Now, I’m not a fan of lawn bowls. In fact, I would generally describe it as a boring game played by old people. Not something you would typically want to make a movie about, but that’s exactly what Blackball is about. Cliff Starkey (Paul Kaye) is not your typical bowls …
Chris Anderson has written an interesting article about how piracy may actually help an industry, not just rob it of profits (via Kottke). There’s some interesting thoughts on how the film, music and software industries will never be able to completely erradicate piracy, at least, not without alienating their …
It seems I’m not the only one to have noticed a distinct cooling of public interest in blockbuster movies, The Guardian has an article looking at why this year’s ‘must-sees’ didn’t hit home as they have in years gone by. The Island, one of the biggies this summer, directed …
Continuing my newly-found Firefly and Serenity obsession, I stumbled across a funny article detailing the UK premiere at the Edinburgh Film Festivel on Empire Online.
The night before, Sunday, Empire’s lord of all things sci-fi James ‘Darth’ Dyer had been teleported from Londoninium to hang out with the Serenity crew …
It appears the big guns are still having problems trying to combine the two competing blue laser DVD formats: Blu-ray and HD-DVD. Although further talks have not been ruled out, these formats are going into production shortly. Toshiba want HD-DVD units out by the end of the year …
Sahara was another movie I missed at the cinema but have now managed to watch. I was, to tell the truth, a little worried about how they would pull it off. I’ve only read the one Cussler book, Valhalla Rising (which, as the name suggests, has vikings in …
I finally got around to watching Ong Bak (I missed it at the cinema) yesterday and it’s everything they claimed it to be. Tony Ja (as they’re crediting him now, real name Panom Yeerum) certainly has what it takes to inherit the martial arts mantle from Jet Li and …
Al barely makes it back inside the battleship after being shot at by Kazim’s helicopter.
Al
Next time, you go [outside]!
Dirk
What took you so long?
Al
(taken aback)
What? I stopped for coffee.
Eva
Hey, guys.
Dirk
Did you get a receipt?
Al
Yeah I got a receipt, and I got you one too.
Eva
Guys!
Dirk
You’re the best, Al.
Al
Yeah, you know what, …
Dirk finds a cannon and clears stuff off it.
Dirk
Hey, Al.
Al
No, Dirk.
Dirk
Oh, yeah.
Al
No, it’ll never work.
Dirk
Why not?
Al
It’s 150 years old.
Dirk
Yeah, it’s hardly been used.
Al
It’ll probably blow us to bits.
Dirk
Yeah, but at least we’ll die fighting, huh?
Al
Yeah, that’s comforting.
Inside the civil war ‘ironclad’ battleship Texas after being shot at by Kazim’s helicopter.
Dirk
Al.
Al
Yeah.
Dirk
You didn’t see any extra fuel tanks on that bird did ya?
Al
No, I didn’t see any.
Dirk
That means he only has 20-30 minutes left of flight time. These walls are two-feet thick with a double steel coating …
Dirk
Al, did you bring any of the explosives from the charge?
Al
Couldn’t find ‘em.
Dirk
Al!
Al
I didn’t have time.
Dirk
Al!
Al
Of course I brought the explosives!
Dirk
Eva, I hope you don’t throw like a girl.
Al, Rudi and Dirk leap off their boat shortly before it sails between two Malinese gunboats, exploding as a cigar burns down far enough to ignite the fuel and destroy the gunboats. The scene cuts back to Admiral Sandecker on the other end of a satellite phone.
Sandecker
(the phone goes …
Al Gordino
Alright! Rudi, you gonna run the, ah, sonar on the riverbed?
Rudi Gunn
Come on, I was hoping to meet a girl on the Australia trip.
Al Gordino
No, African warzone, ship of death!
(Al gives a thumbs up)
Dirk Pitt
I’ll meet you at the boat
He hits Al on the arm, gets up and leaves.
Al Gordino
Ow.
(pause)
Nope, I got the check, don’t worry about it. I’m serious, I know I get it all the time. Sit down, I’ll get the check.
I’ve been trailer trawling a fair bit of late and I’ve noticed a trend in Hollywood movies; the reflective, character-based film is on the rise. Don’t get me wrong, the shallow action films are still about, but there seems to be a growing number of quiet, inward looking, self-exploratory …
A landmark agreement has been made in the US regarding the standards for digital cinema projectors.
Having just read a book about a female assasin, maybe I was a little more susceptible to the trailer for Aoen Flux than I would otherwise have been. It stars Charlize Theron as, you guessed it, a female assasin. The trailer certainly storms along. It sounds a …
It’s nice to see that the mud flinging about who was to blame about the bad box office garnered by The Island has begun. Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald, head of DreamWork’s film division and producers of the film, basically blamed everything from the star’s lack of box office …
I posted a short while back about Serenity, an upcoming movie written and directed by Joss Whedon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame. The film is based on a TV series called Firefly which only lasted 14 episodes before it was cancelled, much to the annoyance of its growing …
Edward Jay Epstein, author of The Big Picture, has written some interesting articles over at Slate magazine about what he calls ‘Hollywood’s Death Spiral.’ They contain some insights into the business side of the Hollywood machine covering things like the shortening window between a movie being released at the …
As Neil Armstrong was taking his first steps on the moon, the radio signals carrying the television pictures were being received by Parkes radio telescope in Australia, the largest of several radio telescopes that were drafted into the space program (and remain part of it). The Dish tells the story …
Blockbuster recently reported a $57 (£32) million loss in the second quater of 2005. They made $48.6 million in profits over the same time period in 2004. I have to say that it’s been obvious to me that the video rental market wouldn’t last long and the traditional …
Erin Brockovich
Yeah. Sexy, huh? And here’s another: five. That’s how old my other daughter is. Seven is my son’s age. Two is how many times I been married and divorced. You getting all this? 16 is the number of dollars in my bank …
Jack Sparrow
Or perhaps the reason you practice three hours a day is that you’ve already found one, and are otherwise incapable of wooing said strumpet? You’re not a eunuch are you?
It looks like a the first of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, The Golden Compass, is set to be the next children’s novel adaptation into production. They’re going to need to be a tough bunch of films, even though they’ve removed the religious references, because Pullman has categorically …
Jules Winnfield
They speak English in What?
Verbal Kint
Keaton always said: ‘I don’t believe in God, but I’m afraid of him.’ Well I believe in God, and the only thing that scares me is Keyser Soze.
McSweeney’s has a fantastic list of ‘lesser-known movie sequels,’ which Kottke pointed me in the direction of.
Some of the highlights:
Ocean’s Three
There Are Plenty of Mohicans
Joseph and the Nondescript Monochrome Sportcoat
Thursday the 12th
Jack Napier/The Joker
…you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?
Zombie movies aren’t something I usually make a beeline for I must confess, but Shaun of the Dead is different. The filmmakers argue that it’s actually a Zom Rom Com (i.e. a Zombie Romantic Comedy), and that’s pretty much what it is. Simon Pegg plays Shaun, an average bloke with …
It appears the movie industry is on the attack again. I noticed the comparison to the music industry stated in the article, the reason for this is that recent research has shown that people who download music illegally also buy more music via legal channels. I imagine this …
The Replacements is an American football film. These don’t tend to do so well outside of North America*, mainly because it’s played in very few countries, and in a limited way in those where it is. As such, I’m not sure this even got a cinema release in the UK. …
For those of you who don’t know who Joss Whedon is, he’s the man behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. His new project is a sci-fi film called Serenity, based on his Firefly TV series. The second trailer has just been released and it looks like it …
