Brad Jones Film Reviews: Cheap

The last in this series of reviews.

Everything in this film is disgusting, but that's why I feel this way about it!

Cheap

Cheap can be found at thecinemasnob.com

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

Reviewed Platform: Xbox 360

Other Platforms: PS3, PC

There was some speculation prior to Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood that it would be a worthless addition to the series. Some believed that it was pointless as it would be Assassin’s Creed 2.5 rather than Assassin’s Creed III, that it would offer nothing to the overall plot and instead just continue the story of Ezio Auditore da Firenze rather than the story of the Templars and Assassin’s in 2012. Desmond Miles and co. would not receive any forms of development and everyone would be disappointed at some form of recycled gameplay.

I was not one of those people. I have always had faith in the Assassin’s Creed series and was certain that AC:B would be a welcome addition to the series. There were naysayers but I would not listen to them and I was looking forward to the new game.

I was absolutely right.

I tried to go into the game with as little information as possible. All I knew was that you would control Ezio again and... that’s it, actually. I tried as hard as possible to get no information off of anyone so that anything that happened in-game would be a surprise to me.

AC:B takes place directly after AC II, having Desmond and the other Assassin’s arrive at the Mario’s villa. Through a secret passage into the villa you control Desmond using the parkour that we would see Altaïr or Ezio use. It’s a welcome inclusion to have a full section of the game devoted to utilising Desmond and his new-found abilities outside of a warehouse and now in the outside world and helps show the development Desmond has gone through mentally.

At the beginning of the game as Ezio we are shown one of the new inclusions of the game: using weaponry and machinery. The sections using these are not common and only last for a short period of time, but they do well to break up the game and show us the many skills Ezio is capable of, as well as showing the extent of Ubisoft’s game-making capabilities. The villa is attacked by Rodrigo Borgia’s men after Ezio chose not to kill the pope. The villa is destroyed and Ezio is shot. He escapes to Rome and, with Machiavelli, sets to rebuild the Assassin brotherhood within the walls of Italy’s capital and destroy the Borgia influence in Italy, and thus in Europe.

The entirety of the game takes place within Rome, apart from a few asides. This at first seems like it may be a touch less open world that the other games in the series, however it suits the story perfectly. Ezio is focusing purely on Rome and taking out the Borgia. The rest of Italy is not necessary to keep tabs on. Rome is a fairly large map, so the player does not feel too hemmed in and sections of the city open up depending on the DNA Sequence you have accessed.

A new feature added to the game, due to the fact that Ezio is creating a brotherhood, is recruiting and training new Assassins. This is done through a guild management screen, in which you can send your recruits to different parts of Europe to go on missions in order to weaken the Templar influence. Though you do not embark on these missions the mere feeling that you are able to lead this group of Assassins makes the player feel as if they are truly a leader.

There are many parts of the game that are not story based, however take your attention. There are several side-missions to take your fancy, as well as a very interesting back story, telling the tale of Ezio and his past love, Cristina. Though not essential, this adds a lot more depth to the character of Ezio and shows us how much he has changed over the years of being an Assassin.

Rome can be renovated by buying different shops and landmarks, similar to the upgrading system in AC II. This part of the game is a good addition and makes you feel as if you are having an effect on the city, however it can be extremely infuriating when you get to a shop to but some more ammunition or some medicine and you find it has not been bought yet. Spending all your money on that shop, you then discover you do not have enough money to buy what you wanted. Nonetheless, it’s a nice way to integrate the player into the city of Rome.

It is evident that the developers have put a great amount of time in developing the city of Rome, as it looks beautiful, from the surrounding green land to the more urban areas. Furthermore, the game controls wonderfully, though there are still some of the niggling problems with some parts of the free-running, though these problems are few and far between.

Combat is far superior to the combat in any of the game’s predecessors, with Ezio being able to deal with more enemies at once and the range of weapons allows for more enjoyable fights. The game even includes the crossbow, which was missing from the first game in the series, which allows us to be able to deal with distant targets more effectively, keeping with elements of stealth that the game likes to try and force upon us. The stealth aspects are sometimes lacking, however are pretty solid.

The game overall features an astounding storyline and develops all characters, with an ending that is nothing short of mind-blowing. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is the strongest in the series (on consoles, at least, though I doubt the handheld games are anything compared to the three console games). If you have the chance to get this game then do so!

Final Verdict: 10/10

Brad Jones Film Reviews: Freak Out

The second review in the series.

We've seen a light-hearted comedy, now for a dark and gritty thriller!

Freak Out

Freak Out can be found at thecinemasnob.com

Skyline (2010)

If I were a real critic, a man who was praised by the masses for his critical work, then I would probably have fallen ill of many people for my review of Unstoppable. So far as I have seen I have been outweighed by a majority of people. Its current rating on Rotten Tomatoes is “fresh” at 85%. Due Date I was also wrong, it may have seemed: having loved the film and rating it so highly I am told I am an idiot by the “rotten” rating of 38% on RT. And yet again with Paranormal Activity 2 we see my 3/10 rating being spurned as the critical approval is at 60%, “fresh”.  And I’d like to put a side note here that almost all of my feelings towards films are not reciprocated by one Roger Ebert, a highly respected critic and one whom I do, indeed, consider the opinion of.

Why am I saying this? Because I want you to realise that what I review is based upon my own biased opinion. That how I see the film is personal to me. Even with this being said I look into the film with as much depth as I can, focusing on all elements from directing to soundtrack to acting.

The reason I say this is because no one likes Skyline. It's currently on 14% on RT.

But I loved the film.

Okay, maybe saying that I loved the film is taking it a bit too far. The film was immensely enjoyable. All of the naysayers out there seem to think that this film has a terrible plot, terrible script and terrible acting from actors who have the gall to not be Tom Cruise, Jennifer Aniston or whoever they feel should be in this movie as they are considered an A-list celebrity.

The fame of a celebrity does not make the film. In fact, it sometimes ruins it as you constantly feel you should compare this role to all their other roles. So was the problem with Donald Faison, who I shall refer to as Turk (anyone who doesn’t know why should stop reading as they are not worthy to be reading this). The fact that we know him as Turk takes away from anything that he may have to offer with his character. I detached myself from remembering him as Turk, but I still could only think of him as Turk, not Terry.  Through the brief moments of non-Scrubs related thinking I was able to see he wasn’t too bad at portraying his character. In fact, he was good.

And so was everyone else. They all were. Everyone made their roles extremely convincing. I believed that this is exactly how people may react to this form of invasion. This wasn’t just due to their acting, though, but also due to the script, which, believe it or not from what everyone seems to be saying, was good.

Seriously. You look at it. Okay, maybe it is very derivative of a lot of alien invasion films, War of the Worlds being the obvious one. But it still took a new angle on the genre. In no film involving an alien invasion have I seen such a wide-scale abduction. War of the Worlds faltered in this sense, just showing us pretty SFX instead of delivering a solid narrative. The aliens in that seemed to sporadically choose to do something new with the humans every now and then, throwing them around, then zapping them, then harvesting them. But we don’t find out what they are doing these things for.

Skyline shows us what they do, but it’s through slow build-up and pacing that we find these things out. The film constantly has us asking “Why?” and it delivers. It may not be the full answer, but we make up the answer in our minds, leaving it open to interpretation. We are given enough information to attempt to make a judgement, but we are not force fed the answers.

The effects in this film are fantastic and compliment the plot amazingly. There are a couple of times where the SFX falter, but overall they are astounding. It is only through these SFX that we can also be shown the aliens (what they look like and their ships). The designs for the aliens appear to be somewhat like that Sentinels from the Matrix trilogy, being a strange combination of what I took to be organic matter and flesh.

Sadly, at times the film can be somewhat laughable. The way in which the humans are sucked into the UFOs are a little bit comedic, with the bodies of the people just floating about as if being brought into the land of Oz. Not only this, but at times there are some pretty silly looking slow motion sequences that are just far too slow.

This film is also extremely bleak. If you do go see it you will understand what I mean. Most invasion films seem very triumphant at the end (I’m looking at you, War of the Worlds) and seems to suggest that HUMANS ARE AWESOME! But, when it comes to technological and evolutionary terms, the aliens are far superior to us. Yes we have nukes and guns and all the business but they have great big aggressive beasts, the ability to fly, a form of rejuvenating factor and technology far superior to our own. In all terms of the words: we are screwed.

Some people complain that this film is too centralised on the people living in the flat. That it doesn’t show the true scope of the invasion, that the effects of the invasion aren’t shown within the city. I have to bring up a few points concerning this:

1. There are scenes showing people fighting back, if only one or two scenes.


2. The whole point of the film is to focus on how this small group of people try to survive, somewhat reminiscent of George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead.


3.  Almost every single person in the city is sucked into the spaceships. How can there be widespread fear and panic in the city when there is no one to cause the panic?

I will be completely honest, though: this film isn’t great. To be honest it’s probably just above average in my books. It had the feel from the very start of a SyFy original movie. The CGI isn’t as bad, but the cast and the actual feel of the movie make it seem so (I know I said the cast didn’t matter, but when a film already feels like it could easily be a made-for-TV film you can’t help but notice these things).

However, Skyline is extremely enjoyable. If you like B-Movies involving aliens or the likes then you should love this film. It isn’t a B-Movie in itself (maybe a B+/A- movie) but it feels slightly reminiscent of one. I wouldn’t be surprised if this gained some sort of cult following in years to come, but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it just fell off the radar and no one ever talked about it ever again.

Go see this film. If the critics are to go by then you will hate it. However, if you go into the film with an open mind and let the drama take you in, notice that this is not about the alien invasion per se but more so about the interactions between the survivors, then you should have a fun time. 

Whether you find it funny, horrific or you are actually enjoying the film for what it is, Skyline is a wonderful looking flick that may actually entertain you.

Final Verdict: 6/10

Brad Jones Film Reviews: Game Boys

I look into the films that were made by Brad Jones, a.k.a. The Cinema Snob.

Introduction

Does Brad Jones hold up as a comedy scriptwriter in this story based around 80s video games? 

Game Boys

Game Boys can be found at thecinemasnob.com

"A Protest for Students, by Students" by a Student: what went right, wrong, and how the media gave out the wrong idea

I’ll be honest with you all: I am not very politically driven. I have opinions on politics and am aware of which political parties I do and don’t like, but politics in itself does not dictate what I think of people and is definitely not in any way associated with me grouping people together. Nonetheless, I attended the 50,000-strong march in London on the 10/11/2010.

Why was this? Well, being a student I know what it is like to be one and go through the troubles of funding, banking and all that jazz. Not only this but I know that for an educational establishment to run it needs money.

If you take this money away from spending in education universities (as well as other educational establishments) will need to make up the shortfall elsewhere. Even with raised fees the budget a university could spend would fall greatly and thus there is a possibility that parts of the university would fall into disrepair, both physically and in the sense of the quality of education and facilities.

Now for a bit of explaining behind this rant:

Following the Browne review the current coalition government in the UK has decided to cut public spending, an important factor in this being in education. Higher Education funding is being cut by 40%, a removal of teaching grants for most subjects, and there is now to be a cap of £6000-£9000 for tuition fees (from £3290). This will, of course, deter possible university students from pursuing higher education. Not only this, but Undergraduates wanting to pursue a Ph.D. or a MA/MSc will be deterred due to their current student debt.

So we marched.

With 300 people from Coventry University, and 6 coaches, we set off to become a part of a massive march through London to protest against these changes, not only for ourselves but also for future students and education in general.

Contrary to what any of you may have heard from the news the protest was generally peaceful. With our chants (the most popular being “no ifs, no buts, no education cuts”), placards, banners and various musical instruments we walked from the Houses of Parliament to outside the Tate Gallery, where higher ups in the various student unions gave rousing speeches on the issue, as well as showing some amusing and interesting videos made by the unions and universities, and then a return to the Houses of Parliament.

Many of the protesters were very light-hearted. Being students we often joke about things that are very serious and there was much humour to be had on the placards: “Harry Potter doesn’t pay for Hogwarts”; “The government cut my sign budget”; “Fuck this, I’m moving to Scotland”.

Sadly, along the way there was some violence. The group I was in were passing the Millbank Tower, which we later discovered was the Conservative Headquarters, when we saw people leaving with what appeared to be smoke coming out of the foyer. Eggs were thrown. Then people with hoods up and scarves over their faces started to hit the windows, smashing them.

Some people cheered, some people jeered. There were many calls to them to stop doing it (with me personally yelling at them “This is a fucking peaceful protest!”). This violence later turned into a storming of the building followed by protesters getting onto the roof, though by that time we were long gone, not wanting to get in any way involved and join the many other people leaving the area to continue the protest in peace.

Of course, the media picked up on this. The only thing that mattered were the thousands of youths tearing up our nation’s capital, setting it on fire and destroying the buildings. At least, this is what we apparently did, as some people seem to think.

No, we did not do this. The majority of students marched on, continuing their chants, letting the government realise that though we were angry at what they were doing we would not go so low as to resort to violence, we would still show passion. One group is reported to have made a placard saying “Break the cuts, not the windows.”

Let’s look at the numbers. Going by a Guardian article there were 200 violent protesters, leaving 49,800 peaceful protesters. That’s 0.4% of us being violent bastards! And they account for all us students? OF COURSE NOT! Apparently this rose to a thousand, though that was mainly the crowd that was outside watching the spectacle.

 “I am appalled that a small minority have today shamefully abused their right to protest”

-       London Mayor Boris Johnson

“This was not part of our plan. This action was by others who come out and used this opportunity to hijack a peaceful protest.”

-       NUS President Aaron Porter

(Quotes from the BBC)

And what of the violence? Did it help put across our cause? Well, maybe. They may have shown that students are bloody angry. But we all were, we didn’t take it to such an extreme. Personally I feel, as well as many of my colleagues, that what happened was detrimental to our cause. That it would show the student off as a yob, a hooligan, and, possibly, a terrorist. Do we negotiate with terrorists? Of course not. Despite the violence I feel that we did make an impact.

But I have to re-iterate: this was not the reason we were there. We wanted to show the government, through peaceful protest, that we were pissed off and that we did not agree with the government’s choices.

Through our peaceful nature we showed the coalition government that we are not happy and that there is still room for them to change their minds. The sheer number of people that moved on from the violence and watched and listened to the speakers shows how we students are not violent, even in our passion.


To read a more opinions on the NUS demonstration visit: Teodora's Blog

The Hooker with a Heart of Gold (Part 1)

I’m a great fan of Brad Jones’ work. From The Cinema Snob to Kung Tai Ten Brad’s voice just keeps you calm as you watch some of the worst films ever. And even his episodes of Brad and Jerrid are well written and acted well enough to pull off a fair bit of comedy. And now he’s brought something new.

The first episode in a mini-series, The Hooker with a Heart of Gold is a dark comedy written and directed by Brad Jones. The series revolves around a prostitute know as Hooker (Sarah Lewis) who no longer wishes to be in her line of business due to the treatment she receives from her pimp (Jones) as well as... well, just being a prostitute isn’t very nice. At the same time as this a scientist (Brian Lewis) has created an artificial heart made of gold that runs on electricity. As we can tell by the title things aren’t going to be too pretty.

This first 26 minute segment of the series features a very well written script which is enhanced by some pretty good acting. The actors play their roles with enough dark humour that they are all somewhat believable, even if completely ridiculous. There’s even a small insight into the mind of Brad Jones at one point, who notorious for collecting terrible films.

This series seems like an homage to these films, not in bad writing or acting or anything that appears in these films, but in the ridiculousness of the plot. It is very tongue-in-cheek, being aware of its slightly less than normal premise and turning it into something hilarious and entertaining to watch, with some pretty good drama thrown in there.

The choice of music for this episode is nothing short of awesome. It captures the feel of what is happening at the time and adds to a slight camp value, creating drama and comedy at the same time.

The only thing that sometimes seems off about the episode is the directing and editing. For the most part it is pretty good, but some close-ups that are far too close and dodgy editing during a conversation (maybe due to changes in audio) seem to take away from the experience.

However, as a whole The Hooker with a Heart of Gold is completely hilarious and is well worth checking out if you are at all into dark humour. Here’s hoping the rest of the series will be as good as this episode, possibly even getting better. I’m interested to see what will be done with this twisted tale.

Final Verdict: 7/10

More of Brad Jones' work can be found on http://www.thecinemasnob.com/