Devil (2010)

I like M Night Syamalan despite the universal hatred poured on him when he failed to deliver I-see-dead-people-like shock endings in his movies subsequent to Sixth Sense. But who wants to be constantly shocked? People just want a good movie based on a good plot, delivered in good style. I liked The Village, the :Lady in the Water, The Happening. I found them to be original, intriguing and importantly, compelling; it made me stay till the end. It was not a rehash of some half remembered TV series, nor was it inspired from video games. It was a stand alone. Which is why I'm really looking forward to his latest written effort here. 

The Skinny: 5 office workers stuck in an elevator discovers that one of them is the devil. Horror ensues. 

The Helmer: The Brothers Dowdle

The Writer: M Night Shyamalan - The Last Airbender (2010), The Happening (2008), The Lady in the Water (2006), The Village (2004), Signs (2002), Unbreakable (2000), Stuart Little (1999), Sixth Sense (1999), Wide Awake (1998), Playing with Anger (1992)

The Casts: Chris Messina, Geoffrey Arend, Caroline Dhavernas, Matt Craven

The Prediction: This is the first of the installment of Shyamalan's Night Chronicles, a series of stories penned by the man himself. It is good.

Official Site and Trailer

Judge Dredd: Retry/Remake/Remodelled/Rejoice!

I'm a big Judge Dredd fan eversince the 70s when it was featured in the excellent weekly the British action comic 2000 AD (which later become 2000 AD and Tornado when it was bought over). Judge Dredd was the ultimate lawman of the 21st century, casting a very big shadow over criminals in Mega City One, the future version of New York City. He was a righteous dude who kicked ass big time, hovering along with his huge computerized bike, blasting away perps and delivering one-liners way before Arnie made it cool to kick and one-line. He epitomized the law in all its soul-less-ness. And it was coooool. So it was with great disappointment when the Judge Dredd film failed to do justice with its Sly Stallone version; it was okay, but it wasnt really Judge Dredd, was it? He took off his helmet, something which the real Judge Dredd has never ever done. (except maybe when he goes to the loo - even then its questionable whether he does that either). So yeah, the film version of his super cop was not accepted fully. 

Until possibly now: bleedingcool.com reports a remake of the series with Karl Urban donning the helmet and mounting the bike. This is definitely a good thing as 28 Days Later / The Beach writer Alex Garland will have writing creds for this. If they do it well, we can expect a whole new range of characters not just from the Judge Dredd universe, but also from the 2000 AD comic universe, as they're pretty cool, like the fighting robots known as the ABC Warriors, as these guys pre-date the Transformers by several light years. So yeah. Looking forward to this.

Latest Thor Pics!!

I'm not a big superhero-to-movies fan, but I am getting some kinda buzz with some new releases of Thor's pics on the net. So check out slashfilm.com pics and links here and also over here. The first pic sees Thor looking buff-and-messed-up having a strong grip on his hammer (that doesn't sound quite right, does it?), and the other pics shows the denizens of arsgaard with Anthony Hopkins looker dapper in his buff Odin-suit and Thor in his super-hero outfit. Its all good ... 

Previous review:here.