Review To A Kill

LATEST REVIEW- NO S**T, SHERLOCK!!!

SORRY LEO, BUT IT WAS FLAWED FROM ITS INCEPTION...20/7/2010

The hype over Inception has been pretty high, this summers 'thinking man blockbuster' in a summer bereft of big hitting blockbusters. But Is it any good? not really. But you need to read exactly why this film was a great big missed opportunity...



PREDATORS-STRENGTH IN NUMBERS? ER, NO....

So, another blast from the 1980s, along with with The karate Kid and The A-Team. This sequel to/remake of the Arnie classic is absolutely dire...and let MayDay tell you why. Adrien Brody tries his best, but it's all for nothing...why can't Hollywood leave the 1980s alone?!?




PREDATOR-SEE WHERE THE HUNTING BEGAN...4/7/2010

To 'celebrate' the release of Predators, MayDay goes back to where it all started: Predator, the action science fiction classic!
It's one of MayDay's favourite films, so click and see why!
If it bleeds...

MAYDAYS TV DINNERS: BBC, 2 LITTLE LAUGHS?

May Day is continuing her dips into Television here and there, but so much of it is so bad, she is having a break down. It seems so far away, for her favourites shows to return, they are lurking far off across the Atlantic mostly, or lost in time and space. So she needs a laugh to cheer her up, especially after the disappointment at the cinema she received at the hands of Inception. Stuck in Blighty as she is, she has decided to turn to the good old BBC. A deluge of new programming of late, the four part series Sound (no torchwood week of last year though!) a new version of Sherlock Holmes (much anticipated as it is) Out Casts and so on, and May Day can‘t help draw the conclusions, that the Beeb hating Tories are back in power, reviewing how the license fee is spent, and all of a sudden the BBC are unleashing a barrage of new shows that feels like an autumnal programme (or Fall to you beloved Americans) to justify the corporation as it faces tough times ahead.

Mere coincidence? May Day doesn’t do coincidence! But along with this new drama push, BBC2 is seeing a deluge of comedy shows on weekday nights. So has May Day been on the path to recovery, with help from the likes of ‘Rev’ ‘That Mitchell and Webb Look’ ‘Shooting Stars’ and Mock the Week? The answer is yes, and no. ‘Oh May Day, its always yes and no, isn’t it?’ the comedy line up is a mixed bag in reality, even though most of these shows are shown this time of year, it still feels like a push or a rush and a push, an effort to justify the license fee yet further, that the BBC is still the home of British Comedy. A title won by default, surely? When did you last see something funny on ITV, that was intended to be funny and not just so bad it was funny? And Channel Four ? the IT crowd? Please. As funny as a flattened fox. So the BBC is doing ok on these grounds. But it should do better!

Lets look at some of these shows. ‘Rev’ is strangely watchable, in the most part, despite not being that funny. You laugh every now and then, but not often. It’s not so important though, even in a comedy, to laugh constantly. Rev is a slow burner, but credit Tom Hollander for the central role, which he plays well, a meek well meaning nice guy, imprisoned by his politeness who is fuming underneath. And yet the show is a little depressing, empty churches, mad people and alcoholics, the bleak setting is at least different from the standard horrific sitcom setting, though, yet more credit there. Then there are moments of gross sentimentality, political correctness, and sickly emotion that destroy the shows subversive efforts. Maybe a second series would improve it? Who knows, but its not there yet, by a long shot.

‘That Mitchell and Webb Look’ is a show really suffering in its third series. Being a sketch show, it has a hit and miss ratio, and this show’s ratio is fast on the slide. Which is a shame, as you do still get a good sketch from time to time. The guys from Peep Show, which they do not write, really should stay there from now on, in May Day’s opinion. They are incredibly smug at times, thinking their cleverness can pass for humour. At times it almost works, but it often fails, and its never good in a sketch show if you want to fast forward to the next, because you just cannot, unless you get the DVD! The show is followed by ‘Shooting Stars’ in what comprises a comedy hour on Tuesday nights. What to say about Shooting Stars? How about, its hilarious? Yes, that will do.

The show’s old run made May Day laugh until she almost drowned in her own juices. The latest run is not as good, and the last series was a bit ropey. But now they have found something of their old form, and its great. The show is without a doubt, the wackiest, most original comedy on TV. Which is interesting, because it follows a rigid formula, you know what is coming, but not how it will manifest. Vic and Bob are great, in their own way, and they carry it hysterically across the finish line. The guests, the captains, all are variable, but Vic and Bob are a wacky rock to build a surreal show, that just works. It’s silly as hell, but tinged with comedic genius. Hard to see a show like this anywhere else but on the BBC, it’s quintessentially British, a cult hit, but not commercial one, in the conventional sense. So lets keep the BBC for shows like this, you Tory buggers! Don’t cut Shooting Stars! A manifesto pledge please?

16/7/2010 MAREBITO-THE STRANGER FROM AFAR...

After a trip to CEX, MayDay came away with this little curio, Marebito. It was directed by Takashi Shimizu, who also directed the rather good Ju-On. So for £5, MayDay thought ‘What a bargain!’ She expected something along the lines of Audition, with the woman exacting terrible revenge on ‘man’ as a whole. However, what she received was one of the most peculiar films she’s seen for a very, very long time...a horror in the Lovecraftian sense of the word, but not exactly...

We follow a man, Masuoka, who constantly records his daily life (played by Shinya Tsukamoto, who directed the brilliant surreal terror Tetsuo, the Iron Man), and one day he happens to record a suicide in a Tokyo subway. The look of terror in Arei Furoki’s eyes seduces Masuoka; he desperately wants to feel the absolute terror the man did before he plunged the knife into his eye...So, one day, with camera in tow, he ventures into the depths of Tokyo, and thus begins the complete insanity of this film...

Masuoka ends up in some sort of Lovecraftian vision, after talking with Furoki...post-suicide. Masuoka even evokes the great H.P. when he calls them “Mountains of Madness.” However, it’s not a creature of Hell he finds, but a beautiful young girl. He whisks her away to his everyday life, and then things increase in peculiarity...He discovers she only drinks blood, so begins a small killing spree. Of course, the Lovecraftian vision isn’t brought up for fun and giggles; we are meant to question the man’s sanity. Lovecraft’s beautiful books often mix madness with horror, questioning one at the expense of the other. We see him throwing away a bottle of Prozac, refusing to be controlled by those pills. He sees the ‘dead’ (the suicide man) a couple of times, and we’re not even sure if the young girl is a creature from another world, or simply his daughter. One of the people he murders professes to be his wife, who accuses him of taking their daughter. Has he lost the plot, believing in gibberish like ‘Deros’ (detrimental robots) and the Hollow Earth Theory?

“They didn't see something that terrified them. They saw something because they were terrified,” Masuoka says near the beginning of this twisted tale. He literally lives through his camera; recording his daily life, then reviewing it when he gets home. He spends hours looking at the eyes of the suicide man, and hours more looking at footage of ‘F’ (the young girl). There’s a glimpse of ‘Peeping Tom’ when he records the murders. For him, “reality” is not real to him; “reality” is just another image on the TV screen. His murders are no more real to him than Midsummer Murders. However, subconsciously, ‘reality bites,’ and this bloodlust drives him further into insanity. In the end, we are left with no answers.

And what should we take of the title, Marebito? In Japanese folklore, it refers to a ‘divine being’ who comes from afar bringing gifts of wisdom, spiritual knowledge and happiness. The suicide man tells Masuoka that fear is an ancient form of wisdom, one that humans lost a long time ago. However, by the end of the film, Masuoka does not look happy, nor does he seem to gained spiritual knowledge. The uncertainty of the entire film is the real horror here. In Ju-On, Shimizu made horror the main character. In Marebito, the horror isn’t a character as such, but the depths of Masuoka. It’s the horror of the psyche, one that can’t be answered or analysed. Shimizu serves us a Japanese take on Lovecraft, on a grainy, digital camera that seduces the viewer, almost as a voyeur.


13/7/2010 PREDATOR 2-THE HUNT FOR A WORTHY SEQUEL

After the big disappointment of Predators, MayDay decided to reappraise Predator 2, which she has dismissed for so many years. She’s never liked Predator 2, but after Predators, she was willing to give it a third chance. And what a difference a decade makes (and watching the vastly inferior second sequel). It isn’t a great film by any stretch of the imagination, but it is undeniably entertaining. Let MayDay tell you why...

Now, unlike the boring and predictable Predators, Predator 2 takes a different track from the original. Of course, we arrive in a jungle, but the URBAN jungle! We are in the ‘not too distant future’ of Los Angeles, 1997. As the news reporter tells us, ‘We’re in a warzone, Dave!’ There is a crime wave, coinciding with a heat wave (global warming?). And we don’t have a group of characters who will be hunted to death by the Predator, but a few main characters who are not in immediate danger (Danny Glover, Bill Paxton, Maria Conchita Alonso). The people who the Predator is hunting are not main characters, but the people behind the crime wave. Of course, we know from the start who will face the Predator in the final smackdown, but we need a hero to root for in these kind of things.

It’s a refreshing take on the Predator story, embellishing the aliens’ back story along the way. It won’t harm pregnant women, for example. For the first time, we see inside its ship, it’s home away from home if you will. There are suitably grotesque death scenes, lots of skinned corpses, a few penises on show, and a cracking 45 minute (yes, 45 minutes!) climax, the smackdown between Glover and the Predator. Of course, as with the first Predator, the roles are reversed: the Predator become the hunted, Glover the hunter. It borrows liberally from sci fi classics, like Robocop and Aliens. It has a similar feel to Robocop, and of course, the news footage of the crime wave owes a lot to media scenes in the great cyborg film. Are we to recognise the Predator as the true law enforcer, reigning justice from its’ invisible perch? Of course, the police are hunted as well, but what better way to get rid of crime than wipe out the criminals and instil deep fear in them?

The Aliens influence comes at the end, where we find that nasty conglomerates want to capture the Predator and copy its weaponry. We are even treated to a scene almost identical to the scene in Aliens where the Marine corp walks into the Aliens nest. They are slaughtered, and we see the massacre via their helmet cameras. This ‘borrowing’ from great sci fi signals the difference between the sequel and the original; the original is more action orientated, the sequel grounded in science fiction.

There are many flaws with this film that prevent it from being brilliant, however. The script is comically bad at times, with barely any of the memorable one liners of Predator. It demeans the rest of the film, preventing character development and audience involvement. It tries to replicate the cheeky playfulness of the original’s witty script, but fails for most of the time. The special effects, especially the camouflage, actually look WORSE than the original! With three years and a bigger budget, there is no excuse for the woeful effects. And, while the 45 minute smackdown is undeniably entertaining, the Predator does get battered by Danny Glover, which degrades his abilities as an ‘invincible’ hunter. The Predator speaks English, and it’s got a bit of a filthy mouth! And, of course, we see the trophy of the Alien skull in the Predator’s ship, which led to the awful AvP films.

However, please give Predator 2 a chance. It hovers between being enjoyable trash and a cracking film, in the sequel territory of uncertainty. It definitely adds to and embellishes its predecessor, whereas Predators simply copies Predator. It’s doesn’t realise its potential by a long shot, but look at this as the perfect complement to Predator.


10/7/10-MISFITS-CHANNEL 4'S FREAKY SUPERHERO SHOW!

Can’t live, if living is without Who...yes, MayDay is still lost without Doctor Who on a Saturday night. What’s the point of Saturday without Doctor Who? So she flicks between the channels, in hope of something to interest her. It didn’t work last week, but by Lord, it definitely worked this week, as MayDay came across the quite brilliant Misfits. She missed it on the original E4 run last year, but was fortunate to catch it on Channel 4. And what a breath of fresh air! MayDay was treated to a hilarious yet endearing piece of TV.

This comedy drama delivers in spades, as a comedy, as a drama, and a superhero spoof. The absurdity of superhero origins in displayed here for all to see. A bunch of teenagers on community service get struck by lightning, and develop superpowers. Lightning! Take that, bite from a spider. Of course, we have the ‘reveal’ of the Fab Five’s superpowers-Alisha’s skin causes instant seduction, Kelly becomes psychic, Simon has invisibility, and Curtis can turn, turn back the hands of time. Kelly’s revelation is done in particularly funny fashion; her dog licks her face, and she ‘hears’ him say: “You dirty b***h. I’ve been licking my b*****ks!!!!” MayDay laughed out loud, not for the first time (or the last). The humour’s rude, crude, and sometimes very subtle. Of course, not in one of MayDay’s favourite scenes, where Alicia is demonstrating fellatio (while concurrently, Kelly is running away from the crazed probation officer). Another laugh-out loud moment! And, to top it off, the humour is quintessentially BRITISH! British humour for British TV viewers!

It doesn’t pretend to be anything more than it is, nor posit mysteries that will be drawn out forever and a day. Each character is spot-on, with only Nathan possibly verging on really irritating (in a negative way). We have Kelly, the chav, so concerned with what people think (which is why she becomes psychic?). Simon might as well be invisible anyway. Curtis wishes his career in athletics wasn’t ruined by carrying cocaine; he wants to turn back time. Alisha doesn’t really need powers of seduction; she does it anyway, consciously and subconsciously (see the first scene, where she makes sure her cleavage is showing). All these powers are physical manifestations of the psyche, a very nice touch. Maybe superpowers are their chance at rehabilitation, more so than any amount of mindless community service could be? Dressed up in orange jumpsuits, they are misfits without a purpose. Armed with superpowers, maybe they can find a purpose...

It’s loud, boisterous, and lovingly British. It’s a cross between Skins, Heroes, and the generic horror film. This first episode has lashing of horror, with the crazed (by lightning) probation officer chasing Kelly, and then stalking the Misfits in the community service building. It’s enthralling an endearing in equal measures. And it’s also on DVD, so MayDay could either wait until next Saturday to watch episode 2, or spend £8 and watch the whole lot...
MayDay seriously recommends Misfits!





7/7/10 MAY DAY’S TV DINNERS: ‘Fat Families Second Helpings: Greasy Bargain Bucket TV’

Why is May Day reviewing such a horrible little show as ‘Fat Families Second Helping’ anyway? You know from the title it’s not going to be good. And on that front, it does not disappoint. Fatso shows like this have been a staple (or should that be stomach staple) of TV channels for the last few years. It makes sense, they are cheap, and there is no shortage of participants. And people love to laugh at the less fortunate, and while they do that with shock doc’s such as ‘the boy with a foot for a face’ etc, we can only do this in the guise of feeling sympathy for the afflicted. But that’s not the case with fat people! They bring it on themselves, right? Well that’s the wager of a show like this. It’s not true of course, and the result is a quite awful television programme, even for Murdoch portal Sky1.

May Day’s body is a temple. She only eats raw foods, and even then, only foods that begin with an R. Why? She has deep, deep problems, and all sent to try and help her have gone away in tears. In Fat Families, we have people who aren’t just tubby, but are classed as ‘small asteroids’. Our presenter, is one Steve Millar, an unlikeable chap, a bit like a cross between Dale Winton and Paul McKenna, who turns up to the gravity sink holes of the fat families in question. We have the standard ‘day in the life of a fatty’ piece where we see a bunch of unlikeable people chomping down unhealthy foods to the tune of around 7,000 calories. It’s a pretty exploitative affair, we see them shoving the food in with close ups in slow motion, never has the beloved invention of the video camera been so misused, and it made May Day very angry.

But all this comes to an end, as it always does on these things, after all this show is a clone of the formula used throughout the decadent West: Fat people + humiliation + Food Fascist + breakthrough= weight loss show. The next bit was truly awful, where these people where stripped to their underwear, and filmed in all their glory, for our amusement, and their humiliation. They were shown the footage of the camera hovering over their fat, and it seemed to May Day like some perverse Mario Galaxy level, she imagined the little plumber running around on these mini worlds of fat, stomping Goombas and the like. After this humiliation, the breakthrough can now be made. Even if it isn’t always, but boy does the show try and force it anyway, and Steve gets down to doing his magic. Of course, the magic is the bleeding obvious, as we all know, want to lose weight, eat less (in this case, a lot less) and exercise more (a lot more). It’s not rocket science, but its often portrayed in as such on these shows, which probably makes things worse, the only way you can lose serious amounts of weight is by getting Guru’s like Steve Millar to invade your life and having an audience of a few million laughing at you (I am being generous for you there Steve).

The final, and perhaps most cruel twist in this nightmare of a show, which actually hardens your arteries more than a direct injection of lard straight to your heart, is when Steve goes undercover, with hidden cameras, he sends in a dessert trolley to a catch up with the gastropod’s a few months down the line, he offers every treat possible, and a fruit salad as well. Well I’ll be dammed, they go for the cheese cake! Then Steve pops out, and berates them for their sins. I think that the Devil should have used this tactic when trying to tempt Jesus when he was out in the desert. He would have fallen for it, and we would be living in a more exciting world. Alas. This kind of TV is what is really bad for you though, it renders the soul obese. It asks you to laugh at poor desperate people, what with it’s cheeky mocking style. It’s as formulaic as a Big Mac but not nearly as tasty. It won’t be the last either, and it will repeat on you for a long, long time, go out for a nice walk for an hour if you see it’s on, May Day will, with her crossbow, of course

30/6/10 MAY DAY’S TV DINNERS: LETS GET CONTROVERSIAL!

Welcome to a regular new section for May Day, as she tries to wean herself off of the Doctor and Amy. She is considering rehab. But might TV have some other gems out there deserving of her praise? Or horror’s she must seek to banish? TV is a wonderful medium. Yet it can be trashy, weird, and downright scandalous. If it has these three qualities in one go, then wow, May Day gets all tingly in certain places. And she knows a place that has them all. Chances are you have never heard of it. It’s one of May Days many guilty pleasures, one now to be shared. It concerns ‘Controversial TV’ Sky channel 200.

May Day has too much time on her hands, sometimes bathing in a Minority Report style tank hooked up to all the World’s media streams. No one watches these backwater channels, they never stick around for long. But this one is worth a look, before it goes soon. First off, it’s trashy. Low production values abound, but hey, they don’t have any money. The channel is basically, a conspiracy theory hub, combined with new age spiritualist nonsense. Its trash in the way its put together, it looks really old and dated. May Day enjoys many of the shows on it, top of the list is the ‘RichPlanet.net’ a show about aliens and the alien cover up. it’s a fun show. The guy who presents it, is a long Haired Geordie Called Richard D Hall, who fancies himself a low budget Agent Mulder. One episode was devoted to the ‘Gateshead Grey’ with an old man, who claims in his youth to have been taken by aliens, in an egg shaped craft at the end of his street, they took him, they were small, skinny things, with big heads apparently, and had a Wookie type creature with them. The old fella (verging on senility it seemed) claims that one creature came back, chased him and was killed with a spade. The dead alien was then taken by the army, and buried (perhaps) at a local church. Diddla Diddla! All this happened when he was a boy, and why we should assume him anything than a fantasist or liar we don’t know. But Rich takes it serious, and it’s a joy to watch.

The Channel is pretty weird too. It moves from obscurantist pseudo philosophy, to paranoiacs who argue that the Twin Towers were destroyed by energy beams. It’s about the only place on TV where you can here a minor discussion about Hegelian dialectics, and then hear about how Reptilian shape shifters rule the world. David Icke pops up from time to time too. There is a hatred of bankers, communists, illumniati, and vaccinations. ‘On the Edge’ is the flag ship show, where the presenter, one Theo Chalmer’s and his guests, talk about potentially libellous theories about how the government where behind attempts to poison it’s citizens, initiate false flag terrorist attacks to spark foreign wars, Some of it is downright offensive to many caught up in real life tragedies like 7/7 or 9/11.

And Yet May Day loves and hates it in equal measure. Even if it is soon to close. Because it fascinates, even though you don’t believe a word, hearing people who do, and don’t care who knows it, is refreshing, compared to the rest of the rather dull media. Its laughable too, in another show, seen months ago, an alleged alien abductee, claimed that the creatures that took him where tiny, and came down and did something to the tumours in his chest, and had the appearance of Goblin’s. All this done in absolute seriousness by all involved. And they really do think they can change the world with this stuff. Of course they can’t, the channel is soon to go off air due to a lack of funds. In a way, it deserves to die. The shows it puts out, the glossy usually American trash such as ‘9/11 Ripple Effect’ and ‘Zeitgeist’ are poorly researched offensive dribble, that can easily be shown to be fundamentally flawed. But here everyone believes in the 9/11 conspiracy theory, and that level of fantasy and delusion is rare, and it may even be missed by May Day, and the three other people who tune into channel 200. You should, too while you have the chance..


JU-ON: THE GRUDGE-FORGIVE AND FORGET? 17/6/10

MayDay saw The Grudge (original Japanese one, not the one with Buffy The Vampire Slayer!) for £3 the other day, so, of course, she snapped it up. She’s not had a true scary movie since Ringu, and apparently, The Grudge “scares the socks off The Ring” (according to the cover sleeve). Now, while she wasn’t entirely sure what this meant, MayDay exchanged £3 for Ju-On, in hope of a fright comparable to Ringu or even the mighty Blair Witch Project (the scariest film ever? Possibly!).

In plain English, it didn’t “scare the socks off Ringu.” But it was rather creepy and disturbing at point, like the part where Rika tries to calm down Sachie, the troubled old lady. Then, suddenly, a black mass descends upon her...very, very spooky. The little boy, Toshio, ranged somewhere between ridiculous and creepy. For MayDay, the appearances of the ‘black mass’ were too similar to the girl out of Ringu. This was especially apparent at the end, where a woman in a body bag crawls down the stairs, complete with all those disgusting noises out of Ringu (the sounds of bones creaking/breaking, etc).

However, what was admirable was the attempt to singularise ‘horror’ by showing a non-linear story. In this, ‘horror’ is the linear story line, and nothing else. The stories of the victims of ‘Ju-On’ are told in no particular order, but an order that gradually reveals more about the ‘horror’ itself. For example, Izumi’s storyline takes place several years after some of the others. The only causal links between the stories are the characters themselves. Someone who flashed up for a second or two in one story appears in the next story, for example. So, if you ignore the non-linear aspect of the story, then it resembles the usual (Japanese) horror film; you are gradually told more and more about the ‘horror’ at large, until the ‘big reveal’ at the end.

MayDay assumes it would be a lot easier to tell the story in a linear fashion, so the director, Takashi Shimizu, is obviously attempting to leave the distractions of the usual horror film by the wayside. Although the viewer is trying to decipher the timeline in their mind, the constant change of time (backwards and forwards) leave the mind susceptible to the true ‘horror’ behind the plot. One of the major problems with horror films is the focus on a single character who the audience knows will survive and defeat the mighty ‘horror.’ This sometimes places the ‘horror’ as the secondary effect in the film, with the main focus on the great survivor and her (for it is usually a girl who’s the main focus in horror films) story. In Ju-On, there is no such person; the focus of each story is the ‘horror’ rather than one person’s survival. Ju-On is the surviving character here, as indestructible as Nancy in Nightmare on Elm Street. Shimizu may not have been entirely successful in his endeavour, but it’s a formula that should be used more often in the horror movie. And, of course, like all famous Japanese horror movies, it’s had an American remake. MayDay will never watch it.

PRINCE OF PERSIA: LOST IN THE SANDS OF TIME? 11/6/2010

Disney, what have you done? If MayDay could call this a 12A version of 300, it would nearly be accurate. But it wouldn’t do justice to the awfulness of this film. Of course, film adaptions of video games are almost never worthwhile. Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Super Mario Bros, Resident Evil, Doom...the list goes on of video games massacred by the medium of film (and Uwe Boll). Prince of Persia is the latest beloved video game to be butchered by film studios. There is little positive to say about the film, apart from it being ALMOST enjoyable trash. The terrible chemistry between the Prince and the Princess, Dr. Octupus’ terrible attempts at comedy, Ben Kingsley hamming it up as a dastardly villain, average action scenes, insensible plot...

First of all, for a film set in Persia, the lead cast looks very American. Kingsley is once again tanned, this time not for Gandhi, but for an evil mastermind. And all the cast (even the British ones!) have a ridiculous OTT British accent that is quite repulsive. And, although it’s set a very long time ago, they all have a peculiar sense of 21st century morals. Funny how often that happens in film! And, sliding down some sand, Jake Gyllenhaal (the Prince of Persia!) shouts ‘WOAH!’ MayDay nearly vomited. We know how it’s going to end in the first fifteen minutes: he’ll get the girl and save the day. There is even a Titanic scene (I’ll never let go!) to persuade the audience that the Princess might die, but the scripting is so awful that MayDay actually wanted her to die. For good.

And, was it just MayDay, or was this film a really obvious allusion to the Iraq War? The Persians find that people of Alamut are selling expertly forged swords (WMDs!!!) to Persia’s enemies, so invade Alamut and occupy it. However, we later find out that there are no sword forgeries in Alamut! Then who put those weapons there? Hold on, the King of Persia’s brother, who wants the throne to himself! To do this, he must find the Dagger of Time and the Sandglass of Time, to go back in time and ensure his brother, the king, dies. Thus he will hold the throne. And where does this Sandglass reside? Alamut! Surely the Sands of Time are equated with oil? There are even hints at extra-government troops, such as Blackwater, who do Persia’s dirty work. These are the ‘Hassansins.’ Dr. Octopus’ character, Sheik Amar refers to these as “a government secret killing society. That’s why I don’t pay taxes!’ So, a mass empire invading a sovereign country under false pretences; sound familiar? And releasing the sands of time can cause the end of the world...climate change? A world torn apart my mistrust?

The Princess, Tamina, says “Everything changes with time. We should know best of all.” After seeing this film, I’m not so sure! This is the kind of ‘foreign epic’ Hollywood/Disney has been doing for years. Get popular American/British actors to play foreign people. Give them a silly accent (usually British). Give the actors a tan, depending on the location of the film. Write a thoroughly Western script, ignoring the culture of said location. And Bob’s Your Uncle! Of course, the best thing to do is base the film on a real historical character/event. Oscars usually come that way, if not lots of money. But, if you’re really struggling, loosely base the film on a computer game. Then you have Prince of Persia!




SPIDER-MAN REBOOT: FACE IT, TIGER, WE DON'T NEED A REBOOT! 1/6/2010

For a long time, MayDay hoped that the Spider-Man reboot was a vicious lie propagated by elements in the government who are afraid of MayDay’s power. However, with recent casting rumours coming to light, it’s safe to say that Spider-Man will be rebooted. It must be the quickest and most pointless reboot of all time. Only four or five years after the third one? Spider-Man 3 was a travesty, and surely violated the Geneva Convention on Human Rights. The terrible emo-Peter Parker, the horrendous script...there were a million things wrong with it. However, it was salvageable. Venom was ruined for eternity, but there was still a plethora of enemies for Spidey to battle. But to start from square one, again? It can’t be an origin story; everybody must be acquainted with Spidey’s origin story. The thought of a reboot forces MayDay to do a quick review of the first Spider-Man film...

It wasn’t a perfect film. The Green Goblin suit left much to be desired, and the film doesn’t really reward repeat viewings. But the first time MayDay saw it she was blown away. For so long she had desired to se Spidey on the big screen, and was not left wanting more. The scene with the ‘bully’ Flash Thompson where Peter Parker first uses his ‘Spidey Sense’ sent chills of excitement up MayDay’s spine. The origin story was well done, done and dusted so the plot could move on. It brought a smile to MayDay’s face, a youthful, exuberant smile. And she felt herself mouthing the words ‘With great power, comes great responsibility.” The casting is perfect (Tobey Maguire’s portrayal can never be beaten), and Sam Raimi is at his best here (and his Spider-Man 2 is probably his perfect film). The relationship between Mary-Jane and Peter is done fabulously, with a bittersweet ending (he forgoes the love of his life for his alter-ego). And, of course, any film with Macho Man Randy Savage must be awesome! That experience of watching the film for the first time will never leave MayDay; for that reason alone it ranks as one of her Top 10 Films.

It’s not a perfect film, but in many ways it’s the perfect origin film. Everything is introduced neatly, and there is so much left at the end for the (exceedingly superb) sequel. So the reboot is already at a disadvantage; another origin story would be pointless. Maybe something like the beginning of ‘The Incredible Hulk’ could happen (another pointless and quick reboot, even worse than 2004’s Hulk), where the origin is done within the first five minutes. But MayDay does not have faith in this reboot. It’s unnecessary, and far too quick. The memories of the first three are still fresh in people’s minds. And another “bonus” is that it’s in 3D! So we’ll have Spidey swinging towards the screen...IT MUST BE STOPPED, AT ALL COSTS!






25/5/2010 SPIELBERG'S WAR OF THE WORLDS: DO WE REALLY WANT THIS ATROCITY ON BLU RAY?

Now, of all of Stephen Spielberg films, MayDay despises this one the most. For MayDay, this was truly the end of Spielberg and Sci Fi...and of course, soon enough we will have this ‘delight’ on Blu Ray, as we’ve had Minority Report as well. Spielberg is responsible for some of the great science fiction films of all time: Close Encounters and E.T. being among his best. Yet, the dawn of the millennium came, and he directed such tripe as A.I. and Minority Report. A.I. was an unrelenting borefest, with no redeeming features at all. Spielberg should have left it along with Kubrick. Minority Report, while based on a very good Philip K. Dick short story, was marginally better. Yet all MayDay can remember is the colour blue and unrealistically bleached out environments. And Tom Cruise, who should have stopped acting after Born on the Fifth of July.

There were small signs of promise in Minority Report, yet these were essentially dashed in War of the Worlds. After this, Spielberg should give up on science fiction. I assume Ridley Scott would produce this kind of rubbish if he tried his hand at science fiction in the future. The original War of the Worlds is a classic example of a Cold War B-Movie, with all the political implications that come along with that. It successfully meshes H. G. Wells’ novel with the political atmosphere of the moment (i.e. Us (or US, if you like!) and ‘them’, the Soviets). The aliens were killing machines, only to be brought down by something plain and ordinary; human bacteria. Obviously, this was a symbol for pure and simple human spirit; there’s always hope.

Spielberg’s War, however, tried to squeeze in themes of terrorism that didn’t fit well with the content. The poor script, ordinary destruction scenes, and illogical reunion at the end all added up to a dire science fiction film. It ended the same as the original, with bacteria finally killing the aliens, yet this just didn’t fit with this version of War of the Worlds. Thanks to the obscene CGI and obscene destruction, this climax was perfectly anti-climatic; the ‘hope’ at the end felt false and contrived.

MayDay assumes that the reunion, like the silly ‘happy ending’ of Minority Report, was Spielberg’s soul grasping for the hope of Spielberg’s 1970s/1980s science fiction. Close Encounters and E.T. were all about embracing the Other; the Other posed no threat. However, in War of the Worlds, the aliens are inhuman monsters, simply intent on destruction. It was Cold War politics reborn with 9/11 trauma tacked on. Spielberg’s message now is be afraid of everything.

Funnily enough, it was released in the same year as one of Spielberg’s best, Munich, so unlike Ridley Scott, there is still some hope for good old Steve. We have Lincoln to look forward to sometime soon, which will undoubtedly be brilliant. Or at least half-decent. But Steve, if you choose to do science fiction again, don’t use Tom Cruise, and look back to your own great science fiction films for inspiration. Base them on hope, not fear or dystopian futures. We’ve had enough of bleak, dystopian, grainy science fiction. We want the hope of the 1980s back. And really, who wants to see War of the Worlds on Blu Ray?

18/5/2010 'THE LAST REMAKE ON THE LEFT?' HORROR REMAKES AND THEIR USELESSNESS'

MayDay’s just watched the remake of ‘The Last House on the Left’ in preparation for the abomination that will be the remake of ‘A Nightmare On Elm Street.’ Now, as a rule, MayDay is against remakes, unless she wants to watch a terrible film. You can have too much of a good film, you know! And with ‘Last House’, MayDay received what she asked for; a truly dire film. Now, the original is not a great film by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a ‘classic’ horror film. It’s rough and ready, cheap and very nasty; it’s film-making on the hoof, completely improvised. There’s obviously a low budget, which accounts for the poor actors and such forth, but that’s also the key to its ‘classic-ness’.

Of course, MayDay could use Plato’s theory that an imitation will always be inferior because it’s a copy of a copy. However, she doesn’t like Plato so will find problems with remakes that are more grounded in reality. Remakes of ‘classic’ horror films have two problems; the first is that they are usually directed by a man/woman known for remakes. They lack any philosophy to guide them, unlike, say Craven or Cronenberg, who were driven by conscious (and unconscious) desires. It’s just another money-maker for these directors. Second, and more important, is that they have too much money. They are over-stylised and over-produced, and they lose the roughness that made the original a ‘classic’.

How can you top a classic like ‘Last House’? How can you capture the controversy, the ‘video nasty’ ability of a film like that? You can’t, not in a day and age where people are used to gallons of blood, horrific death and rape scenes. So in remakes, the gore is more obvious, the murder scenes more elaborate and detailed; yet this detracts from the shock value. Yes, it makes one cringe (well, not MayDay, she has guts of steel), may induce a little retching, but it has no long term value or resonance.

Specifically in relation to the remake of ‘Last House’, there was no scene that evoked the bile and disgust of anything in the original. MayDay was in pure disgust when Krug tells Phyliss to wet herself. The rape scene in the remake is nothing compared to the same scene in the remake. A tendency in remakes is to go deeper into the back story of the villain/main characters, and this reduces their substance. In the remake of ‘Last House’, the main villains lose their essential menace because they are denuded in this fashion. What was truly sickening about them in the original was their ‘insanity’, or craziness. They seem to lose this vitality in the remake, thanks to the back story. A back story often evokes/tries to evoke sympathy in a character; these characters did not need sympathy. By trying to make the story logical (the psychos, the parent's revenge methods), they paradoxically make it more illogical.

So, after all of that, MayDay is looking forward to the remake of Nightmare on Elm Street! So be ready for a review of this remake fairly soon, and of course share with MayDay your thoughts on remakes!




16/5/2010 WES CRAVEN AND SIGMUND FREUD: A MARRIAGE MADE IN ELM STREET?

Having recently watched the originals ‘The Last House on the Left’ and ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’, MayDay must comment on the striking relationship between Wes Craven and Sigmund Freud. Now, because ‘Nightmare’, involves dreams, it’s pretty obvious to use a Freudian interpretation of the film. However, MayDay wondered if this was the right way to go about it. And, thinking about it, she remembered a line from ‘The Last House of the Left.’ Krug is asked by Weasel about the greatest sex crime of the century. He replies by saying anything the Boston Strangler did. Then, the girl travelling with them shouts out ‘Sigmund Freud!’ and mentions something about the phallus.

Now, if we see Craven as trying to deal with his dreams in a Freudian manner, this gives us ample room for interpretation of his film-making as a whole. He’s certainly an innovator when it comes to the horror genre, but MayDay hopes people agree when she says that his most famous films are ‘The Last House on the Left’, ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’, and ‘Scream.’ His thought and philosophy are at their most basic and brutal in ‘Last House’; it is a true ‘video nasty’ in all senses of the word ‘nasty.’ Cheap and rough, it is Craven exploring how far he can go, how much depth he can plunge from his id. Rape, sexual abuse, murder, and revenge abound in this film. It follows a bunch of degenerates who follow their most basic instincts, and Craven shows what the id is capable of if not controlled. Even the parents of the murdered teenagers fully realise their id by taking revenge most gratuitous.

Then we have ‘Nightmare’, where Craven tries to temper his own philosophy of film. He’s trying to understand what he did in ‘Last House’, thus plays out all the slasher scenes in teenage dreams. Some of these dreams are likely to be out of Craven’s own sleep, so he’s fleshing them out on screen to try to interpret them. Strip away the dreams and you have ‘Halloween’ or even ‘Last House’; mad man/men kill/kills teenagers. However, the dreams are a vital part of ‘Nightmare’, and they never end. The twist at the end attests to this. What is Freddy Krueger, if not a representation of the id? He’s out for revenge, killing the children of the people who murdered him long ago. He comes to life in dreams, full of rage and a thirst for blood. In the battle of the id, the ego and the superego here, there is no outright winner.

Then fast forward to ‘Scream,’ where Craven reinvents the slasher film once again (the genre now polluted by remakes, especially of Craven’s own horror classics). On the face of it, this is reinvents slasher films by turning them on their head; it’s knowing, referential and self-referential, witty and sarcastic. He acknowledges slasher conventions and then tears them down, often within seconds of each other. Now, dreams have nothing to with this film. Craven has chosen the realm of the real to interpret his philosophy of film (and his inner demons). However, he is unsuccessful again, as the slasher scenes overcome any attempt at interpretation. He gives into his id once again, and the blood and gore represses any aim that Craven had in mind.

So, Craven’s three greatest films cannot be understood apart from each other. Everything in between is either an evolution of thought or a derivation of his previous films (The Hills Have Eyes, etc). These are also three key films in the evolution of horror, as the ‘Other’ is a mere representation of the repressed ‘soul.’ That’s the key to their effectiveness; what is alien is not terrifying. It’s what’s inherent in all of us that terrify us the most. We have the total expression of the id in ‘Last House,’ facing the facts of your own dreams in ‘Nightmare’, and reinterpreting everything in ‘Scream’, right down to the final twist.

Cameron an Clegg could learn a thing about successful coalitions from Vic and Bob!

 GUEST REVIEW! 'MY NAME IS KHAN' BY JULIETTE O 10/6/2010

Juliette O reviews My Name Is Khan. Shahrukh Khan plays Rizwah Khan, a Muslim with autism. He moves to America, settles down, only to be interrupted by 9/11 and post 9/11 prejudices against Muslims. But let Juliette O tell you more!

GUEST REVIEW!!! 'LET THE RIGHT ONE IN' BY DRUNKEN CHORUS 1/5/2010

Another guest review? Yes! Mr Chorus reviews last year's seminal horror film 'Let The Right One In,' a vampire film that doesn't follow the Twilight frenzy.

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