See you, Space Cowboy...

(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGnNehAp-ri5OddzsjQ6OQyrFlqJPLtdzc9q3tA5l30gWovjVf1jdeT2LtpiiXRsJlYu0VFRO5TCi6UDxWj0dWeXzfGoSmP9nR5hXWOfM8edjP3X4mHVNADKsf0mlIJTV5qKifCG3uARs/s400/cowboybebopnf5.jpg - Original sauce)

It seems like yet another conversion to film is in the post. Keanu Reeves seems to manage to worm his way into starring as Spike in the upcoming Cowboy Bebop film, reports Screenrave.com (http://screencrave.com/2009-01-16/keanu-reeves-to-star-in-cowboy-bebop/) "Reeves will star in the Bebop film as Spike Spiegel, the show’s main character who makes a living as a space traveling bounty hunter." Cowboy Bebop is possibly the greatest anime show ever created, to the uninformed - the only anime show that i can actually said i genuinely enjoyed watching, and feel no shame admitting so (I would like to point out that it is one of the few i've attempted to watch, however) . In fact, go watch it now, all of it, then come back and read this. Done?

You should now have an overwhelming sense of fear. Reeves is possibly the worst selection to be cast as Spike, ever. The man has no ability to lose any of his personal traits, in any of his films, and instead of giving the role to an actor who could give a decent performance as the apathetic, mysterious but loveable Spike, the Powers That Be have given it to Reeves, who will play the same role he always does - Keanu Reeves, being Keanu Reeves.

I say to you know that I have no aspirations for this film conversion, so long as Reeves is associated to the project. To be honest, i'm more worried that his terrible performance will in fact put more people off seeing the original series (Go watch it already if you haven't, it's art, and proof that Anime can be a mature medium instead of just being giant robots and japanese schoolgirls). There is however, the part of me inside, that still has a flicker of hope, that somehow that *this* conversion will be the one that's truly epic and justifiable to why it was made apart from to drag in the punters money. Just like the flicker I had for every whatever-to-film conversion before it. Jon out

-J

The campaign game

A brief interlude from film news right now: instead i'm going to off on a different tangent and write a little about a few campaigns websites that do incredibly good and selfless work for others. To start off with, i'm going to mention a more well known organisation, Greenpeace (http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/) :

• The home-page contains links to the following pages: blog, about greenpeace, what we do, what you can do, donate now, and media centre - there's a lot of information on each of these pages, which are easily accessable
• A criticism however is having to register to post comments - perhaps a anonyminity opition would attract more people to share their views?

Next on the list is, The Campaign For Real Ale, or Camra for short (http://www.camra.org.uk/home.aspx) A fan of the Chelmsford Beer Festival that it hosts annually, I found it generally a joy to go through their website:

• Again, like the Greenpeace website, there's a lot of information on the home-page.Whilst Camra started like as literally a campaign for real ale, it's now progressed to the stage of promoting good cider and good pubs as well. There's links to relevant news stories concerning pub culture in general because of this, so anyone's who concerned about any new laws effecting drinking in Britain should defintely spend a minute going through this site
• However, the criticism this time is that there is a members only part of the site which you have to register for. Whilst understandably Camra deserves as many members as it can for it's worthy cause and registeration is easy, it's a personal opinion of mine that all information should be available to everyone instanteously, without having to sign up or join a particular cause

Finally, the last campaign i wish to mention is Child's Play, (http://www.childsplaycharity.org/index.php) founded by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade fame (http://www.penny-arcade.com/) The aim of Child's Play is to send books, games and toys to various hospitals around the world, in order to help raise the spirits of sick children.

• The site itself is quite basic, although this is necessarily not a bad thing. The information's very direct and straight to the point, and contains links on how to contact the charity and get involved
• There does however seem to be a great lack of community interest on the site - there's no photos or a forum, however this may be because the Penny Arcade forum tends to host both of these instead of the Child Play's site

Anyway, I hope you take the time to go over each of these campaigns, you'll probably find something interesting. Ciao

-J

GIVE ME BACK MY FAAAAAACE!

(Original pic source: www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com)

Whilst i'm playing the updating game, it's time for my slightly late verdict on Watchmen, be warned for spoilers will follow. For those of you unfamilar with the original graphic novel written by Alan Moore (also credited for previous graphic-novel-turned film, V for Vendetta), trailer being here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4blSrZvPhU. Watchmen follows the tale of former masked vigilantes livng in an alternative version of the 1980's, where President Nixon is currently in his third term of office after being voted as President for life following the success of the Vietnam War, who find themselves involved in a conspiracy to kill them off, following the death of The Comedian (Jeffery Dean Morgan).

I myself am a fan of the original graphic novel, so it might come as a shock to a lot of fans when i say that the end of the result of the conversion is a highly entertaining film for what it's worth, a lot of the scenes are lifted directly from the novel, and all the actors seem to nail their roles, especially Jackie Earle Haley's portrayal of the moral absolute and ultimately vunerable Rorschach.

However, the problem with most comic book to film conversions, is that the content inevibility gets toned down. Watchmen earnt a reputation for being uncompromising and graphic, containing an attempted rape scene, a disturbing psyche evaluation with Rorschach, and the covering up of the genocide of millions to ensure world peace. What really annoyed me however, was all three of these things were included in the film, and not toned down, but instead unneccesarily modified - the attempted rape's setting is changed and the evaluation with Rorschach, which establishes the characters psychological background is considerably shortened.

More importantly, the key detail that brings about the prospect of world peace - the staged invasion of an alien squid and the countries around the globe uniting against a common foe - is replaced with framing Dr Manhattan attacking the world. While it can be argued that this might sound more plausable for a certain perspective, surely if you're doing a film that involves costumed superheroes and a blue demi-god who walks on Mars, you might as well stick with the original slightly more preposterous ending to satisfy the fans of the novel

Lots of other little features are missing too - the inane dialogue of the newsreader, the pirate comic-within-a comic... the end result of this shows why Alan Moore himself didn't originally make Watchmen as a film - there's just no way to fit that level of detail within the medium. That's not to say Director Zack Synder has done a bad job, in fact I'm willing to argue that no one could of handled it better, but the film itself is really just an homage to another piece of art, and some scenes, like the Silk Spectre/Night Owl sex scene on the Owlship, feel like the Directors over-indulging his own love of the novel instead of presenting it from a detached and professional viewpoint

Never-the-less, I still like Watchmen, and I do recommend you see it. It's not an eye opening thing of beauty like the novel was, but it's still an entertaining romp for 2 and a half hours, and miles better than other films out there. Final rating: 3.5 / 5 stars

-J

Choose your future, choose life

Annnnnnd it's time for another late update. The excuse this time? Assignment work, never ending assignment work. On the plus side, i've changed the layout for the blog to something more a bit more familar if you're a fan of either British cinema or Irvine Welsh, which i think will be the blog's final major change in terms of how it looks - whilst the prospect of having a full functioning blog site coded in Flash does seem appealing from the point of view of having nice, shiny graphics and buttons, it's not simply going to be practical or possible to do that amount of coding for the blog before the end of term. However, I think the new layout's great, and I hope you do too. Jon out
-J

Harry Potter and the Self-Perpetuating Gravy Train

(Original source of pic: www.celeb9.com)

Not going to apologise for lack of updates again, needless to say dying of flu isn't fun. Anyway onto film related business: The Telegraph has reported that followers of the Harry Potter franchise were disappointed after being treated to a special preview of the latest incarnation of the almighty cash-cow, entitled Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (link to the trailer is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBGbKCm_pQQ) due to ""pointless" scenes and missed out many crucial characters and plot lines."

An over abundance on romance between the central characters is also credited for being part of the film's downfall, along with several key scenes and important characters to the story being omitted.

Whilst personally I'm not a fan of the series, the books included, it'll be interesting to see whether or not if the film series can please it's die hard fans in the end, so i'll be keeping track of this story with more to come, the link to The Telegraph article is here - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/4977774/Harry-Potter-fans-of-JK-Rowling-series-disappointed-at-preview-of-latest-film-Half-Blood-Prince.html

Also expect a full review of Watchmen up in the next couple of days, that's it for now
-J

Vox Pox: What do you like best about being a student in Sheffield?

Paul Allinson, 19, from Newcastle said:

“Um....For me It’s gotta be the nightlife...mixed with our course...cos we do bugger all”

Rachel Hale, 19 from Essex said:

“I like the social side of things, the number of interesting people you meet everyday on campus, regardless of whether they are students just like me or well experienced lecturers”

Amy Bean, 19 from Lincoln said:

“Can’t think what i like best, but I hate living in student accommodation... cos people are noisy and inconsiderate... people dont tidy up after themselves... generally, it’s the people not the city”

Jorja Winfield, 19 from Market Harborough said:

"I'd say the nightlife cos there's always somewhere different to go and its chhheeaaaapppp.... sometimes anyways... i dunno i like how you have meadowhall close by"

Whoa, this just got serious

Had a sudden flash of inspiration for the new title. Welcome to the Cult of the Reel and Fictional! Abandon all hope ye who enter here
-J

That tumbleweed must be pretty lonely

(source: http://wizzardzworld.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/terminator-salvation-poster1.jpg)


Apologies for the lack of updates. It's been a strange and busy week for me to say the least, but now i've finally found some time to do some writing. A couple of things - I'm definitely changing the title of this blog to something more relevant to film news, but as yet am still undecided to what - suggestions welcome. I'm also hoping to completely revamp the layout of the blog itself into either Flash or Java sometime soon so watch this space.

In film news, there's been a new trailer released for the uncoming fourth Terminator film, Terminator Salvation, starring Christian Bale (American Psycho, The Dark Knight) and Sam Worthington (Hart's War, The Great Raid). This film's definitely got me excited and it looks set to revitalise the franchise after the utter dismal and disappointing Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. The film's scheduled for release on May 21st, and the new trailer is here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owrEMGg4x3M

Another film franchise is making a welcome return, with Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen set to hit the silver screen for June 24th. The sequel to the original live action film, the film sees Hollywood star Shia LaBeouf (Disturbia, Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull) return to his role as Sam Witwicky, a human caught up in the battle between the alien robot races the Autobots and the Decepticons. Whilst I found the first film to be entertaining, it felt too much like a fast rollercoaster ride for my tastes, so it'll be interesting to see if director Michael Bay changes the pace or not this time round. Link for the trailer -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb2fUOW1ne4

Lastly, there's a film that can only be described as the best that the British Film Industry has to offer. Lesbian Vampire Killers (No, seriously) tells the tale of a rural Welsh town under a curse that turns their women into, unsuprisingly, lesbian vampires, with two young men arriving for the weekend and finding themselves amidst the trouble. Have a look for yourself (possibly not suitable for work due to the nature of the film)- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S451NKQl9_Q

Anyway that's it from me for the time being, expect more updates soon as always
-J