Noise That Is Drowning Out The Melody: GUEST POST

Music is an integral part of cinema. Right from the days of silent films, when a live orchestra had to play at the theatres till the cinemas today, a film without a background score is pictures without meaning. Not only does music add to the effect of dialogue and action but also creates an ambience for the viewers. Music helps the viewers to get involved in the film and view it not only as a spectator but as a part of the film.

Till the advent of talkies, in the late 1920s, when synchronized sound had not been in use, a live orchestra used to sit in the orchestra pit of a theatre and the show would start once the music conductor had taken his place. At that point of time, music was essential since the actors would mostly do a pantomime because of the lack of synchronized sound. Their actions used to be accentuated through music.

Even after the talkies were introduced, a background score was every director’s need. A film seemed like a picture without colour. A background score is important to create a sense of drama, mystery, suspense, fun, melancholy and wrath. Background music coupled with action makes dialogues sound effective. Just like the right kind of lighting is essential for a scene to be perfected, in the same way the music has to be exactly suited to bring out the right emotion in the scene. Background music for film has evolved over the years. The live orchestra was replaced by recorded sound which was then replaced by digital sounds and music.

However, over the years, the music quality has deteriorated and background music is slowly becoming ineffective. Digital sound fails to achieve what a live orchestra could achieve. Background music of the films of the yesteryears added to the film a different charm, a magnetic charm that music makers these days somehow fail to achieve.

First of all, the musician composing the background theme should have a good understanding of cinema only to understand what kind of music will suit a particular sort of mood. A background score should accentuate the performance of the actors and make a scene more powerful. These days all a background score does is creates noise in inappropriate portions of the film. The quality of the background score has not become bad but has definitely become poorer than before.

Instruments that were used to create good and effective music are hardly in use these days. The digitalization of music has created absurd sounds that are loud and gaudy. In a film, only few parts need to be highlighted through music. Background music also acts as a leitmotif in films. It does not have to continuously play in the background but only when it is required. The quality of a background score has most definitely dropped as the years have progressed.

Background music for film is important as it creates the right kind of atmosphere for a shot. These days the background music is hardly given importance as the directors focus more on what is more commercially viable for the film.

Author's Bio : Dianna Smith, a passionate movies and music lover, loves to write content about background music for film and to know more about this ,he recommends to visit musicdealers.com.

2013 Movie Previews: IRON MAN 3, WOLVERINE, FAST AND THE FURIOUS 6, ROBOCOP and THE LONE RANGER

I feel like I should apologise first off this morning, I've been away for about a week the reasons were mainly that I've been away at the weekend on a stag party so I was way to drunk to do anything here, second to that I really seem to have ran out of enthusiasm for the site recently. I'm sure at some point we all go through this, and to be honest that lack of enthusiasm right now is backed up a little by the fact that there is nothing on TV. Yesterday I was on YouTube and ran past this clip for some big movies that will be coming our way next year, remember the lists we done at the beginning of this year? 2012's most anticipated movies part 1 and 2, yeah? Well I'm sure the movies mentioned here will be on a similar list.

Take a look at the video below for a little sneak peak into Iron Man 3, Fast and the Furious 6, Wolverine, Star Trek 2, The Lone Ranger, Man of Steel, World War Z, Wolverine, The 300 Sequel, R.I.P.D and Robocop.

Iron Man 3

Robert Doweny Jr will be back to play Iron Man as we expected, British actor Ben Kingsley is expected to star as a villain whilst comic book fans of the franchise will also be excited at the prospect of Cyborg and Firepower being involved in the movie.

You can see what I thought of Iron man here: IRON MAN REVIEW and IRON MAN 2 REVIEW (Blu-ray).

The Fast and the Furious 6

Really? I think they should have left this alone after the second attempt of 2 Fast 2 Furious, but that's just my opinion of course, the Fast and Furious franchise has been hugely succsesful box office wise with the latest Fast Five starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson taking a massive $626m worldwide. Johnson will be reprising his role in the latest movie alongside Vin Disel and Paul Walker, just confirmed is Michelle Rodriguez and it's rumourned that star of Battleship and pop sensation Rhianna will also be in the movie.

Star Trek 2

I'm no Trekky fan, never have been, I've never seen the latest movie nor do I intend watching it but I'm sure someone will be excited about it's release. J.J. Abrams will be producing again and we know that British actor and star of BBC's worldwide hit Sherlock Benedict Cumberbatch will star along with 80's actor Peter Weller who played Robocop and also starred in Dexter's fifth season.

The Lone Ranger

This movie seems to have been coming for a while now, probably due to all the hype surroinding it's star man Johnny Depp who will play Tonto, also starring will be star Armie Hammer who will play the man in the mask The Lone Ranger.

Man of Steel

Don't now a great deal about this one but Henry Cavill will star as Clark Kent aka Superman and will once again be fighting against his arch enemy General Zod played by Michael Shannon. Man of Steel will also star Amy Adams as Louis Lane, Kevin Costner and Russel Crowe.

World War Z

Brad Pitt's movie is another one which seems to have been in the making a while now, again I don't really know to much about it but earlier in the year I posted a funny story about the set of the movie being raided by police.

Wolverine

The most famous of the X-MEN Hugh Jackman is back in his starring role as Wolverine, the movie is the direct follow up to 2009's X-MEN Origins: Wolverine which I reviewed HERE.

300: Battle of Artemisia

Gerard Butler his role in the Sparta army, I've never seen the original movie but will hopefully get round to it before this release.

Robocop

We mentioned 80's Robocop Peter Weller above and we've know for a while now that there would be a remake to the hit 80's franchise. Again, I don't know much on the movie but Robocop will star Joel Kinnamin from AMC's The Killing in the leading role and Gary Oldman will star as the scientist who turns him into the cyborg cop.

That's all from me today, you can probably expect to see some changes around here at the moment, I will hopefully have posts for you for the rest of this week including a guest post coming tomorrow which should have been published on Friday. In the mean time don't forget you can can follow us on Twitter, Facebook or subscribe to our RSS feed to keep up with all the latest news and reviews.

TV Review: AWAKE is Sending me to Sleep - Two Birds 1.12

A lot can be said of Awake, I’ve certainly said plenty about it in recent weeks following its cancellation by NBC, that penguin back in episode six should really have been built on more as that was probably the first time Awake dealt with one case in the two realities. Moving onto to last weeks “Say Hello to my Little Friend” and once again Awake pulled it out the bag providing us with it’s best episode yet, build that again to this weeks “Two Birds” and Awake again provided us with a brilliant episode where the conspiracy has finally started to bleed through both realities. This is something which should have been happening a lot more, as everything which spiralled from the accident should have had a consequence in “red” or “green”, had we been given that Awake may well have fared a little better when NBC were handing out second season orders to their shows.

I have really enjoyed Awake the last two weeks but again find myself in a position where I don’t really feel like I want to go into to much depth, after all next weeks season finale will be the last we see of the show and I feel that the cancellation has effected my view on weekly proceedings since then. I really haven’t felt emotionally attached to the show like I was in the beginning, of course I still want to find out which dream is real and see a satisfying conclusion to the conspiracy case, but I'm not holding my breath.

The reality of the show is the one which most people will be wanting answers to, which is it? Red or green? Recent episodes have been focused in the red dream and have certainly started to sway my opinion somewhat, like last weeks falling incident at the fair ground, Britten woke back up in the red dream. That as we all know is a sign of dreaming, however this week they swapped that one round when Britten was shot he woke back up in the green dream, this makes me more inclined to go back with this being the actual reality.

I find that when I watch Awake I don’t really care about any of the other characters involved, I only want to see Michael Britten and only care about his story. There are a host of other things going on however none of them seem to interest me. Vega for instance, not interesting at all, although this is the fist episode where he seems to have sat up and took any notice at all. Captain Harper, not interesting she seems to want to hear Britten out back in the green dream, but you can’t help but think that’s only to cover her own tracks, again I don’t really care. That building where all the heroin was being stored (don’t remember and can’t be bothered to look up its name), this is the centre of the conspiracy, but again I’m not interested.

After all is said and done about Awake you really do have to tip your hat to Jason Isaacs, this guy is a brilliantly talented actor and if anything he has put his name back in the spotlight for the right reasons. In Particular this episode he portrayed Michael Britten as a
man on the edge, at breaking point with some style, note Jason Isaacs looks like a mean ass motherf**ker sporting the unshaven look.

I suppose you can call that more of a summing up than a review but lets face it there is one episode left now and yes I will be watching it hoping for answers to the questions which I have posed above, it will be nice to see Awake rounded off properly with no loose ends left to tie up and I think Kyle Killen will be looking to have that done for us tonight.

Movie Trailer: SKYFALL Bond is Back in Spectacular Fashion

I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I was when the Email dropped into my inbox with the official first teaser trailer for the 23rd Bond movie which we found out a while back was named Skyfall, the trailer comes days after Daniel Craig the best Bond ever has signed on to do a 4th movie in the franchise which is scheduled for release maybe next year or after. The latest movie has had the Directional reins handed over to Oscar winner Sam Mendes and the following trailer is absolutely stunning, so much so that if I had the option to pre-book my cinema ticket now you can be rest assured that’s what I’d do.

That was good right? At only one minute and twenty five seconds I don’t remember a trailer which gripped me that much. It would seem as if Daniel Craig’s bad ass bond is going to be back to the very best that we saw in Casino Royale, some said they were disappointed with Craig’s second instalment Quantum of Solace but I thought that was
every bit as good as his first. Skyfall also stars Javier Bardem, Ralph Finnes, Berenice Marlhoe, Ben Wishaw and of course Judi Dench.

On this outing Bond has his loyalty to M tested when her past comes back to haunt her, with MI6 under attack Bond doesn’t know who to trust and goes all out to save the day. Skyfall is due for release November this year and I can’t wait.

Remember; Skyfall was part of our most anticipated movies lists that I put out earlier this year, why not go check out Part 1 and Part 2?

TV Trailer: THE FOLLOWING Coming to Fox in 2012 Starring Kevin Bacon and James Purefoy

You may remember last week when we were talking about Keifer Sutherland's Touch getting renewed, tagged onto the end of that article was news that Fox had picked up a new serial killer thriller called The Following which stars James Purefoy and non other than Hollywood A-Lister Kevin Bacon. That alone would be enough to get anyone's interest, it sure got mine and earlier in the week Fox released a four minute trailer for the show which as yet has not been given a date or time slot. The Following was originally scheduled as a mid-season show but from what I've heard Fox are holding off for now meaning that we are likely to see this in September time along with J.J. Abrams new show Revolution.

Now that looks really good doesn't it? And is it any wonder considering who is starring? One thing I'm not sure on is how many seasons it can go on for but I guess we'll get a better gage on that once the series starts.

As you've probably guessed The Following follows the story of Kevin Bacon a retired FBI agent who is brought out of retirement when a serial killer who he put inside escapes from prison. Not only does the killer (James Purefoy) escape, he also goes about a little social networking and gains himself a following of sorts. From the trailer it looks like he is captured pretty quick, but unfortunately for the FBI his ways have rubbed off on his followers and now the FBI must get inside his mind whilst also tracking down his fans.

It does look really good and and you can be sure I will be checking it out and letting you know what I think. How about you? Will you be checking out The Following?

TV Review: PERSON OF INTEREST - Firewall 1.23 - Season Finale

Well, that's it the best show on TV, Person of Interest has finally capped off what has been a thrill ride from start to finish. The show may have started slow, I remember saying back in the "Pilot" review that I wasn't sure that I would be watching all it all but boy am I pleased I did. "Mission Creep" arrived and from that moment on I've been hooked. Person of Interest was initially only penned for a thirteen episode order with the reveal of Mr Reese, the man in the suit to Detective Carter being the season finale, luckily for us POI became so popular for CBS they ordered further episodes for the first season and even went as far as to renew Person of Interest for a second season. Creator Jonathan Nolan has certainly found a very entertaining way to put a spin on the weekly procedural police drama with each POI seemingly connected in one way or the other, that is more recent admittedly but this finale was one not to be missed.

"Firewall" had a brilliant start and I finally figured why sometimes we have to wait a few weeks for new episodes. Person of Interest likes to keep things current, so much so that this episode was based on May 17th, the same day it aired in the US. Carter gets the call from Finch to say that's she's needed as their mutual friend is in trouble the FBI and corrupt HR have him exactly where they want him and the net is closing fast, as Carter sees his image on the screen "the machine" throws us a flashback and shows us the build up to where everything started to go wrong for Reese and Mr Finch. The latest POI Caroline Turing (Amy Acker), a pshycologist to wealthy men who on the face of it seemingly knows to much information about her clients and one of them now wants her dead.

Pretty much the whole episode was based in an apartment building with Reese in a seemingly impossible situation, that was until Finch hacked the communications network and blacked it out, that's it three done out of there. Yeah right, this is Person of Interest and you can guarantee there will be a twist up their sleeve somewhere, but I have to be honest I didn't see this twist coming. I knew at some point we were going to figure out who Root was, I just wasn't expecting it to be Caroline Turing. I thought it would be Alicia and that she would become a bigger part of the story, just then bang she's dead and Caroline jumps in to introduce herself as Root, great stuff.

It was nice to see Zoe (Paige Turco) back once again the private investigator we first met back in "The Fix" when she was a POI who Reese rescued, I think we will be seeing more of Zoe come the second season of Person of Interest. It was also good to see that Carter and Fusco finally know what each other are up to, let's face it with Finch now kidnapped (presumably) by Caroline, Reese is going to need all the help he can get in order to get him back.

I'm actually struggling to go into a lot of detail on this one, although the episode was brilliant I don't think it was the best, the twist and the ending sequence were very good and it certainly leaves you with plenty questions going into the second season. Who does Root work for? If she doesn't work for anyone, then why is she so interested in the Machine?

Do you think Finch has known all along that he would be kidnapped? And part of his reason for bringing Reese into the loop was just that? I certainly wouldn't discount it. What about the machine? Is this thing as clever as Skynet in the Terminator movies? Finch has said previously that he built the machine to be self sufficient, and we have talked in previous reviews about the fact that the machine knows when it is under threat, even at the end when Reese was talking to it, the machine recognised him as an asset, do you think it knows Finch as it's controller?

One big question we will all have going into the second season, who was on the other end of that pay phone? I have a seen a suggestion that it's Elias, we haven't seen him for a few weeks and I wouldn't put that out the realms of possibility, maybe the machine is cleaver enough to send talking text messages to pay phones who knows? One thing I do know is Person of Interest is one of the best shows on TV, I have really enjoyed this season and I can't wait for the second. What are your thoughts on Person Of Interest? Be sure to comment and let me know.

WEEKLY CINEMA: General Aladeen travels to the States and The best action Movie in Years

There are a couple of new movies out this week that I want to talk about, the rest are french or foreign movies which if your like me probably won't interest you at all. All the cinema buzz still surrounds The Avengers right now but this week sees the release of two movies, both of which promise not to disappoint. So, first off we'll check out General Aladeen of Wadeya who is off on his travels (well kidnapped actually) to America and then we are going to look at an Indonesian movie which critics are saying is the biggest and most fearsome action film to hit our screens in years, there is no order to the movies this week as I can't choose between them. I will be making an effort to get to both of these movies.

I'll start with The Dictator, the newest comedy brought to us by British stand up comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, we all now Sacha by now, or Ali G, Borat, Bruno what ever you want to call him but you can be sure that whilst being in the comedy genre that this movie will be making a point somewhere down the line. The Dictator also stars Anna Faris and Ben Kingsly.


Niiice!

 Cohen plays Admiral General Aladeen of Wadeya, a fictional North African country. Aladeen is a ruthless Dictator who kills anyone who dares disagree with him, the order is given to his guards by way of his signature head chop signal. Aladeen is summoned to the UN in order to address concerns they have regarding his nuclear program, arriving at the UN headquarters in New York Aladeen is kidnapped and thrown out onto the streets of the US before being replaced by an impostor who can open up Wadeya's oil reserves for business.

I do like Sacha Baron Cohen and from the trailer The Dictator does look very, very funny. I really enjoyed Borat, have never seen Bruno and thought Ali G In Da House was ridiculous, on saying that I still laughed though and if the following three minute trailer fails to give you a chuckle then you need to lighten up a little.




 Now I'll move onto The Raid: Redemption, the newest action movie to come out of Indonesia and one of the most action packed ass kicking movies in decades if you are to believe what critics are saying. The Raid stars Iko Uwais, Ananda George and Ray Sahetapy.

Indonesian Title: Serbuan Maut

The Raid is set in Indonesia as you would expect and is based in the Capital City of Jakarta where a derelict apartment building has become a no-go area for locals and even the police. Ruthless crime lord Tama Riyadi (Ray Sahetapy) has taken over the building and runs his criminal empire from the confines whilst the building has become a safe house for the city's most dangerous Gangsters and killers. Finally having enough the police infiltrate the apartment block under the cover of darkness with a 20 man strong SWAT team, from that point the action is non-stop with loads of gun battles, explosions and the traditional Indonesian Martial Art of Pencak Silat on display.

The Raid is in subtitles for us who only speak English, but I wouldn't let that put you off this movie really does look good and when there is this much kick ass involved do you really need to know what's being said anyway? I don't, that's for sure and I will hopefully be checking this movie out soon, in the mean time check out the trailer below. I promise it won't disappoint.
 

Trailer: J.J. Abrams REVOLUTION Coming to NBC This Fall

There has been loads of TV news this week, probably due to the fact that all the American networks are releasing their schedules for what’s coming in fall 2012, there are many returning as we already know, most prominent of which will be Dexter, Homeland and The Walking Dead. However, the networks also have some interesting new shows coming our way, I reported the other day on Kevin Bacon’s new serial killer thriller The Following coming to Fox which you can be sure I’ll be checking out, but this week also saw the trailer for a highly anticipated show coming our way on NBC. Fresh from having Alcatraz cancelled J.J. Abrams and his team have wasted no time on bringing us their latest Lost-esq drama named Revolution and I have the trailer here for you now.

Very much like Lost, Revolution comes with a cast of virtually unknowns which really is a good thing in my opinion, one star name to mention is Breaking Bad’s Giancarlo Esposito who takes the role of a villain in the new thirteen part drama.

Revolution will start fifteen years after all electrical power and energy has mysteriously disappeared, it will follow a group people who are trying to make their way in the world following the loss of those essential things. A lot of money has been spent on the production as you would expect with Abrams and the “Pilot” episode has been Directed by Iron Man’s Jon Favreau which really shows the confidence instilled here. One thing is for certain NBC will be hoping that it’s a run away hit with both viewers and critics as they have been desperate to take hold of an audience with something, as we mentioned yesterday their latest drama Awake may have been a hit with the critics but failed to get an big weekly audience, here’s hoping that J.J. Abrams can change that for them.

TV Review: AWAKE - Say Hello to my Little Friend 1.11

You just couldn’t make this stuff up could you? The day following Awakes best ever episode NBC go and cancel the show meaning that it won’t be on their schedule next season, I really can’t say I’m to disappointed about that decision as Awake has been very poor in previous offerings in my opinion and “Say Hello to my Little Friend” is by far the best episode I can remember since the one with the Penguin. Don’t be expecting to much from this review, yes this was good but I also fell asleep at one point so maybe we will have to fill in some blanks. I would go back and watch it again but due to it being cancelled I really don’t see the point in covering this or the next two episodes in any great detail, so here goes;

Are you all thinking “red” along with me now? Following this episode and the few that have come before it “red" has been the order of the day and certainly seems to be the reality of the two dreams, but do you really think the answer would be that simple? I doubt it, and maybe we were right in the earlier episodes when we said that “green” is actually the reality, although there was one prominent remark made in this episode by the psychiatrist which resembles waking up from a dream that I think may well be the biggest clue yet.

It was during the scene at the fair ground when Michael, Rex and Emma went to do a spot of bungee jumping, before they had the chance to hook Michael up properly he slipped and fell off the rigg before waking back up in the red reality, in speaking with the shrink about it the fact was pointed out that its a typical dream state reaction, one which we can all pretty much relate to, I’m sure you have been there, I know I have when I feel like I’m falling then all of a sudden wake up with a fright. Maybe we are guessing right about the red reality maybe that is the real one.

The conspiracy end of the story finally reared it’s head this week with Michael discovering that the accident was in fact not an accident at all, more of an attempt on his and his family life. This for me was again pointing towards “red” being real as the entire conspiracy has taken place where Michael lives happily with Hannah, maybe though show creator Kyle Killen was looking for it to loop this way towards the end of the first season before changing the conspiracy to the “green” reality for the beginning of the second, after all the story in both is no different it just happens that Michael lives different lives in each.

I’m struggling to get behind the conspiracy story and to be honest I even found it hard going during this episode, probably the reason I fell asleep, but never mind there are now two episodes left to wrap this show up because as I mentioned above it has been cancelled, the question we all want the answer to still remains, which is real red or green? I’m sure that by the season finale that answer will be delivered, quite how they will deliver the answer we will have to wait and see, but for something so high in concept I expect the answer to be quite good even if the creators and writers have had to cut things short thanks to bad viewing figures.

Keifer Sutherland's Touch Renewed by Fox and Kevin Bacons The Following gets Season Order

Great news for fans of hit TV show Touch this week as Fox have just renewed it for a second season, proving un-doutably once and for all that Keifer Sutherland is the king of TV (along with Hugh Lawrie and Michael C. Hall of course). Touch premiered in January to a massive 12 million audience, the latest episode only attracted 6.7 million viewers however this show airs in the earlier slot of 8pm from the recently cancelled Alcatraz and The Finder. Fox have also green lighted Kevin Bacon’s new serial killer thriller The Following.

I watched and reviewed the “Pilot” episode of Touch and I was impressed with what I saw but couldn’t really get away with it at the time, don’t get me wrong it was a lot better than the afore mentioned Alcatraz but I just didn’t feel quite invested enough to keep going back for more, following the second episode I haven’t seen any of the others. How about you? Are you still watching Touch? Maybe you are watching it along with the UK audience on Sky1, if so let me know what you think, should I be catching up with the first season on Box set or should I just leave this one and focus on new shows that maybe will interest me more?

One of those new shows I’m talking about is Fox’s new thriller "The Following" starring Hollywood A-Lister Kevin Bacon, James Purefoy and Maggie Grace, the show has been given a 15-episode order by the network and is due to start airing in Fall 2012, I’m not American but I believe that’s about September time, please correct me if I’m wrong.

The show was originally named The Mastermind and will follow Kevin Bacon who plays Ryan Hardy, an FBI agent on the hunt for serial killer Joe Carroll (James Purefoy), a diabolical serial killer who uses technology to create a cult of like minded people.

There aren’t to many details on the show right now but make sure you come back and I’ll keep you informed on the latest, personally I think anything starring Kevin Bacon is well worth a look, the guy is a really good actor and I’m looking forward to seeing what he can bring to a weekly TV show.

TV Review: PERSON OF INTEREST - No Good Deed 1.22 - Reese v Two and a Half Men

The penultimate episode of Person of Interest finally arrived on our screens this week and as expected it was in no way disappointing, just when you think things simply can no get better than the previous episode J.J Abrams and his team ramp up the drama, mystery and action to the max leaving us all with bated breath as to what we can expect in next weeks finale. Seriously, as someone who has covered this show from start to finish I really have no idea which direction Person of Interest’s finale will take us, there are so may avenues to explore and so much building to what will surely be a brilliant second season of this show.

“No Good Deed” was another brilliant episode for me, ok it didn’t quite have them emotional weight that last weeks “Many Happy Returns” delivered but it did have it’s moments and succeeded once again in proving that maybe the main character in this whole story is the machine itself. This week’s POI Henry Peck, a seemingly simple dude who works as a journalist. Of course that proved not to be the case as Reese uncovered that Peck was in fact an NSA whistle blower who had started (quite rightly) to ask some questions regarding the existence of a machine which predicts future crimes. It seems that the American government and pretty much all of its law enforcement agencies are keen to protect the interests by way of removing anyone and everyone who has ever had anything to do with it.

I’ll start this week with Finch, remember a couple of weeks back when we discussed the issue of big fish? Just how much of a big fish is Finch? I would say clearly he is a very big one and the net of mystery that surrounds his character has yet to unravel. We have also discussed in the past as to weather Finch is responsible for killing his business partner Nathan Ingram, “No Good Deed” showed that maybe Finch or someone else had a reason to kill Ingram as the highly secure machine was hacked by him with a backdoor entry to the system aptly named “contingency”, quite what Finch and Ingram thought the government were going to use the machine for is anyone’s guess but what ever it is they certainly don’t want anyone knowing about it.

“No Good Deed” would suggest that perhaps what Nathan Ingram did in writing a contingency plan into the system was not such a good idea, as everyone who has ever been involved with the machine is now in danger including, Alicia Corwin who is starting to become more of a prominent figure in recent episodes, she’s the lady who met with Nathan Ingram’s son in New York and was immediately concerned the moment Harold Finch’s name was mentioned. Alicia seems content now on doing her own snooping weather that’s on Finch or the NSA I’m not sure but my money would be on the afore mentioned Finch, this all rolls back to the question of how big of a fish is Finch?

Did you catch Reese making a joke about Two and a Half Men? Weather that was aimed at their CBS TV show counterparts or was just a quirky one liner I’m not sure but amidst the kick ass and bullet off loading Finch told Reese, “there are three men Mr Reese”, who shot one of them in the leg before announcing back “two and a half men”, inconsequential of course but it tickled me so I thought I’d mention it. You do have to ask though why shoot them in the leg? After all they are chasing you with a semi automatic sub machine gun, they are highly trained agents and shooting them in the leg is probably not going to prevent them shooting back at you.

This was an episode where a lot happened with a lot of characters some old, some new and the other purely electronic but Person of Interest is certainly providing a platform at a great pace to take us into a second season, remember some characters were not even in the story this week, the corrupt HR, CIA v FBI, Elias isn’t likely to stay in prison very long and there is still Root to worry about, who may or may not be Reese's old CIA partner, roll on next week I can’t wait.

Side Notes

Did you see this week’s bad guy? Didn’t he look like a throw back to 80’s action? Seriously this guy looked like he was the fifth member of the A-Team or something, actually he kind of looked like Chuck Norris. Oh yeah I should probably also mention that this week we learnt that Finch had made a massive sacrifice for the machine in leaving his fiance.

Fox Cancel J.J. Abrams Alcatraz and Bones Spinoff The Finder

Well, would you believe it? Yeah of course you would, American TV network Fox have cancelled Alcatraz and The Finder. It comes as no surprise really both shows were heavily advertised and a lot of money had been spent on production and casting, they expected to make big impacts with audiences, unfortunately that never really worked out for
either show.

Alcatraz went down as one of early 2012’s most anticipated TV shows when we done the list back in January and it premiered to a massive 10 million audience on May 11th, however it quickly became apparent that the show was not the J.J Abrams master class which Lost had provided us for six season and by its season finale Alcatraz’s ratings had dropped to just 4.75 million. I watched the entire first season of the show and can’t say that I’m disappointed about its cancellation, although J.J Abrams must have thought it would get that second season as the show never really provided the answers as to why all of these prisoners from 1963 were returning to modern day San Francisco.

The show was bought by UK TV and is currently airing on Watch, a subscription digital channel which doesn’t quite get the eyeballs to it just yet, they are working on it no doubt as they have bought quite a few big US shows including supernatural hit Grimm, currently in the UK we are up to “Guy Hastings”, hate to break it to the UK audience but
things don’t really get any better from here, still watching the show? Then why not check out all my Alcatraz reviews HERE.

Fox have also cancelled The Finder, the show which was created as spinoff from hit Bones. The Finder “Pilot” attracted quite an audience, no doubt due to the massive hit that is Bones, however it never really managed to keep its audience and was re-scheduled in Fox’s line up. I watched the first couple of episodes of the show and thought it was ok, but it was all just a little to cheesy after a while and I quickly gave it the brush off.


Alcatraz is produced by J.J Abrams' Bad Robot production company which means that other networks will have the opportunity to buy the show, on those viewing figures I don’t see that happening but maybe they could sell the idea to someone like Netflix who would see it as a flagship show to attract more subscriptions. The Finder on the other hand won’t have that luxury and will simply join TV’s scrapheap.

WEEKLY CINEMA, Johnny Depp is a freed Vampire, Jeff still lives at Home, Mel Gibson is a Gringo and don't go Swimming in Piranha 3DD

Hello, and welcome to the UK weekly cinema release post where I provide you with trailers for all the latest movies and an attempt at witty banter, as always feel free to join our conversation in the comments, and please share the post with your friends on both Twitter and Facebook via the links at the bottom of the article.

First up this week is yet another collaboration between Director Tim Burton and Actor Johnny Depp, the pair have worked together on no less than eight occasions and it seems that Burton has made that a bit of a running theme in their latest offering named Dark Shadows. The movie also stars Helena Bonham Carter who Burton has worked with seven times previously,  Christopher Lee who has now worked with Burton five times and this is Michelle Pfiffer’s second movie with the hit Director as she starred in 1992’s Batman Returns.

Dark Shadows starts it’s tale in the year 1752 with the Collins family setting sail from Liverpool for a new life in exciting and opportunistic America. Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) is just a kid when moved by his parents, but grows up to be a very successful business man and local playboy, it would seem though that all the money in the world can not help Barnabas as he makes the grave mistake of breaking his girlfriend Angelique Bouchard’s (Eva Green) heart. Angelique just happens to be a witch and turns him into a vampire before burying him alive. Barnabas is then awoken form his grave two centuries later in 1972 and finds his empire and estate crumbled whilst learning that his family have fared no better.

I’ll be honest I think Johnny Depp is brilliant but as for him and Tim Burton, well that’s just a little to strange for me. I think Edward Scissorhands may be their only collaboration that I’ve seen, I prefer Johnny in stuff like Donnie Brasco and Blow, but hey that’s just me
Fantasy movies are not really my thing, this will no doubt be a brilliant movie for its genre and will no doubt do very well in the box office.

Next up it’s the latest in what seems like a never ending stream of R-Rated comedies which star Ed Helms and Jason Segel, from Director Jay Duplass this is Jeff, Who Lives at Home, it’s a movie I’ve not really heard a lot about other than seeing the odd trailer here and there.

Jeff, Who Lives at Home focuses it’s attention on Jeff (Jason Segel) as you have probably guessed, he's a 30 year old guy who is still living at home in his parents basement. In the movie Jeff finally gets off his ass one day and goes to work with his brother Pat (Ed Helms) who is living alone following the breakdown of his marriage. Jeff finally discovers his destiny whilst working with his brother in order to track down his possibly adulterous wife.

Like I said above it’s not a movie I’ve heard a lot about, and I’m not really sure I’m all that excited about it. The movie actually premiered in November 2011 at the Toronto film festival and was only granted a limited US release, for me that speaks volumes and this may last the weekend before disappearing onto DVD.

Moving onto How I Spent My Summer Vacation now, no not me, Mel Gibson, he actually had quite an adventurous one which was spent in a Mexican prison filming this latest movie with Apocalypto Director Adrian Grunberg , the movie was originally titled Get The Gringo, I don’t know if it’s changed it’s name to How I spent My Summer Vacation in the states or not but that is how its being released in the UK.

There is very little I can say on the movie really, I heard about it when it was named Get The Gringo but that was a while ago, what I do know is that Mel Gibson plays Driver, a career criminal who ends up having to serve time in a Mexican prison, there he is helped by a nine year old boy who shows him how to survive the tough prison life.

Again like Jeff above this isn’t being treated to a massive cinema release and it has actually all ready been released on some Video on demand services, I don’t think it will be that bad of a movie but at the same time I don’t think it will be great either.

Last one to mention for you now, and it's probably one of the biggest jokes of a movie this year, in fact I think it's a sequel. Piranha 3DD swims onto your local cinema screen starring non other than David Hasselhoff, that pretty much sums up this movie really, The Hoff's in it, what more do you need to know, ok I'll give you a little more Piranha 3DD also stars Ving Rhames and Danielle Panabaker, yeah I've never heard of her either, I think she's the lady on the front of the poster (up top).

I suppose you want to know the plot? Well it rolls pretty much like a modern day Shark movie which would air on SyFy. Basically a new water park opens up called Big Wet, the "swim" also known as Piranha's (hungry ones) head up stream from the last movie and somehow get into the water park, the park gets full of people, mostly half naked women in bikini's who get attacked by the Piranha's, great right? Honestly you have to watch the trailer its hilarious.

I suppose you want to know what Hasselhoff is doing in Piranha 3DD? Well talk about living off the show which made you a star, yep you guessed it The Hoff is a lifeguard at the water park, and wait for it, he owns the company named Hoffwatch, this movie is going to be frickin awesome.

THE EXPENDABLES 2 Starring Just About Everyone From 80's Action Movies

Out of all the movies that will be released this year, The Expendables 2 is the one which I’m probably most looking forward to. For me, the first movie was a whole lot of fun, nothing to serious just some good old 80’s action to eat popcorn and drink beer to, this one promises to be no different with even more 80’s action stars including Arnold Schwarzenegger (briefly in the first movie), Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris. The Expendables 2 is due in UK cinemas on 17th August 2012 and I for one can’t wait.

All of the cast from the original are back including Jason Statham, Jet Li, Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Coture, Terry Crews and Bruce Willis. Added in for this adventure is a more feature length appearance for Arnie as I mentioned above, Van Damme is the bad guy, Chuck Norris is pulled from the set of Walker Texas Ranger to join The Expendables, Liam Hemsworth (The Avengers/Thor), Scott Adkins (a martial arts expert in just about every Van Damme straight to DVD movie these days) and finally there is a guest appearance from non other than Tennis player Novak Djockovic, quite why I don’t really know.

Check out Ahnuld's cheesy lines "I'm Back" and also his scene with Bruce Willis which looks very tongue in cheek when he rips the door off a Smart Car and tell Willis that his shoes are bigger than the car. This probably all goes in line with the surprising move to make The Expendables 2 a PG-13 movie, I think the English release will probably be rated 12, personally I think they should have just gone all out and got a 15 rating (that's R-Rated in America) at least but it will be refreshing to see a movie without an enormous amount of swear words. Check out the trailer below and then take a look at the plot following the video, enjoy.

Mr Church, the grumpy Bruce Willis assembles The Expendables (they aren’t superhero’s Bruce!) for what should be a quick mission and a very easy paycheck, however things go wrong and one of Van Damme’s cronies kills one of their team. The Expendables then go on a revenge mission and find themselves in enemy territory against an unexpected
threat.

Like the first movie The Expendables 2 really is one for the guys, with a $100m budget you can expect lots of shit to get blown up, loads of bullets will be wasted and some serious ass will be kicked.

The New Movies Music & Television, Hope You Like It.

Ok, so it's been a few days now and I thought I better check in and see how you like the new template, and some of the other changes that I've made. The template was changed for a couple of reasons, first and foremost was to make it easier to read, I think I've achieved that when we launched on Saturday with the latest Person of Interest review I thought it looked really good with lots more room for the text to be displayed, more emphasis was placed on the content rather than the two sidebars we had previously. My second aim was to hopefully improve hits the site receives from Google and other search engines, it seems to have done the trick this far and you may have noticed that POI knocked Geordie Shore off the top spot on the Popular Post section (rotates on 7 day basis) for the first time, Geordie Shore is a massive traffic puller for the site and having POI go above it was a real achievement for me as it has come close in the past but this time it's gone way and above it (172 hits in the three days it's been there).

I'm going to run through a few of the new things now, as well as talk about a couple of things that will be changed in the next few days.

Google Search: You may have noticed at the top of the right (and only) sidebar a search box has appeared, you can now search Google directly from the site, saves you going back to Google, waiting for it to load and then typing your search, just do it here.

Popular Posts replaced with Favourites: the Popular posts feature is something that I've always had on the site, unfortunately it doesn't really get much click through action so for that reason I have replaced it with the "Favourites" tag cloud, that makes it easier to find all your favourite TV shows right away and narrow down what your looking for. If you click one of these links the list of posts will appear on the left hand timeline of the home page which I'll explain now.

Homepage Timeline: This is the widget which displays all the latest posts on the homepage and sits on the left of the site just under the image slider. If you click links in the "Favourites" section to go see what's in the archive then every post which has been "tagged" with that word or words will appear here.

Image Slider: I already had one of these, difference is this one is a lot neater and a lot easier to maintain. The slider will display whichever TV shows I'm reviewing at the time along with the latest movie or Blu-ray review.

News Update: This widget sits above the image slider and acts as kind of an RSS feed for the site showing you all the latest posts, really it's just another way to attract you to click on another article which is a neat little feature I think.

Linking In: This was on the very bottom right of the blog and displayed links to various blogging directory's which this site was listed on. Google don't like that anymore and to be honest I can count on one hand the amount of traffic they all provided as a whole, the blog has been removed form all of those sites so I have removed their links and renamed the section "Stats and Readers", it now only has the StatCounter and Feedburner logos.

Still to come;

You may have noticed that the links on the top and bottom bars (the yellow ones) do not work, I'm working on that and we will see how it goes but it will probably end up with those links removed and me creating something which allows you to get to the "About" and "Contact" pages, more importantly than that are the "Movies A - Z" and "TV A - Z" pages, they will be fixed and available in the next couple of days.

There are going to be some advertising opportunities here to, I'm just busy working up the details on that right now but primarily it will be aimed at advertising for other blogs, products or websites.

I think that's about it, so what do you think? Do you like the new template? Did you find it easier to read? Please leave your comments and let me know what you think, maybe you have a suggestion on what I can add, something you liked before that I have removed, let me know I'm open to ideas, most importantly, enjoy.

TV Review: AWAKE - Slack Water 1.10

I may as well start by telling you that this is going to be a pretty short review, without doubt this is the worst episode of Awake yet. The show has been frustrating me in recent weeks with nothing of any real significance happening, there are only three episodes left in this debut season now and what started off as a promising new show has quickly gone down hill for me. I would say so far "That's Not My Penguin" has been the best episode, it was certainly the last one which seemed to give us any sort of answer. You may have caught the previews earlier this week and in all honesty Awake looks like it will be brilliant on Thursday night, I'm just not holding my breath.

I said a couple of weeks back following another poor episode that I want the answer to two things. Firstly, the conspiracy surrounding Michael Britten's car accident and secondly, the answer to which dream is in fact not a dream. If anything "Slack Water" gave us a little more info regarding the conspiracy as we now know that it has something to do with a rather large amount of Heroin that someone wants out of L.A. Problem is they can't move the Heroin until Michael Britten moves to Oregon, that's all going on in the red dream which this episode seemed to concentrate on.

The conspiracy was only touched upon briefly and the rest of the episode remained in the red dream but concentrated on Rex's girlfriend, Emma, that's her name, didn't think I'd remember that. Emma is pregnant with Rex's baby and seems to have turned to both Michael and Hannah for support, she clearly wants to keep the baby and have the Britten's involved, however her parents have other ideas on what she should do both with the pregnancy and her life. In the red reality I think that Emma will be moving in with the Britten's, really I don't find that interesting at all, but it will be interesting (I hope) to see where they take the story.

Red seems to have become more prominent in the last couple of weeks, and after seeing next weeks preview It would seem to lean towards the red one even further. Personally, I still think Green is real, although nothing has pointed firmly in either direction. I certainly hope that this part of the story line is done with by the end of the first season because if (and it's a big if) Awake gets a second season I don't think I could take the bore of not knowing for much longer.

I really think Awake should be kicking in a bit more right now, I look at Person of Interest and don't remember the last time I saw an episode which I considered not that good, it's run in has been solid. Awake has had three maybe four episodes which really got me thinking the others just haven't quite cut it. Awake did have a lot of potential and I hope the three episodes we have coming up go up a gear and start to impress me a little.