Steven Spielberg has added another quality name to his already esteemed line-up of actors in his forthcoming biopic of Abraham Lincoln by casting Watchmen’s Jackie Earle Haley.

Deadline brings news that the Little Children star will play another villain of sorts in the form of Alexander Stephens, an opposer of Lincoln’s slavery reform agenda. He’ll join the likes of Tommy Lee Jones, Sally Field, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, John Hawkes, David Strathairn, Walton Goggins and Daniel Day-Lewis (in the titular role) in the film, entitled Lincoln, this autumn.

Comeback king Haley is currently working with another starry ensemble in the form of Tim Burton’s next horror yarn, Dark Shadows.

Alex Pettyfer’s recent dismissive and derogatory comments about the town which keeps him in employment appear not to have had a negative effect on his career. The I Am Number Four star with not one, but two high-profile projects in the works.

First up is the lead in Steven Soderbergh’s (thought he was retiring?) comedy drama about a young, struggling actor who moonlights as a stripper to make ends meet, whilst he pursues his career (based on the real-life exploits of co-star Channing Tatum no less!).

He’s also being lined-up to appear alongside Matthew Goode (Watchmen) in action adventure Overdrive, where the two will play brothers who specialise in thieving cars, and embark on a mission which takes them to the South of France. With scripting duties by Michael Brandt and Derek Haas (Wanted, 3-10 to Yuma), the film will be produced by Taken helmer, Pierre Morel

In light of that now infamous interview with VMAN (where amongst other industry disses and tawdry personal details, he remarks that Hollywood is a “shit-hole”), Pettyfer seems impervious to the effects of self-induced career suicide, which would suggest that in the land of showbiz you can’t keep a good ego down, regardless to how grotesque it presents itself.

News via The Hollywood Reporter and Collider

I’m hoping you’ll have all tuned in to see Sir Christopher Lee receive the BAFTA Fellowship on Sunday night and it was an award well deserved, not least because the man’s body of work spans eight decades and he continues to work, returning to the studio where he made his name for Hammer’s The Resident.

He appears in Antti Jokinen’s film alongside Hilary Swank and Jeffery Dean Morgan, and there’s a new poster to enjoy today, there was a pretty effective trailer out recently, which you should take a look at.

The ominous synopsis will thrust fear into you,

Every year, several million single women in America move into an apartment. They don’t know who lived in the apartment before them, they don’t know their landlords, and they don’t bother to change the locks.This is the story of one such woman…

The Resident follows Wake Wood and Let Me In as Hammer Films return to the big screen with The Woman in Black perhaps the greatest jewel in their crown, for my money it’s good to have them back.

Eyes down for a scary house,

Who had this as an exclusive? Empire. That’s who.

Hammer Films have just sent us this brand new international trailer for their new movie, The Resident. It stars Hilary Swank (Million Dollar Baby, Amelia), Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen, The Losers) and Hammer veteran Christopher Lee (The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars). It’s set for release in the UK 11^th March 2011.

Synopsis:  Every year, several million single women in America move into an apartment. They don’t know who lived in the apartment before them, they don’t know their landlords, and they don’t bother to change the locks.

This is the story of one such woman…

After separating from her adulterous husband, the beautiful and young Dr. Juliet Devereau (Swank) moves to Brooklyn, NY and settles into a new life in a stunning and spacious loft apartment that seems too good to be true. Mysterious occurrences lead her to suspect she is not alone in her home and quickly her fears become all too real. In a chilling revelation, she discovers her seemingly charming, young landlord, Max (Morgan), has developed a dangerous obsession with her. Unknown to both of them, Max suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder. A terrifying game of cat and mouse ensues as Juliet is forced to fight and free herself from Max’s increasingly sinister intentions.

This trailer is the international version, you can see the previous Domestic trailer and poster here.

Harrison Ford puts down his whip and exchanges it for a mic and a serious bad attitude to star alongside Sherlock Holmes squeeze Rachel McAdams and Diane Keaton (no stranger to this genre) for newsroom comedy Morning Glory.

McAdams is a young, spirited TV producer Becky Fuller, who we first witness being let go from her New Jersey morning show when the company is forced to downsize. She manages to score a job on below-par morning news show Daybreak (any similarities between its real-life, almost identical UK doppelganger is entirely coincidental). Haemorrhaging viewers by the week, the young executive immediately resolves to turn around the show’s dwindling audience and promptly fires female presenter Colleen Peck’s (Keaton – relaxed and graceful) boorish and pervy co-anchor, and hires Mike Pomeroy (Ford), a veteran newscaster who bemoans the position he’s found himself, doing his best to sabotage Fuller’s best efforts by generally behaving like a old, petty curmudgeon (at one point he refuses to utter the word “fluffy”, claiming he’s offended by it!).

Fuller soon finds herself as referee between Peck and Pomeroy while struggling to maintain a relationship with a fellow employee (played by Watchmen’s Patrick Wilson), to save her reputation, her job and ultimately, the show itself.

Can you guess the outcome? Sure, Morning Glory may be predictable and a tad formulaic, but despite this (and having a soundtrack that sounds like it’s been sourced from Magic FM), these minor shortcomings never distract from all the fun to be had here. It’s the kind of light comedy that Hollywood does so well with the right kind of talent attached, and the film certainly comes with a solid pedigree of talent in front, and behind, the camera. Although not an obvious choice of film to brandish the Bad Robot insignia when it springs up pre-credits, Producer J.J. Abrams (Alias, Lost and Star Trek) certainly has his fingerprints over the production – from its tight and economical pacing, it the choices made in casting and direction.

Roger Michell is no stranger to this type of mainstream populist comedy (he fully cemented Hugh Grant’s reputation as Brit love interest for hire in Notting Hill) and like that film, he possesses the same, sure-footed approach here. It’s also no surprise to learn that the film was scripted by The Devil Wears Prada’s Aline Brosh McKenna. We have the same device of the plucky woman trying to make it regardless of her older, seasoned colleagues.

McAdams is her usual, appealing down-to-earth self. It’s a performance which really has you rooting for her character, as she desperately battles to improve on audience figures, whilst faced with the daily tribulation of trying to appease and pacify her two anchors. Her sweet determined nature shines through.

The biggest success casting-wise however is Ford, who is more fun here than he has been in decades, playing the pompous and cranky veteran who speaks in a perpetual growl and can’t help but continuously refer back to the more distinguished and prestigious past career he’s lived. The character could have so easily fallen into a clichéd look at bitterness and arrogance, but Ford is never OTT. His delivery is pitched perfect and his constant putdowns are often extremely biting, yet incredibly funny. It’s also nice to see that the makers don’t try and shoe-horn in a late romance between him and Keaton either.

The film loses a little narrative grip towards the end (and some of its bite) when McAdams is able to push through Pomeroy’s tough exterior to find a wounded soul underneath, but it’s to the actor’s credit (especially Ford) that it doesn’t turn into an out and out mushfest!

Bolstered by an appealing supporting cast (which also includes Jeff Goldblum as McAdams’ exasperated boss), in many ways Morning Glory is conventional, sugar-coated Hollywood fare, but it’s never less than thoroughly enjoyable.

Morning Glory is released in the UK cinemas TODAY!

***~~ (3/5)

Following on from their brand relaunch with the US remake of Let the Right One In, here’s a poster (courtesy of IMP Awards) for another film from the newly restored Hammer studios.

The Resident stars Hillary Swank as a young doctor who finds herself becoming the object of her new landlord’s (played by Watchmen’s Jeffrey Dean Morgan) obsession when she moves into a Brooklyn loft space.

The poster itself presents that familiar-looking woman in peril imagery which has been seen numerous times before, although it’s nice to see the inclusion of Hammer veteran Christopher Lee’s name under the film’s title. It looks like the studio is consciously paying respect to what has come before in casting the 88 year old – a device which may pay off marketing-wise too.

The film is set for release in the UK on 11 March 2011.

It was reported by various sources over the weekend that Lindsay Lohan had been dropped from upcoming biopic Inferno.

Deadline have now confirmed this story, while revealing that Malin Akerman (Watchmen) has been hired to replace Lohan as porn actress Linda Lovelace.

Inferno will be directed by Matthew Wilder (Your Name Is Here) and is loosely based on Lovelace’s original autobiography.

Production is expected to commence in the new year.

Akerman will next be seen in David Wain’s Wanderlust, alongside Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd.

He’s already played a superhero (well, costumed crime fighter) once, as Nite Owl in Zack Snyder’s Watchmen. He has also racked up impressive work in Little Children and Hard Candy, before hitting more mainstream work with The Switch, The A-Team and the forthcoming Morning Glory.

Now, Movieweb say he might be in the running for Superman, in Zack Snyder’s reboot. First, they quote Wilson as saying the following when he first heard that Snyder had signed to direct the film:-

“When I heard he signed on I called one of my agents and said that I hadn’t talked to Zack or anything but that I just wanted to read it. I don’t even care if I’m right for anything, I just want to know what he’s doing.”

When Movieweb then pressed him on whether he’d like to play Superman, he said:-

“Oh man, who knows? I love seeing all the Jon Hamm comments and Jon is like, “What? I’m over forty, this is ridiculous”. So I don’t know? That is such a big thing, who knows? I remember when Watchmen came around I didn’t think I was really age appropriate or right for that but then when I jumped into it I was able to make it work. So who, knows? I would be happy to do anything with Zack again.”

So there you go. Wilson sounds like he’d gladly put his pants outside his tights for Snyder and it’s pretty easy to imagine him in the role. Certainly his performance in Watchmen shows he has the physicality for the role and Nite Owl is not so iconic a role as to create any association problems for Wilson in terms of playing another comic book / graphic novel character. Wilson seems genuinely excited at the idea of a Snyder Superman film, adding:-

“Well, I think anything is a good fit with him. The thing about Zack is that the guy is the most detailed, focused director that I’ve worked with. He knows exactly the picture that he wants to paint. Whether it’s your taste … I mean you can find a hundred people that absolutely love Watchmen and then there are people who will say that it is too close to the comic. But whatever, its Zack! He just attacks each film and with every single frame he knows exactly the picture that he wants to paint. So I think its awesome and I think its awesome for the franchise. I loved Superman growing up. I was brought up really on the movies. I was not a comic guy so those movies just defined, especially Superman and Superman II, the super-hero genre for me. Christopher Reeve, you know? So its great to mix it up and I think it is a great move. I think it will just be an awesome spectacle and you know he’ll find some great story to tell.”

It looks like, at least for the time being, we have another great big casting debate that will swirl around until someone in charge puts it to bed. We will keep you advised. In the meantime, tell us below who you would like to see in the blue tights.

Mickey Rourke continues his current career resurgence with a role in action thriller The Courier (as reported by The Wrap).

The Wrestler star joins the Watchmen’s Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Inglourious Basterd Til Schweiger in the story of a tough courier (Morgan) who finds himself having to avoid being picked off by corrupt federal agents, crooked cops and dangerous rivals when he’s assigned a job to deliver a briefcase to a notorious crime boss.

It does sounds suspiciously like a re-working of Jason Statham’s Transporter films, but with 3:10 to Yuma scribes Derek Haas and Michael Brandt onboard and Hany Abu-Assad (director of acclaimed drama Paradise Now) attached, any comparisons between the two films will probably be the main character’s job role.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s an exciting piece of news from Deadline that the husband and wife producing team of Chris Nolan and Emma Thomas have begun meeting with possible directors to take on the new Superman adaptation.

The names being mentioned are our very own Tony Scott, Matt Reeves (who is getting some great buzz at the moment for his US version of Let The Right One In), Moon’s Duncan Jones, Jonathan Liebesman (who has Battle: Los Angeles on the way) and Watchmen’s Zack Snyder.

Hmmmm. With perhaps the exception of Scott (not sure if his bombastic style would be right for this project) this is an interesting line-up, and it’s reassuring that Warner Bros are looking at visual artists who all possess their own distinctive style, and that the studio is also considering a couple who haven’t had the experience of working within the realms of big-budget Hollywood filmmaking before.

We’ll keep you posted when we hear who has finally been chosen for the job.

Lloyd Levin, who produced Watchmen and the Hellboy movies, has acquired the rights to Matt Wagner’s comic book, Mage.

Centring on Kevin Matchstick, an alienated young man who discovers he has superhuman abilities, the story sees him gain a magic baseball bat (I double checked) and use it to defeat the nefarious plans of an entity called Umbra Spike.

Telling Variety “It has always been a favourite book of mine”, Levin will produce with Andrew Cosby, financing development and production of Mage himself.

Comprising a 15-book arc titled ‘The Hero Discovered’, the rights were previously owned by Spyglass, with Zack Snyder in line to direct.

It looks like Watchmen may be getting a prequel – and a few spin offs.

According to Rich Johnston at Bleeding Cool DC are planning to release a series of comics set in Alan Moore’s Watchmen universe. As it stands, the plans include at least one prequel, and a series of on-going spin off comics.

This, for anyone who hasn’t realised, is almost certainly a bad thing.

In theory Alan Moore will get the first shot at any Watchmen spin-off, but as he abandoned mainstream comics years ago, and has becoming increasingly more cantankerous with every film adaptation of his projects, it’s safe to say that he won’t be going anywhere near it.

Regardless of Moore’s lack of involvement, the whole idea is ludicrous. The term ‘Graphic Novel’ originated with Watchmen, and while it has since been misappropriated by gits and cretins as a synonym for comics, the reason it was applied in the first place was that the book was, in every conceivable way, a novel. One of the key reasons for this was that the story had a clear beginning, middle and end, that was known to the author from the outset. It wasn’t a serialisation, and any attempt to make it so will not only cheapen the original book, but also be setting itself up for failure.

Now, this isn’t strictly movie news. Yet. Unfortunately it’s pretty safe to assume that if the comic is successful there will be some sort of film adaptation. The one factor that might save us from this is the relative pittance the first film made. While the comic is now DC’s highest grossing property, the film made, in the grand scheme of things, peanuts.

Actually, that’s not fair. It made an absolute fortune, just nowhere near Warner’s Dark Knight-inflated expectations. That said, the film may still not have made enough to automatically take a related property to greenlight. Usually studios like to commission sequels/prequels immediately, and as circumstances have conspired to make this impossible we may be fortunate enough to dodge this bullet. Best stop buying every possible variation of the Watchmen DVD/Blu-Ray jus in case.

Ho Ho Ho! It’s that time of the year for giving and receiving and if your having trouble finding the perfect gift for your loved one then i will hopefully mention something that will help fill that stocking in time for 25th December.

I’m going to run down my top Blu-Ray films, Top DVD’s, Top TV Boxsets and Top anything else that I think are must haves this year.

We’ve added links to Zavvi.com who are currently offering free delivering on everything so make sure you check them out.

BLU-RAY and DVD FILMS

I’ll start with Blu-Ray/DVD films. Blu-Rays have reduced in price incredibly in the run up to Christmas and if you shop around then you will find all sort of deals like 2-4-1′s or 2 for a nice low price, and it’s still not to late to get them in time for Christmas.

1. Inglourious Basterds – Tarantino is back to his creative best in this incredible homage to the war buddy film creating one hell of a story with brilliant characters and one of the all-time greatest film villains. It”s brutal it’s funny and it’s film making at it’s best, Tarantino and the entire crew have so much fun and so will you.
   Set in an alternate version of nazi germany  Brad Pitt leads a crack crew of jewish Nazi killers on a revenge mission. intertwined with the story of a french-Jewish girl who survived the slaughter of her family, it’s a glorious Tarantino story.
   Blu-Ray – approx £15
   DVD – approx £10
   




2. District 9 – Neill Blonkamp brings one of the films of the year in the surprise hit District 9. With faultlessly designed aliens, super huge geeky weapons and a gripping imaginative story the film offers a brilliant world to escape to, especially after your christmas dinner, and beautifully brought to the screen by Blonkamp. The lead actor Sharlto Copely is stunning as Wikus and is going on to play Murdoch in the new A-Team movie and you will see why in this outstanding film.
   Blu-Ray – approx £15
   DVD – approx £10
   




3. Moon – My movie of the year, this is film making at it’s imaginative and creative best and a shear delight to watch. Staring just Sam Rockwell and the voice of Kevin Spacey as a robot who are based on the moon mining on a three year contract, when the contract is almost up and Sam is ready to return home to his family strange things start to happen. It’s amazingly made by Duncan Jones and Sam Rockwell puts in a performance worthy of an Oscar that is long overdue. A future classic
   Blu-Ray – approx £15
   DVD – approx £10
   




4. The Hangover – Probably one of the funniest films this year and many years before it. It’s made stars of it’s cast and been one of the surprise successes of the year, in fact it’s so good it’s getting a sequel.
   It’s dirty, it’s shocking and it’s what my stag doo could have been.
   It’s the perfect film for the Boxing Day blues and guaranteed to make your granny laugh and for your granddad to want a trip to Vegas. A fantastic film with so may laughs, the perfect gift.
   Blu-Ray – approx £15
   DVD – approx £10
   




5. The Bourne Trilogy – How is this so cheap! It’s the Bond Beating Jason Bourne on Blu-Ray, all three films The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and the Bourne Ultimatum in stunning Blu-Ray for a ridiculously low price.
   Jason Bourne loses his memory and over the three films unravels who and why he is. Filmed on location in so many amazing countries Doug Liman and Paul Greengrass bring Bourne to life in one of the finest Trilogy’s ever made.
   Matt Damon is perfect and partakes in some of the most stunning fight sequences, car chases and stories committed to film. What a bargain.
   Blu-Ray – approx £18
   




6. Terminator Salvation – By no means a good film or a decent Terminator movie but never-the-less it’s a reasonable action movie that will entertain at least and definitely show off your new Blu-Ray player and HD TV to the max.
   Christian Bale takes on the role of John Connor as he struggles to survive the war of the robots and Skynet and takes through the next chapter of the Terminator franchise. The plot is poor but the action enjoyable enough to please the stuffed bellies and slightly tipsey family members after Christmas dinner who want to switch off for a couple of hours.
   Amazing Blu-Ray transfer and an ok film worthy of any christmas wrapping paper.
   Blu-Ray – approx £15
   DVD – approx £9
   




7. Drag Me to Hell – Sam Raimi is back behind the camera making a horror film after a long stint of seven years making the Spiderman Trilogy, and what a return it is.
   Fans of Raimi will be pleased that he has created one of the best horror movies in recent years and he’s back  to his roots of the Evil Dead movies by using cool camera angles and tricks t great effect. With a strong story and fine acting it’s a movie for Christmas evening for when the hyperactive kids have gone to bed.
   Blu-Ray – approx £16
   DVD – approx £10
   




8. Star Trek XI – The Best Star Trek film ever made? arguably yes and definitely yes for non-Trekies as J.J.Abrams brings us the 11th Star Trek film the most accessible Star Trek  film ever made. Staring Chris Pine (Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Spock), Eric Bana (Romulan Baddie, Karl Urban (the perfect young Bones) and Simon Pegg (Scotty) all loving and enjoying their roles in this reboot of the Star Trek series are all fantastic and do the franchise proud.
   A film for the entire family and a truly surprising treat for those non-fans of Star Trek and a great great Blu-Ray experience.
   Blu-Ray – approx £18
   DVD – approx £9 – £15
   




9. Time Crimes – One of the most enjoyable and flawless time traveling films ever made that came out of nowhere and is still an unknown entity to the masses.
   The incredible Spanish movie takes on the tricky story of time traveling and does it better than any film i’ve ever seen using a great plot, amazing paradoxes and dilemmas and with perfect pacing that doesn’t let logical or illogical story slow it down and allow it to confuse.
   It’s a stroke of genius and i can’t recommend it enough.
   Not one for the family but definitely one for the alert minded pre christmas day booze.
   DVD – approx £5
   




10. Let the Right One In - The best Vampire relationship film ever made bar none. Better than that Twilight rubbish that’s getting all the attention at the moment and one of the finest films of the year. Staring two young kids in the lead roles who stun with their performances of this excellent Swedish vampire story that amazes from start to finish. It takes on all the known rules of vampires like daylight killing them and what happens if a vampire comes in uninvited  and showcases them brilliantly.
    With a finale in the swimming pool that is truly incredible it will go down in history as a classic horror film, get it now (Very cheap) before the American remake ‘Let me in’ comes out 2010 WHY!
    Blu-Ray – approx £9
    DVD – approx £5
    
    A few more to mention
    Some films that didnt make the top 10 list but also worth a mention:-

11. Transformers : Revenge of the Fallen – For me a terrible film but worth a panic buy if your desperate for a gift and you have bought all the other movies above! but only then buy this film. Full of action, huge transforming robots and terrible dialogue and acting.
    Blu-Ray – approx £17
    DVD – approx £10-£13

12. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince – Not seen this but i’ve been informed that it’s a corker so well worth a buy for the fans of the series
    Blu-Ray – approx £17
    DVD – approx £8

13. Kill Bill 1 & 2 – The stunning Tarantino two part revenge movie. Full of  action and OTT blood and gore in the first part and then full of revenge with a plot and cool dialogue in the second part. Well worth a grab for a christmas present and dead cheap for two great films.
    Blu-Ray – approx £15
    DVD – approx £7
    
    
14. Watchmen – The incredibly made comic book adaption of the unfilmable Watchmen. Zack Snyder created a stunning film that was probably too long for non fans but still a superb style over content superhero movie. I loved it maybe your receivee will too.
    Blu-Ray – approx £17
    DVD – approx £7-£11

15. Wall-E - Better than this years UP! and my favorite Pixar film ever. It’s low down on the list mainly because everyone should already own this masterpiece Oscar winner from the most talented film studio in the world. centered on a lovable little robot that cleans for a living on a deserted Earth who goes on an adventure into space, it’s flawless story telling.
    Blu-Ray – approx £11
    DVD – approx £8
    




16. Public Enemies -Michael Mann directs Johnny Depp, Christian Bale and Academy Award winner Marion Cotillard in the story of legendary outlaw John Dillinger.
    A good yet slightly disappointing film which could have been so much better.
    Blu-Ray – approx £16
    DVD – approx £10
    




17. Red Cliff - John Woo is back to his best for his most outrageously amitious epic movie yet. The Han Dynasty is facing its death in third century China, and the emperor raises a million-man army against two kingdoms that are hopelessly outmatched. Tony Leung stars and John Woo is on fire.
    Blu-Ray – approx £9
    DVD – approx £14 !

    TV SHOWS

1. House Season 1-5 – One of the finest TV Shows ever made with one of the most surprising performances from Hugh Laurie who has grown into one of the most respected actors in America with his portrayal of Dr Gregory House, a miserable drug addicted genius rare disease specialist.
   The series has grown from strength to strength and has produced some of the most incredible episodes of TV ever made.
   If you haven’t seen it at all and were put off by Hugh Laurie’s American accent, don’t be it’s actually suits him by the time you get into season one, so buy it now, if you have seen it and don’t have season five buy it now! It’s TV at it’s best.
   DVD – 1-5 Boxset approx £50
   Each Season approx £12-£20
   




2. Arrested Development – One of the finest comedy shows ever made that was cruely cancelled after 3 series, although the cast and crew knew this before filming had concluded so ridiculed the decision in the final few episodes which was hilarious.
   Staring Jason Bateman, Michael Cera, Will Arnett, David Cross and more it’s about an extended family brought together after the arrest of the father of the family. It’s sometimes bonkers but always hilarious with some of the best characters of any comedy show made. I still miss it.
   DVD – 1-3 Boxset approx £21
   Each Season approx £15
   




3. Lost Season 1-5 – What can i say, the best TV show ever made and coming into it’s final season in February 2010 it’s a must have addition to any collection.
   Following the adventures of the survivors of flight 815 on a remote island thats surrounded in mystery, hatches, smoke monsters , Dharma and many more it’s a stunning watch and incredible production.
   This is the perfect show with a fine cast, i would love anyone who got me this for christmas if i didn’t have it already!
   Blu-Ray individual boxsets- approx £34 – £45
   DVD 1-5 Box set – approx £80
   Each Season – approx £16 – £33
   




4. Breaking Bad – One of the best unknown TV shows of the last few years. Currently awaiting it’s third season to air in 2010 it’s been getting rave reviews and winning awards and one of my favorite shows ever.
   Staring Bryan Cranston as an over educated chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with lung cancer, realizing he doesn’t have enough money to support his wife, unborn daughter and a son with cerebral palsey after he dies so he enters the drug trade creating the purest form of Meth with an old student called Jesse and so starts off on the path of the criminal underworld. The performance of Bryan Cranston is remarkable as his condition deteriorates through the series as he becomes more involved with the characters of the drug world.
   Stunning stunning TV.
   DVD Season 1 – approx £16
   




5. Family Guy Season 8 – One of the most successful animated TV shows ever made and for me a Simpson’s beater. It’s controversial, it’s hilarious, it’s rude, it’s also hit and miss at times but still provides more laughs an episode than most comedy shows. It’s been cancelled once and brought back to life due to popular demand and it shows why as each season gets better and season 8 is the best so far.
   So follow Peter Griffin and his family on this excellent boxset and if you haven’t seen Family Guy before now is a great time to start.
   DVD Season 8 – approx £18
   Each Season – approx £10 each
   




6. Life – You can’t beat BBC nature programs and Life is another can’t miss nature documentary. The series takes a global view of the specialised strategies and extreme behaviour that living things have evolved in order to survive. Narrated again by the incredible and soothing voiced Sir David Attenborough, he guides us through some of the most incredible nature filming ever seen and like the excellent series ‘Planet Earth’ it’s in glorious HD on Blu-Ray which is how you should buy it if you have the technology to do so because it’s truly incredible to watch and are guaranteed to see something you have never seen before in nature. Phenomenal stuff.
   Blu-Ray - approx £35
   DVD – approx £29

7. The Sopranos Season 1-6 - The Soprano’s is regarded as one of the best TV shows ever made and rightly so. All 6 seasons are full of Tony Soprano and his two lives, One of his family and the other of the mafia family. It has arguably the best written episodes ever shown on TV and some of the most memorable characters and likeable characters I’ve ever seen. If your a fan of mafia movies then your going to love it, If your a fan of family Drama’s then your going to be pleasantly surprised by the depth and detail it enters the world of family issues and drama. Multi award winning and incredibly enjoyable from start to finish, this is a must buy gift.
   DVD Season 1-6 – approx £80
   Each Season – approx £16
   




8. The Wire Season 1-5 – For some reason The Wire has been like marmite when I try to introduce people to it. Some have gone on to buy every season, some have told me it’s pants after 2-3 episodes and that’s the secret to enjoying the Wire, get to episode 4 or 5 and this show will embed itself into your brain and never leave until you finish the entire series. It’s begins slowly and picks up so much momentum that if it was a snowball rolling down a hill it would end up the size of 45 houses. The characters, the plots, the subject matter is so well portrayed on screen that it’s easy to believe that the Wire is based on real life events. It’s unlike anything else on TV and it’s the best of it’s kind ever made. Genius.
   DVD Season 1-5 – approx £60
   Each Season – approx £16.

9. Curb Your Enthusiasm season 1-6 - The best comedy series on TV for me. I’ve never laughed out loud so often whilst watching Larry David in Curb your Enthusiasm. Those that don’t know, Larry David was the Co-Creator of the amazing Seinfeld TV show and Curb follows on in a documentary/improvisation format showing the life of Larry David and the appalling situations he gets himself in whilst living his life in LA. Larry gets himself into the most hilarious situations that get more controversial as the show goes on and you can’t but laugh.
   With cameos from numerous celebrities  that all seem to not mind getting involved in embarrassing scenarios, it’s a pure joy to watch and fantastically entertaining. I cannot recommend it enough.
   DVD Season 1-5 – approx £57
   Each Season – approx £13
   




10. Battlestar Galactica season 1-4 on Bluray – A bit pricey this one but if you like your Sci-fi with a fantastic story then Battlestar Galactica is for you. I was slow getting on board to this series as i thought ‘What have they done to my beloved 80′s Battlestar’ and i shouldn’t have worried. Battlestar Galactica remake is one of the most incredible TV shows ever made. The first three seasons are incredible with some episodes that truly amaze with it’s creativity, shock and awe stories and production values. The plot is similar to the original but it’s been turned on it’s head with the Cylon’s now taking on human forms which are unknown to the survivors of the war and this add’s an incredible sense of paranoia and fear to the characters of Battlestar Galactica. The actors take time to grow into their roles but by the end of season 1 they are in full flow and when season 2 kicks off it launches into it’s own and takes its position as one of the best ever shows and well worth forking out for someone you love (hint to my wife).
    Blu-Ray complete Boxset – approx £115

    A few more to mention
    Some TV shows that didn’t make the top 10 list but also worth a mention:-

11. Friends Complete series 1-10 – You know the story, you know the characters. It’s one of the most popular comedy series ever made that completed ten consistently funny seasons that followed Chandler, Monica, Joey, Ross, Phoebe and Rachel and their lives living in New York. The perfect gift and such a bargain.
    DVD Season 1-10 – approx £45

12. Fringe Season 1 Blu-ray – The incredible sci-fi show from the minds of J J Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. A special FBI agency is created after a series of unexplained, often ghastly occurrences that are occurring all over the world and the team use unorthodox ‘Fringe’ Science to investigate. It’s a lot better than it sounds and is in fact is one of my favorite new shows of the last year.
    Blu-Ray – approx £40

13. Rome Complete Series – The stunningly made Rome TV Series season 1 & 2. Rome is about the saga of two ordinary Roman soldiers and their families and covers the intimate drama of love and betrayal, masters and slaves, and husbands and wives, it chronicles epic times that saw the fall of a republic and the creation of an empire and is an incredible watch and well worth a purchase for christmas.
    Blu-Ray – approx £47
    
    
14. Madmen season 1-2 – Another slow and genius TV series that is incredibly well written and supremely produced. Set in the 1960′s and focusing on Don Draper who is the creative director at an advertising company and his life in and out of the office. The show brilliantly shows the changing social values of America. It’s a stunning show and fully deserving of it’s numerous awards.
    Blu-ray – approx £40
    DVD – approx £30

15. Heroes season 1-3 – Heroes started off with one of the finest first series to debut on TV. It had great characters, a great story and superheroes a plenty. Each episode expanded on the numerous characters story-lines which were unveiled in a comic book like presentation. With superb special FX and strong stories it was a surprise that it went down hill in the second series but it did eventually pick up again for season 3 to get it back on track but nowhere near as good as the first season. Well worth a buy.
    Blu-Ray – approx £85
    DVD – approx £64

That should be enough ideas to complete your christmas present shopping. There is no better way to say i love you than buying a film or TV series for your loved ones, So hurry up as there is not long to go!

Last week i wrote an article questioning why movies with low average review ratings, like New Moon, break box office records regardless. It got me thinking about the whole concept of rating a movie, and whether ‘marks out of ten’ was really still a useful film criticism tool.

Here at HUG, like many modern movie blogs, we tend not to give numerical ratings. The reason, on my part at least, is because criticizing a work of art that has taken hundreds of people many many months to create is pretentious enough. To then go on to attribute it an arbitrary numerical value seems crass. Now, i appreciate the reasons why a grading is given. Some people don’t want to trawl through lines and lines of text to decipher whether a film is worth watching. A large percentage of casual movie goers just look at the number of stars at the bottom, and go by that. This isn’t necessarily wrong, it offers a tidy summary of the quality of the movie.

The problem, of course, is that a review is an opinion. By merely going by a number on a page, you’re putting your faith in the opinion of someone you don’t know, with no idea if they have similar tastes. New Moon is a good example. Many reviews have marked it down saying it sticks too closely to the source novel, instead of adapting the story more to the needs of a well structured movie. The Twilight fans however have pointed to that as one of the reasons they DO like it. They love the book, and they want a faithful copy of that source.

Watchmen suffered similarly in reviews, with critics suggesting it shouldn’t have been a direct translation. Yes, it would have been more accessible to non-fans if this had been the case, but the people that love the graphic novel would have been outraged. With these two properties, the fans went to see the films anyway, so maybe 2012 is a better example.

I look at a review, it gives 2012 two out of five stars. I decide not to see it. If i’d read the full review, it would have been bemoaning the lack of intelligent storyline and nuanced acting, decrying it’s over the top action and CGI effects. I might like over the top action and effects, but i’ve missed out now.

How about five out of ten rated films? Surrogates is about as average a movie you can get, nothing particularly good but nothing spectacularly bad either. 9 has some great elements, the animation is spectacular and the action beautifully choreographed, but the plot development and storyline are seriously flawed. Both five out ten, but for wildly different reasons. Avatar hits in two weeks. There are two elements to be considered, the usual storyline considerations, and whether the new 3D effects are a huge leap forward. The story could be good, but the tech disappointing. Are we going to give two separate ratings?

I know what you’re thinking. ‘People should read the text as well as the score if they really want a review of the film’. And yes, they should. But too often they don’t, or won’t. You present an easy option, and people get lazy. A bigger problem is that sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Meta Critic collate ratings and provide an overall average. This results in news stories like ‘New Moon Averages Just 38%’. This colours people’s perceptions of a movie before they even get near a review, so quite often they won’t bother reading one. I accept that yes, if people are happy to go solely by a number that’s their prerogative, and if they really care they should check out the full write up.

My biggest problem with a rating system is that you can never give a movie full marks. The reasons are two-fold. Firstly, full marks suggest perfection. Who has the stones to call any film perfect? Ask yourself, which movies would you give ten out of ten? The Godfather? The Shawshank Redemption? Dark Knight? There are some amazing films, but could we honestly call any of them perfect?

The other reason why you can never give a film top marks is that no matter how brilliant it is, there’s the possibility a superior movie could be released the following week. How can you give a far superior piece the same rating? In a hypothetical situation, imagine The Godfather is released, and you give it ten out of ten. Then, like Che, Part II is released the next month. How do you rate it?

It makes a mockery of the numerical grading system. As journalists, we have a responsibility to tell the full story, not stamp a piece with a potentially misleading one digit summary. At the same time, the reader has their own responsibility to use all available data to make an informed decision. If they don’t, they could be missing out on a movie they’d love.

Bazmann ““ You can follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/baz_mann

British comics have not been well served in their Hollywood adaptations. Transatlantic transitions from page to screen result in either being too faithful, as Zack Synder’s Watchmen arguably was, or too loose with the essence of the source material, resulting in a genre bound snooze fest – Judge Dredd please stand up (and don’t remove your helmet!).

While the golden age of American comics have lit up the screen in this last decade, with visionary directors taking the basic elements of  these iconic characters to their own conclusions, British comics have not garnered such attention. Nolan’s Batman, Raimi’s Spiderman and the Supermen of Donner and Singer have their own unique identity; the depth of the mythology of these superheroes allows numerous interpretations, and some of the most interesting re-imaginings of our own myths and legends have occurred on the screen as well as on the page.

It is arguable that only Dan Dare and  Mega City One’s lawman Judge Dredd have the same global recognition as their transatlantic cousins, and while the Pilot of the Future has been relaunched and rejuvenated the oft promised movie has yet to surface and the mid 90s Dredd movie was a disappointment in the box office and the realm of the fans (Helmet! Come on!)

I do not claim to be an expert on UK comics, nor am I entirely serious in my list below, but hopefully this will allow the often overlooked UK comics industry to shoulder up to its US counterpart. After all, it’s Sunday and we can allow a little dalliance with the fantastic, can’t we?

So, here are my top 5 UK comic strip movies I’d like to see.

Dennis the Meance

I’d love to have seen the much missed Charlotte Coleman take on Minnie the Minx (Dennis’s partner in menace from The Beano), and I shall ignore the US version of Dennis the Menace (although it is hard to disagree with the perfect casting of Walter Matthau at his most grumpy, self parodic self), and instead hope for a scheming dynamo of mischief and menace from the kid who made red and black striped jumpers a symbol of fear long before Freddy first sharpened his clawfingers.

Dennis and his rabid and faithful hound Gnasher have long been favourites in the D.C. Thompson & Co. stable, and since they replaced the oddity of Biffo the Bear in 1951 the covers of The Beano have portrayed one moment of menace or another, and kids every where took Dennis to their hearts. It’s an incredibly simple premise.

If you could have behaved as you wanted to when you were a kid – you would have been Dennis. His unruly attitude and penchant for the more devious elements of bad behaviour made him an iconic figure in 70s and 80s Britain, and if you heard the satisfying slap of The Beano on the carpet in your hall every Saturday morning the chances are you loved him most of all.

Not only is the nostalgia factor a prime selling point here but as the UK comics industry has the benefit and curse of being a prime source of well known ‘properties’ to market we are facing a time when the it needs to branch out to survive.

I can’t imagine getting Duncan Jones to ‘Do a Dark Knight’ with Dennis, but keep it catapults, bullied softies and Gnasher biting people and you’ve got a hit.

The Bash Street Kids

I love Alan Bennett’s work and I have great respect for the man, but I feel he missed a trick when he came to pen his story of a group of school boys looking to gain University entrance in their last year. The History Boys could so easily have been The Bash Street Kids, all that was required with a hauling out of the subtle character play and unrequited, confused sexual longings and throw in a few more custard pies and Carry On humour and the mortar boards and canes would have been flying with the chalk dust of one of the most beloved comic strips from The Beano.

Ok, so maybe the world can live with both films, but I’d love to see a big screen outing for Plug, Fatty, Smiffy and co as they take their suffering Teacher (played by Hugh Grant) to task with stink bombs on the chair, school outings to the zoo resulting in a herd of escaping wild animals, and of course the celebrated playground scraps – it’s a British institution.

And while all of the Beano characters suffered from the modernisation of the late 80s and 90s that saw tracksuits, sunglasses and skateboards infiltrate the strips, let this be a throwback to the Son of Rambow days – when PC was a muffin shaped local bobby and cellphones were tin cans with a piece of string connecting them. This is not the updated OMG of St. Trinians, let the kids have bangers and mash fights and set fire to the teacher’s moustache. I’d pay to go and see it.

Roy of the Rovers
While Football has never translated with great success to the big screen it is the dramatic narratives of the game, and the players  on and off the pitch that often makes a memorable film.

Sean Bean’s When Saturday Comes and Bend It Like Beckham have their dramatic roots in the hope and euphoria of a young player getting their chance at (as Goal 2′s subtitle has it) Living the Dream, or the beautiful game is used as a backdrop to greater dramas – Escape to Victory (if you can buy Sly as a goalie) is a fantastic film, Green Street paints a depressing and vicious look at the hooligan culture forever orbiting the football fields, and the recent Damned United had a powerhouse of a character to base itself around in Michael Sheen’s Brian Clough.

Drama is inherent in football, as it is in most competitive sports. What makes a Roy of the Rovers movie less likely is the fact that Roy Race is so good, and his team Melchester Rovers are so competent on the field that only a long storyline (such as would be allowed in a week-by-week serial) could bring out the necessary twists and turns. A two hour movie would have to etablish so much in such a short time before taking us on the emotional journey.

Plus – Roy Race is a good guy. Scandal hit the comic strip in the late 70s and early 80s when soap opera inspired plotlines led to Race’s faithful puppy of a wife, Penny, leaving him (she came back – it was fine) or the more notorious Who Shot Roy Race (with its black edged cover) saga. Until he lost his foot in a helicopter crash in the 90s Roy Race could do no wrong, and that makes for a dull film.

Personally I’d like to see an all-star team from the comic strips accompanying the tales of Roy Race. I’d pay to see Ray Winstone as Johnny Dexter, John Goodman as Hot-shot Hamish and Ronnie Corbett as Mighty Mouse. There’s more than enough soap suds and sunset beach about Roy of the Rovers and maybe that’s the angle that would work?

Dan Dare

Seeminlgy an obvious choice for a Sky Captain ascension to the silver screen is the square jaw of Dan Dare his galaxy crossing fight with the Mekon. Part Space Biggles, Part Captain UK, Dan Dare has everything you could need from a hero – looks, cunning, bravery, an enemy with a forehead the size of a bullock.

He has survived reinvention and enjoyed his renaissance in the 1980s and now in the 21st century, with Garth Ennis’s Dan Dare for Virgin comics and it is this version that is most likely to find a home on the big screen. Morally upright and with a fist that could take down a Treen army faster than you can say Ace Rimmer, Dare’s currency lies in taking the absolute division of good and evil and the range of evil schemes the Mekon undertakes to destroy Dare and the Earth.

With the thoroughly British attitude and its relatively uncomplicated characters I’m pretty sure we’ll see a Dan Dare film coming our way sooner rather than later.

Doomlord
Bit of a curio this one, it may have passed many people by, but for those who cared to look past the revitalised Dan Dare on the front cover of the relaunced Eagle comic in 1982, Doomlord was a comic strip dificult to forget.

Created by 2000AD luminaries Alan Grant and Judge Dredd creator John Wagner, Doomlord told the story of an alien race (the suitable ominous Doomlords of Nox) sending one of their charges to Earth, tasked with judging Mankind’s right to exist. Capable of draining the personalities and memories of their victims and then shape-shifting into them, Doomlord was able to walk the Earth as one of us, involving himself in society as a businessman, politician and scientist to gather his evidence. Several humans suspected his plans and tried, often in vain, to stop Doomlord’s work and usually ended up on the disintegration end of his energiser ring. The strip, in photonovel style, was unrelentingly bleak and the Doomlords themselves were nasty enough to spawn more than a few nightmares in innocent minds.

As a movie it’s underplayed slow burn of stealth and intrigue would more than likely be replaced with a V-like conspiracy narrative, emulating a They Live device of having a host of Doomlords walking the Earth, and, as it turned out in the comic strip, one of the Doomlords would fail to carry out the execution of mankind and champion the human race. There was a dallinace with an environmental message towards the end of the series which could work in its favour.

But I’d pay to see a shapeshifting, morally ambigious Doomlord disintegrating suspcious and nasty characters, while musing on the fate of the world. Think Hannibal Lecter as a T-1000 in 80s Midlands and you’ve got a winner on your hands.

So, that’s my take on British comics on the big screen, let me know yours.

Yesterday I was all excited because I saw something which I thought would be truly amazing. That was the post entitled: Watchmen Event in London not to be Missed! I’ve just got home from said event and I’m afraid I lied to you HeyUGuys readers. It could well have been missed…. but it’s not all bad… please read on…..

OK, so I’ve been excited all day at the prospect that I was going up to London after work to check out this ‘once in a lifetime event’ that had been put on by someone in the UK who has something to do with Watchmen promotion. I turned up at Hungerford bridge at 17.30 to get my ‘seat’ and to make sure that I’d have a prime position in which to see this spectacle of greatness. My first problem was that no one else seemed to be there. No other geeks were mingling, no production crew running around to set up the event. I started to worry that this whole thing was just a hoax and that i’d fallen for a big prank to fool the nation….

An hour or so went by with me pacing around trying to keep warm (as the temperature was in and around the 0° mark) when I decided to have a wander up on the bridge (where I’d read on a Watchmen site would be the best place to be for the event) and I saw the brightest projector shining in my face that I’d ever seen. “The event was on!” I thought to myself!

It wasn’t long before I made friends with a fellow geek who was wearing nothing but a t-shirt but was kited out with both a video camera and a still camera. “Are you hear for Watchmen” I said already knowing the answer “what else?!” was his response. And from them on, we were two peas in a Watchmen pod!

We stood there with no one else turning up specifically for the event for a further 1.5 hours, watching the techie’s sort out the projector and get things set up, then they turned on the water spray. This is where it got interesting. The basic premise was that they had somehow created a way to spray water in all directions up to 70ft in the air creating this huge wall of water. It was amazing, but didn’t look 70ft high at first. I then realised that we must be 30ft up on the bridge and the water was well above our heads. but it didn’t look as impressive or as big as I thought it would.

Anyway, we waited a further hour for 20:00 to roll around which it did and then…. nothing happened! It was SO cold and me and my fellow geek friend had been there for nearly 3 hours…. waiting. Anyway, at 20.15, the ‘show’ finally started…. the only problem was, the ‘show’ was exactly the same thing that we’d seen when they were setting it all up. So I actually could have come home nearly 2 hours earlier. I guess the only difference was by this time, about 150 people had gathered there to watch the show and so there was a bit more of a buzz.

People were pretty disappointed overall I think. The ‘show’ only lasted about 10 minutes with the same video clips running round and round in sequence. We’d been told on all the websites promoting the event that exclusive footage would be shown. That unfortunately wasn’t true – it was just the trailer which we’d already seen. There was also no sound so it was just moving images on the water wall with nothing else. Can’t have it all I guess!

After a few minutes of the event, people started to disperse with disappointed looks on their faces. The promise of Dr. Manhattan rising from the water never came. He was just a static image shining on the water wall like the other members of the cast.

What I am pleased about however, is how some of my photos have come out. I have placed all of the best ones below. You can click them to enlarge.

If you were there, please let me know and we can converse in the comments section below.

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