It’s our first celebrity interview!
Sure, we got the chance to speak with Jesse Eisenberg during last years Edinburgh Film Festival, but due to moving house, we had to skip that.

So this time we made sure we’d not miss another opportunity!

Posting under the name Crafu, you can see our probing question to Bradley Cooper 4 lines from the end and 2 lines later comes his in depth answer.

If you like movies or you’re looking to get into the business, there’s no better starting point than reading through a few classic screen plays. I’m always amazed at the sheer vision people have when turning the words on the printed page, into the image on a silver screen. Even if you’re just looking to get a feel on how to correctly format scripts for film, you can’t really do much better than reading through some classics.

By reading films your already familiar with, you get a real grasp of just how much or how little is added during the making of the movie. Plus, most of the time you’ll get some extra scenes / dialogue, that’s been cut from the final film itself. Allowing you to have a much better understanding of the character arcs and motivations.

And the good news is that there’s loads of great places to find them.
I’m a big fan of – Daily Script
and IMSDB

So check them out if you have the chance.
China Town, Blade Runner and Shawshank are great places to start.

Apart from the game, the cheerleaders and the huge quanities of Gatoraid, there’s another reason to watch the Superbowl and that’s the trailers.

All the upcoming blockbusters for the year are lined up, so if you missed them first time round, here’s a catch up!

Now I might have missed something here.

Admittedly I did fall asleep at some point during the first episode of Outcasts on the BBC last night.

But, that was dull right? I mean, did anything really happen?

I was phasing in and out of consciousness pretty early on, so maybe I just slept through the really interesting bits.

However, from what I did see, Lee Amadala from BattleStar rocked up with a gun. (no firearms on the base!) he had a beard and was angry! He has a son, the son was annoying and kept repeating the poem Tiger Tiger, or maybe it was Eye of the Tiger from Rocky, I don’t care.

Then a lady got attacked

I think I saw Roz from Spooks at some point. And there was a VERY long conversation with the President of Carpathia (earth-a-like planet) and the captain of a large space ship sent from earth. “It’s taken 5 years to get here!” Why? Who cares?

The spaceship is going to land but it’s got problem with it’s heat shields. Don’t you find heat shields to be one of the most badly designed parts of spaceships?

Anyway, the president gives a speech and people on board the ship clap and I lose the will to live and go back to sleep.

When I wake up, the president is watching the spaceship’s progress on a monitor. One that’s been stolen from the set of Spooks by the look of it.

Blip – the spaceship lights up – Blip – the spaceship lights up – Blip – You get the idea

Now, I didn’t see much more, so I’m not sure if this happened, but do you think the spaceship might go – Blip – Gone?

I think that’s almost 100% certain to happen. Mind you, maybe the ship landed, or is going to land, or maybe an alien will attack it. Virtually ANYTHING could happen, but probably won’t if this first episode is anything to go by.

Outcasts seems to fall in to the most generic of sci-fi settings. It’s in space! Far away! You can tell that from the overly expensive first shot of the LARGE spaceship looming near the planet. BUT, on the ground it looks like earth. This earth. And there’s not really any cool future stuff as it’s a “frontier” community, so it’s more like a cowboy film with shanty town style buildings and lots of sand. Caprica this isn’t.

I don’t think I saw much more of this. In fact I think I woke up before the end and went to bed.

Maybe things will pick up once Daniel Mead from Ugly Betty turns up.

But, I’m not sure I’m going to be sticking about to find out…

…but now we’re back and we’re hungry to bring you more movie reviews.

Of course, you’ll just have to wait till I can be bothered to write them, but rest assured, it’s in the pipeline and it’ll be heading your way soon.

And at least you’ll finally get a new picture on the Homepage, not just that one of Kick Ass.

Might even do a Live Blog update of the Oscars….ok that won’t happen. But I might point out what glaring mistakes they’ve made when the winners are announced!

Every wanted to be a Super Hero?

Just a little short on the old powers? Well, why let that hold you back?

Kick Ass shows you all you need is guts, heart and a green and yellow onesie and you’re on your way!

District 9 is everything Steven Spielberg is incapable of doing with modern science fiction, and that is perhaps the greatest compliment I can bestow upon this film. No cuddly aliens here, no heavy-handed moralising that would make Walt Disney blush.

The premise supposes an alien aircraft landing sometime in the late 20th century, but subverts the usual Hollywood clichés by having the aliens land in Johannesburg – not the well trodden NY or LA. This provides an exciting and new environment for such a story, and being less familiar as a celluloid setting for the viewer, a more believable one. This is a clever tool, preventing the viewer from anticipating the usual landmarks being destroyed or saved. What follows is a film that ticks all the boxes that any science fiction fan could hope for. It’s gritty, realistic, packed with action and lashings and lashings of blood and guts. But where this film excels is in its ability to bring to the piece a new take on an old theme: how would we react if the little green men really did disembark on Earth?  The aliens, pejoratively described as “prawns” by the locals, have been quarantined into a slum, the District 9, and after 20 years, are to be moved by MNU, a shadowy multinational organisation set up to “assist” – exploit? – the aliens. We follow, in a hand-held style documentary style the rather grey, civil servant type, Wikus de Merwe in his day serving eviction notices to the “prawns”. Just as the prawns are physically abhorrent initially, Wikus is an emotionally unpleasant and weak character, but as the film progresses, we see both in a changing light. It is a credit to the production team that this is done with a light touch, and none of the usual heavy-handed Hollywood signposting “now you like all the aliens”.

The apartheid reference, along with the look of the slum itself, and the presence of a Nigerian mafia – supplying quite a lot of gunpower – keep South Africa itself as a key character in the story. That said, no viewer would leave feeling that any other country would have handled the situation in any other way.

The director, Neil Blongkamp clearly knows his sci-fi with nods to Robocop (Ed209 anyone?) and The Fly. But while these similarities are apparent, Blongkamp is not simply serving up a re-hash of old favourites, but utilises these as a vehicle to craft and enhance the story.

Anyone who enjoys sci-fi should get to their nearest multiplex asap, but this is also a film which, given the questions it asks of us, can be appreciated on a deeper level.

Peter Jackson – time to give your prodigy Blongkamp a gold star, top of the class!

PS: this is based on Blongkamp’s lovingly crafted 6min short, “Alive in Joburg”, which can be seen on YouTube…

Rusty got in first with THIS review but now it’s Prendy’s turn to dish the dirt, over to you Captain…

Oh my God! They killed Nazi’s. You Basterds!

France, 1941. Germans have occupied, Jews have fled and are in hiding. Enter, the Jew Hunter (Christoph Waltz). A fiercely determined Nazi officer whose life mission is to hunt out those remaining Jews. And so begins Inglorious Basterds.

Don’t waste your time on any school yard arguments as to whether this is Quentin Tarantino’s best film to date – it isn’t. But it is a very good film in its own right. And really, that’s all that matters.

All of Tarantino’s usual bag of tricks are here; slowly paced, dialogue snappy and heavy, elaborate swoops and pans alongside plenty of more old fashioned simple camera work.

Due to the different backdrop to all of his other films, any comparisons are kind of moot. It is very much a Tarantino film, but to the causal audience member, it’s ‘just’ another war flick. Albeit quite unlike anything else that’s gone before. If you must insist on comparisons then think The Dirty Dozen on steroids. Violence is not a key player here but when it does erupt it’s sudden and shocking. And bloody.

The dialogue is perhaps unsurprisingly very slick and it’s just as well as there’s plenty of it. Hamburger Hill this ain’t. But, thankfully the Tarantino blueprint fits rather snugly across the war room table – including the usual eclectic mixed up soundtrack; horns, wanging bass guitar and even some poppy 80’s synthing. Despite the fact that is really shouldn’t, the film works. I ask you to consider the last two and half hour epic that passes so quickly.

As you’ve probably heard by now this is pure fantasy – not a history lesson. Everything you know is altered, overlooked or just completely ignored in order to serve up a 152 minute Quentin-esque view on how things may have gone back in WW2 in an alternate, cooler reality. To argue against it is to miss the point. If you’re willing to just go with it, you’ll have a blast.

“Ve haf vays ov making you talk”

And so back to the Jew Hunter, Col. Hans Landa. Yes, he is the best thing in it. Speaking more languages than C3PO and effortlessly breathing menace, fear and breezy charisma into every loquacious conversation he is fantastic. You cannot help but like to hate him. Indeed, it is hard to imagine many other actors working today that would have fit the role so perfectly. Will Oscar come knocking? Who knows, but it would come as no surprise if Waltz is at least invited to the party – just pay close attention during the opening fifteen minutes or ‘chapter one’. Every pause, every nuance feels so measured and smooth, so right.

So how does everyone else fare? Pitt is fine, if a little panto-buffoon and a little too larger than life at times. Fassbender is top drawer during perhaps the film’s best and most nerve-wringing scene set within a bar cellar. (Certainly one of the better scenes of recent cinema – and ironically for a war film, when the action is all but absent – to start with at any rate). It’s just a shame he isn’t a used a little more. The same should be said for Til Schweiger as Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz – think ‘the hard basterd’.

Despite popular opinion, Eli Roth’s (Sgt. Donny Donowitz), the ‘Bear Jew’ does not spoil the film. True, this is probably due to the fact that he doesn’t have enough screen time to do so, but the fact remains that he doesn’t. He’s fine and judging by the way he can swing a bat, it’s best to just leave it at that.

Diane Kruger turns in her finest performance to date and proves that when prompted she actually can act.

The final act is perhaps the best with some very memorable imagery is included (watch for the burning curtain, you’ll see). Ripe with symbolism, irony and playful piss-taking (on all fronts) there are many, many worse ways to spend a couple of hours.

Keep an open mind and you’ll find a feisty boys-own adventure that’s begging not to be taken too seriously and where the rules don’t apply. If, on the other hand you take offence to the revision of history and the ‘Hollywood-ising’ of some pretty dark times, then it’s not for you. But then, aren’t you just being a bit of an awkward basterd?