I had been a bit apprehensive about Funny People. A lot of cats were saying that it lagged a bit and wasn’t as funny at Japatow’s previous work. The two and a half hour runtime didn’t get me too excited either.

Luckily, those fools don’t know shit.

Here are two amazing things about Funny People, in order of amazingness:

1. It’s not as funny as Japatow’s previous work
2. It’s two and a half hours long

The cast is Uptown Top Ranking as well, especially Eric Bana who’s a comedy genius as of today. And I love Leslie Mann. And Seth Rogen is just as good thin. And it’s got some amazing cameos. But I’m getting a bit bored of Jonah Hill. I’m sorry.

See it. Love it. Buy the Blu-ray.

After our suggestion that Final Destination 4 might be a better name than Final Destination: Death Trip 3D, the nutbags at New Line Cinema have decided to go the other way and choose a title so unbelievably rubbish and nonsensical that it rivals Fast and Furious for sheer crapulosity:

The Final Destination.

Despite this insanity, we can reveal two exiting nuggest of info about the film, courtesy of the ever-fascinating BBFC:

and…

That really is amazingly short.

First off, let me attempt to convince you that this post is not just a shameless promotion of Sony in exchange for them giving me some free stuff. Sony continues to be, and has always been, my multinational conglomerate corporation of choice. I’ve said before that Sony is my favourite screening venue, they’ve distributed several of my favourite movies this year and I’ve invested hundreds of pounds in their high-quality goods, as this photograph taken in the reflection of a TV can attest to:

There’s also a Playstation 2 sitting just out of frame. Anyway, you get the message. I Love Sony, no matter what that may or may not have given me last week. OK, I know what you’re wondering…

This is:

Yeah motherfucker. It all happened when I went to a ‘BD Live Press Day’ last week to sample Sony’s latest offerings. BD Live is the name for all the online capabilities of Sony’s Blu-ray releases. It basically involves stuff like quizzes and soundtrack info and movie trivia and (probably the bit that will catch on fastest) instant messaging while you’re watching the movie.

The long and the short of it is that Blu-ray is fucking incredible. It looks incredible. It sounds incredible. And I have absolutely zero doubt that in 5-10 years it will be outselling DVD.

The only thing that is uncertain is how long people will continue to put the hyphen in ‘Blu-ray’ for. It’s madness. We might as well write ‘D.V.D.’ or ‘e-mail’. But these are trivial matters compared with THE INCREDIBLE BLU-RAY PEN THAT I GOT AS WELL:

TREMBLE AT ITS MIGHT.

It’s called ‘Rage’.

This actually looks really good. I love an arty party and this ticks all the funky boxes. It even premiered at the Berlinale. It even explores themes of voyeurism. Here’s a trailer you can have a look at with your eyes:

VERY NICE COLOURS.

If you haven’t already worked it out form that, the premise is that the whole thing is a documentary about the fashion industry made by a student, shot on a mobile phone and posted to a blog. It’s all very Web 2.0, I think you’ll agree.

Of course, I do have slight problems with that concept because obviously no mobile phone in the world is capable of capturing the incredibly high definition video that the film was actually shot on, but this can perhaps be overlooked.

The big news about this film is the premiere:

The UK premiere of Sally Potter’s new film RAGE at London’s BFI Southbank will be broadcast live by satellite to a string of digitally-equipped cinemas across the UK and Europe.

Audiences in these ‘remote’ cinemas will not only see all the red carpet action and vox pops before the film, they can actively participate in the onstage Q&A with Sally Potter and members of her cast after the film, putting their questions by SMS or Skype, directly from their mobile phones, or on video via cutting-edge webcast technology which will then feature them as part of the satellite broadcast.

Sounds exciting. You can look for tickets for your local(est) screening here or try and win some on the official website here. Over and out.

Yes, that photograph is copyrighted to Fox, thanks for asking.

Everybody and their brother is going around ragging on the Avatar footage. They say it’s ‘cartoony’, they say it’s too much like a video game, they say it doesn’t have heart. They may be right. But they’re probably not.

What we saw yesterday at the BFI IMAX (if you want to see this film properly, go there, *backhander*) was 16 minutes, or about 5 scenes, of the most incredible cinematic brill skills I’ve seen in a long time. Fools were flying all over the fucking shop, monsters were leaping, aliens were attacking, guns were firing, POV shots were present and all of it looked so mad real in the 3D (the best I’ve ever seen). And with the 70mm IMAX quality you can even make out insects flying around in front of the action. Incredible.

As for making it a serious movie, I can tell you that there is quite a realistic scene in a hospital that could be out of Blindness or some shit, and I’m sure you’ll be as excited as me to know that within the 16 minutes shown, we heard both a ‘bitch’ and a ’shit’.

Fingers crossed for ‘fuck’ come December.

BONUS LINK: Watch this video of the day at the BBC website and spot for nerds. But also listen out for the second last guy they interview because he has it bang on. This is the first film to make an effective use of 3D as a spatial awareness tool rather than a cheap gimmick.