Not the official trailer, not yet, for Sylvester Stallone’s take on 80s action movies – The Expendables. It has a ma-hoo-sive cast – Sly, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Randy Couture, Dolph Lundgren (!), TERRY CREWS, Steve Austin, etc.
Some has said it looks a bit cheesy, but that might be intentional; I watched enough buddy-buddy 80s movies growing up to have an affection for the genre – Tango and Cash, anyone?
Anyway, here’s the trailer, looks like good, popcorn entertainment:
H/T to FirstShowing.Net
Juts found this Youtube compilation in my favourites, worth sharing 
Some classic films in there, and some I’ve not seen – bit light on the Jet Li, unfortunately…
Not so much as a sequel, as a Tony Jaa’s great-great-great-etc.-grandfather’s life story:
Yes, it’s in French, but come on – you really don’t need to speak French to watch Tony Jaa wrestle a crocodile and shin people in the head several times
Friday just gone, I decided to cheer myself up and go see The Hangover. I’d kept putting off seeing it as I’m short on funds, but I needed cheering up.
The film concerns four friends off for a bachelor night in Las Vegas, the usual thing: a suite, smart clothes, a few drinks up on the roof – and then nothing. You see nothing of the night, and when everyone finally comes round, they find one of their number is missing (the groom), and no-one can remember anything of the night.
The film then becomes a quest to find the groom, using little clues they find along the way, such as a medical bracelet on one of the character’s wrists, a baby left by a stripper, a tiger in the bathroom (“F***, I keep forgetting about the tiger”), a crazy naked chinese guy, Mike Tyson, etc.
The four main actors (Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha) are absolutely fantastic, and you will feel a lot of sympathy for Ed Helms’ character Stu, and feel just, well, confused by Zach Galifianakis’ character Alan. Justin Bartha is the groom Doug, so you don’t see much of him but he’s a good solid chap, and Bradley Cooper’s (a.k.a. Will Tippen from Alias) schoolteacher Phil is just a great character: a bit amoral, but still doing the right thing for his friends and trying to get the measure of his new friend Alan (who’s so odd).
The comedy is just spot on. In my Star Trek review, I said I hadn’t been so entertained at the cinema for a long time. Well, this is a completely different film, but I can’t remember laughing so much at a film for quite some time either. Proper, laugh-out-loud laughing at that. The comedy comes from unexpected events, a bit of slapstick (oh, that poor baby), situations, and other things. To be honest, I don’t want to even explain some of the jokes, or quote some of the hilarious dialogue, as you should really watch the film
Here’s the trailer to whet your appetite, and I really recommend you see the film – I’m buying it when it’s on Blu-Ray:
Whilst I was watching the gut-bustingly funny The Hangover, I saw the trailer for Sherlock Holmes:
I was interested in the film before, but the trailer does a good job of increasing my interest – looks good, a modern-day Sherlock Holmes
Here’s the trailer for Richard Kelly’s new film, The Box. In it, a couple facing financial ruin are given an opportunity to press a button and get a million dollars – at the expense of someone, somewhere dying.
Richard Kelly was responsible for Donnie Darko and Southland Tales. I loved the former (even though it took a while to work out), but have not yet seen the latter. The trailer does a great job of piqueing my interest, so I’ll be looking forward to seeing it.
H/T to FirstShowing.net
Here’s the trailer for Zombieland, from first-time director Ruben Fleischer, starring Woody Harrelson (yay!) and Jesse Eisenberg. Basically, instead of going down the tried and tested “oh no, virus, zombies, what do we do, headshot, battle for survival” route, it looks like just out and out fun
Comparisons with Shaun Of The Dead are sure to be made, and I’ll wait until I’ve seen Zombieland to make them. That said, I enjoyed SOTD, but at the end it just went a bit too gory for my liking (and zombie-ing a couple of key characters was unkind).
Zombie Kill Of The Week!
Hat-tip to FirstShowing.net
This is just sheer genius, it’s basically Magnum P.I.’s opening with clips from Star Wars, and is very well done:
Done by TheCBVee, found via Movieblog.
Wow. I mean, seriously, wow. I have not been that entertained at a cinema (by a film, no sniggering at the back) for a long time. If you’ve been living under a rock for the last year or so, here’s a quick introduction to J. J. Abrams new Star Trek film:
It’s old Star Trek, but set in the past (kind of), when everyone was younger – Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty, the lot. It’s extremely, extremely well acted; Chris Pine does an absolutely fantastic job playing Captain Kirk, but it’s his Kirk, not Shatner’s, although you can see a bit of the man he will become. And we find out that Kirk’s penchant for green female aliens started early Zachary Quinto is also outstanding as Spock – he could have easily played it cold, logical and aloof, but he does a great job of portraying Spock’s human side and a little bit of arrogance too.
The story is as exactly described as above – it’s how the whole crew meet and deal with a Romulan threat that has suddenly appeared (hint, hint) and is hell-bent on revenge for something that hasn’t happened yet… The script, by Kurtzman and Orci (look ‘em up, they used to write for Hercules!), was never laboured or hackneyed, and they got all the signature lines in – but just once, they knew not to over-do it. Abrams direction is fantastic – the pacing is excellent, the action scenes are incredible, edge of your seat stuff, and he handles emotional scenes with the gravitas they require.
The only reason it’s not a 10 out of 10 is the sheer bloody amount of light flares in the film, a little off-putting… As previously stated, I can’t recall a time recently where I’ve been thrilled, moved and amused quite so much (again, by the film, nothing else 
) – the first ten minutes of the film are pivotal (in more ways than one) and very emotional. And cripes, the special effects were incredible – spaceships going into warp, the orbital drill, the space debris of some unfortunate spaceships, etc. All very believable.
When I first heard of the film, I wasn’t that interested, especially when I heard they were going back to the academy, e.g. back to the past. I was wrong – as much as I love the Star Trek films (I’m a little too young to be a Star Trek TV fan), this film is, well, different from them, and dare I say it, a lot better. Or, in other words, this ain’t your dad’s Star Trek.
I look forward to the next one.
It’s the usual set-up, bachelor party in Vegas, and it looks rather good:
Hat-tip to FirstShowing.net
Patrick Boivin is a genius at stop-motion animation, here’s the proof:
Courtesy of The Movie Blog
Some talented folk here It encapsulates the whole of Kill Bill 1 and 2 and contains comic violence:
A humourous look at what a Watchmen game might play like…
Hat-tip to Cinematical’s Those Wacky Kids with their Watchmen… post (check out the I’m Marvel / I’m DC Youtube clip)
Holy crap. Go and see it. It is phenomenal. That is all.
Edit: I might write more later, but there’s just too much to explain – it’s a hell of a film…
Edit 2: Well, as mentioned, I thought the film was phenomenal. It charts the interactions of a group of superheroes (just normal people in masks, a refreshing change) and what happens to them after one of them is murdered. A hunt is on to find the killer, led by a seriously unhinged character called Rorschach, and he’s aided and hindered by his friends, who are also masked avengers. Oh, and there’s Dr. Manhattan, a man made (almost) God by being caught in a physics field experiment – he can be any size (no sniggering at the back), exist in multiple places at the same time and turn you inside out just by thinking it. Oh, and he’s usually naked as well – don’t sit too close to the screen.
All this set against an alternative version of the 80s, where Nixon is starting his third term, a nuclear war between the US and Russia is imminent (desipte the presence of Dr. Manhattan), gang warfare, etc.
And I’ve not even mentioned the fantastic soundtrack (some very iconic songs of the times in there), the special effects, the well-choreographed fight scenes, the (brief) gore, the VERY good acting from the main players, and so on…
Do yourself a favour and go and watch it, but don’t drink too much liquid as the film clocks in at 2 hours 42 minutes, and there’s a longer cut planned for DVD/Blu-Ray release at some point, which will include The Tales Of The Black Freighter, an allegory / companion to the main story.
Then you can read the graphic novel and compare and contrast
