Paul Christopher Banks

Currently all movie goers are talking about one film. Harry Potter 7 part 1. I have to say that I never bought into the Potter craze, but that’s not to say I’m anti Potter it’s just I saw the first three films and it didn’t think I needed to see more. Anything that’s gets kids (and some adults) passionate about reading is a good thing. But what about those like me that want to see a film without a wizard. Well also out is Unstoppable the new film directed by Tony Scott.

Great Scott, It’s Tony

The last film I saw by Tony Scott was Deja Vu. It’s was a suspenseful action drama mix with fasted paced shots staring the good guy Denzel Washington. Scotts new film is a suspenseful action drama mix with fasted paced shots staring the good guy Denzel Washington. It’s safe to say from the off set it was a very Tony Scott film but that’s not to say I disliked Unstoppable, in fact I thought it was great. Many would say that his best film would be True Romance, but with a brilliant script penned by Quentin Tarantino it was a good combo. It seems to me that with Unstoppable its a similar case with this Mark Bomback script. The film is based on a true story but the dialogue and scenario doesn’t seem over glitz or over played, with well fleshed out and believable characters from the lead and supporting cast.This story could of worked with a different director but the way in which Scott directs and shoots action means this film really benefits with him behind the helm.

All in all its an edge of your seat action thriller about a run away train and it’s bloody good,  so if your at a loss when you’ve had enough of Voldermort plum for Denzel (He’s the good guy).

P.S. this one’s for you Dave.

I like a laugh, you like a laugh, we all like a laugh. The glorious internet has provided much joy in it’s time. From chocolate rain to LOL cats there is fun to be had, but one of my favorite things to come out of the interest is web comics. They can be topical, weird and crazy. Here are a few of my favorites.

VG Cats

I’ve been reading VG cats for a while and is recommended to the video game fans out there. There are great at looking at the perils and negatives of the gaming world, from the classics to new technology. They take no prisoners and all presented by a blue and pink cat.

Plus to all those familiar with the original Pokemon video game will love the side comic ‘Super Effective’ which pokes fun with brilliant accuracy at our loves and frustrations from the gaming classic. If you not into video games then there are a few more I can recommend.

Perry Bible Fellowship

Created by a collection of artists the Perry Bible Followship is clever and silly in equal amounts. It covers subjects from robots to wizards and a universe far away or your living room. What’s stands out most from this comic is not just the great tales but the amazing artwork. Bright theatrical colours in fluffy rendered world with a bizarre comic twist.

Being a big Marvel Comic fan it was also good to see Fellowship creator Nicholas Gurewitch bringing his style to Wolverine. Worth checking out.

White Ninja

Basic but brill, White Ninja shows that if the idea works and is funny the art work won’t  become whats important, although I find it cool in it’s simplicity. Like it’s been drawn on the back of white scrap paper with great love and attention for someone to find for a giggle.

Plus I love the fact that from one strip to the next White Ninja could be a mother (although I’m sure he’s a bloke) to a rock star or just an everyday ninja.

Amazing Super Powers

This one has recently been recommend to me by a friend, Amazing Super Powers is worth a look. It can be extreme or simple but funny of course. They have a few reoccurring characters like the fish of the college kids but their take on politics has to be one of my favorites.

Axe Cop

This gem is like reading the amazing imagination of a child brought to life in a comic…well it is! Axe Cop is written by a 5 year old (Malachai Nicolle) and illustrated by his 29 year old brother (Ethan Nicolle). It’s a brilliant creation about an cop who finds an axe and becomes Axe Cop. I don’t want to say any more as it has to be read for you to understand the world of they have created.

In it’s short time it has been around it has become a huge hit.  In its first month it had nearly 750,000 unique visits. I even saw the Axe Cop poster in an episode of the IT Crowd, but what other show would it best be found. Another great part of the website is ask Axe Cop. Ask him a question and if your lucky enough you’ll get your answer created for the site. I have asked him about Uni-Baby (a baby with a unicorn horn) but still waiting for a reply. I’m looking forward to his further adventures of saving the world from bad guys.

A while back I made a film called ‘Foley’. I am happy to say that it is now up on Rhubba.com. I want to thank everyone involved in the making of it, luckily there are credits on the film so you can see who helped. I also want to thanks Nick from Rhubba for putting on the site, I’m glad I have a home for it.

The film was made due to my love of ‘mockumentaries’ (a fake documentary) such as ‘The Thick of It’, ‘People Like Us’ and of course the brilliant ‘The Office’. I always wanted to make one and hope that this is a successful mockumentary.

Well this is the link to the film and I hope you enjoy it. – Foley

Once again the Mercury prize has come around and I am very eager to see who’s been nominated. The UK has many high profiles music awards, many of which are from popular music magazines such a NME, Q and Kerrang. These awards are very genre specific but of course there is the biggest of them all the Brit awards, but really I think that these awards tend to be based on popularity and sales. The main reason I am such a huge fan of the mercury prize is that it just concentrates on great British music from every genre and recognizes regardless of sales. What is also so great is that it recognize the ability to create a great body of work in an album not just one or two songs. Plus unlike many ceremonies it is just one award and one winner.

Nominees 2010

Every year the list can bring attention to new artist as well as help sales. This is always a good thing and can help you discover new and exciting music.

Here is the list of this years nominations -

Biffy Clyro – ‘Only Revelutions’
I Am Kloot – ‘Sky At Night’
Dizzee Rascal – ‘Tongue N’ Cheek’
Paul Weller – ‘Wake Up The Nation’
Corinne Bailey Rae – ‘The Sea’
The xx – ‘xx’
Villagers – ‘Becoming A Jackel’
Kit Downes Trio – ‘Golden’
Foals – ‘Total Life Forever’
Laura Marling – ‘I Speak Because I Can’
Wild Beasts – ‘Two Dancers’
Munford & Sons – ‘Sign No More’

Familiar Faces

There are some familiar names on the list. Dizzee Rascal makes his third appearance after winning in 2003. His music has changed a lot since his debut win but as an artist he is trying new things with UK rap and now a platinum selling artist you can tell people like what he’s doing including me. Another album I really enjoyed was Laura Marling ‘I Speak Because I Can’. I prefer this album to her debut which was one of the favorites to win in 2008 but missed out. It will be interesting to see if she becomes one to front runners again.

Some Favorites

One of my favorite albums last year was ‘xx’ by The xx. Its original and exciting and the only album I knew before the nominations would make the list as a standout contender. I should also mention Wild Beasts as this is an album that I highly rate but was surprised to see in the list although I’m glad its been recognized. Of course that is another good thing about the prize is that you never really know what to expect from the nomination list except that it will cover a lot of genres.

Well I am trying to listen to all the stuff on the list and maybe I will discover some music I love but right now I would favour Biffy Clyro’s ‘Only Revolutions’. Since giving is another listen I have discovered how well the album is made and put together some thing the judges may consider plus it’s full of great tracks. This may just be my thinking because I would also like to see them win. This is their first nomination for their fifth album and it would great to see a band that have been making great music for such a long time win. I win still continue to listen the other albums and maybe some others will stand out to me but for now I’m backing Biffy.

With the prize its very hard to predict so I could be way off the mark, but I will say that its not just about the winner, its about recognizing good music from us Brits and that’s never a bad thing. I’ll be watching on 20th August and good luck to all the nominees.

The joys of prediction

For over a year now I’ve been a fan of a web show called ‘The Totally Rad Show’, for me it’s always been a cool review show about some of my favorite things movies, video games and now and then comic books and TV. One thing that they always do every year is a summer movie wager. Which is to guess the top 10 highest grossing summer films in the US. You get points for getting films close or spot on and you get three dark horse picks.

This year they are in competition with Slashfilm (www.slashfilm.com). This is great site to check out and if you want the full rules of this cool crazy games it’s here – http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/05/10/the-slashfilmtotally-rad-show-summer-movie-game/

My List

1 – Toy Story 3
2 – Iron Man 2
3 – Shriek 4
4 – The Twilight Saga : Eclipse
5 – Sex and The City 2
6 – Prince of Persia : Sands of Time
7 – A-Team
8 – The Last Airbender
9 – Inception
10 – Night and Day

Dark Horses-

Get Him To The Greek
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

Why now?

I know now the summers nearly ending and your thinking why the hell bring it up now? Your either too late or way too early but I’m posting this now for a reason. I’ve now seen some of the films on my list and know how well some of the others have done. Sex and The City 2 didn’t do as well as I thought and Inception has done a lot better than I expected. It shows the expectations of any film good or bad it’s hard to predict. For example last summer one of the biggest surprises was The Hangover. It made $277.3 million in the US and came 4th in the list. This may of been due to it release date as well as less competition from other films. With the summer movie period not yet over it will be interesting to see if there are any big shocks and surprises. But I guess that is the interesting nature of the film industry and the film going public.

With the release of Iron Man 2 at the beginning of the summer I thought it would be good to look to the future of super hero films and what we as movie goers have in store.

New X-Men Prequel

For me the most interesting news is of the new X-men film. I was a huge fan of ‘Kick-Ass’ which came out earlier this year and of course it was based on the Mark Miller graphic novel. This was directed by Matthew Vaugne, who before this directed the also very good ‘Stardust’. News came out recently that he is adapting a script and directing the new X-men film. For me this is an exciting propect as he was one of the directors orginally lined up for ‘X-Men 3’, this news gives me and other X-men fans the chance see what Vaughe would of done with this material. Considering what he did with ‘Kick-Ass’ I’m looking forward to it.

Thor and Captain America

Both of theses films are currently in production and as most of you know by now these are due to lead into an almighty Avengers movie. To some this is a dream come true to others a confused uncertain dream that could turn into a nightmare.

‘Thor’ is directed by Kenneth Branagh, who’s not known for directing big budget action films but more for his Shakespeare adaptions. Although those who are familiar to the dialogue and style of Thor’s character in his comics, this may not be too far from a classical acting style. It will be interesting to see what type of movie it becomes but I am still looking forward to it. I’m also interested to see the performance of Chris Hemsworth as Thor, he’s not a big name but this could be a wise choice.

As for ‘Captain America’, we have Chris Evan as Captain America. Someone known for being in comic book movies as he has already been the Human Torch in both Fantastic Four movies, as well as being in this summers ‘The Losers’ and soon to be released ‘Scott Pilgram Vs The World’. I’m still not sure how he will play Steve Rogers as he is more known as the comic relief but we will see. As for the director Joe Johnson, with his background in big budget action films I’m sure it’s going to be full of the comic book action we expect.

So apart from the upcoming Marvel films what have other studios got in store for us movie goers.

Scott Pilgram Vs The World

This is not a novel I have read but the trailer blew me away and once I discovered it was Edgar Wright directing I became more excited. I have long been a fan of Spaced and Wright’s later movie projects with Sean Pegg, ‘Shaun Of The Dead’ and ‘Hot Fuzz’. With these becoming popular globally it wouldn’t be long before Wright got his shot at a US movie venture. To me he seems like the best guy to work on it as his love for computer games and sci-fi chic has come through from his other work but with the budget its turned up to 11. I would say next to Inception and Toy Story 3 (Yes, of course) it’s my most anticipated movie of the summer. But that’s just me.

If we know it or not it seems that so many of our future movies are based on comic books and graphic novels big or small. I can’t really decide weather its good news or not. As I grow up the big kid in me looks forward to the action packed hero’s movies but the grown up reading the new wave of adult based graphic novel wants to see these done well. To me the main benefit to the younger audiences is that it makes them go to their newsagents or comic book store and read more then hopefully discover all the great stuff I’ve since read growing up.