Three films I have been waiting for

Three films I have been waiting for... No 1 Ridley Scott's Prometheus

Three films I have been waiting for... No 2 Peter Jackson's The Hobbit

Three films I have been waiting for... No 3 Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises

Also out this year... Chronicle / Sherlock Holmes - Game of Shadows / The Raven / Hugo. 2012 looks like a good year for films.

Predator Escapes

Don't cinemas want my custom? My son's and I were going to go and see the new movie 'Predators' on Thursday night, but when my eldest called to book tickets he was told that the only showings during the week were at 23:30 hours and that they were not in 3-D. If we wanted to see it at a sensible time and in 3-D we would have to go Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Due to my work pattern I cannot make those showings so I guess I will have to either buy the DVD or wait until it is on Sky TV.

My original post about Predators is here.

American McGee's Alice is back

Be afraid, be very afraid because eleven years after the original American McGee's Alice is coming back and it should be more twisted and scary than ever. I can't wait. Unfortunately I will have to, as it is not due out until next year.

The rumours started when Thewhiterabbit Tweeted, "Follow me and stay tuned for a major announcement from the mad world of Alice today!" Thewhiterabbit's Tweet was then retweeted on the official EA Twitter, leaving Alice fans desperate to know more.

The official website is now up with screen shots and more teasers http://www.ea.com/alice and there is even a Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/alicemadnessreturns so it is all true. Now all we have to do is wait for the nightmare to begin.

The game info on the Alice website reads:

Eleven years ago a horrific fire took Alice’s family from her and left her terribly burned—and her mind terribly scarred. Afterwards she was confined to Rutledge Asylum, struggling to come to terms with her demons by slipping into her fantasy world of Wonderland. Now, after ten years, she has finally secured her release--yet she still bears the heavy psychological burden of that tragic event.

In Alice: Madness Returns, Alice is released from the asylum to a London psychiatrist’s care. As nightmarish hallucinations continue to haunt her and invade her reality, she seeks to understand her torment in order to recover herself. Her mind in tatters, she is unable to resolve the fear and neuroses prompted by her strange memories, dreams, and visions. Her relocation to London seems only to add to their number and intensity.

Perhaps she’ll do better in Wonderland. She always has. She travels there, seeking what the “real” world can’t provide: security, knowledge, and the truth about the past. But in her absence, Wonderland too has suffered. Something has gone horribly wrong, and now a great evil is descending upon what once was her beautiful refuge.

Can Alice save Wonderland—and herself—from the madness that consumes them both?

Follow the White Rabbit!

One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all
Go ask Alice
When she's ten feet tall

And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall
Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
Call Alice
When she was just small

When men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving low
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know

When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's "off with her head!"
Remember what the dormouse said:
"Feed your head. Feed your head. Feed your head"

White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane

Predators - Cult classic or cheap rip off?

When I saw they were making a new Predator movie I was filled with mixed emotions. The first Predator with Arnie playing Arnie was as near a masterpiece as comic book sci-fi had ever been before. It maybe does not hold a candle to some of what we have seen since but I loved it all the same. The second movie Predator 2 was enjoyable but predictable and the acting was that of a television pilot, but still good enough for me want to own it on DVD.

Alien vs Predator was the movie I was hoping for but was so short if you blinked you missed it. It was quality but it left me feeling cheated, just like I had just had a nice juicy steak but there were no vegetables, pepper sauce, fries or onion rings. I hoped AVP Requiem would be the chocolate gateaux and cream that I missed in the first movie, but it was a damp squid and not even worth £3.oo for the DVD from the bargain bin. The only reason to own it was for completeness.

Up until AVP Requiem I thought that the Alien movies were far superior and a couple of them are still up there in my top 100 movies. Even the worst of them was better than Predator II. I however feel that the Predator potential for engaging sequels had been missed. If the quality of the second movie had matched the first then this new movie might not have been so long coming.

It is therefore that I await Predators with a mixture of excitement and impending disappointment. Having been bitten by AVP Requiem at the checkout I will not be queuing at the cinema or buying it when it comes out on DVD unless I have it on good personal authority for my sons that it is up to scratch or I have seen it on TV and think it is worth adding to my collection.

The reports are good so far. Adrien Brody plays a darker version of the Arnie type character with a good few more brain cells. Lots of stupid mistakes that we have seen in similar action movies are avoided such as people running out of ammunition when there are weapons and ammo lying there from fallen comrades and the commandos act like soliders rather than frightened school girls. Laurence Fishburne should be okay and the producer Robert Rodriguez studied at the feet of Quentin Tarantino. The director Nimród Antal, who's name sounds like an anagram, is someone I don't know and I have never seen any of his movies. Lets hope he is not the weak link.

There are always going to be lots of people who don't get this movie and it was never going to be very cerebral but I am hoping for a fast and furious romp that I can sit back and enjoy without engaging the brain to much. I expect a chill out and an adrenalin rush and not a "why did I bother watching that crap?" moment. Cult classic or cheap rip off? We will have to watch it to see.

Patrick Stewart Knighted

Congratulations to one of my personal favorite British actors Patrick Stewart who was knighted by the Queen at Buckingham Palace recently. Most well known for playing Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek the next Generation he endeared himself to me by doing a magically job of playing Professor X in the X-Men films. As a long time Star Trek and X-Men fan it could so easily have been different, another actor could have ruined both roles but Sir Patrick did a marvelous job. Patrick Stewart is a fully trained Shakespearean actor which has set him up well for his TV and film rolls. As a lover of Shakespeare I have also watched him in various plays and even when he is hamming it up he can pull it off with a certain panache where others would seem unconvincing and fake. I think it is this ability that made him so good as Captain of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701D). One of the best things I think he has done is to bring 'Trekkies' in to the audience for his Shakespearean performances who would never have normally gone to watch such a thing. An appriciation of fine art, poetry and theatre is sadly lacking in this TV soap generation. Well done Sir Patrick!

Follow the White Rabbit

I have always loved Lewis Carroll's books and poems, but felt Disney's treatment of Alice in Wonderland, while being suitably wonderful at the time did not completely catch the surreal madness and magic that the books conjured up in my imagination. Hopefully Tim Burton's version due out on 5th March in the UK will go some way to capturing that feeling, although to be honest it looks more than a little scary to me. Many people these days suspect Mr Carroll was smoking something illegal when he wrote the books and from what I have seen of the trailer I have to ask if Tim Burton was also partaking of the same substance. Without firm evidence I will refrain from judging and just say that I think this is the film I have been waiting for someone to make since I played American McGee's Alice, a third person PC video game released in 2000.

Rumours abound that cinemas in the UK may boycott the film entirely due to Disney wanting to release the DVD version only twelve weeks after it is shown at the cinema Around 85% of Dutch cinemas have already refused to show it in the Netherlands. I sincerely hope that does not happen here as part of the experience, of what is already being called Tim Burton's Masterpiece, is that it is in 3D. Hopefully if it lives up to the hype it will be one of those films where after seeing it on the big screen you need to buy the DVD just to have a piece of it and maybe that is why Disney wants to get it in the shops so quickly.

Feed your head and get ready to follow the White Rabbit.