Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Now I don't tend to do trailers other than share it and point out how cool it is (rarely) but I was asked to do a post on the third Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer and I thought, what the hell it's special. Now when people first heard about Disney buying Star Wars and that they were going to start making a movie straight away everyone else was all angry/ scared. Angry because nerd rage and scared as they automatically thought of the Lion King, Little Mermaid, Micky Mouse etc and they instantly thought of Disney as an evil corporation who were going to ruin the franchise even more than the prequels did. I on the other had was pleased to here of Disney purchasing some of my childhood memories as not only do Disney do the rare thing and give the fans what they want, they also have a lot of great live action titles under their belt that a lot of people forget are Disney movies: movies like The Rocketeer, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Mighty Ducks movies, National Treasure, Tron and who can forget The Pirates of the Caribbean and The Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. In short my hopes are up for the new movie.

Another reason we should be happy that these movies are going to be made by Disney is that the Star Wars franchise has always been first and foremost for kids. This is something the enraged super-fans always forget. Even the first three movies were made by companies who's target audience is young children and everything Star Wars is made with 10 year olds and the stuff 10 year olds like in mind. There's no one that does a better job of making kids movies that adults like than Disney and that's exactly what we want from a Star Wars movie. A movie we can take our kids, grand kids, nieces and nephews to see without being bored as our parents did with us with the previous movies. Judging from the trailers that's what we're going to get.

As for the trailer itself it's fantastic, it doesn't get me as excited as the second trailer did but it still makes my inner kid bubble to the surface. They've teased all the right stuff, especially the Millennium Falcon and the old characters. It doesn't shadow the new stuff too much though, the new heroes seem like I could back them easy and the villain looks so good, kinda like the Sith from the Knights of the Old Republic games. I'm a big fan of the way this movie looks so far: everything feels new and cool but at the same time there's no mistaking that you are seeing some Star Wars here. Also: Stormtroopers, they are probably the source of my obsession with white military equipment and are probably my favourite thing about Star Wars in general.

One thing's for sure: I'll be seeing this in the cinema, I can't wait to see this and I hope that it's going to be as good as it looks.

Click the banner for the trailer.

22 Jump Street

It's not often that a comedy can make a sequel as good as the original, especially when the original is a reboot of an old TV show but 22 Jump Street is just as awesome as the first movie. The action is fantastic and the chemistry between Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum and Ice Cube is amazing and that's what makes the comedy moments perfect.

The beautiful Amber Stevens plays Schmidt's love interest (he's a lucky git).

Jillian Bell is awesome in this, she's such a great villain. I especially love the fight between her character and Hill's character. It's extra funny as she's a typical pretty spoilt college kid.

I love all the jokes about comedies having too many sequels, the end credits are amazing.

Flash Gordon (1980)

Every now and then I like to re-watch an old old movie and do a piece on that. This time I decided to do Flash Gordon as he saved every one of us. The effects obviously don't hold up today but it still looks pretty good. Plus Queen did the soundtrack.

Everything about this movie looks fun and cool, including Flash himself. He was one of my idols growing up. I love that gold sword.

Then there's the best thing about the movie: Brian Blessed as the viking (I love a viking) like bird-man.

The Emperor Ming is a pretty cool too but my favourite bad guy's the gold Dr Doom looking dude.

Just like all sci-fis back then, there's a beautiful woman than needs rescuing, then when you get to her it turns out she doesn't actually need rescuing, she just needs a gun. Dale Arden played by Melody Anderson, I had a crush on her when I was a kid.

Ornella Muti as Princess Aura was pretty awesome too.

Gordon's alive!

District 13: Ultimatum

As sequels go this isn't a bad one, I'd say its on par with the original though it is much cheesier and more over the top. Tomaso and Leïto are back throwing themselves off buildings and jumping out of windows and it's just as impressive as the first time.

This time they have banded together an elite group of stereotypes to stop the French president from blowing up the district and killing everyone in it. It's well fun.

One of these stereotypes (Tao) is played by the unbelievably stunning Elodie Yung who you might recognize from G.I. Joe: Retaliation and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

As with the first movie, if you like fast paced and fun action then you should give this a watch.

Hercules (2014)

I'm a big fan of Greek mythology and in particular Hercules and that's the only reason I would say I didn't like this movie as much as I should. I'm wanting a movie that follows the story of Hercules a lot more closely than anyone has done before but maybe it wont translate well for a movie, could need a TV series to include the labours in detail. Any way I guarantee that if I didn't like the myths so much I would have said this was my favourite movie of the last year for sure. The story is portrayed realistically and it works well. Also, I love the fights and battles in this movie. Very satisfying for an epic movie enthusiast.

Dwayne Johnson was definitely perfect as Hercules, the look of him is fits exactly with what I would picture him to look like. It's not just his physique but also his height helped with this as he already towers above most men. The only thing lacking in this Hercules is the same thing most movies and TV shows about him miss out and that was his arrogance. I guess it wouldn't be the best to have the hero being a bit of a dick though.

Another few things this movie has that other Hercules movies need are long hair and a beard (ancient Greeks were mega-proud of their beards), Hercules actually wearing his iconic lion's fur helmet/cloak (why other movies leave out his most iconic piece of clothing, I don't know) and his massive club. It's the latter two that make him stand out so much from the other demigods (there were actually quite a few of them and they were all said to have been as big or almost as big as Hercules, yes even Jason and Iolaus).

Another thing that's awesome about this movie is the band of mercenaries that Hercules travels with; Iolaus, Atalanta, Amphiaraus, Autolycus and Tydeus (Who are all based on Greek heroes). Tydeus and Atalanta being pretty cool in particular.

Atalanta is even more interesting to those of us that like women as she is played by the ever gorgeous Norwegian actress Ingrid Bolsø Berdal.

There's also the lovely Rebecca Ferguson as Ergenia, the daughter of Lord Cotys (John Hurt). Not the beautiful singer but the beautiful actress who seems to be harder to find on Google for some reason.

You should watch this movie... it's awesome.

Jane Goldman

Jane Goldman (aka Jonathan Ross's wife) is not only a very beautiful woman but she's also one hell of a writer (you probably didn't know this even if you knew who she was, you were probably distracted by something). She started off writing for magazines and newspapers including the legendary GameZone and Sega Zone. She later wrote a series of non-fiction books for teenagers and the The X-Files Book of the Unexplained. She even wrote a crime thriller novel called Dreamworld.

If you know her for anything other than being married to that lucky git Jonathan Ross it will be for Jane Goldman Investigates, a pretty decent TV show presented by Goldman that looked into the world of the occult and spirituality. That's not all she's done with TV though, she appeared on Gamesmaster back in the 90s and more recently she produced The Big Fat Quiz series of shows from 2004 to 2013.

If the classic game stuff isn't enough to give you a nerd-boner and you don't think Jane Goldman is awesome yet: she also co-wrote some awesome movies including Stardust, Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past. She also wrote the screenplay for The Woman in Black, which is in my eyes one of the best modern horrors as it doesn't count on jump scares to alert you (not scare you) and is genuinely creepy and frighting.

She also co-wrote the screenplay for the best looking movie of the year so far, Kingsman: The Secret Service. This movie looks so amazing, with the exception of Marvel movies it's the movie I'm most excited about seeing this year so far.

District B13

I like re-watching older or classic movies and giving them a quick review now and the, especially if I love the movie. District B13 is a gem of a movie, you can tell it's low budget and a lot of people wouldn't give it a chance because it's a French movie. Even with it's low budget the movie looks so iconic and stylish (I mean stylish as in actually stylish, not as a pensioner referring to an ugly lamp they got out of Betterware).

The cover art may look like a 70s action movie but it's definitely more Transporter than The Man with the Golden Gun. The action is fast paced and thanks to Parkour looks as awesome as a superhero beat-down. It's all thanks to the movie's stars Cyril Raffaelli (Capt. Damien Tomaso) and David Belle (Leïto).

All good action movies have at least one gorgeous woman in them and B13 is no different. If the movies have taught us anything is that French women are beautiful and that's definitely true about Dany Verissimo-Petit (Lola).

If you haven't seen this yet and love your action movies then you should give it a watch.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

This movie wasn't as good as I thought it was going to be but it's also not even close to being as bad as the media have said it is. I mean I've already seen it 3 or 4 times. Yes the bad guys might have been disappointing (which is a shame cause I love William Fichtner) but the turtles and Splinter were perfect. Especially the scene with the turtles going through the sewers, it was spot on.

They way they look is amazing too, they made them look more realistic and bad-ass but managed to keep true to the 80s cartoon. My favourite from the movie is my favourite from the cartoons too. Leonardo.

I know Megan Fox isn't the best at acting but she's tolerable and she sure is stunning.

This movie was fun and unless you're one of those nerd-rage types then it's easy to sit and enjoy. I think they under-used Whoopi Goldberg though, why have a great such as her in your movie for two very short boring and unnecessary scenes, it doesn't make sense to me. Anyway, a lot of people say this movie is bad and they're wrong.

Four Lions

Four Lions is a fantastic comedy by Christopher Morris. It's about incompetent British terrorists and their goal to become suicide bombers. It's one of the funniest movies of recent years, on par with Shaun of the Dead.

One of my favourite things about this show is Adeel Akhtar, he's not in it as mush as I'd like though as he's one of my favourite actors. He's one of the best British actors that you've probably never heard of but you should check him out especially in Trollied and Utopia.

Then there's the name everyone went to see this for, Kayvan Novak, the genius behind Fonejacker. He provides many of the highlights of the movie including one scene where they shoot a jihadi video using a tiny gun.

Also look out for the mega-beautiful Preeya Kalidas, who plays Sofia.

This is one of my favourite British comedies. I love movies that apply a British attitude to things that are considered "un-British" like terrorism or zombies.

Logan's Run

Logan's Run is one of the best of the classic sci-fis. It takes place in a Utopian city ruled by a bastard of a computer where it is illegal to reach the age of 31. Logan 5 played by Michael York is a Sandman (how awesome of a name is that for the police), the world's version of the police. Their main duty is to track down and kill these people called Runners, people that don't voluntarily offer themselves up to be killed. Logan is sent undercover by the computer to find Sanctuary, a hideout where Runners and their allies are safe. However he quickly changes sides after learning the truth of their "perfect" world. If that sounds familiar it's because it's one of the most re-used stories in sci-fi (Minority Report, Equilibrium etc).

This movie is one of my personal favourite old sci-fis. I grew up watching it even with all the nudity but that was normal for a 70s sci-fi. I think I've seen this movie more times than some of my favourite films.

As well as actual nudity the costumes of the female cast in this movie don't leave much to the imagination including leading lady Jenny Agutter as Jessica 6 which my teen self is very grateful of.

A highlight of this movie is the lovely old man the protagonists meet outside the city played by Peter Ustinov.

A highlight of any sci-fi is normally the bad guys and this is no exception. I found it quite funny how fast Logan's ex-best friend, Francis 7 (Richard Jordan) went nuts.. and that was before he was even told about all the lies.

It's also quite funny how fast the situation with Box (the movies robot character, because what's a 70s sci-fi without a robot) escalates.

Every sci-fi fan should give this a watch if you haven't seen it already.

Elf

When Elf first came out no one, including me and even the people that made it thought it was going to be shit. We gave it a shot though, mainly because Will Ferrell was the lead. Man were we happy to be proven wrong, especially the people that made it. The movie has become one of the best Christmas movies ever as well as being one of the best comedies.

A big bonus of this movie for me is my favourite woman (after my girlfriend of course) in the world is in this, Zooey Deschanel. She's being all lovely 'n' stuff.

If you've not watched this yet or only seen it once years ago watch out for the legendary Peter Dinklage as raging writer Miles Finch.

Bad Santa

This is my favourite Christmas movie. It's just done so well, it keeps the grumpy people happy because it's about a crappy Christmas and it keeps the rest of us happy because the bad guy learns his lesson -thanks to an annoyingly unshakable little boy and a horny barmaid- and he makes up for his bad deeds.

The best thing about this movie is the late great Bernie Mac as the over the top mall security guard, Gin.

Lauren Graham is pretty damn hot in this, she's hot all the time but I love her style in this movie.

I actually really love this movie, I'd say it's one you'll either love or hate.

Hogfather

I'm a big Terry Pratchett fan and I was over the moon when I heard they were making a live action adaptation of one of the Discworld novels. I remember being like a kid on Christmas watching this the first time.

This book and the film would be nothing without Death and Albert (Death's butler). The Grim Reaper and his man-servant filling the role of the Hogfather (their version of Santa) and his little helper is one of the funniest things ever.

One of my favourite actors is Marc Warren and he is super-creepy as the manic assassin Mr Teatime. That's Te-ah-tim-eh by the way, not Tea time. ;-)

The hero of this film is the extremely awesome no-nonsense granddaughter of Death, Susan. She's played by the jaw-droppingly beautiful Michelle Dockery.

If you want to watch something different at Christmas and you love fantasy and get British humor then you should give this a watch if you haven't already.