Wow! What a change in director makes to a Bond film. After reinvigorating (again) the never-ending franchise with Casino Royale, established action director Martin Campbell decided to skip on directing the direct sequel, Quantum of Solace (probably because he wanted to go out with another high) with the powers that be handing over the reins to a more art-house director Marc Forster. Forster has relatively little experience with complicated action pictures (after all his filmography includes Monsters Ball, Finding Neverland and Stranger Than Fiction) but I guess if any director was offered a Bond film, it would be an incredible opportunity to pass up. So with limited experience in action pictures, what happens to the one thing that is an essential Bond ingredient? That’s right. It doesn’t quite deliver. In the Quantum of Solace, the action is fast but it isn’t unique or thrilling enough to step up to the quality of Casino Royale for example. So with the action scenes not quite up to par, what else could be missing? Well we also lose the Bond trademark sense of style and humour, not to mention a truly memorable villain. However will all that said, it’s still a reasonably fun way to spend 106 minutes and Daniel Craig continues to fill the Bond shoes perfectly. Let’s hope with the new film, they get a more established action director in and give Bond back some of his personality.

Sex Drive

Yes Hollywood keeps churning them out and yes, they continue to be as predictable and trite as you’d expect. In fact, ever since the original American Pie (which by the way is nearly 10 years old!) Hollywood has tried to capitalize on the teen sex comedy, each and every year. Sure they were doing it before American Pie, but at this rate? Anyway, Sex Drive is essentially American Pie without the humour, characters or that endearing sense of innocence (well at least for a teen sex comedy). It attempts to be hip to the now-generation using instant messaging and text speak (on screen no-less and during the credits) and the aforementioned attributes but it tries far too hard and stumbles more than it hits. The only redeeming feature is the ending and Seth Green playing an Amish mechanic of sorts. Oh and James Marsden is quite good except that he is essentially playing a carbon copy of Steve Stifler. But hey, if we’re judging this in regards to other teen sex comedies it’s ever so slightly above average.

The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Okay so the fans decided than Ang Lee’s 2003 version didn’t have enough ‘smash’ in it so out goes any real depth to the character and in comes a more straightforward action picture. And you know what? It works on a largely generic level. Nothing is original here but the Hulk smashes things a great deal, Norton fills the Bruce Banner roll comfortably and Liv Tyler sure looks perty. Tim Roth plays the baddie as you’d expect and Hooverdust hall-of-famer-for-most-wooden-actor-ever William Hurt continues to sleepwalk through his performance as a wax museum figurine. Essentially, what the fans wanted they more-or less got. My highlight (and for many others) was the Tony Stark (aka Ironman) cameo at the end because let’s face it the best superhero movies this year by far are Ironman and The Dark Knight. But The Incredible Hulk can sit quite proudly at number 3.

Oz (TV)

Well I made it out alive throughout the entire series on DVD, relatively unshanked. Seasons 1 – 3 were the standouts, season 4 going on a little too long and seasons 5 and 6 there for essentially rounding out the character arcs. But it’s still HBO and it’s still far better than any free-to-air drama has to offer. I see it as more of an experience than just a TV show because when you get hooked on it, it crawls underneath your skin and leaves you shaken for days afterwards. I can’t think of many TV show or films that do as good of a job as Oz in that regards. Again not the faint of heart and it helps to balance out all the darkness with something light afterwards. Trust me on that one if you get to watching the series on DVD.

Entourage (Season 5) (TV)

So closes another season of Entourage and at number 5, we are starting to see more than a few cracks on the writing. Not that it’s ever uninteresting but it just wasn’t a dynamite year for the boys. Some choice cameos though (Gus Vant Sant, Martin Scorsese, and Jamie-Lynn Sigler (Meadow from The Sopranos)) and the mushrooms episode was definitely the standout. All that said, I still think you should watch this show with an adult beverage or several in hand because that’s what our main characters under up doing in every episode anyway. Oh and it makes it ten times funnier than it should be. I think the number of seasons are limited but another 2 or 3 wouldn’t hurt.

World of Music

Really digging the following releases:

• Fuck Stereogum! Devendra Banhart’s new album ‘Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon’ is quite excellent if you’re in the mood for it.
• Liam Finn ‘I’ll Be Lightning’. Saw him perform most of the songs from his solo release before it’ was released. Now that it is, it’s a solid effort from the bearded little man who can.
• Whitley ‘The Submarine’. The 22 year old from my hometown is playing around the country this month and is well worth the $13 or so for the gig. ‘The Submarine’ has that indie country/great laid back feel to it that should garner him a new well deserved audience.
• Josh Ritter ‘The Historical Conquests Of Josh Ritter’. His 2006 record ‘The Animal Years’ is one of my favourite albums of the last five years so naturally the expectations were quite high. This one doesn’t quite reach the greatness but there’s still moments of genius throughout.

Upcoming Gigs:

• The Bamboos @ The Epsy (w/ Jackson Jackson, Labjacd, Bluejuice & heaps more apparently) (7th Sep). Tonight should bring some serious funk!
• Silversun Pickups @ Ding Dong (16th Sep). The album is great, the gig sold out extremely fast and it’s at Ding Dong so it should be a very, very awesome night.
• Parklife @ Birrarung Marr (22nd Sep). International DJ’s galore and I’m shooting this one for a mag. Bring it!
• Built to Spill @ The Corner (29th Dec). Falls sideshow brilliance to be expected. I’m sure more gigs will pop up before this one but I wanna get my tickets early (on sale 21st Sep).

World of Film

Yet to see The Bourne Ultimatum. Will do when time permits. Here’s a few notable screenings of late:

• Inland Empire – Keeping my fanboy nature aside, this really is the most definitive work Lynch has ever done. It’s epic, at times beyond comprehension but just so damn intriguing that it mezmorizes for days even weeks later.
• Sunshine – Ambitious considering the budget and for the most part, one of the most exciting sci-fi movie’s in years. The last third of the film is a slight letdown when it goes into Freddy Kruger territory, but I can forgive Boyle for doing such a damn fine job in the genre.
• Halloween (2007) – This is a review based on that ‘workprint’ version that was apparently all over the Internet so it’s not the one that ended up in theatres. I didn’t actually hate Zombie’s first two flicks so I was wondering why he’d go do a remake (or as he likes to put it, a ‘re-imagining’) of a classic rather than develop from an original script. Bad decision because this really is pretty terrible and adds NOTHING to the already dead series. By humanising Michael Myers it takes away any of the ‘unknown’ factors that makes the original so scary and effective and for the second half of the film he’s almost done a Gus Vant Sant ala ‘Psycho’ and gone for a shot-for-shot remake of the original. Meh indeed!…

World of TV

• Entourage season 4 – There were a few episodes in the middle there which seemed to drop in quality but the shows that lead up the finale are pure gold!
• Flight of the Conchords – My new favourite show. Their manager is pure David Brent but makes it his own. Business Time is my theme song for the rest of the year.
• The IT Crowd season 2 – Season 2 has just aired in the UK and it’s very funny, perhaps a step up from season 1. Yes please!
• Enough Rope – The Tania Major interview. The voice we have needed for soooooooooo long in this country. One of Denton’s best interviews.
• The Human Mind – Perhaps more of a simplified approach to explaining the human mind to cater for all audience types but still fascinating to watch.

World of Geek

• iPod touch – So it’s an iPhone without the phone part? Fair enough. But only 16Gb of flash memory? Dammit!!! I would have liked 40Gb or 60Gb at least! And even though the iPod Classic is now beefed up to a 160Gb model, it’s still a hard drive people! And we all know how reliable those hard drive based iPods are!
• Carrier Pidgeon Dave Werner’s podcasts – The young, talented creative director from San Francisco is not only a true inspiration to young design students but for anyone who encounters design and multimedia on a daily basis.
• Get This – The Triple M (!) podcast hosted by Tony Martin and Ed Kavalee (also one of the regular actors on Thank God You’re Here), with contributions from Richard Marsland. These guys are film geeks through and through (especially Martin) so it’s a great listen on the way to or from work.

Oh and expect this blog to change any day now. Frankly I’m sick of it since Facebook has replaced the need to post pointless crap. But don’t remove me from your RSS feeds just yet :)