I read with interest a lot of the reader comments about the new Incredible Hulk trailer. The main problem for those who didn't like it seems to be that the Hulk doesn't look real enough. It's a perfectly valid criticism – he doesn't always look utterly perfect and tangible – but it made me wonder if we've reached a point in cinema where we've lost the ability to suspend our disbelief. We are, after all, talking about a 10-foot tall green man, something you would be rather surprised to see standing in the queue at your local Tesco. Precisely how realistic can something entirely unrealistic be?
We never used to be so picky. If somebody watches the original King Kong or any of the works of Ray Harryhausen, you will never hear them complain about how the skeletons were a bit jerky or that the big ape's fur didn't blow realistically when he was climbing the Empire State Building (if they do complain, however, you should feel free to shoot them on the grounds of wrongness and philistini
Why is everyone still picking on Tom Cruise? OK, jumping on a sofa to declare your love for someone is weird. And, yes, he is part of a religion that sounds, to some of us, like it may use Star Trek fan fiction as its holy scripture. But I don’t care about any celebrity’s religious beliefs. The thing is, Cruise has done nothing bad to anyone and, most importantly, continues to make very good movies and be very good in them. So why does he continue to be entertainment blog whipping-boy number one?
I ask the question because, after a couple of years of mild snarking at Cruise’s expense, things seem to be turning vitriolic. A recent article by Roger Friedman on the FOX News website (I hate to encourage eyes to such bilge, but you can read it here) tears the actor apart without restraint or any pretence at objectivity, saying that his next film Valkyrie is destined for ridicule – based chie
There are many great things you can do with Lego: build spaceships; model a fortress for your hamster; stick pieces up your nose so that your mum has to take you to the hospital and then, again, inform you that you’re now 28 and it’s just not cute anymore. But, the best thing you can do with them, if you have a lot of time on your hands, is make movies.
The finest example I've seen recently of this particular micro-movie phenomenon is the Dark Knight trailer entirely constructed from themed plastic. You've probably seen it before, but it's worth watching again below.
This little bit of toy genius lead me on a time-wasting quest for the best Lego movies on the i
Help me, dear readers, I’m in a quandary. With the so-long-awaited-I-actually-almost-died release of the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull trailer last week we’ve now seen something of almost all the big films of this summer (only Hulk’s still in hiding). And because it’s entirely possible that someone might come to my office, hold a gun to my head and tell me that I can only see one of these movies otherwise he’ll shoot me and then run over some puppies or something, I have to choose a favourite. And I don’t know which it is.
For a long, long time I thought it was The Dark Knight, no question. It’s got superb credentials, everything shown of it so far is amazing and it features two of the Batman series’ best villains (please put Catwoman in the next one). Heath Ledger’s sad death has made me anticipate a different experience, but I’m no less eager to see what work he’s done, or how Christopher Nolan has built on B
In case you were unaware – and entire high streets full of tat conjuring new and nauseating combinations of red, chocolate, cuddly and polyester suggest this cannot be so – this Thursday is Valentines Day, the most loved and loathed of the year. Any single person knows that this is a day for couples who’ve long since lost any sexual, or intellectual, interest in each other to sit arranged in neat pairs in Italian restaurants, staring into their heart-shaped ravioli and wondering if any imminent obligatory sexual business will require them to take their socks off. All attached people know that anyone who thinks that is just bitter.
But this is a time when we can all of us, duo or solo, turn to the movies for reassurance. The coupled up among us can convince ourselves that our relationship is as worthy of a power ballad as anything in Titanic and that love conquers all, while the less loved up can be certain that there’s someone out there for everyone/it’s all a loa
