MOVIES - 2006 Award for Most Obviously Titled Movie

Goes to....

The title is self-explanitory.. Samuel L Jackson is an FBI agent assigned with protecting a witness on an airplane flight when an assassin releases hundreds of snakes aboard the plane and the excitment ensues. check out the trailer for yourself...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8aAkHGCuQT4

Also features the quote of the year "Enough is enough. I've had it with these snakes."

Couldn't just imagine that Hollywood producers meeting... it's 3.30AM... and they just past round the spliff one of the found in his inside pocket...

"Yeah man.. It's fuckin Mace Windu on a plane with snakes"

"He could shoot the snakes... yeah and let him say bad assss with a lisp just like a freakin snake."

"What shall we call the movie???"

"I dont care man... whatever.. I got the munchies.. let's go to Circle K."

TV - ABC's American Inventor

Last night was the premiere of yet another competitive reality show and ABC's American Inventor does follow the usual formula. You have a panel of judges who say yes or no to putting people through to the next round and you have a bunch of auditions. And like a train wreck you can't pull your eyes away. As you watch peoples dreams, which unlike Idol potentials, some have spent thousand of dollars on get crushed on national television, but you also get to see the one's whose dreams are final realised.

From the opening invention of basically a suit cover with a baggie inside in which you can pee without being seen 'The Bladder Buddy' is the invention of a madman. To the later inventions that got sent through in which you can see the passion and devotion in the creators. I really feel the concept behind this is much better than American Idol. I mean the end product of this could not just benefit the winner but also people watching the show.

I know it is potentially another cash cow for advertisers and others involved in the project, but you know what I like the heart behind it. And I am for one interested in where the show will go, I mean you can't just have a weekly vote like Idol as these guys won't being doing a new invention each week. This show is going to show the development of the eventual finalists ideas and creations.

Yet another show gets added to my must watch list.


Another premiere tonight as BBC's all new Doctor Who comes to Sci-Fi.

MOVIE REVIEW - Howl's Moving Castle (2004)

Director: Hayao Miyazaki
US Voices: Christian Bale, Jean Simmons, Billy Crystal, Blythe Danner, Emily Mortimer, Lauren Bacall

Yet another head trip and visual feast from the mind of Japanese animation artist Miyazaki. He takes us on an adventurous tale of war, magic and true love. The story follows quiet young shop girl Sophi (Emily Mortimer), who has a curse placed on by the Witch of the Waste that turns her into a withered bent old lady. Now she must run away into the wastes to find someone who can help reverse the curse upon her. It is there that she comes across the eponymous moving castle of the great and literally heartless wizard Howl (Christian Bale).

First off I want to mention my only real gripe with the story and that is the war that is going on partly as background to the central love and redemption story. I just didn’t feel that side of the film was conveyed as well as the rest and as a result it seems out of place at time. It seems more of an added anti-war statement inside what it really is a beautifully told story.

What lifts this above so many other animated features is Miyazaki’s ability to enchant an audience with a style that is an art form unto itself. This can create some of the most emotive and wonderful characters in animation today. And he places these creations against detailed and beautiful vistas. One example of his work is the castle itself, it is wonderful amalgamation of parts of houses, chimneys and machinery that has it’s our personality, you could watch the movie a second time just to catch the intricacies you may have missed the first time through.

Miyazaki had a hard act to follow in creating an another film after the critical success of "Spirited Away". Although he doesn’t quite match what he did with that one when he undershoots he still manages to best everyone else. He is to our time what Walt Disney was to the 40s and 50s.

Spellbinding. 9/10.