Son of Rambow (2007)

'Son of Rambow' is a lovely British comedy, set in the early eighties that pays homage to the original Sylvester Stallone Rambo film, First Blood.

*** SPOILERS ***

The basis of the film is built around the friendship between two very different characters. Will, a member of a very strange religious cult and Carter, the generic schoolboy misfit who causes trouble wherever he goes and has a thing for video piracy.

Will lives a very sheltered life due to his family's religious beliefs, having spent all his young life not seeing a single film or watching TV. He spends most of his time escaping through his sketch book. Carter manages to persuade the innocent and naive Will into bunking off school and takes him back to his strange house (which is on the same site as an old peoples home). Whilst there Will is left on his own when hiding from Carter's older brother, all alone with a dodgy copy of 'First Blood' playing in the background.

First Blood being the only film he's ever watched has a huge impact that totally changes his perception of the world. Will adopts the Rambo persona after having a crazy yet brilliant semi animated dream sequence, spawning new and exiting ideas to be scribbled in his sketch book.



The two friends start making their own film called 'Son of Rambow' using Will's excellent drawings for the storyboard and Carters video camera with brilliant and hilarious results.

*** SPOILER END ***

Its a really lovely story and the cast of kids are superb. I highly recommend it.

P.S; Look out for veteran actor/comedian Eric Sykes cameo.

Appleseed Ex Machina (2007)

I used to be a huge fan of Japanese anime when I was a teenager but as I got older the novelty wore off and I started to notice how lazy some of the animation was.

I now know the anime of the past was limited to a strict budget and time limit which is why many corners were cut (looped frames, moving 'still' images and sometimes jerky animation).

'Appleseed Ex Machina' however has made me realise how advanced Japanese animation has become and I'm extremely impressed!

Beautifully rendered in CGI this manages to keep the appearance of the comics and graphic novels created by Masamune Shirow and at the same time produce some fast paced action the likes of a Hollywood big budget movie. That said, action cinema maestro John Woo produced this feature!

The film's been criticised for having a hard to follow story but I honestly had no trouble with it, in fact it seemed to make more sense than most of the Japanese films I've seen in the past.

To cut it simple (and to keep from spilling too many spoilers!), the film is about cyborgs, biotics (genetically modified clones) and humans being controlled against their will and a team of elite cops (ES.W.A.T) trying to solve the case and protect the city whilst they themselves are losing control.

This is definitely worth a watch, I've ordered the 2004 film 'Appleseed Ex' so will review that once it arrives.

If this is the future of anime I may start collecting it again... time to get my overdraft extended me thinks!

Return of the Ghostbusters (2007)

"Hold yer horses!"

'Return of the Ghostbusters' isn't an official sequel to the Ivan Reitman originals. This is actually a fan made film which is the sequel to the 2004 film Freddy VS. Ghostbusters (also fan made).

Check out the official site here; www.returnoftheghostbusters.com

They've done a pretty good job from the looks of things although don't expect the same quality of the originals.

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.

Aliens Vs. Preadtor: Requiem (2007)

Aliens V. Predator: Requiem (a.k.a AvPr) looks pretty good from the trailer although I seem to remember the first AvP having a similar appeal until watching the film and realizing it was made by an over exited five year old, high on e-numbers (otherwise known as Paul W.S. Anderson!). This film however is directed by a couple of brothers (Colin & Gregg Strause) who were behind some of the great visual effects seen in 300 so I'll give it a chance.

Plane Dead (2007)

'Plane Dead' (a.k.a. Flight of the Living Dead) looks even dumber than the Samuel L. Jackson film, 'Snakes on a Plane' (although for arguments sake, "Snakes" was pretty enjoyable).

I'm sure I'll probably end up watching it!

Sweeney Todd (2007)

Ah bugger!

No one told me the next Tim Burton movie, 'Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street' was going to be a musical.

Find below the trailer featuring Johnny Depp with a wonderfully dodgy Dick Van Dyke (as the chimney sweep cleaner from 'Mary Poppins') cockney singing voice!

By the way, the release date in the US is this Christmas but doesn't appear in the UK until early 2008.

Death Proof (2007)

Death Proof was originally one half of a two part feature known as Grindhouse in the US, paired with the Robert Rodriguez zombie film 'Planet Terror'. Unfortunately Grindhouse was a flop in the US. Could that be because the film was too long (just over three hours) for the average Joe to sit through or did the studio decide that they would make more money splitting the films into two, scrapping the whole 'grindhouse' idea (watching two films, back to back at the theatre)? I personally love the idea of the 'grindhouse' experience but unfortunately as I live in the UK I haven't got the choice, both films will be released separately.

Anyway, I could moan about the unfairness of being denied the chance to experience Grindhouse for ages so I'll put a cap on that for the moment.

With this version of Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino has included extra footage unseen from the Grindhouse cut and apparently "made the movie it should have been", through his eyes.

Anyone unaware, this movie is a homage to the B-movie genre from the late 60's and 70's and has that certain low grade quality to it and was apparently shot using traditional techniques.

The film is about a stunt driver, called Stuntman Mike who has a thing for killing young women with his adapted stunt car. The car has been made 'death proof' (hence the title) with a roll cage and re-enforced shell. I really like the Stuntman Mike character (played by the excellent Kurt Russell) and the moments with him on screen are brilliant. He has a dirty great big scar across his face, drives that mean car and has a dark on screen presence. The driving scenes are really quite amazing and the crashes are really gruesome, in the best possible way!



Ok, this is where I'm going to be totally honest about what I thought, not that my opinion carries much weight!

I think its quite obvious what extra footage has been included in this version of Death Proof. If you strip down most of the dialog between the female characters this film would actually be pretty decent in my books but this is probably the area where the extra stuff was added. I found the dialog to be extremely boring and far too long, something which can probably be said for some of Tarantino's previous work. Yes, at the time dialog in his films such as Pulp Fiction was really different to what was around and it seemed pretty original. I recently re-watched Pulp Fiction and wanted to sleep through most of it. I really hate it when a character says something, makes a comment or statement then has to explain his or herself in great detail is a wise-ass style. Is that always necessary?

I really loved the way the film started with the dated looking ad's and the old grainy footage effect, that was great. But I was expecting the film to be set in this time period (late 60's - 70's), yeah - I know its a homage but does it work when its set in the current day with mobile phones and iPods but shot in an old style? I found the grainy effect on the film to be inconsistent throughout. It started off well, dipped in the middle and came back near the end. Oh yeah, am I the only person who thinks the whole "shooting a scene in black and white" has past the stage of being cool. It worked in some of his other films but really, is that necessary in all of them? The moment it turned black and white in Death Proof didn't make a scrap of difference to the plot, it was at no real interesting spot and felt like a waste of time. It did work incredibly well during the fight scene with the 'Crazy 88's' in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 though.

Tarantino has always been able to produce a really decent soundtrack for his previous films. They usually consist a great collection of relatively unknown but very "cool" tracks and I think with Death Proof he's achieved the same . I've had the soundtrack on CD since April this year and like most of it. I just think it was a shame that it wasn't integrated into the film better. The majority of the tracks will be heard during the bar scene on the jukebox.



Going back to Grindhouse - I'm sure Death Proof would have been a much better film trimmed down by 30 or 40 minutes and would have felt right for its genre. The film, together with Planet Terror and the specially made trailers (directed by Robert Rodriguez, Edgar Wright, Eli Roth and Rob Zombie) would have made the whole experience worth while.

To end on a positive, I really liked Kurt Russell's character, I loved the actual driving scenes and I thought the soundtrack was pretty good.

Sweeney Todd (2007)

The first image of actor Johnny Depp as Sweeney Todd. The Hollywood star has once again teamed up with Edward Scissorhands director Tim Burton to play the demon barber in his new film, due out in January 2008. (Pinched from BBC Entertainment News, 2007.)

When I first saw the image I got really excited and thought it was for the 'Castlevania' film, gonna have to wait 'til 2009 for that (written by Paul W.S Anderson of Resident Evil fame, I'm not sure if thats a good thing really).

Transformers (2007)

Oh wow! I saw this last night and it blew me away.

I must admit my expectations were low before watching this film, I'm not a huge Michael Bay fan and wasn't comfortable knowing he was directing the big screen adaptation of one of my most favourite childhood cartoon shows but he nailed it!

This has got to be the best cartoon to live-action film I've ever seen (although I can't really think of any others off the top of my head). Its definitely the best summer-blockbuster I've seen so far this year (and I've seen them all thanks to my wonderful Cineworld card and loads of free time).

*** SPOILERS BELOW ***

The main plot follows the evil Decepticons and friendly Autobots searching for a mystical cube from outer space that can turn any inanimate object to life. The Decepticons want to use it to turn all the Earth's technology into an army of evil Transformers to rule the galaxy and the Autobots are there to stop them.

I really like the way the creation of the Transformers was mentioned early on in the film and didn't go into great detail. It kept the magic of the cartoon original and at the same time made it semi plausable.

The Autobots are helped along the way by the young Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) and his gorgeous wannabe girl Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox - looks a lot like a young Tea Leoni from the first Bad Boys movie).

The film features a lot of humour, which really works well. There's a load of funny moments with the humans but the really funny stuff comes from the robots. The scene where the Autobots are sneaking outside Sam's house, trying to avoid his parents is hilarious.

The special effects in this movie are second to none. The robots look so realistic and the transformations are amazing (although they can go on for a while, Optimus Prime takes ages to change when you first see him but that helps dramatise it I guess). The fight sequences are excellent although there are a few moments when the camera's right inside the action (robot vs. robot) and it's quite hard to see whats happening.


One of the coolest things I thought about this movie was the original voice actor from the Transformers cartoon (Peter Cullen) reprised his roll for the voice of Optimus Prime (above picture) and the other robots. I didn't realise this until I was told after the film although throughout it I was thinking how well the voices had been matched, they sound great.

*** SPOILER END ***

Anyhoo, to wrap it up this is a perfect summer blockbuster (ideal for popcorn junkies) and thank you Michael Bay (I never imagined myself saying that!) for doing such a good job and keeping my childhood memories intact.