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The World’s End

The gang at the Trusty Servant. Or maybe the Two-Headed Dog. It's hard to tell.

June 22nd, 1990, was the highlight of Gary’s life, and yes, his friends do think that’s pretty sad, since he was only 17 or so at the time. But that was the night that he and his friends attempted to finish the Golden Mile — a massive pub crawl through their hometown of Newton Haven, featuring a pint at each of twelve pubs. I’m not sure they were old enough to be drinking, but no one objects, at least, and they make it through nine of the twelve before finally giving up because most of them have passed out cold.

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Hancock

Will SMith saves Jason Bateman. Able to flip trapped sedans with a single hand.

John Hancock, to be precise. But this isn’t about a famed signer of the Declaration of Independence. It’s about a drunken lout who lives in a cluttered, tiny trailer in the middle of the desert, but prefers to sleep on park benches with large bottles of whiskey close at hand. He also happens to have super-powers. But those don’t win him an adoring public, like you might expect. In the first three minutes of the movie, he gets called the same insulting thing three times, which quickly becomes the running joke of the film.
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Snow White and the Huntsman

I wanted a shot of Ravenna turning into a cloud of ravens, but no such luck.

Once upon a time — because really, how else can you start a review of a fairy tale? — there was a girl named Kristen Stewart who beat out half the up and coming young actresses in Hollywood to play Snow White. She was Bella in Twilight but I tried not to hold that against her. It wasn’t any easier to cast the Huntsman, apparently. Tom Hardy was one of the candidates, and Viggo Mortensen of Lord of the Rings considered it for months before dropping out. Hugh Jackman was asked, but didn’t want it. They even considered — wait for it — Johnny Depp. Ugh.

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Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows

Holmes and Watson stand before Holmes' conspiracy map

The other day as I was entering a friend’s house, someone was watching Sherlock Holmes. This is the Sherlock Holmes, mind you, the Jeremy Brett version that shall never be surpassed. It was a scene where he explains to Watson how he produces such startling effects with his deductions — namely, by describing the first link in his impeccably logical chain of reasoning, then the last link, and not mentioning any of the links in between.
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