Lord of Leisure

F**k it, may as well do all the usual Lion King Jokes with this one; Hakuna Matata!

The first Marvel movie of the year arrived on our shores earlier this month and given the amount of anticipation over the first true black film with Superheroes to arrive within the Marvel Universe since the whole cinematic thing began, was it was well worth the wait?

Yes, for the most part.

Now before you all launch into the usual internet outrage and spam me with all sorts of bile that even Alex Jones of InfoWars wouldn’t even get for saying people being shot were actors, let me explain. Black Panther is a wonderful film. It’s cast, crew and director all deserve a huge amount of credit of in essence, bringing the grand scale of events back down to Earth and deal with certain topics which seem to be sadly just as relevant now as they were years ago.

In fact if you’re after a recommendation without reading any further, I can only wholeheartedly say yes! It was damned enjoyable and an excellent tone change from Thor: Fraggle-Rock last year where pretty much everything save for around 5 minutes was a joke every three seconds. Thor was good, don’t get me wrong. But even now, I still think they took it a wee bit too far. Black Panther has the usual Marvel humour, but it’s used much more sparingly and thus when various events take place, you will not be subject to a punchline only a moment later. Continue reading →

Just in time for the cinematic release……err…..never mind…..

There’s no time like being right on time when a film is released to capitalize on the release, right? Well that would happen on various other websites run by professionals with some excellent big words. They would remark on the hidden layers, how the world is all fake or a damning indictment of how humans sink into a moral abyss.

This is not that type of operation. Shocking I know.

So perhaps given that Blade Runner 2049 is up for some shiny awards this year (having already secured some at the BAFTAs this week) and the digital and retail release of the film has now arrived for all to enjoy on their laptops using a friend’s Google Play account, maybe it’s actually a much better time to revisit one of last year’s most anticipated sequels to what was a bomb upon its original release.

A bomb that became a cult classic with a massive following among Sci-Fi nerds and geeks; Blade Runner. It had done well so long after the original cinematic release which starred Harrison Ford trading in the ol’ Millennium Falcon of Star Wars for Noodles and chasing human-like Replicants who had escaped from their work to Earth, trying to find their creators in hope of living longer than 4 years. To revisit the world created in the 80s now with cast members old and new was going to be a massive up hill battle, especially in the commercial world where money talks and there’s no certainty of returns on the expenses.

Given we’re now into 2018, it’s easier to remark on how the film performed at the time; in short, not great. Basically much like it’s older brother, Blade Runner 2049 has been limping along, pretty much giving Warner Bros another kick in the cinematic goolies, just before Justice League also failed to also light up the bank balance on cinematic release. But why was this? Was the film that bad? Continue reading →