Sherlock - The Empty Hearse Spoiler Free Review (Plus a bit about The Tractate Middoth).

So I got to see a special preview of the first episode of Sherlock Season 3 at the BFI yesterday.  In attendance at a Q&A afterwards was the director Jeremy Lovering, producer Sue Virtue, showrunners Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss (Who wrote this episode) and stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, being asked questions by writer Caitlin Moran.  I'll let you finish the rounds of "you lucky bastard" before I continue after the break.

As good a look as my phone's camera could allow

RIP Lou Scheimer

Today we lost Lou Scheimer, one of the founding members of Filmation Entertainment.  In his honour, I present the 21 (or however many clips I can find) kid's show salute!

Any resemblance between this film and its source material is purely co-incidental.

So, World War Z; I think it's safe to say that from the moment the first trailer was released, it was pretty clear this wasn't going to follow the book very strongly.  The action taking place during, instead of looking back at the Armadeaddon, the use of fast zombies, the main character actively on a "save the world" mission; there's so little of Max Brooks' novel left, there's really no point in comparing the two.  Therefore, I'm not going to mention the novel at all, I'm purely looking at the film on its own in my rating of it, as let's face it, it is its own movie with the title slapped on at this point.  So on it's own, how does it stand up?  Let's say that this year's Warm Bodies, a rom-zom-com that could be seen as the zombie answer to Twilight, made for a far more enjoyable and truer-spirited zombie movie than this...

(You are now crossing Spoiler City limits; we welcome careful readers!)

Man of Steel, Script of Kleenex (SPOILERS A-PLENTY)

Sigh, it seems to have become a tradition of late, that each summer contains a pretty disappointing DC Superhero movie; first Green Lantern, then The Dark Knight Rises, now this.  Let me clarify and state that I am not implying all of these films are equals; DKR and MoS are nowhere near the utter clusterfuck that GL was, but they were all to a degree disappointing.  This is the one that really a lot of Warner Bros. hopes of finally getting Justice League of the launch pad are based on, and while financially I'm sure it's going to do well enough to get that ball rolling, given how well it's doing already, the actual finished film though has almost terminal issues that can mostly be summed up in a quote from another Chris Nolan production; "Why So Serious?"

After Earth's Implications & Why you must see Pacific Rim

So it's beginning to look like already that M. Night Shyamalan's latest After Earth may be the first big flop of the blockbuster season.  The reviews that have been turning up haven't been spectacular either, some pretty much confirming what I've already suspected (I can't directly comment since I haven't seen the thing year and am still hmming and hahing about doing so).  The thing is though, I actually am really disappointed about it not doing so well, as there are certain aspects about it that mean it's failure may have some serious impact on the industry...