Van Diemens Land....an bhuil ocras ort?

What's irish for "cannibalism"? It's never answered in this bleak and depressing Australian telling of Alexander Pearse and his fellow-convict-consuming ways in Tasmania in the early 19th century. Apparently he was convicted for the theft of six pairs of shoes....back then that didnt mean an asbo or a stern dressing down from your local garda, but deportation to Tasmania for labour, lice and probably a swift and unhygenic end. Pearse and a group of his fellow scurvy miscreants escape from their wardens and find themselves crossing a desaturated, muddy, never-ending jungle with no food, no hope and no chance of an idyllic retirement in zihuatanejo. It starts well....but after the more distinguishable characters are killed off early on it just degenerates into a random and slow procession of almost interchangeable beardy grot-bags bumping each other off in the mud. Interestingly  a lot of the movie is actually in proper spoken irish, so if you fancy a really slow, not very exciting but admittedly beautifully shot version of Ravenous as gaelige ("LEABA"...that means bed)..then your dreams have come true. Having said that, if you DO dream about that, perhaps you need to talk to someone qualified. Don't bother with this, its beautiful but muddled and slow, like Megan Fox staggering out of a severe automobile accident. Ni maith liom.

Spartacus - Blood and Sand....first 2 episodes

If 300 and Rome had a boss-eyed, mewling low-budget tv baby...then Spartacus: Blood and Sand is it. Someone is going to fired for this...unbelievably crass, cheap and derivative yet also highly amusing car crash soft porn-afterfx orgy starring a load of antipodean non-actors and 3d backgrounds...Its the start of a new series by a previously unknown company called STARZ, which seem to be the tesco value equivalent of HBO's Rome. Rome was a violent, profane sex-filled soapy romp through the vaults of the Roman Republic but at the same time was also intelligent, educational and beautifully crafted.

This...well, it stars Xena the Warrior Princess getting fingerbanged by a bored menial while john hannah is getting his crank gobbled by another willing subservient. Yep, thats the acting apex we're achieving here. What this has to do with THE spartacus is a mystery...all I know is S:B+S=
1. Lots of CGBlood. i mean...lots. Stupid amounts. Mental amounts. Parody-esque amounts.
2. Nudey women/wholly gratuitous sex scenes. +10
3. Men walking around with their knobs out. Bloodthirsty gays will love this show, lots of oiled pecs and muscle marys strutting about. And why not? BRING ON THE PENII
4. Abysmal acting and script
5. Hilariously derivative 300-esque muzak by everyone's favourite musical magpie, Joseph deLuca

 The plot....thracean hardcase mercenary is double-crossed by his evil roman masters, given a good kicking, wife taken, and he's thrown into gladiator school, where he gets trained as a elite gladiator who becomes a big hit with the baying roman crowds while he harbors thought of revenge...gladiatory revenge. What does that sound like to you? Hmm....Have I made it sound terrible? It certainly is, yet also hideously compulsive. I'll be watching the next episode. So will you. Unless youre a lesbian. Or very intelligent. Or both.

2009 ROUND-UP (NOT A VINTAGE YEAR REALLY)

Well after a fine xmas where i did little but move around slowly constantly eating like a land-based manatee i thought I'd better get some kind of end of year review thing together, everyone likes lists right? I'll throw in a few new reviews first though...

Well everyone on the planet has seen this by now so I'll keep it short.

It genuinely -is- Dances with Wolves/The Last Samurai/A Man called Horse in space. THERE ARE NO SUPRISES AT ALL. NOT ONE. Why couldn't Jim have thrown in some kind of f**ked up twist at the end? Like the blue alien pocahontas the hero was knocking boots with...actually turned out to be the hero's alleged "dead" brother in a gender-bending interspecies f**ked up gay Crying Game incest...thing? Or when the SPOILERY BIT HERE hero wakes up at the end, his new body turns out to be completely paraplegic? Perfect opportunity for an over-the-credits "NOOOOOOOOOO!" here. Or the humans themselves turn out to be avatars controlled by some third species, possibly a methane-based lifeform resembling a sentient jelly...anyway nothing like that happens.

I can't remember a single line of dialogue.

It's too f**king long.

The alien flora and fauna - while rendered in a staggering way - are all a bit...meh. Watch the amazing BBC wildlife series Planet Earth...we have some f**ked up organisms on this planet that are as whacked out as anything on some fictional hippy jungle world like Pandora. Although brilliantly some people are actually feeling "depressed and even suicidal at not being able to visit utopian alien planet"



Michelle Rodriguez....the mardiest looking woman on the planet, a woman that looks like she'd pick a fight with her own baby while giving birth...what purpose does she serve in this movie? I QUESTION YOUR CHARACTER'S MOTIVATION AND PURPOSE MICHELLE.

The 3d....not groundbreaking. It's the same tech as My Bloody Valentine or The Final Destination, just used a lot more subtly. You forget its there after a while. And when you DO notice it, its slightly distracting.

The music..by the usually reliable James Horner...is entirely forgettable. End credit ballad that will make you run screaming from the cinema.

But..I still have to recommend it, it's just SO big and vibrant and beautifully crafted it manages to deliver the kind of cinematic kick that frauds like Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich will never ever manage even if they clone themselves and continue to pump out cynical intelligence-f**king bloatbusters for the next 10 generations. And the final 30 minute battle is amazing, The blue chick is hot and the bad guy is bad-ass. So for all its multiple faults, the bar has been raised again, and if as a result we get future films with Cameron's tech, a decent story and some sick subversive like Paul Verhoeven behind the camera then the potential is just mind-blowing.

Grow your beard back Jim....you look like an old woman.

Right then, at the other end of the cinema spectrum we get

Apparently a remake of some cheapo horror flick from the 70s, it's a wince-inducing cheapo horror flick with an orally-fixated killer knocking off some prom queens with a tire iron heavily tooled to vaguely resemble the throwy thing from Krull. It's bad. Really bad. The last 20 minutes in particular are an absolute ape- directed shambles. And not enough female nudity. That's why I downloaded it, and i didnt get it.  Look at the cover! It's like ordering a vanilla milkshake, and getting a cup of cold hairy sick instead. I feel angry now..angry and frustrated.

"Thriller" involving a cat and mouse psychological face off between Gerard Butler and the guy from Collateral. Obviously there was a communication breakdown between the studio and the casting agency here. Gerard Butler plays a, er, mental genius who goes vigilante (in more of a Jigsaw than Charles Bronson way) on the system when his family's killers get off lightly. Not awful, and very slick etc, but watching Gerry playing a mad criminal mastermind is like watching Corky from Life Goes On playing Soduko.


BEST MOVIE OF 2009 - WHICH HASNT BEEN A VERY GOOD YEAR REALLY
I'm going with District 9. Funny, excessively violent, great fx, and an exciting new talent in Neil Blomkamp. "folking prons etc"

Honourable Mentions
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (funny, beautifully made and just strange), Up (Pixar...), Moon, Drag Me To Hell.....er.......um.....

WORST MOVIE OF 2009 - AND THERE WAS SOME REAL TURDS
Transformers 2
Abysmal and headache-inducing robo-shite. At least the vast numbers of awful obscure horror movies I watch are over in an hour and a half. This heavy metal whore sits on your face for nearly three suffocating hours.

Dishonourable Mention
Antichrist. F**k off.

MOST OVERRATED MOVIE OF 2009
The Hangover
Everyone seemed to find this funny. Except me. The best comedy is on Tv now anyway, just watch Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Curb Your Enthusiasm, 30 Rock, Modern Family, hell there's loads of good stuff out there. Don't bother to go to a cinema for humour, the audience around you will make you laugh at stuff you normally wouldnt, it's some kind of group pychosis thing.

Runner-up
Zombieland
Not bad, just very unspecial and a watered down smartarse version of much better movies.

Wait, there's more! Actually no, there isnt.

Gary Coleman wants his penis removed from movie

Gary Coleman ("Diff'rent Strokes") just got out of a hospital after suffering a seizure. And while he's doing much better, he is now planning to get a lawyer in order to stop a company from showing his private parts in a film called "Midgets vs Mascots."

Apparently Coleman appeared in a scene that shows him breaking up a locker room fight. During the sequence, his robe accidentally flies open, briefly exposing his penis to the camera.

"With regards to Gary Coleman's displeasure with a scene in the film in which he briefly shows full frontal nudity," the producers said in a prepared statement, "the producers of the film have multiple contracts -- signed by Gary -- which give the filmmakers full rights and permissions to shoot any and all footage, including nudity, during the making of the film. Therefore, we have no plans to remove that particular scene from the film. We met with Gary this morning and he is aware of our decision."

Upon learning of this, Coleman quickly made his own statement, claiming that the penis shown in the movie is a body double.

"I wanted all my fans to protest my penis being in the movie, because I didn't want that," he said. "It's a body double, I believe, because I certainly was not gonna do this. And I heard that the body double is ugly, and is unattractive, and does not make me look good."