Ecco The Dolphin - Greatest SEGA Game Ever

As I've said elsewhere, I love Ecco. It was my absolute favourite SEGA game, and not because it's about a dolphin. It's beautifully rendered, well mapped out, the challenge is in solving the puzzles throughout the levels before you run out of air, rather than in violently bashing or shooting everything in your way, it spans a whole ocean and features a huge range of marine creatures, has a great score (with the exception of that AWFUL victory tune at the end) and -- most importantly -- it tells an imaginative and moving story. The ending was actually a real surprise, and it was enough to give me nightmares as a kid. The Machine is f*cking creepy.

Here it is in all its original 16bit glory (Ah, the good old Mega Drive days...) played by cubex55 over at Youtube. Enjoy.



Of course, as this is just a recording of someone else’s game, it’s not going to be as engaging as if you were playing it yourself. You don’t get to explore each level in your own time, it’s all done for you so you don’t have the satisfaction (or frustration!) of having to work it all out for yourself, you don’t get the nasty surprises when the sharks and crabs come at you out of nowhere, or when the ice cubes and rocks come flying out of the walls at you. You also don’t get to play around doing all the somersaults and leaps at the surface that you can when you’re playing it.

I kinda feel cubex55 has cheated a bit in places, most obviously in the Open Ocean stage, where he’s just zipped along at the bottom of the screen, avoiding all the challenges on that level... but I guess if your goal is just to get through the whole thing as fast as you can without dying then that’s to be expected. I prefer to play at a slower pace, paying attention to the details as I go.

This game was always going to appeal to me – I’ve always had something of an obsession with the ocean, and Ecco combines that with time travel and aliens, two of my other favourite themes. It’s all very Aliens meets Cocoon. I think it’s slightly hilarious that Ecco inspires his own distant ancestors to leave the land and return to the water, to eventually evolve into his own species. I love how the oldest living creature is a giant DNA double-helix. (I also LOVE the backwards-flying pteranodon!)


One of the things I really appreciate about the game is that you only get anywhere by helping others. Throughout the game, Ecco has to reunite families and locate the precious things of others that they have lost. I think it’s a good moral.

The PC edition of the original splices in some great cinematic animations to tell the story as you go. It was followed by the even more beautifully rendered Ecco the Dolphin: The Tides of Time and Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future, which lack some of the charm of the original, in my opinion, but have much better graphics and ditch the traditional left-to-right scrolling format.

Stealing the Enterprise

This is my absolute favourite scene in Star Trek. Ever. Again, it's largely because of James Horner's brilliant score. It's cheeky, dramatic and exciting. Here it is with the dialogue taken out (thanks to timefilm, check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzZBZKqEE-4 )

WKUK Black Doctor

More Whitest Kids You Know hilarity :)

Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma9i23kFVrI

WKUK Backseat

Haha, thanks Yannick ;)

Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9Zls2AReVI&feature=related

Nightmare Fuel

Nightmare Fuel [...] means those things that scared the pants off you as a kid, though they weren't meant to. It's something that was meant to amuse, entertain, or be only slightly scary to the audience; but in execution, they're so trauma-inducing that they may cause adults to void themselves in terror [...] Things that are supposed to scare the pants off you fall under High Octane Nightmare Fuel.

- Tv Tropes Wiki



Made by Flameknight7, Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-db9qgn99o

*SIGH* If Only...

I'd love to see this made into a full movie. I've never been a fan of anime, but this guy's work is pretty good and, well, it's Doctor Who :D

Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPCrGsya1ZI

Hitler Isn't Happy...

Lovingly pilfered from http://www.scifiscoop.com/news/hitler-isnt-happy-with-avatar/

Two And A Half Hours I Won't Ever Get Back...

Ok so tonight I went and saw Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen, knowing full-well that it would be mindless trash, having seen the other terrible films that make up Director Michael Bay's life work, including its predecessor, Transformers. At the end, I found myself quite unable to articulate my feelings on the movie I'd just seen, so and so when I got home I perused the Interwebs to find something, ANYTHING, that might get the verbage going again, my brain having been for all intents and purposes liquified by the seemingly endless explosions and gunfire I'd witnessed. Below, I've copied and pasted the two reviews that I feel come closest to capturing the essence of this cinematic abortion...

The Empire Strikes Out
Retrieved 02/07/09 from http://www.flickfilosopher.com/blog/2009/06/062309transformers_revenge_of_the_fa.html

I’m certain that someday it will be acknowledged that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is like the most totally awesome artifact ever of the end of the American empire. It’s so us, a preposterously perfect reflection of who we are: loud, obnoxious, sexist, racist, juvenile, unthinking, visceral, and violent... and in love with ourselves for it. And Michael Bay is the high priest of our self-engrossment. It’s not enough that we like blowing shit up: the blowing shit up must be transubstantiated into something religious by having, say, a ridiculously gorgeous girl humping a motorcycle, her face aglow in the golden hour of sunset as she watches the shit get blown up, her glossy lips parted just a little in orgasmic joy.

What we have right here is the Easter Island statue of our legacy. People 1,000 years from now will gaze at Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in wonder and mystery and marvel how we just couldn’t see. How could we not see?

I liked the first Transformers, two summers ago. It worked because it pretended to absolutely nothing, aspired to absolutely nothing beyond being a big dumb loud brainless advertisement for toys. Unlike every other propagandistic Michael Bay film, which all revel in their jingoism about justice or patriotism or heroism, Transformers felt no need to bother. If only Hollywood could have left well enough alone.

Of course, in Hollywood, “well enough alone” means you wear out a franchise with 12 movies, until even the fanboys are complaining that it’s stupid and a budget-bloated sequel finally bankrupts the studio. We’re nowhere near that, though. Transformers 3 is coming soon to a theater near you, you may rest assured of that.

I was ready for Revenge to be as agreeably inconsequential as the first film, and I was perfectly happy to be enjoying that it’s so completely fuckin’ bonkers from the get-go, when we discover that the alien robot things have been on Earth from 17,000 BC, when they apparently fought off Stargate’s Goa’uld or something for the right to pick on the poor uncivilized cavepeople natives. But then I got lost beyond that, for -- unlike the first movie -- this one either assumes that you’re steeped in the laughable mythos that Hasbro invented for its toys, or else screenwriters Ehren Kruger (The Brothers Grimm, The Skeleton Key) and the team of Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Star Trek, Mission: Impossible III) invented a new laughable mythos. I’m not an eight-year-old boy, and I wasn’t in the 1980s either, so I don’t know which is which.

It’s something to do with an ancient bloodfeud between the good robots (the Autobots) and the bad robots (the Decepticons). You can tell which are the good robots -- they have blue eyes and are nice and round and shiny and look like Japanese motorcycles or something Paul Walker drove in Fast & Furious or gas-guzzling, all-American pickup trucks manufactured by companies now in bankruptcy -- and you can tell which are the bad robots: they’re very pointy and have red eyes. Beyond that, there’s a lot of high-falutin’ about wrongs done eons ago and such: it’s impossible to understand 90 percent of the Transformers’ dialogue, which is probably a blessing, because the other 10 percent sounds like Gandalf explaining to Frodo about the Ring, or Darth Vader grumbling about the damn Jedi Knights, but without the gravitas of either.

Apparently the good robots have discovered that Shia LaBeouf is Indiana Jones’s kid, because they send him on a mission to find an ancient doohickey from 17,000 BC in the North African desert. And luckily his superhot girlfriend (Megan Fox: How to Lose Friends and Alienate People) is along to gape in ecstatic joy at stuff blowing up and blue-eyed robots and red-eyed robots beating one another up over the ancient whatchamacallit, which is supposed to have the power to do something-or-other.

To call Revenge incoherent and bloated is to put it kindly. To say that Michael Bay fetishizes slow-motion and we still can’t see what the hell is happening the half the time is probably something he’d take as a compliment. But eventually I got so bored -- for these two and a half hours feel much, much longer than the same two and a half hours the first movie consumed -- that I lost track of the number of testicle jokes and taser jokes that flew by. The target audience will be pleased to know, perhaps, that yes: one joke combines testicles and tasers. It’s like the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of frat-boy humor.

But it’s all good, because, you see, even though a Decepticon snatches the American flag from the Brooklyn Bridge as a show of contempt for us puny humans, it’s back later. America rules! Take that, Decepticons!

Welcome to Easter Island.

Viewed at a semi-public screening with an audience of critics and ordinary moviegoers. Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action violence, language, some crude and sexual material, and brief drug material.


Small Penis Humilation
- by Dustin Rowles
Retrieved 02/07/09 from http://www.pajiba.com/film_reviews/transformers-revenge-of-the-fallen-review.php

I realize I’m stating the obvious here, but it bears elucidation in light of this review because it’s the single biggest driving force behind Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Michael Bay has a profoundly tiny dick. The man has a diminutive dangler — what’s known in medical circles as a micro-penis (less than 2.75 inches erect). And rather than seek psychotherapy for his small penis humilation, Mr. Bay deals with his itty-bitty anxieties by hiding behind his work. It’s classic overcompensation; all the symptoms are manifested in his person — long hair, leather jackets, sports cars — but none more evident than his pursuit of aggrandizement in Revenge of the Fallen. His desire to embiggen Transformers II over its predecessor — to make bigger in power, to enlarge our conceptions — is clearly an attempt to conceal his sexual inadequacy.

It’s sad, really. Mr. Bay has no ability to drive, thrust, shove or plunge. All he has in his arsenal is a malevolently irritating poke delivered with a toothsome sneer, the flick of his mullet, and a decidedly timorous and almost hopeful, “Do you like that, baby?” And so Mr. Bay takes these frustrations out in his films, and in Revenge of the Fallen his eagerness gets the best of him. It’s easy to suggest that the two-and-a-half hour series of explosions, cheesy toddler one-liners, and cacophonous, bass-heavy noises is all part of an ongoing big-dick swinging contest Mr. Bay has with McG, but if you look closer, you’ll see what’s really at play here. Revenge of the Fallen is little more than a series of explosions transposed with shots of Megan Fox’s cleavage and/or ass. Mr. Bay sees what he cannot have in the bedroom, and out of those phallic frustrations, he obliterates everything in his wake like a petulant little child who destroys the contents of his toy chest because he’s been denied an ice cream cone. Those Transformers are his toys; the big screen is his bedroom; and sexual competence is the ice cream cone that will forever elude him.

Serial killers are often associated with small-penis syndrome and though there may be little veracity in that theory, it’s apparent that Michael Bay shares the same hedonistic soullessness of a Ted Bundy or Leonard Lake. There’s not an ounce of life in the Fallen’s script. But there is little denying that the man knows how to film an action sequence — 44 years of practice borne out of sexual insufficiency will make a person an expert. In Revenge of the Fallen, Bay sticks to what he knows, barely capable of poking his spectacle into a narrative framework. It’s a battle of good and evil. Autobots vs. Decepticons. Megatron is pulled from the sea to assist the original Decepticon, Fallen (a metaphor for Lucifer? No: For Bay’s limp junk). Fallen wants avenge an ancient slight against the planet Earth by finding an instrument hidden in a monstrous Egyptian obelisk that will allow him to stab out the sun (there’s some metaphorical wish fulfillment for you).

Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) spends all of one day in college, where he is attacked by a human-shaped Decepticon (Isabel Lucas) with a phallic tail, before he is recruited by Optimus Prime to act as an ambassador between the Autobots and the United States military, which has an uneasy relationship with the Transformers. That relationship becomes moot, however, when Fallen and the other Decepticons invade Earth in search of that sun-diffusing instrument, which Sam — along with the assistance of Megan Fox’s low-cut blouses and all powerful slo-mo cleavage — has to prevent while also retrieving a few shards and something called the Matrix of Leadership.

That’s essentially the gist of the nonsensical, incoherent, illogical ass-brained plot, and even the six-and-a-half minutes of story seems to get in the way of the other 144 minutes of shit blowing up. There are, of course, even more Transformers in the sequel, which only means it’s even more difficult to tell what’s going on, who is on whose side, and who is battling whom, which becomes particularly problematic near the end where everything is also obscured by a storm of sand.

John Turturro brings further indignity upon his career by appearing as a former government agent turned conspiracy theorist; it’s hard to say what the fuck he was doing in this movie — both Turturro and his character — except to bring shame on his family. Megan Fox is in a perpetual state of glisten and never stops pouting her lips; meanwhile, Shia LaBeouf continues his fast-talking douchenut ways. Rainn Wilson has an incredibly brief two minutes as a college prof — it’s the best two minutes of the entire movie, and the possibility he might return at the end of the film was the only thing that kept me in my seat. I’ll save you the trouble: He does not. [Actually... if the reviewer had stayed on to watch the credits for a few minutes - tedious as it was - he would have seen that this professor comes back for an utterly redundant and unfunny minute-long final scene - DR]

In addition to Fallen, there are a few other new Transformers, including a sand-sucking monstrosity that bites the tip off an ancient Egyptian pyramid (ouch); a senior citizen fighter-plane Decipticon who switches allegiances; a few mini-Transformers; and Mudflap and Skids, the Jar Jar African-American racial caricatures (gold tooth, hip-hop lovin’, bad slang, can’t read) of Transformers, who really are offensive, though it’s not too surprising: Racists have notoriously small dicks.

Lookit: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is Bush League, and I mean that in a purely political sense. It’s chest-thumping, racially-insensitive, sexually provocative redmeat bullshit designed to get needle dicks hard. And that’s fine, if you’re a hormone-addled pubescent Beavis who gets his rocks off on blowing up frogs. But you know that, and you don’t need a review to tell you that Revenge of the Fallen is an epic shit storm so bad you’ll wish you were watching Wolverine. And for a lot of you, that knowledge isn’t going to prevent you from seeing Transformers II, and I won’t begrudge you that. Your morbid curiosity may get the best of you. The confluence of your skepticism of critics, your overwhelming childhood nostalgia, or your desire to see just how awful it is may compel you into the theater. That’s cool — that’s what a manipulative, $100 million marketing campaign will do. But you’ll probably walk out of the theater fuming, itching to murder the one guy in the theater who attempted to start an ovation every time Optimus Prime appeared onscreen (he was met with a round of blank what-the-fuck stares by a sold-out crowd).

But even if you do help to contribute to the $150 million Revenge of the Fallen is likely to gross over the next five days, you can rest easy knowing that, no matter how much money Michael Bay has in his bank account or how many bloated, corporately jingoistic films that he makes, all he has to show for it is an estate that’s the size of Delaware and a babydick the size of your little toe. It’s small consolation.

Dustin Rowles is the publisher of Pajiba. He hides his small penis behind petty insults and personal attacks on Hollywood directors.

Ok, Ok, So I'm A Geek...

A bunch of LOTR nerds got together not too long ago to film one of the segments of the story's narrative that was 'missing' from Peter Jackson's movie trilogy. It's pretty well done, considering the small budget and the fact that these aren't the actors we're all familiar with... check it out at

http://www.thehuntforgollum.com/player_film-youtube.htm

Star Trek: Boldly Going... Somewhere Else?

Directed by J.J. Abrams, Starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Eric Bana, Leonard Nimoy, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin & John Cho

Grade C.

SPOILERS BELOW!!

Bright, shiny, fast, loud and contrived: this is Star Trek for people who’ve never watched Star Trek. It’s the kind of bland Hollywood summer blockbuster that we’re seeing so much of these days, and you just know it’s gonna be popular.

If you’re a long-term fan, your reaction to this movie will fall somewhere between disappointment and outrage. I’m not going to get into how the plot casually erases the entire history of the galaxy as established by 40 years of previous Trek films and TV series, and I’m not going to whinge about the often staggering coincidences and plot holes that abound throughout. I want to talk about characterisation, atmosphere, ambiance. Now sure, I’m biased, but I’d like to point out that I went with a friend who’s never been interested in Star Trek, and he said the movie just failed to make him care about any of the characters or the story. So I’m not alone here.

Chris Pine as Captain James T. Kirk was perhaps the biggest disappointment. He was a poor choice for the role, his face is babyish rather than classically handsome and he lacks the arrogant, brooding presence that William Shatner brought to the character. What the film-makers really failed to grasp is that the original Star Trek was about a swaggering, macho ladies’ man and his sweet ride, a guy who cruises into town, starts a brawl, saves the day and rides of into the sunset, leaving a trail of broken hearts behind him. Compared to Shatner’s Kirk, Pine’s character is something of a joke.

And what of said sweet ride? The Enterprise was attractive, despite my initial misgivings about the changes to its iconic design, but it certainly didn’t inspire the sense of awe that previous incarnations have. We’re supposed to be blown away by this ship, it’s supposed to be the most advanced and powerful vessel in the galaxy, but it’s onscreen for perhaps two minutes in total in the entire film. Maybe the film-makers cut its scenes, given the violent fan reactions to leaked pictures of the design over the past year. They certainly didn’t give the new ship the loving, slow reveal that past films have lavished on it. In fact in terms of action and on-screen presence, it was completely displaced by another little craft.

Another essential ingredient of Trek has always been the relationship between Kirk and first officer Spock. The film-makers did make a decent attempt to capture this dynamic, but just didn’t quite get it right. It feels forced, like they’re trying to recreate the chemistry of the original characters without going through any sort of process to make it happen. One minute Kirk and Spock hate each other, the next they’re best friends. Zachary Quinto certainly looked the part as Spock, but had none of the dignity and solemnity of Leonard Nimoy’s portrayal of the character. This is especially obvious as Nimoy is actually in the movie as well, playing an older Spock.

Eric Bana as vengeful Romulan Nero was intimidating to look at, but oddly soft-spoken, and I have to say he has possibly the most ridiculous motivation for causing mayhem I've ever come across in Star Trek. His home planet Romulus and everyone on it is about to be wiped out by a supernova, distant cousins the Vulcans try to help save the planet by creating a black hole to divert the solar flare and in the process destroy the very planet they're trying to save, and accidentally send Nero and his cronies two hundred years back in time. Nero arrives in the earlier era, and rather than go and see the planet he thought he'd lost forever, and perhaps become the hero of his people, he goes on a vendetta against the Federation (who, as enemies of the Romulan Empire, were under no obligation to save Romulus but tried anyway), planning to blow up the Feds one planet at a time, beginning with Vulcan and then moving on to Earth, naturally. The whole thing is just a convoluted way for writers and producers to press the 'reset' button and start fresh with only the bits of Trek they want to retain, consigning the rest to the interstellar dustbin.

What of the supporting cast? I can't deny Simon Pegg as Scotty was great fun but he was largely absent from the film (arriving fully halfway through in another ludicrous coincidence) and didn’t do anything much to save the day, as he used to in the original TV series and the movies based on it. He was basically reduced to comic relief status, though perhaps that’s to be expected, given Pegg’s previous films. John Cho as Hikaru Sulu was pretty kick-ass, and did seem to have some of the fire that the original actor brought to the role, but I couldn't quite accept him in the part, he just looks so different. Still, I expect he will continue to be sheer awesome in future films, cos I can guarantee there's at least two in the works even now.

Anton Yelchin playing young math-genius Chekov was funny, but I rather take issue with how the film-makers took what is essentially a supporting role and greatly expanded it, arguably at the expense of Uhura’s place in the ensemble, leaving her with nothing to do but look pretty and kiss Spock a couple of times (no real change there then). This was particularly disappointing, as a great deal was made of her talents and achievements in the early part of the film, and then the film utterly fails to build on these. NZ's own Karl Urban as Dr ‘Bones’ McCoy was the standout performer, he alone seemed to have really captured the essence of the original character.

Stylistically, this take on one of SciFi’s oldest and most loved franchises owes a lot to the resurrected Battlestar Galactica TV series, there’s a lot of shaky hand-held camera work and a real military feel to the character interactions interspersed with short, silent space shots. Maybe this has something to do with my feeling as I sat there that this isn’t Star Trek – past Trek films have revelled in elaborate space battles replete with the clamouring of titanic explosions and pounding drums. The film-makers have incorporated a lot of those recognisable little details from the original series – gun and uniform designs and colours, tinny sound effects – which bring on nerdgasms among the faithful, and there are plenty of little in-jokes, but the total effect is of pastiche or parody rather than a genuine continuation of the franchise. I think it’s telling that Galaxy Quest, an actual parody, feels more like Star Trek than this new film does.

This movie will undoubtedly draw a new generation of fans to the Star Trek universe, and perhaps rekindle enthusiasm for past incarnations of the show, but I can’t help feeling that the future of the franchise will be a lot less rich, a lot more formulaic and more reliant on cheap thrills and jokes than on decent storytelling and characterisation.

DannyR

CHAFF Review - Gran Torino

Gran Torino A+ or 9.5/10

Directed by Clint Eastwood. Starring Clint Eastwood, Christopher Carley, Bee Vang, Ahney Her.

I wasn’t really sure what I was getting myself in for when I agreed to go to see Gran Torino with some friends on my birthday, all I knew was that it was something about an old guy and a car, and that said old guy was Clint Eastwood. Sure, cars can be cool, and old people are fun to laugh at occasionally, but I was kind of amazed that Clint Eastwood was even still alive, let alone making films. So it was with much trepidation that I accepted my free ticket and jumbo-sized cup of branded, carbonated sugar-water and trudged into the theatre.

The movie starts with unpleasant old bastard Walt Kowalski at his wife’s funeral, standing stoically beside the coffin and observing his family as they enter the church, disgust and disapproval radiating from him. Everything you need to know about Walt, you learn in the first ten minutes – his two adult sons want nothing to do with him, his grandchildren think he’s a waste of space, his daughter-in-law wants him put in a home so they can sell the house. He’s a war vet who worked on an assembly line for an American car manufacturer for 40 years, he flies the Stars and Stripes outside his front door, and his pride and joy is his 1972 Gran Torino Sport (which, by the way, is a stunningly beautiful machine).

This man is a relic, a fossil, a dinosaur. But we can kind of relate, and that’s the genius and beauty of this movie. His grandchildren really are loathesome, grasping little shits. The way his own sons can’t be bothered with him, even when he’s just lost his wife, it’s just plain heartbreaking. This is a man who must stand by and watch as everything he and his immigrant family worked so hard for, for so many years, is simply discarded – forgotten, deemed worthless and irrelevant. This is a man watching the sun set on the American Dream.

But Walt finds the things he values – hard work, family, respect for elders, pride in one’s heritage – in the last place he expected to see them. After the funeral, at his wife’s wake, he quietly slips out the front door of his own house, unwanted, unnoticed, alone. It’s heart-wrenching. And that’s when he first sees his new neighbours moving in – a family of Asian immigrants, excited and noisy, being all foreign and stuff. Eastwood’s lip curls in that iconic grimace we’ve all seen a thousand times, and Walt’s disgust is plain to see. There goes the neighbourhood, the sun has set.

But Walt comes to see that though at first glance we may not see any common ground between us and those alien to us, by looking under the surface and behind closed doors – literally, in this case – we can find a lot to respect. The film progresses slowly, set against the backdrop of a decaying suburbia rife with violent crime and gang warfare. Through his entanglement in the lives and struggles of his new neighbours, Walt finds that all is not lost, that he can still make a difference, that standing up for what he believed in was not a waste of his life.

After a bit of thought, I’ve decided that Eastwood has targeted this film at both the liberal Democrats, who have traditionally been more welcoming of ethnic minorities and change but intolerant of conservative values, and equally at conservative Republicans, who have dug in their heels and refused to acknowledge the changes the late 20th and early 21st Century have brought. And he does it brilliantly, by giving us a struggling, hard-working immigrant family to represent progressive concerns and a lovable old coot for traditionalists to relate to, showing how their interests come together and that each can learn from the other and that each has something valid to say. I’m surprised to be saying it, but Clint Eastwood is an amazing actor and director, and this might be the best movie I’ve seen in years. I loved it, it was moving, intelligent, and genuinely funny.

It also showed me just how much fun swearing and insulting others can be. In that spirit, then, I tell you to go see this fucking movie, you fucking dipshit wastes of taxpayer’s money. Peace out.

Danny Rudd

CHAFF Review -- Underworld

Underworld 5/10

Starring Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Bill Nighy

K, so I watched this one recently on DVD with friends because we all know the newest instalment in the Underworld trilogy is coming out at theatres soon. It’s been a few years since I saw this picture, I only remembered that it had something to do with vampires and werewolves and that everybody was wearing big Fuck-Off boots and tight shiny leather like in The Matrix (such things tend to stick in my mind).

I’ve always thought vampire films were a bit wanky and pretentious, and this one’s no different. With the exception of hot-as-hell-but-cold-as-ice Selene (Kate Beckinsale), a Death Dealer committed to assassinating werewolves with guns – big ones, lots of – the rest are pretty standard fare, lounging around on sofas being bored and boring, sipping red wine (Or is it?? Come on people, CLICHÉ!!) And watching it, you don’t really give a damn about any of them.

The Lycans, the werewolf clan that Selene and her nocturnal crew are hunting, are as hairy and muscular in human form as their vampire counterparts are sleek and stylish. They look like drug dealers, until they get all big and monstrous in the moonlight and start climbing walls, lurking in sewers and dark alleyways and being vulnerable to silver bullets. And of course there aren’t any girl-werewolves. So again, pretty standard.

The plot, while a bit convoluted at times, isn’t too bad. The main story revolves around Selene , who finds herself attracted to a human, Michael Corvin (Scott Speedman) who is being targeted by the Lycans. After Michael is bitten by Lycan boss Lucian, Selene has to decide whether to do her duty and kill her man-crush or go against her clan and save him. Typical Romeo and Juliet stuff, but with lots of biting and blood-sucking.

I remember the film’s fight sequences as being pretty impressive when I saw it at the cinema in 2003, but I think they lost a lot in the translation to the small screen (so if you want to see the new movie, I’d suggest seeing it at the cinema). Watching this first instalment again, I’m struck by how loud this film is, it’s all howling, screaming, and gunfire. But then, I guess that’s to be expected.

In fact probably the best thing about Underworld is its soundtrack, which successfully creates the film’s dank and moody atmosphere, making up for the sometimes awful dialogue and acting. There’s a great blend of metal, hard rock, industrial, and gothic tracks, my favourites being David Bowie and James Maynard Keenan’s Bring Me The Disco King and Puscifier’s brilliant Rev 22:20, one of the seediest and most irreverent songs ever penned.

All in all, I have mixed feelings about this movie. Sometimes I think I like it, sometimes I think it’s awful. The critics certainly weren’t kind; one said, “This is a movie so paltry in its characters and shallow in its story that the war seems to exist primarily to provide graphic visuals,” while another has said “[B]y any reasonable standard, this dark vampire epic — all massive overacting, cologne-commercial design and sexy cat suits — sucks.”

Danny Rudd

CHAFF Review -- Iron Man

Starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges

Grade: A- or 8/10.

I’ve never read an Iron Man comic, so I don’t know if the movie was faithful to its source material or not. I went in expecting just another slick, brainless superhero movie, the likes of Ghost Rider or Fantastic Four, which Hollywood is churning out with such alarming rapidity these days. But the opening scene of Iron Man surprised me – there was no need to consciously suspend the old disbelief because it felt like I was just looking at the real world, albeit a real world much occupied by Robert Downey Jr. The surprises came thick and fast from the outset, I was caught up and swept away. Five minutes in, I was staring up at the screen in disbelief… could this actually be a smart superhero movie?

But superhero movies have a certain predictability built in, don’t they? They all tell essentially the same story, something terrible happens to someone, giving him/her some special ability that confers on him/her an obligation to Protect the Innocent. And sure enough, after twenty minutes, with each new plot development I was able to make a pretty good guess where the story was going. The Bad Guys are profit-hungry, war-mongering Corporations, there’s a monstrous nemesis, a small circle of friends in-the-know, and the rich man who’s made a living off the misery of others grows a conscience… nothing new, and yet the tired old clichés still felt fresh somehow.

I found myself sitting there wondering if this movie would have been made if not for the success of Batman Begins and Transformers… it certainly has some of the feel of both, without the former’s dark, brooding atmosphere or the latter’s relentless Battle-of-the-robotic-Titans conflict. It’s difficult not to compare Iron Man with Batman Begins, especially, they’re both origin stories, both have protagonists who happen to be incredibly wealthy, who suffer personal tragedies that wake them up to the cruel world, both spend time creating formidable suits of war with which they will put Wrong to Right, yadda yadda, etc etc.

Robert Downey Jr.’s little moments of comedy were what made this movie for me. The movie’s Wikipedia page says he is a fan of the comic, and it shows. He poked fun at his character and the superhero genre throughout, his technological marvel breaking down in all sorts of amusing ways. His dialogue and delivery felt completely natural and ad-lib, it was witty and glib, there were none of the usual gasps of ‘You’re insane!’ directed at the villain, and not once did I feel the plot was being explained to me as if I was too stupid to get what was happening (most superhero movies do this – “I have to stop him from firing the missile launcher at the President’s jet!” etc). The robo-suit itself was pretty cool; the CGI blended seamlessly with pyrotechnic and robotic effects and there were some genuinely affecting moments. Gwyneth Paltrow didn’t suck. That is to say, I didn’t want to grind her face into the pavement every time I saw her, which is a refreshing first for me.

I don’t have many gripes with this film… the big bad villain didn’t feel threatening enough, perhaps, and the Final Conflict wasn’t all that epic. I was disappointed by the film’s portrayal of the only foreign-nationals in it… they happened to be Afghani, oppressed and terrorised by militant fundamentalists, and in need of rescuing by the good ol’ U.S of A… Only one of the locals in Afghanistan wasn’t having a gun thrust in his face or doing the gun-thrusting to his fellow countrymen, and he very soon died, but not without helping the shallow protagonist discover his conscience. Maybe not such a big deal, but it smacked of stereotype.

Overall, I really enjoyed this film, it’s got it’s flaws, but it’s one of the better examples of its genre and a damn sight better than most of the other superhero crap Hollywood puts out, with the exception of Batman Begins and maybe Spiderman 2. Check it out.

Danny Rudd

CHAFF Review -- Prince Caspian

Directed by Andrew Adamson, Starring Ben Barnes, Georgie Henley, Liam Neeson.

Grade: B+ or 8/10

I came into this second Narnia movie really expecting to dislike it, given my reaction to the first film which, while undeniably stylish and clever, and somewhat redeemed by the amazing Tilda Swinton, was nevertheless a blatant attempt to shove Christian theology down the audience’s throats. That was certainly Lewis’s intent, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was remarkably faithful to it. Shuddering slightly, I expected much the same of Prince Caspian.

I was pleasantly surprised. The theology is there but it’s a lot more subtle, more a subtext that is gently brought up at a couple of points, it’s not nearly so intrusive. The story is allowed to take precedence, and it’s a better film for it. Aslan’s words to the ever-faithful Lucy, that “Things never happen the same way twice,” can be read either as a dig at doubters of miracles, as an invitation to suspend disbelief and revel in the fantastic, or as a hint that this movie won’t be anything like the first.

And it isn’t. From almost the very first frame, this second Narnia film more closely resembles an installment of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings than the shiny, bright The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It’s visually much darker than its predecessor, and there are plenty of visual references to Jackson’s films, the most obvious being the lone hero on horseback racing across the plains, pursued by an arrowhead of dastardly foes. There’s the sweeping vistas, giant war machines and elaborate battle scenes, topped off with a whole lot of Nature getting angry.

The score was sometimes brilliant and evocative, sometimes a little irritating. The script was actually really good, and the leads were satisfactory in their roles, especially Caspian himself and his wicked uncle Miras. Oldest Pevensie child Peter is just as whiny and boring as he was in the first film, but he does get a brilliantly shot duel scene with the intimidating Miras. He’s completely outshone by younger brother Edmund however, who gets all the best lines and more interesting things to do.

I was more interested in how the film handled the girl’s roles, especially after Wardrobe, where they pretty much just sat on the sidelines and cried a lot. Here, Lucy can be seen to represent either the value of lion-hearted faith or a sense of optimism and wonder at the world, while older sister Susan is a woman of action, front and centre in all the big fight sequences and assertive in her relationships. Particularly refreshingly, there’s no inherently good and bad ‘us’ and ‘them’ of different races and peoples here, a definite improvement on the previous film and the books on which the films are based.

There were a couple of genuinely affecting moments scattered throughout all the action, some pretty frightening scenes that will probably give little kids nightmares for a while to come, and some light humour provided by Eddie Izzard as a talking mouse. I personally loved Adamson’s subtle visual nod to his Shrek films, involving a certain ginger cat. It’s as if with this film Adamson is saying “Watch out people, Narnia is going to be big.” And that might not be such a scary prospect after all.

Danny R.

CHAFF Review -- The Spanish Apartment (L'Auberge Espagnole)

Starring Romain Duris, Judith Godreche.

Grade A


L’Auberge Espagnole is a 2002 French film by director Cedric Klapisch, who I really don’t expect anyone reading this to have heard of before… I certainly hadn’t. To be honest, I was somewhat less than enthused at the prospect of watching the dvd when a friend of mine brought it over, but given that his other choices looked even less my sort of thing, being largely of the romantic-comedy variety, I thought I might as well give it a go.

I’m not scared of subtitles. I’ve seen French films before, some of which I really enjoyed, such as The City of Lost Children, The Closet and Amelie, but from the DVD case I had that sinking feeling I was really not going to get into this one. Sure enough, I found the first few minutes utterly tedious and headache-inducing, with the film’s gloomy lighting, weird sped-up bits and bland lead character. But I held in there, and I’m glad I did.

The basic premise: Xavier is an Economics grad student in Paris, who is offered a job with the government if he will go on the Erasmus student exchange programme to complete his studies in Madrid and learn Spanish. At the airport, he leaves behind his over-attentive mother and his needy and manipulative girlfriend, Martine, and, having never left Paris before, finds himself feeling utterly alone for the first time in his life. What does any such self-respecting young man do in these circumstances? Why, cry on the plane, of course. Cry like a little bitch.

While he’s shamelessly bawling his froggy eyes out, he is noticed by a very pretty young woman, which just goes to show that being a sensitive young man (read: a spoilt prat) has it’s good points, but he’s so busy wallowing in angst that he doesn’t see her checking him out. Never fear, the plane touches down in Madrid and Xavier disembarks, and who should be standing next to him at the luggage collection point but the pretty girl from the plane. Great! Except that her husband is there too.

The husband, who seems more than a bit creepy, has a job in the city, and he’s brought his lovely young wife Anne-Sophie to Madrid to be with him. He offers Xavier a sofa to crash on until he finds somewhere to stay, and Xavier accepts, perhaps finally noticing that the other guy’s wife is a bit of all right (Oh, those humorously amoral Frenchies…) You can tell where this is going. Xavier starts the semester, finds a room to let in the titular Spanish apartment, and to no one’s great surprise, starts shtupping Anne-Sophie behind her husband’s back. All very predictable. All very French.

It’s once Xavier has moved into the apartment that the pace picks up and the movie becomes genuinely enjoyable. It’s a small, crummy place, and he has to share it with English, American, French, Belgian, Italian, German, and Scandinavian students, who are all likewise on exchange programmes. The contrast is incredible. Suddenly, away from the cold, grey dreariness of Paris, we’re confronted with all the vivid colour, music and clutter of Madrid. The film becomes a dizzying blur of energy, excitement and entertaining characters, the flatmates switching back and forth between languages effortlessly, super-charging each other with their endless banter and laughter. It’s impossible not to get swept away in it, and this is exactly what happens to Xavier. Despite his initial clumsiness with the different languages in the household, he finds himself being melted down and reforged, becoming more confident of himself and his decisions and appreciative of difference and diversity.

This film is called Pot Luck in its English release, and has also gone by the title Euro Pudding internationally. While it focuses on the experience of Xavier in his new environment, it’s not hard to see that at its core this is a film about identity – specifically, national identity within the new European Union, which understandably weighs heavily on the minds of Europeans these days. Klapisch is clearly excited and optimistic about the potential for growth and increased understanding that the Union brings, and this shows in his treatment of the household dynamics in this film. Here is a group of diverse young people from very different backgrounds, learning from each other, enjoying each other’s languages, cultures and lives, occasionally fighting amongst themselves but ultimately being there for each other when it counts. And the message isn’t confined to national diversity either, it transcends gender, sexuality, age and race. It doesn’t come across as preachy or self-righteous, what you come away with is a palpable sense of excitement.

The film’s initial gloominess is in fact intentional, it serves to drive home the message, that life is chaotic, colourful, and confusing, but it’s out there to be lived and experienced, and you only get out of it what you put in. Go find it.


Danny Rudd

Ecco

I would like to devote a few words to my most enduring obsession.


Ecco the Dolphin was the Sega game that I just had to have. I saw it on the telly in a commercial, way back in '92 (15 years ago, Oh MY God!!) and as I have loved whales and sharks since before I can remember, I was instantly smitten. I nagged my mum, I went so far as to sit in front of the TV with one of those disposable cameras after school every day for a week, waiting for the commercial to come on, and when it did I snapped away like crazy(we didn't have a VCR at that point). The pictures turned out a little weird, I have to say. Because I was by no means an accomplished photographer, as a twelve year old, the shots were a crazy mix of shadows and reflections of our seventies-decor living room with a little blue dolphin swimming through it. Eventually my mum caved in and bought a Sega Mega Drive for christmas, with a copy of Sonic 2 for my little brother, Apache Strikeforce or something similar for my older brother, and Ecco for me. I was in heaven.


Though I'd had to wait five months to get it, I was not disappointed. Every opportunity I got, I was on that Mega Drive exploring deep-sea caves with Ecco. The game is beautiful, even in its first incarnation as a side-scrolling underwater puzzle/adventure. The graphics are fluid and the sprites well rendered, the textures are rich, the colours deep and lush. And it's fast. Ecco twists and leaps, dives and rolls with all the grace and agility of a real dolphin, albeit in 2D.


But the beauty of Ecco the Dolphin is in more than just what it looks like, the game is a symphony of rich sound. The music is complex and evocative, at times thrilling, at other times chilling. The sound effects really do echo, conveying a sense of the awesome vastness of the ocean, and Ecco's squeaks and whistles manage to convey an awful lot of emotion. I could lose myself in that game for hours at a time, loving it with every fibre of my being, despite how amazingly frustrating it sometimes was.


It was a hard game. It wasn't especially violent, in fact, compared to the games my brothers enjoyed it was practically tree-hugging, being mostly concerned with the solving of puzzles. Maybe that's why it got a reputation for being gay or girlie. The thing is, though, it's one of Sega's most unique releases, and by all accounts one of its most memorable. I've only recently come to understand from trolling through the Internet that my obsession is not so perverse after all, the game actually has something of a cult following. I was thrilled when I found a number of the story-clips from the Ecco titles recently on YouTube. I also found websites devoted exclusively to the games.


Ecco means a lot to me. I am profoundly moved by the hero's quest, for at its heart, Ecco the Dolphin is a story about loneliness. I won't go into the plot details here, but suffice it to say that as a kid who never found many friends, who didn't ever really fit in, I felt to some extent it was my story that was being told in that game. It's a story about loss, about bravery and determination, about fighting for what is yours even when there is no one on your side, about beauty and horror, despair and terror, mystery and myth.


I don't have many burning ambitions in life, but the one thing for which I deeply, desperately yearn is to see a film made of the first Ecco story, whether composed of cunningly edited live footage of whales, dolphins and sharks, or of photorealistic CGI. It would have to be an art film, more about the experience of the vast cold ocean than about adrenaline. Definitely not a popcorn movie. I often fantasise about how I would do it if I had the money, what it would look like, how it would sound...