Drona

Bollywood Superhero Fantasy!

Sounds quite original huh? Well yes and no, it is original, but it's still got that popular fantasy style which will endear it to viewers of not only Bollywood movies, but also the who movie fanbase (as long as you like fantasy).

Drona's life changes dramatically when he realises that he is no ordinary person, he learns to realise that he is the only person in the world that can stop the ever proceding apocalypse... Follow his fantastical journey which will bear a healthy resemblance to Jim Henson's Labyrinth.

What immediately struck me was that this movie is exceedingly beautiful, wonderful colours and a treat for your eyes. There is some great action in there too.

I really enjoyed the movie, and hope that my readers will also have the same enjoyment that I partook of!

It's the first Bollywood movie I have seen, and it was a great experience, so I hope to break into the genre a bit more in the future so stay posted!

Hey also watch out for the little cameo of an Indian Gandalf the White :)

Movie Rating: 9.25/10

Coming soon: City of Ember, and Mutant Chronicles

The Boy In The Striped Pajamas

This film is a pure classic!

Alright, if there's one film that you have to go watch in the cinema, this will be the one... you will be thinking a totally different way when you come out!

The holocaust as seen through the eyes of an innocent 8 year-old German boy, as his father is given care over a concentration camp, he starts to learn the truth about this cruel world!

From the producer of Harry Potter: David Heyman. Starring David Thewlis

As good as you could have expected from a good friend of Guillermo Del Toro, this movie depicts childhood innocence in a much simular fashion as Del Toro did in Pan's Labyrinth, and I must say is so emotional at times, but yet relentlessly cruel...

But I can hardly do justice in writing about it! Two words: Watch IT!

Movie Rating: 9.5/10

Puppetry

There are a number of practices we use in the filming industry, one is to simply shoot the whole movie with video cameras, which is the bulk of all movies; another is to create computer animations, such as 3D animations (Toy Story, Cars) or Anime (like the Japanese films); Then there's stop-motion animation, which uses some kind of mechanical puppets and take a sequence of photos to create a full moving picture; but what I'm really interested in today is another filming practice which we call Puppetry!

Puppetry is the one practice that I believe will never die... looking at Jim Henson's Labyrinth, I believe that still competes with the graphics and all that we use 20 years later... this movie is 20 years old... and to me it looks as relevant today as any other movie that you will see! Tell me if you think I'm wrong!

These are a couple points in which I believe puppetry excels in:

• You merely have to create the perfect puppet and film it... no messing around with CGI that may or may not look right.
• Puppets are real objects and thus interact correctly with their surroundings, which is very hard to do with CGI

OK, here are a few examples of good puppets:

• Obviously the Muppets immediately spring into mind, there's some pretty good designs amongst them
• Yoda from Star Wars: way better than the new CGI version found in the latter films!
• Treebeard from Lord of the Rings: when they couldn't use CGI for him, they had to go with puppetry, which worked far better!
• All around the original Star Wars trilogy you will find various

Well perhaps Jim Henson's original ideas evolved since then- We now have a variation called Animatronics, which seems very likely to start to take over CGI as first choice in creating creatures. There is an interesting post that will give detail into how animatronics works... read here!

Del Toro has announced that he intends to use animatronics over CGI while adapting The Hobbit, which was widely used in Pan's Labyrinth and caused a stunning effect!

So it seems that puppetry has had a big boost around the time of Star Wars and Labyrinth... and has laid dormant until Del Toro has recently picked it up, proving it's potential in a modern day audience with Pan's Labyrinth... looking forward to more development in the puppetry industry!

Puppetry will never die!

Featured Actor: Doug Jones

Doug Jones

The famed American actor has acted in over 50 roles, and still holds much potential!

Well Known for his roles as Abe Sapien in Hellboy, El Fauno in Pan's Labyrinth, and as The Silver Surfer in Marvel's Rise of the Silver Surfer.

Distinguishing caracteristics are that he often acts under heavy make-up, and is very agile in his acting roles!

In Jones' most recent movie: Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, he played 3 characters (Abe Sapien, The Angel of Death, and The Chaimberlain).

Jones is currently anticipating reprising his role as The silver surfer in next year's Silver Surfer. So another movie for you marvel fans to keep in your diaries!

The Orphanage

The Orphanage has recently come out on DVD in the UK and is currently available in the USA, so I once again want to draw my readers' attentions to this true masterpiece.

Rated by most reviews 5 stars ***** and by the rest 4 stars **** this film is the second Pan's Labyrinth (horror version) and should certainly not be missed!

Like Pan's Labyrinth, The Orphanage is very pictorally thought provoking, and has certainly hit the mark again!

Produced by Guillermo Del Toro and directed by JA Bayona. Starring Belen Rueda and Geraldine Chaplain.

Often rated as one of the most scary films ever, this is a great film for Horror fans, but at the same time it is really thought provoking!

Watch it!

Movie Rating: 10/10 (there's only about 7 films in my estimation that should ever get 10/10)