MORE NEWS! (and rumors)...

Guy Ritchie has expressed interest in directing the adap of DC comics baby; LOBO. Considering the characters somewhat violent exploits in comic land this could be very entertaining...

Post Hobbit Guillermo del Toro has a number of equally fantastical projects that he wants to work on including Frankenstein and a "dark and creepy" version of Pinnochio. Crumbs.
Robert Rodriguez's Machete has an incredible cast including Steven Seagal and...wait for it...Don Johnson!!!!


Ryan Reynolds has signed up for every movie being made including the The Green Lantern and Christian Slater vehicle Paper Man.

Disney have bought Marvel Studios!

No one has an effing clue what Inception is about but all agree it looks interesting and fun.

Megan Fox has signed up for Fathom

And finally Uwe Boll has hung up his directing hat and is turning his hand to pig farming!
See if you can guess which of these is a rumor.

MORE ELEMENTARY DEAR WATSON...

A press release has stated that the shoot for "Sherlock Holmes" is going ahead smoothly and on schedule. One can't help wondering then why the studios have insisted that Mr Ritchie go back and include an entirely new story-line involving Moriaty, Holmes' nemesis and eventual destructor. Why this story line wasn't in the original is anyones guess but you don't have to be Baker Streets finest to deduce that the film was seen to be flimsy without it. There is also a worrying rumor on the streets of London that at short notice non other than Brad Pitt has stepped up to play the nefarious baddie... What were they thinking?

Playing it for laughs...

New Sherlock Holmes trailer...

Might be okay...

Fahckin elementary dear Watson...

I'm not sure about all you other folk out there but I for one am a Sherlock Holmes fan. However in many television adaptations and films that have found their way to the small and large screens I always felt a little short changed. The deer-stalker hat for example was a visual device created purely for the films and the (less controversial) pipe replaced the super sleuths drug addiction. So my bag of emotions is mixed to say the least when I caught wind (no laughing at the back) of the new Guy Ritchie project based around the idea of Baker Streets finest. Don't get me wrong Ritchie's earlier efforts were good old fashioned cockney romps which I enjoyed greatly but to say that he had a lull is a massive understatement. Also is he really the man for the job? His fast edits and heavy graphics don't really lend themselves to Victorian London...do they?

On the other and much shinier side of the coin we have our two leading men. Robert Downey Jr, who lets face it has a touch of Midas about him with recent projects, will pick up the role of Holmes whilst Jude Law will play Watson. Rumor has it that the story will stay faithful to the Holmes universe, so much so that Watson will be less a bumbling fool and more of an equal to Holmes seeing as in the books at least he was a doctor and army veteran. Also we will finally get a glimpse of the fictional but impressive sounding "BARITSU" the martial art that Holmes is an expert in.
Yet we turn the coin once more to the dull rusty side that probably has a picture of Ritchie dressed as the queen to discover that the film will carry a "PG-13" rating and there will be no mention of our hero's drug addiction.
They give with one hand and take with the other. Still I'm sure Sir Arthur Conan Doyle will be ricocheting off of his coffin lid when the Will Ferrell comedy version is released...I kid you not.

If the milk turns out to be sour, I ain't the kinda pussy to drink it...

Howdy Doghousers, I took myself for a little walkies to the local flea pit the other day to catch Guy Ritchie's latest offering; RocknRolla. I firstly have to say I was quite excited when I saw this movie trailed; I like Ritchie's films, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was brilliant. A British, slick, low budget knees-up gangster laugh. Then he followed it with Snatch - Lock Stock with money, but that's okay. Look at The Evil Dead and The Evil Dead II, that's all Sam Raimi did. All good.

But it seems something somewhere has gone terribly wrong. 10 years later and he's still trying to make that gangster film. Not that time should be a scapegoat, Martin Scorsese had a 12 year gap between Goodfellas and Gangs of New York. Gangs of New York, although a gangster film isn't really a copy of Goodfellas, more of a bad ass period drama. Bad example.

So what's Ritchie doing? I watched Revolver and thought it was interesting, twisted and difficult to follow but different. So to give it a chance I made a cup of rosey and watched it again. To see if I could figure the complex plot and coax out the hidden story/message. What a waste of an afternoon that was. Looked nice though. Might as well watch MTV for 2 hours. Probably make more sense.

Back to RocknRolla: It's boring, over long, same old same old, and it feels that if you were to mix all of his films together, even the Madonna one, this is what you get. A watered down, confused cocktail of his former talent. Also, bad plot aside; why is every scene in a car shot in a studio? As good as your matte work is, it still shows. And why are the London streets so very deserted? Even in the middle of the night there are still some cars around. Plus - and this is just one of my personal hates - why do we not really see the only car crash in the film? And I'm sick of that car-coming-but-only-the-audience-can-see-it-interior-shot. It has been done so many times, even Cold Feet were dong it back in the 90's. That reminds me - that car explosion - what the fuck was that? I've seen better CGI on my PS2. If your film costs $18,000,000, surely you can blow up a car or two?

Minor production points aside is it any good?
No. RocknRolla is a convoluted, over tired, over long, expositional, mockney bullshit of a movie and Warner bros. should stop giving him money. All of the characters are 2 dimensional and I had no empathy for any of them, - even the Jonny Quid character played by the excellent Toby Kebbell who was supposed to be the 'RocknRolla'. He was probably written as a lovable rogue who says and does all the stuff that we mere mortals only dream of. And he was hateful. When he did get shot it wasn't soon enough. I later read that he was based on Pete Doherty. Well done for picking such a charismatic icon to base a character on, perhaps Madge only allows Heat Magazine and the Metro in the house.

Although Empire gave it 4 stars they said in their review; 'Storytelling isn't Ritchie's forte'. WTF? He's the director and screen writer. Storytelling should be his forte. Let's let him off shall we? He's posh.

The bad news is , RocknRolla is apparently the first in a trilogy. Balls. An excuse for all the loose ends? That's the lamest excuse I've ever heard, and I'm just looking at my DVD collection to see if any other trilogy part one's have such loosely tied endings....
Godfather, Back to the Future, Star Wars, Indy, Bourn, Matrix. Not having much luck here. Ritchie had better pull something pretty special out of his tweed sleeve to make the next one a good watch. It was all a dream or something?

I just hope I'm wrong. Ritchie used to be a burning light in the bad rom-com that is British cinema. At least we've still got Edgar Wright.

Whimper.