Friday, 29 June 2018

Transformers: The Movie (1986)


How do you make a transforming robot movie work with its dedicated fan base? An inspiring soundtrack, loveable characters, a hint of tragedy and no product placement!

Transformers: The Movie follows the ongoing battle between the Autobots and the Decepticons which is then dwarfed by the arrival of the planet-consuming Unicron (Orson Wells), all through the eyes a new addiction to the transformers family; Hot Rod (Judd Nelson). We begin with the noble Autobots planning to re-take their home planet of Cybertron from the villainous Decepticons. After a party of Decepticons apprehends an Autobot ship, we end up with the all too familiar setting of a battlefield on earth; Megatron (Frank Welker) and Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) leading waves of familiar faces from the television series into a terrifically animated dance of explosions, lasers and shrapnel. As we near the end of the battle, an epic duel ensues that ends in the tragic fall of Optimus Prime. During the aftermath, we see Unicron, out in space, swallowing the two moons of Cybertron. As the remaining Autobots venture to Cybertron to rescue their friends, Unicron enlists the help of the fallen Megatron, now the re-born Galvatron (Leonard Nimoy), to hunt them down in pursuit of the all-powerful “Matrix of Leadership”. We follow our cast to a multitude of planets before they finally end up face-to-face with Unicron, where they triumphantly overcome their darkest hour and reduce the planet killer to a giant floating head, drifting through the cosmos.

Transformers: The Movie is an absolute treat for both fans of the original cartoon and newcomers to the series. With a cast of fantastic voice actors, including the timeless Peter Cullen, the masterful Frank Welker and the magnificent Orson Welles, in his penultimate performance. With so many legendary characters making an appearance, it was inevitable we were going to lose a few, but seeing some of our beloved transformers fall in battle, some of which have been with us since the very first episode, well, painful just doesn’t quite cover it.

The soundtrack is perfectly displays a collection of 80’s power ballads that would make any audience member power slide towards their screen. Stan Bush’s “Dare” and “The Touch” drive forward climactic and inspirational moments throughout the film and purposefully tie together everything visually with the same feeling that made us want to travel through time with Huey Lewis and The News in 1985. We even hear an appearance from “Weird” Al Yankovic during a hectic battle scene, contributing to the madness and sheer unpredictability of the Transformers universe.

If I was to find a negative with this film, it would be the introduction of the two brand new characters; Hot-Rod and Cup. This film that is a direct link back to the original series and doesn’t bother re-introducing many of its characters to viewers. For a film to use this mentality but then also attempt to use brand-new characters as a window for the audience, it’s counterproductive and results in these never-before seen characters feeding off the nostalgia of the pre-existing characters.

In summary, Transformers: The Movie brings forth everything we loved about the original transformers franchise, with some new additions sprinkled on top. The eruption of emotion, nostalgia and love for the characters can only be matched by the care taken by the animation and sound design teams. Truly a spectacle to behold for any fan of the robots in disguise.

4.5/5 - Lights, Sounds and Transforming Action!




Friday, 22 June 2018

Ugly Delicious: Season 1 (2018)


David Chang is an unstoppable force in the food world and that world is so much bigger than we thought.

Netflix's Ugly Delicious follows chef David Chang (Momofuku) as he journeys around the world to investigate some of the most influential dishes, cuisines, chefs, celebrities and restaurants. Throughout the series, we are taken through so many different cultures and cuisines but we're not lost due to the fact that David Chang is presenting all the information in a spectacularly fun way, sometimes with well-known actors or big names in the food world, who may be lesser known in the mainstream but we recognise their authority and we immediately trust everything they're telling us, as through everything, they refer back to their personal experiences and their personal upbringing leading to what they've achieved.

The title "Ugly Delicious" refers to a style of food Chang describes as delicious but that he wouldn't serve in a restaurant as he believes it to be reserved for home, due to the presentation or the uniqueness. It carries with it a certain guilty pleasure, which is a charm that isn't lost throughout the series as we're presented with plate after plate, bowl after bowl of luxurious food, so close yet so far.

The show offers a fresher look into the development of food culture as it doesn't reserve itself to a specific area of dining; we see Michelin star chefs dining at home, world-renowned critics eating from street vendors and celebrities indulging in guilty pleasures like KFC or Domino's. By connecting these elements, you get a new experience for the audience that connects to an area they can relate to, with something new for them to learn, thus creating a repetitive cycle of understanding and familiarity which is rarely found on TV  these days.

The basic structure of each episode consists of a simple intro; What type of food are we tackling? Then we move on to specific influencers and their history with the food, then to a deeper history behind the culture and what that food represents and finally a summary of what the audience now understands about the food that they so easily misunderstood before they started. The show feels a little like the television equivalent of jazz; a lot of events, stories and experiences happening at once but all aimed towards a singular objective or question that's being answered.

So far, there have been 8 episodes facing very different subject matters:

Pizza: Italian culture and ancient traditions VS originality and uniqueness.
Tacos: Mexican culture, immigration, amalgamation of cuisines into singular categories and respect of different cuisines.
Home cooking: Expense VS intent and how it effects quality and the restaurant business.
Shrimp and Crawfish: South American and Vietnamese culture, vietnamese immigration and integration of vietnamese and cajun foods into traditional regions.
BBQ: What was the "Original BBQ"? The difference in American and Korean BBQ and Korean representation in America.
Fried Chicken: Black representation in America and how food can negatively represent culture and race.
Fried Rice: Chinese culture and misrepresentation of cuisine; "Chinese-American cuisine".
Stuffed: East VS West; Who did dumplings first?

Thinking about what you eat shouldn't mean counting the calories or worrying about the fat content, it should be knowing the origins of the food, the experiences of the chef that lead them to create that dish, it should be the history and the influence, not fear of the ingredients. This seems to be the lesson David Chang is teaching us and so far, we're loving it.

4.5/5 - A taste of everything you can imagine and so much more.