2012

Just thinking about it makes my head hurt, not only are we paying billions of pounds for what will only be the most expensive farce in British history but we shall be subject to another Royal event when Her Majesty the Queen will celebrate 60 years as Britain’s monarch.

Also world pride 2012 will be coming to London for a two week long party, World Pride is a festival promoting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues on a global scale and is expected to attract over one million visitors from around the world.

Then just to add insult to injury the Mayans believe that on the 21 December 2012 the world as we know it will end.

To sum up we will have spent all our money on a couple of stadiums and a giant swimming pool and endured over half a century of England’s biggest tourist attraction, but at least we can all go out with a bang at the world’s biggest (and probably the most fun) party, starting 8pm at G.A.Y. invite not required, leather trousers optional.

All however is not doom and lube, there will be some exceptional movies coming to a cinema near you.

There is a long list of fantastic movies set for 2012 but let’s start with The Dark Knight Rises.

The third in the saga of the new Batman films starring probably one of the best actors to portray Batman, Christian Bale. I personally think the last film The Dark Knight with Heath Ledger playing the Joker; will be a hard one to beat. (Probably one of the best films of the decade) and with them adding the villain BANE played by Tom Hardy, to the mix (if anyone has seen Batman & Robin, hmmmm) I think that the film is destined to flo\p.

Bane is one of Batman's more physically and intellectually powerful foes. Born in a prison, serving his escaped father’s life sentence, Bane develops extraordinary skills. He reads as many books as he can get his hands on and builds up a reputation after killing several people, and establishes himself as the king of the prison. Bane is forced by the prison controllers to become a test subject for a mysterious drug called Venom which has killed every other test subject. Bane miraculously survives and the drug increases his physical strength, however he is forced to take the drug every 12 hrs pumped directly into his brain to prevent the side effects.

So being on a permanant steroid trip Bane becomes one of Batman’s strongest enemies.

Hopefully however the movie might be redeemed by Anne Hathaway who is set to be playing, fingers crossed, a very sexy Catwoman, and combined with the usual quality from Christian Bales version of Batman and the other permanent supporting characters it could turn out to be as big as the previous two blockbusters. I will reserve my judgment.

Now for all you 80s fans, here comes what I think could be a great sequel ….

Who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters 3!

 WOW! I can’t wait, yeah ok I think it’s probably going to be a big fat cheese fest just as Scream 4 was, but who cares, I enjoyed it.

 There isn’t much detail out there about the film yet unless you want to watch some fan made trailers on YouTube, (yawn) but the basic story is that the original cast of Ghostbusters are back! (Yey) however it looks like they will be giving up their Proton packs and handing over the keys to that legendary Ectomobile to a new crew, I suppose this is room for making further sequels if this hits it off.

I know we look back on these films, knowing there is going to be a sequel over 20 yrs on and think OMG! Please noooooo! however (and I had to look this up) Ghostbusters 1, released in ’84 grossed approximately USD$240 million in the U.S. and over $50 million abroad during its theatrical run, more than the second Indiana Jones instalment, making it the most successful film in America that year and one of the most successful comedies of the 1980s. The American Film Institute ranked it 28th in its list of the top 100 comedies of all time.  Something you didn’t know (or expect)

Anyway we will have wait and see for this one as the release date is not until the end of the year for 2012. But here’s probably one of my favourite bits of the original. CLICK ME

Anyway last but by no means least, the one that I will be looking forward to the most and will be going to the cinema, most likely on my own, to see is the one, the only.

Thunder, Thunder, ThunderCats…. HOOOOOOO!

Yes guys and girls, mainly the guys, ThunderCats is coming to the big screen!

ThunderCats was a cartoon from the 80’s; yes ok I’m an 80’s fan, but who isn’t? The storyline consisted of a group of humanoid cats that must flee their planet of Thundera after it's destroyed. Once crash-landing on another planet, Third Earth, they must thwart Mumm-Ra, an evil sorcerer, bent on killing them off.

The original charecters consisted of Lion-O, Tygra, Panthro, and Cheetara and my favourite character Snarf “Snarf”

The cartoons were great and like the He-man series they always seemed to have a moral to the story which they described to the kids at the end of the show.  

The new film will consist of CGI graphics and is due to be released in 2012 however Warner Bros have had this on and off for the last four years now so I’m not very optimistic. There is however a new cartoon series which is aired on Cartoon Network this September, I’ve not seen it yet but I may have to relive my youth and blame it on my kid! (Of 7 months)

Anyway check out the link below, which really got me excited, and guys see if you can refrain from shouting along with the Sword of Omens chant at the end.

CLICK ME

Smoking in films

I put the news on this morning when I woke to feed my baby boy, only to find that someone has come up with a new way to piss off the smokers and film lovers of this world and thought it would make a fitting start to my blogs.

Making films an 18 certificate if they contain scenes of smoking!

BBC HEADLINES

Teenagers who watch films showing actors smoking are more likely to take it up, new UK research suggests.

Apparently experts made the link by questioning 5,000 15-year-olds say their findings should prompt a change in film certification so that under-18s are no longer exposed to such images.

I was a little miffed yet overall happy when they banned smoking in pubs and restaurants etc. in 2007, in the winter I now have to stand in the freezing cold to enjoy a cigarette with my pint or meal, however it also means that I don’t have some chain smoker sat over me while I’m trying to enjoy my steak and we no longer have to endure nights in the pub with soggy wet ashtrays full of stinking fag butts. I do however draw the line at making films an 18 certificate just because they show someone enjoying a ciggie.

I have been a smoker for over 10yrs, not because of peer pressure (there was plenty of it) and not because I thought it would make me look cool. I definitely did not start smoking because I saw John McClain in Die Hard do it! For the same reasons I don’t run around with a machine gun, blowing up buildings and ‘chalking up bad guys!’

Seriously, do they really think people are stupid enough to copy everything they see in the movies, I mean I know there are the odd few idiots out there that would answer yes to this question but the vast majority of movie watchers are just not that simple.

A cigarette is more of a prop in a film than anything else, it adds to a characters image along with the clothes they wear and their attitudes.

Granted smoking is bad for you, I think we are all aware of this by now. There are enough people the world over reminding us every day. I think it’s time that we start asking the people (over 18) who currently smoke why they do it and not a bunch of spotty 15yr olds, barely past puberty who, let’s face it, have no concept of what they want to do in life yet let alone understand the consequences of the random answers they give in a survey.   

Soon I won’t be able to walk down the street with cig in my hand because ill be contaminating peoples airspace and polluting youngster’s tiny little minds into thinking that smoking is cool. (It’s not by the way)

This era of political correctness is driving me mad and I for one am sick of it. People were smoking in life long before they were smoking in films, it’s just the jumped up nature of today’s ‘blame’ society needing something to whinge about and let someone else to take responsibility for their actions.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a smoker however I am also an anti smoker, I think its wrong to smoke around your kids, not because they will copy you but because it can cause health issues and that’s not what I want for my little one. People are allowed to make their own choice which is what makes this a free country. The legal age restrictions for smoking are now 18 anyway so all these 15yr olds shouldn’t be smoking in the first place. If you have to blame anyone, it should be the lack of parental discipline or failure to check ID in the shops, not the film industry.

Anyway, enough ranting from me, tell me what you think about the issue.

In the mean time I’m going out to spend £137,000 on a new Aston Martin, I saw James Bond driving one once and just have to have one! I might just blame the movies for making me buy it and see if the credit company take that as an excuse when I can’t afford the repayments!

Wish me luck!

Welcome Movie Lovers!

It’s funny how movies and TV play a big part in people’s lives, every day I find myself talking a quote from a film or a TV programme or even just comparing an experience to something I’ve seen.

I love movies, hell I’ve got about 3-4 hundred DVDs bulging from the cabinets, that’s not including series box sets, I could start my own shop!

I find I’m always jumping into conversations at work when people start taking about films they have seen, DVDs they have bought, what makes a good movie and what doesn’t,  hence I thought I’d start my on page blogging about it.

So here goes... and guys feel free to jump in at anytime with any topics you want to talk about, as I keep telling the wife “I can go all night, but it’s nice for someone to join in once in a while!”