Wizards are great aren’t they? They get to wear those funny pointy hats and not get accused of being in some dreadful cult and, better yet, magic comes out of the end of their fingers!

They’re like Siegfried and Roy, only without the accidental mauling by an albino tiger!

And what has got us thinking about wizardry? Well, The Sims: Medieval asked us to think about our fave sorcerers and magic men! We like thinking about magic men. It is much better than thinking about those stoopid celebrities all the time!

The Sims: Medieval sees you getting your heroes and developing quests and kingdoms for them and, better yet, Patrick Stewart is on hand to set you on your way in this trailer showing off the game.

Isn’t that swell?

Yes it is. And Patrick Stewart has the voice of a sorcerer. We actually think he might be a real-life wizard but he’s waiting to see if he can grow a decent enough beard before letting us all in on his magical secret!

Anyway, watch this fun trailer.

Now, here are our favourite magic folk! And no, Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee don’t make an appearance.

Miracle Max from The Princess Bride

Billy Crystal’s portrayal of Miracle Max is one of his best and most underrated roles. Max is the last miracle worker in Florin who was fired by Humperdinck (you promised you’d never say that name again!) and saves Westley’s life to get revenge and all that good stuff!

Orco from He-Man

Orco, in fairness, was a bit wet. However, he is worth including in this list because a) He had a really cool outfit (especially with that big ‘O’ on his chest – it made him look a bit like a superhero) and b) When you bought the figure of him, he came with a rip-cord and some magic tricks in which you could impress your pals with! Eat that Beast Man!

Roy Wood’s Wizzard

Presto from Dungeons and Dragons

Presto was absolutely hopeless. Completely useless in every single respect. However, that is why we liked him. He was a good geek and a refreshing anecdote to all those wizard sorts who always knew what they were doing and filled with wisdom.

Zantanna

Daughter of a magician and object of lust for Batman, Zantanna is one of the most powerful members of the Justice League and has genetic blood magic! She’s also the token woman in our list because there aren’t many women sorcerers in fiction that we can think of!

Mandrake from Defenders of the Earth

*sings* Master of magic spells and illuuuusion… enemies grumble with fear and confuuuusion… or something. It’s been a while since we saw Mandrake in action but we sure liked his threads and pencil moustache.

The Wizard Of Oz

The Wizard, who we were all off to see whether we liked it or not, was the archetypal lad who got bullied at school for being a squirt who used his wiley brain to seek revenge on everyone. After being told off by Dorothy and Co, he shrugged and knocked the whole tyrannical despot thing on the head.

Gandalf Lord Of The Rings

Great beard! Great magic! Everyone likes Gandalf! Well, apart from Saruman and he probably likes him a bit.

Dumbledore from Harry Potter

Mr Mellow, Dumbledore from Harry Potter has the best magic coming out of his fingers and he’s dead clever! Not only that, he puts up with Harry Potter all the stinkin’ time, for which he should be applauded.

Merlin

The original and still the best wizard (yes, even including Roy Wood AND Black Sabbath’s song, ‘The Wizard’), good ol’ Merlin is the subject of many ’70s bands affection and generally keeps appearing in films and on TV because no-one quite captured our hearts like him! Just don’t mention that rubbish BBC series, okay?

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There’s been a pointless poll about films that are regarded to be guilty pleasures. Topping the list is Striptease, the ’96 Demi Moore film where she shows her terrifying boobs to the world while they all laugh. And of course, secretly enjoy it.

Swordfish, House Of Wax and Carry On Cleo also made the cut (more about all that jazz here). It’s outrageous that Showgirls didn’t top the poll as it is quite clearly one of the finest films ever made.

However, this notion of ‘guilty pleasure’ doesn’t sit well here. If you like something, you like it. Big deal. There’s no accounting for anyone’s taste. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a massive jerk. We’re more concerned about Guilty Displeasures, namely, the things that seem to have been canonised and everyone loves… but really, we just don’t get it.

There’s so many films out there that are deemed universally great, leaving some people to nod along and agree because they don’t wanna feel like a tool for voicing their real opinion of it.

So here’s a list of films that we’re told we should like and feel bad for not enjoying them in any way.

1. Shawshank Redemption

This film has virtually been given a sainthood, leaving even the most laissez-faire of movie goers breathless and muttering about how powerful and moving a picture it is. However, this writer has never been able to enjoy it once. Tim Robbins? Don’t care. Morgan Freeman? Beyond listening to his nice speaking voice, don’t care. It’s a slow film that plods on and on abzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

2. Napoleon Dynamite

Not very funny ugly kid in not very funny stupid clothes displays not very funny social awkwardness while being taunted by his not very funny and not very smarmy brother who talks to girls online and it all drags itself painfully slowly toward a not very funny dance routine and a not very funny wedding. Success of film prompts not very funny people to wear not very funny Vote For Pedro t-shirts.

3. Lord of the Rings Trilogy

The books, which are also not particularly enjoyable, give a sense of hugeness and a whole other world to get lost in. Not figuratively. The feeling of Tolkien’s writing makes you think of planet sized problems. However, the film feels piddly and small and features rubbish CGI monsters, too much average looking rain and wind, actors mistaking their roles for Shakespearean ones and… the whole thing is just really, really boring.

4. Donnie Darko

Handsome but crashingly dull boy has dreams and shit which involve a bloke dressed up like a rabbit. Then a plane engine kills him, thereby because cinema’s first plane engine hero. Has double meaning which stoned teenagers like to froth up about. Effectively, the film is the most needlessly complicated suicide in film.

5. The Matrix

Oooh! Is everything real? Or not? Yes! NO? Hang on. Keanu Reeves says “Whoa!” and wears the kind of leather jacket that metal fans are generally mocked for.

6. Fight Club

Oooh! Is it him? Or not? Yes! NO? Hang on. People get punched in the mouth repeatedly, Helena Bonham Carter has manky teeth. No-one admits that the only reason 90% of people liked the film was because Brad Pitt wore a grubby vest. Ed Norton can add this, along with American History X, to canonised films that aren’t actually that great.

7. Godfather

5000 hour long film that basically was summed up in a much more fun way by Goodfellas and Casino.

8. All Kevin Smith Films

Kooky-stoner bollocks with a sprinkling of Jedi jokes, or, people in plaid shirts trying not to be pricks around a girl, or The One Where It Took Him Ages To Tell Us That Alanis Morrisette Is Our Lord. Clerks was an impressive independent hit, but really, nothing about it deserves the status it enjoys.

9. The Princess Bride

Irritatingly quotable film that is adored by anyone who watched it when they were little. Of course, it’s not much better than any other saccharine love-story with occasional barbed asides, but that hasn’t stopped this fantasy romp being held in high-esteem. Unfathomably, no-one seems to mind the awful Mark Knopfler soundtrack.

10. Romeo and Juliet

We’re talking about the ’96 Baz Luhrmann effort here which manages to make a brutal and savage tale of love and woe into something that looks like the wet-dream of just about any ’90s teenager. Bad curtain hair-dos, mewing and a soundtrack that is just as overrated as the film itself. Especially that awful Radiohead song about fucking packed-lunches.

Feel free to add your own guilty displeasures in the comments or, of course, add your ‘HOW DARE YOU?’ diatribes.

Hobbit fans had better just put their stupid wizard gowns and Golem masks back in the closet – Middle Earth is officially in turmoil.

Why? Because Hobbit director Guillermo Del Toro has quit as director of The Hobbit – and Peter Jackson has already ruled out taking the reins.

Apparently, the constant delays caused by the financial woes at MGM have pissed Guillermo Del Toro off so much he has decided to walk.

These are, of course, delays that Jackson and De Toro had only acknowledged until recently. So officially De Toro is kind of quitting over nothing.

This is after already spending two years in New Zealand with WETA preparing to make the two-part film.

The news is a right pain in The Ring for LOTR fans, who apparently were looking forward to seeing more emaciated Mexican eye-hand monsters than in Tolkien’s original vision.

He was also seen as an ideal choice to replace Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson – not because of his creative vision or anything like that, but because he looks exactly like Peter Jackson in a Bo Selecta mask.

But not now, after Del Toro decided he was sick of living in a Third World country or something. Well, you can’t blame him. New Zealand may look pretty, but there is sod all to do. OK, we are making this bit up.

Speaking on The One Ring, Del Toro said: “In light of ongoing delays in the setting of a start date for filming The Hobbit, I am faced with the hardest decision of my life.

“After nearly two years of living, breathing and designing a world as rich as Tolkien’s Middle Earth, I must, with great regret, take leave from helming these wonderful pictures. I remain grateful to Peter, Fran and Philippa Boyens, New Line and Warner Brothers and to all my crew in New Zealand. I’ve been privileged to work in one of the greatest countries on earth with some of the best people ever in our craft and my life will be forever changed. The blessings have been plenty, but the mounting pressures of conflicting schedules have overwhelmed the time slot originally allocated for the project. Both as a co-writer and as a director, I wish the production nothing but the very best of luck and I will be first in line to see the finished product. I remain an ally to it and its makers, present and future, and fully support a smooth transition to a new director.”

Del Toro will, however, continue to co-write the screenplays with Fran Walsh, Jackson and Phillipa Boyens. But those hoping producer Jackson would step up to the plate are in for some bad news (although we did mention it in the second sentence). Jackson’s manager Ken Kamins said:

“Peter has and has had obligations and commitments to other films that would make it impossible for him to direct The Hobbit at this time, even if it was offered, which it hasn’t been.”

Mind you, Jackson is half the man he used to be, literally.

Meanwhile, Jackson added the usual crap you see at the end of press releases.

He said: “We feel very sad to see Guillermo leave The Hobbit, but he has kept us fully in the loop and we understand how the protracted development time on these two films, due to reasons beyond anyone’s control, has compromised his commitment to other long term projects.

“The bottom line is that Guillermo just didn’t feel he could commit six years to living in New Zealand, exclusively making these films, when his original commitment was for three years. Guillermo is one of the most remarkable creative spirits I’ve ever encountered and it has been a complete joy working with him.

“Guillermo’s strong vision is engrained into the scripts and designs of these two films, which are extremely fortunate to be blessed with his creative DNA.”

So is The Hobbit destined for Mount Doom? Well, in hecklerspray’s inexpert opinion: No chance, there’s too much money to be made to let it slip. Even if they have to get Michael bloody Bay to direct.

God, we have just thrown up in our mouths.

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We may hate to admit it, but when it comes to movies, we’re all war-mongering bastards.

War may be good for nothing – but it certainly spices up a film. How else can you explain how we found it so difficult to cut this down these down to just 15? It was really, really hard. There are so many good battle scenes in films, it’s almost inevitable we’ll have missed a few out.

So to make it easier, we restricted it to just land battles, although spaceships, helicopters and planes are also included in the scenes. Air, space and sea battles will follow. Enjoy!

15. Battle of Klendathu
Film: Starship Troopers (1997)

OK, so it’s more of a massacre than a battle as 100,000 troops realise the hard way that these bugs are a little harder to squish. Cue limbs flying off, decapitations and general panic. Brilliant!!

14. Battle of Waterloo
Film: Waterloo (1971)

A stunning re-enactment of Napoleon‘s final battle. Sergei Bondarchuk‘s film is one of the greatest war movies of all time.

13. Battle of Stirling
Film: Braveheart (1995)

OK, this scene is so good we were forced to overlook three facts that should really have disbarred it from being on this list. Firstly, the entire film is a load of bollocks. Secondly, it’s directed by Mel Gibson. And thirdly, most of us at hecklerspray are English.

12. Battle of Rourke’s Drift
Film: Zulu (1964)

“Zulus sir, thousands of them.” He wasn’t kidding either, as 100 British soldiers somehow hold out against 4,000 terrifying Zulus. Michael Caine talking posh is also hilarious.

11. Battle of Stalingrad
Film: Enemy at the Gates (2001)

OK, the rest of the film is a pile of shit, but this scene is simply incredible. If Jude Law had got one in  the face, this would have been number one.

10. Battle of Pelennor Fields
Film: Lord of the Rings – The Return of the King (2003)

Would have been higher but for the fact that, like the film itself, it goes on a bit and that the final army of the dead part is just a cop out.

9. Assault on Fort Wagner
Film: Glory (1989)

This scene is so good we were almost proud to be American – even though we’re not. Does that make any sense? Probably not! Surely, the best American Civil War film to date.

8. Battle of Helm’s Deep
Film: The Lord of the Rings – The Town Towers (2002)

But for Orlando Bloom surfing down the stairs, this could have been a contender for one of the top spots.  It isn’t the first time Bloom has ruined a scene and it won’t be the last.

7. Battle of Silarus River
Film: Spartacus (1960)

Kirk Douglas‘ slave revolt all ends in tears in this gripping scene.

6. Battle of Hoth
Film: Empire Strikes Back (1980)

One of the finest moments in the series, as Luke et al are forced to beat a hasty retreat by some nasty ATs-ATs.

5. Battle in Germania
Film: Gladiator (2000)

The only bad about this superb opening scene is that we’re forced to watch the rest of the film in the knowledge the best bit has already happened.

4. Helicopter Attack
Film: Apocalypse Now (1979)

OK, once again this is more of a massacre than a battle, but the attack on the Vietnamese village to the strains of Wagner‘s Ride of the Valkyries is hard to miss out.

3. Battle of Arnhem (parachute jump)
Film: A Bridge Too Far (1977)

The shot of thousands of doomed Allied soldiers parachuting down behind enemy lines is almost as impressive as the amount of stars Richard Attenborough managed to assemble for this superb war film. Imagine the egos he had to deal with.

2. All of the battle scenes in Ran
Ran (1985)

Want to get schoolchildren interested in Shakespeare? Just show them Akira Kurosawa‘s brilliant adaptation of King Lear.

1.    Omaha Beach landing
Film: Saving Private Ryan (1998)

The first 30 minutes is the closest we ever want to get to real combat. Really scary stuff!

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It’s official – Guillermo del Toro, the Bo Selecta Peter Jackson, is the director of the two upcoming Hobbit movies.

It’s been a long time coming, but finally New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios have announced that they’re packing Guillermo del Toro off to New Zealand for the next four years so he can concentrate on making The Hobbit and its sequel, The Hobbit 2: The Hobbit In Space.

It doesn’t take a genius to see why Guillermo del Toro was chosen to direct the Hobbit movies – his flair for visual invention as demonstrated in Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy will really bring a sense of panache to his task of filming a bunch of midgets walking across the side of a mountain for six and a half titting hours.

There’s no doubting that the Lord Of The Rings trilogy was a landmark piece of cinema that moved the artform of self-indulgent, needlessly-overlong, self-important wankery that gave you deep vein thrombosis in your face just by making you watch it on by years, if not decades.

So it was inevitable that JRR Tolkien‘s other book, The Hobbit, would get turned into a movie as well. It would have happened sooner but Peter Jackson had a fight with the studio and then everyone made up except that Peter Jackson decided he wanted to devote his time to making painfully long movies about dragons or something instead, so a new director of The Hobbit had to be found.

Finding the right director was a hard task, because whoever was chosen to make The Hobbit had to a) stay true to JRR Tolkien’s original vision, b) pad the story out enough to turn it into two movies so that everyone could get twice as rich from it and c) move to New Zealand, The Prettiest Place To Die Of Utter Fucking Mind-Shredding Boredom On Earth.

And while the early favourite to direct The Hobbit was Guillermo del Toro of Pan’s Labyrinth fame, nothing was made official. Until now, as Reuters reports:

Del Toro, whose credits include “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “Blade II,” will move to New Zealand for the next four years to work on both “Hobbit” films with executive producer Peter Jackson, who directed all three “The Lord of the Rings” movies, according to New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios… “We have long admired Guillermo’s work and cannot think of a more inspired filmmaker to take the journey back to Middle-earth,” Jackson and his producing partner, Fran Walsh, said in a statement.

So, with filming set to begin next year, it’s full steam ahead for Guillermo del Toro as he makes all sorts of difficult decisions about The Hobbit. Will Ian McKellan return as Gandalf? Who will play Bilbo Baggins? Will del Toro be tied to the visual style of the Lord Of The Rings movies or will he be allowed to make it his own? Will the movie have one ending or will he follow Lord Of The Rings and film 38 different endings and then make everyone sit through them all one after the other for three extra hours when all they want to do it go to the toilet?

In 2010 we’ll find out, by being thumped on the head with The Hobbit marketing campaigns for months before it even comes out until we feel like we’re terrible people if we don’t see it. Then we’ll find out alright.

Read more:

Mexico’s del Toro to direct “The Hobbit” – Reuters

We've often thought about suing the studio behind Lord Of The Rings, but that's mainly because Return Of The King was so turgid that it was all we could do not to try and suffocate ourselves in the middle of the second act.

However, a group of JRR Tolkien heirs called the Tolkien Trust has decided to sue the Lord Of The Rings studio for a slightly more pressing matter – it's claiming that New Line owes it $150 million in unpaid royalties.

Of course, $150 million is a lot of money, and if New Line is forced to pay it to the Tolkien Trust, one of its upcoming films might gave to be cancelled. So, if it's the sequel to The Golden Compass, everybody wins.

The Lord Of The Rings trilogy has so far made about $6 billion in box office and DVD receipts – a staggering amount of money, especially when you realise that it was generated by three pain-inducingly long films about a wizard and a midget walking across the side of a mountain and occasionally watching Liv Tyler babble on in a made-up language. 

And when something makes that much money, there will always be people trying to claw themselves a share of it. Peter Jackson sued New Line over cash in 2005, 15 actors from New Zealand sued New Line over Lord Of The Rings cash last year, and now some people who are probably a bit related to Lord Of The Rings author JRR Tolkien are suing New Line for a wedge of the cash, too.

Back in 1969, members of the Tolkien Trust signed a contract with United Artists that guaranteed them 7.5% of the gross receipts of any Lord Of The Rings movies, a contract which passed down to New Line when it inherited the movie rights in 1998. Cue angry poshos, courtesy of the New York Times:

In a complaint filed Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court, trustees of the Tolkien Trust, a British charity, joined trustees of a private family trust of Tolkien heirs and the British arm of HarperCollins Publishers in suing New Line Cinema for breach of contract. Charging “unabashed and insatiable greed,” … in the complaint, the plaintiffs argue that New Line has “clearly engaged in the infamous practice of creative ‘Hollywood accounting,’ ” by excluding certain revenue from calculations and racking up costs that have so far prevented the studio from paying out a single dime.

However, as much as you're probably naturally predisposed to stick up for the tiny underdogs tugging at the shirt-tails of a $6 billion machine, know this – if the Tolkien Trust is successful it wants to hoik away New Line's rights to make the long-anticipated Hobbit movies as well. And since they're likely to be among the top-grossing films of the next decade, New Line has every reason to be worried.

Imagine what the world would be like if the Hobbit movies didn't get made. Imagine how dreadful it'd be not to go and spend £10 of your hard-earned money to watch an offensively long movie about a midget walking to a dragon's house  for no other reason than because the months and months of relentless hype have bullied you into it. Twice. Imagine how dreadful that'd be. Dreadful.

Read more:

Tolkien Heirs Sue New Line Over Millions From ‘Rings’ – New York Times