The wait is nearly over, Terminator Salvation hits cinema screens from Wednesday! From the reviews I’ve seen online it seems to be getting universal praise as well. There were those that feared when McG was put at the healm, but all seems well with the franchise. Below is the official synopsis and a few new pictures to whip you into a frenzy before you can get to the cinema:

Synopsis

Set in post-apocalyptic 2018, “Terminator Salvation” stars Christian Bale as John Connor, the man fated to lead the human resistance against Skynet and its army of Terminators. But the future Connor was raised to believe in is altered in part by the appearance of Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a stranger whose last memory is of being on death row. Connor must decide whether Marcus has been sent from the future, or rescued from the past. As Skynet prepares its final onslaught, Connor and Marcus both embark on an odyssey that takes them into the heart of Skynet’s operations, where they uncover the terrible secret behind the possible annihilation of mankind. Learn more…

Finally managed to get and see the new Star Trek film at the cinema the other night. Expectations were pretty high after the glowing reviews it seems to have received everywhere. After seeing it, whilst very good, I’m not sure that it quite lived up to those raised expectations. Now don’t get me wrong it’s a very good film and if I’d seen it without reading those reviews it would’ve exceeded the expectations I’d previously held for it. The problem was that I read all those reviews. Learn more…

If I were a schoolteacher I would bring John Hamburg (Writer/Director) to the front of the class and slap his legs. Not only has he copied other peoples work, he has failed to add anything original of his own. Every joke, set piece and character in this film has been done a million times.

The cast of this film should also be doing better for themselves. I think there may have been some agents fired after the watching of this puppy. Ben Stiller playing a Ben Stiller role; slightly neurotic, sensitive, geeky type who is involved in a lot of physically painful comedy. The character he actually plays (Reuben Feffer) is a risk analyst for an insurance firm. Thus he lives his life by balancing risks in everything he does. At the start of the movie he marries Lisa (Debra Messing) who then cheats on him on the first day of their honeymoon with Claude (A buff looking Hank Azaria), who is a native of St Kitts and a scuba instructor. Heartbroken he returns home to be comforted by best friend Sandy Lyle (not the golfer but actually Philip Seymour Hoffman). He then embarks on the singles scene where he meets childhood schoolmate Polly Prince (Jennifer Aniston). Learn more…

Terminator 3 continues the story of John Connor and his battle against the time travelling machines and against his destiny. It’s also a bit of a divergence for the franchise in a couple of ways. Firstly the director, Jonathan Mostow has the unenviable task of stepping into James Cameron’s shoes. Secondly we have a female terminator, thirdly it’s the first terminator film not to feature Sarah Connor and fourthly it’s not trying to be a film by itself, but is trying to set the scene for the battle against skynet in the future.

Time has moved on. John Connor is now in his early 20s. The date that his father said was judgement day has come and gone, but still he’s not at ease. It turns out that judgement day hasn’t been stopped by the antics of Sarah Connor in Terminator 2, only postponed. Terminators still exist in the future and so does time travel. This time a female terminator, dubbed the T-X (terminatrix), has been sent back in time. Her mission is to ideally kill John Connor. Since he’s dropped off the electronic grid and can’t be found, the T-X has secondary targets, John Connor’s lieutenants in the future. As in the second film a T-800 terminator is sent back in time as protector for John. Arnold is back! Learn more…

I have not seen a good, newly released horror film in sometime, so when I was asked if I wanted to review B.T.K I jumped at the chance, although I made that choice simply by looking at the cover on Amazon, even though I should know that you shouldn’t judge a book (nor a film) by its cover.

The film is based upon the real life murderer Dennis L. Rader who was captured in 2005 and sentenced for the murders of 7 women, 1 man and 2 children. B T K stands for Bind, Torture, Kill, for the style he used to killhis victims. This film is a fictional piece and does not represent the crimes that he is actually convicted of.

Writer/Director Michael Feifer has directed 11 movies so far, none of them I have heard or and none of them scoring over 4.3 on IMDB so I prepared myself for a major disappointment as I put the disk in the player; but ratings have been wrong before, will they be wrong now? Learn more…

Seven Pounds reunites Will Smith with both the director (Gabriele Muccino) and producers of The Pursuit of Happiness, to create another personally focused melodrama.

Smith is introduced as IRS agent Ben Thomas, an emotionally troubled man that is on a quest to make a difference to the world and help some truly deserving people. From the films outset he is dolling out all kinds of help to people that have fallen on hard times and can’t afford to pay the tax man (a welcome prospect in today’s financial climate), but not everyone receives his uniquely generous help, as he goes above and beyond the requirements of an IRS agent in researching the clients backgrounds, and gets fairly angry with anyone he deems less than deserving; including a doctor that runs an old folks home but is less than caring to his residents. Learn more…

With some film titles you never really know quite what you’re getting. Bride Wars is not one of those films, it does exactly what it says on the tin! As such, all men out there should know they’re deep in ‘chick flick’ territory here. Not only is it a chick flick, it’s a chick flick for chicks obsessed with weddings!

Liv (Kate Hudson) and Emma (Anne Hathaway) have been friends since they were little girls. They both witnessed a wedding in June at the Plaza hotel in New York that left a lasting impression. Since that day both have been obsessed with living out this fantasy, they’re both just waiting for the right guy to pop the question. Learn more…

Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs is the first ‘real’ horror film in years for one simple reason, it’s horrifying. The French director pulled no punches with this film, and has made possibly one of the most graphic films ever to be released.
 
Although saying that this isn’t your average slasher film that’s completely void of any plot, this is instead a twisted story which revolves around violence and torture. It begins in the 70’s, when a young child named Lucie (Mylène Jampanoï) is found wandering the French roads with obvious signs of abuse. The police soon find that she had been tortured at great length in a disused slaughterhouse, which she had apparently never left, and strangely for an abuse case of this nature there are no traces of sexual contact. Luice is soon placed in an orphanage, where she befriends a girl called Anna (Morjana Alaoui), although she remains traumatized by what has happened to her, beings self-harming, seeing things and refuses to communicate the experience to anyone else. Learn more…

As an Owen Wilson fan Marley & Me was one of those films that I had down on my cinema watch list that I just never found the time to see. It doesn’t seem all that long that it was on at the cinema either, but it’s release on DVD and Blu Ray has just been announced for the 6th of July (see press release below for details).

Marley & Me

The Heartwarming Story Starring

Academy Award-Nominee Owen Wilson & Emmy-Winner Jennifer Aniston Arrives on Blu-ray Disc and DVD on 6th July 2009 Learn more…

Legally Blonde and Legally Blonde 2 were both warm and cuddly, cute and fuzzy chick flicks starring Reese Witherspoon as Elle Woods, perky, pink, but ultimately shrewd and intelligent. She proved herself first in law school and then in government. Now we have a third film baring the name, this time called Legally Blondes (it’s twins this time!). Reese Witherspoon is no longer starring, and the film is much the worse for it.

The film focuses on Elle Woods’ cousins Annabelle and Isabelle. Like Elle, they’re blonde, perky and pink, oh, they’re also identical twins (played by Camilla and Rebecca Rosso). Unlike Elle they’re not American, they’re British and the opening of the film sees them moving from England to America due to their father’s new job. Once stateside they get partial scholarship to a prestigious prep school. They rapidly fall foul of the school megalomaniac Tiffany (Brittany Curran). It seems that the school is quite elitist and those students on scholarships are ridiculed and shunned. Learn more…