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30 Days of Night is a 2007 horror film based on the comic book miniseries of the same name. The film is directed by David Slade and stars Josh Hartnett, Melissa George and Danny Huston.

De film vond ik maar matig. De graphic novel is zoals gewoonlijk stukken beter. Ik heb zowel de film als de graphic novel in mijn collectie.

Taken is a thriller/action film starring Liam Neeson, Famke Janssen and Maggie Grace. It is directed by Pierre Morel and written & produced by Luc Besson.

Wanted is a 2008 action film with the first half loosely based on the comic book miniseries of the same name by Mark Millar.

A man called “Mr. X” (David O’Hara) meets with a ballistics expert to find out who made a particular bullet for a “competitor”. Suddenly, a sniper shoots the ballistics expert in the head from a nearby building. Mr. X leaps through the window and shoots his opponents in mid-flight, killing them. Suddenly, a man named Cross (Thomas Kretschmann) fires a bullet through Mr. X’s head from the window of a house across town, killing him.

A young man named Wesley Gibson is introduced. He works at a dead-end job with an over-bearing boss. His live-in girlfriend is sleeping with his best friend, and his voice-over says that he is finding it difficult to care about anything. One night, at the pharmacy, Wesley meets a mysterious woman who tells him that his father was an elite assassin who had been killed the day before. Wesley does not believe this; he tells the woman that his father abandoned him a week after his birth. At that moment, Cross appears, gun in hand. The woman opens fire on Cross. Wesley and the woman escape from the resulting shoot-out and have a wild car chase in the streets of Chicago.

Wesley is brought to the headquarters of The Fraternity, a thousand-year-old secret society of assassins. The group’s leader, Sloan (Morgan Freeman), formally introduces Gibson to Fox (Angelina Jolie) the woman from the night before, and invites him to follow in his father’s footsteps as an assassin. Sloan tests Wesley by making him shoot the wings off a fly. When Wesley refuses, a gun is put to his head, triggering a panic attack. Wesley somehow manages to shoot the wings off several flies. Wesley wakes up the next day hoping that everything was a dream, but discovers his father’s gun (which he stashes in the toilet tank). He also discovers $3.6 million in his bank account. Wesley tells his boss to “Go fuck yourself!” and quits his job, knocking out his “friend’s” (the one who sleeps with Wesley’s girlfriend) teeth with his keyboard, with broken keys spelling out ‘fuck you’, as he leaves. Fox, who has been waiting for him outside, gives him a ride back to the Fraternity headquarters – an unassuming textile mill.

With his training completed, Wesley is given orders to kill people from the Loom of Fate, a loom that gives the names of the targets through a binary code hidden in weaving errors of the fabric. While on his first assignment, Wesley seems to refuse to kill his target. He recalls an earlier conversation with Fox in which he opined that it isn’t right to kill people without knowing anything about them or why they deserve to die. Fox then told him her life story. Fox’s father was a judge who was handling a sensitive case and the defendant had put a hit on him. One day a hired killer held the young girl at knife point as they waited for her father to return home. The killer then lit the father on fire as the young girl watched. He later branded his initials into her neck. Fox explained that the man who killed her father had been targeted by the Fraternity several weeks prior to the events of the story, but their assassin had failed to carry out his duty. Fox then tells Wesley The Fraternity’s idea, “Kill one and maybe save thousands”. Wesley bends a bullet trajectory to kill the target a moment after this recollection.

Wesley and Fox travel to the Fraternity’s original base of operations in Europe. The two easily capture Pekwarsky and force him to take them to Cross. The meeting leads to a confrontation between Wesley and Cross on a moving train. Fox steals a car and crashes it into the train, eventually causing the train to derail when it reaches a bridge over a deep ravine. Wesley is about to fall into the ravine before Cross catches his hand, saving his life. Wesley unhesitatingly shoots him. Before Cross dies, he tells Wesley that he is his real father and that the Fraternity had been lying to him. Fox confirms the truth and explains that Wesley was recruited because he was the only person that Cross wouldn’t kill. Fox then tells Wesley about the kill order on him and raises her weapon to shoot him. Wesley, however, shoots the glass underneath him and plunges into the river below.

Wesley awakes in an apartment across the street from his former apartment. He finds Pekwarsky there. Upon inspecting the apartment, he discovers it belonged to his father, who had been monitoring him his whole life. Pekwarsky hands Wesley a loom weaving and tells him to decode it. Wesley is shocked to discover Sloan’s name in the weaving. Pekwarsky explains that Cross went rogue due to this discovery. Since then Sloan has used false kill orders to direct the Fraternity as mere contract killers. Wesley realizes that Cross had never actually tried to kill him in their previous confrontations; he had been assassinating Fraternity members to keep them away from Wesley. Pekwarsky departs after giving Wesley plane tickets, stating that his father wished him a life free of violence. While exploring the apartment further, Wesley discovers a secret room containing all of his father’s weapons and maps. He even finds a supply of the Exterminator’s mini-bombs, realizing that the Exterminator had been working with his father. Wesley then devises a plan to take out Sloan and the Fraternity. Upon entering Sloan’s office, he finds himself surrounded by Fox and her fellow master assassins. Wesley tells them that Sloan is killing for profit by providing his killers with fraudulent kill orders. He then attempts to kill Sloan, but is disarmed by Fox.

Fox asks Sloan if this is true. Sloan then reveals that all of their names had come up in the weaving, and that he had merely acted to protect them. He then goes on to explain that if they truly believe in the code then they should take their lives right where they stand. Otherwise, they should kill Wesley. The other assassins decide to kill Wesley, but Fox turns on her fellow assassins. She “curves” a bullet to kill the assassins who had been standing in a circle, then throws her gun to Wesley before stepping back into the bullet. Sloan escapes. Wesley, penniless once more, does not know what to do with himself. While Wesley provides a voice-over, the audience sees a young man sitting in front of a computer in a cubicle much like Wesley did at the beginning of the film. The man types the name “Wesley Gibson” into Google and searches for it but does not have any results, as in the beginning of the film. Sloan appears and points a gun at the man’s head. At that moment, the man turns around and is revealed to be a decoy and looks down. Sloan also looks down and realizes he is standing on a marked spot. He then looks up and says, “Oh, fuck”, before Wesley, who is actually several miles away, shoots him in the head from the comfort of his own apartment, from the same window his father killed Mr. X from at the beginning of the movie..

The movie ends with Wesley breaking the fourth wall, addressing the audience and giving an overview of his last six weeks as an assassin saying, “This is me taking back control of my life. What the fuck have you done lately?”

Team America: World Police is a 2004 comedy film, written by Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Pam Brady and directed by Trey Parker, who are also known for the popular animated series South Park. The film is a parody of romantics and their associated cliches and stereotypes, the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the resulting war, with particular humorous emphasis on the global implications of American politics, unilateralism and jingoism. The title of the movie itself is derived from domestic and international political criticisms that the U.S. frequently and autonomously tries to “police the world“.

The film, which features a cast entirely composed of marionettes, focuses on a fictional team of political paramilitary policemen known as “Team America: World Police,” who attempt to save the world from a violent terrorist plot led by Kim Jong-il. The film was primarily inspired by Thunderbirds, a popular British television show created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson which also featured an all-marionette cast, though Stone and Parker were not fans of the show.^[1] Like Parker and Stone’s South Park, the film was subject to much critical and political debate, receiving praise for its humor and satire while also drawing controversy for its simplification of current issues. The film also drew controversy due to an extended sex scene between two of the film’s puppet characters.

Vandaag van Bram een nieuw spel gekregen:

Chaos League is a fantasy-based sports managament game developed by Cyanide and published by Digital Jesters in 2004. The game is a fantasy spin-off of American Football, similar to Games Workshop’s Blood Bowl, including fantasy races, magic and the ability to kill members of the opposing team. The game has also spawned an expansion entitled Choas League: Sudden Death in 2005. The game also features elements of black humour like obscure character designs and comical commentary.

Ik ken dit spel al een tijdje. Vroeger heb ik zelfs nog een paar keer table-top Blood Bowl gespeeld. Het spel is in het begin niet echt makkelijk, dus lees zeker eerst de tutorial. De turn-based functionaliteit kan helpen je eerst wat voeling te geven met het spel. Het zijn vooral de zwarte humor en het geweld dat het spel leuk maken. (Denk bijvoorbeeld aan de fun van Battle Chess .)

Hier is de trailer. Hoera voor de cheerleaders! Je zou zelfs een beetje compassie krijgen met het zwijn.

 Je kan je spelers doperen maar pas op voor controles. Het spel raadt doping af (humor) of ze waarschuwen je in ieder geval dat je niet mag gepakt worden, want dan gaat je speler naar de bank. Als dat gebeurt, kan je je spelpot gebruiken om de scheidsrechter om te kopen. Als dat niet werkt kan je beroep doen op je hooligans. Dit kost allemaal geld waarvoor je je “managementkwaliteiten” best kan gebruiken.

Ik kijk vooral uit naar de multiplayer via internet. Cheers Bram.

Black Cat, White Cat  is a Yugoslavian Romantic comedy film directed by Emir Kusturica in 1998. It won the Silver Lion for best direction at the Venice Film Festival.

The literal translation of the title is actually “Black cat, white tomcat”. The movie characters speak in Romani, Serbian and Bulgarian – frequently switching between them.

Music for 18 Musicians is a seminal work of musical minimalism composed by Steve Reich during 1974-1976. Its world premiere was on April 24, 1976 at Town Hall, New York. Following this, a recording of the piece was released by ECM Recordings. A recording of the opening sections is on Steve Reich’s official website.

Music for 18 Musicians was written for a cello, violin, two clarinets (both players double on bass clarinet), four pianos, three marimbas, two xylophones, a metallophone, maracas, and four women’s voices. In the introduction to the score, Reich mentions that although the piece is named Music for 18 Musicians, it is not necessarily advisable to perform the piece with that few players due to the extensive doubling it requires.

Hier kan je de trailer zien.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Hierop hebben we lang op zitten wachten. Wel, ik vond de film heel goed. Ik hield de nieuwste Star Wars trilogie in het achterhoofd, dus ik wist dat ik niet meer het simpele recht toe, recht aan stuntwerk en special effects moest verwachten. Toch is het hier gelukt om het juiste evenwicht te houden. Indi springt nog steeds van de ene rijdende vrachtwagen in de andere, maar iets moeizamer. Dat hebben Lucas en Spielberg perfect in de film verwerkt en er zelfs een thema van gemaakt. De achteruitgang in ‘powah‘ wordt goed gemaakt door zijn ’wits‘.

De special effects mogen dan de laatste twintig jaar zijn geëvolueerd, ik vind het knap hoe Spielberg en Lucas zich hier hebben weten in te houden. Hum… een vliegende schotel die een halve berg meeneemt of een nucleaire test die een frigo een paar kilometer ver slingert? Wel… het heeft zijn functie en plaats in de film. Ga binnenkort maar eens naar de nieuwe Mummy kijken. Hier draait het alleen maar om special effects en hoe meer hoe liever.

Het onderwerp, de aliens is evenzeer goed gekozen. Een beetje vergezocht? Toen Orson Welles in 1938 een aanval van marsmannetjes in zijn show ‘War of the Worlds‘ via de radio uitzond waren er naar schatting 1.7 miljoen amerikanen er mee weg en 1.2 miljoen waren effectief bang.

Als je in de wiki ‘UFO‘ of ‘extraterrestrial life‘ opzoekt, zal je zien hoeveel mensen er effectief mee bezig zijn. Het geloof in het buitenaardse wezens zit diep. Dit zijn ook favoriete onderwerpen van zowel Spielberg als Lucas. Als er dus iemand is die er mee weg kan om het in een nieuwe film te verwerken, dan zijn het juist die twee. Het feit dat de nuchtere Indiana Jones er mee wordt geconfronteerd geeft hen de kans om het nog aannemelijker en aantrekkelijker te maken.

Ten slotte, de mengelmoes van ‘Cold War‘, ’conspiracy theories‘, spionage en paranormale krachten geven veel kleur aan de film. En dat allemaal in het meer dan leuke karakter van Irina Spalko, gespeeld door mijn een van mijn favoriete actrices Cate Blanchett.

Dan in Real Life is a 2007 American dramedy film directed by Peter Hedges and starring Steve Carell and Juliette Binoche.

Ik heb mezelf nu ook de OST van deze film aangeschaft.