In what can only really be described as a mixed bag of home releases this week, it’s Flight of the Conchords co-creator James Bobin’s modern update of The Muppets that stands out among a list that sees Sam Worthington hovering precariously on a ledge for an hour and a half, an impressive, if forgettable, performance from Leonardo DiCaprio and a flashy Korean remake of a John Woo classic among them.
This isn't news by any stretch of the definition but it's just too amazing not to share.
You know how Isaac Newton is the man famous for discovering gravity via the medium of descending apples, inventing calculus and generally being a seventeenth-century genius? Well not according to Hollywood, where he's on his way to becoming our latest action hero. I wish I was joking.
Every so often a short movie gets the full feature film treatment and it works. Paddy Considine's Tyrannosaur is one such example of what can be done when creative people are given the opportunity to expand on an idea. Unfortunately, there are many more shorts made into full-length films that should have remained a short for the sole reason that any extension of the story just doesn't do anything new or exciting. That brings us to Nicholas McCarthy's The Pact.
Two Marvel stories in one convenient location.
After nearly two decades, Robert De Niro’s directorial debut is promoted to glorious Blu-ray. Set against the backdrop of 1960s racial tension, and adapted from Chazz Palminteri’s one-man play, A Bronx Tale tells the story of Calogero as he grows up torn between the virtues of honesty and hard work defended by his father and the life of crime and power endorsed by his mafia idol.
Through director Mark Neale’s breathtaking camerawork and narrated by Ewan McGregor, Fastest follows Valentino Rossi as he fights for his eighth world championship title during the 2010/2011 MotoGP season, capturing all the intensity, exhilaration, drama and danger of the sport.
A stand-up comedy legend joins a cinematic comedy legend. Comedy may implode.
Revisiting the Alien universe was always going to be a risk for Ridley Scott. Alien was the film that cemented his reputation as a visionary auteur and is rightly regarded as a classic, a sublime example of atmospheric horror. Three sequels of varying quality established a sprawling world, one that Scott had long hinted that he was interested in exploring further, his interest particularly piqued by the mysterious Space Jockey, whose fleeting glimpse in his original work posed questions that have never been answered. Whilst Prometheus puts that quandary to bed, its ambitions and scale are far loftier than merely acting as a prequel to the series, which proves to be a refreshing yet frustrating approach.
