The Man with No Time

Marvel have become something of a cinematic giant in the last five years or so. First there were the X-Men and Spiderman films, then Daredevil, then Hulk, then the Fantastic Four. Then they took matters into their own hands with Iron Man, Captain America, Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Avengers Assemble. After building the 'Marvel Cinematic Universe' they carried on at full speed, and the second round of releases is by now well established. We've had Iron Man 3, Thor 2, and Captain America: Winter Soldier. That's not mentioning the Amazing Spiderman and X-Men: First Class series, which although Marvel properties aren't controlled directly by Marvel. So far it's all been established characters and franchises. Stories that the general audience will at least have a vague idea about. But there are increasing signs that Marvel is starting to branch out from this set of 'core' properties. The first of which is the release of Guardians of the Galaxy. ...

From the very first time that I saw a trailer for the LEGO movie I knew that I wanted to see it. I had to see it. The trailer was very, very funny, and the film was clearly going to make the adaptability and creativity inherent in LEGO a central part of the story. I was sold. Sadly, in a familiar story, I missed it at the cinema. My old fallback, the Student Cinema, looked like it would come to the rescue once again, but I ended up being busy on the night that they showed it, so it looked as though I would miss out. Then I decided I wanted to see a film over the bank holiday weekend, and to my surprise saw that the Odeon had a couple of showing in the morning. So off I went. Even the poster is awesome. (Credit: en.wikipedia.org)

This year there's been one film that I really wanted to see, and that everyone told me I had to see, that I just haven't been able to. That film is ' Gravity ', and yesterday I finally managed to see it thanks to Warwick Arts Centre . They put on a few extra showings as part of their viewer's choice feature, and I gladly took the chance to finally catch the film on the big screen. The film poster. Don't. Let. Go. (Credit: en.wikipedia.org)

As may have become obvious from some of my previous posts on this blog, I quite like science fiction. Whether it be novels, television shows, films, or games, if it's sci-fi then I'll at least give it a try. Like most genres there are some 'classics', one of which is the novel  Ender's Game  by Orson Scott Card. Actually I hesitate to call it a novel, as it's actually pretty short. But it packs a lot into its slim page count, and manages to tackle some pretty weighty issues (more on that later). A few years ago a film version was announced, to cautious optimism from sci-fi fans. How well would the parallel storylines of the book fit into a cinematic format, and would the film pull its punches on the moral issues? I love the style and composition of this image - Ender in the dark, staring out at the world. (Credit: fanart.tv) Sadly Ender's Game  was another film that I didn't manage to get to see at the cinema on its release. Which means it wa...

Yes, I've been to see another film. Yes, it's another one that was actually released ages ago. Yes, I love the Warwick Student Cinema for letting me catch up on films like this. Any further questions? Captain Philips is based on the true story of a Somali pirate hijacking. Not just any run-of-the-mill hijacking (if there is any such thing) though, oh no. The hijacking of the Maersk Alabama  was the first successful seizure of a US flagged vessel by pirates since the early 19th century (wikipedia) . Although there have been accusations that the film is inaccurate in some respects, in some ways that's to be expected for any 'based on a true story' film or television series. The movie poster depicts the moment that the pirates board the ship. (Credit: imdb.com)

I've been getting a bit behind on new film releases in recent months. First I missed Elysium. Then I missed Gravity, which by all accounts was amazing and something that, as an astronomer, I really should see. Then I managed to avoid seeing Ender's Game, which I was also looking forward to. Finally, there's the second part of the Hobbit trilogy (don't get me started...). I really enjoyed the first one, and was looking forward to part 2, but I missed the work trip to go and see it at the IMAX. So I thought I'd wait to go with my family over the Christmas holidays. Circumstances contrived to make this difficult, but we did eventually manage to get to see it (in 2D of course) last night. Promotional poster for ' the Desolation of Smaug ', showing Bilbo in front of the Lonely Mountain. (Credit: fansided.com)

Last night I took the chance of catching up on another film that I missed first time around at the cinema. The Student Cinema were showing the Lone Ranger, and I thought I’d go along and see whether it was as bad as its box office performance made it out to be. The Lone Ranger stars Armie Hammer as the eponymous hero, and Jonny Depp as his native America sidekick, Tonto. It reputedly had a massive budget from Disney, who were hoping for another Pirates of the Caribbean style success, but made equally large losses internationally. I have to say that I don’t understand why, as it’s a wonderfully entertaining piece of cinema that is simply great fun. I think the logo for the film is quite evocative too. (Credit: collider.com)

Yesterday I made another visit to Warwick Student Cinema to see a film that I absolutely had to see on the big screen. When I first heard about this film, the combination of director and subject material made me incredibly excited. Ron Howard, director of films including 'Apollo 13' and 'A Beautiful Mind' (which I think are both brilliant pieces of cinema) was going to be making a film about the rivalry between James Hunt and Niki Lauda, culminating in the dramatic 1976 F1 season.  Sadly, I wasn't able to see Rush at the 'real' cinema; it was released at an inconvenient time, just when I was in full-on finishing the PhD mode. But the Student Cinema came to the rescue once again. One of the character posters. (Credit: digitalspy.co.uk)

It's another Warwick Student Cinema film catch-up review. This time around I'll be taking a look at RED 2. I watched RED on one of the postgraduate film nights that we used to hold in the Astronomy group up in St Andrews. It was surprisingly entertaining, and really rather funny. I wasn't expecting a sequel to be made, but was pleasantly surprised when I saw that there was one. It wasn't top of my list of films to see, so much like After Earth  I didn't make too much of an effort to go to a "proper" cinema to see it, but when it was on at the student cinema I thought 'why not?' What a cast! For this kind of film you wouldn't expect it to work necessarily, but somehow it does. (Credit: joblo.com)

One of the things that I'm really enjoying about being back at Warwick is the student cinema. They have a showing everyday of the week except Wednesday, and two on a Saturday and Sunday. There's a different film every day (usually), and they're very good at getting recent releases and mixing them in with older films. Tickets are £3.50 for staff, which is an absolute bargain, and it's held in the biggest lecture theatre on campus; it's even got a proper cinema sized screen. The only real downside are the seats, which being lecture seats aren't particularly comfortable, particularly for taller individuals like myself! (Seriously, how did I sit through lectures in there?). (Credit: filmsoc.warwick.ac.uk) There were a lot of films this year that I didn't catch at the cinema when they were released. Fortunately the student cinema has come to the rescue! The first of many films that I've managed to catch up on this term was After Earth, the father-...

....or Loki 3 as I've seen some people refer to it, which is somewhat fitting given the popularity of that character and the  resulting screen time that he gets! (Loki 1 being Thor, and Loki 2 being Avengers Assemble of course). So I went to see Thor 2 at the cinema yesterday. The latest step in Marvel's dominion of blockbuster cinema, it continues to advance the Marvel Universe's cinematic storyline in several parallel paths. But is it any good? I thought Thor 1 was one of the surprises of the pre-Avengers phase of the Marvel superhero film craze, so I was interested to see how the second instalment would compare. The poster image for Thor: the Dark World. Oddly similar to the Iron Man 3 poster in many ways. (Credit: hdwallpapers.in)

And now for something a little different from the run of Hollywood blockbusters and superhero films. Simon Pegg is back with the last in the 'Cornetto' trilogy, which means that it's comedy time. A loosely thematic trilogy rather than a story-based one, the 'Cornetto trilogy' comprises films that each involve a different colour, i.e. a different flavour of Cornetto. The 'red' film was "Shaun of the Dead", an excellent zom-rom-com (as Pegg termed it) that I've seen many times. The 'blue' film was "Hot Fuzz" which I'm told is an excellent buddy-cop style film. I own it on DVD but, to my chagrin, have never watched it. The final film is the 'green' instalment: "The World's End". Figuring out why it's the 'green' film is part of the fun, but the film as a whole is an excellent experience that had me laughing out loud the whole way through. I love this poster. It's so old-sc...

The summer blockbuster deluge continues with another superhero movie. This time it's the latest in the X-Men set of films, and the second one to focus on one of its most popular characters - Wolverine. The first standalone, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" was an average film with some interesting but poorly executed ideas. Does "The Wolverine" rise above it to match "First Class" or "X2", or is it more of the same? The poster for this film is very, very cool. (Credit: thewolverinemovie.com)

One of the staple television shows of my early childhood was "Power Rangers". I remember watching the original "Mighty Morphin" series right up through "Power Rangers in Space". I even watched "Lightspeed Rescue", "Time Force", and "Ninja Storm" before I fell out of touch. I think that's where my love of giant robots started. I then moved on to Mecha-based anime, with "Big-O" and the various "Gundam" series getting me hooked. Giant monsters also started with Power Rangers, and I have a curious soft spot for the mid-90s Godzilla film that everyone else seems to think is rubbish. There's something about giant fighting robots piloted by plucky heroes taking on giant monsters (or other robots) that's inherently cool in my mind. So you can imagine how excited I was when I first heard about "Pacific Rim". The fact that it was being directed by Guillermo del Toro was even better; I'...

The summer blockbuster season is in full swing, and it's looking like another good year for geek films. We've already had a swathe of sci-fi and superhero films (not all of which I managed to see unfortunately), and the next few weeks see several more hitting the big screens. So lets take a look at the latest one, and review "Man of Steel" As I think I've mentioned before on this blog, my childhood superheroes of choice were Spiderman and the X-Men. Both are Marvel properties, and as I've grown older I've tended to prefer Batman to Superman as far as the DC stable goes. That's not down to the Dark Knight trilogy either, but to the excellent cartoon series that Batman has had over the years, mainly the original Animated Series and Batman of the Future. However, I do remember watching "The New Adventures of Superman" with my Mum. "It's not an S. On my planet it means hope." The new logo looks very cool indeed, and has ...

The second of the early blockbuster releases is another sequel, and one that I was even more excited about than Iron Man 3 . In fact I was so excited that I took the chance to go to a midnight release showing (it was totally worth it). The follow-up to the hugely successful reboot of the Star Trek franchise has a lot to live up to. The second instalment in the original series of films was “The Wrath of Khan”, which is widely regarded as the best film starring the original cast. J J Abrams did a good job pleasing both diehard fans and casual viewers with his first film, but how does this one measure up. The official release poster for Into Darkness (Credit: rogerebert.com)

Blockbuster season starts early this year, with a couple of big releases around the end of April and the start of May. The first of these is Iron Man 3, the concluding part of the highly successful trilogy starring Robert Downey Junior. I really enjoyed the first two Iron Man films. I was never a huge fan of Iron Man as a character before this trilogy, but my only exposure had really been the animated series. It was part of a raft of Marvel  animated television series, along with the X-Men, Hulk, Spiderman, and the Fantastic 4. I always preferred the X-Men and Spiderman, but Downey's portrayal of Tony Stark really won me over the first time around, and was even better in the second instalment. I was certainly excited for part three after the trailers, but did it live up to my expectations? How cool is this logo? (Credit: collider.com)

I've been a fan of musical theatre for quite some time. I blame my Mum personally. She's a keen amateur dramatist, and on many occasions as a child I was taken to watch her performing in shows. That led to a fondness for Gilbert and Sullivan which is by no means shared by some of my more musical friends! As a family we also used to travel to London quite a bit, and would often visit the theatres to see shows on the big stage. Possibly Disney had an influence as well; all of their classic animated films are, after all, musicals, and have some fantastic songs in them. A few years ago now my girlfriend and I went to see the London-based stage production of Les Misérables. It was a fantastic experience, and when I discovered that a film version was being made I was incredibly excited. The cast list was brilliant, the director had a great track record, and the trailers looked as if the atmosphere had been captured perfectly. But did it actually live up to my expectations? ...

After "The Dark Knight Rises” , I think that “the Hobbit” was the film that I was looking forward to the most this year. I loved the book as a child the first time I read it, and have a beautifully illustrated version, as well as the Radio 4 audio play from many years ago that I’ve listened too many times. I also really enjoyed Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy (LotR), and was when I found out that he was directing the Hobbit I was very excited. Sadly, my excitement was tempered this year when I  found out that, rather than the two films that were planned (already a stretch), it would be a trilogy. The book is only 300 pages long, around 20% of the length of the Lord of the Rings, so how on middle Earth was he going to get 9 hours of film out of it? Even with the fleshing out of the side-stories that was going to happen? Martin Freeman is  Bilbo Baggins. (Credit: theweek.com)

Bond is back! Hurrah! I’ve been a fan of the series for a long time, and have really enjoyed the two most recent films starring Daniel Craig. These were something of a ‘reboot’ for the series, and were clearly influenced by the gritty and realistic Bourne films. Craig’s third outing as the eponymous secret agent marks the 50 th anniversary for the franchise, but is it up to scratch? Skyfall marks the 50th anniversary of James Bond. (Credit: facebook fan page)