Twelve for 2012: The Sequel

What do you do when the story's finished but there's more to say?  Wait an appropriate amount of time then make a sequel!  And if the thing you have to say happens to actually be incredibly similar to what you said in the first place, but with louder bangs, then all the better, right?
There are of course many good sequels that aren't just cynical ploys to make more money with no regard for Art (capital A Art, not just drawing and stuff).  Where would we be without The Godfather 2?  The Back to the Futures?  The Toy Stories?  This blog post?  Maybe there is Art in the following list.  Or quality at least.  Maybe.  Fast and Furious 5 ended up being one of Time Magazine's top films of 2011, after all, and who would have expected that this time last year?

Here's twelve sequels set to come out in 2012:

1. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance - February

Nicholas Cage returns as the excellently named Johnny Blaze in Ghost Rider 2.  He's a sort of flamey skeleton biker.  The first film had quite poor reviews, and and it's up against a lot of comic book superhero competition in 2012, as discussed in the last blog post.  But the trailer has lots of loud bangs, and that is what we the viewing public like, isn't it?

2. StreetDance 2 - March
StreetDance 3D was the first film in this franchise.  Who knows what will happen if they make another sequel.  StreetDance 33D?  StreetDance 3D2, featuring a breakdancing C3PO?

3. Wrath of the Titans - March

The first instalment was not exactly critically acclaimed.  But this one has Rosamund Pike looking utterly beautiful and waving a sword about, so must be better.

4. Scary Movie 5 - April (probably.  UK not yet confirmed)
Yes, this franchise is still going.  Now that is scary.

5. Men in Black III - May

It's got roman numerals or the cubed symbol instead of the number 3.  It's got Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords.  It's got something good to live up to with the original Men in Black.  It's got potential.  Men in Black II seems to have been wiped from my memory with the little MIB stick thing, which is possibly a good thing.

6. Ice Age: Continental Drift - July

Not the best animated films by any means, but you have to have a heart of stone not to be charmed by the trailer for the fourth Ice Age.

7. G.I. Joe: Retaliation - August
It's got Dwayne 'No Longer The Rock' Johnson in it.  That man makes a good action movie.

8. Step Up 4 - August
I wonder at what point they start stepping down.

9. The Expendables 2 - August
Apparently the script was too sweary for Chuck Norris so he's demanded it be toned down in order for it to get a PG13 rating in the US (so probably a 12A in the UK).  Good old fashioned violent fun for all the family.  Why not take your granny along, as she won't be offended by the language now.

10. Resident Evil: Retribution - September
Resident Evil 6.  It seems no one ever gets bored of girls and guns.

11. Taken 2 - October
To be involved in one kidnap, Mr Neeson, may be regarded as a misfortune.  To be involved in two looks like carelessness.

12. Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted - October

Hmm, the Ice Age trailer is better.

I'll have to add an extra one since there are so many.  A sequel to the sequels, if you will.  OR, the thing that makes this Twelve for 2012: The Sequel have a louder bang, in that there are 13 things in my list rather than 12.  It's bigger, and therefore better.

13. Nativity 2: The Second Coming - December
The first Nativity film, with Martin Freeman, did not belong in the cinema.  As a Christmas special on TV it was quite charming (my mum thought it was hilarious), but I would really have resented paying to see it.  Is this what David Cameron has in mind when he talks about expanding the British film industry?

Big explosion finale.  No one will notice that we've used it already.

Twelve for 2012

Hello 2012!  What a year you promise to be:

February 6: the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.
June 5: The extra bank holiday for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.
July/August: The Olympics.
December 21: the end-date of a 5,125-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar.

I just can't decide what I'm most excited about.  Well no, obviously I'm most excited about the extra bank holiday.  But the Mesoamerican calendar thing runs a fairly close second.

But as well as featuring enormous sports days with a distinct lack of the egg and spoon race and the possible end of the world, 2012 also promises to be a year of big films.  Here's a look at twelve general trends and much hyped films to come in 2012.  (you can listen to this while you read if you like, to temper the enthusiasm).

1. The Avengers - April
A load of superheroes who have films already get together and fight a supervillain.  Super!

2. The Dark Knight Rises - July

Emotional Michael Caine!  Tom Hardy as a muzzled, sheepskin coat wearing terrorist!  If the trailer's anything to go by this is going to be just as spectacular as The Dark Knight.

3. The Amazing Spider-Man - July

2012 appears to be the year of the superhero (though saying that, every year recently has appeared to be the year of the superhero).  It is ten years (argh) since Tobey Maguire first donned the red and blue lycra suit, and  now it is the marvellous Andrew Garfield's turn.  According to the poster this is 'The Untold Story', and I for one am looking forward to hearing it.

4. The year of the reboot
As well as reboots of characters a la Spidey, 2012 also brings us reboots of universes.  Why give up on a good franchise just because the story's finished?  June brings us the highly anticipated Prometheus as Ridley Scott revisits the Alien universe, and August brings The Bourne Legacy.  Without Bourne, because Matt Damon is gone.  But still called Bourne.  Though the new CIA man is called Aaron Cross.  I am reserving judgement until I find out whether or not he can kill a baddy with the contents of a pencil case (not including a compass, as they are quite stabby anyway so that would be cheating).

5. The year of the weird remake
#1: Ray Winstone and Plan B take the John Thaw and Dennis Waterman roles in the film version of 70s cop show The Sweeney in September.  If it's a success maybe we can expect Professor Green in Bergerac: The Movie in 2013.

#2: Colin Farrell steps into Schwarzenegger's huge shoes in the remake of Total Recall in August.  Well they do look remarkably similar...

6. The year of reunion
Anna Karenina reunites Keira Knightley and director Joe Wright from Atonement and Pride & Prejudice, Dark Shadows reunites Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton from Sweeney Todd amongst other things, and the one you've all been waiting for, American Reunion, reuniting all (or so it looks from the trailer) the people from the original American Pie, and not the 237 horrible sequels.

7. Skyfall - October
James Bond is back to fight his new nemeses, Chicken Licken and Turkey Lurkey

8. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 - November
Robert Pattinson has cut his hair.  It's all over.

9. The year of fairy tales
Kristen Stewart is armour-clad action Snow White in Snow White and the Huntsman, Julia Roberts is strange-accented Evil Queen in fluffy looking Mirror Mirror, and Nicholas Hoult is Jack in Bryan Singer's quite hilariously dramatic looking Jack The Giant Killer.

10. Django Unchained - December
Tarantino's back!

11. The Hobbit - December
Gandalf's back!

12. The year of 3D re-releases
Star Wars the Phantom Menace 3D!  Titanic 3D!  Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D!  All terrifying, each one in its own special way.

Happy New Year.  Yes I know it's mid-January now.  Shh.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 ****'

After ten years, and a staggering one thousand one hundred and seventy eight minutes worth of film, it all ends. Harry Potter climaxes with the exciting, scary, emotional, and ultimately very satisfying final instalment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. The long winded title is the only thing that drags. 

We pick up immediately where we left off in the last film, with Harry, Ron, and Hermione searching for horcruxes (the vessels in which Lord Voldemort has placed bits of his soul in order to evade death). If you haven’t seen the other films, this is absolutely not the place to start. I have read the books, and seen all the previous films, and I still felt slightly lost at the beginning. 

After the first ten or so minutes of calm there is barely time to catch breath, let alone to try and remember what happened in the last film. Details are perhaps unimportant, (is it possible to say that after over 19 hours of film?!) as everything so far has been leading up to the final battle between Harry and Voldemort; between good and evil. 

The battle scenes at the end are on a par with any you would find in a war film, as our three heroes run across the rubble of Hogwarts, passing both enemies and comrades falling, great balls of flame, and the odd club-wielding giant and enormous spider just to remind us that it’s the smell of magic, not napalm, that we love in the morning. 

Director David Yates has made a beautiful film, cinematographically. He may have made a children’s action film, but that does not mean that he didn’t bother artistically. At the very beginning there is a shot of Professor Snape (played by the mesmerisingly wonderful Alan Rickman) in silhouette in a doorway; it only lasts a few seconds, but I found it remarkably moving. It is simple things like this, as well as the jaw-dropping action sequences, that have made the Harry Potter films since Yates took over such a pleasure to watch. 

All things pass. Questionable child actors become pretty decent (though still completely overshadowed by the likes of Maggie Smith and Ralph Fiennes) grown up actors. Chubby Neville the loser from the early films becomes a Henry V style speech-delivering, sword-wielding champion. Ron becomes a romantic hero (though he is still the only one allowed to swear, it’s OK, he hasn’t changed that much). Everything ends. Even highly successful film franchises. I’m quite sad to see this one go though.


Original post here

Source Code ****

Source Code is an extremely engaging, entertaining, and ultimately surprisingly moving sci-fi thriller. To try and write a summary of it, however, takes all the fun out of it. Breaking it into its constituent parts makes it sound preposterous: Jake Gyllenhaal wakes up on a train in another man’s body; his reflection is not his own. Eight minutes later the train explodes and he wakes up in a mysterious pod, where he learns that by the power of the American army and quantum physics he is going to live those same eight minutes over and over again until he finds the man that bombed his train, thereby rescuing Chicago from another bomb that will happen later that day. This all happens in about the first ten minutes of the film.

The remarkable thing is that - despite sounding like Speed meets Groundhog Day - none of the above seems ridiculous at the time. (Though Speedhog Day  is an amazing idea for a film, no?  And there's merchandise available already).  Duncan Jones directs Source Code with the lightest of touches, with a massive debt owed to master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock. The title sequence really reminded me of North by Northwest somehow, and the tension is wound as tightly as possible as we, along with Jake Gyllenhaal’s character, slowly unravel just what is going on.

This is much more than a genre movie, however. Yes, it's a sci-fi thriller - but, as with the very best sci-fi, it is so much more too. It is a philosophical exploration of the idea of fate, and about making choices; it’s a contemplation of what it truly means to be alive; and it’s a love story.

Source Code is sci-fi as Alfred Hitchcock would have made it - with a little bit of Keanu Reeves thrown in, just for fun.


PS. Tenuously linked pop quiz, hot shot: How great is the Speed trailer?*  

Initial review here.


*The answer is that the Speed trailer is very great.  Though it does basically show the entire film.

I Am Number Four trailers

There I was, minding my own business and watching something on channel4.com/4od -

-I must interrupt myself already.  If we are to get on, I fear I must be truthful, however shameful it might be.  If you trust me enough to read my blog, I should trust you enough to admit my secrets.  I was watching, and enjoying, How I Met Your Mother.  I'm sorry.  I quite like the undemanding Friends-but-with-added-mild-swearing-and-sexual-references vibe it's got going on.  But, back to it-

I was watching 4od, when two teaser trailers came on, back to back.  They were for the same film, but very cleverly edited to clearly appeal to two distinct audiences.  Something I imagine I wouldn't have noticed, had I not watched one straight after the other.  Surely that was not part of the marketing strategy?  Anyway, the film is I Am Number Four, but what is it about?

Trailer #1:

Wow, it's a boy's film, it's fire, it's fighting, it's samurai sword leg chopping, it's about walking away from explosions and escaping death.  It's high octane thrills, who even cares if there's a story anyway?  But wait...

Trailer #2:

It's the girl from Glee!  It's Adele in the background!  He's a mysterious hunk who can ride water skis and do back flips off waterfalls!  He reminds me of Edward Cullen from Twilight but oh, he doesn't have the twinkly skin, what a shame.  But he does have magical glowy hands!  Squeal!

So what have we learned?  I Am Number Four looks like flashy big budget nonsense with a hint of romance, so who will be able to resist?  Well, me, I expect.  But this is coming from a How I Met Your Mother fan, so who would respect my opinion anyway?