Alcon deny Harrison Ford will return for Blade Runner sequel

Rumours of Harrison Ford's potential return to the character of Deckard in Ridley Scott’s forthcoming sequel/reboot/remake of seminal 80s sci-fi Blade Runner have again been flatly denied by Alcon Entertainment, Deadline reports.

Alcon’s co-founder Andrew Kosove said, "What we are trying to do with Ridley now is go through the painstaking process of trying to break the back of the story, figure out the direction we’re going to take the movie and find a writer to work on it. The casting of the movie could not be further from our minds at this moment. It's like asking if we're going to make the sky red or blue. There has been no discussion about it."

Kosove went on to say, “In advance of knowing what we’re going to do, I supposed you could say yes, he could. But I think it is quite unlikely.” Perhaps not a categorical denial then, more of a ‘we don’t know yet’. So there may still be hope for those dying to see Ford return to the iconic role.

Scott is busy with Prometheus at the moment and has a number of other potential projects in the pipeline, but there’s a good chance this one is next on the table. No word yet on that Monopoly adaptation though. Perhaps he’s waiting to see how rival in the 'boardgame-to-film' genre Battleship performs before committing to anything. Fingers crossed everyone.

First trailer for Dexter Fletcher's directorial debut Wild Bill

After earning rave reviews at the London Film Festival last October, the heart-warming family crime-drama Wild Bill is gearing up for release in the UK and the first trailer has just been released courtesy of distributors The Works. The directorial debut of English actor and former child star Dexter Fletcher (Bugsy Malone, Press Gang, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Band of Brothers, Kick-Ass), Wild Bill features a strong cast of British talent including Charlie Creed-Miles (Hereafter), Will Poulter (Son of Rambow), Liz White (The Woman in Black) Andy Serkis (Rise of the Planet of the Apes), Jaime Winstone (Anuvahood), Jason Flemyng (X-Men: First Class), Olivia Williams (An Education), Leo Gregory (Tristan & Isolde), Iwan Rheon (Misfits), Sammy Williams (Attack the Block) and newcomer Charlotte Spencer.

Check out the synopsis and trailer below...

"SYNOPSIS - Out on parole after 8 years inside, Bill Hayward (Charlie Creed-Miles) returns home to find his now 11 and 15-year old sons abandoned by their mother and fending for themselves. Unwilling to play Dad, his arrival brings them to the attention of social services. With the danger of being put into care looming, Dean (Will Poulter) forces his Dad to stay by threatening to grass him up for dealing. Dean soon connects with Jimmy (Sammy Williams) and through this new bond starts to realize what he's been missing. He has a family and a place in the world, but when Jimmy gets into trouble with Bill's old cohorts, he quickly has to decide what kind of Dad he wants to be. A good one, or a free one."


Wild Bill is set for release on March 30th. For more info, visit the official Facebook page here.

DVD Review - Perfect Sense (2011)

Perfect Sense, 2011.

Directed by David Mackenzie.
Starring Ewan McGregor, Eva Green, Connie Nielsen, Stephen Dillane and Ewen Bremner.


SYNOPSIS:

A chef and a scientist fall in love as an epidemic sweeps the globe.


The first thing to go is our sense of smell. Then we start to cry uncontrollably. Then an insatiable hunger as our sense of taste disappears.

In Perfect Sense, the question of ‘what makes us human’ is asked as a mysterious virus begins to infect the world and take away our senses, with no one safe. Are we defined by what we hear, see, smell, taste, and touch? Could we love and connect with those around us if we lost these senses? In the film, we focus on the start of a relationship between a chef (Ewan McGregor) and a scientist (Eva Green) who are just two typical people living in Glasgow who get struck by the virus and the results are very melancholic, sad, thoughtful, and, for the most part, the film works due to its originality and realistic portrayal of human nature.

The virus is never explained, but is a mere MacGuffin for director David Mackenzie to ask us - would you embrace the senses you had left, or would you turn to anarchy? What kind of human are you and what do you think of fellow man? McGregor and Green have more ups and downs in this film than most married couples have in 50 years, but the extreme emotions they are feeling are very well played out and this is McGregor on rare form as he conveys an ‘average guy’ expertly well and we feel genuine sympathy for him as their happiness is put in jeopardy.

The script is full of realistic dialogue in the way two damaged people might actually talk; most notable was the scene where Green asks him to tell her ‘something to make her feel special’. He tells her that he left his fiancé when she became critically ill and does so without any remorse and in return she tells him he is an asshole and he agrees, not putting up any protests. I found this to be refreshingly honest and open, as here are two characters showing real life characteristics, not false creations.

Mackenzie has filled his film with interesting images and as each sense goes, we get a real understanding of how this might affect the key characters and the panic builds at an organic pace, never rushed. The final scene, when the two lovers are moments away from blindness, is as touching as anything I saw last year and a perfect way to end the film both visually and thematically.

The film undoubtedly works most credibly when the attention is on McGregor and Green, and less so when the action spreads to the rest of the world, with some montages of still image, and actual footage of humanity at its most destructive (war, fighting, looting). I found some of this to be borderline preachy, as I don’t want messages that humanity can be harmful to its own survival rammed down my throat from what is otherwise a very intelligent and thought-provoking film.

Rohan Morbey - follow me on Twitter.

The Amazing Spider-Man trailer 2 hits the web

Yesterday, Sony gave fans an early look at six minutes of Marc Webb's upcoming Spider-Man reboot with a series of special sneak peek screenings across the globe and this morning they've followed that up with the online release of the second theatrical trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man, giving us a new look at Andrew Garfield's web-crawler in action.

Along with Garfield, The Amazing Spider-Man stars Emma Stone as love-interest Gwen Stacy, along with Rhys Ifans as Dr. Curt Connors / The Lizard, Martin Sheen as Uncle Ben, Sally Field as Aunt May, Denis Leary as Captain George Stacy, Chris Zylka as Flash Thompson, C. Thomas Howell as Ray, Irrfan Khan as Nels van Adder (a.k.a. Proto-Goblin), Cambell Scott as Richard Parker and Embeth Davidtz as Mary Parker.

Check out the latest trailer, which provides a pretty good idea of the story, not to mention a first glimpse of the villainous Lizard...


"The Amazing Spider-Man is the story of Peter Parker, an outcast high schooler who was abandoned by his parents as a boy, leaving him to be raised by his Uncle Ben and Aunt May. Like most teenagers, Peter is trying to figure out who he is and how he got to be the person he is today. Peter is also finding his way with his first high school crush, Gwen Stacy, and together, they struggle with love, commitment, and secrets. As Peter discovers a mysterious briefcase that belonged to his father, he begins a quest to understand his parents' disappearance - leading him directly to Oscorp and the lab of Dr Curt Connors, his father's former partner. As Spider-Man is set on a collision course with Connors' alter-ego, The Lizard, Peter will make life-altering choices to use his powers and shape his destiny to become a hero."

So, now that we've got an idea of how each of 2012's three big superhero movies are shaping up, how do you think The Amazing Spider-Man compares to Joss Whedon's Marvel team-up The Avengers and Christopher Nolan's final Batman feature, The Dark Knight Rises..?

The Amazing Spider-Man is set for release on July 3rd in North America and hits UK cinemas the following day.

Machete will return in Machete Kills!

We were promised that he'd return and now Deadline have confirmed that Danny Trejo's former Mexican Federale will be back, with filmmaker Robert Rodriguez signing a deal with producer Alexander Rodnyansky to develop Machete Kills - the sequel to 2010's Grindhouse spin-off Machete and the second instalment in a planned trilogy that will presumably conclude with Machete Kills Again.

According to Deadline's report, "The new film finds Machete recruited by the U.S. Government for a mission which would be impossible for any mortal man. Machete must battle his way through Mexico to take down a madman cartel leader and an eccentric billionaire arms dealer who has hatched a plan to spread war across the planet with a weapon in space. Machete takes on an army in an effort to dismantle a plan for global anarchy."

Machete Kills has been scripted by Kyle Ward (the upcoming adaptation of Kane & Lynch) and is expected to begin filming in April. Talks are currently underway with Trejo to reprise his role, while Rodriguez also stated that he expects those cast members whose characters managed to survive the first movie - such as Michelle Rodriguez, Jessica Alba and Lindsay Lohan - to return.

Movie Review - The Watermen (2011)

The Watermen, 2011.

Written and Directed by Matt L. Lockhart.
Starring Jason Mewes, Richard Riehle, Floyd Abel, Luke Guldan and Tyler Johnson.


SYNOPSIS:

A group of sport fishermen and their attractive lady friends go on a fishing trip, but they soon get captured by some murderous watermen and must fight for their lives.


What worse place is there to be stranded than the middle of the ocean? With the boat engine tampered with and the flares missing, the dodgy watermen who filled the tank and sold the group interesting looking bait are of course to blame. The group are starving, deprived of drinking water and desperate. So when a large fishing boat comes along with aid, their desperation clouds their judgement. The water they glug so aggressively is laced with some sort of drug, and the group soon literally hit the deck unconscious.

The Watermen have got them right where they want them – ready to off them one by one to use their flesh for their bait-selling business, because fish of course can’t get enough of the taste of tasty, tasty human. These men of the sea are completely psychotic, well equipped on their island with a whole host of ways to maim the beautiful people and make a profit.

This low budget horror follows the conventions of the genre pretty rigidly, and unfortunately it does suffer a little for it. Of course, the tension is still there as you get behind the group and wish for their escape – but parts of The Watermen are painfully predictable, including the ending. You’ve got the pretty people, our victims, you’ve got the typical gore, and of course the mandatory nudity. The recipe for a decent budget horror is there, but it never rises above average. It dares to throw in a bit of rape, and complete exploitation of women, but it’s really nothing new, is it?

In terms of the film making, there are some well-crafted shots in The Watermen, and some interesting deaths (one, for example being a hook through a truck roof), but the most frustrating element of this film is the amount of pointless filler. The number of panning establishing shots that just waste time, and fade out into other panning establishing shot, is excruciatingly annoying. These, alongside a few other shots dotted throughout the film are completely fruitless and distracting.

The other failed element of The Watermen is the actual watermen themselves. They speak in an accent and tone that is pretty much impossible to work out. It’s difficult to feel threatened by killers that mumble in a way that makes them sound a bit…simple? It also makes what should be an interesting (but overused) speech by the ‘leader’ to one of the victims pretty pointless. The victim asks the waterman why they’re attacking innocent people, and from what I could make out, his response was that they ain’t so innocent at all. It always makes me cringe when this sort of dialogue is thrown into horror, it’s clearly some weak message about a society of sinners. Blah blah blah. It’s embarrassing.

All in all, The Watermen is not a terrible film. It’s average at best to be honest. It sticks to conventions and very rarely strays away from them. Modern horror has pretty much taken us in so many directions in terms of plot twists, that there’s little point in trying to create something new and unique – as proven by this entry to the genre.

Cat Fyson

Thoughts on... Hostel (2005)

Hostel, 2005.

Directed by Eli Roth.
Starring Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson and Eythor Gudjonsson.


SYNOPSIS:

Three backpackers travelling through Europe find themselves staying in a hostel with a dark secret.


It's difficult to deny that Hostel is an important film within the horror genre, ushering in a wave of torture porn. David Edelstein's 2006 article 'Now Playing at Your Local Multiplex: Torture Porn' is largely credited with the first use of the term 'torture porn' to describe a distinct group of films. Sure, the term torture porn has been retroactively applied to Saw (2004), a film which is now considered to be key viewing within this exploitative subgenre, but Hostel popularised the term. Director Eli Roth has hit back at the terminology, claiming "I think that the term 'torture porn' genuinely says more about the critic's limited understanding of what horror movies can do than about the film itself" - which is a fair point. Regardless, by labelling a film as torture porn, you're generally aware of what you're getting into (generally graphic senseless gore), and rarely are there any surprises to be had. There are countless debates to be had regarding the worth of this critically-applied term, but that's for another time - right now, we've got a movie to discuss.

Hostel takes its time to really get going. We're introduced to two American backpackers, Josh (Derek Richardson) and Paxton (Jay Hernandez), who are travelling across Europe with their Icelandic friend Oli (Eythor Gudjonsson), the self-titled 'King of Swing'. This trio are primarily preoccupied with two things, sex and drugs. To Paxton and Oli, women are mere objects to be fucked, and although Josh is a little more sensitive, deep down he's also a red-blooded American male wanting to score. The set-up is strikingly familiar to EuroTrip (2004) and both films actually feature eerily similar moments set in a train carriage. Unfortunately, Hostel attempts to get us to like these horny males by including supposedly comedic scenes, but this doesn't really do a good enough job of establishing the characters. If anything, once the idea of comedy has been introduced, the rest of the film just feels awkwardly comedic instead of horrific.

After visiting a few clubs and showing us copious amounts of boobs, the trio are told about a hostel near Bratislava. It's the sort of place that isn't featured in any guidebooks, but there is a plethora of hot local girls just desperate for some American action. It's around this point that my first issue with the film is raised. Roth seems keen to portray American ignorance (both Josh and Paxton are hardly understanding of foreign cultures), yet is constantly reaffirming and reasserting American authority and desirable status. We can easily read Hostel as a warning to Americans - your paranoia of the outside world is justified, just look at what could happen to you!

The first third of the film wastes our time trying to get us to side with these unlikeable characters, but once the second act kicks in things get a little more interesting. In a move lifted from Psycho (1960), Josh, the least detestable guy, is killed off. With over half the movie still to go, it appears we've lost our protagonist. Paxton steps up to assume lead, and must navigate his way out of a factory where innocent tourists are chained to chairs and brutally murdered with an assortment of tools by the rich with too much money for morals.

Roth interestingly casts Takashi Miike in a cameo role, which is perhaps a little unfortunate. Sure, we think we see more torture than we actually do in Hostel (and rarely is the gore particularly unpleasant - one eye-slicing scene sounds far more horrid than it actually is) but the sight of Miike reminds us of a film that similarly includes acts of torture - Audition (Ôdishon) (1999). Now here is an example of a film that doesn't just rely on torture to sustain a plot, and one is left wishing we were watching an equally accomplished example of filmmaking.

That's not to say Roth is entirely without talent. Hostel does raise some really interesting ideas and themes, but they're never really developed to their full potential. It takes more than just schlocky special effects to properly get under the skin and unsettle, and sadly Hostel doesn't have much else to offer. The last third is at least vaguely entertaining, but the film is severely hampered by questionable acting and a messy narrative. Besides a couple of stand-out scenes, there is sadly little to warrant recommending this movie to those who aren't easily pleased by just gore and boobs.

I want to offer a defence to Hostel, but the first act is so successful in crafting really odious characters that it seems almost futile. This is one of those cases where the idea far surpasses the film itself. I do like Eli Roth's enthusiasm for the horror genre and I think he is a director with potential, but here he flounders early and struggles to really recover. Still, that didn't stop Hostel from being hugely successful and profitable - evidently an audience exists for torture porn.

Liam Underwood