Dark times ahead!

Movie Review: 30 Days of Night.

Director: David Slade
Writers: Steve Niles and Stuart Beattie
Date: 19 October 2007 (Canada)
Genre: Horror

Last Wednesday I was faced with the boring prospect of heading home after work, but feeling achy and ill and not having my girlfriend around to comfort me, I decided that I would not go home for a while.

Drinking whilst ill is stupid, so my local hole of debauchery was off the cards. That's how I found myself heading towards the big bright lights of the movie theater.

Staring up at the listings and looking around at the posters I knew that a no brainer horror would be perfect. I wasn't feeling like I could pay attention to a deep and meaningful film, 30 Days of Night was on hand to fulfill my need.

30 Days of Night takes place in a town called Barrow which is the furthest most northern town in Alaska. For 30 days every year the town is thrown into night. This year the residents end up having to deal with far more than endless depression, alcohol being illegal and missing loved ones who have fled to brighter parts of the world.

The film opens with the two town sheriffs discovering footprints and a pile of burnt mobile phones, whilst on their annual shut down. Immediately you know that the extremely handsome Sheriff Eben Oleson (Josh Hartnet) is going to be the focus of this movie. The tradition of giving the hero the job of straight faced delivery of the stupidest one liners is held.

Very soon after the romantic angle is introduced when his separated wife, Stella (Melissa George), firstly just so happens to be in town for work and secondly misses the last plane out.

From here on in, you know, the bitter partnership will obviously be there to save the town from the freakish events that will unfold!

Eben and Stella's first meet occurs whilst arresting a very unfriendly and unwashed stranger who is causing hassle at the diner. After imprisoning him in the cell at the police station (that also seems to double as Eben's home) the stranger continues to be unfriendly by taunting Eben's younger brother and Grandma from behind the bars. Threats such as 'You are all gonna die' and suggestions that they are coming give yet more ominous signals for events ahead.

The murder of every sledge dog in town and events that lead to power and communications being cut quickly unfold and the evil aggressors are finally shown to us. Sporting a mixture of sleek black suits and trendy goth fashion the long nailed, sharp teethed villains get to work by playing with and feeding on the town residents in a very speedy fashion. The remaining humans meet in the diner and hatch an amazingly insightful plan to go hide in a loft until it all blows over.

I won't go into the exact details of what happens next, IMDB exists for this purpose, but I will say that overall it was an enjoyable movie that stuck well to it's genre constraints and presented everything in good a good dosage.

The Vampires themselves were very freaky and given a look which is a mixture between human and pure evil. Intelligence and explanation of their arrival in town was given to and heard only from Marlow, the leader of these evil creatures. Surprisingly he carried the most human traits. He looked like a businessman at the end of a hard week, showing a slight pot belly and a double chin gained from too much lunchtime drinking (of blood, I can only imagine!), he instructs his minions to devour the helpless, hapless townsfolk and gives them moral support! He is pure evil but you find yourself kind of liking him at times , you find yourself imagining that he was probably quite an amicable human. At one point he almost shows compassion, but opts to break the neck of the slim goth 'token' lady vampire, after she is burnt with a UV light, previously used for the nurturing of a small marijuana crop. He instructs the town to be burnt to the ground so that the humans who come back will suspect a 'terrible accident' (this idea shows huge disregard for modern forensics!) and the vampire myth will still be only the stuff of bad dreams. The other vampires all have strange appearance, from overly large mouths to strange tilted eyes or a striking resemblance to Marilyn Manson, if he had spent the last 5 years living only on water and celery. They never really get a chance to speak, however the make up for it in heartless murders, sometimes of townsfolk that you did not expect.

The special effects and cinematography were excellent. An Overhead shot of the devastated town with blood stained snow and vampires feeding and chasing really wowed me. Slightly off colour gave the film the loneliness feel and shaky camera scenes, such as the camera being followed by a vehicle, made you more than aware that evil was lurking. The cuts were well done and gave a chance for both the humans and the vamps to shine through verbally and visually, and they left you to imagine at least some of the slashes, murders and general mayhem.

Josh Hartnet did a better job than I expected but actors such as Mark Boone Junior (playing the big beardy snowplough driver, Beau) and Mark Rendell (as Jake, Eben's little bro) gave great performances. The people interacted with each other in an interesting factor and managed to appear scared enough to make you worry about them.

The end of the film has an almost unexpected twist but sadly there was no after credit revelation. I left the theater with the exact feelings I wanted. Satisfied with the gore and enough plot to hold me but not switch me off. I look forward to the next installment, of what I am sure will end up being, the '.......of Night' franchise.




Have you seen this movie? If so I would love to know what you thought?

Also how did you like my review and how could I have improved it?

Learn to Dream - New Photographic Printing Website

This is a sponsored post (Seymour on the left works for the company too, they have some very humorous comments about the image in their 'Meet The Staff' section)

For many years I worked as a Graphic Designer / Mac Artworker and I spent a fair amount of time working for and dealing with high quality large format/photographic print. In fact I used to design and artwork stuff for special window displays and exhibition so I think I am fairly knowledgeable when it comes to such printing processes.

So when this post opportunity came around asking for some news posted for a new UK Photographic Printing Specialists website launch I knew I had to take it.

Learn to Dream are not a company I have dealt with before but it seems like they are very well established and browsing through their work it looks like they are a pretty competent bunch and do know what they are talking about.

This new website seems to be moving away from approaching the industry and has been produced primarily aiming at the home digital camera user. They are offering some very specific bespoke services for you to enlarge and have your images framed and delivered back to you or your office.

It looks very professional and has a great simple and helpful 'How It Works' guide as they know that many of their new customer reach will have no knowledge of the professional services that they are offering.

I also suggest that you take a sneak on their staff page. This had me laughing for a long while and really gives the company a personal touch.

If I was going to get any images enlarged I would always use a service where I can speak to real people and make sure that I get the image I was expecting. Companies like this one should be able to give you full advice and offer tips for supplying your images aswell as making sure that the prints come out sharp and correct in colour.

If you are interested then read on through their official press release and go visit them:

Press Release:

Photographic Printers have a new website to showcase their products

London, England, November 16th 2007 – Learntodream, based in London, England, is pleased to announce it’s newly updated website www.learntodream.co.uk.

“We’ve always enjoyed a unique position in the photographic / graphics printing industry because of the high quality of our products and our association with LTD, one of the most successful commercial Graphics Houses in the UK” said Learntodream’s marketing manager James Ironmonger.

“Our customers are always delighted with our services, so we thought it was time to make sure that more people knew about us and could see just how we can really bring an image to life. So we’ve updated our website with more information, better images and made it easier to use too” said James.

Working with website designers SpinningClock and internet marketers Intelligent Online Marketing, Learntodream have produced a new website has a fresh new look that allows visitors to get an idea of just how their picture would look in their own home. The amount of information has also been increased, allowing the user to better understand the processes, both technical and creative, that are involved.

The range of printing mediums available is also explained in more detail, allowing the user to make initial decisions on which they think is best for their treasured photograph. However, Learntodream’s expert staff are always available to guide customers and that is what makes Learntodream that bit special.

Learntodream offers high quality photographic printing services to the consumer and small business, it’s parent LTD, offering graphic design and printing services to the high end of the business market, working with such names as HSBC and L’Oreal. Both companies have over 20 years worth of experience and share the same latest high end printing equipment.

For more information, contact James Ironmonger +44 845 456 4033 or visit their new website at www.learntodream.co.uk

Movie reviews: SiCKO (2007)

A copy of my review on Helium
Image link from wikipedia.org

After umming and arring I finally decided to go and see SiCKO the new film from the controversial Michael Moore. SiCKO attempts to highlight the huge problems with the American privatized health care and insurance system by showing a series of extreme examples pointing the fingers at the evil insurance companies.

This film is frightening and at times extremely funny. Michael Moore manages to expertly push the audience in shock and makes everyone feel like something needs to be done. I guess I feel this is a good idea, almost everyone knows of a health insurance nightmare and in many peoples opinions medical care is just too expensive but personally I had severe problems with certain aspects of Michael Moores techniques.

I was cynical of this film as I have been with other Michael Moore offerings. To me it felt as though he was again making the argument extremely one sided and treated the average American like they did not know anything and should eat up his propaganda as quickly as he believes people eat up the propaganda given by the beloved government!

Being English the one sidedness that I had suspected was confirmed. When Mr Moore visited England to have a look at the NHS (our government run health system) he painted it in such an amazing light that I wouldn't be surprised if half of the US applies for UK immigration. The NHS is definitely a better system in my opinion than the US insurance system but he neglected to mention the money problems and waiting times problems and hospital cleanliness issues that are common place. I'd imagine that the French and Canadian that he painted in the same amazing light systems also suffer from their fair share of problems too.

I felt the pace of the movie became repetitive after a while too. Although the cases he highlighted were all shocking, i'm sure true, and highlighted the problem very well we all knew that the finally outcome would be bad even if he sarcastically tries to lead us away from thinking that.

One huge and amazing point to come out of the movie was the cost of drugs in neighboring Cuba. A $120 inhaler was found to cost around 5cents in Cuba which really is outrageous and I thank Mr Moore for highlighting this. The stunt he pulled taking ill Americans to Cuba for free treatment was extremely funny and seemed spontaneous and dangerous but I'm sure it was a very well planned activity that included needing to get Visas and using his contacts to pull strings to allow certain parts of the filming.

And the final insult from the self absorbed man was when he put in a kick to an anti Michael Moore web site owner by revealing that it was him that had donated an anomalous $12000 for the medical treatment of the site owners wife. In my opinion real generosity would have been achieved only if he did not reveal on tape that it was him that had given the money.

I think this movie should be seen. The problem is real and it does need highlighting. I just wish that it was a shorter film and that at least some reality had been brought to the other sides of the argument. Michael Moore needs to realize that people are big enough and clever enough to make up their own minds.