Lord of the Fans

The 28 Films: What Happened?

Ask pretty much anyone and, unless they have awful taste in movies, they will, undoubtedly, think that Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later is a great film: classic, you might say. And it couldn’t really be much better in the intelligent shock / gore department, could it? The brit film is a landmark in horror and features some of the most disturbing horror / suspense scenes in recent years, bar none.
Why, with that in mind, did 28 Weeks Later end up being so farcical and such a waste of time? What happened to Danny Boyle’s vision and turned it on its head with such avengeance? Stranger, still, in this tale of woe, is the fact that the sequel to the glorious 28 Days managed to be both a boring and high-octane disaster. One that made little sense and was dragged out, yet ruthlessly fast. While it’s true that the speed of the living dead gave the first film that extra identifiable edge that made it stand out from all the other walking-dead horror movies of the last twenty or so years, anyone would agree that Weeks took it too far and ruined the concept. Boyle just got greedy, it would seem.
(I think this DVD is going straight back into my storage unit)
In the sequel, the zombies are nothing less than Olympic standard runners. From the very outset it would seem that there is no hope for any of the survivors…in fact, if I were a survivor, or an actor, even, I would probably have just given up five minutes in and said “this is just silly, surely you don’t expect the public to think THIS is good?”
Which brings us to another thing, which would be the writing… The writing left a lot to be desired, and that, combined with the frantic, nauseating editing style, makes the whole thing seem like it’s just trying too hard. Which is a shame, because this sequel really could have gone somewhere if they’d just given it a bit more thought to begin with.

Spooks

Britain has long been known for its affection towards criminal and mystery stories that are particularly famous in London – starting from the ages of the foggy London nights in the 17th century till nowadays. This is the reason why productions in these genres are the most successful British television shows and are getting more and more anticipated around the world.

Such a production is the show Spooks (known also as MI – 5 – this is the title the show was aired under in the US and France) which became quite a successful product of BBC One and is currently being followed by millions of spectators worldwide. After recently digging out the season 1 DVDs from my chest of drawers i’m experiencing a renewed love for the show. The production was created by the writer David Walstencroft and was produced by the independant company Kudos specially for BBC One. The show makers were able to attract quite famous stars and this significantly contributed to the overall series response ( such actors were Hugh Laurie, Tim McInnerny and Bruce Payne).

The main genre of the show is the spy and mystery with quite a lot of drama features. The story is focused on a MI – 5 (British intelligence secret services) team and the missions and tasks it has to perform. Situated in London, in the famous building of offices called simply the Grid, the team operates on highly classified objectives. The highly secured headquarters of these investigation and action services have even attracted visitors who have watched the show and then have tried to really see whether the real place exists as described in the show.

Spooks enjoyed quite an international and national success and won the BAFTA awards because of its outstanding plot and cast performance. Currently the programmes is still aired by several channels in the US, Canada and Europe (especially in France where the show has a significant international recognition) and is quite popular among the people from all ages.

The Eagle

Definitely the disappearance of the Ninth Legion of the Roman Empire in the lands of Scotland during the Roman expansions in the North, is one of the most interesting topics for moviemakers and writers both documentary and fictious. This year a great British production on the same topic ( Centurion ) was released with great success among fans and quite surprisingly another one is on the way – The Eagle.

The director of the movie, Kevin McDonald, is quite famous for working on other quite successful superproductions – The Last King of Scotland and State of Play. His work, even observed through the available trailer, is quite fascinating and the story he is directing is truely a great mixture of historic facts, legends and the understandings of the times during the Roman invasions in the land of Scots. The actors main actors in the movie are also quite remarkable as names – Channing Tatum ( the Roman Marcus Aquila) who played the main character in G.I Goe and Dear John and Jamie Bell ( the British slave Esca) famous from the total blockbusters “Jumper”and “Defiance”.

The plot tells the specific story of Marcus and Esca who travel to the lands of the Scots after the disappearance of the Ninth Legion. Marcus’father had been leading the legion and his son feels the need to find him and resolve the mystery about what really happened with the Roman soldiers and their leader. The movie would focus on the particular emotions of each of the main characters and would describe the historic reality of those foggy times of war. Marcus would confront the hostile Scots, try to discover and give honour to his lost father and return the golden symbol of the legion back to Rome. It is his face which adorns the Posters for this movie.

The perfect plot, the director and the famous cast are making this movie one of the most anticipated movies with historical background in the UK and definitely after its release in 2011, the film would be among the top British productions since the beginning of the 21st century.