Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Transformers. More than meets the eye, as the old saying goes. The simple fact is, the classic 1980s cartoon series never had much depth going for it, even when it was at its most pure. It was merely one of a wave of cartoons designed to sell toys to kids. The only difference between now and then is that we’re able to have a heck of a lot more realism in what happens on screen. So as the new Transformers film series heads to its third, and hopefully final, cinematic outing, the question we have to ask ourselves is - was Michael Bay’s efforts here worth it? Was this a bold new cinematic adventure, or merely a messy tribute to nostalgia? Honestly, while it’s great hearing Peter Cullen back as Optimus Prime, the movie is just plain boring.

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Bridesmaids

I think that I am starting to turn into a bit of a grumpy old man, really. For weeks now I’ve been hearing about this amazingly funny movie, Bridesmaids, and was very eager to go and see it. I’d heard about how many great jokes were in it, and how wonderful the characters and central plot was. Having now seen the movie, I honestly don’t feel as though the hype matched the reality. While there were certainly some good jokes in it, they were few and far between - the film focussed on the wrong aspects of “nervous comedy”, and not enough on the more interesting dramatic material that the central character was going through. So am I right or wrong? Have a read on to find out my reasons for feeling the way that I do about this movie.

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The Hangover Part II

The 2009 film The Hangover was one of that year’s best comedy films. It was an interesting premise that, while lumbered with a stupid resolution, explored some excellent comic concepts. The film worked particularly well because of the brilliant main cast assembled for the film. So given all of this, it was a bit of a no-brainer that a sequel would come a few years later. Well, it has - the Wolf Pack are back again, and this time the setting for their forgotten night of stupidity and antics is Bangkok. Along the way they’ll get a tattoo, find a drug-dealing monkey, and very quickly realise that sometimes doing the same thing over again is never a good idea. This was also a particularly obvious point to the audience, as The Hangover Part II is a rare sequel - one that sets out of perfectly mimic the format, structure, and heck even plot of the original installment. Hence why it’s so boring.

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Super 8

Super 8 is one of those movies that I have been thoroughly looking forward to for quite some time. Quite aside from the teaser trailers and regular pre-release hype, there was one single element that got me hooked on wanting to see this movie - the interactive teaser trailer present in Valve’s recent game release Portal 2. The moment I was able to wander around about 5 minutes of the film’s setting and plot I was definitely interested in seeing where this sucker was going to go. So it was with great excitement that earlier today I popped along to my local Event Cinema, grabbed myself a Gold Class seat, ordered a pizza and some beer, and sat back and watched the latest cinematic output from JJ Abrams. So, was it actually as good as I had hoped it would be? Absolutely it was - in fact, in some ways it was better than I could have ever hoped it to be. Read on to find out precisely why!

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Who is Johnny X?

Back in 2009 I was looking at buying my first Windows Mobile device, and I couldn’t decide which one to get. While I was attracted to the work by HTC, in particular their then current HTC Touch 3G mobile phone (itself their response to the then current iPhone 3G), I was a bit of a Sony Ericsson fanboi, and was seriously considering going for their first WM6.1 device, the XPERIA X1. It was a great little phone, with a fantastic slideout QWERTY keyboard and the world’s first real Retina Display (despite whatever claims Apple might make about the iPhone 4).

What really swayed me about getting the device was the amazing Webisode series that Sony Ericsson put together to assist in marketing the phone. Who is Johnny X? was a 9-part series that was a rip-off of The Bourne Identity, but one in which the hero of the piece uses the features of his new X1 to find out his identity. Ambitious, certainly, but it actually did work as a nice piece of cinema.

So while the original web site itself has long since vanished, the YouTube channel that SE set up for the series is still active, and I thought it might be nice to present the edited together version of the serial on the blog here. Yes, it does attempt to sell you a hideously outdated mobile phone, but the actual storyline is quite cool, and the production values are to die for.

The trailer and the full movie are embedded after the break. Enjoy!

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