Farewell Shirley: A Memorial for Leslie Nielsen

In what is a sad day for film fans the world over, Canadian actor Leslie Nielsen has died in America, he was 84 years old.

Nielsen was a veteran actor, best known for his comedic timing in comedy hits The Naked Gun (he would do 3 films in that series) and Flying High (The Australian title of the 1980 disaster spoof Airplane! which believe it or not actually out grossed The Empire Strikes Back at the Australian Box Office).

Nielsen's comic timing in both of those movies was genius, as he played all of the jokes completely straight laced and it made for some extremely funny and memorable laughs, my favourite being the singing of the American National Anthem on the baseball field in the first Naked Gun movie, as well as his "I am serious, and don't call me Shirley" line in Airplane!

But there was one small role he did that surprised me and that was as the sea captain in the original Poseidon Adventure, there was no trace of his comic timing in that small role and it impressed me that he was the real deal as an actor; convincing, believable and funny, what more can you ask for.

And so we must say, farewell Shirley, and thanks for the memories.

Film Review - Predators (2010)

Predators is the newest installment in the Predator series and comes from producer Robert Rodriguez and concerns Royce played by Adrian Brody who awakes in freefall to a distant alien world, completely unaware that he is not alone and in for the hunt of his life.

I approached this movie with dog shit expectations as everything I read about this movie had me convinced that it was going to be little more than a remake of the original Predator movie from 1987 which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and was directed by John McTiernan so that was my expectation.

And to be frank, it didn't even meet that as this movie to me was a complete joke of a movie, and the main reasons why are:

1. All of the best bits felt like riffs on scenes from the first movie; from the jungle setting, the skinned bodies, the use of the mini gun, even the final fight all of those scenes were handled far better in the first film.

2. Not one person in the main group is worth giving two shits about as most of the time they come across as obnoxious dicks who shout or whine about their predicament, in the first Predator Arnold's group was built up before they got to the jungle, here they're dropped into the jungle right away and as a result, you don't care about any of them and just want the Predators to kill them.

All in all, I hated this movie almost as much as this year's Robin Hood, long-time Predator fans may like it but as someone who enjoyed the first movie I felt like I was watching a rehash of it and not a new Predator story, so just a .5 out of 5.

Blu-Ray Review - Avatar: Extended Collector's Edition

Avatar: Extended Collector's Edition

Avatar I've covered a lot before, from the film's 2009 blockbuster release and last April's Blu-Ray release that while it had top notch Audio/Visual quality, it was lacking in any kind of bonus material.

Well, enter stage left this new 3-disc Blu-Ray release, but it can't be said that consumers weren't warned that this was coming, as director James Cameron took every effort to tell consumers when the original disc hit stores that a new special edition disc would come in November, thereby giving them the chance to either wait for this disc or buy both, well it would seem that the vast majority of consumers chose to buy just the first release and not bother with this one.

But before I get into the nitty gritty, you're going to ask "but is there anything new?" and my answer: you bet, not only do you get the original theatrical release, you also get the recent Special Edition which graced cinemas back in August as well as the new Collector's Extended Cut that contains not only the new footage from August but an additional 8 minutes on top of that, most notable is a new opening of the film set on Earth, as well as some additional scenes regarding Sigourney Weaver's character, Dr. Grace Augustine.

The Blu-Ray:

April's bare bones release of the film was hailed for its top notch Audio/Visual Quality and rightly so, it was one of the 2 or 3 best Blu-Ray's I'd ever seen in terms of A/V Quality behind Hot Fuzz and Blade Runner, here well time to take a deep breath as we go into this new release in detail and explore the behind the scenes material that goes behind the making of Avatar:

Video and Audio:

Disc 1 comes with three movie versions which I outlined earlier, the theatrical release which broke just about every box office record around the world, the recent Special Edition re release from August and the new Collector's Extended Cut with the long awaited Earth footage.

Miracously, despite having three full versions of the film on the one disc, there doesn't seem to be any loss in the A/V Quality, the previous disc was very well detailed in its visual quality and well mixed audio wise, here you get the same visual quality and the same mix which is a DTS-HD 5.1 mix, to be honest though I don't really know if there is any real difference apart from the compression on the disc so it will depend on what setup you have to watch the disc on.

Extras:

Alright, time to take a deep breath as there is A LOT of extras on this disc, two full discs worth as well as some minor extras on the movie disc so here we go:

Disc 1:

Direct Access to the New and Additional Scenes: A very very cool feature is that if you only want to watch the new scenes separately of the two extended cuts you can, all you have to do is go to the extras section and then go to "From Collector's Extended Cut" and boom, all of the new scenes are there for you to watch from the main menu, is that good customer service or what.

As for my take on the new scenes (and yes, I have watched them all), personally I'm very split on them, the new Earth opening and the scenes involving Grace's school and what happened there are terrific and could have gone back into the main feature without damaging the slightly lyrical pacing the final theatrical release has but the vast majority of them aren't that good and are probably best left out of the film, even though the CG work is very impressive, arguably more impressive than the final film, best shown in the extended death of Tsu'Tey played by Laz Alonso, this bodes well for when the film's inevitable sequel hits cinemas in a few years time.

Disc 2:

Four menu items are here on disc 2

"Deleted Scenes: Never Before Seen"
"Capturing Avatar"
"A Message from Pandora"
"Production Materials"

With that, let's start to look at each of the items individually:

Deleted Scenes - Never Before Seen: About 70 minutes worth of deleted scenes feature here which also include a user's guide for viewing the unfinished shots, which these are combining live action footage with template CG work which is very interesting to watch as a fan of the film.

As for my favorites, well they would have to be "Pandora Rules", in which Stephen Lang's Col. Quaritch gives the full safety briefing and "You're a Long Way from Earth" in which Giovanni Ribisi tries to stop Quaritch from attacking only to get confronted big time, apart from that the other scenes were okay and probably best left out, one nice part of this section is that you only get the user's guide foisted on you when you select a deleted scene for the first time, after that you're off and running to the races.

Capturing Avatar: A 4 part making of documentary that runs just an hour and a half and covers almost everything you would want to know about the movie from the initial conception, the casting, creating the performance capture technology even the reaction to the teaser trailer and inevitable release which is sadly slightly overlooked, it's rumored that about an hour was cut from this doco which I would like to see as it might have plugged some of the holes and covered some of the topics like the release in a little more detail, but it's still a great documentary and if you're a fan, check it out.

A Message from Pandora: A 20 minute Featurette where Cameron talks about his love of nature and his journey to the Amazon Basin where a massive hydro electric dam was planned to be built but it would also displace about 25,000 natives who depend on the area, watching this featurette two things came to mind: first, the parallels between that and the plot of the movie and also the city deep within the basin reminded me very much of the base that the humans occupy in the movie, a good watch.

Production Materials: A lot of stuff here, from a 17 minute art reel from 2006, a motion capture test with two different actors, a slew of VFX progression reels, even a crew film called "The Volume", but my favorite has to be the motion capture test based on another project called "Brother Termite" as it showed a CG character in the real world pretty damn convincingly, hopefully Cameron gives that challenge a go soon, the runner up would be seeing Zoe Saldana get her life cast, good lord I couldn't believe it as this purple and green goop was going on her face

Disc 3:

I said there was a lot and we have one last disc full of extras, here though there are only 3 menu items:

"Scene Deconstruction"
"Featurettes"
"Avatar Archives"

With that out of the way, let's get started:

Scene Deconstruction: Using your Blu-Ray remote you can select 17 different scenes from the film and have a look at three separate options: The original performance capture material, the template CG and the final film with the Performance Capture material in a PiP reference square, this was unbelievably fun to watch as you get a firsthand look at how some of the CG scenes with the push of a button as well as seeing how just dead on the performance capture really was, the buttons you want for this section are Red for the Final one, Yellow for the template CG (which looks like an old N64 game) and Green for the Performance Capture, well worth watching.

Featurettes: 17 Production Featurettes here on a range of different subjects, from the creation of some of the film's creatures such as the Ikran (Banshee), the Thanator, the gunships, the AMP Suit, the various cameras developed for the film and even down to the scoring and editing of the picture, some pretty cool stuff here which is worth checking out.

Avatar Archives: Possibly my favorite section of the entire set, there is all sorts of fan goodness here that I will be covering one item at a time, so read on dear reader:

Teaser Trailer: The film's Teaser Trailer is presented here in full 1080p HD and 5.1 sound, containing some different angles and unfinished CG work, this teaser gathered a very mixed reaction when released last year, although I'll never forget the pure glee at seeing this in a cinema when I went to see (500) Days of Summer late last year, something from my cinema going days that will stay with me for a long time.

Theatrical Trailer: If the Teaser Trailer garnered a mixed response, the Theatrical Trailer won over a whole slew of new fans, this fantastic trailer (which I must have watched 1000's of times prior to the film's cinema release) is also in full 1080p HD and 5.1 sound and I must say that it's absolutely delightful to see it here on this disc as it wouldn't have been the same without it, or the Teaser for that matter.

The Original Scriptment: Pretty much where it all began, James Cameron's original 1995 treatment for Avatar, and it's an utterly fantastic read especially as it goes into much more detail about Josh's (Josh was later changed to Jake) life on Earth which is more grim than in the final film, there's also a character who doesn't appear in the film at all, someone who's Avatar died, terrific stuff.

Screenplay Written by James Cameron: Pretty much the film's shooting script, a good read but not as good as the Scriptment.

Pandorapedia: Pretty much everything (and I mean everything) you could ever want to know about Pandora and it's inhabitants both human and Na'vi is covered here in massive detail, you could spend hours and hours in this although as I write this I haven't found the section on Toruk Macto, again great stuff.

The Songs: Here the Na'vi songs are translated into English as well as the original Na'vi language, I never really picked up on the Na'vi songs but it's heartening to see them here.

The Art of Avatar: An Extensive collection of artwork, photos and blueprints on just about everything in the film from the various weapons, the AMP Suit (VERY cool to see the blueprints of this baby) and more, what else is there left to say expect check it out.

Any further objections:

Actually, no apart from the lost hour on the making of which would have made this set feel a little more definitive but I will say in a very nice touch that at any point you stop any of the discs and eject them from your system, when you put it back in you will be asked to resume playback from wherever you left off, now that's good thinking.

Final Thoughts:

If you are an Avatar fan, you HAVE to have this disc, even if you bought the April release like I did to satisfy yourself in having the film then and there, to be quite honest the last time I remember being satisfied with a top notch special edition release was the Blade Runner set from 2007 and although it isn't as good as that set (and it will be a long time if ever before I see an SE as good as that one) it's the best one since as far as I'm concerned, so Go get it, Now I say.

Editorial - Is the Social Network this Generation's Wall Street?

Please Note: The Following Editorial contains spoilers for both The Social Network and Wall Street so if you haven't seen either or both of these movies, read on at your own risk.

Having recently seen the new David Fincher/Aaron Sorkin film The Social Network, which details Mark Zuckerburg and the origins of the hit networking site Facebook, I couldn't help but be reminded of the first Wall Street film director Oliver Stone in 1987, not his recent 2010 sequel Money Never Sleeps, the reason I was reminded of that film so much was how this movie concluded its proceedings, even as I type this I can't help but compare the two so I decided to ask this simple question:

Is the Social Network this Generation's Wall Street?

Well, the answer to that question may not be so clear-cut depending on how you read it but I'm going to tell my own personal opinion as to why I feel that it is, let's begin shall we:

First off, we have the naive dreamer who becomes motivated for his own selfish reasons to be something more than his working class compatriots, in Wall Street it was Bud Fox played by Charlie Sheen, a naive stockbroker working for Jackson Steiner, one of the finance firms on Wall Street who wants to rise above his working class father played by Martin Sheen and become a player, like his financial idol Gordon Gekko played by Michael Douglas, Bud wants to do this for his own reasons, to become more successful than his father, who he sees at one point in the film as a "jealous old man who can't stand the fact that his son's become more successful than he has" but as Martin Sheen is quick to fire back "What you see, is a guy who never measured success by the size of his WALLET"

In Social Network you also have the naive dreamer in Mark Zuckerburg, incidentally a real life character played brilliantly by young actor Jessie Eisenberg, here instead of being a young trader, Zuckerburg is a computer genius who after being dumped goes on a bender and furiously comes up with what's called Face mash, ranking the women of Harvard against each other, from here he is hired by two Harvard sporting champions to come up with a Harvard social network, but from here Zuckerburg shows his dark side, taking their idea and building on it for his own purposes.

And from there we come to the link in the centre, the one character that ties it all together and also serves as the catalyst for these events, in Wall Street that character is none other than Gordon Gekko himself, played brilliantly by Michael Douglas, who also went on to (quite rightly I might add) win an Oscar for his effort.

This leads us to the second archetype from both films, the slick businessman with dark intentions, in Wall Street it's Gekko that show us this side in the scenes where Gordon takes Bud under his wing, showing him how to work the system in terms of getting inside information as well as showing him the high life of wealth, power, luxury and women but also subtly manipulating him at the same time in the means of driving a wedge between him and his one real link to the real world therefore leaving the naive dreamer ripe for the taking, as shown in the scenes where Gordon wants to take over the airline where Martin Sheen works and his manipulation of Bud shows us that he wants to drive a wedge between the two.

In the Social Network, this archetype actually cuts both ways, for these reasons: in Zuckerburg himself there are actually traces of Gordon Gekko in the beginning despite sharing a comparison with Bud at the same time, completely willing to manipulate anyone and anything around him for his own selfish reasons, Zuckerburg in the movie keenly studies everyone and everything around him and is not afraid to use it for his own purposes of power but even though we can see his own intentions, the characters he interacts with don't, and that leads to unfortunate consequences for them.

Not only do we have traces of Gekko in the film's lead, we also have a literal incarnation of those themes, this time with the character of Sean Parker played surprisingly well by pop star Justin Timberlake, Parker in a lot of ways is like Gekko, he's played in the same market (he co-founded Napster) and has a slightly more luxurious lifestyle with a nice California house with its own pool, house parties, girls, drugs, the works.

And just like Gordon with Bud in Wall Street, Parker promises all of this to Zuckerburg by asking for a stake in his company, something his friend Eduardo Saverin played by Andrew Garfield (who is to become to become the next Spider-Man) can't believe that his friend would fall into.

Which brings us to our final archetype that ties both films together, the working class man who has his head on his shoulders and is distrusting of shady success, in Wall Street this is embodied by Bud's father Carl played by Charlie Sheen's real life dad Martin Sheen, Carl sees right through Gekko and knows all too well that he stands for nothing more than Greed, out for a quick buck and taking no prisoners while he does so.

In the Social Network, this character is Eduardo, who I mentioned earlier, Eduardo works hard to help Mark set up Facebook but is distrustful of Parker in the same way Bud's father distrusts Gordon, Sean is successful but also shady, as evidenced with his Napster dealings, something Eduardo doesn't like and tries to call Mark's attention to it before being dismissed in the same Bud dismissed his father as a jealous old man, but Eduardo's retribution is more swift than Carl's.

But lastly, we have the generation factor, Wall Street defined the "me, me, me" yuppie culture of the 1980's as well as the corporate greed that ran like wildfire back then and still has drastic ramifications today, The Social Network defines the social world we currently inhabit, people use Facebook for many reasons, to find friends, keep in contact with family members even play games like Farmville, not only do you have that but you also have the discussions regarding copyright and intellectual property law that help to frame the film's narrative structure, a debate raging strong today.

So there you have it folks, a little long but I wanted to explain not only the Wall Street comparison in my main review of The Social Network but also the question posed above as to why I feel that Social Network is this generation's Wall Street, now you may disagree and think I'm full of it, but this is purely my own opinion and as always, interpret what I say the way you choose to, not how I feel you should.

Film Review - Animal Kingdom (2010)

Animal Kingdom is an Australian crime story regarding the Overdose of the mother of a kid named J, who is then sent to live with his grandmother played by Jacki Weaver, but what he finds is something very dark indeed.

Upon this movie's theatrical release in Australia, there was a lot of very rave reviews greeting the film, most of them along the lines of "YOU MUST SEE THIS MOVIE RIGHT NOW", now I don't have a problem with that one bit as I've done on more than one occasion but I'm sorry but here I didn't feel that love, what I saw instead was a fairly straightforward crime story that would have probably worked just as well as a story for the Australian TV Series "Underbelly" in fact it may have worked better there so it could have developed its characters a little more, as the only interesting characters were the detective played by Guy Pearce easily the best thing about the movie, J's Girlfriend and Barry, a friend of the crime family played by Joel Edgerton.

Now I know I'm going to sound harsh on this but I did not enjoy this movie very much at all, mainly due to the lack of character development and the really annoying way everyone in the crime family spoke, that long droll that sound as if they all had a binge before shooting, if you like crime stories or Underbelly you'll probably like this film but if you don't then you won't so just a 1 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - The A-Team (2010)

The A-Team is based on the hit TV series from the 1980's and stars Liam Neeson as Hannibal Smith, the leader of a small squad of men who are charged with killing an American general and disgraced from the service, but Hannibal is not one to go quietly without a plan.

I wasn't expecting much from this movie at all but I was intrigued as it starred Liam Neeson, one of my favourite actors but low and behold I actually had a good time with this time, director Joe Carnahan goes wild and woolly with his camerawork in the action scenes bringing to them a real style, but what anchors this movie is the four main leads, I mentioned Neeson who is also pretty good as Hannibal, there's also Bradley Cooper from The Hangover who does well with his role as does 'Rampage' Jackson a UFC fighter taking the Mr. T role but not quite succeeding with it but the standout here is Sharlto Copley from District 9, looking disturbingly like Michael Bay he plays Mad Murdoch and is pretty much as crazy as Bay, pulling off some insane helicopter moves.

All in all, it's a serviceable action picture that was better than I had expected, worth a 3 day rental fee so a 2 out of 5.

Film Review - How to Train your Dragon (2010)

How to Train your Dragon is the latest production from the animation arm of Dreamworks and concerns a island of Vikings who are trained to kill Dragons who attack their isle some parts of the year, but the son of one Viking voiced by Gerard Butler has other ideas.

Dragon is one of the highlights of the first third of 2010, which normally is full of forgettable pictures that studios don't want to deal with that much, Craig Ferguson steals the show in terms of the voice actor department as the teacher of the young Viking students, there are some impressive flying sequences and action scenes and surprisingly I was reminded of James Cameron's Avatar, in terms of how he begins to see the dragons and also of how events take shape at the end of the film.

All in all, this is not bad, kids and adults should find it enjoyable and Dreamworks Animation have made their first genuine hit, so a solid 3 out of 5.