Guillermo Del Toro Won't Direct The Hobbit

More bad news on the production set of The Hobbit. After months of funding problems and shooting delays and casting issues, Guillermo Del Toro, has announced that he is leaving the series and will not be directing the two movies.

The Mexican director, who has been in heavy development and prep for the Lord of the Rings prequel for the past couple of years, announced the news in a joint statement with producer Peter Jackson.
“In light of ongoing delays in the setting of a start date for filming “The Hobbit,” I am faced with the hardest decision of my life”, says del Toro. “After nearly two years of living, breathing and designing a world as rich as Tolkien’s Middle Earth, I must, with great regret, take leave from helming these wonderful pictures. I remain grateful to Peter, Fran and Philippa Boyens, New Line and Warner Brothers and to all my crew in New Zealand. I’ve been privileged to work in one of the greatest countries on earth with some of the best people ever in our craft and my life will be forever changed. The blessings have been plenty, but the mounting pressures of conflicting schedules have overwhelmed the time slot originally allocated for the project. Both as a co-writer and as a director, I wish the production nothing but the very best of luck and I will be first in line to see the finished product. I remain an ally to it and its makers, present and future, and fully support a smooth transition to a new director”.Source: Empire Movies

Andrew & Alexis Ross

SURPRISE!!!
Andrew and Alexis were married on Saturday, May 29th in the beautiful La Capella Wedding Chapel. Now that is not the surprise...
Andrew worked closely with his wedding planner Courtney to pull off an amazing surprise for his bride Alexis. The chapel arranged to have our Harpist, Emily Montoya perform at their ceremony.
It was such a joy to see the look on her face as she heard the first sounds of the harp begin. I wish that Andrew could have seen how excited she was, luckily her Dads got to experience the excitement. What a nice gesture and fabulous surprise.
Congratulations to both Andrew and Alexis!

Rihanna basked in the heat as she relaxed by her hotel pool in Tel Aviv, Israel

The Human Centipede (First Sequence): Review

......... Wow. The Human Centipede. Take this title very literally. And if you know what's good for your soul. Do not watch this movie.
But I'm not saying this because the film was bad. Far from it. The Human Centipede is by far one of the most original, soul provoking, groundbreaking horror films I have seen in a long time. The film came out last year and by word of mouth from fellow movie reviewers,  have been searching all over for this film. And let me tell you, it completely blew my mind.
The Human Centipede is about two American tourists who are captured by Doctor Heiter, a renowned German surgeon who has this sick fantasy to create a human centipede by joining the digestive tracts of three human beings via the mouth and anus to create a living human centipede. So how it works is that the first person eats and then he'll shit into the mouth of the person behind him and then that person will shit into the mouth of the one behind her and then that person will shit all their shit out. Ugghh.
My God where do I even begin to talk about this movie.. It's just different, you know. The Human Centipede is going to gain the same notoriety as The Blair Witch Project because of the level of human cruelty and psychological hell it puts it's audience through. But don't think that this was a really bloody, disgusting gore movie. Matter of fact, there's barely any blood in this. And yet the movie still sent chills down my spine just thinking about these people and the things they are going through as the human centipede.
There is one scene.. one goddamn scene, where the head of the centipede has to shit, and he begins defecating into the mouth of the girl behind him whose attached to his anus. And the girl is all like, trying to scream and the guy is like, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" And Doctor Heiter is just going, "Yes... feed her! Feed her!"
But as I was saying, we weren't shown any of these scenes literally. The film finds a nice middle ground with the disgusting scenes and bloody gore and chooses to let the audience's mind fuck with them. I have heard stories that most people walked out of the cinema when the film was playing. And to be honest, i don't fucking blame them.
Dieter Laser is spine chilling as Doctor Heiter.  mean, this man is just so bloody cruel and messed up inside... Jesus Christ man. There is a scene where he is explaining to the three people how he is going to perform the operation to make the human centipede, and it will just make your skin crawl. The three actors of the human centipede are great to. Their mostly whimpering and crying throughout the film, which was great cause it made it harder for me to watch them. I particularly like Akihiro Kitamura who's the head of the human centipede, who has a really great monologue towards the end of the film.
If you think your stomach and nerves can handle this movie. Message me and I'll give you a copy of the film. I fucking dare you.Just be prepare for the mind fuck of your life.

RATING: 7/10

Prince of Persia-The Sands of Time: Review

Prince of Persia! The one movie I can proudly tell you was terrible..... but was so so so awesome!
Okay so the movie is about Dastan, the prince of the Persian empire who comes into possession of a mythical dagger that allows the user to turn back time after leading an invasion into the city of Alamut under false pretenses by his evil uncle, Nizam. But before he can explore the full capabilities of the dagger, he is wrongly accused of murdering his father and goes on the run with the dagger and it's protector, Princess Tamina to clear his name and thwart his uncle who's plans threatens the Persian empire.
Now I know you're kinda confused with me saying that this movie was terrible but also awesome. Let me try to explain. See.... this movie is bullshit. But it's just so much fun to watch. It's one of those movies you watch and go, "Well that was stupid.. but damn that's cool." Prince of Persia is in every way a Bruckheimer popcorn flick that understands the limitations of it's genre but works well within it.
I've got to bring up the whole casting issues in this movie. First of, I am one of those guys who believes that race casting isn't an issue if the actor can pull off the character they are playing. In Prince of Persia, we saw some excellent casting choices of Caucasian actors playing Persian characters such as Alfred Molina as Sheik Amar and Ben Kingsley as Nizam. Alfred Molina, because he brings great comic relief in the same vein as Sallah from Raiders of the Lost Ark and Ben Kingsley for obvious reasons... because he was Ghandhi and he can do whatever the fuck he wants.
But then there is the casting of the two leads, Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton. This is where the movie loses rating points. Because just as it happened on Pirates of the Caribbean, the two main actors who are more attractive than talented were wrongly casted alongside fantastic supporting actors and ends up getting upstaged.
 Jake Gyllenhaal was actually a fine choice for the role of Dastan because of the amounts of action, roof-scaling scenes he had to do. And I did like how he didn't try to be an all out manly action hero, Gyllenhall the boyish playfulness we have come to expect from him into his swashbuckling character which I thought was great. But the real problem was that he has absolutely no chemistry with Gemma Arterton who is stunningly gorgeous but has the most irritating high pitched voice, even Kristen Chenoweth would be insulted.
And what about the shitty storyline? OMG.. Nizam's evil plot to take over the throne of Persia is one of the most convoluted plans I have ever seen. His plan is pretty much the entire 6 seasons of Lost actually. It has time travel, purging and killing 12 year old boys. I'm watching this and I'm just thinking to myself.. "Well that don't make no sense." "So like, you kill your brother, to frame your nephew, to free up some time to go look for some magic sand, so you can go back in time... and kill your brother again? Smart"
But with all that being said, there is a reason why Prince of Persia is being considered the best video game adaptation film to date. And while I still think Advent Children will forever hold the number 1 spot, Prince of Persia is a close second. Prince of Persia succeeds because it chooses to focus more on it's characters and storytelling rather than having a slave-ish devotion to the video game and trying to incorporate the entire game into 1 hour 30 minutes.
And another thing that gives Prince of Persia the leg up over other video game adaptations is the budget. The Arabic world they've created in this movie, the costumes, the art direction, the cinematography, even the score is stunningly beautiful. I haven't seen Arabian set pieces look so epic in scale since Arabian Nights.
And damn the CGI was awesome. Prince of Persia was packed to the brim with loads of spectacle, very nicely made CGI action set pieces, mostly involving sand storms and disintegrating sand castles. And I like this film, being a Disney movie because it has slightly more violence in it. For once, we actually see people being pierced by the sword and being hit by the damn arrow. And blood! Cooool!
So anyway, the film is a very good, enjoyable, well made video game to screen adaptation. Prince of Persia is going to be one of those guilty pleasure movies cause it's tonnes and tonnes of fun but ultimately stupid and pointless.

RATING: 6/10

BREAKING NEWS: Gary Coleman Dies

Former child actor Gary Coleman has passed away. He was 42.

The hospital where Coleman was being treated tells "The Insider" that Coleman died at approximately 12:05 p.m. Mountain time at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center. He was surrounded by family members and close friends when life support was terminated.

The family members would like to "express their appreciation and gratitude for the support and prayers that have been expressed for Gary and for them," according to the hospital.

A hospital representative told "The Insider" earlier Friday that Coleman suffered an intracranial hemorrhage on Wednesday night. After being immediately taken to a local hospital for treatment, he was transferred to another hospital for tests and treatment.

By mid-morning on Thursday, Coleman was conscious and lucid, but by early afternoon, he began slipping in and out of consciousness and his condition worsened. Coleman had not been in any condition to undergo surgery, the hospital rep said. Coleman had been unconscious and on life support prior to his death.

Source: The Insider

Shrek Forever After: Review

If only William Steig (the creator of Shrek) could have seen how Hollywood has turned a truly unique animated fairytale epic into a big pile of celebrities worshipping themselves over the course of 3 movies.
 With Shrek Forever After being the final chapter in the fairytale series, one cannot help but look back at and wonder how the hell did the movie that won the very first Oscar for Best Animated Feature could spawn the despicable rape that was Shrek 2, Shrek The Third and now this big ole pile of bullshit.
So in Shrek Forever After, Shrek has turned into some sort of family man, he's got a wife, three kids, everyone loves hime and yadda yadda yadda. He goes through his mid-life crisis and all he wants to do is go back to the time when he was a scary ass ogre where he was free to do what he wanted. In comes Rumpelstiltskin who gives him a way to get what he wants but evidently erases him from ever being born.
Now, say what you want.. but I was one of the very few people who hated the second Shrek movie. And every other movie since the first one has just been a great insult to the beauty of the original. See in the first Shrek, they told an epic story that was both a parody of a fairytale and a fairytale in itself. Since then, the series has been more of who's the celebrity voices that's going to be in the movie and an endless array of pop culture jokes and techno dancing.
Shrek Forever After is just like a TV show that had it's moment in the first season and has been struggling ever since to reach that same standard. And just as it is about to overstay it's welcome, the filmmakers decide to put one more nail in the coffin by doing the It's A Wonderful Life episode of the TV show.
Yes, you lousy uncultured Malaysians. No, Shrek Forever After wasn't original.. nor heartfelt.. nor a nice experimentation of what life would be like if you weren't born. This whole entire movie was a complete, frame for frame, story for story rip off of Frank Capra's classic It's A Wonderful Life. Not that any of ya'll would know that considering most of the Malaysians that were in the same theatre as me were laughing their asses off when the Pied Piper started playing Crazy Frog.
I won't be surprised if Shrek 5 is the clip show episode where all the characters are just sitting down and going, "Hey, Donkey.. remember that time in Shrek 2 where we..." and it just flashes to that scene. Ugh God spare me the shame please.
But I will give Shrek Forever this much.. it was a huge improvement from the last movie. Certainly much funnier. There were certain moments in the film where I will guiltily say, had me chuckling quite a bit. Mostly with that fat ass cat. You know.. if the Puss In Boots spin-off really does happen, I will be all for it man. And the CGI in this one is really cool to. One being the broom chase sequence, me and my girlfriend were practically going, "This would look so great if it was in 3-D."
It really sucks to see such a great cinematic character fall from grace like this. Shrek Forever After shouts mediocrity and poor writing in every aspect of it's production. Shrek goes out in an embarrassing, uninspiring finale.

RATING: 3/10