Highbrow/Lowbrow: John Carter

John Carter

Director: Andrew Stanton

Cast: Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins

12A, 132mins

Set in the late 1800s, John Carter (Kitsch), a veteran of the American Civil War, stumbles into a cave and is transported to the middle of another civil war on Mars, this time between the technologically advanced Redskins, with the tribal Tharks (green, four-armed ten foot tall aliens) stuck in the middle. The change in gravity gives Carter super-strength and agility, and he becomes a valuable war asset. Sadly, that’s about as intelligible as the plot gets. Fighting ensues.

Look Back: Metroid Prime (Wii)

Metroid Prime, originally released in 2002 for the Gamecube, was re-released as part of the 2009 Prime Trilogy pack, combining all three games. This great value package updated the first two installments with the innovative motion controls utilised in Corruption, along with improved graphics. Three years on, I still think it is the best game I have ever played.

Look Back: Valkyrie (2008)

Does anyone remeber Valkyrie? That World War Two flick where Tom Cruise sports a rockin' eyepatch? No?
I'm not surprised.

TV Review: Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy

Okay, here's something more contemporary, a review of the first episode of:

Noel Fieldings's Luxury Comedy, Channel 4/E4/4OD (pick your poison really)

“Luxury Comedy” is an apt title for, what feels like, a vanity project for Noel Fielding, one half of British comedy act, The Mighty Boosh. Fielding has stated he intended to “make something in the spirit of Spike Milligan or the Kenny Everett Show.” If you don’t know who those are, get on youtube now, but suffice to say it is an appeal to recreate old-school British absurdism, and to me this animation-comedy mash up most closely resembles “Monty Python’s Flying Circus.”

Review - Madworld

Madworld, Wii, released March 2009
Developer: Platinum games
Publisher: SEGA

I played Madworld back in the summer of 2009, when its lack of sales meant the price had dropped to £5. It's a fascinating peculiarity, and a number of things struck out to me, which I wrote about in this review originally for the website DooYoo.

First post

So here is my blog. My attempt to cast my writing out into the giant black hole of the internet. Woo.

The intention of this blog is to be a placeholder for the reviews and articles I have written in disparate places across the interwebs and improve my writing for the benfit of others.

The theme for this blog will be, as the title suggest, high brow commentaries of low brow work, and vice-versa, or just reviews of geek stuff I guess, like films, comics and video games. I dunno, whatever takes my fancy. Geez get off my back!!

Happy March 3rd...