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Saturday 26 July 2008

The Dark Knight


I'm going to keep this review short, simply because I don't really have a lot to say on the film. When I first watched Batman Begins I didn't think that it was that great a film. But after watching it a few more times I eventually grew to love it. With The Dark Knight however, it was love at first sight. I absolutely loved this film and it has easily gained a place in my top 5 films. I'm still wondering whether or not it is worthy of the number 1 spot but even if it isn't you have got to see this film.

(9/10)

Saturday 19 July 2008

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull Soundtrack


Even if you're not a big Indiana Jones fan you'd have to have been living on Mars all your life to not know John Williams' "Raiders March". Probably better know to most people as the main theme from the Indiana Jones films. However, the main theme only featured as it's own track ("Raiders March") on the Indiana Jones & The Raiders Of The Lost Ark soundtrack. Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom and Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade just mixed the main theme in with the rest of the cues like this soundtrack does with the track "The Journey To Akator". This is why I was quite surprised to see the "Raiders March" as a track on the Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull soundtrack. But then I guess it has been 20 or so years since Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade, a time when some of us weren't even born, so the chances of us owning the Indiana Jones & The Raiders Of The Lost Ark soundtrack are slim.

However, it is not the same "Raiders March" from the first Indiana Jones film and it is in fact an expanded version. The original version was 2:50 in length, where as this version is 5:06, which is substantially longer. The reason for it being longer is because it also includes Marion's theme. Yep. If you didn't know by now then you probably weren't going to. Marion who was Indiana's love interest from Indiana Jones & The Raiders Of The Lost Ark is back for Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull.

Marion's theme isn't the only returning theme though. "The Map Room" theme from Indiana Jones & The Raiders Of The Lost Ark can be heard at the beginning of the track "The Spell Of The Skull".

Some great cues from this soundtrack include: "The Adventures Of Mutt", "The Snake Pit" and "The Journey To Akator". Three playful little pieces which provide a very enjoyable listen.

But it wouldn't be Indiana Jones without some of the more mysterious cues. Whilst "Call Of The Crystal", "Irena's Theme" and "Orellana's Cradle" do sound very nice, I don't quite enjoy listening to them as much as some of the action cues such as "The Jungle Chase" which is quite a comical action sequence. A darker action sequence and equally great listen is "Grave Robbers" which goes a bit crazy on the percussion at the beginning but sounds great anyway.

I found the last portion of the soundtrack pretty average and the only cue that stood out was "Finale", which revisited most of the major themes including Marion's theme and the main Indiana Jones theme ("Raiders March").

With this soundtrack John Williams definitely returns to his usual sound which he pretty much threw out the window with the last film he scored which was Memoirs Of A Geisha in 2005. This soundtrack is really for fans of the movie, fans of Indiana Jones, fans of John Williams, and probably fans of the older style of film music composing. I'm more of a remote control/media ventures man myself, although I did still enjoy listening to the soundtrack and there are some definite cues I would go back and listen to. But there are also some cues which I would probably only listen to again if I decided to listen to the whole soundtrack. In my opinion, Memoirs Of A Geisha is still John Williams best score.

Saturday 12 July 2008

Out With The Old And In With The New

Last week saw the end of the season for a number of TV programs: Chuck, Heroes, The Graham Norton Show, House and Doctor Who. But what new programs are coming our way? Well considering how many great programs finished there weren't many more that started this week. Bonekickers was pretty much the only one. Although the BBC has been showing the teasers for a new series called Merlin. I am guessing that it is about the wizard and so is probably going to be something like Robin Hood, which has been on the BBC for the last two years on the approach to Christmas. It will most likely take the place of Doctor Who on Saturdays. Although it doesn't look to be arriving to our screens for another few weeks. I am guessing that they are waiting till closer to the air date for the website to launch, since the page does exist, but is currently blank (http://www.bbc.co.uk/merlin/).

As for Bonekickers, it is about a team of archaeologists and the best way to describe it is probably Waking The Dead meets Time Team. It was pretty fast paced and kept me interested throughout. It possibly went a bit too far at the end, but so far the series looks promising.

Another upcoming show is Burn Up, which is a two part political thriller addressing one of today's big issues, climate change. It sees the battle between politics and economic success against fighting climate change as oil executives, environmental activists and politicians fight it out. For more info click here.

Another show to keep an eye out for in the future is Survivors, which is set in the present day in the aftermath of a virus which has wiped out most of the world's population. The remake of the 1970s program, which ran for three series, is set to come to our screens this autumn. For more info click here.

BBC 2 has also unveiled which shows will be coming to the channel this autumn. Returning shows include Heroes season 3, the popular documentary series Horizon, Jack Dee's Lead Balloon. Brand new shows include Einstein and Eddington and My Zinc Bed. And that's just for starters. For more info click here.

In other news, with season 2 of Heroes now at an end we have caught up with the US. NBC (the network behind Heroes) is launching a web only mini-series called Heroes: Going Postal. It follows a postman named Echo De Mille who is a new hero. I imagine that he will also appear in season 3 of Heroes, but for now you can catch the webseries on NBC.com from Monday. In the mean time here is the trailer for the webseries:

Saturday 5 July 2008

Wanted


The Matrix was a kick ass film. The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions I still thought were good, but not quite as good as The Matrix. But then I loved the whole Matrix universe. However, most people thought that the two sequels sucked because most people aren't Matrix geeks. Good news for them, this film will remind you of the first Matrix film.

At first I only really thought that it looked visually like The Matrix, but then I thought about it and it seemed pretty much like The Matrix on every other level as well. That is not necessarily a bad thing though since as I've already said, The Matrix kicked ass. Whilst Wanted isn't quite as good as The Matrix it is still a pretty good film.

An interesting thing I read on Internet Movie Database was a quote from the director of Wanted. Whether or not he was talking about Wanted though, I'm not sure. But anyway, the quote read: "...but the most powerful special effect is the actor. All the visual style is an extension of character." If that is the case then this film certainly has a lot of character extension. But to be honest, the extension seemed to be on what they could do. But when he says, "the most powerful special effect is the actor" I'm not sure that really plays across in this film because there wasn't really a lot in terms of character development and therefore you could have replaced the actors with bad actors and it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference.

James McAvoy plays the character of Wesley Gibson who could be compared to Neo from The Matrix. Angelina Jolie plays the dominatrix character called The Fox and could be compared to Trinity. Morgan Freeman plays the character of Sloan which could be compared to either Morpheus of Agent Smith. And then there is the rest of the gang who play the rest of the crew from the Nebuchadnezzar (Morpheus' ship). However, the characters from Wanted seem to play toned down versions of the characters from The Matrix when it comes to them as people.

But if all you're after is an action film and you don't particularly care about the character development then you're in luck. However, if what you're after is a realistic action film then you'd better sit this one out. With crazy things such as a man jumping out of a skyscraper window and making it to the other side of the street, people curving bullets around objects and some crazy car stunts that could only exist in The Matrix; this film is all about what looks cool.

Now for the real Matrix comparison.

SPOILERS: The film starts off in the same office like environment as The Matrix as we see Wesley in his little cubical at work. We find out his life is shit just like Neo's is. (Although Wesley isn't living two different lives.) Wesley gets shot at in a shop by the bad guy and saved by The Fox. Whilst Neo finds Agents coming into his office and tries to escape but sadly gets caught, but is then released where Trinity finds him and saves him from that bug thing in his stomach. The Fox introduces Wesley to Sloan and the rest of the gang. Trinity introduces Neo to Morpheus and the rest of the crew. Wesley goes into a state of denial as to who he is. Neo goes into a state of denial that he is the one. Wesley realises his full potential. Neo realises his full potential. Wesley goes to avenge his real fathers death by killing Sloan. Neo tries to save Morpheus by killing Agent Smith. But before Wesley can kill Sloan he has to get into the building and so manages to jump in through the window and run through a load of bad guys killing them all, with his first shots being two machine guns which he uses to kill the two people to his side buy switching his hands over. Before Neo can kill Agent Smith he has to get into the building and so enters the lobby with all the pillars, the metal detector goes off and Neo kills the guard in front of him, he then uses two machine guns to kill the two guards to his side buy switching his hands over. Wesley kills Sloan. Neo kills Agent Smith. The End.

The Matrix was released in 1999 and Wanted was obviously released in 2008. However, Wanted is based on a mini-series of comics created by Mark Millar. So the obvious question is, which came first? The Matrix or the Wanted comics? Well I can say with great pleasure that the winner is The Matrix. The Wanted comics where published in 2003, four years after The Matrix.