The Oscars - Results *LIVE*

Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Jared Leto - Dallas Buyers Club

Costume Design
The Great Gatsby

Make-up and Hairstying
Dallas Buyers Club

Best Animated Short Film
Mr Hublot

Best Animated Feature Film
Frozen

Achievement in Visual Effects
Gravity

Best Live Action Short Film
Helium

Best Documentary Short Subject
The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life

Best Documentary Feature
20 Feet From Stardom


Best Foreign Language Film
The Great Beauty


Achievement in Sound Mixing
Gravity


Achievement in Sound Editing
Gravity

Best Actress in a Supporting Role 
Lupita Nyong'o - 12 Years a Slave
 
Best Cinematography
Gravity


Best Film Editing
Gravity

Best Production Design
The Great Gatsby

Best Original Score
Gravity


Best Original Song
Let it Go - Frozen

Best Adapted Screenplay 
12 Years a Slave


Best Original Screenplay
Her


Best Director
Alfonso Cuaron - Gravity


Best Actress in a Leading Role
Cate Blanchett - Blue Jasmine

Best Actor in a Leading Role
Matthew McConaughey - Dallas Buyers Club

Best Picture
12 Years a Slave

Well, that's it guys! A wonderful show with heartfelt tributes, gorgeous music, good laughs and brilliant films. With 7 awards falling into the hands of Gravity, it is the top movie of the night by the night ultimately belongs to 12 Years a Slave. Congratulations to all and if you want to see the most retweeted image in history, be sure to go to Ellen Degeneres' Twitter to find out what all the fuss is about. Speaking of Ellen, her light hearted approach stands well away from Seth Macfarlane's raw and energetic attitude but personally seemed a little safe after all of the press over Seth's actions.

Oblivion Movie Review! -TINY SPOILERS-

Opening earlier today, I rushed to to local Vue cinema to watch this badass film on their Xtreme screen! There are small spoilers in this review.

In the opening of Oblivion, we are given snap shots of a memory from Jack Harper (Tom Cruise), skipping throughout the huge landscapes pan shots. The CGI never looked out of place and looked exceptionally real when you are moving at pace. Robots and other set pieces look brilliant and lifelike even when they are manipulated by CGI for certain scenes. Then you have the set locations, these contrast between new and old, from a library to a lavish, modern house of the top of a huge tower.

To the action! At the start of the film, there is very little action and that continues most of the way through. Oblivion feels more of a Sci-fi thriller but for a 12A audience which restricts the amount of violence we could have seen if it was for an older audience, but it does have many twists and turns that catch you off guard and force you to piece the puzzle together on your way home.

The director; Joseph Kosinski, who also directed Tron Legacy, shows his stunning camera techniques and framing ability. Alongside the rest of his talent, directing a combat scene with no dialogue (or screaming) between the characters, just the whirling of gears, the pumping of machine guns and thrusters with music that fills you tension. In one of the beginning scenes we are located in a demolished American football stadium, a shot looks up at Harper with his arms raised in celebration

as a crooked goal post fills the background to draw your attention onto Jack. I would like to say that the writer of this did a brilliant job, with the plot twists, the character development of Harper and much more, but what the hell is with the sex scene in that freaky ass pool!? One, it was super weird. Two, you won't see me jumping into a pool hundred of feet in the air supported by a couple of beams in a world which was destroyed by nuclear fallout (It's not a spoiler, it says it right at the start of the film).

The official soundtrack was created by M83, who sounds remarkably like Daft Punk's Tron soundtrack. Whoever he is, M83 does brilliantly to create drama, raise tensions and get you pumped throughout action scenes. Sounds are crisp and truly reflect the area they are in and all the sounds are crisp and clear, especially in the huge ass screen with the big ass speakers!

Finally, the acting. It was alright. Not exceptional that you felt for all the characters. Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman's acting was the best out of the small cast with Olga Kurylenko felt a little flat and occasionally a bit dramatic. Andrea Riseborough was a character simply crazy and was much the same as Olga in certain scenes. All of the extra cast members were alright but they lacked a script and blended into the background when they could have had a much deeper connection to the outcome.

Overall, this Sci-fi - thriller is a good watch with some brilliant filming, good acting and epic music, this film is worth a watch.

My rating for this shall be 7.5/10

 

Gears of War Judgment REVIEW -SPOILERS-

Well hello everyone!, Sorry I haven't been able to do much apart from the odd trailer. Essays ain't fun!

Anyway, as you can already see, this review is about Gears of War Judgement (4).  On hearing about a sequel to Gears of War 3, I couldn't understand what they would be able to do when the Locust swarms were defeated and human society began rebuilding. However, we start a few weeks after the great war that the COG's fought in the Pendulum War's against other nations and in the aftermath of Emergence Day. Here we follow a younger Lieutenant, Damon Baird and his team 'Kilo Squad'. To set the scene, Kilo squad are dragged into a large complex while being labelled as war criminals, each character the reports to the leader of the Onyx core (Elite soldiers) in a tribunal hearing while Locusts fight the defences outside. As each character explains what happened, we play through their experience leading up to the 'crime' that they committed.

An interesting introduction and plot that managed to keep me involved. Yet that isn't hard when the main campaign took me approximately 6-7 hours of playing - Yes, I'm tired after playing till 2am but it just didn't feel long enough. For a game that costs up to £40 with an even higher RRP, you would expect to get a lot for your money. They even dropped in an extra campaign which is called Aftermath, this only took 1-2 hours. In this we follow Baird and Cole in Gears of war 3 as they go find a ship and some reinforcement for the final assault. This should have been a DLC pack or part of the story for the game it is involved in. It leaves me to think that this game was simply an opportunity of get some extra cash out of fans like myself.

Very little has changed in the world of COG's. Visuals are astonishing, with vast landscapes that need to be on a nice big 1080p screen! With new games, I will always look at their fire effects. This is my indication on whether a game is well made and well funded or vis versa. Gears had this effect which is brilliantly demonstrated with the first few minutes of game play, with a tree engulfed in flames filling the sky with a black fog. All the standard controls are back, no change there. They are still a little fiddly to start and can be a slight annoyance when you want to turn around sharply to smack a dude upside the head with your Lancer-chainsaw combo. Cover based shooting is always good but annoying when you try to switch between cover. I have also never understood how they are still alive when they hulk over any of the cover, but you know, it's only a game.

I've yet to test the online game play for this but seeing I have some time before the release of Bioshock, I should be able to give it a little poke. I know the standard games are back with all new maps. From my previous experience, online games can be really fun and do require a lot of team work between players to win matches like Horde, where you are bum-rushed by tons of the slimy gits.

Overall, the game is great fun. I'm a big fan of Gears and a big fan of excessive violence in games. As much as this is an unnecessary follow up to a game which ended quite clearly, the story was gripping and helped to describe a deeper look into Baird's background before he meet Dom even when it appears to be a way to get some extra cash, but we all know big corporations wouldn't go doing that now...Wink wink, nudge nudge...

 For this game, I will give it 7.5/10
(Because I can!, that's why!)

Kickass 2 trailer released!!

Here you go guys!, the brand new trailer for Kickass 2!

I can't talk much on the movie as I haven't seen the first one yet (It's in the post, get off my back), I can tell here that one of the previous 'Goodies' is now a 'Baddie' dressed as a gimp. I'm sure that is going to end well. We follow the same characters, but with a few new addiditions, Jim Carrey everybody, JIM FECKING CARREY.

As you can see, he is the reason I have bought the original and will be watching it once it arrives.

QOTD - Possibility of a scheduled movie plan?, I watch a movie on DVD or whatever, write about it and you guys add your reviews in the comments?

NEW Bioshock Infinite Trailer!!!!

Here we go guys, one of the top games for this year...which should have been last year!, but lets hope that the delays for fixes and new ideas all work out!

Here we work our way out of the sunken city of rapture and move well up into the sky to fling between lines, blow some heads open, scream with terror, giggle at the extreme violence and absorb every drop of the story that we have got used to from the previous games. On it's release day, I would have had this bad boy on pre-order for a year!, to the day!

I can tell you now, I will be smashing this game so god damn hard on release day. I just hope my day at work flies by rapidly so I can become the gaming hermit I was born to be.

Lets hope it lives up to it's hype!

Expect a review a few days after I have completed it. I will not be writing a first thoughts piece, mainly as I will be glued to my TV screen!

Paperman Review

Disney’s "Paperman"

Directed by John Kahrs

Paperman was recently awarded best animated short film at the Oscars last week and due to this, I decided to review it and let you know what I think of it.
I saw Paperman by accident while browsing the interwebs back in February and I'm glad! It was worthy of that award.

"An animated short film that follows the story of a lonely young man in mid-century New York City. His destiny takes an unexpected turn after a chance meeting with a beautiful woman on his morning commute. Convinced that the girl is the woman of his dreams but will be gone forever, he gets a second chance when he spots her in a skyscraper window across the avenue from his office. With only his heart, imagination and a stack of papers to get her attention, his efforts are no match for what the fates have in store for him." - Walt Disney Studios

Firstly the film is completely black and white, except for the single shade of red of the women's lipstick. Plus, not a single word is spoken during the length of the film. The animation runtime is only six and a half minutes for the entire length. So, with no speaking and no colour, it is bearable and, in-fact, I would say it makes it better. What really stood out to me was the animation style, a mix between hand drawn 2D animations overlaid with 3D CGI, which looks incredible. You can see the pencil sketch marks which slowly are lost to digital works. In terms of the story it was a simple story of two people falling in love at first sight, which has Disney written all over it but was told in a fantastic and creative way.
Due to the lack of speak, the soundtrack is the only thing you are given to listen to and the music goes perfectly with the animation; in some parts it portrays the sad and alone feelings of the characters, and in others it  brings out the magic of the two characters reuniting with other. The music was beautifully performed by Christopher Beck.

Overall I would really recommend this to anyone for its amazing animation and simple yet quick story that anyone can enjoy. 9/10

Rise of the Guardians Review

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--> Hey guys! Josh here giving you my first review for Blackribbonreviews please leave feedback and tell me what you would like us to review :D

Rise of the Guardians

Directed by Peter Ramsey

Being a huge Dreamworks Animation fan I was really looking forward to watching this film, and I have to say how could I not. A classic good VS evil story involving the classic characters that we have all known since our childhood like Santa Claus the Tooth fairy, Easter bunny, Sandman and Jack Frost.

The trailer which I saw back in April really hooked me with its quality line up of voice actors:

Chris pine (Jack frost), Alec Baldwin (Santa), Jude Law (Pitch boogie man), Isla Fisher(Tooth Fairy) and Hugh Jackman (Easter bunny).

The film itself however the was very similar to the Marvel Avengers concept, of different heroes coming together to fight an evil which threatens the world, which funnily enough I was OK with.

Being Dreamworks though they add a few twists in the concept and presentation of the characters we thought we knew for example Santa Claus being covered in tattoos and resembling a biker, or the Easter bunny being represented as a Australian warrior, I personally loved this it created fantastic humour and character development.

The plot itself is very plain and basic nothing really stood out to me but I can overlook that being a childrens film. What really stood out to me was the amazing CGI, Fantastic! The different particle effects they use for the characters powers are breathtaking and the contrast between the colours really creates an amazing display.

overall really enjoyed this movie and I would recommend to kids and to some adults 7/10