Redneckery & Black 'n' Blue Ballet

Tucker & Dale vs Evil is a surprisingly amusing horror comedy starring the tubby one from Reaper and the blonde one from Firefly/Dollhouse. Essentially a farcical comedy of misunderstandings, the film inverts the college kids in the woods meet Hillbillies trope and sees two bumbling but charming rednecks subjected to an sustained onslaught from a bunch of dickish city types. There's plenty of slapstick death and laughs along the way and it's a highly enjoyable, if childish, 90mins.

Aronofsky's Black Swan, despite his protestations, is essentially a homage/rip off of Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue, that's no bad thing though and it's a stylish, deleterious psychological thriller in it's own right. Portman stars as a highly strung ballerina who wangles the lead in her company's new production of Swan Lake but the stress seems to take a hold and as her debut approaches her grip on reality seems to be slipping. It could have done with a lighter touch but the performances are all excellent and it's denouement nicely realised. It's good and Aronofsky's always an interesting film maker but I, as a Kon fan, couldn't stop comparing it to the other more nuanced film.

Film Trash

Poster Genius Drew Sturzan has come out of retirement and produced the ad above for the famed Alamo Drafthouse.

Spike Lee looks to remake Oldboy.

Walter Hill is helming an adaptation of graphic novel Bullet in the Head starring Sly & Christian Slater. Slashfilm

Super nerdy analysis of the symbolism in Pandorum. Via Screened.

Crummy cameo heading for the next Nolan Batman film. DenofGeek.

More news of the upcoming Dredd movie. A bunch of other Superhero news here.

Io9 have a nice summation of known knowns re John Carter of Mars.

Schwarzenegger might be take the lead in Kim Ji-Woon's english language debut The Last Stand - apparently a cross between High Noon & Die Hard.

Dario Argento is working on Dracula 3D flick with Rutger Hauer. Sounds good but looks pretty cheap. From Bloody Disgusting

Batman: Year One trailer courtesy of Den of Geek.

Get More: Movie Trailers, Movies Blog

Double Solemnity

Bill Murray stars a WW1 veteran who searches for meaning in The Razor's Edge - a melodrama based on the novel by W. Somerset Maugham. After the war Murray's character, Larry, leaves his upper class chums to their cosseted fates and takes a series of manual jobs while travelling the world, reading incessantly and looking for something more substantial than black tie parties and privilege. With a cast including Denholm Elliot, Theresa Russell, James Keach and the excellent Peter Vaughan there's no shortage of talent for Murray to spark off and his amiable charm and wit soften what's eventually quite a tragic tale. According to WikiP, Murray only appeared in Ghostbusters on the condition that this film was made, and despite it's critical mauling I am glad he made the deal, it's an interesting melancholy film that shows Murray has long hankered for something more than Caddyshack buffoonery.

Ace in the Hole is a biting satire on gutter journalism starring Kirk Douglas and directed by the brilliant Billy Wilder. A washed up New York hack takes a job on a local rag, The Albuquerque News, and dreams of clawing his way back to the top when a scoop lands in his lap, some treasure hunter has become trapped in cave system and Kirk's unscrupulous journo, Tatum, is quick to see the possibilities and begins to exploit the situation with no concern for the consequences. A towering central performance by Douglas, a tight, merciless script and some canny cinematography give weight to the emotional punch this film delivers and it's hard to believe this flopped on it's original release in '51.

< Alliterative Allusion Absent >

Green Lantern stars Ryan Reynolds as the titular superhero in 90 mins of Hollywood big screen, 3D FX-laden guff. There's nothing wrong with it per se but the convoluted origin story involving a reckless test pilot joining an alien police force with magic rings granted by some immortal midgets vs a recently escaped Evil Cloud thingy requires a hefty amount of explanation so it felt that 3/4's of the film is introductions and build up leaving little time for anything substantial like say a plot or much characterisation. Ho hum - given Marvel's recent hit rate DC should really have tried harder with this one. Reynolds and Robbins are competent enough I suppose but it's only Mark Strong's performance as Sinestro that's notable in what is quintessentially just big screen bubble gum. Anyone else think Reynolds' eyes are freakishly close together?

Liam Neeson continues to mine his Euro thriller seam with Unknown a Hitchcockian tale about identity theft and assorted shenanigans. Neeson plays a biochemist visiting a Berlin conference but after waking up in hospital post accident it appears someone else is living his life and even his young wife doesn't seem to recognise him. Big Liam, after 10mins of doubt, is convinced he's not just lost his marbles and pounds around the city digging into the mystery. There's plenty of action and some decent performances from a talented cast and it's all-in-all quite entertaining but sadly lacks the viscera of Taken and hasn't enough imagination in the script/plot department to make up for it. I think it's safe to say the old Bourne/XIII/amnesia trope has definitely over stayed it's welcome.

Sciencey Smorgasbord

Stunning new HD pics from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Reddit.

Jellyfish continue their sit-in protest against nuclear energy at Torness.

Tibetan singing bowls can make water levitate, well kind of, via the power of resonance. NewSci

Psychiatry's addiction to drugs is finally getting the mainstream critique it deserves. Mindhacks.

Static electricity gets a rethink in this interesting Wired article.

Sea Urchins apparently can "see" with their whole body. Physorg.

Simulated Martian eclipse vid made using snaps from the pancam on Rover. Reddit.

Bad Astronomy have a neat explanation for this peculiar atmospheric anomaly

Retro Rollicks

J J Abrams churns out a reasonably entertaining Speilberg homage in Super 8, a kind of Goonies vs Cloverfield mashup. A bunch of kids growing up in small town 80's 'murika witness a train crash while making a low budget zombie flick and they find themselves in the centre of a conspiracy to keep the existence of an alien hidden from the world. There's plenty of charm and the young cast do a decent job as they bounce around town dodging the police and the army and Abrams keeps things ticking along with plenty of action and SFX but there's plenty of cheese and corn and the whole thing was just a little too wholesome for my taste.


X Men - First Class, though just as cheesy as Super 8, does a decent job in breathing some excitement into the increasingly turgid Marvel superhero franchise. This prequel is set in the Sixties when Xavier and Magneto become chums and begin the search for other mutes in an effort to combat a dastardly villain, Shaw, played by Kev Bacon. There's a ton of origin sub plots that flesh out the action and with two excellent performance from McAvoy & Fassbender that lends the cartoony proceedings a surprising amount of depth. Plus there's Rose Byrne in her scanties.

Seventies Prosers

The Sea, The Sea is a beautifully written novel by Iris Murdoch about a retired theatre luminary who buys a strange house on the coast for some peace and quiet but finds it hard to extricate himself from his past. The novel's main character Charles Arrowby is a self aggrandising boor with peculiar culinary taste yet somehow after the turmoil and tribulations which befall him during his coastal retreat his humanity blossoms and he sees life anew. The book bursts with odd bod side characters, comedy, tragedy, farce, social critique and a smattering of eastern mysticism and it's Murdoch's skill as a writer that sews these disparate pieces together into a strangely uplifting narrative. I've already bought a handful of Murdoch's other novels so I hope this wasn't a one off.

J G Ballard's High Rise is one of his most potent barbs into modern living with a narrative split between three residents of an ultra modern, near future, mega apartment complex that initially seems idyllic but soon descends into a dinner jacketed barbarism. The tailored convenience of the over designed building and it's stuffing with privileged middle/upper class professionals soon squeezes the narrow minds into madness and Ballard's skill in describing the moral decay of the architect, TV journalist and medical lecturer far surpasses his later Cocaine Nights and Super Cannes. Be warned though as usual with Ballard's work this is bleak and unrepentantly so. Apparently Nic Roeg tried to adapt it back in the 70's but it's finally heading to the big screen helmed by the excellent Vincenzo Natali.

Musical Mojo Melioration