Film: Hard Target 2

A sequel to the Van Damme 1993 original sees a similar plot with a different cast. A fighter played by Scott Adkins is duped into being the prey in a hunt for rich sociopaths, this time the setting being the jungles of Burma. Robert Knepper, famous for playing T-Bag in Prison Break and countless bad guys in B-movies ever since is back here.

There's a scene where we clearly see a stunt rider wearing safety goggles through an explosion, such is the attention to detail. Rhona Mitra who once played Lara Croft plays one of the hunters in this. The hunters are supposedly some of the best out there but they have the accuracy of stormtroopers.

They introduce another female character just so we can have a woman-on-woman fight, which is a bit short but has a good pay-off. The bad guys manage to get hold of a go-pro that is thrown away, somehow finding it on a big river. They're then able to deduce who it belonged to. There's a Spanish guy who acts like he's a relative of Inigo Montoya from Princess Bride. There is some unnecessary slow-mo shots and we even get the John Woo doves in one sequence, just not done as well. 

and the ending featuring a fight between Adkins and Knepper on the border crossing bridge, doesn't make any sense in the context of the rest of the film.

Film: 31

This is a film that I missed last year and I liked Rob Zombie's "The Devil's Rejects" and "House of 1000 Corpses" so was expecting more of the same. This is his latest and it's a similar sort of film as he gives us his interpretation of The Running Man. We have a group of people on a road trip who find themselves kidnapped and made to play a game where they have to survive an arena for 12 hours whilst being pursued by a number of silly named freaks with names like Sex-Head, Doom-Head, Sick-Head, Psycho-Head and Schizo-Head.  

It's OK, a bit of a splatter fest, and the sort of thing you'd expect from Rob. What I do like is that he does his own thing and more so in this film which was funded through kickstarter.

Film: Pet

Pet sees the Hobbit from Lost stalk then kidnap an old acquaintance who is now working as a waitress, but what are his reasons and how will this play out?

That's the film, and without giving too much away, it's an OK film. Not amazing but suitably dark enough for my liking. Ksenia Solo who plays the woman is really good. Dominic is OK but as someone whose career has had him playing beta-males it didn't feel right that he'd assume an alpha role in this film. Clever casting.

An interesting piece of trivia is that the main room is the same set from Saw, and if you liked that film you might like this.

Show: Amaluna @ The Royal Albert Hall

This was the third time for me to see this show, in it's final week of it's UK run.

There were a few differences time. One of the fire juggling routines had been replaced with unicycles and the Kali juggler was a different guy doing a different routine. I'm also sure we had a male aerial routine when I saw this before but it was missing this time.

We did get Lara Jacob Rigolo's palm balancing though, and as my all-time favourite Cirque routine, it was great to see this one more time. The venue's air conditioning making it a bit more of a challenge as some of the sticks refused to stay in alignment.

A great night was had by all and with some of the group seeing their first Cirque show, it was great to see their first time reactions - something that I have to go back nearly 20 years to remember :)

Exhibition: Okuda & Crystal Wagner @ StolenSpace

A combined display from Okuda (the brightly coloured stuff) and Wagner (the folded paper stuff).

Both are really nice sets of work.

Graffiti: Nomadic Community Gardens

This new Fanakapan piece was down the road in Brick Lane