Gilliam Trying To Save Last Ledger Film

Filmmaker Terry Gilliam is determined to "salvage" the movie Heath Ledger was midway through making when he died last Tuesday.

The veteran director and Ledger were filming scenes for 'The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus' in London just days before the actor was found dead in his New York apartment. And despite the sudden tragedy, co-star Christopher Plummer claims a "terribly saddened" Gilliam is doing all he can to finish the film.

Plummer says, "Terry's throwing himself into the job of trying to salvage the picture. (He's) trying to work out, at this moment, how to continue on. Fortunately, because the film deals with magic, there is a way, perhaps, of turning Heath into other people and then, using stills and I think they call it CGI.

Terry was a very good friend of Heath's. He very much wants to go on with the movie, and I can very much understand why. Because he wants to dedicate it to Heath, of course."

Last week, Plummer revealed he suspects shooing The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus at night in London's cold, damp climate could have contributed to Ledger's death. An autopsy failed to reveal how the actor died, although police believe his death could be drug-related as five different bottles of prescription drugs were found around his apartment.

* Pinched from IMDb, 29/01/2008

Rambo - U.S press reviews

Kevin Crust in the Los Angeles Times gives Sylvester Stallone's Rambo one of several so-so and/or grudgingly complimentary reviews. "Rambo hits his stride in the film's second half, meting out justice in an unjust world and ultimately the movie works best when warbling its out-of-tune greatest hits." (Indeed, the film has the greatest number of hits of any Rambo movie -- a professor of national security studies at Ohio State counted 236 killings.) Besides, Crust says, "There's something oddly touching about Stallone's march down memory lane." Stallone was the writer and director of the movie, as well as its star, and Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle acknowledges that he provides...

"a straight-ahead action film that makes the first 30 minutes of Saving Private Ryan look like a debutante ball. It's 90 minutes of flying, dismembered limbs and explosions of blood, but give the man credit. Stallone can do action. If you want action and nothing but, here it is."

A.O. Scott in the New York Times compares the Rambo character to the "samurais and gunslingers" of classic films and concludes, "Mr. Stallone is smart enough -- or maybe dumb enough, though I tend to think not -- to present the mythic dimensions of the character without apology or irony. His face looks like a misshapen chunk of granite, and his acting is only slightly more expressive, but the man gets the job done. Welcome back."

But Kyle Smith in the New York Post headlines his review "RAMBOLONEY!" and concludes: "Needlessly violent? No, Rambo is needfully violent. Johnny R. is a man constructed of violence. He can no more do without firing arrows into skulls than a lady poet can do without her yoga. The psychological effects of his métier might be worth considering, but Stallone isn't interested in anything but the next explosion." Several critics predict that the movie should perform well at the box office.


The Los Angeles Daily News's Glenn Whipp writes, "Interestingly, the relative absence of this kind of action movie in recent years makes the new Rambo something of a curio that will satisfy genre enthusiasts whose taste for (first) blood cannot be quenched by costumed pansies like Spider-Man." But Carrie Rickey in the Philadelphia Inquirer predicts that modern-day audiences are likely to be disappointed. Calling it a "slab of action porn," she advises that anyone interested in such stuff should "buy the video game. With its first-person-shooter perspective and gun-and-run narrative, this one's for the PlayStation crowd."

* Taken from IMDb, 25/01/2008

Highlander: The Game

Highlander: The Video Game, this could be interesting. Developed by the Tomb Raider producers Eidos, this will be coming out later in the year for Xbox360, PS3 & PC.


I wonder what other old film's would now make decent video games? I've said it for years that Lethal Weapon would be perfect as a co-op detective/shooter/driving game. I know Heat is being made into a game at the moment, that should at least have that awesome street shootout.

Free South Park online

I found this really cool website with every episode of South Park available to watch, streamed.

Check it out here.

No doubt its completely illegal but whilst its available I'm going to make full use of it.

South Park has got to be one of my most favourite cartoons, much better than Family Guy in my opinion. Family Guy is good but its not consistently good like South Park.

Sarah Connor Chronicles - promo picture

A promo picture of Cameron, the Terminator from the Sarah Connor Chronicles. A glimpse of whats to come perhaps?

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

I'm happy to say that 'Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles' has made it onto the Fox network after 2007's pilot. How long it will air for before Fox pulls the plug is another thing!

I've watched episode 2 (through some dodgy video streaming site) and it looks like the show could get pretty interesting if allowed to develop.

Like the Terminator films, there's always someone sent back to protect the person the Terminator is after. From the pilot we already know that Sarah & John have their own terminator (called Cameron) already protecting them but it now appears (from watching episode 2) that there are also several resistant fighters from the future living as sleeper cells, awaiting for the day when the shit hits the fan. Sarah had already met one of them without knowing, a guy who taught her how to use guns, I thought that was a kinda cool and ties in with the original story set after the original Terminator movie.

I'll be on the lookout for the next episode.

New Bond film title confirmed

The next James Bond film is to be called Quantum of Solace, producers have confirmed.

The title is taken from one of a collection of short stories published by 007 creator Ian Fleming in 1960.






Find below the ITN report about about the new film featuring some brief behind the scenes shots.

Heath Ledger dead at 28

Actor Heath Ledger was found dead at a Manhattan apartment Tuesday afternoon in what appeared to be a possible drug-related death; he was 28.

The actor was discovered in one of the SoHo apartment's bedrooms at 3:31 p.m., when a masseuse arrived for a scheduled appointment and the residence's housekeeper went to inform the actor of the masseuse's arrival. He was found unconscious and unresponsive; the New York Times at first stated that the apartment in question belonged to actress Mary-Kate Olsen, but a publicist for the actress later said that Olsen did not own a unit in the building in which Ledger was found. An initial police report also cited by the New York Times said that foul play was not suspected and that pills had been found near Ledger's body.

A native of Australia, Ledger shot to fame as a teen heartthrob in 10 Things I Hate About You before graduating to more adult roles, most notably his Oscar-nominated turn in Brokeback Mountain.

Engaged at one time to Brokeback co-star Michelle Williams, the two had a daughter but had split in recent months.

Recently, Ledger wrapped filming on the Batman film The Dark Knight, in which he played The Joker; the film is currently set for release this summer.

* Pinched from IMDb, 23/01/2008

Film Update

The weekend was completely water-logged so I spent most of my time at the cinema watching the following.


No Country For Old Men; This film definitely had quite a few classic moments but ended too suddenly with what I thought, the main story unfinished. I wouldn't say it was an awful film, up until the ending I was really getting into it but just wish the main story had an outcome.

Not one of my most favourite Coen Brothers films although the critics are loving it at the moment and numerous Oscar nominations are being rumoured.


Alien Vs. Predator Requiem; This film is really stupid, no big surprise really although I was hoping it to at least look pretty. Big mistake! Most of the action scenes are filmed in the dark, really quickly with the camera right in the centre of things - its really hard to actually see whats happening.

The predator is on Earth to investigate what happened to a crashed Predator ship and track down the new 'Predalien' (the bastard Alien/Predator lovechild - the picture on the right). He does the necessary investigating then covers his tracks by destroying any evidence with this magic blue goo, dissolving big or small things instantly. Fair enough, he wants to be undetected until he gets spotted by a cop. The cop is quickly killed, skinned and hung from a tree for everyone to see! The predator then continues investigating, using the magic blue goo so not to get spotted. Dumb ass!

The directors give the impression that they watched all the Alien/Predator movies back to back several times whilst making notes of all the key scenes. Although thats not a stupid idea, the directors then recreate all of these scenes unnecessarily rather than adding their own interpretation to the series. It feels like a really bad homage to the previous films because of this.


Walk Hard - The Dewey Cox Story; This film is hilarious if you've watched and enjoyed the Johnny Cash film 'Walk The Line' and other biopics like the Ray Charles film 'Ray'.

Co written by Judd Apatow of Anchorman and Superbad fame this has a very familiar sense of humour added with some really catchy tunes, recreating quite an authentic sound.


Sweeney Todd; I was very hesitant about watching this after hearing it was a musical but I'm pleased to say it was completely brilliant. The songs seem pretty good, not that I'm a connoisseur of musicals or anything! Johnny Depp and the rest of the cast are superb and Tim Burton has excelled himself with the direction. The gritty streets of old London never looked so good.

The gore or rather the ketchup coloured blood splattering's spray violently across the screen, this hasn't been toned down to the suite the average middle-aged musical loving woman and I salute Mr.Burton for keeping it an adult film.

Crap DVD's to watch whilst drunk

Here's a tip, an obvious one really on how to enjoy the worst of the worst DVD's;

1: Be in the company of good friends
2: Enjoy many alcoholic beverages
3: Don't take what you're watching too seriously

I recently spent a couple of nights watching some god awful DVD's collected (voluntary and involuntary) over time, with my good friend Dez.

Here's some of the discs we watched, leaving out the 'good' ones.



Michael Winslow's Comedy Sound Slapdown (2002); Ever wanted to watch someone have a nervous breakdown live on stage? Now you can! Formally the sound effect wizard from the Police Academy movies, Winslow hasn't really progressed much doing many of his old impressions, most of which are really dated now. Apparently Winslow went to school with most of the wrestlers from WWF, Cheech & Chong, Jimi Hendrix, the one-armed drummer from Def Leppard and Darth Vader! The dvd sleeve states Winslow performs over 10,000 sound effects, an impressive feat if true considering the shows only 59 minutes long (thats one sound effect just under every 3 seconds). We lost interest after the first two impressions so can't really comment.



Hell Comes To Frogtown (1987); Sam Hell (played by wrestler 'Rowdy' Roddy Piper) is some sort of sex offender, captured by the government and sent into the mutant occupied Frogtown to free some captured babes, which he has to then impregnate to repopulate the world! How anyone ever decided, 'yes, that sounds like a good film idea. sign me up' is beyond me but it was surprisingly entertaining.


Attack Force (2006); Oh dear, poor Steven Seagal. Once upon a time he was Warner Brothers golden child making guaranteed hit films such as Under Siege and... er, Under Siege 2 but has fallen into the 'straight to dvd' category. Unfortunate for Seagal he's contractually obliged to make these awful films having signed a horrible Sony contract. Seagal would rather be performing with his blues band 'Thunderbox', something he feels passionate about. Anyway, back to the film. Now overweight and uninterested, Seagal spends the majority of his time in this film sitting down, talking in his best Don Corleone voice. Well, its Seagals voice for about 50% of his scenes, he's dubbed for the other half in a voice not even close to his own. When there is any action its usually involves the younger, eastern European cast of unknowns. The story seems to have been made up whilst they filmed it as I found it impossible to follow, can the alcohol be blamed for that? Apparently not according to this article found on the Ain't It Cool website. I feel sorry for the guy although we did have quite a laugh at Seagal's expense.

NY police find 'cashback' corpse

Two men face trial after wheeling their dead friend down a Manhattan street in an alleged attempt to cash his Social Security cheque.

The sight of two men pushing a partially-dressed, pale, stiff body on an office chair raised the suspicions of a passing policeman.

Detective Travis Rapp arrested David Dalaia and James O'Hare, both 65.

The dead man, Virgilio Cintron, 66, is believed to have died in the previous 24 hours, the Associated Press reports.

A post mortem is said to have proved inconclusive.

Mr Dalaia and Mr O'Hare are said to have expressed surprise when paramedics told them Mr Cintron was dead.

'Very dead'

They reportedly tried to cash the $355 (£181) cheque on Tuesday, but were told by a clerk that Mr Cintron had to be present.

They returned to the flat that one of them shared with Mr Cintron and partially dressed the corpse before loading it into a chair and wheeling it back to the shop, police said.

Passers-by watched as they left the body outside the shop and went in to cash the cheque.

The clerk again insisted Mr Cintron had to be with them and as they returned to fetch him, they were stopped by Detective Rapp.

The officer said he thought the figure was a mannequin or a dummy at first.

"I thought it was a joke, honestly," he told AP.

One onlooker was not so sure.

"I saw this guy sitting in this chair with his head back," restaurant worker Victor Rodriguez, 38, told AP.

"He looked very dead. He looked very sick. His eyes were closed. He wasn't moving."

Story taken from BBC NEWS; 10/01/2008



Studios are already in negotiation for the rights to produce this into the 3rd installment of the 'Weekend at Bernie's' series... just kidding, but then again...

Cloverfield (2008)

www.cloverfieldmovie.com

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

I am really looking forward to watching this.

For Christmas I got the original Indiana Jones trilogy on dvd for the first time ever, on any format! I've no idea why its taken me so long to have these fantastic films in my ever growing movie collection but I'm glad they've arrived.

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is set in 1957, a good idea since it keeps Harrison Fords age in check with the storyline. Russians have taken over from the Nazi's with Cate Blanchett playing one of them.

I haven't been looking too deep into the story but from the rumours going around the internet at the moment Indiana's new sidekick, Shia LaBeouf could be Marion (Karen Allen - from Raiders of the Lost Ark) & Indiana's lovechild.

Extra rumours are going around mentioning LaBeouf will take over the lead for a new generation of Indiana Jones movies although this is just speculation at the moment, Spielberg's yet to mention anything although he hasn't flatly denied the idea.



Another rumour suggests the trailer for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull may be attached to the start of the J.J. Abrams monster flick Cloverfield (previously known as just 'J.J. Abrams Untitled Project'). I hope its true, Cloverfield gets released in under a month!

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opens in the UK and worldwide on the 22nd of May, I can't wait!!!

Check out the official Indiana Jones website for exclusive behind the scenes videos, photos and gossip.

Fido (2006)

Happy New Year everyone. Here's the 1st post of 2008 and what a lot I've got to write about.

Firstly I've been watching a tonne of films over the Christmas holiday period, some great and some not so great!

I'll start off with one of the good ones.

Fido is a film about a boy and his zombie. Imagine a Lassie film, with a zombie adopting the role of Lassie and the concept behind the last few scenes of Shaun of the Dead, thats basically it. If it wasn't for the zombie element it would be quite a heart warming family film, it still kinda is... until the zombies start killing and eating people!

The film is set in the 50's after the great 'Zombie War', a time when the earth was plagued by a deadly zombie virus bringing back to life all of the dead. The zombies have since been domesticated thanks to a special flesh-inhibiting electrified collar and now work for the living as slaves (i.e; the end of Shaun of the Dead).

Fido is a zombie, a luxury must have household assistant to the Robinson family. He soon becomes a replacement father figure in the life of the young Timmy Robinson, his own father not interested at all in him, afraid of getting too close just in case he may one day have to kill him (if he or anyone else turns into a zombie).


What pleased me the most about this film is the almost unrecognizable Billy Connolly playing the lead role 'Fido'. He literally has no lines in the movie other than the occasional moan but expresses so much in his facial expressions (or lack of) and zombie shuffling, a brilliant and interesting role for the comedian.