We don't usually kick things off with news, but this is too cool to hide after the jump. One of our favourite labels, Anchor Bay, are releasing The Adventures of Blake and Mortimer on DVD next month. If you like Tintin then this is a must have collection. Pretty good timing too as there's a movie in the works with Rufus Sewell and Hugh Bonneville in the adventuring leads while Gong Li will play "a scientist whose intelligence is matched only by her icy beauty". The Yellow M will be an adventure/thriller centering on MI5 agent Blake and physicist Mortimer who fight evil in 1950s London... we can hardly wait. You can read more about Edgar P Jacob's romps here.
Now on with the reviews...
It's Easter and with so many of you intent on letting your genitals mingle with disastrous consequences we have to turn to something for the... ugh... children. Ice Age was a fun enough little romp from what we remember, but we were slightly baffled at seeing the characters thawed out for last year's Christmas lights on Regent Street. Must have been getting the little nippers hooked nice and early. But was a sequel necessary? Not according to Bradshaw:
This sequel is merely competent... It's been designed and marketed to capitalise on the first film's popularity; the spark of real magic isn't there.
Christopher agrees saying that the computer-generated art is a magical treat. The script is woeful. Quinn has a soft spot for global warming though and pops an extra star on proceedings:
There are some fantastic moments in this animated sequel, and just a bracing dash of the macabre to provoke smiles among the over-12s... I also enjoyed the comic-grotesque chorus of vultures that reprise a hearty "Food, Glorious Food" from Oliver! It is chucklesome and inventive stuff.
Or it could be that dementia is setting in.
Christ help us, but it's Ant & Dec after the jump...
Screw it - we're not even going to waste time on it. The Guardian review of Alien Autopsy is here, The Independent review is here and The Time review is here. It's a piece of shit and should be avoided like a coughing swan strapped with explosives.
Finally moving onto more grown up offerings we have The Squid and the Whale. Bradders loves it:
Exquisitely painful, root-canal-jabbingly uncomfortable, this black comedy from writer-director Noah Baumbach based on his parents' breakup is bittersweet without the sweet. It lets you know in a big way what people mean when they say divorce is "traumatic".
James Christopher agrees saying that Every frame is stained by truth, every twist hinges on a betrayal which is fine if you like that kind of thing we suppose. Anthony Quinn goes even further awarding the film five stars and we get the idea he'd give it six if he could:
Baumbach, who worked with Wes Anderson on the screenplay of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, has made a quantum jump here. He has entrusted this personal story to the right cast, and between them they have finessed one of the outstanding movies of the year.
Speaking of outstanding movies, it's almost a year ago since we saw Come and See but we're still talking about it. It's finally getting a decent release at the end of the month.
Meanwhile American 'cinema' is reaching for new lows according to the IMDB:
In what may be the first movie based on a pun, DreamWorks Animation is planning to produce a computer-animated movie based on the children's book, Punk Farm. The Jarrett J. Krosoczka's tale concerns a group of farm animals, a chicken, a cow, a goat and a sheep, who form an underground rock band and together travel to the first animal music festival — Livestock.
We'd have gone for the catchier title, For Fuck's Sake.
Things won't improve when we tell you that Jason 'I put the ham in' Statham continues to hold onto his crown as king of improbable plotted movies with Crank:
Chev is a hit man who freelances for a major West Coast syndicate. A run of the mill job the night before went awry: he let his target slip away. Now, he must keep moving to stay alive: the only way to prolong a poison from stopping his heart is to keep his adrenaline flowing.
'Dude! It's like Speed, but with a bald dude instead of a bus... it'll make billions!'
Don't forget that Sunday's Observer contains a free copy of Don't Look Now. Just stick it in the DVD player whenever you're tempted to go and risk seeing something new.
Trailer of the week is the quirky I am a Sex Addict. Which kind of fits in with this exclusive still from Spiderman 3:
