Ruby Sparks is about a writer Calvin Weir-Fields (played by Paul Dano) who as a 19 year old wrote a seminal book. Ten years on and he’s done little else (we can all relate, right?). Filled with neurosis he is given a task to write something, anything, even if it’s bad, by his psychologist  He writes about a dream girl or rather, a girl he is having dreams about, then a few days later, there she is in his home. Not imagined, no figment of a mental break down. A living, breathing person made flesh by his words. This is Ruby Sparks (played by Zoe Kazan). Who, …
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I marked this down as a “catch on disc” movie. Now it is, lets see if I was wrong to wait. The latest collaboration between Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, Dark Shadows is based on a daily television series that started in 1966 and ran for 5 years, so Wikipedia informs me. With both Burton and Depp being fans of the original you can imagine they’ve been planning this film for a long time, if only in their minds. Written by John August (who has worked on quite a few of Burton’s recent projects) and Seth Grahame-Smith (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, another one I’m waiting for the disc) but …
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If you missed The Expendables, the basic idea is: Take a load of old actions stars, throw in a few newer ones (for the kids) and make an old school action film with knowing nods to the cheesy elements of the genre. It was mostly a forgettable action romp. In my case, I remember a big explosion on a dock type area and Sly not kissing “the girl” which, was quite a relief. It did alright so why not do it again? There are mostly two ideas for sequels: Expand on the original idea with a new original story in …
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The Raid (Redemption) is an action-cum-martial arts Indonesian film written and directed by Gareth Evans. Staring Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim, Donny Alamsyah and Yayan Ruhian. The first and the last also being the fight choreographers. Don’t be surprised if you start seeing some of these names in Hollywood films. In fact, if you check IMDB, you already will. This may be old news to some of you but with a limited release it’s bound to enjoy a good life on disc. If you are less than enamoured with the genre, The Raid makes no attempt to transcend the genre. The …
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A “re-imagined” version of the Philip K Dick story: “We can remember it for you wholesale”. Well that’s what they say when they don’t want you to compare it to a previous film based on the same story. In this case the 1990 film called Total Recall directed by Paul Verhoeven (Robocop, Starship Trooper) and staring Arnold Schwarzenegger (The Terminator, Predator), same name, good start there chaps. When I first heard of this remake, sorry “re-imagining”, I did shout a metaphorical “WHY!?” Then I saw the trailer and was willing to put the first film to the back of my …
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