Double O shit we've ran out of money -

This is directly from the Gaurdian, but wanted to draw your attention to it;

New James Bond film on hold due to MGM debt

007's licence to thrill suspended as MGM awaits a buyer

Daniel Craig as James Bond in Casino Royale. Photograph: Reuters

The world's most evil villains can't stop him, but James Bond is in big trouble for the most mundane of reasons – a lack of cash.
Development of the new James Bond film has been suspended indefinitely, the film's producers confirmed yesterday, because of uncertainty over the future of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio. The new unnamed movie, which will be the 23rd in the series based on the Ian Fleming hero, had been due for release in 2011 or 2012, to coincide with the franchise's 50th anniversary.
Daniel Craig was set to play 007, the spy with a licence to kill, for the third time, in the role first taken up by Sean Connery and subsequently by George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan. But Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, the producers of the Bond movies, said in a joint statement: "Due to the continuing uncertainty surrounding the future of MGM and the failure to close a sale of the studio, we have suspended development on Bond 23 indefinitely."
Wilson and Broccoli said they do not know when development of the film will resume and when it will be released.
Craig, who is on location in Toronto, Canada, filming Dream House, with Rachel Weisz, said: "I have every confidence in Barbara and Michael's decision and look forward to production resuming as quickly as possible."
James Bond is easily MGM's most profitable franchise. The 22 James Bond movies are third in the list of most successful film franchises, according to the website Box Office Mojo.
The last film in the series, 2008's Quantum of Solace, made $586m (£381.6m) worldwide. The 2006 movie Casino Royale, which unveiled Craig as the new leaner, meaner Bond, took in $594m.
Sam Mendes, who directed American Beauty and Revolutionary Road, was expected to direct the next James Bond outing, working from a screenplay by The Queen's Peter Morgan and regular Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. But according to the US trade papers, Mendes had not signed on the dotted line, and his involvement must now be in doubt.
There is no doubt that – in an echo of the famous phrase which often closed out the credits on 007 films – Bond will return, but the question is who will be his paymaster. MGM is struggling with a $3.7bn debt, and has released just one film this year. Efforts to raise finance through a sale of the studio have so far proved fruitless, with rival firms so far making only tentative bids. Its lenders are pushing for "either a sale of the company or a restructuring with an infusion of capital to remain a stand-alone operation", the Los Angeles Times reported.
Sony, which co-distributed the last two films, would appear to be an obvious candidate to buy MGM, but has not made a public bid. Those companies that have include Lionsgate and Time Warner, which put a $1.5bn offer on the table, but MGM is belived to be holding out for an offer of at least $2bn. It will be several weeks before its fate becomes clear.
Directly copied from the guardian.co.uk

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist - it's quite everything

I know I said I'd review Push, it's on it's way, but first I thought I'd review this as I literally just finished watching it.

I watched a short trailer before watching this and was told by the pretty lady presenting the show that this was a film driven by the soundtrack, much like Garden State (Brilliant Film!) and The Graduate (pretty good), so being a lover of film and music I thought I'd give it a watch.


As you can pretty much tell from the title it's about a boy called Nick and a girl named Norah who are both hugely into their music and both in ending/complicated relationships. They stumble across each other and we see their relationship develop over a course of a night. Music plays a pretty important role in this film as it links our two characters together.

So by "quite everything", I actually mean, it's only quite funny, quite feel good, the script is quite well written, and it's all quite good. But in my opinion never really enough. The soundtrack is excellent though (featuring Vampire Weekend. We are Scientists and Chris Bell to name a few - I'm a fan of films which incorporate music as a drive for the story, don't get me wrong, but the music should never be better than the film itself.

There are some really sweet moments in it and a few lines which are really funny but it kinda feels as if the film never takes off. The film is set over one day which although is a good idea in concept, it just slows the pace of the film. The two main stars, Michael Cera and Kat Dennings are fine, no surprises there (I'd quite like to see Cera do something a bit different now), and I was quite satisfied by the end, I just think the film was lacking excitement. I enjoyed it I guess, not enough to watch it again or really recommend though, just one of those films which if you stumble across stick it on, it'll fill an hour and twenty - won't effect you in anyway but it's mildly entertaining - a disappointing 6 (just) out of 10.

Kick Ass (2010)...at last sorry folks!

First up I haven't been keeping on top of this and I'm sorry - I'm back on it now here's a couple of treats to try to make up for it - can't wait for these ;
Tron Legacy
Predators

Kick Ass (2010)

From the first time I saw this trailer I was dead excited about seeing it. From the trailer I got the impression it was an all out comedy about a geeky boy (Dave Lizewski played by Aaron Johnson) who wanted to attempt to be the first super hero, "Kick-Ass" (or pointed out by his friend, just a hero "because super powers aren't real"), and that impression surprisingly turned out to be wrong.

There's a shocking moment, which I wouldn't want to spoil so I won't go into details, about a quarter of the way through the film where you get a hint that the film is beginning to get quite dark, this is soon forgotten when Christopher Mintz-Plasse comes on as "Red Mist" and as always delivers pure hilarity.

Later though, although always slightly comic in tone, the film gets dark again, and stays like it throughout the remainder of the film. The action sequences are actually really good, and somehow I even bought the fact Hit Girl, a 12 year old girl, (Chloe Morez), was beating the crap out of grown men. I think it's a credit to her performance that as an audience we buy into this idea. Where the film is at its most dark is when Frank D'Amico (our baddy played by Mark Strong) set's a character on fire and we watch him burn; not exactly your typical scene from a comedy.

Talking of Mark Strong, it was nice to see a few British actors in this film, and they're performances along with their American co workers are all excellent. Nicholas Cage does very well at playing Big Daddy, a comic character who could have otherwise been over played, but Cage plays it straight and retains a believability which could have otherwise been lost. I suppose being directed by Matthew Vaughn, who's directing debut was Layer Cake, followed by Stardust (that's right he's only directed two films prior to this, he's normally a producer), it's not surprising we're given a sprinkle of British actors.

I loved the story line, ordinary boy trys to make a difference and gets so involved it goes over his head. Not very original but executed in a very original way. The only aspect of the film I didn't buy, and some people have accused me of picking up on a minor point here, is Kick Ass's relationship with the girl. One minute she's laughing at him behind his back and the next, she loves comic books like he does, they go for coffee, and then she's his girlfriend - it is as simple and as quick as that, we don't see any development what-so-ever between these two characters, and I think it's just a bit sloppy. The whole film would have worked without the girl at all in my opinion. It's as if they had a great story, then realised there was no love interest so threw in a girl for the sake of it.

At the end of the film though, I was very much satisfied, not what I expected at all. I was expecting a lot more laughs but as I said earlier the film took a very unexpected turn and became quite dark and serious. I very much enjoy films which twist your expectations like this and so this gets my recommendation - 8/10

Zombieland (2009) - a film first apparently, a comedy zombie film....

To be honest from the trailers of this film I thought this looked like a bit of a whacky silly comedy, which normally I don’t really go for, but thought I’d give it a chance having heard a few good things about it. From the extras on the Bluray disc it claims to be something “new”, a comedy film about zombies “which has never been done before” – obviously our American friends didn’t see Sean of the Dead, which this certainly isn’t.

However, I very much enjoyed this film, unlike Sean of the Dead, we don't see too much of Zombies themselves, we mainly get the relationship between Columbus played by Jesse Eisenberg, a wimp, who has managed to stay alive by strictly sticking to certain rules, and Tallahassee, Woody Harrelson, a hard case cowboy like character, who loves killing Zombies. This is a road trip / buddy movie, which just so happens to be set during a time where most of the world is zombiefied. This does make it different from all the other zombie movies I’ve seen, and it is very well executed.

The other characters we focus on are Wichita, played by the sassy Emma Stone, and Little Rock. Played by Abigail Breslin who are equally interesting characters. I suprisingly buy the fact that they’ve all survived this long.

The performances are all spot on, baring a few parts where Breslin seems a bit false, which is disappointing from the talented young actress who played the tilte role in Little Miss Sunshine, (which is a fantastic film) and the little girl in Signs. Jesse Eisenberg plays the lead very well, and although his style is very similar to Michael Cera, they are almost completely interchangeable, I think Eisenberg just has the edge over Cera, adding a touch more believability to his character. Woody Harrelson is equally brilliant as expected, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the film was written with him in mind, as Tallahasse suits him perfectly.

So very good film, not fantastic, but I recommend at least renting it, you certainly won’t be disappointed – 7 out of 10.