Jay’s Brainfart

Title: WALL·E
Director: Andrew Stanton
Starring: Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, Sigourney Weaver
Release Date: 18 July 2008 (UK)

Synopsis: In the distant future, mankind has left the Earth due to a global garbage crisis, rendering the planet inhabitable. Waste disposal bots are left behind in order to clean up the mess, and WALL·E is the last remaining one. His 700 year isolation as rendered interesting results, with WALL·E developing a personality. WALL·E’s clean-up operation is brought to a halt when he meets Eve - a reconnaissance robot sent to Earth to look for signs of sustainable life.

From the off, WALL·E looks great and is exceedingly charming to both children and adults.

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Title: Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Director: Guillermo Del Toro
Starring: Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, John Hurt, Luke Goss
Release Date: UK - 20th August 2008 (Previewed on 5th August)

Synopsis: The mythical world, long forgotten has upheld a truce with the earthly realm - however all this will be destroyed when disgruntled Prince Nuada (Goss) returns to wage war and attempt to re-activate the indestructible Golden Army. Only Hellboy (Perlman) and the Bureau for Paranormal Research & Defense stand in his way.

Review: Ok let me first get one thing off my chest - when I saw the first Hellboy movie, I wasn’t really impressed. I knew nothing of the comicbooks, and I thought the movie was… well it was missing something, and seemed edited too much. Then I re-watched it on DVD (The Director’s Cut), and changed my mind. I have a newfound respect for Del Toro’s work after Pan’s Labyrinth too, so I was expecting some great stuff from Hellboy’s sequel.
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Title: The Dark Knight
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal
Release: 25th July 2008 [UK]

Synopsis: Batman (Bale) raises the stakes in his war on crime. With the help of Lieutenant Jim Gordon (Oldman) and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Eckhart), Batman sets out to dismantle the remaining criminal organizations that plague the city streets. The partnership proves to be effective, but they soon find themselves prey to a reign of chaos unleashed by a rising criminal mastermind known to the terrified citizens of Gotham as The Joker (Ledger).

Review: I’m not normally one to give in to the hype that surrounds a movie, mainly because I normally end up feeling let down when its not lived up to. With Chris Nolan’s Dark Knight, you can give in to the hype, and still think the movie was better than you expected. After my 3rd viewing, I still am!

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Ok I thought I’d give everyone a brief rundown of the movies I’ve seen recently, be them old or new, but for sake of relevance, I’ll start with the new releases I’ve watched.

Wanted

This movie is… for lack of a better word… batshit insane - but in a great way. Read my full review over at geeksofdoom.com here.

Kung Fu Panda

Another great movie, with some good voice talent from Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan, Angelina Jolie and Ian McShane. I’d highly recommend this to adults and kids alike. :)

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Directed by Timur Bekmambetov
Starring James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Terence Stamp, Thomas Kretschmann
Rated: 18 (UK) / R (US)
Release Date: June 27, 2008

There are a few words I flat out cannot use to describe this movie: subtle, conservative, reserved, delicate… this is the kind of terminology you use to describe the bouquet of a fine wine. However, words I can use include funny, thrilling, insane, awesome, loud, brash… I could go on… but then I’d have to start checking out thesaurus definitions of “bonkers.”

Wanted is the U.S. debut movie by Night Watch and Day Watch director Timur Bekmambetov, based on the graphic novel by Mark Millar and JG Jones. Just to clarify, I know nothing of the reference material (yet… I’m going to buy the book now though), but in case you’re worried about how faithful the movie is to its origins, have a read of this recent interview with Millar, and set your mind at ease.
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Well I haven’t blogged in a while, but then I haven’t had that much to blog about recently - life has trundled along and been generally uneventful… so I’ve decided to do a quick blog about loads of things I’ve been up to (that aren’t necessarily important).

Firstoff, another of my reviews is up over at Geeks of Doom.com, this time taking a look at the Guinness Book of Records: Gamer’s Edition.

Secondly, I’ve started using a website called Plurk in the past week… and I’m completely addicted to it already! The site is basically a microblogging site verymuch like Twitter, but with threaded conversations based around your “plurks” (twitter would call them “tweets”).

I have to say I’m loving it - there’s much more of a community feel to the site, and its great for sharing media like Youtube videos and photos etc. I’d highly recommend it, especially over Twitter what with its continuing downtime. You can check out my Plurk widget at the top right corner of my blog. :)

And lastly, I found a great image manipulation website that adds a cartoon-style to any uploaded photo… which makes it look a lot like the filming style in A Scanner Darkly… gotta say I love it, and have been fiddling with a few photos of me… take a look:

To get the desired effects as above, use the sketch feature first (set the brightness fairly low - it makes the sketch lines darker)… then click on the colour option and set it at medium/low.

Anyway thats all from me for the moment… I’ve got some more reviewing to do, but cashflow issues aren’t allowing me to do much yet. :( There will be a review of Ninja Gaiden 2 soon though… so keep your eyes peeled for it. :)