herbiehancock

This sequel picks up shortly after Professor Layton the Curious Village , expands the scope of the game and stands as one of the best handheld games I have ever played. I should start by saying I'm not much of a handheld gamer. Fast paced games on the small screen and tenuous controls generally don't appeal to me. Professor Layton, though, is perfect for me. It's a pick up/put down short session game that remains engrossing and fun. Playing as Professor Layton and his sidekick Luke, you are thrust in to a surreal murder mystery involving a series of quirky characters and settings. Layton oozes charm - its animation and art design are beautiful, looking gothic yet colorful - reminiscent of Tintin and The Triplets of Belleville . The characters are mysterious and plenty, and each mystery solved unravels a bevvy of new ones that would make Agatha Christie proud. And the music is a divine sort of French pastoral pastiche. Tying all of these elements together is the core of the ...

Shane Acker's first feature, '9', set expectations high. The trailer teased a dark and adult animated world. The cast was laudable and intriguing. And Tim Burton's name was plastered all over it... As you may have realized by now, I'm not a fan of producer credits being displayed so prominently in movie marketing. Not that it's a new practice. But Tim Burton must be the most egregiously over-credited filmmaker in Hollywood. And I'm sick of it. That's a whole other column though . So does '9' live up to its premise? Unfortunately, no. For one, the voice talent is wasted. The film is light on dialogue, and it comes across as expository rather than illuminating. The actors don't have a chance to establish personalities for their characters and don't stand out, aside from Christopher Plummer as 1. (That was Martin Landau? Whaaa?!) We're thrust into the story, awakening with the title character, 9, and the film sets out to unravel the mys...

No 498 - Back To The Future 2 Director - Robert Zemeckis This is the perfect film to watch over a cup of tea and a bowl of Muesli, and it allows me to talk about sequels. For where Back To The Future used the immortal line of " Roads, where we're going we don't need roads " to hint at a second story (it could have never happened) - this film is dropping blatant hints everywhere. Carefully setting up the situation to lead up to the 3rd film. Doc Brown mourns the fact that he'll never be able to visit his favourite era - the American West The time circuits are faulty, continually flickering between the selected date and 1885 In the Biff Tannen museum we are introduced to Biff's great-grandfather: Buford 'Mad Dog' Tannen, fastest gun in the West. Hmmm..... could we possibly be heading for a wild west finale to this trilogy? And whilst part 2 does build up perfectly to the third film, it fails to resolve itself as a single entity. This is a regular proble...

No 23 - Back To The Future Director - Robert Zemeckis Right. Before we start, this is going to be a terrible bit of writing - but hell, I've got 499 other films to hone my skills on... and allow me to explain why we start with this random number and not with something more logical.... like 500..... The first film that I owned on the list was No 498 - Back To The Future Part 2 ( discussed tomorrow ), so it made sense to me to begin with the much higher ranking first film. I sit here with a cup of tea and Fore! playing in the background, to make sure that I stay in the right frame of mind. And to make sure that I can have the excellent Power of Love playing on loop. This film is an absolute gem - It is only two months younger than me, and unlike me it has aged marvellously well. The scenes set in the fifties look as fresh and as well shot as any recent film set in this period, meaning that you can still be fully transported by the film without loving it because it is kitsch, or part ...