Harry's Blog

It looks like there will be a Master & Commander sequel after all. Russell Crowe is in talks to reprise his role as Jack Aubrey for another movie. One hopes that (a) it gets made, and (b) they can get Paul Betanny back as Stephen Maturin.

The script for the new movie is said (like the first film) to take episodes from all 20 of Patrick O'Brian's books, but the ovveral plot will come from one of them. This time it will be The Reverse of the Medal - where Jack Aubrey is tried for fraud after being framed by enemy intelligence agents.

This particular book features one of the most moving episodes of the whole series which I hope makes it onto the big screen. I'm also hoping we get to see some of Jack's dopiness on land (not sure Crowe will be up for that though) and Stephen's self-destructive obsession with Diana Villiers and his intelligence work.

Meanwhile you can read my little homage to Patrick O'Brian here.

It's well known among those who can read a book without moving their lips that Dan Brown is a terrible writer. However some of you not be aware of just how bad his research is despite Brown's claim that his books are full of facts. Just take a look at this amazingly long list of factual errors in Angels & Demons.

Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'

Just too funny for words. Just watch one of the best action movies of the 1980s reworked by someone I know on the EG forum.

This is part of a YouTube competition to promote the new Jack Black movie Be Kind Rewind, where two dumbasses have to refilm many classic movies in this way.

Here are a few more Sweded movies to enjoy:

• Die Hard
• Total Recall
• Terminator 2
• Jurassic Park

So I went to a press screening of the new Will Smith movie I Am Legend yesterday, a project that's been in development for a heck of a long time. Remember over a decade ago Arnold Schwarzenegger was due to star in it with Ridley Scott directing?

Anyway, I signed an NDA so can't tell you much about the movie until the embargo is lifted. But what I can tell you is that I really enjoyed the movie a lot and Smith's performance is very strong indeed.

I can't really be bothered writing a proper review of the movie. Yes, telling readers I don't care is always a good way of starting a blog post isn't it?

Shrek 3 had some great moments and gets a thumbs-up for including a Led Zeppelin track (Immigrant Song) which was hastily followed by Heart's Barracuda.

You ever go and see movies and think that it's been made specifically for you, to send you a message? It's like not going to church for two months then turning up to hear a sermon that could have been written by your psyche.

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I read today that Robert Rodriguez was planning to remake Barbarella, yet another Hollywood property urinated on in the great idea-free wasteland that is US cinema these days.

But I don't want to talk about the worthiness of remakes today, instead the issue I want to raise is beauty.

Mainstream cinema exists in a climate of overt sexuality these days and movies are chock full of pretty startlets willing to get get them out for the lads.

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And looks set to become the best Christian movie ever made, not that this is difficult to achieve. Lanie stopped me watching Left Behind because I was laughing so hard.

Anyway, this summer sees the return of two action hero icons. John McLaine and John J Rambo. The former will be seen in a PG-13 digital wussfest that might be entertaining, but it sure as hell won't be Die Hard.

Meanwhile Sly Stallone will be bringing back the glory that was the violent 80s action fest. And this new movie looks nasty, real nasty. I'll be first in the queue on release day.

Watch the footage for yourself, how can you not smile as he fires a .50 Cal into a bad dude from a couple of feet, or near rips a guy's head off. Now that is classic 80s action movie footage right there.

Makes me feel like a teenager again. Anyway, here's the trailer - you shouldn't let your kids watch this, but then you shouldn't be letting them read this site - it says fuck and other bad words.

Had an odd sort of deja-vu feeling while watching a movie last night. I'd decided to watch Starship Troopers, I'd not seen it for quite a while.

Anyway the scene the nagged at me was where Carmen, Rico and Carl go to sign up for their military service. It's the sequence where the recruitment officer tells Rico that "the mobile infantry made me the man I am today" and then Rico and Carmen say their goodbyes.

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When L and I went to the cinema on Saturday we had to sit through the usual collection of annoying adverts, though thankfully there was no sign of the Frosties monstrosity. One thing we were shown was an advert attempting to dissuade people from buying pirate DVDs.

The advert did this by showing a scene from Superman Returns as the movie industry believes appears in pirate form. I do wonder if anyone in the movie industry has ever torrented a movie and watched it.

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Imagine what would happen if you took dialogue by James Earl Jones from various movies and dubbed this over his own performance as Darth Vader in Star Wars.

The result would be a recipe for comedy genius. Take a look at Akjak's increadibly funny video after the jump.

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While I was over in Los Angeles for E3 2006 I did have a chance to watch some TV in the hotel room. When we first switched the TV on we were greeted with the visage of Adam Hart-Davis in one of his splendid history programmes. Odd to see such a show in the US, but it was on the History Channel.

One of the things that visitors to the USA often comment on is the frequency and duration of the commercial break. I didn’t find these to be as bad as I was expecting but I was rather shocked by the content of many of the commercials. Advertising diet pills seemed very common, in particular anti-depressant diet pills. Clearly this stuff doesn’t work, if it did, it would be more widely available and there would be no fat people around. But these adverts were strong stuff and clearly aimed to fleece the vulnerable. There’s no way they would be allowed on British TV.

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