Zorac's LiveJournal

And the "totally misleading trailer of the week" award goes to Bridge to Terabithia. Given the current cinematic drought, I was happy to catch a preview of something which showed every sign of being a cheap Narnia rip off. What I actually got was something rather better - a fine character piece with a few effects sequences along the way (whilst they're certainly not gratuitous, the cynic in me wonders if some of the justification for them was to allow for the marketing spin. Either way, they didn't exactly break the bank, which is fine as the movie delivers in other ways.)

Jesse is an artistic schoolkid with (like seemingly every male character in American TV/Cinema - what's with that?) Daddy Issues - not to mention Sister Issues (he has four of them). At the beginning of a new school year, he meets new arrival Luna Lovegood Leslie, a fellow outsider (who conveniently lives next door) and they soon become friends. A rope-swing across a stream away in the forest, together they create a fantasy kingdom to escape from the real world and plot revenge on the bullies.

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PS. Yes, I know it's based on a book which was published way before HP.

So, I went to see Hot Fuzz today, another excellent piece of it's-not-quite-a-spoof-it's-just-really-funny cinema from the team behind Shaun of the Dead and the ultimate fanboy sitcom, Spaced. The gentle comedy of the first half does a great job of setting up the full-on (albeit slightly silly) action movie second half. Pegg and Frost are on form as usual, and Timothy Dalton is clearly having far too much fun hamming things up, plus the who's who of British actors and comedians - Jim Broadbent, Bill Bailey, Steve Coogan and the seemingly obligatory Bill Nighy cameo. An unexpected bonus was having a lot of the film shot in the cathedral city of Wells, which is where my Gran lives, so I know it quite well. Many familiar sights - the best moment being a chase scene down the pathway which run's behind Granny's garden - it's a small world, after all.

In other news, my quest for a Wii remains entertainingly doomed. Bricks-and-mortar retails seem to be barely stifling amusement if you have the optimism to enquire if they have any in stock. As for online, I have found a nifty stock-checker-alerter website, but thus far the stock has only appeared either as part of a full-price bundle including a bunch of games I don't want, from shops which will only deliver to the registered credit card address, or exactly when I'm not online. Yes, I could reserve one, but I should have done that months ago, and do do so now would be just cheating! (I'm deliberately not reserving a PlayStation 3, because there's no way I'm paying that much for a games console).

As alluded to in my earlier post, I spent most of today watching The Lord of the Rings - all three extended editions back-to-back. Damn, but I'd forgotten just how good those films are. Admittedly, watching them all in one go (I've done it in three consecutive days before) is a bit of an endurance test - in the best possible way, of course.

Anyway, Happy New Year, everyone!

So, it's been a busy week on the Star Wars front, starting with the release of the long-awaited "Limited Edition" DVDs of the original trilogy, featuring the unaltered theatrical Han-shoots-first-dammit versions of the movies which George Lucas swore would never be released on DVD except if he could make a really big pile of money. Actually, they really are a bit of a con - each movie has a two-disk set, the first of which appears to be identical to the disks from the Special Edition trilogy box set, and the second of which contains the theatrical versions. No special features other than commentaries on the special editions (not even the stuff from the fourth disk of the box set). Meh.

It's no coincidence that this week also saw the release of LEGO® Star Wars™ II: The Original Trilogy - another entirely too much fun video game. It follows much the same format as the original, albeit with a few new bells and whistles. Once again there's a vast array of playable characters (and if you have a save from the first game, you can play as any of the Episode I-II characters too), and great gobbets of silliness. Excellent.

What was more fortuitous is that this week saw the One Man Star Wars show passing through Oxford, which I went to see on Thursday night. It was utter genius from start to finish - hilariously funny and constantly entertaining. Admittedly, if you don't know the movies then you'd be completely lost - but that's really not who this is aimed at. Writer/performer Charles Ross has incredible energy as he plays all the characters - including seamlessly portraying both sides of the battles. And, yes, he does the music and the spaceship battles too. Go see it if you can!

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So, this weekend, I left the noble university town of Oxford to brave the home of the Fenland Poly¹. It didn't really get off to an inspiring start on Friday afternoon when the 3½ coach journey was further extended by a passenger swearing at the driver, then getting of and standing in front of the coach until he was dragged away kicking and screaming by the police². That, plus the fact that the toilet on the coach was out of order, meant that I made a rapid exit in search of a public convenience the moment we got to Cambridge.

Rather cleverly, this left me right next to the cinema, so rather than going in search of frayer, I hung around and waited for her. The movie was, of course, the newly-released Snakes on a Plane - a film which has no pretensions of doing anything more than living up to its title and being an absolutely first-class B-movie. What with considerable quantities of spirits added to the cinema-supplied cola, the "drink whenever you see a snake. Or a plane. Or..." game lead to rapid intoxication, so a walk back to the hotel seemed a wise plan. As did Burger King.

Our room at Sleeperz was impressively tiny - bunk beds on one side, the world's smallest en-suite on the other, and a space the width of a door in-between. I claimed the top bunk by virtue of being taller and somehow managed not to full out (although I didn't manage to get much sleep, so I suspect the the bed claims a moral victory).

1) OK, I should probably stop before I mortally offend every Cambridge person on my flist.
2) Actually, the moment the police turned up, he went over and started haranguing them, so there was no dragging.

Notes to self:

1. Do not use the washing machine and the tumble dryer at the same time.
2. Spare fuses are good things to have.
3. When a plug is scorchingly hot to the touch and both it and the 4-way it was plugged into have melted patches, that's bad.

Laundry is such fun.

So much for the weather. The distressingly nice Friday was, of course, followed by a wet and gloomy weekend. The rain forcing everyone indoors means that everywhere's full for lunch and the packed shops have ridiculous queues for the changing rooms. To add to the joy, both Slither and Silent Hill had moved to evening showings only, leaving me with my third choice, M:I:3. It's actually a pretty reasonable action flick, marred mostly by the annoying Tom "shark sofa" Cruise trying to insinuate himself into virtually every frame. Oh, and the new Superman trailer is rather promising.

Now that The Da Vinci Code Quest on Google is drawing to a close, the puzzles are really starting to get tricky - the first three tiers were fairly straightforward, but the fourth, not so much. Yesterday's sudoku-style puzzle was really quite nasty, and today's "Restoration" one was taking so long by trial-and-error, that I ended up writing a program to solve it (what, me, a geek?).

This will be a random entry.

Last weekend I was up in Yorkshire, visiting the lovely frayer. Whilst on a brief expedition to the pretty city of York, we discovered the ideal solution for those little snack cravings - ( Collapse )

Yesterday, I ventured in to down to run various errands. On coming round the corner from my flat, I was confronted by this ( Collapse ) Naturally, I plan to live for ever, but should the worst happen and I end up the guest of honour at a funeral!t00bage, I expect you all to chip in to send me off "Swiftly, and With Style". (Points to any one other than Freya who gets that reference.)

Once I got into town, I was rather surprised to see a couple of people carrying Krispy Kreme boxes, not being aware of anywhere in Oxford selling said doughnuts. After seeing several more people (including a policeman with several boxes) I got onto Queen Street where it seemed that every other person had some. Turning the corner, all was revealed in the form of a long queue of people leading to a lorry filled with such boxes. A few minutes later, I was the proud owner of one dozen free original glaze doughnuts. Yum. ( Collapse )

Thus fortified, I ventured forth unto the kitchen showroom, where I did verily order a kitchen. Finally. A slight tweak to the original plan to put a proper corner-cupboard on the wall rather than just leaving a void, plus selecting the worktop, appliances, etc, etc. In a couple of month's time, I should have a kitchen worthy of a king. As opposed to the current one which isn't worthy of a pauper...

After other assorted shopping ad some food, I went to the cinema to see V for Vendetta. Whilst most certainly not subtle in its politics it was more so in its action sequences than the Wachowski brothers' most recent efforts - more plot-heavy than effects-heavy, even compared to the original Matrix. Plus you have to love Stephen Fry being, well, Stephen Fry, and Natalie Portman is so much better when the director actually permits her to act...

Since then, I've been mostly playing 24: The Game. Whilst certainly not having the most original or high quality gameplay in the world, what it does do very well is re-create the feel of the TV show - most obviously the clock, but also the use of split-screen and technobabbleollocks. Having the original voice cast really helps, and they actually did a pretty good job of making the characters look real. So far, pretty good fun.

So, I saw Howl's Moving Castle yesterday. Speaking as someone who first read the book many, many years ago and has read it many times since, I would have to say that this was probably the worst mutilation of a book on its way to the screen that I've ever seen. The result was a plotless mess - good looking, to be sure, but nonetheless a plotless mess.

The vast majority of the original story has been thrown away and replaced with what seem to be little more than recycled plot elements from earlier Studo Ghibli productions, and what scenes have been kept have either been distorted or just seem out-of-place within the new order. Virtually the entire cast have gone through complete character assassinations, including a number of 180° flips on what I would loosely term the good/evil axis.

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In short, if you've read the book, don't go and see the film unless you're prepared to accept most of what you like about it being gone. If you haven't read the book, I'm less well positioned to judge what you'll make of the film, but I suggest that you read the book instead...

So, I've had a look over the casting choices for the movie adaptation of The Da Vinci Code. I can't argue with the acting ability of most of the choices, but the producers seem to have (in most cases) chosen people who completely fail to fit [my mind's eye view of] the characters. What do you think? Obviously, it would be rather pointless to try filling out this poll if you haven't read the book. The actual cast are listed after the character name for your mocking pleasure. Folks who haven't read the book may want to stay clear of the comments in case of spoilers.

Everything's funnier with pants.

Using this hypothesis, I conducted an experiment. I took a very funny film, namely 'The Princess Bride', and carefully grafted the word 'pants' into a few select lines.

The proof is in this (somewhat nutty) pudding, so I will leave you with the evidence. I am sure you will agree with me...

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