rags to riches stories don't always involve a pretty girl in a pretty dress. The Blind Side doesn't make a song and dance about it.

TDR RATING 8/10

Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron): It's nice, I never had one before.Leigh Anne Touhy (Sandra Bullock): What, a room to yourself?Michael Oher: A bed.

It is with great shame that I admit that I hadn't seen this before now. Every now and then some movies just fall by the wayside. I sat down to watch this just after having seen Into the Wild, Emilie Hirsch plays Chris McCandless who abandons his modern life to live in the wilderness. I recommend only watching this if you are feeling emotionally stable as it will leave you a little unhinged. Back to my point, The Blind Side was a completely contrasting story, though both inspirational for different reasons both carry the same idea. A true story about a young Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron) and his journey from the housing projects to American football superstar. Now I know very little about American football and the NFL other than that college football is a REALLY BIG DEAL! Honestly I am only really interested in the half time show; that’s the fault of my day job. The year Beyoncé performed, I really did try to watch the whole thing, but there was a power cut in the 3^rd quarter? I think? It was about 4 a.m. here in London, I couldn’t make it to the end and I just fell asleep.  

John Lee Hancock’s interpretation of Michael Lewis’s book The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game is in essence a documentation of Oher’s rag to riches story. Oher had a difficult start like many young people who grew up in the projects, for lack of a better word he is rescued. Oher was taken in by the Tuohy’s who are a well to do family whose fortune came from the Taco Bell/Pizza Hut franchise. Sandra Bullock won the 2009 Best Actress Academy Award for her role as Leigh Anne Tuohy. Her Good Samaritan nature kicks in when she spot’s Michael wandering the streets in the rain in only a t-shirt and shorts and carrying a spare t-shirt in a plastic bag. We follow as Michael and Leigh-Anne bond as she enables him to achieve what he thought was a near impossible future. It is a real-life Cinderella story that isn't without heart and power. I feel that Bullock is often underestimated in her ability and the gravitas that she can present along with her charming personality and sense of humour.

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The Blind Side makes you laugh and feel good but the picture doesn’t lead you up the garden path. John Lee Hancock makes a solid point of showing that many of these young men and women from these housing projects don’t have such a lucky escape. 

WTF did I just watch? Attempting to relate to Harmony Korine's Spring Breaker's in my Late 20's

TDR RATING - 4/10

 Spring break forever, bitches. - Vanessa Hudgens as Candy

I get the impression that Spring Breaker’s is trying to be too smart for its own good, to the point that its intention is completely lost on me. The rumour mill is going at it again with producers wanting to cash in on a sequel to the cult hit. Thankfully one of its stars, James Franco who plays Alien a gun and drug dealer has already got super annoyed at the mere idea of a sequel.  Understandably as there is absolutely no need for one.  It is starting to become really quite boring that there is a major lack of originality in Hollywood. Cult films are so because of their originality, the cast and sometimes because they are a little bit (or a lot) weird, look at Heathers, pretty much any Wes Anderson movie, The Crow, Garden State, Donnie Darko and the list goes on. I was the perfect age for Donnie Darko, when it was released it was a slow burner. Nobody at school had heard of it, I felt like it was my own little piece of weirdness. It wasn't till it sat on the shelves of the video rental shop that it became a cult hit. Donnie spoke to my teen angst, (this probably is a little bit too much into my inner psyche but still it seems relevant). Angst driven and paired with a flawless soundtrack, I was exposed to abstract thought and music that was familiar but had no real connection to.  Is Spring Breaker's what teens connect to now? I am in my late 20’s, a little less impressionable and with less angst, my ability to relate is a little off. 

Now the casting is really something to behold. I would love to pick the brains of both the characters and the actresses who played them. What drove these teen sensations to say yes to such dicey roles? Vanessa Hudgens as Candy and Selena Gomez as Faith where (mostly) squeaky clean poster girls. Maybe this was their ‘Miley Cyrus’ moment? Fed up of the ‘good female role model’ ideal and ready to be seen as strong, independent and creative women. There has been a lot of talk about the lack of strong female characters in Hollywood and these young women are strong. I just can’t help but be a little disappointed in that they did it with their boobs out.

The plot was confusing, sparse on details, detailed in flesh. Abstract and free interpretation of the meaning is all well and good, but down right confusing isn't. What was the motivation? It’s just girls gone wild? James Franco was brilliantly terrible making the story, albeit only slightly, more tolerable (shame about the accent though).

I don't if you know but Tribeca Film Festival has an online festival of Shorts and they are top notch!

Just click the picture below, sign up and go. 

Hell's Kitchen is cooking up something incredible and it tastes devilishly good.

Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll): Can I ask a personal question?

Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox): I haven't always been blind.

Karen: I guess that's what everyone wants to know.

Matt: That or, "How do you comb your hair?"

There is something that is just so seductive about this poster.

Well what a fantastic move that was with Daredevil? If you haven’t seen any of it, I beg you go watch it. It’s a brutal and dark take on Marvel’s series. While Marvel is on the upswing, taking time to produce something of merit with the story was really spot on move.  Along with the decision to move to T.V. and collaborate with Netflix, Marvel are killing it!

Initially I was a little confused with the Charlie Cox casting as Matt Murdock, I loved Stardust for so many reasons I thought I wouldn't be able to leave Cox’s Tristan Thorn behind. I know he’s done a bunch of stuff since then, Boardwalk Empire, Downton Abbey and then there’s The Theory of Everything. He’s had a slow burner of a start to his career but that’s not to say there’s not great things coming from him. As far as Cox goes with Daredevil, it’s a fantastic surprise that he is really great at the superhero thing. He absolutely kills any memory of Ben Affleck in the role. This is a gritty and dark piece of T.V. a total contrast to Marvel’s work with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. which I have kind of let fall by the wayside after the first few episodes, the same can be said for D.C’s Gotham they just don’t have the pull that I wanted them to have.

Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, I have most certainly had mega-girl crush on her since her first appearance on True Blood and I've been eagerly anticipating what she would move onto next. She is as charming and tenacious as I had hoped and the fact that the looming/inevitable romance has been somewhat put off in the series, it’s really refreshing to see that the sub-plot was less about romance and more about the friendships. The friendship between Murdock and Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) is especially captivating watching these friends deal with each other’s live choices. Henson is far becoming one of my favourite supporting actors, for me he was incredible in The Butterfly Effect (which I think is totally underrated BTW.) and who can forget The Mighty Ducks! OK I JOKE! Maybe? Who knows? Now the antagonist of the whole scenario is the one and only Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) brilliantly cast and a character of many layers. Thankfully they left behind the Bullseye/KingPin storyline from the atrocious Affleck Daredevil. Fisk is dark to perfection and oh did he make me hide behind cushions! Having now finished the series I can only eagerly await The Defenders which should be appearing on Netflix by the end of this year, finger’s crossed!!

Zack Snyder is a bit of a tease, releases a little IMAX teaser for Batman v. Superman

Confirmed 4.20.15 #BatmanvSuperman @IMAX special teaser screening events. Limited space. RSVP http://t.co/TasYGlJGig https://t.co/fnxFIERUlv
— ZackSnyder (@ZackSnyder) April 16, 2015

From the looks of that Batman Suit, Bruce Wayne is getting old. EEEK

No Replicants may apply within. The Final Cut of Blade Runner still proves to be the best.

I don't know why he saved my life. Maybe in those last moments he loved life more than he ever had before. Not just his life - anybody's life; my life. All he'd wanted were the same answers the rest of us want. Where did I come from? Where am I going? How long have I got? All I could do was sit there and watch him die.

- Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) Narration from the original 1982 release.

Sean Young is far to beautiful for me to not run this without her face on it somewhere. <3

As part of the Future Films Strand, the BFI on the Southbank in London has been showing Ridley Scott’s adaptation Blade Runner: The Final Cut of Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Android’s dream of Electric Sheep? As I am not quite old enough (don’t hold that against me!) to have seen the picture for the first time at the cinema, this was a little bit of a no-brainer. Not to say I haven’t seen this before, I am not a hermit. Blade Runner was meant to be watched on the big screen, the visual feast and Vangelis’ score can be admired in its full glory. Upon entering the cinema we were handed a printed Credit’s list for the picture along with a brief summary and excerpt from producer Michael Deeley’s Book; Blade Runners, Deer Hunter’s and Blowing the Bloody Door’s Off. I only actually got around to reading pamphlet when I sat down to write this and there are some points that Deeley makes that underline my existing thoughts on the changes. I was a little concerned that I may have forgotten some of the details it’s been a while since I last watched it. The ‘Final Cut’ doesn’t rip apart the original and try to rehash it together as Deeley says it does simply ’restore’ it.  The poorly cut scene of Zhora’s (Joanna Cassidy) demise is re-edited, as is Roy Batty’s (Rutger Hauer) symbolic release of the dove; those scenes now have a better flow to them. There are a few other minor tweaks to it but Blade Runner is still the masterpiece it was.

Everyone in the cinema shared a chuckle as the movie stated it was set in Los Angeles in 2019. I’m pretty sure we are a little way from experiencing anything similar to the dystopian future Blade Runner set up.  With rumours floating around of a Blade Runner 2 without Ridley Scott, I am unsure of the need to revisit the story. Anyone else have any thoughts on this? Harrison Ford has as we all know is involved with the return to the Star Wars saga along with the announcement of Indiana Jones 5 , can Ford jump into something now that isn’t a reboot/sequel or some damned awful The Expendables movie. Sorry! There have always been questions around whether or not Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is a replicant; a short shelf-life synthetic human who is implanted with false memories, I think this story ends well where it does. Blade Runner has made a path for young filmmakers inspired by the neo-noir sci-fi thriller. Can’t we just leave it on the pedestal the story deserves? 

Beauty and The Beast Cast Photo.

Can't wait for you to be our guest.

A photo posted by Josh Gad (@joshgad) on Apr 14, 2015 at 11:37am PDT

I just couldn't help myself! :-/