The Amazing Spiderman Review- Was it Really The Untold Story???

CONTAINS SPOILERS.

Back at the begining of January 2010 (wow such a long time) Sony announced after the abismal Spiderman 3 that they were going to reboot the franchise based on the Amazing Spiderman comics with fresh faces (Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone) and a fresh director (Marc Webb). Now after a two and a half year wait, the Amazing Spiderman has been released.

After finding his fathers old bag in the basement, Peter Parker/Spiderman (Andrew Garfield) tries to find the truth behind his parents disapearence which leads him to his fathers old lad partner Dr Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans) where he gives an algorithum to both their lifes work of cross species genetics. Inspired to grow his missing arm and being forced by Dr Ratha (Irrfan Khan) Dr Connors injects himself with the serum and turns into the Lizard. Now Spiderman must save NYC and his girlfriend Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone) from certain doom whilst being chased down by the law.

First off I was glad when I heard Spiderman was getting rebooted because Sam Raimi didn't do too well with his version of the franchise, so I had high hopes when the marketing for Mark Webbs version began. But sadly I was let down, they didn't seem too much going for this movie, or too much to look forward to. The first trailer got mixed reviews from Ok to Bad. Remember the POV shots of him on the rooftops, og and the doorman clip. Yeah, that one. Nevertheless Sony continued to market the crap out of the film as the release date drew nearer and nearer to the point where a 25 minute video of the film online featuring everything that was released. Until I read beforehand, I completely forgot that this is almost what happened with Sam Raimi 11 years ago in 2001 with the first film. Can hisotry repeat iteself. Unfortunatly Yes, there was pratically no suprises in this movie, I knew everything that was going to happen or was coming. And when I saw one ceratin part I almost screamed, How the Hell Can You Put The Ending Of The Movie in The Frigging Trailer. And I'm sure that you know what I am on about.

Overall thoughts however, the movie was great, it felt natural, much like a Marc Webb movie and the acting put towards that. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone were fantastic together. Martin Sheen (who played Uncle Ben Parker) gave a great emotional performance and Rhys Ifans was good too, and I'm sure the directing put towards that. Of course there some things I din't like, mostly the POV shots I found did not suit him at all. And the fact that since its a Spiderman movie, there has hardly anything of him swinging around NYC, come on he's Spiderman at least Sam Raimi gave us plenty of that. Hopefully they will do in the sequel. However my enjoyment wasn't as good as it should have been, and I couldn't quite put my finger on it until the next day. The Untold Story we were promised wasn't told at all.

What? Don't believe me? Go watch the trailers and see the pictures that was released and see for yourslef. Then come back and continue reading. In fact think back to the film as well and remember what happened.

Ok Back. Good. Can you see what I mean.

The first three big questions we've got to ask is
1) What happened to him hunting Uncle Bens Killer? He just suddenly stopped looking, thats what makes him turn into Spiderman and hunt criminals in the first place. Some people say that its because of Captain Stacey telling him that he is just hunting them for vengance. Come on thats BS we all know Spiderman finds him in the end, and when you have the killers wanted poster on your wall. You don't just stop looking for them.

2) What happened to Dr Rafa?. You know they guy on the bridge, who works for Norman Osbourne. Who forced Dr Connors to take the serum in the first place. The Lizard throws him off the bridge and whilst Spiderman is saving the kid in the car, The Lizard climbs back down to get him. But he just vanishes after that, never seen or even mentioned again. But in trailers and pictures that were released he plays quite a big part in the scenes. Really, remember this picture that was released back around May time.

 


Clearly he is took down, or tracks the Lizard into the seweres probably, the same time Spiderman is looking for him and some brawl between the three breaks out. What happened to all that..

 


3) Where did the Untold Story go? The story about Peters parents. That drove him to find Doctor Connors in the first place. Due to trailers and promortion this is a major part in the film due to lines like. Do you know what you really are? Want to know the truth Peter come and get it? Do you think that happened to you was an accident? None of that is in the movie. The only hint of it is in the first act and in the post credit scene. If it is just small mentions throughout the film, like Peter asking Dr Connors what his father was like, and then the post credit scene I would have been fine with that. But ptomotion made it out to be something way more than that. Seriously why promote something that major that implies your whole movie then cut it out. It's stupid.

Other issues include the mutant NYPD guys, rumours have it that Spiderman had some sort of confrontation with them. Did that scene get cut. Other rumours include Dr Connors family. Which in the comics and the TV series even keeps him human. Which is probaly why they had to reshoot the meeting when Peter goes to Dr Connors house for the first time. Where he gives him the algorithum. Which seemed cheap and done quick apart from in the home office that was shown in every single trailer.    

   
All this makes me believe Sony stepped in and made a major last minute edit with the movie to change into what it is now. I can understand why things need to be cut and why it changes all the time, since I learned all that jazz at university. But when you go and market the hell out of it to make it look like all the above and then don't deliever, it's a different story. If it comes down to it dely the movie a mont or two. Say you are making changes "major" if be and then release it. That people people won't make articles and blogs like this.

Hopefully an extended or directors cut will be released around the time of the DVD release and we will see what the movie was intended to be in the first place.

Stay Frosty. Until next time guys.

E3 2012-Too Many Dance Games!!!

So E3, the biggest gaming convention that there is, where all the top companies come and advertise all the new games and products (early drafts of course) that their company is producing are shown to all local companies, producers, journalists, hardcore gamers even just some random people that are interseted sit through all the presentations pitches so see whats what in the gaming world for the next year. Afterwards down on the game floor and booths as they are called, everyonme is given a chance to test them all out.

I like to play games on some sort of comsole every day so E3 does have me interested quite a bit every year, because I would like to know what I can and cannot look forward to in the coming year so I can save my money up to get it. Also the fun to see which can produce the best interest also intrigues me. Now of course I couldn't got to E3 myself so I had to make do with watcing all then gameplay and conferences streaming live or on youtube later on. Still it gave me a good idea of thoughts and feelings towards certain games and stuff. So here they are.

First up was Microsoft, but the games that were shown were shown like Halo 4, Resident Evil 6, Call of Duty, I'm not really into so I can't comment on. But they still looked cool  A long long long presentation on the voice recognition that Kinet (Who cares was also shown. Hooray no more hopelessly pushing a button or getting up to change the disk, I can sit on my lazy ass and let it do it for me. What joy. Sports games might benefit from this because it is annoying when the players don't do what you want them to, now at least you can tell them to what to do so you don't have to put up with it anymore. Finally a game, Tomb Raider one of the games I will be able to get. Now this looks different to the origonal Tomb Raiders, but it still looks pretty dam awesome, (so far at least) Lets see what else they cane release in the coming year for this game. Some other games then again were shown, Resident Evil 6 being one of them. Again, not relly interested. But the people who stole the Microsoft press conference was Matt Stone and Trey Parker who just ripped on everything that Microsoft was on about. 

Sony started off with about a three minute montage of stuff they didn't even show (weird) but the first game that was shown was a next-gen called Beyond: Two Souls (which I will not be able to get) starring Ellen Paige and from the creators of Heavy Rain, now this game will be in everyones top five lists to look forward to because it look visually stunning with a weird angle story, no gameplay however just a cutscene so nothing more else to say on this matter. Next the rubbish rip off of Super Smah Bros, which well I already said it rubbish. Farcry3 next which I can't comment on again. Next came some games I can't even be arsed to comment on. But what Sony ended with blew everyone away. The game stole the even for me. The Last Of Us. A game that looks frieking immense and got everyone talking (but I won't be able to get it Boooo. Dam you Sony)

EA I'm not even going to talk about because that just sucked ass. Hugely dissapointed with EA, expected more.

Ubisoft actually showed games all the way through. Wow. None to look forward to like, well except Assains Creed III and maybe Farcry3 and SplinterCell for other gamers. Kicking off with another Dance game (seriously whats up with them all. that's everone thats showed them now) followed by FarCry3 and then other trailers that no-one will care about. Assassins Creed III gameplay were followed which looks better than the ones before, at least we are away from Italy now. Followed by more games no-one cares about. Finishing off with the second game of the event Watch Dogs (Horay I can get this one) The story look incredible with what the character is able to do and will probably make you think about to do. Going to be fun to play.

Finishing off the even of conferences was Nintendo. My..My..My Nintendo what to do with you. My fav company and they was the worst of them all. Started off strong with Pikmin 3 and Super Mario Bros 2, but then it was filled with the Wii U which looked Ok to begin with but then became like. Why Should I Buy This? Give me a really good reason to. And they didn't. One word. Nintendoland. Seriously put everone off and the other games they showed before that was as well. This will flop big time. Wheres the good old days with Zelda man, or what about a new Super Smash Bros. Nintendo really blew it, and they had a dance game thrown in there as well (Why!!!)   

Wow this has turned into one long blog, thanks to the people still reading if you are. But I think people were expecting the next-gen new consoles in every conference which took a lot of strain when they weren't shown. I knew they wouldn't but two or three years down the line someone will, but things coulod have gone better if the companies showed games. Ones that people can look forward to. Not crappy Nintendoland and all this dance BS. Overall a poor event, probably even worse than last year. I can't even remember that one, only the 3DS (is that even still going) I don't know.

 

Oscar Nominations: Part 3 Winners and Thoughts

Well out of my predictions that I made I got 14/24 right. But I got all the big nominations right, (apart from Best Pic because i really thought The Academy would snub The Artist and go for The Tree Of Life) and the smaller guessing ones wrong, so I didn't do too bad.

Overall the night was better than the last two years. Billy Crystal did a great job hosting, he had plans for everything that happened and put them across brilliantly, hopefully they'll let him host again soon, or even better let Will Ferrel and Zach Galifinankis host. Their bit was hilarious, but even more funny was The Dictator pouring ashes over Ryan Seacrest, poor man looked like he was going to cry. Emma Stone was charming in her bit, Robert Downey Jr again stole the night with his presentation for best Documentary. 

I'll say it again this year was the year of the snubs, and some of the winners proved it. Meryl Streep winning over Viola Davis for one, everyone knew it was going to happen though, even though they didn't want it to, but thank god Octavia Spencer won instead. Speaking of The Iron Lady why the hell did that win Best Make Up, over Harry Potter. Oh wait I remember, it's because Harry Potter makes money and has done a whole lot more than any of the other nominations combined, and the Academy doesn't like that.

Now as much as I dislike The Tree of Life, Hugo wiining Best Cinematography is just a stick up the arse. I'll admit The Tree of Life was beautiful and this was the only award that it deserved to win, but Hugo won a bit too mnay awards in my opinion. Best Sound over The Girl with The Dragon Tatoo and Visual Effects over Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Harry Potter. Really?

On a lighter note at least one film that was nominated didn't win anything. Extremelty Loud and Incredibly Close. In fact that was only nominated because of  9/11 sickens me. In fact when this was shown for Best Pic only one guy cheered, and no-one else did. Shows how much they like it as well. In fact I think the guy who cheered might have been Tom Hanks, or the director. Just him anyway.

I'll have to trust the others the only one i've seen out of the rest of them is Midnight In Paris which won Best Original Writing, so i'll have to watch the rest or read the scripts before i make up my mind on this one. A good night overall but upto about 10 films and actors/actresses deserved a bit more credit than they got. (Drive, anyone.)

Oscar Nominations Part One. Best Picture Thoughts

About a month ago I posted a blog about Award Season and the nominations that came with it. With Oscar night happening tomorrow, I have managed to watch all nine nominations for Best Picture, and I must first say I'm a bit dissapointed, and I'll say why with a few of my thoughts and opinons on each of the nominees.

The Artist--Only truly one that deserves to be on this list, and it should win as well. With a great set up and scenes. With the brillant metaphor not just within the movie but symbolizes the entire thing altogether, with sweet, great, charming acting. The Artist deserves everything that it gets.

The Help--Last one I watched and probably the second that I say is worthy of a mention on this list. It doesn't have a strong sense of racial undertones, which is strange due to what the movie is based on. It is however funny, and told in a nice sensitive way, with both Octavia Spenser and Viola Davis worthy of being a winner.

The Tree Of Life--One of two movies I gave up on. I could not get or understand this at all. I am probab;y going to get killed for this, but this isn't a movie. And I am not the only one who thinks this. Cinemas had to put warning signs out saying it is not your typical movie, and the people who did see it booed it at the end, and criticised how much they hated it. So really should something that got booed by nominated. I don't think so. But the sad thing is it will end up winning, and if it does. Hollywood is basically admitting that they are shite.

Hugo--Although Hugo is well made and the sets are amazing. And I did really enjoy it. If Harry Potter cannot be nominated surely this can't either because it's basically on the same priniple with it being a fmaily film.

War Horse--Again well made that brought a few tears and heartwarming. Probably a backup nomination to put on, but there has been a few more worthy films to consider.

Extremely Incredibly and Incredibly Close--Second movie I gave up on. Reason. I hated the kid, he was so bloody annoying and I couldn't care for the story at all. One reason why this is nominated. 9/11. End of.

Midnight In Paris--This wasn't a brilliant movie, but it wasn't bad either. Certiantly not a Oscar nom.

Moneyball-=Great acting and a really enjoybale movie. I would put this under another backup option. In fact I'll admit that this is more worthy than some of the noms above.

The Descendents--Ok, I did dislike this movie. George Clooney has put in better performances than this and it's just him running up and down on a beach for above an hour. Nothing really kept me interested in this.

Final thoughts for this is that at least three of the noms are in because of who the director is. Which is fine but I would say that some films deserve better credit or at least better consideration than them.
 Or at least drop how many is nominated, what happened to the good old 4/5 film fight out. Lets bring back the tension instead of having 6 plus and filling the space up aimlessly.  

Chronicle--Movie Review

In 1999 rumours started going around that a camera was found in the woods and the film was still intact, the footage was released and showed three high school students making a documentary about a local curse that haunts the woods. Later on they get lost, and die supposdly from who they were looking for. This was The Blair Witch Project, and started the trend of  The "Found Footage" movie. However this trend has not seemed to have become as popular as it has today since J.J Abrams Colverfield. Chronicle is the next movie to follow in the growing list that is the "Found Footage" format.

Chronilce is anout high school students Andrew Detmer, the outcast of the group, who is being beaten by his father and looking after his terminanally ill mother. Steve Montgomery, the popular kid who is running for class president and Matt Garetty, Andrews cousin, who is just your average joe. The three attened a party, and then discover a hole in the ground with a strange sound emitting from within. Curious, they enter and find a high-tech possibly alien related technology inside which leads them to have "superpowers" or super physic abilities. The three just use their powers for kicks until Andrews life collides with his powers making him cause havok to the streetsm forcing him to be stopped. If he can??

Although Chronicle is an enjoyable movie and I myself enjoyed watching it, the movie does have a hell of a lot of flaws which toned down the experience of the film, which I will touch on and try to explain.

The first one is that they picked possibly the worst three people to gain these powers. Although I can understand Andrews reason,  because I myself have been through what he has in school and felt connected to him. However he was still unlikeable as a character from the begining. Steve and Matt I could not possibly understand. Steve is one of the most popular kids in school why does he need powers? But possibly it adds to the realsim, that he acts cool and shows no fear so he would go hunting in the ground if he came across it. Matt I couldn't tell why either. Probably because he was the most underdeveloped character that there was. In fact all three seemed underdeveloped in some ways. Again it probably adds to the realsim, but I think for something like this, it would have been more realistic if three normal people got the powers instead of these three idiots. In fact no, hypocrites. Because of their rule "Don't show/use these powers in front of people or in public" but fot the best part of the movie that's what they were doing, especially when they enter that talent show.

Second flaw was why the hell was Andrew filming everything? To show proof of his dad beating him up, which I would have got. If so why take it to school and everwhere else. Did he want to look back on the footage and say. Yup my life is truly one pain in the ass. Talking of cameras, one thing Chroncile got right was the floating camera, this technique was pretty cool, and the way that they develpoed it actually worked. However there was no reason to cut to all the different cameras that they were, sercurity footage, news footage, police footage,the "Who the hell are you?" girl with her blogging camera, (Casey)  They did overdue it and just I found it taking off the found footage format a little bit.

Last one I am going to touch one is the end. The end seemed rushed, now a lot of people would have preferd the end, but I liked the rest of the movie, with them testing out their powers in fun ways and everything. But the way took the end it was cringewrothy, again the cut to cut camera ruined the movie for me and then format of this was stupid. It would have been a hell of a lot better if Andrew just went around beating up everyone and robbing stores like he was insted ending up in freaking hospital, waking up then casuing hovok. It just didn't work out for me.

Now final point I want to mention again that Chroncile is an enjoyable movie, and I liked it it just has soom massive flaws within it that needed to be improved on.

Thanks for reading to the end guys if you have.       

Lets Show The Hype.

I was going to save this topic until later but I thought I'd thought I'd it now whilst I am in two equal minds about this.

After all the hype and award nominations I finally just finished watching The Artist and I thought it was a fantastic film that well deserves everything that it gets. It really shows how the movie world has changed these days and the struggle it took for some people to get used to the "talkies" nowadays. Even still today it was in the news recently that people complained that they wanted a refund because it was a silent movie. Which was a shame really because it is a really enjoyable film that is worth the time to watch and understand what is meant by the silence. Anyway I am going off topic a bit.

The reason I want to do this blog is because after a while of much hype and news articles I finally decided to give The Artist a chance and see what the fuss was all about. But I hate the fact that they have to shove the movie down everyones throat for people to show some mild interest and for me that ruins the experience that you would have with a movie and soon people would start to hate it and probably not see it because they are fed up of hearing about the thing. However would I have seen The Artist or even known about it if they didn't. No i probably wouldn't have, but films/programmes like The Artist deserves to be pushed because they are well worth your time.

Then they are thoose that don't deserve it. Twilight, tv shows like Glee, and celebrities like Justin Bieber. Why are these hyped so much when so many people hate them so much. Maybe it's because we have to hear about them every single day and they get people hyped and excited so much that they are rejeected by about how bad they really are. A recent example is The Royal Bodygaurd that David Jason is starring in. Everone was excited to see David Jasons return to TV with a new comedy series, then turned off when the show got so bad and felt it necessary to complain about it the next day. It's the same with Twilight, up to the movies we see photos, trailers, TV spots, all the time, then came the release and it was bad...really bad. Music wise everywhere you go, we heard singers like Glee and Bieber and most people again got pissed off about  how much it got played when it wasn't deserved.

Maybe people wouldn't mind them if they weren't in your face all the time, but because it is everyone has high expectations about them all and then feel bad about when they get disapointed if they find out they don't like it. I know wouldn't. But with things like The Hunger Games and Amazing Spiderman films due out this year, new artists being found nearly every day. It looks like the hype and disspointment will proably never end.   

Award Season-Do some deserve it and is it worth it?

The award season if underway with the Golden Globes from Sunday and the BAFTAs nominations announced yesterday. I was going to wait until the BAFTAs was over or the Oscars were announced but I saw no point. The last few years have shown me that they will just be the same anyway, which begs to the point. Why do we need so many? Why are American films invlovled in a British ceremony? Why can't we just have one award show for films and one for TV? (both individually for America and British) It begs to the question that are the actors, directors and everyone else even botherd anymore. After watching the Globes and Oscars last year you could clearly see that everyone is bored to be there and would rather leave for the bar after the fifth to eigth award has been given out. They know who's more than likely, just like us, is going to win, because they know just as many what is classified as an "Award winning film" they have seen them and been involved in them so many times before, so is there a point anymore? I'd say pretty soon, No, they won't be.

So what makes a good "Award winning film". Well the theory is it has to have a sense of autorship and a great mise-en-scene but anyone who has seen 3-10 seconds of a movie knows that this is just a bunch of BS. Without mise-en-scene the film would not exist anyway, and it would be really stupid for the actors dressing as an 1980s person for a 1930s movie. (Unless the storyline conflicted this in some way) Which leaves the old famous auteur theory. Auteurship is a director who has his own unique style in how the films they make are shown and how they are brought across. Which is kind of why the same directors are nominated for the Best Director catogory and their films are hyped all the time.

This years nominations hype films are The Artist and The Descendents. I haven't seen The Artist yet so I cannot comment on that but I have recently watched The Descendents and my view is that although the film was good and well made. There have been some films better than this to fit into the Best Film section. For instance Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Source Code, the lesser known Brotherhood and Win Win and possibly even at a push Jodie Fosters The Beaver. Even though some of them won't even fit into an "Award Winning Film" Brotherhood, Win Win and even The Beaver will do. Both were well shot, well scripted, well acted and brought out the emotion that the film was trying to achieve. So why aren't they nominated? I have no idea, the jury on who selects these things must have thought that the film were lacking in something and thought that the films that are nominated were better.            

So what about the actors? Why do the actors who are in the Best films award are in the Best Actor category. It's because in order to make the film into a Best film you need to have Best acting? Which is where the academy screws the actors in the ass. Many actors but on a fantastic performance without being in a "Best Film" sometime putting on better perfromance than them and do no get the recognition that they deserve and probably never will until they do appear in a "Best Film" thing. Don't get me wrong some of them really do deserve it, but I'm saying of the acadmey lifted their restraints a little they might see as far as some actors in comedy films perform well. Take Will Ferell for example, he was fantastic actor in Anchorman, Stanger than Fiction, Step Brothers, Elf, but he who is seriously underlooked because he is a "comedian" which is complelty unfair and biased. Many others have been screwed as well, Bruce Willis, Denzil Washington and Robin Williams to name a few.

To round off what does make a good movie? I'd say it's the one you enjoy. The more you enjoy it the better the film is. Which is why I think the award seseon is slowly turning to a big joke, there was a time that it was indeed a highly respected show, but now it's at the point where no-one hardly cares about it. Even the people who make the films don't seem that botherd anymore. We will see as time goes on.