s robot is just an alien in a robot suit then my confidenceometer is veering tentatively away from ‘unreservedly convinced’ to ‘mildly concerned’.
So I think I might back off from bleating about District 9 for a bit. That way, if it’s rubbish I can say “well, I did express reservations in this post ”, and if it’s tremendous I can say “well, I did predict it would be in this post ”, and in either circumstance I can turn up the smuggery. That’s the beauty of blogging, you can express every wildly disparate facet of an argument and later on you can selectively point people to whatever post turned out to be the least nonsense.
Anyway here’s the new trailer. Make your own mind up, let me know what you think and make sure you tell everyone I was right when it comes out in September.
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