Geek of Oz

For the first time in the cinematic history of Spider-Man, our friendly neighbourhood hero is unmasked and no longer able to separate his normal life from the high-stakes of being a Super Hero. When he asks for help from Doctor Strange the stakes become even more dangerous, forcing him to discover what it truly means to be Spider-Man EXCLUSIVELY IN CINEMAS FROM BOXING DAY, 2021 #SpiderManNoWayHome

Episode 24! Stu and Billy get a little mystical this week as they watch Doctor Strange ! Doctor Strange  is the latest superhero film from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and is the fourteenth film in said universe. The film is directed by Scott Derrickson ( The Exorcism of Emily Rose, The Day the Earth Stood Still) Benedict Cumberbatch ( Sherlock, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Star Trek Into Darkness ) stars as Dr Stephen Strange, a world renowned surgeon whose career ends after a tragic car accident. When traditional medicine fails him, he looks for healing and hope in a mysterious enclave run by the Ancient One. Before long, Strange has to make a choice between his life of fame and fortune, or defending the world with his new abilities. It also stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as Karl Mordo, Rachel McAdams as Christine Palmer, Benedict Wong as Master Wong, Mads Mikkelsen as Kaecilius, and Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One. This week discussion of the film is spoiler heavy so be w...

There’s no doubt that director Steve McQueen makes confronting and thought-provoking cinema - his first two films tackled some pretty intense subject matter: the IRA hunger strikes (Hunger) and the perils of sex addiction (Shame). For his third film, 12 Years a Slave, McQueen adapts Solomon Northup’s 1853 account of his abduction and sale into slavery. This film not only lays bare the machinery of slavery, it examines the people who engaged with it. Only a few films each year leave a lasting impression on me and this film is certainly one of them. 12 Years a Slave could very well become one of the definitive films addressing slavery.  Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a free black man. He’s married with two children and is an accomplished violinist. After accepting an offer to play violin with a group of travelling performers, he is abducted, imprisoned and shipped away in the dead of night. Solomon is plunged into a life that he couldn’t possibly have fathomed; one of...

Author David Mitchell once charitably said of the film adaptation of his novel Cloud Atlas, “any adaptation is a translation … and I believe a degree of reinterpretation for the new language may be not only inevitable but desirable…”. So indeed were my sentiments about Peter Jackson’s stripping back of (and in many places adding to) The Lord of the Rings books to create his masterful trilogy concluded some eleven years back. The abandonment of plot-irrelevant or dramatically redundant scenes (novel fans will understand this to mean most notably Tom Bombadil or the Scouring of the Shire) and the embellishment of the novel’s only lightly-treated romantic plotlines served to create a film that was tauter and more emotionally engaging. Suffice it to say, I believe straying from the source material isn’t always heretical butchery; often its just good, audience-minded discretion.

Not much can be said to justify just how much of a spin the internet was in when the official trailer for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug dropped however, that excitement seemed to drop a level when due to the lack of Benedict Cumberbatch. The second in a trilogy of films adapting the enduring popular masterpiece The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug continues the adventures of the title character Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) as he journeys with the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and thirteen dwarves, led by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) on an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug opens in Australian cinemas on 26th December 2013.

In a recent inter view Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In), Director of the new film Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, recounted a conversation he had with John Le Carre in which he attempted to describe his trepidation at making a film adaptation of the legendary authors work. John Le Carre quickly put him at ease when he explained the simple fact that no matter how the film turned out, his novel would live on unaffected. This meant that the director had the ultimate freedom because there is no way the source material could be damaged. This is an interesting way to see a film adaptation, it shouldn't so much be a case of capturing every aspect of the book because to do that the film would have to be sixteen hours long and the film making would suffer accordingly, it's not the role of the film to retell the story. The film should convey the essence of the book and in doing so bring the book to a new audience. This book has already been adapted for the screen when it w...