I'm Back!

It seems I lost interest in blog writing, which isn't a surprise I seem to have ADD, or I get bored easily of things,maybe both.  Things I have been doing recently. Well since i Havant blogged I went on an epic holiday to Turkey in September,filmed and photographed a  few things, so I'm going to upload a separate blog about that.

But anyway's, I am going to try and review the mountain of films I have seen lately, as well as the usual ramblings that I write about lol

P.S  FYI this is what happens when i don't have tea in the morning.

A BREAK from films

Hello people of the internet, i appear to have forgot this little blog here. Well i guess i have been busy working on my video stuff right now which is taking up most my time. I will leave links at the end incase you wish to catch up on what i have been filming but today i am going to talk about TV show that are awesome, because lately i have become addicted to Prison Break, why it took me so long to watch this i have no idea.

A break from the norm

I guess I thought this programme was going to be boring since it was just based in a prison but i was wrong, it is the most cleverly written TV show I have watched in a while, so many twists and turns and level of intensity is pretty crazy and as the series goes on you learn some pretty unexpected back stories of some of the main characters in it. I am not going to say much about the story since I really think you should go into this programme without any knowledge of that
 Now this is just based on the first season that I've watched, I think there are 4 in total, so I cant wait to get started on the next season.

The walking dead is a show I found not long ago, now I am a fan of zombie films anyway, so to hear about a zombie TV show was pretty cool.  Staring British actor Andrew Lincoln who you might recognise from the UK series teachers. The series is about the survival of groups of people in the midst of a zombie take over. This is also a pretty intense series and each episode ending is a cliff hanger to the next one, its just a shame it was such a short series but I think maybe they didn't know if the series was going to take of as well as it did and I hope we see the second series of this soon

So if your looking for something different to watch and something that offers more brain cells than big TV shows like Jersey shore and This is Essex, you should definitely check them out.

Here are some videos i have been working on lately and am continuing to work on them this week which is keeping me pretty busy at the moment.


Thanks for playing - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTJnv8VMu3I&feature=channel_video_title


My royal wedding video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dExGk7q0ybw&feature=relmfu

Tron Legacy review - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mztTfzGht1w&feature=relmfu

Dead Snow review - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD7mosnl7ZM

What Original?

So after watching the 1969 True Grit today, it came to me that so many remakes have been made and most people have never seen how awesome the original films are.

 Here are just a few original films that I love and that also have remakes that are pretty well known, how many of these have you seen? and how many of the remakes have you seen?

The Italian Job (1969)

This film is definitely British humour at its best and proves once again how Michael Caine is an incredible actor.

Ringu (1998)

The Japanese horror film is definitely very creepy, a must see if you have only seen the remake

Ju-on (2002)

Another reason why Asian horrors will always outdo Hollywood remakes, they know how to create a good eerie atmosphere that will scare the crap out of you.

The Omen (1976)

This is exactly why 70's horror films are more terrifying and tense than today's films

Dawn of the dead (1978)

The master of zombie films, creating tense atmospheres, subtle humour and great acting all in one zombie film.

There are so much more great originals, to many to list but next time you see a Hollywood remake, remember to check out what it was inspired from.

Also the lack of blog updates was me due to planning and making my first video blog, which you can watch here, please go easy I'm not used to talking in front of a camera yet :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mztTfzGht1w

WTF Film Sequels

Bill and Ted's journey returns 

So its been 20 years since Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey was released, which was the sequel to Bill and Teds Excellent adventure. Recently Keanu Reeves, who starred as Bill in the films, talked with MTV about a script being put together for the 3rd film.

I am pretty sure most people have seen at least the first one, if not then well you should, its kinda random but entertaining at the same time. Although I pretty much like both of the Bill and Ted films, its kind of a wtf sequel being a good 20 years since the last one was released, and I guess there both quite old now. So I'm thinking will they try to make them look 20 or will it be a couple of 40 year old's going on epic adventures to like to the DIY store. Although it may turn out as funny, i really don't see the need to make a 3rd one and let it be what it was, a classic 90's film.

American Pie - The Funeral

Who did not see this coming?  after the millions of American Pie spin off films, I guess they were thinking hey lets make another American Pie film to churn out more money from this franchise. I kind of enjoyed the first 2 American Pie films, but i wasn't sure why they needed to bring out American Pie the wedding, in my opinions they should have just stopped after 2 because with these types of films there's only so far you can go with the humour without it being the same thing over and over.
So this fourth one is going to called American Pie - The reunion and yes it will be going to have all the original cast members in it. I can see how it sounds like a cool concept that there getting together after almost a decade, but again I cant see it being as fresh and original as the first 2. Maybe they will make another one in 50 years time and call it American Pie - The Retirement home.

So what's next for sequels?

The film world today insists on bringing out anything and everything because i really think they are running out of original ideas, this also goes for remakes and prequels. So I was thinking what else would make a WTF sequel.

Speed 3 - Mobility Scooter control

Meet the animal Fockers

I couldn't give a f**k what you did last summer

Its bad enough that there still putting out terminator films without arnie and maybe they will still be pushing out Indiana Jones films when Harrison Ford is in his 90's, or maybe another aliens film where Ripley is an Alien? As well as them remaking old classics like the Karate Kid and now the crow. Where are the original films Hollywood?!

A film review coming on wed, so there is still time to suggest new or old films that you would like me to review, either comment on here or Twitter (spongeofthedead)

The Session 9 Review

Crime scene asylum

So session 9 was recommended for me to watch, I had seen the trailer for this a while back but I was a little unsure about watching it. Directed by Brad Anderson in 2001, who also directed the great film "The Machinist"  which came after this film, I was quite interested to see one of his earlier films. The film Stars David Caruso who plays Phil, who you might better know as Lieutenant Horatio Caine in CSI Miami, and also very strange to see him without sunglasses (he really does have eyes), and Scottish actor Peter Mullan who plays Gordan. The film also features a random appearance from Paul Guilfoyle better know as Detective Brass, yes yet another CSI actor, and i was beginning to think maybe Grissom would show up at some point in the film but sadly no ( he probably wouldn't be much help anyway he would be outside looking at bugs)

                            I have appear to have forgotten my sunglasses

Ok so back to the film itself, its based on an asbestos abatement crew who win the bid for a job on an abandoned insane asylum (and I bet your thinking well I can see how this is going to go )

So most horror films today rely a lot on special effects, blood and over the top acting and this does get boring to see the same thing done over and over so this is where this film is very different. I have to admit it took me a while to get into this film and is partly due to my attention span being a bit low at the time. I love the character building in this film, as the film goes on more interesting characteristics are shown coming through each member of the team which kind of make you start to form your own assumptions, well it did for me anyway.

 The story itself is pretty simple (about the team going into do an asbestos job) but its really the backstorys and personalty of each person that really builds up the story as the film goes on. Now you might think this seems a little boring, but I personally loved the slow build up and tension throughout the film, which I think you can guess that its building up to something else, otherwise it would just be a film about how to solve an asbestos issue. The film is really about making the audience think about what is going on and what's going to happen next and what's this guy going to do and really gets you involved with characters.

In general i think the film did great for building up an atmosphere over the film, and it was pretty creepy in places but i was i guess kind of disappointed with the ending, I felt I was expecting a bit more of an explanation but maybe it was left for the audience to ponder over and I guess they felt that it added to the mystery of the film itself. I would recommend you give this at least a watch as its certainly something different to a lot of horror films out there today.

Just a quick note that i am sorry about not updating the blog as frequently, I've got a few other things going on right now, so I am going to try putting out a blog every other day for now

The Shutter Island Review

 Dicaprio Vs the insane

First of all apologies for the blog not being posted yesterday as planned, anyways i saw this film last summer when it came out, but i gave it another watch yesterday as a quick refresh. I also read the book before this came out as I heard alot of good things about the book itself and i might add it was a really good read, highly recommended even if you have seen the film there is a lot more in the book itself.

As a big fan of the director of this film Martin Scorsese I was especially looking forward to this film when i first watched it and especially after Dicaprio pulled of a great role in Scoreseis previous film The Aviator. but anyway enough of the geeky stuff.

I am not going to give to much away for anyone who has yet to see the film which I do recommend you do at some point. The main film revolves around Federal Marshall "Teddy Daniels", who arrives on shutter island with his partner "Chuck Aule" to investigate the disappearance of a patient at the hospital for the criminally insane, I might add that the opening scene is of Dicaprio throwing up on the ferry because he gets seasick, which kinda made me laugh because that would have totally not worked on Titanic.

 Dicaprio finds the winning lottery numbers

To pretty much sum up this film, Di Caprio takes on the investigation in the criminally insane hospital but not without a struggle, after the staff seem not so helpful and trying to interview patients is about as useful as interviewing Charlie Sheen. The investigation gets pretty crazy as it goes on and they seem to be stuck on the island with no communication to the main land due to torrential storms and heavy rain. The ever determined Marshall Daniels is set on getting to the truth and goes to great lengths to sort after it, which includes nice strolls along some cliffs in the middle of a storm which is probably not the most sensible thing to do but probably makes a change from being on a sinking ship. (sorry I cant resist these titanic jokes today)

The film itself is a huge mind twist and a bit of a puzzle which I think viewers will enjoy trying to piece together and be left at the end with a huge what the hell just happened.  The film was brilliantly directed by Scorese who did well in captivating the dark and intense mood of this film perfectly, as well as Dicaprio really doing justice to the main character Teddy Daniels. 

As you have guessed by now I loved this film and again recommend you see it and if you don't like it well i guess there is always titanic or the beach, both great films too.

I will be back to normal blog tomorrow and another movie review coming on Friday for real this time

Teh Internetz is taking over

A very internet based blog today because i noticed an article about" lol" being added to the Oxford dictionary and also just some things I've been thinking about today with how the network plays a big part of peoples lives.

LOL speak is taking over the worldz

So another modern day slang word has been added to the Oxford dictionary. The abbreviation of Lol ( short for laugh out loud for you internet noobs)  first spawned from internet communications way back in the 90's. It has also triggered so many internet abbreviations over the years such as Lmao, Rofl and BRB. 

I don't really see this is a bad thing, even though people would argue that it is deteriorating peoples language It is really just a casual way of communicating online or over text message and is rarely seen getting put into spoken conversations, well i guess except for young kids, where slang is in there every day vocabulary and is not really seen developing into early adult hood (well expect maybe chavs i guess).

There is also one good thing about internet abbreviation, they can often be used to save an awkward moment or save you from embarrassment,  like you if you tell someone you like them you can always add "LOL" or J/K after that 5 Min of awkward silence on your computer screen.

Are we married to the internet?

So another thing the internet is big on is taking over social aspects of peoples lives. I saw a tweet today on twitter which read 

"Facebook asks what you're thinking. Twitter asks what you're doing. Foursquare asks where you are. You would think we were married to the internet" 

This made me think that are we really married to the internet?, we wake up and the first thing we do is check our facebook, twitter etc and its the last thing we do before we go to sleep at night.  As time goes on there is a social network site for pretty much everything, what music we are listening to,what we look like each day and even allow people to see videos of our daily lives, which is recently becoming a big part of social networking known as vlogging.

This makes me think that soon there will be not one aspect of a persons life that cant be posted to some social networking site and the internet has pretty much become one big stalking resource.

So what is next for social networking, there really is not much left that hasn't been done already, maybe in the future we will be able to record our thoughts directly from our brains onto the internet and then Facebook will know what you are really thinking....

Tomorrow is Tuesday... yes it is had to think there for a second, so i will be reviewing another film, I have not yet decided yet, so if you can want me to do a review of a newish film ( by new I mean from maybe 2009 - present date) I will try to get hold of it and do a review of it. Contact me on here or on twitter (spongeofthedead)

No Blog weekend - Filming and stuff

Hey sorry guys  haven't really had time to sit down and put  a blog entry together for Saturday and Sunday as I've been busy filming this weekend for a short video i am making.

                     As well as filming I accidentally managed to clone myself

Hope you all have had a great weekend and I will have a new one up tomorrow hopefully, and also I'm hoping to get this video finished this week, so there will be a link to that also in the blog at some point.

The Saw 3D review

Game over? I really hope so

                              

I just watched this for the first time in mind blowing 2D i might add.  I wanted to watch it because well i have seen the other 6 and I might as well watch the final chapter of the saw films. I am going to try to review this without giving to much away, in case you know you feel like you need to watch it or not.

I feel like i could have watched this film without seeing any of the other saw films because the main plot of the film was just so random and i felt like the writers just thought hey well we don't need to really try with this film because oh my god its going to be in 3D! ( even though i didn't see it in 3D i feel that i didn't really miss out on much)

   Look its Chester Bennington from Linkin Park lol

So i guess i can tell you that Detective Hoffman goes on a trap rampage again, which i don't really think is much of a give away. The traps in this film really lack imagination, i feel like they have just completely ran out of ideas here. Also i heard a lot of people saying oh my god its so gory, i cant help feel we watched different films, because this was the least gory one out of the whole franchise, which i am now starting to think because the film did not really suck me into its usual intensity, i was like hmm i guess that looks painful.

The film a really lacked complete direction, i feel the suspense was completely taken away here,  not one scene did i feel like i was on the edge of my seat.

This being the last chapter of the franchise, i thought there was going to be some kind of big twist at the end to reveal something big.... no there was not, well there was one small thing where a character came back from a previous film (which i wont name) but it was like not a huge part in the actual film and was well pretty pointless.

This is really just another example of horror franchises cashing in, they could have actually stopped at the last one or really just the third and made it a trilogy. I actually really enjoyed watching the first 3 but after that i felt it started slowly going downhill until the final disaster, lets hope they don't suddenly decide to make an 8th one, maybe they will make it interactive... could be interesting and painful.

I will be reviewing another film on Tuesday, not decided which yet, but if there is particular film you think I should watch and review leave a comment on here or if you have twitter (spongeofthedead)

Angry Birds film and Technology going back in time

Angry Birds the film??

Well not yet anyway, there has been a lot of rumours flying around the internet about a possible future film release based on the hugely successful mobile phone app Angry Birds, this seems to have been sparked of by the recent collaboration with 20th Century Fox films with there new game Angry Birds Rio, which has been based on Fox's  upcoming 3D animation film Rio. 

There are several articles floating around the internet stating that Rovio have been approached by several people including movie studies about a possible future film, whether this is true or not i guess we will soon see.

Also you should check out this spoof trailer which has been created in light of these rumours - 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2matH4B9bTo&feature=player_embedded

Its now making me wonder what will come next, first movies from consoles games, then movies from mobile phone games, should we see movies coming from facebook apps such as cafeworld and farmworld next?

Technology going RETRO

 It seems today we are all set on going back in time, first we see retro clothes coming back in fashion, then there's the 80's themed nightclubs everywhere and now it seems we want to carry this on with technology. Well now you can get your own retro style typewriter for your ipad, not only does this make you amazingly cool but it also makes typing on the ipad more user friendly if you dont like touch screens i guess. It also connects up to any USB compatible PC or Mac so you dont have to have an Ipad to experience the retroness

Watch the demo here  -   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu3g4ZBt3o0

And if you thought it couldn't get any more retro, thinkgeek.com has released an Arcade cabinet for the ipad, which you can check out here -

 http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/retro-gaming/e762/

P.s I am now going to be reviewing 2 films a week just so its not just random news each day, i shall put them out on the days Tuesday and Friday, so expect one tomorrow and if you want me to watch and review a specific film, leave me a comment on here or Twitter (spongeofthedead)

Its Summer time and Big brother making a come back?

Well hello English summer (but for how long!)

Its time again for the unpredictable Summer weather of the UK, yes it was the first reasonably sunny day today, aside from the lovely wind. So the first thing i do when i see the sun is out and the temperature is above 20 Celsius (around 70 Fahrenheit for maybe Americans reading this) is put some summer music on. This for me usually involves punk/ska music and generally chilled out happy stuff. Does anyone else do this?  

Big Brother making a come back on channel 5

So when you see Big Brother on your TV 24/7 you know that its summer time, well until it got axed in 2009, due to ratings going down as well as director of television Kevin Lygo going well i think we should stop now. So as well the best channel on TV gets the contract (note the sarcasm), Davina McCall will not be hosting it, i think we should place bets on how long Big Brother lasts on channel 5 and to me it really got old after the first 2 years.

This is what channel 5 said about how they are going make it big again "We aim to bring Channel 5's energy, optimism and vibrancy to the series.".... well ok then channel 5.

Summer films to look forward to

Ok so things to look forward this summer, film wise it seems 2011 there is going to be good films coming out in the next few months, some of them im excited about seeing are Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Thor and X-Men: First class

Also coming out this summer is the Hangover part 2, Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Green Lattern. Do you think any of them will top the big films that came out in 2010, such as Inception, the social network and The Kings Speech?

I also want to comment on the wtf sequels that are coming out this year, Scream 4? gets released 10 years after 2000's scream 3, final destination 5, seriously how many more of these can they make until it reaches its final destination and Hatchet 2, well the first one was so bad they decided they needed to get it right with this second one obviously.

Splice up your day with films?

A bit of a film based topic today, which works for me as i am a bit of a film nerd  and i generally love talking about films, but anyway two things came to my attention today the film Splice and films for life season on film 4

I'm going to start with Splice (2009) since I just finished watching this very bizarre film. This is not really a review but just my general thoughts on what i just watched.

I first saw the trailer for this a while back and i remember not really feeling the need to watch it from this, so recently a friend made a comment about it which intrigued me to give it a chance. The main story kind of makes sense in the what they are trying to achieve with there scientific experiments etc, and as the film goes it makes you connect with the experiment they call "Dren" and generally feel sorry for her but towards the end it really is just like wow what is going on and its a  little strange. The ending wasn't amazingly surprising if you think back to the events that happened during the film ( which i wont talk about, so i don't give it away for anyone who has not watched it) Its a little predictable but for some reason the film kept my attention throughout to continue watching, its worth a watch but not something that would withstand the test of time which is what I'm going to talk about next.

Films 4 life season on film 4 

A season of films that film 4 feel that withstand the test of time and i guess that you could watch over and over again, some of these include The Italian Job, Edward Scissorhands and This is England.

This just got me really thinking about what films stood the test of time with me, what films i could watch and never get bored of them and i guess there is probably quite a few and it would be boring for me to list all of them, so here are 4 of my favourite :)

So if you have not seen any of those 4 films i recommend that you do so and also have a think about some of the top maybe 5 films that withstand the test of time and if you cant do 5 because you watch to many films like me then do a top 10. 

If you want to let me know your top films, leave a comment or send me a tweet on twitter, which there is a link to in the left hand side bar.

Also here is a link to film 4's films 4 life season starts April 9th you should check it out 

http://www.film4.com/videos/article/film4-films-for-life-extended-trailer

Hello World

Hey welcome to The Daily sponge, so before i post i thought id make a quick introduction and a quick first blog, this is not just going be a personal blog about my life but more about things i've seen and think are interesting and updates on things ive been doing etc. I also might  start doing some vlogs to go along side this but i haven't decided on that yet. My aim is to make a short blog each day on random happenings i come across daily.

Enjoy :)

 So i started playing left for dead 2 again over the last few days and yet again it has managed to sneak into my dreams, i really dont know what it is about this game but it makes me want to dream about it and once again i was running around trying to fight of the tank, but in my dreams i always seem to think that if i run into a room and close the door i will be safe (i must add this is not how my game play goes in real life) i think i might be inspired to make a video of me fighting the tank at some point for the pure lols, once i get a green screen sorted, but for now here is a quick  PhotoShop of sponge Vs Tank.

 by the way for anyone who has an xbox or games on there PC, you must play this game, it always makes me laugh every time and also if anyone else has dreams about being in a video game they play please make a comment about it as I'm hoping that I'm not the only one lol.

More Randomness  coming tomorrow :)

P.s  Left 4 dead anyone?