Forget Communism, Look At The Lovely Scenery....And This KICK TO THE FACE!!!!

Yeah I am about to write my second review of the day, I don't know how long this blog will be up for, so time is of ze essence!! Im a little bit tipsy now, I have taken the dog for a walk and I am waiting for my man Don Juan Ryan and my sister to turn up so I can get suitably drunk. Until then I am here, pouring the booze off my soul and onto your eyes!! Does that make sense? I don't know! I don't care!

Essentially what I am doing to your eyes right now

I have chosen to review another film I saw recently at the cinema, which is The Karate Kid! Whenever that phrase is mentioned, I know we all think of "wax on wax off" and a very un-natural relationship between a 15 year old Italian American and an 80 year old Japanese man, a film which shaped many of our childhoods, teaching us the importance of standing up to bullies, and being a warning that most films made in Hollywood will be 'Underdog' tales. Which reminds me, don't let your kids go to school with my kids; my kid will be on the bench press by 3 and will have protein shakes instead of chocolate milk! He will be THE Bully, and nothing shall stop him! He shall be named EXCALIBER!!! (it will be in capitals on the birth certificate with the exclamation marks and all) and he will not hesitate to fuck yo kids up! Anyways, in 2010 we have this new remake, which doesn't actually contain any Karate at all, it is all Kung-Fu, which is fine by me, because....well....fuck Karate, it is shit!

We all remember the original, young guy moved to new district, finds trouble with local bullies, can't join Karate school cos all those asshats train there, so a mad Japanese hermit teaches him Karate whilst getting his fence painted. Essentially this is the same tale, but instead of being a poor lil, sassy faced Italian American in another American hood, it is a young black kid who gets taken to China with his Mum and it all happens over there. Jaden Smith plays (Dre Parker) who is the young black kid, and when he spots the fancy of a young Chinese girl Meiying (Wenwen Han) he stirs up some shit, as apparently that bitch should be practicing her violin! No seriously, the entire plot hinges on the fact that this girls parents want her to be a mad fly violinist and these dicks at school are almost like hired cockblockers to ward of any cocky foreigners trying to get their finger stinky!

Obviously Dre meets Mr Han (Jackie Chan) who teaches him about Kung-Fu and he is the only bit that almost saves the film! Mr Han trains Dre not only how to figt but that Kung-Fu is about more than violence, that it transcends all that he does, the way he thinks, the way he speaks, the way he behaves; basically that it isn't for revenge! But whilst they are there, fuck it, lets join a tournament! Why not?! We all know the story, Dre limps through and defeats the evil bully in the final, not with a shitty Crane style kick though (seriously that kick in the original wouldn't have done shit; you cannot generate that much power from that stance). In the new update Dre beats the fool with some Matrix shit, like a tumble turn moon kick! Its mental, and would actually spark a fool. You know the rest, some feel good things and we are meant to feel all uplifted and shit!

"Uplifted yet bitch? Wait till I plant my foot in your face!!"

Ok, so it was a bit feelgood, but I mean, it is set in China, and the entire time they avoid the subject of communism. You should at least touch on it, try and make some kind of deeper statement, if not, whats the point in setting it in bloody China? They just distract you with all the lovely sweeping shots of the great wall and all the happy temple people. All in all it was an OK film; i liked it a lil bit less than the first one, but the original is pure nostalgia; the only bit I hated was Jaden Smith! That mother fucker cannot act, he only got the part because his damn parents produced the film. Its like they used this as a promotional tool, like "ooohh if lil Jadens going to have a future in film, we should showcase his dancing skills! Hey Jaden, throw some of that robot dance into that scene!!!!!" and he does, but it is all just cringe worthy! He is meant to be comic relief too, but the only part of the film I laughed at was when the young lady Meiying calls him 'funny' but her lil face is so Asian it sounds like she said "You fanny" and I was the only person in the cinema laughing! Fuck the rest of the audience if they can't take a joke! My advice to Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith is...Stop putting your shitty son in films! He sucks balls!

"Try and fire me!! My Dad is the producer yo! Suck a dick!!"

Anyway, I think you should still see the new Karate Kid, its is good all round fun, a bit of a fodder film, but worth having in your collection.

Till next time

Peace

Back With A Bang, And A Film I Have Seen 4 Times....Already

This is so weird, I was almost certain that this blog had been removed from the internet. Maybe it has been, and the internet in Staffordshire is just subject to different rules, I don't know, but I am slipping in a quick review before it all gets taken away from me again. A quick update for you; I have literally spent hundreds of pounds at the cinema recently, I can't stop going. And one film I saw many times was Inception, a film which blew my face right off its hinges.....if my face had hinges I mean.

Do I really need to go into the plot? Surely you have all seen it already?! I mean, it is the best film I have seen in the last 5 years, and is in my all time top 5, how can you not have seen it? It literally got perfect 5 star reviews from every film publication in the world....ever! Il explain it to you anyways.

Inception is a mind fuck, no two ways about it. The story follows Cobb (Leo DiCaprio) who is an 'Extractor', which means his job is to enter peoples dreams and extract ideas and thoughts from their conscience, and he is the best in his craft. To be honest, to try and fully explain the plot is almost impossible, it has so many levels and so many totally unheard of concepts that I would be here forever describing it, but the basic idea is that Cobb is given an assignment by Saito (Ken Watanabe) who was a victim of Cobb's extraction; but rather than extracting an idea, Cobb is asked to insert an idea, a practice labelled 'Inception'. Although the practice is said to be impossible, Cobb has no choice as his employers who hired him to extract Saito are hunting him for failing, and Saito offers him a way back into the U.S, where he is wanted for the apparent murder of his wife, and where his two small children still reside with their Grandparents. Unable to turn down the chance of seeing his sprogs agin he accepts the offer, and so entails the assembling of a team, a team capable of performing Inception, consisting of Arthur (an incredible Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Ariadne (the ever lovable Elen Page), Eames (everyones new fave British actor Tom Hardy) and the fore mentioned Saito. The plan is to inspire young rich-bag Robert Fischer, to dissolve his fathers huge energy empire so Saito's company does'nt get blown out the water, but to perform Inception, the team cannot just go into Robert's dream; they have to delve deep enough into his psyche to plant a seed of an idea, and let it grow naturally. This means once inside his dream, they must enter a dream inside that dream, and once in that dream, enter another dream, so they are essentially three dreams deep. God if you haven't seen this film yet I must sound like a fucking nutter right now. I wont go further than that, because if you haven't got around to seeing it yet I don't want to ruin your life, but there is mad backstory and loads of moral questioning that I cannot delve into here. Plus all the wall walking

Yeah Im walking on a wall! AND WHAT?????

The reason everything works so well is the way that Nolan directs. Have you ever heard that thing, like, your dreams only last about 30 seconds, but they seem like ages when your in them? well the premise of the film is that that compounds when you enter a dream within a dream and so forth, so when the assignment is being carried out we have a spectacular timeline of events on each level, with a crazy riveting car chase in the 1st dream, a mad gravity defying fight sequence in the second, and a Tom Clancy style assault on the 3rd level of the dream, all played out in real time, but at different speeds. Fuck it, I cannot explain what I mean in words, you just have to go watch it!

But is it good? OH MY SWEET JESUS YES!!!! It is hands down the best film I have seen in a long time, and I don't mean to just jump on the Chris Nolan bandwagon, but the guys a fucking genius. The cast is awesome, with an in form DiCaprio (being is Shutter Island and Inception in an actors career would be brilliant, to do both in one year is kind of taking the piss Leo, we know your amazing, stop it)

"How is it Im shitting on all other actors ever without even trying? Am I a God?"

Joseph Gordon-Levitt proving he isn't all mushy rom-com typecast man (not that I didn't love 500 Days of Summer) Elen Page is charming, Tom Hardy provides the snippets of comedy, Marion Cotillard (whose role I cant explain without ruining plot points) is haunting, and everyone is tied into this mad world and this insane concept that Nolan thought up himself. To make it even better he refused to shoot it in 3D, as he thought it would distract from the story (a man after my own heart). I know I haven't done a great job at inspiring you all to see it if you haven't yet, but just ask anyone who has, they will say the exact same thing, "Why are you not at the cinema right now watching it?". Im fucking serious, if you haven't enjoyed Inception yet you shouldn't even be sitting at you god damned computer! Get your ass up and get to the cinema fools, your mind is yet to be BLOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pictured: Blown minds.....and a suave Godon-Levitt

God I'm out of practice, if this blog is still her tomorrow I promise to do a film better justice by review than I have today! I couldn't even think of funny captions

Till next time...if there is one

Peace

Once Again A Sucker To False Advertising

How long has it been?.....Too long is how long! I am so busy at the minute wit work and stuff that I haven't had time to get a phone line installed in my new crib out West, which I kind of need to get the internet, to entertain all you simpletons with my lean reviews. So I am taking this opportunity whilst it is here; I am currently in the house of my ex-flatmates, I crashed here last night as I managed to lock myself out of my place on Saturday, and the stupid management company who own my gaff don't work on the weekends, so later today is the earliest I can get let back in. On the bright side, the lovely resourceful friends I have decided they really wanted the internet, so here I am using theirs, about to blow your collective minds with another review. I hope your ready...

Have you ever caught a glimpse at a movie poster, or a snippet of a trailer on TV and instantly thought "God Dang I wanna go see that bitchin' lookin' film. That shit right there wil put hairs on my chest!"? Thing is, we all have! It is the wonderful power of advertising, gently pulling at my senses, enticing me to float around the cinemas of London absorbing film after film, then dining at McDonalds and maybe changing my electricity provider on the way home, before I search my room for any old mobile phones I could sell for money; before finishing my evening comparing car insurance quotes online; before realizing I don't have a car....but that flashy looking one on the TV with all those gadgets in it sure looks nice. You get the idea, basically I am a mad sucker for advertisements. You could literally sell me a turd wrapped in tinfoil if you gave it a 30 second spot advert every evening, or maybe a billboard in Turnham Green tube station, and I wouldn't think twice when buying it as I am simply a sheep following the giant corporations who want me to buy shit. Despite me knowing that I react on impulse when it comes to buying shit, it still doesn't stop me from doing it, so whilst wandering through Blockbuster I caught a glimpse of the manliest film ever made...possibly. It was a DVD case that screamed "TESTOSTERONE" and there were all those lil' star ratings from various critics, but mostly I was distracted by the orgy of promised violence depicted right up front.

LIEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSS!!!

I mean just look at it. There is all that red splashy blood behind the title, in Bold white. The words "Savage", "Exciting", "Violence", "Blood", and "Hell" are all a font size or two larger. Then you have an angry looking Norse dude covered in claret weilding a giant ass sword flanked by several hundred angry Viking types. How could this film not rock total devil dick. It just has too, otherwise it would be the worst lie ever told, why would anyone do that to me?


Because they hate me! Thats why


Valhalla Rising is the biggest waste of time in the world ever. I want to find the Director and forcibly retrieve those 90 minutes of my life back by tearing them straight from his soul. I want to castrate him as a lesson to future film makers not to fuck with my head and get me all excited before ceremoniously shitting right in my eyes. From all that was promised on the DVD case, here is a run down of what happens in this film.

We begin up in Scotland somewhere and these weird highland people are keeping One Eye (Mads Mikkelsen) locked in a cage 24/7 apart from when they let him out to watch him fight fools so they can bet on him. When I say fight fools, it isn't really fair because he is always bound to a post with a rope around his neck. And when I sy it isnt fair I mean for the other guys, as this One Eye fuck should have his hands cut off and his other eye poked out to make these fights fair. At one point he almost decapitates this bro with his own neck rope, suffice to say there is something very very wrong with Mr One Eye. After about 20 minutes where all we see is people milling around One Eye's cage, him killing bitches and some lovely scenery, with no words spoken up to this point; One Eye finally escapes from his funky kilt wearing friends when one tribe sell him to another. He proceeds to slaughter their faces and at one point actually ties a guy to a rock and, with his bare hands...HIS BARE HANDS, he rips the guys stomach open and pulls out all his organs, before leaving him to die. Pretty fucking badass; and you are probably thinking "But Alex, this all sounds awesome and exactly what was promised on the cover!" But alas this was all just a further tease before everything descends into a steaming river of stale urine.
After he escapes with his random adopted child thing, he joins up with some religious nutters who are convinced they can be part of the Holy Crusades, despite the fact that they are not registered military men, neither are they fucking Knights. Anyway, they decide that One Eye would be a good member to add to their lil party as they have heard he likes a bit of the old ultra violence. So off they go in a boat to the Holy land but then shit takes a turn to the weird...and the mind numbingly boring. Basically the idea is that One Eye is from hell, and he takes these crakpot religious fools there to test them. So when the boat enters into a deep fog for a while and comes out on the other side to what they assume in the new Holy land, it is all a bit confusing when people start slowly going mad and doing weird shit because they have been brought to some twisted corner of Lucifer's kingdom. See at this point you don't know that, I only figured it out after watching it again and reading reviews and shit, so to the virgin viewer its just plain crazy. It all ends when everyone has killed themselves and each other and the boy and One Eye get confronted by some tribal people who proceed to batter the shit out of One Eye, who sacrificed himself to spare the boy. I am pretty sure there is some kind of deep religious commentary in this film somewhere but I was so busy eating the DVD case in rage that I didn't fully grasp it. In summary, the 1st 20 minutes promise much, but the remaining 70 minutes is mind numbing and yet physically painful, somewhere on par with having your whole body bathed in ice whilst somebody stabs you repeatedly in the face and sternum with a biro!

"Hi Mum, Film was well shit, on way home now, via Hospital"

Look, this is less of a review and more of a rant. Everyone always moans on about downloading films and how it damages the film industry blah blah blah...but people stopped paying money for films for this exact fucking reason; you never know what the film is actually like as the ad teams and the distribution teams hired for the production have completely changed the plot from those cool trailers you saw and have lied to you on the cover of the DVD and every movie poster on the Underground. The industry can't trust us to watch all their films in the cinema and on DVD when we can't trust them to honestly tell us what we are paying for. Until they start being honest with me, I will cut any corner I can to veto these films. Oooo yeah look at me fighting the power.

Bottom line is, don't watch Valhalla Rising unless you really really want to consider suicide through boredom.

Till next time
Peace

Good Try Tim, But You Tried Too Hard

I will start by issuing a small update on the life of me. I will be moving house tomorrow, I am escaping Peckham and heading west...west London that is, i wouldn't actually head to the west of England, the west of England is more like a concept than a reality to me. As such, I will be a week or two without internet, so this will be my last post for that time, but trust me, I will be getting the internets as fast as I can once I am all moved in, in-between my mad hustlin' that I will be undertaking for charities. It is all very exciting round these parts. Anyway, today I got home after sorting out my house and getting employed and watched Alice In Wonderland, the Tim burton vehicle that had such contrasting reviews depending on which sources I went to that I started to suspect that my friends were watching different films. I mean, I am not a huge Burton fan, his films are a bit too inconsistent for my liking and I think sometimes he over does the 'quirkiness' factor in an attempt to be different. Despite this I pressed play with an open mind.

Alice In Wonderland doesn't follow the same path as the adaptations before it or the book itself for that matter. We enter the story 13 years after Alice's initial adventure down the rabbit hole. Whilst attending a party that it turns out is a secret engagement party for our new, older Alice (Mia Wasikowska) and Lord Hamish, a ginger twat with a stupid face

ERGHHHH IM A GINGER!!!!

Alice gets this assbag proposing to her in front of a mad large crowd and instead of punching him in the face, which she should have done, she pegs it off after a rabbit in a waistcoat...you know...as you do. Cue her stumble into the rabbit hole and down down down she goes. Once in Wonderland it is as you would expect it to be; Alice is introduced to a series of totally nuts characters from the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), to the awesome opium toking Blue Caterpillar (Alan Rickman), this caterpillar literally fucking LOVES opium, nd his constant toking on the ol erb made him my favourite character by far, just for his drug intake.

Baller

So her adventure folds into the story of two queens (Helen Botham Carter and Anne Hathaway respectively) who are stuck, along with their quirky comrades, in a long running war for the throne; and it appears that prophecy has singled Alice out as the saviour for the good guys following the White Queen (Hathaway), which helps drag our heroine into a quest for a weird sword whilst trying to rescue her new friends from the clutches of the wicked Red Queen (Carter) who has some mad anger issues and a fetish for beheading chumps.

So I will start with the good bits; the film is beautiful aesthetically, you can tell a lot of thought and imagination went into the landscapes and the characters themselves. Everything is colourful and captivating and each character has a strange little personality that is mirrored by their appearance, I can't really fault Burton here as he defiantly had a good vision for what he wanted the film to look like. Secondly the acting is brilliant in places, nothing award winning of course, but just how some of the actors took over their roles with such energy, Depp in particular, whose Mad Hatter is a superb mix of adorable nut job and menacing Glaswegian psycho (I don't know why he gave the character a Scottish side, but it was funny).

Pictured: A typical Scotsman

The problem is, and this could just be my personal opinion, but when Burton decided to try and change the entire concept of the original book he kind of overstepped the line and rendered his adaptation void. Basically, the original text by Lewis Carroll was a strange journey into the drug fuelled mind of the writer, I mean, nobody can deny that that fucker was quite obviously off his tits on LSD when he popped this lil tale out onto his typewriter, there is no way a sober or stable mind could invent the shit he depicts in Alice's adventures. The element that gave the writing of Carroll such an enchanting and hilariously strange feel was that there wasn't a story as such, it was more a documentation of Alice simply wandering around and meeting different characters in different situations, with no apparent narrative structure to which her encounters are based. What Burton has tried to do, which no other adaptations have bothered, is to try and tie Alice and her new Wonderland friends into a story, a plot and try to mesh all of their stories together into one big patchwork, which you may think sounds great, I mean, who wouldn't want a bit of structure to their films? Me thats who. I don't want structure to this film. By ditching the 'wandering girl' aspect of Carroll's book, Burton has binned the drugged up, psychedelic charm that the original prose and the film adaptations before hand embraced so willingly. It seems that in his quest to stand out even bloody more from the Hollywood make up, Burton has tried too hard and completely distanced himself from the best element of his project that if he had just kept the premise the same, could have been a unanimous classic. But instead he decides he is going to slap his label on a legendary story and completely twist the shit out of the thing to make it 'his'. You should have just left the narrative structure alone Tim. Bloody can't trust you with anything mate

Would you trust this man with anything? Anything at all?

Still a good effort though. You should see Alice In Wonderland just for the visuals, but none the less, it is an enjoyable film, defiantly one I could watch again.

Till next time
Peace

Kick Ass Indeed

It was everywhere, all over the review section of Empire, and Total Film, all over IMDb message boards, all over everyones filthy little tongues, being indiscriminately flicked out mid conversation "Have you seen how awesome Kick Ass is?". "No" I would reply, as I am far too poor to pay London cinema ticket prices most of the time "But maybe if you keep talking about it I will FUCKING FEEL BETTER ABOUT IT!!" dicks. I wanted to see it but I couldn't, so all these people talking about it 24/7/365 was getting a bit on my tits. But I have seen it now, I finished watching it 5 minutes ago, and now I am a happy happy man! Cos it really was kick ass.

The story follows Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) your typical teenager, living it up in NYC! Unlike most super hero tales Dave isn't a super nerd who turns super awesome, he isn't the coolest kid ever either, with a mega rich family to fund his super hero hobby. No Dave is just middle of the pack, normal, average, mediocre, invisible. He just sits at home jerking off loads and hangs out with his friends at their local comic book store, drinking stupid drinks (why has everyone stopped drinking normal fucking coffee? What the fuck is a grande mocha choca shattee anyways?) and then they get routinely mugged on the way home. Dave decides that he has had quite enough of this shit and that somebody should do something, I mean why has nobody ever tried to be a super hero in real life?

"I tried. And now I am 35 and still a virgin!"

So he invests in a green wetsuit on the internets and models himself as Kick Ass, a super hero for the people. Needless to say, he is a bit shit, I mean, he is a comic book loser in a wetsuit, what do you expect. And as such, on his first "crime fighting mission" he gets himself stabbed and then run down by a car. It isn't all bad though as his injuries mean that the doctors have to fit him up with all these mad metal bones and his nerve endings are all totally fucked up so he can't really feel pain

Bit like this, but less straight up baller

He makes himself into somewhat of an internet celeb when he gets filmed fending off some random gangster dudes who are trying to beat the shit into some other gangster dude, and in doing so picks up the attention of two vigilante superheroes by the names of Big Daddy (Nic Cage) and his daughter Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) who have their own agenda concerning a mobster Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong) whose operations they take pride in fucking up due to a storied personal history. Kick Ass and the father/daughter combo cross paths when they are both hitting a D'Amico stronghold at the same time. This doesn't do much to please D'Amico and he demands that his men bring Kick Ass in as they believe it was him who has been killing all their men. This raises the bar a bit much for poor Dave and when he is lured into a trap by D'Amico's son, played brilliantly by Christopher Mintz-Plasse (McLovin), he sets himself, Big Daddy and Hit Girl up in a bit of a sticky situation

Mmmmmmmm....Sticky

I won't tell anymore of the story cos that would be mean and would ruin the super badass ending. But I can tell you why this film is awesome and you should all go see it, if you haven't already that is. Its damn funny, for one, I mean really funny. Its that kind of effortless humour, they don't throw jokes in your face or set up dreadfully complex scenarios to set up more jokes; it is just plain good script writing and a dab of improv and it works, really bloody well. It helps that the premise for the whole film is a bit goofy, with your regular Joe trying to make a difference by buying an outfit off the internet and walking the streets at night looking to save missing cats and such; but the dialogue could hold up on its own. There is a mad soundtrack, its really bloody good, which is always important in these kind of films. Plus there is a totally rad first person shooter bit, which made me jizz all over the damn place! On to the more important stuff, the action direction is superb, every fight scene is brilliantly choreographed, the fights at the beginning being very real and gritty, such as the fight he has with the 3 gangster folk, and later in the film when he meets Hit Girl and Big daddy the fighting gets a bit more extravagant, but it never passes into the realm of ridiculous. It is just good plain up stab-tastic, gun toting fun, and I could watch it all again right now probably. The acting is great, with new talents like Mark Strong and Mintz-Plasse stealing the screen with their parts and Nic Cage proving this was one of the gems in his wildly inconsistent career

"I will sexy your face......off"

Most importantly Kick Ass just out right refuses to take itself too seriously, which I loved. Most super hero or action films try to fix that balance between badass action, light comedy and then striking a serious note, but in Kick Ass they took that method and just shat all over it, mixing scenes that, in other films, would have been the moment to pull a concerned stoic face and act all thoughtful, and they break it right in the middle with a completely inappropriate joke. For example when Big Daddy is getting set on fire (small spoiler...sorry) and I was about to say to myself "Shiiiiit, this just got real live!" but I was brought back to laughter when they cut to Dave's friends in the comic store, watching all this on the internet and one of them is gesturing wildly at the other to notice that a girl is using him to shield her eyes from the torture fest on screen. It was this kind of thing that made me love Kick Ass more than I would have anyway, as I refuse to take life too seriously, so films mirroring my personality will always be OK by me.

I mean, could you take this seriously? Thats a 13 year old with a silenced pistol!

So bottom line...Go watch this film. You shall not regret it, even if you live in London and have to shell out 17 quid for the pleasure.

Till next time
Peace

Finally, Martial Arts Films Get Back To The Roots

I have watched martial arts films since I was tiny. My Dad had a good collection of them, and along with him being an enthusiast of Tai Chi, Wing Chun and other arts, he let me watch all these totally badass films that I really shouldn't have been watching at that age. Crazy brilliant films like Shaolin vs Ninja and the Fong Say Yuk series which were all brutally physical and had some proper gnarly shit occur on screen, especially those early Jet Li movies, which were beyond all others in the amount of blood used in generous sprays onscreen, and the amount of bones broken and shown sticking through skin! Those were the days, before the Americans took a liking to it and destroyed the genre, so other kids growing up heard "Kung - Fu movie" and had this image come to mind

"Gay? What on earth do you mean?"

Ok not to take anything away from Jackie Chan, I have a tremendous amount of respect for him, and some of his early films were absolutely brilliant, but not even I can forgive Rush Hour 3

"Chris! That was your cue to make a charming race relations joke!"

"Awww shit, my bad Jackie, I was just distracted by my career disappearing into the distance"

Lost were the films that were proud showcases of Chinese culture and tradition, also offering insights into the history of such a great country and the events that shaped the nation; instead we gained Americans and Jackie Chan running around jumping off buildings and getting in fights over women and stolen honour or some shit. Don't get me wrong, there are still some things that get on my nerves with martial arts films; the humour for one. The Chinese film industry spawned from, and still remains very close to, the Chinese theatre, and so all the humour in the films is ridiculously slapstick and pantomime.Think back, if you will, to the opening scene of Enter The Dragon, widely seen as Bruce Lee's best film, where Bruce is in the airport and can't read the menu, so he just points at everything on there. When the waiter turns up with 8 bowls of soupy goodness and Lee gives it that "what have I got myself into?" look, we were all meant to piss ourselves laughing, but we didn't, not that I can say the same for the Chinese audiences

"LOL...Soup...gets me every time"

Well all martial arts films are full of the same kind of cringe inducing "humour". I also hate the plague that has hung over martial arts films post Bruce Lee, and thats the use of wirework in all of them. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was a good film, but it really took the piss when it came to the wirework, and the early Jet Li films were peppered with the same floaty shit, although usually for more hardcore purposes, like Li would kick a guy through a tree and he would fly 30 ft backwards, more than Chow Yun Fat gracefully jogging up a bit of bamboo. But anyway, when i found Ip Man lying in my dads film collection, I was intrigues. Mostly because Ip Man is one of the overlooked heroes in the martial arts world, I mean the guy taught Bruce fucking Lee everything he knew when he was young, and he made the art of Wing Chun a worldwide practise. But what also got my attention was the casting of Donnie Yen, who I first noticed in Once Upon A Time In China 3 where he fights Jet Li with a big damp cloth (seriously) so this was already getting my testosterone running.

The film Ip Man, follows the legendary grandmaster in his early years before and throughout the Japanese occupation of China during the Second World War. Basically the story is this, Master Ip is living happily with his super hot wife and his wee lil son in the martial arts district of Fo Shan, he just relaxes all cool and duels random other masters who admire his mad talents. One day these asshats from the north come to town and are all like "Yo, we are better than youse lot, show me your main boss lad and il spark him proper, then set up a school and teach you southern fairies how to kick a man in the face!!" So this tool called Jin beats the shit out of some pansy ass teachers and think she is big man, until he hears he must beat Master Ip to truly beat the best. He turns up at Ip's gaff and starts talking real live shit about Wing Chun being created by women (which is true, it was thought up by a nun in the Mountains of ancient China) so after acting all peaceful and modest for a while Ip gets permission from his wife to tell this buttplug where he should take his northern monkey kung-fu. Ip Man proceeds to smash the dick faced Jin in the mouth with his fists...repeatedly. Then, after the dirty out of towners pissed off, he probably went and banged his super hot wife, because he is the man

Warning ladies, after he punishes that guys face, he will punish your womb

The story gets more dark when the Japanese take over, and all the Chinese people are forced into homelessness and starvation. Master Ip still gets some perks, such as getting picked for work in the lines over others, mostly just by his local celebrity, but times are mad hard yo. Many of the workers at the coal mine Ip is working on are taking up offers from the Japanese general Miura, basically they go and fight generic Karate men and if they win they get a bag of rice. After some of Master Ip's mates don't come back from this tournament, he decides he should go along to see what in the world is up with this crazy Jap general. When he sees his old friend and fellow kung-fu master get shot in the face for taking rice when he lost his fight, Ip gets all like "hey, more like Japs eye!!! Am I right guys?" and then he goes and takes on 10 guys at one time to prove how balls out steel he is. This mad act of crazy heroics impresses Miura and the rest of the film is your general fare of Master Ip helping liberate his fellow Chinese and obviously taking part in a mad showdown with Miura towards the end.

What I loved about this film is that it took the martial art film back to the style that I used to watch and love as a kid. Obviously the process has been helped along with the emergence of stars like Tony Ja, who is incredible, but im pretty sure The Warrior King was just him walking into rooms screaming "WHERES MY ELEPHANT" and then kicking everyone square in the teeth whether they were involved or not, lets just say it wasn't the most intelligent of plots. But Ip Man stays true to all the classic themes of good martial arts films, they all have this feeling of tradition to them, like the Chinese are always glorified over an oppressive regime, be it the Japanese in Ip Man, or the British in Once Upon A Time In China. It is like a small shout out for us not to forget the great history of China, and the traditions and importance of their culture. As such all the films used to have a lil scene where kung-fu would trump a firearm, guns and munitions being the acid that dissolved Chinese culture towards kung-fu when foreigners decided they would colonise the Chinese, proving to everyone that these ancient arts were a little out dated, but still effective, and important in the storied culture the Chinese possess. Donnie Yen gives a very stoic but powerful performance as Master Ip Man, which was nice to see, as I didn't want the film to be let down buy awful acting. The fight scenes are all fucking brutal, not over the top, just to the point; direct and real, much like the art of Wing Chun itself. I mean, Ip Man does not fuck about, don't get me wrong, but he isn't jumping all over the place doing it, he just stands there and waits for you to try and hit him, then he proceeds to remove your teeth with his knuckles.

Pictured: Ip Man dentistry - tooth removal with a twist (The twist is he punches you in the mouth)

I urge you all to go and buy this DVD right bloody now, and enjoy a bit of cinema that doesn't always crash the box office, but is great film making all the same. Who knows, maybe you can get to love these films as much as I did as a kid, and as I still do, with Ip Man giving me renewed confidence that martial arts films havn't totally lost their way

Till next time
Peace

No...Just No.....So Much NO!

My God I hope you are ready for a rant; as I just watched Valentine's Day. You may think that is a weird choice of film to watch to review, as it is obviously going to be bad; but the MTV movie awards are coming up, and you should see the list of nominees. Let me give you some highlights; Zac Efron is being nominated for best Actor for his performance in 17 Again, as is Channing Tatum for his role in Dear John (I promise you I am not making this shit up) Sandra Bullock is being nominated for Best Comedic Performance for her part in The Proposal and there is a category named Best WTF Moment...I couldn't write this shit, i promise you this is all true. In the Best Film category we have such delights as Twilight: New Moon and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. This stuff makes me want to take a torch to Hollywood studios and everyone at MTV, and their families. I mean, who decides on these nominations? A fucking retarded 15 year old? is that who MTV put in control now? "like OMG totes, maybe we should get Justin Biebs to host?! LOL, that would be so awesome, he is HAWT!" (FUCK YOU ALL!) Secondly, go kill yourselves MTV, everyone there, just go jump out of a window; if you are scared of heights, I will mail you some hemlock or something, just leave this earth forever you hideous affronts to humanity. I chose to watch Valentine's Day as I remember the posters and there were loads of hotties advertised as being in it, so I thought 'even if it is shit, at least there will be lots of nice women to ogle at' but in hindsight it really was not worth it. ,

So, Valentine's Day, where to begin..no really, where do i begin to tell you about this film. It is basically one of those movies aimed at teenagers and young couples at a time of year when they should feel all romantic and such and will want to go see a film that includes elements of romance and maybe some comedy; unfortunately I suspect that anybody who went to see this pile of ass left the cinema, not feeling happy and loved up, but more like they wanted to find the nearest tree to careen their cars into. In Valentine's Day we follow 23 people in the city of LA on the most luvvy dovey day of the year. If any of the characters were at all interesting I would tell you more about them, but none of them are, I pretty much just wanted to stab them all...in the neck. Basically there are loads of singles and loads of couples at the beginning and by the end some of the singles are coupled, some of the couples are single, some of the people are gay and some of the people have kids. None of this interested me. You know what, I can't be bothered to explain to you what happened in this film, I would rather bitch and moan and rant about this shit pile of a movie and get some weight of my chest.

It can be most suitably summed up by a line from the movie, when Ashton Kutcher announces "Its valentines day, you don't think, you just do". How right you are Ashton, you huge tool, because when they brainstormed and green lit Valentine's Day they didn't think, they just did. One stupid thing they did was they tried to get into the whole "intertwining narrative" party that films such as He's Just Not That Into You have done recently and have had success with; only difference is, HJNTIY is an OK film, and the story lines in it have some semblance of real emotion and realistic relationship development; In Valentine's Day we are expected to follow the story of 23 people in just over 2 hours. This means that you never become interested in anybody, as you don't get to see enough of them for them to develop as character; this movie would need to be 7 hours long to work. Another huge mistake they made to piss me off, and a factor that makes me think this film was written by a child or may have just fallen out of Zach Braff's vagina, is that the whole thing is just so retardedly wrong, not one of the relationships is believable, and all of the "intertwining" stories are just clumsily mashed together in a vain effort to try and seem clever. Look, my favourite film is Magnolia, that was a film that knew how to intelligently mesh character arcs, other examples of such narrative can be seen Pulp Fiction and HJNTIY to name two, but these films did it well. Another way to really piss me off is to be needlessly racist, don't get me wrong, I am not at all PC, ask anybody and they will tell you that I enjoy a risque joke or two as much as the next white guy, but Valentine's day is just ridiculous. A likely conversation in the scriptwriters room:

Dickface High School Writer 1 - (Gently stroking cocaine into a regiment of lines on his desk) So we have some black people here, and Jamie Foxx is pulling his weight by being cast as the sporty black guy and he drops some rad black lines, but Queen Latifah really hasn't had much screen time. What can we do with her to make her memorable in the film?

Dickface High School Writer 2 - (Snorts a line and takes a few seconds to recover) WOW, that really is some tremendous blow.. Well...we could have her drop some mad African flavour all over this shit, she has done that before. Doesn't need to be subtle, how about she is on the phone, and she can just spaz out and scream something vaguely African sounding?

Dickface High School Writer 1 - (lifts face from pile of cocaine on table, snorting wildly, trying to gain regain focus on his surroundings) Ummmm...yeah why not, thatll do. But What about the Football guy we have admitting he is gay, I mean we decided that it would be a great idea to avoid making a statement on homosexuality in professional sport, cos, you know, fuck them fags *note: this would have been a good way to give your film some weight and semblance* how about we round his story of by having that Foxx guy make a really juvenile queer joke on his news broadcast, i dunno, something like "I am behind you Sean jackson...not physically though" (giggles like a school girl)

Dickface High School Writer 2 - (carefully stuffing his nose with at least 8 rolled banknotes) oh yeah that should be fine, I doyn't want to pay much attention the the gay bit of the story anyways, that shit makes me super uncomfortable yo!

Writer With Brains - Guys, don't you think that this project is shit enough without us throwing all this really racist, ignorant and clumsy dialogue into the mix?

Dickfaces - SHUT UP YOU HOLLYWOOD LIBERAL SWINE

Writer With Brains - (sits in chair and begins trying to eat own arm out of frustration)

Your average Hollywood screenwriter

Lastly, I have much more but I can't go on too long, I should mention the way the film has been advertised and the comment on the target audience. For one, they decided to totally ignore the only people over the age of 40 in the film when it came to the promotional poster, probably because...well...fuck them, they are old and how could we ever get a super shiny MTV fucking award with those old shits all over our ad campaign? (one of whom was Shirley MacLaine, thats right, the Hollywood fucking legend with more talent than anybody in the film can't make the promotional poster as she is a bit old).

Not Pictured: Anybody interesting

And secondly, I just want to try to explain something to any man, whatever age, who thought that his lady friend would like to see this film on Valentine's Day, or any man who got dragged to see it by his other half..how to put this...YOUR A MORON!!!! Women are smarter than us guys, and they actually want to be challenged intellectually when it comes to their choice in films, art and music, and if you think this is the kind of film that will get you some sweet post date sex, then I hope those gals chopped off your dicks and threw them under the nearest moving vehicle. If however your lady did want to see this film, and she insisted you go watch it (these ladies are out there, they are the ones who enjoy High School Musical and the Twishite series) then you should just throw that ho to the curb, as the intelligent ones are the only ones worth having son! I mean seriously, if you give somebody who finds this film entertaining an IQ test the result would come back reading: BUTTER!

"I wonder why this film makes me want to die? It was meant to be happy!"

If you see this film in your local rental, or you see it on TV in the future, just don't watch it. No...just No...So Much NO! It ain't even worth it!

Till next time
Peace

Is It Only Me Who Wants To Drown Michaell Cera?

I have had people hassling me to watch and review Youth In Revolt for a while now, and only just got the chance to see it today. I am possibly the biggest Michael Cera critic in the world ever, and seeing as I slipped into a terrible mood just before watching the film probably didn't help his chances of impressing me and changing my mind about him. Couple that with a slight case of writers block and the inability to concentrate on anything and you have a recipe for a terrible review...but I will give it a shot anyway, why the fuck not?!

Michael Cera is the least talented actor ever. I have a strong suspicion that he doesn't yet know he has been in a Hollywood production, as every time he is on screen he seems like a lost puppy and he just wants to go home. He pulls the same awkward shitty little face, and mumbles and stutters his way through all of his shitty little lines in every god damn film he is in and it pisses me right off. The plots always have him playing some indie kid who is a bit "different" and "alternative" and he always falls in love for women who would never actually sleep with him in real life...but hey, its the movies. Whats most retarded is that he wins them over by being a total fucking loser and just making me want to punch him in the throat. Here is a selection of screenshots from his films, try and keep in mind they are all different films, so you can see the diversity of his acting ability...


"ERGHHGHHH look at me.. I have a fucking guitar...erghghgh, look how Indie I am. ERGHRGHRGRHGRH" fuck.right.off. That gormless fucking look on his face is what you are forced to look at in every painful second he is on screen...EVER!

So anyway Youth In Revolt, what to say. It has Michael 'cast me as me' Cera as Nick Twisp, and he is all the things you would expect from Michael Cera, hes a virgin, he likes records, he reads alot, and he creepily obsesses over girls he meets. His life is a bit shit, with his mum being a lil bit of a whore and his Dad not giving him pocket money, and him being a loser and all. So when he goes on a week long trip due to his Mum's boyfriend pissing off some sailors (yes sailors..don't ask, I think it was meant to be funny because it was "random"! Kill me now), he has a chance to meet Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday) who is his dreamgirl and all that. She likes french stuff and she likes records and she is a bit damaged by her overly religious family, but I think more than anything he likes that she has a vagina. Anyway, when the end of the week comes along and Nick has to go home, he and Sheeni develop a plan to re-unite, basically Nick will be a dick and get kicked out of home, and Sheeni will get his Dad a job near her, so when he goes to live with his father he can be awkward around her as much as he wants (and Sheeni already has a boyfriend - SLUT). This is when Nick realises that he needs to discover a side to himself that he has never explored before, the side that looks like this

I don'y know if that look is meant to be funny, like I was meant to find it amusing at how shit his alter ego looked, but what I do know is that by this time I was repeatedly smashing my face against the wall and begging God for mercy...this hurt quite a bit, which made me hate Cera even more. That picture right there is Francois Dillinger, Nick's alter ego who does bad shit; and to be honest he is quite funny, but unfortunately he has around 10 minutes of screen time overall. Basically Nick's plan works and he moves to his Dads new place but it turns out Sheeni is a massive bitch and has moved to some French school. This provokes Nick and Francois to go on a few lame adventures chasing this very average looking girl around California trying to get their dicks wet. Then later there are repercussions for the shit he did to get kicked out of home. Actually, that bit did make me laugh, how he got kicked out I mean; he stole his Mums car which had her recently deceased boyfriends trailer in tow, then Francois set the trailer careening into a coffee shop down a hill, with the words "God's Perfect Asshole" spray painted on the side of it, followed by the car which leaked gasoline all the way down the hill; the ensuing explosion lighting the gasoline leading a neat lil path right to dickhead Nick. I secretly prayed he would burst into flames and the movie would be over. It wasn't. It ended after a horrendous 90 minutes and of course he bangs the chick at the end and we are meant to feel good that it was Nick she wanted all along, not his alter ego Francois. YEAH I RUINED THE ENDING. It doesn't matter, as it is the same as in every other movie he has ever been in., I didn't notice that it was all over at first...my brain had slipped into a coma.

The only good points of the film are some supporting roles from Steve Buschemi, Ray Liotta and Jack Galifianakis, but not even that could make me enjoy anything about the movie. It was meant to be a comedy, you know, created with the intention to cause laughter and generate mirth in the audience; and I laughed exactly twice; when the trailer thing happened, and with happiness when the credits started rolling. There are barely words that explain how much I want to set Michael Cera on fire. What he needs to do, is stop acting in films. Maybe that shit flies on Saturday Night Live mate, but don't bring it to my screens, I have no idea how this dude is so successful! It is ridiculous how anybody could want to hire him in any film, I don't care if he sells you more tickets, is it worth the soul destroying day to day torture of being around him on set and having to hold yourself back from stabbing him in the face with a screwdriver? I don't think so.

Go see this film, just because I had to suffer it, and why should I suffer alone. Fuck

Till next time
Peace

Richard Curtis Does Something Right...For Once

Yeah I know, look how quickly I have returned to write yet another review. And you all thought I would be ages again...pah; ye of little faith. In truth I am only back this early due to the harassment of a certain small blond German, who kept insisting that I watch The Boat That Rocked and then review it instantly; and as a precaution, to not get on her bad side, I did as I was told, and therfore found myself squinting at the opening credits the way you may squint at the end of a hosepipe that is about to spray acid into your face at any given moment and I prepared my brain for the worst; after all, what could Richard Curtis produce that wasn't a steaming pile of cack?!

Its actually pretty good

I so wanted it to be bad, reeeeaaally bad, like when you see fat ugly people on Britain's Got Talent, and you secretly hope that they fall flat on their face or get booed off stage for being so shit, but against all my wishes I found myself enjoying a film by Richard Curtis. The same man who brought you such vomit inducing shit heaps such as Love Actually, Notting Hill and the bearable Four Weddings and a Funeral (which would have been great if they had cast somebody other than Hugh Grant and Andie McDowell); also he looks like somebody stretched skin over the comparethemarket.com meerkat

The Boat That Rocked is the story of pirate radio in the 1960s, the story opening with an explaination that in the 60s, BBC radio only played 45 minutes of popular and rock music a day, and this certainly wasn't enough for those mini skirt wearing, drug taking, casual sex loving kids. They wanted...nay...they NEEDED 24/7/365 popular rock and roll, and Radio Rock was there to answer their call. We follow Carl (Tom Sturridge), who is sent by his mother to spend time away from home on the Radio Rock ship with his Godfather Quentin (the ever brilliant Bill Nighy) after he was expelled from his school for smoking...both cigarettes and drugs apparently. Carl gets to witness the goings on in the lives of the most loved DJs in the land, as they broadcast through the night and through the day supplying the masses with their latest hit of rock and roll. Thing is, I can't really go on, as there isn't a normal plot to this film, that is kind of all that happens, well, I mean, there are events throughout, but I don't want to ruin that for you, but The Boat That Rocks is not your normal narrative.

The film plays out more like nostalgia than it does a simple narrative storyline, it feels like you would appreciate the film a lot more if you were alive in the 60s and actually listened to these pirated radio shows, which of course I didn't. It feels a bit like Curtis is grasping desperately at a time gone by, like those 55 year old Punk rockers in Camden, still wearing some Doc Martens and a spiky Mohawk; Curtis is trying to prove that he was cool once before he started writing films that should have all been named "Vagina!". I could almost hear him calling through the screen "look at meeee, i used to do things that were slightly taboo yet not quite illegal! How edgy am I!" but in all honesty you would have a hard time in picking any normal Richard Curtis blueprints on this film if you weren't told he wrote and directed it beforehand. It is just so different to his normal crap that I kept double checking the DVD case to make sure I didn't read it wrong. Despite me not being born in the 50s and therefore attached to the subject a bit more closely, I still enjoyed it, and here is why....the cast.

Phillip Seymour-Hoffman, who is super awesome, plays The Count, a mad hatter American who spends more time dancing around his booth than speaking to the audience (reminded me a lot of his character in Almost Famous actually), Rhys Ifans (that crazy Welsh bastard) plays the legendary pirate DJ Gavin Canavagh, whose arrival causes some stir up amongst the current staff. The is another Rhys here too, in Rhys Darby (of The Flight of the Concords fame) who is brilliant as the slightly unhinged Angus Nutsford. There are too many brilliant actors to list really, we have Nick Frost, Kenneth Brangagh, Jack Davenport to name a few; not to mention the mad babes all over the place, including January Jones Gemma Arterton and Talulah Riley
Did I have to add photos you ask? YEAH I DID! and now everyone in the computer lab is looking at me like I am some kind of a perv. But I do not care people, it had to be done.
After the talent of the cast there is the soundtrack, oooohohhhhh the sound track, it can't really be put into wortds how good it was, so I shall give you an image instead

That's right, heads will explode...a lot.... everywherrrrrrrrrrrre!

Lastly, the best thing that Curtis could have done with the film, is that he left out all of his typically cringe worthy romantic lovey dovey stuff. I am all for films that have a romantic theme, but not Richard Curtis films, hell noooo, he should stick to making films like this, films that are funny and feel good, and the more he does that, the further he will move away from his horrendous reputation as the Roland Emmerich of Romance and he willl perhaps become respected in film circles. You are almost there Rich, go on my son.

Anyway

Till next time
Peace

Oooooo How Marvel-ous

Yeah I know, it has been like, baaaaare time since my last post, but I still have no internet, so as a write this I am in the university computer lab, sitting next to lots of smelly geeky people. The summer is upon us, and like every year, the summer means blockbusters are near; big expensive popcorn munching blockbusters. Are these films intelligent and thought provoking? Nooooo, but, they do have plenty of this
and this
maybe a bit of this
perhaps a dab of this

Ok in all honesty I have no idea what the hell is happening in that last pic, but fuck, it looks badass, so who cares.
But yeah, where was I? Oh, summer blockbusters, this year, have been kickstarted by Ironman 2, whiiiiich, I havn't seen yet...because I am poorer than that smelly dude you see picking old pizza out of your bins and then passed out in inner city underpasses, and any money I do have is being injected into train fare funds to get to Chertsey every week. What i can do however, is reviw the first installment, Ironman; think of it as me trying to convince anybody who hasn't seen it to go see it, and the sequel. But really if you havn't seen Ironman then you should die. After getting all up on my nuts.

So we have Ironman, released 2008, directed by Jon Favreau, and it blew my mind everywhere, like all over the floor and shit. On a quick side note, i want to continue the quest for an anwswer to this question, is Favreau fat or stacked? I can't tell, he goes from this to this fat thing fuck ironman, thats "Trans-fats Man" look at the state of him.
Aaaaanyway, this is a truely awesome film, it is my favourite superhero film, yup, even more than the Batman series, probably because it is genuinly funny and AWESOME.

The story follows Tony Stark, the young hotshit CEO of Stark industries, a crazy big weapons manufacturer that he inherited from his dad; but Tony aint no slouch, he is like totally smart yeah, and he invents shit,....all the time. So when he gets kidnapped and injured by his own weaponry at the hands of a terrorist cell whilst in Afghanistan, promoting his latest range of terrorist creaming missiles, the shit is all up in the fan, as these crazy cave dwellers want him to build them a big ass rocket to fire at some poor people. First up they have plugged a battery magnet thing in his chest to stop this Stark Industries shrapnel from ripping his heart up, and when they initially ask him to buils them a WMD Tony is all like "suck all up on my nuts biznitch" but then they toture him a bit and he is like "Balls" and gives in. But hes a smart lil' cookie is our Tony and whilst his guards think he is building a missile, what he actually bulding is a mad technology to replace their shitty battery thing...oh yeah, and a big fuck off iron suit to bust his ass out of there (hehe, silly terrorists, pwned). When he busts out that joint, he flies home and decided that his days of producing weapons is over, as they all seem to be ending up in the hands of terrorists and killing Americans, and that not what Tony is about. Despite some pressure from the "board" or "investors" or something, Tony does what he wants and spends lots of time at home building and perfecting his designs for his Ironman suit so he can go and kick some Middle Eastern ass. Obvoulsly there is a hiccup abnd then all this crap happens, I won't ruin the story but trust me when I say there are plenty of explosions and fights and shit.

So yeah, the reason this film is brillo pads is mostly down to Robert Downey Jr, who is on a different level of manliness to most men, surpassing even myself (I sit on the council for the Van Damme plateau of the Man Tower) and he now resides on the Luther King Cloud, thats high up the tower. He is funny, and cool, and has an Iron suit, and bangs mad honeys all the time. What a hero. Also a strong supporting cast from Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard (one of my favourite actors), and The Dude (I have watched lots of his films recently), they don't have to blow your socks of in this film with there acting, as the action does that for you. Favreau really can direct action movies (see Hancock) and i must have jizzed about 40 timnes during the film from pure mangasm, not including the 5 instances I caught my reflection in the mirror. There is a kick ass soundtrack and it all moves at a brilliant blistering pace, whilst still making time for all the little important bits; like character development and relationship development. A fine job indeed for the Favface. i can't wait to have money to go see the sequel and you should all do the same, as I promise you it can't dissapoint. If you do see this film, or the new one and don't like them, then go jump off a bridge, because there is no reason for you to FUCKING EXIST!

yup yup

Till next time (hopefully not too long)
Peace