Osiris review – Linda Hamilton drops in to rescue charmingly hokey space-horror
This fella-in-a-suit aspect is the one of the film's strengths. You might argue that it hinders the willing suspension of disbelief, because you always know you're looking at a fella in a suit. But in truth there's something about the physicality of even the hokiest practical effect that is more enjoyable than all but the most skilfully rendered digital efforts.
Another area in which the film recalls the earlier work of James Cameron is in the casting of Linda Hamilton (Terminator 2: Judgment Day) in the role of a tough, uncompromising military type. Lest fans get too excited by the Hamilton-heavy marketing for the film, she certainly gives good Hamilton while on screen, but she doesn't appear for the first hour; it's very much an 'and Linda Hamilton' credits situation. And that's fine: it's better to have practical effects and a modest helping of recognisable actors than A-listers sleepwalking through expensive CGI glop for a paycheck. Osiris is far from a perfect film, and it's certainly not an original one, but it understands the assignment and delivers.
Osiris is on digital platforms from 28 July.
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The Independent
22 minutes ago
- The Independent
Giant trolls built from trash want to save humans from themselves
Nestled in forests around the world, a gentle army of giant wooden trolls want to show humans how to live better without destroying the planet. The Danish recycle artist Thomas Dambo and his team have created 170 troll sculptures from discarded materials such as wooden pallets, old furniture and wine barrels. Twelve years after he started the 'Trail of a Thousand Trolls' project, his sculptures can be found in more than 20 countries and 21 U.S. states. Each year Dambo and his team make about 25 new trolls, which stand up to 40 feet (12 meters) tall. 'I believe that we can make anything out of anything,' said Dambo, speaking from his farm outside Copenhagen. 'We are drowning in trash. But we also know that one man's trash is another man's treasure.' An installation of six sculptures called 'Trolls Save the Humans' is on display at Filoli, a historic estate with 650 acres of forests and gardens in Woodside, California, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of San Francisco. 'They bring us back to be connected to the earth and to nature,' said Jeannette Weederman, who was visiting Filoli with her son in July. Dambo's trolls each have their own personality and story. At Filoli, the troll Ibbi Pip builds birdhouses, Rosa Sunfinger plants flowers and Kamma Can makes jewelry from people's garbage. 'Each of them has a story to tell,' said Filoli CEO Kara Newport. 'It inspires people to think of their own stories, what kind of creatures might live in their woods and make that connection to living beings in nature.' Dambo's trolls don't like humans because they waste nature's resources and pollute the planet. The mythical creatures have a long-term perspective because they live for thousands of years and have witnessed the destructive force of human civilizations. But the six young trolls at Filoli have a more optimistic view of human nature. They believe they can teach people how to protect the environment. 'They want to save the humans. So they do this by teaching them how to be better humans — be humans that don't destroy nature,' said Dambo, 45, a poet and former hip hop artist. 'They hope to save them from being eaten by the older trolls.' Dambo's trolls are hidden in forests, mountains, jungles and grasslands throughout Europe and North America as well as countries such as Australia, Chile and South Korea. Most were built with local materials and assembled on-site by his team of craftsmen and artists with help from local volunteers. 'My exhibition now has four and a half million visitors a year globally, and it's all made out of trash together with volunteers,' said Dambo, a poet and former rap artist. 'That is such a huge proof of concept of why we should not throw things out, but why we should recycle it.'
The Guardian
34 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘Thomas the Tank Engine clung to me like a disease': the film about the choo-choo's global grownup superfans
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It celebrates the men (and the fans Carty interviews are overwhelmingly male) who have found friendship, community and creativity in what, as far as I can judge, is the most wholesome of subcultures. Yet a sense of shame pervades Thomas the Tank Engine fandom. 'Aside from a handful of people,' says Carty, 'no one's really out and proud about it – because it's socially unacceptable, especially here in the States.' Why? 'I think Thomas gets looped in with Sesame Street and other preschool TV shows over here, whereas in the UK it's seen more as a children's show.' Such nuances of a multiplatform global brand – whose merchandising spans pasta shapes and duvet covers, and whose fans number devotees in Japan and Australia – were not, you would think, on the mind of Reverend Wilbert Vere Awdry in 1943. It was then that Thomas was born, on a fictional island called Sodor. Awdry's son Christopher needed cheering up from measles. And the reverend thought his tales of anthropomorphised steam locomotives, operating on the Fat Controller's North Western Railway, would be just the ticket. Two years later, the first illustrated books appeared, colourful antidotes to postwar austerity Britain. When I was a child, in the 1960s and 70s, I borrowed the illustrated adventures of Thomas and his pals from my local library. For later generations, though, Thomas means something else. His name evokes nostalgia not for the books but for all the TV series, in particular Thomas & Friends, which first aired in 1984 in the UK, written by the late Britt Allcroft and narrated first by Ringo Starr, then later by Michael Angelis and others including, in one spinoff, the silken-voiced ex-007 Pierce Brosnan. Many of the twenty- and thirtysomething Thomas fans whom Carty interviews, and Carty himself, watched these shows as kids, and nostalgia for the plucky locomotive has haunted them into adulthood. Carty and his older brother watched the show as preschoolers in North Carolina, and would play with Thomas toys, but then their paths diverged. 'He lost interest,' says Carty. 'I didn't.' Why? 'I can't explain it. My parents can't explain it. They thought it was weird. I remember my 10th birthday: I was still asking for Thomas toys. I don't know – it just clung to me like a disease. I'm happy that it clung to me, though. Now I'm a year shy of 30 and it's still my thing.' What's the appeal of Thomas in the US? 'You don't see a lot of steam engines over here. People see the Thomas engines and think, 'Well those are just made up. Those aren't real.'' As US versions of the TV series started appearing in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Thomas got a makeover. The Fat Controller became Mr Controller. After Starr's stint as narrator ended, he was replaced in the US first by countercultural comedian George Carlin, and then by Alec Baldwin. How did An Unlikely Fandom come about? 'I was studying film at the University of Northern Carolina,' says Carty. 'My professor said, 'Just go shoot a documentary. I don't care how long it is. Just find something you care about.' So I decided to film the adult Thomas fans who I knew. I made that film and graduated – then I realised there's a bunch of fans in the UK that needed to be in this. A ton in Australia. A whole scene in Japan.' The fact that many of the interviewees are in their 20s and 30s suggests that much of the TV shows' enduring appeal lies in nostalgia for childhoods dating from when the shows were first broadcast. But there's more to it than that. Thomas has long held an appeal for people with autism. Indeed a 2001 survey found that children with autism and Asperger syndrome enjoy and identify with Thomas more than any other children's character. Why? Respondents cited Thomas & Friends' straightforward stories, overt narrative resolution, bold colours and clear facial features. 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Matt Michaud recalls how he took a video class at school and, inspired by a teacher to make his own movie, went home, got out his Thomas toys, put up a sheet for a backdrop, assembled rudimentary lighting and made his debut film. 'That summer,' he says, 'I made 13 episodes and started to build a following on YouTube.' Indeed, the life expectancy of Thomas has been extended by two things Awdry could never have foreseen. Without the internet, forums instantly connecting fans worldwide might not have existed; and without YouTube, the rich world of fan films – such as Carty's own 2012 short Snow Trouble – might not have been seen so widely. 'I don't think that happens as much with other cartoon characters. I'm sure there are Star Wars fans who make fan films, but I don't think Bob the Builder or Fireman Sam fans do.' Carty's next project could not be more different. 'It's about these Italians who came to Florida in the 1990s and made Jaws 5.' That's its unofficial title: Bruno Mattei's film is also known as Cruel Jaws. 'They wound up getting sued and their film was banned in the US. It spoke to me because Jaws and Thomas are my childhood.' Why was it banned? 'They stole footage from the first three Jaws movies and the main theme is lifted from Star Wars. It's horrible, but I love it. It's cheesy and streaming free everywhere. I would recommend it.' Before he finishes that documentary, provisionally entitled Twilight Jaws, Carty will next month attend the UK premiere of An Unlikely Fandom. Much of the film's sweetness comes from Carty's footage of fans at conventions, making podcasts or – having been initiated into the world of steam railways through Thomas and his friends – working happily with like-minded souls as volunteers on narrow gauge heritage railways. What I most enjoyed about his film is the complete lack of snarkiness about grownups who are essentially playing with toys. 'That was just the thing I wanted to get out to the world. I faced a lot of hardship for it. Other people faced a lot of hardship for it. Even fans gave other fans a hard time. They didn't know how to process it, right? A lot of people said to me, 'I wish I had this film when I was growing up because I would have realised I was not alone.' When you're growing up, parents are like, 'Why aren't you making friends? You need to find your crowd.' A lot of Thomas fans did just that in later life. It's such a healthy, positive thing.' Carty tells me he and his girlfriend, also a Thomas fan, don't yet have children. 'Whenever kids come into the picture, it's going to be a Thomas household,' he says. Then, with the hint of a sigh, he adds: 'If they don't like it, we'll reconsider.' Brannon Carty will take part in a Q&A following the UK premiere of An Unlikely Fandom at Alstom's Litchurch Lane Works, Derby, on 2 August.
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Ozzy Osbourne: did he really bite the head off a live bat?
When it comes to the unruly world of rock, shocking behaviour is rarely frowned upon. Just the opposite. Most of the time it's practically there are limits, few performers have pushed those generous boundaries more than John Michael Osbourne, aka Ozzy Osbourne, or the Prince of Darkness, who has died aged don't get a nickname like that by Sabbath fans initially dubbed him with it thanks to his jet black onstage persona, decadent aura and lyrics that seemed obsessed by the his actions on the night of 20 January 1982, when the body of an unfortunate creature ended up separated from its head, were bat-split crazy, even by Ozzy's excessive an event that, decades later, is still discussed as one of the most notorious moments in heavy metal oddly, this wasn't even the first time that the singer had seemingly been involved in the decapitation of an innocent more of that it comes to Ozzy and the bat, it's unsurprising that, over the years, recollections have differed on the precise turn of that was because people's memories clashed. But mostly it depended on which version of the story Ozzy was in the mood to facts about the incident, however, are unambiguous. In January 1982, Ozzy was two months into a gruelling tour promoting his second solo album, Diary of a Madman. A tradition had developed where the singer would catapult pieces of raw meat and animal parts - including intestines and liver - into the far, so revolting. And perhaps, not totally inexplicable behaviour for a man who'd once served an apprenticeship at an the tour, word quickly spread about the practice, and Ozzy's fans were nothing if not resourceful. At every venue, they knew exactly what was coming, and they turned up armed and ready to when something small and black landed on stage during a rowdy Wednesday night show at Des Moines' Veterans Memorial Auditorium, the singer thought it was a rubber here's where recollections start to veer off in different his 2010 autobiography I Am Ozzy the singer says he picked it up, stuffed it in his mouth, and chomped down."Immediately, though, something felt wrong. Very wrong. For a start my mouth was instantly full of this warm, gloopy liquid," he recalled. "Then the head in my mouth twitched." "Somebody threw a bat. I just thought it was a rubber bat. And I picked it up and put it in my mouth. I bit into it," he told the he says he realised: "Oh no, it's real. It was a real live bat."So is this the definitive version of the story - live bat thrown on stage, Ozzy bites into it? Far from hadn't always insisted the bat was alive when it was thrown towards in 2006, he gave the BBC a take on the story that was subtly, but crucially different."This bat comes on. I thought it was one of them Hallowe'en joke bats 'cos it had some string around its neck," he said."I bite into it, and I look to my left and Sharon [Osbourne, his wife and then manager] was going [gesturing no]."And I'm like, what you talking about? She [says], 'it's a dead real bat'. And I'm... I know now!"So was the unfortunate winged mammal dead or alive?Who better to confirm whether it was bereft of life and had ceased to be, than the person who claims to have actually brought the bat to the concert? Dead or alive? According to the Des Moines Register, that man was Mark was 17 at the time of the concert. And his account of the events leading up to the gory night was this: His younger brother had brought the bat home a fortnight before but, sadly, it hadn't said that, by the time he took it to the concert, it had been dead for it seems that the available evidence about this legendary piece of heavy metal excess, placed at number two in Rolling Stone magazine's list of Rock's Wildest Myths, does point to it being largely agrees that the bat did find its way into Ozzy's mouth, although it seems likely it was no longer alive by that point - something Ozzy himself concurred with. what of an eerily similar incident some nine months before in Los Angeles? Again the details vary, usually depending on who Ozzy was talking basic facts have never been in dispute. Ozzy was due to meet a group of CBS record label executives in Los Angeles, and Sharon had the idea of him bringing three live doves with giving a short speech of thanks, the plan was for Ozzy to throw them into the air, so everyone could watch them flutter away, in a symbolic gesture of alert: That's not what ended up happening. Doves of peace Ozzy had been drinking brandy all morning, and he later told rock biographer Mick Wall that a PR woman at the meeting had been seriously annoying to Wall's book, Black Sabbath: Symptoms of the Universe, Ozzy "pulled out one of these doves and bit its [expletive] head off just to shut her up"."Then I did it again with the next dove," he added, "spitting the head out on the table"."That's when they threw me out. They said I'd never work for CBS again." In version two, recounted some months later, he told Sounds' magazine's Garry Bushell a slightly different story."The scam is the bird was dead. We were planning to release it there, but it died beforehand. So rather than waste it, I bit its head off."You should have seen their faces. They all went white. They were speechless." The ringmaster of rock excess Ozzy, of course, had a reputation to uphold. After all, this was the man who'd been thrown out of Black Sabbath because, even by rock's astronomically lax standards, his drink and drug consumption was considered too while his encounters with bat and dove may not have seemed cricket to many, they - with helpful dollops of exaggeration - added significantly to Ozzy's outrageous undoubtedly gave him even greater publicity and notoriety, helping his solo career to skyrocket like a bat out of even though he might not be guilty of every misdemeanour that was attributed to him over the years, there's little doubt that he reached heights (or depths) that other rock stars never dared to meant that he was seen as the undoubted ringmaster of rock excess - a career defining reputation that stayed with him right to the end.
