Author: Alex Doenau

Good people don’t wear clothes.

I was prepared to dislike 300, and feel bad about feeding its insatiable money machine. I had read about the film’s “Assault on the Gay Past” and expected the worst.

There are indeed some misgivings on that front, but 300 is in my eyes a film that is so ultimately inconsequential that it should have no lasting effect. Unfortunately, the meme hungry internet has latched onto 300, making it a huge beast. It is a beast made of nought but air, but a beast nonetheless. We shall see where this movie, which didn’t really need to be made beyond the trailer, finds itself in several years’ time.

Unlike the stuff I see at the cinema, the DVDs I write about are picked totally arbitrarily.

I don't understand my peers' attraction to Garden State. Don't get me wrong, I like it; it's just that I had always assumed I held the monopoly on depressed, directionless people with emotional numbness that they are desperate to be rid of regardless of the pain that it inflicts upon them.

“We’ll always have Berlin.”

Steven Soderbergh is one of those directors who believes in doing new and exciting things in film, like releasing the same film simultaneously on DVD, the internet and in cinemas and seeing which one no one will see the least.

The exciting thing he had in mind for The Good German was to make it exactly the same way that a movie would be made in the forties: cinematography, sound and set design like the greats. Apparently his contract stipulated that in order to make The Good German he had to append the end of Casablanca to it.

Clearly he had mixed success.

The first Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End trailer surfaced today or thereabouts (actually, a few days ago; I’m not exactly topical at the moment).

I’m fairly excited about this movie, because I love swash, I love buckle, and I say nay to all of the Pirates naysayers who couldn’t believe that Dead Man’s Chest was a cliffhanger in excess of two hours. It was a half movie, like one that had drank of the unicorn. Having killed Harry Potter and regained its power, Pirates returns with At World’s End!

From what I can tell, the pirates of the world unite for a conference so that they can complain about global enterprise robbing them of their fun. This is the part where we suggest that Disney making a movie that criticises big business and crushing fine traditions is ironic to the max.

The promo materials on the walls emphasise the Chow Yun Fattitude of it all, and we’re assured by this trailer that Verbinski has taken every opportunity to use traditional cinematic “exotic shorthand”. Look at those vaguely Turkish pirates! Hooray for the pirates of Asia! Because the Pirates franchise is largely about fun, I can let them get away with these antics.
In these movies I will accept Geoffrey Rush cackling away like a madman just because … I don’t know. These films undersand the value of adventure and big set pieces. I think that part of this is because the franchise was born with absolutely no hope of a big return, and it ballooned into hugeness. While it’s got the cynical machinations of marketing bubbling deep beneath the surface now, the fun continues to float to the top.

On a completely unrelated note: why the hell are the Wachowski Brothers making a Speed Racer movie? I’ll only see it if I’m guaranteed that it will involve orgasm cake.

I couldn’t figure out how to use the “Pirate Viral Player”, so I didn’t bother.
I remember that “viral” things on computers used to be bad, but now companies just throw things on the internet and expect them to propagate. I suppose it’s a better situation.

“Swan!”

I’ll keep this brief, because Hot Fuzz is like a gift: it’s not as fun if you don’t open it yourself. This is a film that straddles genres, as Shaun of the Dead did before it, and the result is something by turns contemplative and hilarious.

It seems that I suck at the internet. Regardless of the fact that /keep looks like it will mirror itself for all time, please update your links to Batrock.net! I decided the sub directory made no sense and my splash page was an ugly put off.

Hooray for progress and aesthetics!

In space, nothing good ever happens. Really, I don’t know why you’d bother.

Science fiction from Danny Boyle, the director of Trainspotting and 28 Days Later. That simple description of Sunshine may be enough to sell it to quite a few people.

Some wonder why more SF doesn’t get made and, beyond the fact of the high budgets expected to make them look good, there is a simple explanation: space is bleak. Sunshine gives hope, but ultimately all is an endless vacuum.

Trailer Warning: Don’t watch the trailer for this movie, as it apparently spoils many of the pertinent plot elements.