Been working on my presentation on Robert Rodriguez for film class tomorrow – it’s shaping up quite nicely, although I have started to suspect that something is terribly wrong with my laptop’s battery: it runs flat after about 20 min of usage. I didn’t expect me to say this, but I almost can’t wait for the tests on physics and the one on biology next week, as there’ll be almost nothing left to do in school afterwards.

Oh, and I can’t wait to see Indiana Jones 4 tomorrow – been waiting for it a couple of years now (feels like I’ve been waiting for the next Star Wars prequel/sequel in a way…) Review on it will be up by tomorrow evening.

“Rock Band” (a video game, a bit like Guitar Hero – although gone mad) is being released in the UK on Friday. Might order a copy, as it looks quite awesome! Actually, I’ve been playing Guitar Hero 3 much more than GTA IV the last week – it just feels like I have to play for a longer time when popping the GTA disc in, whilst in GH3 I could just play a song or two when bored.

I’m going to try to move away from the enormous news posts that I’ve been writing, for a couple of reasons. First, it feels like I have to tell you some grand thing every time I post a news story, which isn’t how it should be. Secondly, if I don’t keep my news posts as long I could post more often which would give you, the readers, a way to read what I’m up too without cooking yourself a big old cup of tea. And on that very British note, I bid you goodnight!

Remember to check back tomorrow for the review on the new Indy flick! Until then, take care!

Can’t wait for summer break, seriously – I want to be able to write more stuff here, but it seems that school decided to put every concievable test in a three week period. Still two weeks to go though, but with only two tests left and one speech in film class (more on that later), I should manage just fine. So what have I been up to the past couple of weeks? It’s been quite a while since I posted a “real” newspost here, as the last three posts were reviews. Well, on to the good stuff I guess!

I’ve been writing down a lot of stuff concerning “Derby” and it’s script. It’s pretty much all finalized now, and I should be able to film it during the upcoming summer break. I’ve found some cool locations for a few scenes – thinking about taking a still camera and shoot a few images of them before we go shooting there. I’ve started to look for actors and actresses for the film, and some roles are already decided! I reckon “Derby” will be a pretty fun filmmaking experience – not only because it’s pretty different story-wise from anything I’ve done before – but also because I won’t have to think about guns, effects and explosions, which is nice for a change.

I’ve started to think about what I want to do for my one-year school project in my third and final year in high school. I’m sure I want to do some kind of film – currently thinking of something completely greenscreen-based. I don’t think it’ll be a very long film, as the visual effects work will be quite demanding – I will probably be able to get the whole thing filmed in two or three days. The most obvious route and the one I’m currently on would be to do something film noir-inspired, but like I said, I’ve only just started to think about the film.

While I was out and found a few nice locations for “Derby”, I also shot a rather cool thing. Can’t talk about it anymore than that, but keep your eyes peeled on the internet as well as here, as it’s pretty spectacular stuff!

Watched a lot of films the last couple of weeks while I wasn’t studying. I’ve been working my way through my big unwatched DVD pile, and I’ve watched a few rather good films, mostly classics. Among these are “I am Sam” (featuring Sean Penn) and “Basic Instinct” (Michael Douglas, Sharon Stone). I was actually surprised when I realised how good a thriller “Basic Instinct” really was. Sure, it’s probably most famous for that Sharon Stone interrogation scene, but look past that and you’ll find a very good and interesting thriller. It’s also directed by Paul Verhoeven, who has done a lot of…well, interesting (both really good – like Starship Troopers, and slightly worse – RoboCop doesn’t age very well) films in his career.

So, well, gaming. I’ve obviously been playing a whole lot of Grand Theft Auto IV, which I got on the release day. Trust me when I say this, it’s a very, very good game. The story is probably the best I’ve ever encountered in any form of interactive media, the voice-acting is fantastic, the gameplay is the best it’s ever been – to sum it up, it’s probably one of the better games I’ve ever played. Might write a review on it once I’ve finished the story-driven missions, although try to look past the fact that it’s going to mean that you’ll see another review with a 10 out of 10

I’ve been trying to figure out Microsoft PowerPoint for a presentation I have in film class next Thursday. Each student got to choose either a genre or a director to do a small (15-30 min) presentation on. I decided to go with Robert Rodriguez, one of my favorite directors who has a truly diverse portfolio, with everything from “Spy Kids” to “Planet Terror”. As I almost hadn’t used PowerPoint before making this presentation, it was quite hard to understand how everything worked at first. It does have some really cool stuff that it does presentation-wise though, and I’ve now incorporated 3D-like text and images with reflections that bounce up and down when I talk about them. I’ve also managed to connect my mobile phone to the computer via Bluetooth, so I can control the entire thing wirelessly. As you might have realised by now, I’m pretty proud of it!

That’s all I’ve got for you guys and girls today! I promise, the wait won’t be as long for the next news post. School is slowing down, which gives me more time to…work on other, more fun filmmaking-stuff! Take care everyone, and I’ll talk to you again soon!

P.S. Go see “Doomsday” in theatres. It’s awesome.

So after months of anticipation, I finally got to see “Iron Man” (starring Robert Downey Jr., Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges and Gwyneth Paltrow) today. So here’s my review of the film – and even a full day before it premieres in the U.S.!

This was pretty much the first film I’ve seen which I’ve deliberately avoided film clips and tv spots on. I watched the two trailers that were released, and that was it. Still, I was very excited to go see the film, as it looked as if it had the potential to be the best superhero flick ever with an amazing cast.

The story is fairly simple. A weapons manufacturer, Tony Stark (Downey Jr.) gets captured by terrorists while on a publicity stunt in the Middle East. When forced to build the terrorists a superweapon of the kind he normally builds for the army, he retaliates, building a suit (which is awesome) that he escapes in. When arriving back in the U.S., Stark decides to stop weapons production in his worldwide company Stark Industries, which he runs beside his father’s good friend Obadiah Stane (played by Jeff Bridges – who also played “The Dude” in “The Big Lebowski”). While Stark runs/flies around the world helping and saving people in his new, rebuilt Iron Man suit, Stane decides to take the weapons business into his own hands. The story was a pretty standard superhero story, but with what I thought was much more likeable characters than what you usually encounter in these types of flicks.

Robert Downey Jr. is PERFECT as Tony Stark. He does some great acting and brings humanity to what have in the wrong hands been a stiff and boring character. It clearly shows that the improvisation of some of the dialouge in certain scenes really helped all of the actors to make their characters more natural. Gwyneth Paltrow (Shakespeare in Love, The Royal Tenenbaums, Se7en) as Tony Stark’s assistant Pepper Potts is great too – I was pretty surprised that she was in a film like this to be honest. Terrence Howard (Hustle & Flow)  as the military general Jim Rhodes also works pretty much perfect for his very formal role. The big casting surprise when I first read about the film was the inclusion of Jeff Bridges (“The Dude”) as the main villain, Obidiah, a.k.a. Iron Monger. It’s pretty cool to hear that he has exactly the same voice as he did when he acted in the Coen brothers’ “The Big Lebowski”. It was a long time since I saw him in such a big role, and he’s still a very good actor. To round it up, the acting and casting of this film was probably the best I’ve ever seen in a superhero film!

There’s some really cool visual effects in this one. All of it was done by the team at ILM (who did Star Wars, Transformers, Narnia among many others) who just gets better at their work for every passing film I see. The vfx are definently on par with what I saw in “Transformers” last year, and some of the shots are even better. Transformers had some great actors interacting with virtual objects, but they’ve pretty much perfected it now, as it looks even more realistic. It just looks like all of the robotic arms interacting with Stark during his construction sequences are there for real! Oh, and this film has the second best suiting-up sequence ever, right after “Hot Fuzz”.

The music reminded me in places of the soundtrack to “Transformers”, which is why I was suprised to find that the score wasn’t done by Steve Jablonsky, but by Ramin Djawadi, who did the score to “Mr. Brooks”. During a few scenes, the music is very active, which really helps as it’s quite brilliant. The sound effects pack a pretty heavy punch as well, with loads of the sounds using the lower LFE channels. The explosions and gunfire are really loud, which helps sell the realistic that goes through so much of the rest of the film.

To sum it up, this was by far the best superhero film I’ve ever seen, and the best action film I’ve seen since “Transformers”. With some great acting and characters, some fantastic visual effects and a really good score, there’s no way I could give this film less than full marks. I can’t wait to see what director Jon Favreau will do next!

Verdict: 10 out of 10