The Hangover is an awesome movie.

I’d never heard of any of the actors before, excepting Heather Grahame, but I’ll be looking for them in the future.

The three main characters in the movie, who are the groom’s friends, are played by Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis.  These three are brilliant, hilarious characters and are amazingly convincing.

There are some great quotes from The Hangover, mostly from Alan.  For example:

Phil: “Whose baby is that?”
Alan: “Check its collar or something.”

and

Alan: “Tigers love pepper. They hate cinnamon.”

The Hangover is great for a laugh.  Go see it! 

Links   Official Website    IMDb

This is the eleventh movie to be made in the Star Trek franchise and the first one I’ve ever seen.  I haven’t even watched any of the TV epsiodes before and no matter how hard I try, I cannot do the Vulcan sign without bending my fingers forward or holding them together.  Sadly, I am not a Trekkie.

But with all of the buzz surrounding this particular movie, I really wanted to to see it and I did a couple of weeks ago (I know; I’m a long time getting to it).

I liked this movie a lot.  It looks great, it’s funny and as far as I can tell, stays pretty true to the TV series and previous movies.  The plot is interesting, but I can’t say I understood everything that was happening somewhere around the middle.  It may have just been me and I’m sure I’ll get it all on a second viewing.

I loved the cast!  Many of the actors were unknown to me before Star Trek, but now I think I’ll be looking out for them, especially Zachary Quinto (Spock).  Of the actors I had heard of, Simon Pegg (Scotty) and Eric Bana (Nero) stood out to me.  Pegg was funny, as expected, and Bana was just good, which I didn’t expect (I’ve never really warmed to Eric Bana and I have no idea why).  It was nice to see Jennifer Morrison (Kirk’s mother) and Winona Ryder (Spock’s mother), too.

I say, go see it at the movies while you still can!

I love this!

“Hang on spider monkey!”

This guy actually doesn’t make a bad Edward, and James’, Laurent’s and Carlisle’s wigs are hilarious.

Merlin is finally here (in Australia), premiering Sunday, 6:30pm on Ten. Are you excited???

If you don’t know about the show yet (or even if you do), have a look at the BBC’s pretty website.  There is heaps of stuff on there, like pics, character guides, games and videos.

Merlin has a lot of fans overseas, so it’ll be interesting to see how it’s received here.  I, for one, am expecting to completely love it.

I’ve been pretty slow to get to this (I saw Dragonball Evolution over a week ago) and now I think I’ve forgotten most of what I wanted to say, but I’m going to try anyway.

Dragonball isn’t a bad movie.  It’s entertaining enough and it looks pretty, but I doubt whether anyone who hasn’t watched or doesn’t like the any of the original series would like it very much.

My biggest problem with the movie is the way that they changed the story. I understand that some things needed to be chopped and changed (Dragonball in all its forms was a very long series) but why did they need to make Goku go to school?  Maybe I am remembering it wrong, but I don’t think that ever happened in the show.  Things like that alter the tone of the story.

Here’s what the director and stars of Dragonball Evolution had to say (from MTV SplashPage):

     As a huge fan of the “Dragonball” series, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” alum James Marsters (Lord Piccolo) was quick to remind audiences that, though “Dragonball Z” may be the more popular iteration of the anime in the United States, the first anime series ran for over 150 episodes before “Z” ever came along. He explained that while his version of Piccolo may not be the version we’re used to, it doesn’t mean that, sequels permitting, we won’t eventually see him in the more traditional, greener-skinned makeup.

Director James Wong attributes many of the changes to superficial necessities in pulling characters and costumes into the “real” world. Like the experience 20th Century Fox had with the “X-Men” films, Wong believes that just because Goku wears bright orange in the anime, that doesn’t mean it’s going to look right on-screen.

“We shot so many test with so many different versions,” said Wong, pointing out that fans should still get a kick out of the regular costume’s brief appearance.

For Justin Chatwin (Goku), the biggest issue was in making sure that the film captured the hero’s uniquely spikey hairstyle, going through 40 cans of hairspray to get down the right blend of real-world and cartoon. Likewise, Emmy Rossum’s Bulma went through quite a few iterations of all-blue wigs before the end-result of a partially-blue dye.

The other major change comes in capturing the tone of “Dragonball” — one that Wong explained was shifted early on for a family-friendly focus, a move that involved dropping some of the more risqué elements of the original manga. While Chow Yun Fat’s Master Roshi may look totally different than his animated counterpart, the cast insists that the important elements are still there.

“He kind of embodies the essence of Master Roshi,” explained Jaime Chung (Chi Chi), “Minus being perverted.”

Overall, the acting is okay, but not brilliant.  I think the best is Justin Chatwin, who played Goku, which was a good thing considering he is the main character.  I was impressed with how similar he is to the original Goku.  It would have been difficult taking that character from anime to a live-action movie.  There are differences, but when compared with the other differences between the TV series and the movie, it is not much. He captures the character very well.

I would say that I enjoyed Dragonball Evolution, but I am definitely in no hurry to watch it again.

Meanwhile, we can all watch Dragonball, Dragonball Z and the various other series for free at www.rawranime.com

Links    IMDb     http://dbthemovie.com/     Official Website     Wikipedia

A couple of days ago, MTV interviewed Emma Watson:

“While “Twilight” actresses Kristen Stewart, Rachelle Lefevre, Ashley Greene and others recently made their own career breakthroughs, such fan madness is old-hat for Emma Watson. Which is all the more amazing when you consider that the world-famous actress otherwise known as Hermione Granger is still only 18 years old.

Recently, we caught up with the sweet-smiling superstar her eagerness to watch “Half-Blood Prince,” and whether she’d ever bare all for a role a la Daniel Radcliffe. And naturally, we had to ask the star of this generation’s first book-to-film teen blockbuster series what she thought about the “Twilight” phenomenon.

“I don’t know much [about it],” she admitted. “I haven’t seen the film.”

Nevertheless, Watson said she was thrilled to see her hunky “Goblet of Fire” and “Order of the Phoenix” co-star graduate to become one of Hollywood’s most promising young leading men since, well, Daniel Radcliffe. “Obviously, I know Rob,” she explained. “I’m just gob-smacked by the level of excitement and hype around ‘Twilight.’ I’m very happy for Rob that it’s been so successful.”

And although RPattz likes to play up his shock and confusion over all those shrieking, Sharpie-waving fans, Emma insisted that she knew all along that he’d someday become like the Beatles all rolled into one. “Of course I did; he is incredibly handsome!” she grinned. “He is a very, very handsome man, so I’m not too surprised.””

I find it incredible that she hasn’t seen Twilight.  Sometimes I think actors don’t even like movies.

Anyway, I’m really looking forward to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, mostly because of the posters that have been put out, which along with some other pics can be seen here at mtv.com.  They are very, very pretty and very cool.

And I’d post the trailer/s too, except I can’t tell which are the official trailers and can’t deicide which one/s to choose, so here’s a link to a whole heap of them instead and you can take your pick. 

The current official release date on IMDb is 15 July for Australia, UK and US.

I was just looking for the Dragonball Evolution trailer on youtube and came across this:

How funny is that?  I wonder how much practice they had to do?

And I did find the trailer, but the quality isnt much good, so here’s the link to the movie’s official website which has the trailer on the front page. 

As a child I loved Dragonball Z; I watched it every morning, and I must say that I find this trailer a bit disappointing.  To me, it looks pretty rubbish, but I’m still going to go see it anyway, and I’m hoping that it’ll be better than it looks.

Somehow, I have managed to miss out on hearing anything about this movie other than that it exists, so I am surprised to find that it actually has some known (to me) actors in it e.g. Emmy Rossum.

I’ll post again after I’ve seen it.

Fug Madness at Go Fug Yourself is over and Aubrey O’Day has won.  I am ridiculously disappointed about that.  I was for Tilda Swinton (affectionately known as just SWINTON on GFY) right from the beginning.  At least I can comfort myself with the knowledge that Aubrey only just beat SWINTON, with 51% of the vote, but I am still sad.

Maybe she can can be even more crazy/awesome in her sartorial choices and win next year…