Understandably, given that it is based on a novel by pulp author Robert E. Howard and directed by Michael J. ‘Deathwatch’ Bassett, I had incredibly low expectations of Solomon Kane. Sadly however, my expectations were not low enough as I found myself subject to two hours of the most nonsensical, cliché riddled, low budget bilge that I have ever been paid to endure. Whilst getting paid to watch movies is a privilege I wholeheartedly adore, every now and then a film comes along that you would gladly pay not to see. Solomon Kane joins the likes of Dance Flick and Sorority Row, as a film upon which I bestow that dubious honor.
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Favourite Films
Solomon Kane – Review
10 Bands Named After Movies
Movies and Music sitting in a tree, R-I-M-M-I-N-G…
As much as a film would seem incomplete without a decent soundtrack or score to manipulate, sorry, exacebate the emotional content of it, so the music world finds itself more and more snuggling up to the warm, comfortable bit of the film world.
Be it Blur dressing up as droogs from A Clockwork Orange in their video for ‘The Universal’ or The Divine Comedy referencing “the snows of Hoth” in their wonderful ‘Happy Goth’ song, the music world has always had an affinity with it’s celluloid cousin.
Here’s 10 of the best film inspired band names…well, nearly 10.
Noah and the Whale
Huge fans of Wes Anderson and all that goes with it, the name Noah and The Whale is a combination of Anderson’s long term screenwriter partner Noah Baumbach and Noah’s directorial effort, The Squid And The Whale. With their last album, The First Days Of Spring, combined with a film of the same name and a soundtrack to The Scouting Book For Boys under their belts, the love affair between Movies and Fink and co. shows no signs of abating. Sic Transit Gloria, indeed.
Coming Soon(ish)
Here’s five randomly selected films, in various stages of production coming to a cinema near you between now and another time in the future.
Ant-Man
British film makers are getting their own bite at the radioactive Marvel super cherry with the diminutive super hero Ant-Man.
Edgar Wright (Spaced, Shaun of the Dead) is to direct a script written by Joe Cornish, the long time comedy partner of (This Film Is On friend) Adam Buxton. Ant-Man is a lesser known hero from the Marvel universe, but according to Edgar this is part of the appeal.
Pride & Prejudice
Reading Jane Austen is like watching The Wire. Bear with me, I have evidence to back this up.
Both The Wire and Jane Austen inhabit a completely different world to myself and the average watcher/reader. From location to dress to language to the complex social hierarchy, it’s a bewildering place to be. Stick with both, though, and you’ll find that in no time at all (four our five episodes and approximately a hundred pages in ) you find that not only do you understand what’s going on, you want to find out what’d going to happen next.
Both are ultimately rewarding, and for first time watchers/readers there will no doubt be a period where you recommend either/both to everyone you meet.
Gone Baby Gone
I promise to try to keep the film versus book review to a minimum in this review.
However, there will be a bit of it – I’ll try to keep it to this section. Gone, Baby, Gone, is a book written by Dennis Lehane. Lehane also wrote Mystic River, directed by Clint Eastwood and with a galaxy of stars. Gone, Baby, Gone was the directorial debut of Ben Affleck. If you’re in the UK, you’ve probably never seen it as it got a pretty limited release. That’s because the missing child in it looks a little bit like Madeleine McCann. Nevermind that the book was written in 1998 – I reckon that if The Two Towers came out now, it would also have a delayed release.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Everyone knows the story of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. If you haven’t seen the film or read the book, you’ve seen one of the parodies floating around – Spaced’s being the best one, in this reviewer’s humble opinion. The main character, Randle P McMurphy, draws everyone around him like a moth to a flame, dominating the narrative. Right? Wrong. The book’s narrator is Chief Bromden, the apparently deaf and dumb Indian revealed to be the eyes and ears of the mental hospital.
Submarine
First off, I have an admission to do with this book. I know the author – we went to UEA at the same time and were in pretty much the same social circle. That said, I’ll try to write the review as if I don’t know the author (lovely boy that he is) so it’s as unbiased as possible. I just wanted to get that off my chest, and now I have – let’s carry on.
Q & A
Q & A, by Vikas Swarup, is the story of the unusual orphan Ram Muhammad Thomas. Set in various cities in India, Ram/Muhammad/Thomas moves from family to family, trying to earn enough money to eat and be independent of his life of minimum wage work.
Perfume
I actually learned how to create an umlaut for this review. I’ll probably forget as soon as I’ve finished, but there you go, at least I made the effort.
Patrick Süskind’s Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, has been around for a quarter of a century in published form. Although set in historical France, it was originally written in German, but handily translated.
Vanity Fair Hollywood Issue 2010
I am unashamed to admit that every year the one magazine issue that I look forward to is the Vanity Fair Hollywood issue which features photographic portraits of the years leading film men and women taken by the fantastic but financially challenged Annie Leibowitz (how someone of her talent has got in to the mess she is in is beyond me but that is another tale). In lieu of last years issue where Barack Obama usurped the usual actors cover I was having high hopes that this year would be a return to Hollywood form.
(from left to right Abbie Cornish, Kristen Stewart, Carey Mulligan, Amanda Seyfried, Rebecca Hall, Mia Wasikowska, Emma Stone, Evan Rachel Wood, Anna Kendrick)
This year however the problem isn’t that it isn’t Hollywood enough, the problem is that the hot new Hollywood is apparently a mixture of white, skinny girls. There is nothing diverse in this cover, in fact with a quick glance it is hard to distinguish some of the faces and it is because of this that this cover has come under fire.