Shiny Happy Blog

Return to Wonderland.

2009-06-24T20:25:00.002+01:00

While the above concept art is stunningly beautiful and true to Caroll's batshit book (that scared the hell out of me as a kid), the character design is best described as Burton-esque. Johnny Depp's incarnation of The Mad Hatter is so bonkers, you really have to see it for yourself. I know a lot of people don't like these new pictures but I think they're pretty cool. The story is going to be a sort of sequal to the original book, with Alice returning to Wonderland after several years. I'm still eagerly awaiting pictures of Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat and Michael Sheen as the White Rabbit.

AMPAS shake-up...no kidding!

2009-06-24T20:17:00.002+01:00

Oscar expands Best Picture nominees to 10!

“Having 10 best picture nominees is going allow Academy voters to recognize and
include some of the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar
categories but have been squeezed out of the race for the top prize,” said Acad
prexy Sid Ganis in announcing the shift. “I can’t wait to see what that list of
10 looks like when the nominees are announced in February.”

What to think of this...

On the first hand, I'm hoping this will mean more attention to films considered not as 'worthy' by the Academy, such as animation, documentaries and maybe even some of the better blockbusters (I'm thinking The Dark Knight quality, not Transformers 2). It's certainly unexpected and could liven up things a lot and make them less predictable. It also means my student loan will be stretched further so I can see all these films. Maybe this is their recession busting plan? But on the other hand, what if this year, critics forbid, the race is a little thin and there just aren't 10 films worthy of the nomination? It could also mean more sympathy nods for people like Eastwood (god, not again!) and the like. As much as they have fucked me over in the past, I will hope for the best with the Academy's decision. Maybe Pixar will finally get a Best Picture nomination. Hope with me people!

Song of the day...

2009-06-16T22:05:00.001+01:00

Listen out for me guys!

2009-06-13T18:05:00.001+01:00

For all the Brits here, if you watch the latest episode of Have I Got News For You, listen out for some moronic fangirl whooping when Ian Hislop shows off his elbow patches.

That's me!

Song of the day...

2009-06-07T23:52:00.002+01:00

To comfort me from the fact that the fascist fucknuts that are the BNP just got a seat in the European Parliament, I gift you with some musical comedy, courtesy of cutie Tim Minchin.

Meet Eleven's companion.

2009-05-29T23:24:00.002+01:00

Karen Gillan.

Well...

She is absolutely beautiful, I'll admit that. But I just worry that combined with Matt Smith being in his mid 20s and Gillan being so young too (she's 21) the show will veer into some 'hip young world savers' angsty love crap and I've had enough of the unrequited love interest with Martha and the god awful pathetic mooning of Rose (who is a complete Mary Sue of Russell T Davies - I love you Russell but it was a bad move doing what you did with that stupid clone human Doctor.) Donna was such a step up (I'll never forgive them for fucking her over like that) and this feels like a little bit of a disappointment. I was hoping for a male companion, or at least somebody who looked older than Smith, it would have added an interesting dynamic to the pairing. Oh well, can't really complain until I see the finished product so Moffat, the ball is in your court.

Imaginarium stills.

2009-05-29T00:25:00.002+01:00

More at FirstShowing.

So prettyful yet so sad. Reviews have been mixed at Cannes but the positive ones were very enthusiastic, with one of the Newsnight Reviewers saying it was Gilliam's masterpiece. They also said the moment Heath Ledger's character transforms from himself to Johnny Depp, it's very emotional. I'm glad Ledger's swansong will be getting a release here, hopefully in America too.

The prettiest animation of the year (so far)

2009-05-21T21:28:00.002+01:00

Although it looks like there will be a lot of competition for that spot this year, Coraline is an amazing film and as an animation/Gaiman/French and Saunders nerd, I can't recommend it enough. If you scare easily it might not be for you and don't take the under 10s unless they're pretty tough.

Two reasons to see Star Trek...

2009-05-21T21:22:00.002+01:00

Well, other than the general awesomeness of it, the great acting, excellent action sequences and a well done rebirth of a franchise...

Song of the day...

2009-05-21T21:19:00.001+01:00

Julia Nunes' ukulele covers are currently my happy music. Check her out.

The Princess and the Frog trailer.

2009-05-10T22:04:00.002+01:00

Yes, another animation post but I'm a complete fangirl for Disney animation so this was a must post.

My thoughts?
I can't describe how excited I was to see 2D back in town for Disney. It looks stunning and the princesss is just adorable. It feels a bit forced but that's probably just the way the trailer's been put together (Disney are great but they don't do modesty.) Regardless of all that I really want the film to do well because Disney don't have any more 2D films lined up until 2012 so there's a lot riding on the success of this. I trust Musker and Clements. After all, they were the kings of the Disney Renaissance. Hopefully the controversy surrounding the first black princess won't overshadow the film. Go Disney!

Pixar are amazing - fact.

2009-05-05T19:27:00.002+01:00

In anticipation for Up, I have been watching some of the Pixar shorts I hadn't seen before and found One Man Band. Michael Giacchino's music is fantastic and the comic timing is right on as usual.

Ponyo poster.

2009-05-03T03:29:00.002+01:00

Blanchett! Jonas? Fey! Cyrus? Everyone else! This is certainly the most star studded of Ghibli's English dubs (although Howl's Moving Castle's one was very impressive too) and from what I've seen of the film's stills (available on the Japanese website) it looks typically stunning for a Miyizaki film. The story is certainly sweeter and lighter than his most recent efforts and has an almost Disney-like fairytale aspect to it. My sister is a Ghibli nut so we await this with much anticipation.

The Lovely Bones picture.

2009-04-29T04:10:00.002+01:00

I must admit that I loathed the book by Alice Sebold. It started off promisingly but just drove to a halt and turned into a self loathing therapy lesson for Sebold. However it's always had the potential to be a visually stunning piece and Empire's exclusive picture is proof of that. Peter Jackson knows how to handle effects and as seen in Heavenly Creatures, he can tackle the more difficult aspects of life on film. Saoirse Ronan is an excellent choice, hopefully she'll get another Oscar nomination for her work. I don't know if I'll see the film yet, I think I'll wait for a trailer first.

Song of the day...

2009-04-29T00:01:00.001+01:00

I've pretty much had this song on repeat all day.

TV Baftas 2009.

2009-04-27T01:13:00.002+01:00

:: Actor: Stephen Dillane - The Shooting Of Thomas Hurndall
:: Actress: Anna Maxwell Martin - Poppy Shakespeare
:: Entertainment performance: Harry Hill - Harry Hill's TV Burp
:: Comedy performance: David Mitchell - Peep Show
:: Single drama: White Girl
:: Drama series: Wallander
:: Drama serial: Criminal Justice
:: Continuing drama: The Bill
:: International: Mad Men
:: Factual series: Amazon with Bruce Parry
:: Specialist factual: Life In Cold Blood
:: Single documentary: Chosen (True Stories)
:: Features: The Choir: Boys Don't Sing
:: Current affairs:Saving Africa's Witch Children (Dispatches)
:: News coverage: News At Ten - Chinese Earthquake
:: Sport: ITV1 - F1: Brazilian Grand Prix 2008
:: Interactivity: Embarrassing Bodies Online
:: Entertainment programme: X Factor
:: Comedy programme: Harry And Paul
:: Situation comedy: The IT Crowd
:: Philips Audience Award: Skins
:: Special Award: Jane Tranter
:: Academy Fellowship: Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders

Overall I'm semi satisfied. Stephen Fry didn't win anything sadly and was beaten by shagging tortoises (Life in Cold Blood) and the X Factor, ugh! That wasn't even the vote open to the public. They kept showing clips of that Alexandra Burke winning and she blubbed like some sort of madwoman. I'll always consider her evil for butchering Hallelujah anyway.

Go Mad Men! And The IT Crowd! And David Mitchell! They played Sex on Fire when he won. The producer likes him as much as I do. I wish Mitchell and Webb had beaten Harry and Paul so they could have been on stage together. The Outnumbered kids gave Harry and Paul the stink eye! There were some excellent nominees this year including The Inbetweeners which is receiving much more attention in it's second series.

The drama categories I really can't fault. Wallander was excellent (and it also meant you got to see Branagh a lot who brought John Sessions as his plus one which made me literally dqueal with delight.) I've also decided to marry Dawn French. She received the Fellowship award along with Saunders and Richard Curtis and Helen Mirren introducing them. Curtis said something about how they were loved by women young and old everywhere and I couldn't agree more. I love them both more than I should love a female comedy double act. Graeme Norton was a good, funny host but typically for an awards ceremony crowd, he didn't get the laughs he deserved. Neither did Michael McIntyre who was hysterical as usual. I'll try and dig up some pics when they go online.

"This time I cannot hope to destroy it alone."

2009-04-18T20:41:00.002+01:00

New trailer here.

There are so many things right with this trailer I cannot name them all. The beautiful cinematography, the tone of the trailer, the badass Dumbledore, the extra screentime for Tom Felton, the fact that it's almost July and I'll get to see the full thing soon! It's time for Potter to kick those sparkly vampires' arses!

Cannes 2009.

2009-04-16T23:03:00.004+01:00

Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, the Nazi-hunter saga with Brad Pitt
Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock, about 1969 music fest, with Emile Hirsch
Francis Ford Coppola’s Tetro, an Argentine family drama with Vincent Gallo
Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant remake with Nicolas Cage
Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell, horror-thriller with Alison Lohman
Pete Docter’s Up, the 3D Pixar adventure with Ed Asner
Jane Campion’s Bright Star, a John Keats bio with Ben Wishaw
Lars von Trier’s Antichrist, horror in the woods with Willem Dafoe & Charlotte Gainsbourg
Ken Loach’s Looking for Eric, about a troubled teen soccer fan
Johnny To’s Vengeance, a hitman-turned-chef in Hong Kong to avenge his daughter’s murder, with Johnny Hallyday
Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank, teen troubles with Michael Fassbender
Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, about incipient fascism at a rural school in 1913
Pedro Almodovar’s Broken Embraces, a noirish melodrama with Penelope Cruz
Marco Bellocchio’s Vincere, about Mussolini’s secret lover
Bong Joon-ho’s Mother, a thriller about a ghastly murder
Park Chan-wook’s Thirst, about a small-town priest who turns into a vampire
Lou Ye’s Spring Fever, about a young threesome overcome with erotic longings
Lu Chuan’s City of Life and Death, epic about the 1937 massacre of Nanking by the Japanese army
Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Air Doll, about the love affair between a videostore clerk and an inflatable sex doll
Tsai Ming-liang’s Face, about a Taiwanese director in Paris to make a film about Salome, with Mathieu Amalric, Jeanne Moreau, Fanny Ardant, Nathalie Baye, Laetitia Casta and Jean-Pierre Leaud

Thoughts? At first glance my main thought was "Yay! Pixar!" I am excited to see how the studio will follow the sheer perfection that was Wall-E. Antichrist is also an anticipated one, as seen in the above picture. I'm guessing Von Trier will be pissing off as many people as usual. What a stunning image, I hope the film lives up to it. A deeper look led to a few more interesting finds, such as Andrea Arnold's new film (if you haven't seen Red Road, watch it now!), a lot of love for Asian cinema, Almodovar's newest film with recent Oscar winner Penelope Cruz, Tarantino's return to Cannes (my dad is completely fan boy style excited for Basterds) and Herzog's baffling decision to remake Bad Lieutenant with Nicolas Cage, a man who gets more wooden with each film. I challenge you to watch the remake of The Wicker Man with a straight face. And of course Coppolla. Youth Without Youth was not well received so I wonder if he can pull a proper comeback with Tetro.

Disney and the fancy magic glasses.

2009-04-12T00:25:00.002+01:00

Since John Lasseter is now in charge of Disney animation and he's a huge believer in 3D movies, Disney will be releasing pretty much all of their movies in the format over the next few years. I'm optimistic for this - I've only ever seen one film at the cinema in 3D and it was very gimmicky and dull. However, I have been informed that the technology is being used to enhance the movie instead of showing off what they can do. Some of their future releases will undoubtedly look amazing in 3D. I'm thinking primarily of Pixar's upcoming work (Up, the Toy Story films, Cars 2, The Bear and the Bow, Newt), Disney's animation (I'm most excited about Rapunzel with it's oil painting style animation and the amazing Kristen Chenoweth in the lead), the re-release of Beauty and the Beast (that ballroom scene will be worth the price of admission alone) and Alice in Wonderland (with a cast like that how can I not get excited? Stephen Fry's in it, for god's sake!) If only they could bring the cost of the showings down.

Obligatory girly post.

2009-04-11T12:23:00.003+01:00

I figured that my blog needed a bit of good old glamour so here are the shots from Emily Blunt's Vanity Fair shoot.

Let the wild rumpus start!

2009-04-09T15:39:00.002+01:00

I am DYING to see this. The trailer, complete with Arcade Fire music, is beautiful and has put to rest any worries that Spike Jonze wouldn't be up to the job. The wild things themselves look fantastic. I recently bought the book for my soon-to-be born second cousin because it's a classic but I never read it until I was much older than the recommended age group. Anyway, roll on Jonze!

Song of the day...

2009-04-09T15:37:00.001+01:00

I saw this band live when they supported Muse and were a lot more punk influence. I must say I like the new sound. Incredibly catchy and just as mad as before.

Oh Emma how I love thee.

2009-03-25T23:35:00.002Z

Best QI of the series! And believe me, there was a lot of competition for that spot. But the addition of Emma Thompson tipped it over the edge. How can you not love her torturing Stephen?

Oh, and of course, the unconventional eye candy.

Watchmen (Zack Snyder)

2009-03-14T11:13:00.000Z

Set in an alternate 1985 where Nixon is still president, costumed vigilantes have been outlawed and the world is on the brink of nuclear war, The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is killed. Believing that former costumed heroes are being eliminated, the masked Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) sets out to solve the case.

Alan Moore is considered the king of graphic novels and Watchmen, illustrated by Dave Gibbons, is his magnum opus. Filled to the brim with excellent characterisation, several narratives and more questions than most novels, it's more than just a comic book. In fact, it's the only graphic novel on Time's 100 must read books. It was always going to be difficult to adapt such a monster of a story, especially with the hype and the fanboys (scary folks). But I think Zack Snyder deserves a well done for his work here. A self confessed fan of the comic, he clearly loves his source material and takes the time to draw attention to even the smallest detail. As a fan of the novel, I had a whale of a time spotting the miniscule details that probably went over the heads of the uninitiated, such as The Comedian's change in costumes over the years, and the numerous historical figures that pop up (David Bowie is in the best opening credits I've seen in a long time.) I took my friend to see it and she'd never read the comic so I did spend a little time running over a few plot points as the film went on. Snyder's clearly not pandering to the uneducated masses and as a fan I can only be happy for this. I worry that many people will go to see the film based on the action packed trailers, believing it's a huge superhero bust up block-buster. Despite it's excellent moments of action, it's not your typical story.

Moore's strengths lies in his characters. Watchmen's heroes are more human and complicated than the better known heroes, like Batman and Spiderman. Each has their problems and see their pasts as crimefighters as both gifts and curses. Nite Owl (the excellent Patrick Wilson) a.k.a. Dan Dreiberg, is a bored, middle aged, chubby man who finds himself weak and impotent (in more ways than one) without his former alias. Laurie Jupiter (Malin Ackerman, the weak link in the line up) yearns for normality she'll never have and Adrien Veidt (Matthew Goode, surprisingly good) has made a fortune from franchising his former alias, Ozymandias, yet fears for the state of the world. Overall the casting is good, with rhe stand out being Haley. Rorschach is a popular character with the fans. His unique form of do-gooding brings out gasps of shock and respect in equal numbers. Spending most of his time wearing an ink blot mask which changes with his mood, Haley still manages to bring out the complexities of his character, making him somewhat admirable but never shying away from his wrong doings, no matter what his intention. He sees himself as a man surrounded by filth which he needs to fix. Between this and his Oscar nominated role in Little Children, he's fast becoming onr of my favourite actors. The most normal of the bunch, if they can be called that, is Dan and Wilson nails the everyday monotomy of his thoughts and his awkwardness. I couldn't quite decide what accent Goode was using for Adrien but he played the role better than I thought he would. He's still too youthful looking but he gives you reason to understand and trust Veidt. I had a real problem with Ackerman as Laurie. Silk Sceptre II isn't a chatacter I particularly like. I found her to be whiny, self centred and a little slutty. But at least she had some sort of a personality. Here, Ackerman plays her like an orchid - beautiful but not up to much. The costume change works if you think about it (the fetishising of the super-hero) but other than a great pair of legs and a nice wig, she just doesn't have the necessary skills. Stand out supporting characters include Carla Gugino as the original Silk Spectre.

But the biggest challenge for Snyder was always going to be Doctor Manhattan. Formerly a nuclear scientist called Jon Osterman, Manhattan (Billy Crudup) gained super powers after a freak accident that left him with the ability to experience all of tie at once and be used as a weapon by the US military. He's almost completely devoid of emotion, detached from reality and he's a naked, glowing blue man with his cock out. Kudos to Crudup for giving Manhattan enough humanity yet keeping his cold exterior. The effects work better in close ups than they do in long shots (the overtly muscular physique is accurate to the comic but looks off on screen. And the penis is distracting.) I'm glad the film was made in a time where effects have come so far. The America of Moore's world is dirty, gloomy and occasionally grotesque. It's a world that could end at any moment and brief flashes to newspaper headlines and the cabinet meetings with Nixon (really bad make-up, he looks like a circus clown) heighten the fear.

While Snyder isn't completely successful in his adaptation (unavoidably, some bits are missed out and scenes are cut) but 80% of his work is excellent. He doesn't shy away from the darker aspects of the story which is both good (the unflinching violence is pitch perfect, especially when tied to Rorschach) and bad (The single funniest sex scene you'll see all year.) The fight scenes are perfectly choreographed and even though he lays on the slow motion a little too much, it looks pretty damn cool (a shallow thing to say but it's true, except for that sex scene.) Equipped with an excellent soundtrack it's good for the ears as well as the eyes. The biggest fanboy quibble is with the ending which has been changed from the comic, the only major change that has been made. I may be a little controversial here but I prefer the movie ending. It works better, doesn't lose any of the power of the finale and it allows Snyder to take out some of the plot lines that would have bogged down the story.

It's not an easy story, it's very long and if you go in expecting a big latex covered punch-up then you'll be underwhelmed by Watchmen. It's a film by a fan for the fans and Snyder has proven himself worthy with such a difficult project. It's obvious throughout the entire movie that he cares about this story and will do anything to protect it. It's not as good as The Dark Knight but between the two movies, the superhero is finally being taken seriously. Read the graphic novel, then see the film.

Song of the day...

2009-03-03T23:04:00.000Z

Cheesy, but hell, it's for Comic Relief!