Australia Movie

Latest Baz Luhrmann's movie an Australia saga featuring Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman will start being filmed in Australia soon. She's supposed to be an English aristocrat who inherits a cattle ranch in Australia and the cattle driver helps her to keep it before the WW II.
More details at:

http://www.australiamovie.net

3:10 to Yuma - First Official Photos

First two official photos from 3:10 to Yuma, a western with Russell Crowe and Christian Bale are now available at:

http://www.firstshowing.net/2007/04/18/actual-official-first-310-to-yuma-photos/

Imagine Batman and Maximus with beards and longer hair, one thinner and the other slightly rounder. This should be one interesting movie to watch!

Movie Review: Blades of Glory

*** MIGTH CONTAIN SPOILERS! ***

Featuring: Will Ferrell, Jon Heder, William Fichtner, Craig T. Nelson

Genre: dumb comedy

I’m gonna skip the rest because there is nothing much to tell and I will move straight to comments which I’m gonna keep short too. Even since before watching the movie I had decided not to comment on the skating part because as a skating fan I was probably going to be too harsh if I did and I knew you couldn’t really present real skating in a movie, especially a Hollywood made one. Apparently more recently they can’t produce a story and acting either. I’m sorry Sasha Cohen had to make her screen debut in such lame movie, though was seeing her act like a hysterical fan was kinda fun. As for the rest I don’t know who would laugh at such a movie, maybe only if you had a lobotomy first or you’re over ninety and senile.

Rating: 1/5

Movie Review: Wild Hogs

*** MIGTH CONTAIN SPOILERS! ***

Featuring: Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence, William H. Macy, Ray Liotta, Marisa Tomei

Genre: comedy

Plot: four middle age friends go on a bike ride towards the Mexican border

Acting: was a bit hard to notice because of the multitude of cheap gags

Drama: middle age crisis + a biker gang who’s set to no good… + one’s a dentist, one’s ruined, one is house wife, and one has no sex life

Action: bike rides, gang fights

Funny: it tries a bit too much… puerile jokes

Visuals: nothing spectacular

Soundtrack: don’t remember

Comments: If it hadn’t been for Ray Liotta staring in it I wouldn’t have bothered. He delivered, portraying the usual bad intense villain messed up in the head he’s known for. Reminded me a bit of Hando aka Russell Crowe in Romper Stomper only with hair. The ending was a bit disappointing, he gave up to easily.

Rating: 3/5

Russel Crowe montage

An elegant montage of Russell Crowe's photos morphing one into another made with the occasion of his recent birthday can be found at:

http://russelliracrowe.uw.hu/birthday_gift/birthday_gift.html

Alexei Yagudin Interview

Golden Skate has a long and very detailed interview with Alexei Yagudin. In her well known style Kathleen Bangs makes him talk about his life during the past year or so, the move back to St. Petersburg, his skating, the shows, involvement in local business, TV appearances, vacation and future plans. One of the best news is that his gorgeous triple Axel is back, just in time for the Japan Open which will take place at the end of April.

For more details read the interview here:

http://www.goldenskate.com/articles/2006/040807.shtml

Movie Review: Ghost Rider

*** MIGTH CONTAIN SPOILERS! ***

Genre: sci fi

Plot: inspired from the Ghost Rider comics – imagine Faust in the future… not much of a plot though

Acting: Sam Elliot was good… but when all you like in a movie is the graveyard caretaker who has like 10 lines that says something about the movie as a whole

Drama: well, yeah, it’s unavoidable once the devil sticks its tail in it

Action: the second main character is a bike so of course there’s gotta be some action… actually watching the bike going up and down the sky scrapper was kinda cool

Funny: Nicholas Cage with hair… kidding… but Ghost Rider when it’s all on fire is hilarious, even with the sound off

Visuals: good CGI, the rest wasn’t so great. My favorite image is this one

Soundtrack: don’t remember

Comments: It’s one of the lamest comics adaptation for the big screen I’ve ever seen. Nicholas Cage gives his regular dumb clueless look, Eva Mendes is hot but not much else, her or a ditzy blonde wouldn’t have made much difference, Peter Fonda must be really short on cash to have accepted a part that he doesn’t even pull off well, unlike him the other bad guy was at least creepy. Liked Sam Elliot as I’ve said it already.

Rating: 2/5

Movie review: 300

*** MIGTH CONTAIN SPOILERS! ***

Genre: historic

Plot: the battle from Thermopile when Persians attacked Sparta - as far as I remember history wasn't twisted much

Acting: not bad, hated the King's voice but the Queen was cool

Drama: and some... conflicts all over the place

Action: lots of battle scenes, plenty of gore if you're into it but the visual were distracting enough not to make anyone puck

Funny: a few sarcastic lines

Visuals: very good, outstanding even, beautifully filmed, fit for a historic movie meant to give it grace and greatness... some scenes reminded me of Matrix in a way

Soundtrack: appropriate for most of the scenes though the final lament sounded like total rip off of some other song

Comments: If you like 300 (ok, maybe not 300, just 30 and the rest could have been computer generated as well) packages of meat in loin clothes with Superman red capes, metal buckets on their heads and oversized pot lids then you'll think you died and went to heaven. I heard people comparing it to Gladiator, hmm, my pick would be Maximus, the Spartan Queen, the visuals from 300 without the gore, actually without everything on the screen, only the idea of how they were made, and the Gladiator soundtrack.

Rating: 4/5 but I won't be seeing it again

Movie review: TMNT

*** MIGTH CONTAIN SPOILERS! ***

Genre: animation – need I say more? Obviously aimed at under 5 years olds as far as complexity is concerned

Plot: crossover between The Mummy, Stargate and The Fifth Element

Acting: the voices were rather well done

Drama: fallout between brothers – Moses should sue the screenplay writers for copyright infringement

Action: fights, explosions, etc. Batman should sue them too.

Funny: occasionally… not enough

Visuals: very good, better than expected for an animated movie, too bad humans still look like toys… the turtles look like Chipendales members and what happened to April’s yellow suit?

Soundtrack: not bad, even fitting at times

Comments: As someone who was watching the ninja turtles religiously every evening I was expecting more from this movie. I used to like April and imagine being in her place even if she had short hair, but I wouldn’t trade places with this one even if you paid me. I also missed Shredder, he used to be the first bad guy I liked, of course that changed after I got to see it in colors and realized he didn’t have a yellow helmet and he was too blueish for my taste. And the turtles used to be more fun.

Rating: 3/5 with indulgence

2007 World Swimming Championships - Day 8

Men's 50m Backstroke
1. ZANDBERG Gerhard RSA 24.98
2. RUPPRATH Thomas GER 25.20
3. TANCOCK Liam GBR 25.23

Women's 50m Breaststroke
1. HARDY Jessica USA 30.63
2. JONES Leisel AUS 30.70
3. KIRK Tara USA 31.05

Men's 400m Individual Medley
1. PHELPS Michael USA 4:06.22 WR
2. LOCHTE Ryan USA 4:09.74
3. MARIN Luca ITA 4:09.88

Women's 50m Freestyle
1. LENTON Lisbeth AUS 24.53
2. ALSHAMMAR Therese SWE 24.62
3. VELDHUIS Marleen NED 24.70

Men's 1500m Freestyle
1. SAWRYMOWICZ Mateusz POL 14:45.94
2. PRILUKOV Yury RUS 14:47.29
3. DAVIES David GBR 14:51.21

Women's 400m Individual Medley
1. HOFF Katie USA 4:32.89 WR
2. MARTYNOVA Yana RUS 4:40.14
3. RICE Stephanie AUS 4:41.19

Men's 4 x 100m Medley Relay
1. Australia AUS 3:34.93
2. Japan JPN 3:35.16
3. Russia RUS 3:35.51

And this concludes World Swimming Championships for 2007.

Only one silver medal for Pieter van den Hoogenbad, a 6th place in 100m backstroke. Oh well...