Dante's Inferno. Abandon all hope of faithful adherence to the original, ye who enter here...

Disambiguation: This is a review of the anime released to accompany the recent video game of the same name.  It’s not a review of the video game itself and it’s definitely not a review of any old Italian poems.

I’m really not sure what it was about Dante’s Inferno – An Animated Epic that inspired me to pick up the DVD and actually watch it.  It’s intended as a companion to the Dante’s Inferno game that was released recently (it with the lulzy / offensive achievements) that I’ve never played and none of us have even bothered reviewing because frankly, the marketing for the launch seemed more interesting than the game itself.  So I guess I’m reviewing this as a work in its own right.

First up, both the game and the anime take some… erm… liberties, I guess you could say with Dante Alighieri’s original work.  It’s still broadly about Dante’s journeys through the nine circles of hell, accompanied for whatever f&*king reason by the Roman poet Virgil*.  So far, so broadly in line with the original.

It’s at this point things start to take a different line.  There’s some backstory, y’see, where Dante falls for a couple of the oldest tricks in The Book.  He makes some crazy promises to a woman, Beatrice, in order to get laid.  He also believes a priest who promises him something that sounds too good to be true.  Then he up and runs away to Jerusalem to join the crusades.  Once there he proceeds to make, all things considered, a bit of a cock of himself.  He returns just in time to find everybody at home has been murdered and Lucifer is dragging his darling Beatrice off into hell.  Turns out she must’ve been a pretty good root because our muscular-hero-of-dubious-intelligence gives chase through all nine circles of hell.  A bit of the old ultra-violence ensues.

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The New Improved! Sherlock Holmes

In a world which is constantly raping surprise sexing the past to populate the present, knowing the source material for an upcoming film can be hazardous. Do you get excited about it, or do you hold true to the theory that it’s ‘Not Your Father’s Insert Character Here’? Do you openly deride the movie while still secretly crushing on the idea of Robert Downey “Sexpants” Jnr is playing one of the least physically attractive yet cerebrally sexy characters of all time? And isn’t the notion of finding Holmes hot kind of like wanting to hump Data from Star Trek: TNG in order to jumpstart your failing heart?

It’s questions like these that were going through my mind when I sat down to watch Sherlock Holmes.

I tend to view updated versions of older material with excitement, mainly because I have infinite forgiveness for people who want to tackle other people’s ideas. I am a big fan of cover songs, for example.

But when it’s something like Sherlock Holmes, so ingrained into international culture as the older man, hawk nosed, with pipe and deerstalker hat made famous by Basil Rathbone in the old movies, it’s terribly difficult to divorce a feeling of ‘why?’ from your brain. Why bother updating it? Why fuss and meddle with a standard? A folklore hero that so many people believe was a real man?

Here’s my version of why, and why it’s a good thing.

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Let me preface this review by stating that I am a zombie movie nut. I will shit my pants in any other kind of horror/post apocalyptic/disease movie, but zombies? It’s like a tasty flesh pie to me, and I could eat it aaaaaall day. So this might be slightly biased. You won’t hold that against me, will you?

The rides are fun in Zombieland...

Zombieland is part comedy, part gory horror and part instructional video. The plot revolves around college student Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) making his way home to Columbus, Ohio during the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse in the US, a place he now refers to as the titular Zombieland. He has stayed alive because of thirty-one rules that he strictly adheres to. These include: 1. Cardio (“The fatties were the first to go”), 2. Double Tap (“Don’t get stingy on bullets. Check they’re dead, shoot them twice”) and 18. Limber Up (you never know when you’ll have to run). He’s basically a socially inept, OCD nerd, but this hasn’t stopped him outwitting and outrunning plenty of zombies since the outbreak of mutated Mad Cow disease.

On his journey, he joins up with Tallahassee (a kick ass performance by Woody Harrelson) and is taken for a ride by sisters Wichita and Little Rock (Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin), who are on their way to Pacific Playland funpark. See a pattern here? No one has a real name (well, with one notable exception), everyone goes by a place that means something to them. It is a surprisingly nice touch. Even Columbus’ dormroom neighbour is only ever refered to as 406.

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Don't see it alone ...

A couple of nights ago, I went to see the new horror movie Paranormal Activity with, amongst others, my fellow staffers Matt and Jess. One of the perks of joining the team here at Armchair Diplomat.

The movie is based around a couple living together, Katie and Micah, who have been experiencing some “paranormal activities” (see what they did there?). Thusly Micah invests in a video camera to film the occurrances in the hopes of solving the problem. With this as the set-up, the entire film is done documentary style. The couple set the camera up in their bedroom whilst they sleep, with a camera angle showing them sleeping, as well as the hallway. “Why tell us the camera angle, newbie?” Fair question, if worded harshly. I tell you this as this is a scary movie that subscribes to the theory that less is more. The basis of this movie is that what you can’t see CAN hurt you. If you are afraid of what goes bump in the night, then this movie is not for you as you will most likely crap your pants.  For serious.

The movie starts somewhat slowly, establishing the couples relationship and the occasional item falling off a counter to show the “paranormal activity” (still loving it?) at work. Incidentally, the writer/director Oren Peli came up with the concept for this movie after some laundry detergent fell off a shelf in his house. He claims that it was too far back on the shelf for it to have tipped of it’s own accord, and thus cinema was made. In related news, I could have sworn that I had another two donuts left, but there’s only one. I’m currently in talks with Paramount.

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The number of confusing conversations we've had substituting 'District 9' with 'Section 8'

You needn’t read this whole review if you don’t want to, because you can sum up my feeling about the movie in just two words: Fucking. Brilliant. Now the term “fucking brilliant” is one that’s thrown around a little lightly these days, but never have I been so convinced of a two word impression of a piece of cinema.

District 9 is a dirty, dark and sharp piece of sci-fi cinema written and directed by Neill Blomkamp. The film takes place in Johannesburg, South Africa, where a gigantic alien mothership has come to a stop above the city. After nothing happens for around five months, humanity sends a team to cut their way into the ship, and inside finds it crammed full of sick and malnourished aliens on the brink of death. The ship appears completely inoperable, so the aliens are transported down to the city and set up in a government camp called District 9. Eventually the aliens, referred to by most of humanity as “prawns” due to their appearance and scavenging nature, become too much of a burden for the government to look after, and so District 9 becomes a private military controlled containment camp. Overcrowding and the growing distaste for the alien presence turns District 9 into a slum, the aliens living in squalor conditions amongst corporate and black market oppression.

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Yup, it's a subtle film

I had the pleasure of watching Inglourious Basterds as part of the recent Melbourne International Film Festival.  We bought our tickets early (before they sold out), and even then there had to be a second screening opened to deal with the high demand.  Sure, we were stuck down in the cinema’s second row from the front by the time we cleared the line, but the movie proved itself well worth the potential trips to the chiropractor.

Inglourious Basterd‘s is the latest film from making-cult-mainstream director Quentin Tarantino.  And when it gets right down to it, could you think of any other director that could get away with making a movie about a Jewish company in World War 2, behind enemy lines, scalping Nazi troops?

The list would certainly be short, that’s for sure.

However, despite the rather controversial concept, the actual exploits of the Basterd company don’t make up the majority of the film.  The plot, while making sure we know the squad’s intentions and methods, focuses more on the events that happen around them.  The movie is presented in a series of chapters, much like those in Kill Bill, only this time they’re in sequential order.  The first chapter is an introduction to the brilliantly acted Colonel Hans Landa (Christopher Waltz) who roots out and kills the family of another of the films main characters, Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent).  Landa has the opportunity to kill Shosanna while she flees, but chooses not to.

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Here’s a series of one line summaries about the new Star Trek:

• It’s hard to imagine a more brilliant cast cast of dazzling actors to really make this story shine out brightly in the Star Trek universe.
• At a time where some movies can be a little hard on the eyes, the new Star Trek really provides a very polished production for the viewer.
• It has our nostalgia glands ablaze.
• That said, newcomers to the franchise will find this movie illuminating without overwhelming them with glaring references to the previous shows.
• It’s obvious that J.J. Abrams and crew have gone all out to provide a very glossy movie experience.
• The dialogue left me with a big beaming smile on my face.
• Abrams really showed off his creative flare (spelling deliberate) in this film.

If you noticed the constant element amongst the previous statements, you’ve also managed to notice the element which impeded my enjoyment of this film. (more…)