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http://www.alternativenation.net/gallery/files/9/9/4/picture-5_thumb.jpgWhen I go and see a remake, I often find myself comparing it to the original. However, when I went to see Assault on Precinct 13, I made the effort not to compare it with John Carpenter’s 1976 movie of the same name and take it on face value. The John Carpenter version wasn’t wholly original in itself, being loosely based on an old John Wayne movie called Rio Bravo, but let’s not go into that. Gang leader Marion Bishop (Lawrence Fishbourne) and a few other petty criminals are being transported through a storm on New Years Eve. Meanwhile, in the soon-to-be-closed Precinct 13, Jake Roenick (Ethan Hawke), Jasper O’Shea (Brian Dennehy) and Iris Ferry (Drea de Matteo) are packing up and getting ready to celebrate the New Year. Things don’t go to plan though, as the bus is forced to pull in and sit out the storm. What follows is a seige situation, where a band of crooked cops – led by Lieut. Holloway...

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http://www.alternativenation.net/gallery/files/7/4/6/9/phys_graf_dvd_sleeve_thumb.jpgPhysical Graffiti is a no-nonsense DVD that contains some of the most groundbreaking extreme sports and self-mutilation footage to date. Well that’s what the blurb said, when it was originally released in the late nineties. Perhaps it was groundbreaking then but now I’m not so sure. The premise for this DVD is basically the connection between body modification and extreme sports which in a lot of cases go hand in hand – after all if you have the balls to go 90mph through the air on a dirt bike then why would you be scared of a little needle? The DVD does a good job of covering most types of modification: Tattoos, piercing, implants, suspension and more. This is all intertwined with extreme sports stars like Shaun Palmer, Christian Fletcher, Jason Jesse, etc talking about their motivation to get body mods and also shows a fair bit of them surfing, skating, snowboarding or what ever they do...

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http://www.alternativenation.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=40849&stc=1Predator 2 – Special Edition. ( DVD, 2004 ) Back before Stephen Hopkins was giving Sky One the opportunity to indulge in its annoying habit of giving away the next big plot development in its trailers for the next episode of 24, he took on the daunting task of directing a sequel to an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie – Without Arnold Schwarzenegger. The original Predator was already a classic of the genre – And stood alongside the two Alien movies that had been made to date, The Terminator and Blade Runner, as one of the few sci-fi films that crossed over into horror just enough to appeal to an adult audience without descending into the realms of the “blood-and-guts splatterfest with barely enough plot to tie the gore scenes together”. True, it was “An Arnie Movie”, but like The Terminator before it, the stunning creature design and the smarter-than-usual plot stood it apart from his more...

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Fahrenheit 9/11 Michael Moore Michael Moore is biased. This seems to be about as close to an absolute truth as you can get in modern political discourse. It's a given, right from the off, every time he's about to release a new work, that before anyone's even seen it, it will be written off as being hopelessly lopsided and chock-full of sneaky editing by all of the right and even large chunks of the centre. With US presidential elections looming, the campaign to discredit Moore is going into overdrive (witness: 'Michael Moore Hates America', a counter documentary by Michael Wilson, or David Hardy and Jason Clarke's undoubtedly precociously subtle book 'Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man'). The curious oversight made by many assessing these claims is in looking at who is making them: the White House (of course), Fox 'News', the NRA; hardly considered paragons of virtue, truth, or impartiality. To be 'biased', by dictionary definition, is to act unfairly based...

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Just noticed the film section of the Mag isn't there any more. Woe is me. White Noise comes across as a horror movie that tries to do something original before they are forced into doing a remake of an Asian film. It will still draw comparison with Hideo Nakata’s Ring trilogy because of the static TV’s but that is unfair due to the subject. The subject being Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP) which is a paranormal occurrence where the dead contact the living through static recorded on the TV or a sound recording device. Original enough to make a movie about plus scary things jumping out of a static TV is relevant to the subject. Yay Hollywood. The apparent decent plot and the not-too-shabby cast headed by Michael Keaton actually had me very eager to see this, such a shame then that the movie actually doesn’t do what it says on the tin. The first half of the movie is a decent drama about the loss of a mans wife and his obsession with contacting her from beyond the grave...

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Having never read the comic I only had the trailers to wet my appetite for this movie and wet the appetite they did. So much so that I've been annoyed for ages that this movie was released in the US and then took what seemed an age to get over here. Really in this day and age it's unacceptable. Especially if they are serious about beating the pirates but enough of that let's get on with the review. As I mentioned this movie started it's life in the same place many of the current blockbusters seem to have started, in the pages of a comic book but as I said I've not actually read the comics so I won't be able to give you a fan boys perspective on how they did this or that wrong. So to give you a brief run "In the final days of World War II, the Nazis attempt to use black magic to aid their dying cause. The Allies raid the camp where the ceremony is taking place, but not before a demon - Hellboy - has already been conjured." lucky for us the good old 'US of A' save's the...

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Have you seen Spiderman? Did you like it? Yeah, go see this, it won't be a disappointed. Ok those still reading either haven’t seen Spiderman or didn't like it or for some reason don't believe me and want me to elaborate so for you guys here's the deal. Having survived the green goblin in Spiderman we find our favourite web slinging hero two years down the line at college still free lancing for the daily bugle to pay the rent in New York city and saving the general populace. When ever the need arises. Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) has managed to land a role and is getting on with her life while Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is finding trouble balancing the act of hero and every day joe a trial to say the least. Throw in a mad professor with tentacles and everything isn't hunky dory in the spidey household. Flushed and in need of a break Spiderman’s all for jacking it in and leading the easy life as a civilian. The main action revolves round Doc Ock/Dr. Otto Octavius...

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Make no mistake about it, Kill Bill Volume Two does not fail to live up to the hype. Though a very different movie from the first, it's still an American slice of cinematic beauty, sure to leave the audience with a smile on their face, and possibly a tear in the eye. The story continues where Volume One left off... The Bride hunting down Bill, her former employer, for his attempted murder of her and her unborn child. After ploughing through two of Bills assassins (known as the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad or DVAS); Oren Ishii and Verenia Green, Volume two sees our un-named heroine pursuing the final two of the DVAS before attempting to gain bloody revenge on Bill. The film is not as flashy or as blood thirsty as its predecessor. In fact, the amount of blood spilt in the second film would barely fill a pint glass, whereas the first instalment was, at times, a literal blood bath. A far more character driven instalment, Kill Bill Volume Two features just one actual fight...

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I pretty much walked into this film later than most everyone else on the planet, although I think there is a guy somewhere in deepest darkest Azerbaijan sitting in a mud hut that hasn’t seen this movie yet. I was sceptical at first as to the validity of a film that is, for all intent and purpose, based on a theme park ride especially one as saccharin as the “Pirates of the Caribbean” from Disney World. Fear not, the pirates in the movie do not burst into song well not as you’d notice anyway and the acting is better than the animatronic puppet name sakes. Speaking of acting, there is one performance in this movie that outshines, out camps out performs any other and that is the character of Captain Jack Sparrow played by the eternally youthful Johnny Depp. His grand show of flamboyance and quiet madness is fascinating to watch, perhaps not hysterically funny but it will raise smiles throughout the films length. There has never been a pirate like this in the history...

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The cinema lights dim, the instantly recognisable Warner Brothers logo then lots of green numbers and letters whizzing up and down a black screen… hmmm I’ve seen this before. Wait! What’s this? Reloaded? Woohoo! Okay so everyone on the planet has seen the Matrix, we all know how bullet time works and computers do all the hard work so we don’t have to. Well given the extent of the fight scenes in Reloaded I’d say hats off to all the computers that did months of wire work and fight training for this one. And no this is not a comment at the acting ability of our Mr Reeve, honest. The opening scene with Trinity fighting an Agent or later with Neo and his antics with Mr Smith in the school yard sticks out as two of those jaw dropping moments where you struggle to see the joins and will happily suspend your disbelief just to enjoy what are two fantastic set pieces in the film. Throw into that mix some fantastic car chance sequences and you already have enough action for two...