Bravia Parody

I knew it woudn't take too long before people parodied the Sony bouncing ball commerical. Here's the first.

Mine 2 Trailer - Google Video

Lucky Number Slevin

A film that I saw a trailer to a while back and thought "hmm, that looks alright. I'll give it a go when it comes out". Having heard nothing on this I did not know what I was expecting.

Lucky Number Slevin, may win the award for the most stupid movie name this year but it may also win some for best dialogue. Starring Josh Hartnett, Bruce Willis, Lucy Liu, SIR Ben Kingsley and Morgan Freeman the film tells the story of a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time who is confused for another guy who owes money to two feuding ganglords. As with most films these days not everything is what it seems however.

I liked the film most for it's dialogue, which is very similar to Guy Ritchie movies such as Snatch and Lock Stock. The film is perhaps targeted at that audience most and is also similar in that it features a British Director, this time Paul McGuigan who also directed Gangster #1.

Performances are pretty good with Josh getting to do more than light up a shoot random women as he did in Sin City. Lucy Liu does pretty good as the next door neighbour and love interest. Bruce Willis probably steals the show as a cold-hearted assassin sent to deal with Josh. Ben Kingsley however doesn't try too hard at all, in fact I don't think he even bothers standing up, all of his scenes featuring him sat down. Perhaps he had broken his leg but really wanted to be in the film.

Overall not bad, better than Snatch but not quite as good as Lock Stock.

Aeon Flux

Bit of a weird film this and I guess it came about following the success of Underworld and its sequel, I can only assume saw a market niche of leading women in slinky outfits and tried to continue milking it.

Charlieze Theron plays Aeon a catsuit wearing assasin who can crawl faster than I can run and who is sent on a mission to kill a bad guy called Trevor, the leader of a city responsible for the death of Aeon's sister. Assisted by her friend who has hands for feet but oddly not feet for hands she soon discovers that not everything is what it seems, and Trevor might actually be a nice guy after all!

The film is based on an animated series that used to air on MTV and which I didn't get into for it's skinny character graphic style. The film is a condensed version of the story and it tells. There is no reason in the film for her friend to have four hands for example, but within the context of a longer running story with more room for character back story it probably would have made more sense.

The cartoon also lacked much dialogue, which perhaps explains why there isn't much of it in this film. Set designs are impressive but they over used a corridor set that looked like a huge vent. With the fortune clearly spent in building it I guess they had to get their money's worth. It's also slightly different to most Sci-Fi movies in that a lot of it takes place during the day and not at night, which I liked.

There are continuity mistakes such as ending one scene with the line "don't walk on the grass" after blades shoot out of it and in the very next shot we see the characters walking on the grass to enter a building.

There is one reason for watching it though, and that's Charlieze in her skimpy suits. If you enjoyed watching Kate Beckinsale in Underworld then you'll like this for the same reason. I certainly did! Well done to the executive who came up with this idea, can we have more?

Shadow of the Colossus

The first big game for the PS2 this year is the latest work from the company that gave us Ico a few years back. This tells the tale of a young guy who travels to a far off land to kill 16 giants in an attempt to bring his girlfriend back to life.

What makes the game different is that there are no other characters in the game other than those mentioned above and a horse that the guy uses to ride around. You don't get random battles, the only things to kill are the 16 giants.

And giant they are, the screen above shows Colossus number 3 as an idea of the scale of the opponents (not all are this big however). It is a platform game but the platforms are the giants, their armour and their weapons. You have a grip bar that you must use to hold onto the giants as they attempt to shake you off. You kill them buy making your way over the Colossus to their weak points and stabbing them there with your sword.

After playing it solidly for the weekend I did complete the game, and I wasn't disappointed at all. There is a superb emotional attachment to the character in the game that you develop, and as with Ico, it's simplicity and visual mood leads to an amazing attachment to the character, that a lot of other developers have failed to achieve with their games. Special mention should be made of the ending which is just superb and certainly worth perservering with the game to see.

Further modes are unlocked upon completion, which I'll be attempting next. For a more long term challenge I also bought Ico, which has been re-released to coincide with the release of this game.

FluidEffect

Interesting website showing some guy's skill at making celebrities look a lot better than they really are.
Definitely useful to kill a few myths perhaps.

Click "portfolio" and then "before/after"

FluidEffect

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

Valentines day, a time for couples to spend the evening showing their love for each other whilst spending a fortune on the event in overpriced restaurants, or the Aberdeen Steak House for those who hadn't planned anything properly. For one couple on the train it would be a night spent at a Lee Ryan concert; I am sure the boy would have enjoyed that. For another couple getting drunk at the Ritz Hotel was misinterpreted by the woman as getting paraletic outside it, and her much older partner was doing his best carrying her to a taxi. For the man on the tube holding a £1 rose sobbing it clearly wasn't a good night. Well tonight I had my date in Soho, London's Red Light District, spending £10 for 2 hours enjoyment.

No, I wasn't buying a prostitute. I had gone to see the new film from Oldboy director Chan-wook Park in the company of one Lady Vengeance, the eponymous heroine of his new film. Oldboy had been a sleeper hit of last year and a film I found quite eye-opening and difficult to watch. This new film was getting very good reviews, so I thought why not!

Yeong-ae Lee plays Geum-ja Lee, a woman recently released from prison for the kidnap and subsequent murder of a young boy. Revealing that she was blackmailed into taking the fall, she sets about getting the revenge on the man who took a significant part of her life from her.

The film is a superb story, those of you that have seen Oldboy will be pleased to hear that the plot this time is a lot more straightforward, and although it takes a swerve towards the end, it's not a huge head-scratching twist.

Cinematography is again, top notch and there are some superb scenes; a stand out being an emotional heart-to-heart between the leading lady and her daughter through an interpreter. As with Oldboy there are some powerful scenes that wouldn't be in any film coming out of America. There isn't any live octopus eating this time but a puppy does get it and some of the video footage in the final act is pretty distressing (I'm trying my damnest not to give anything away here).

Understandably the film isn't getting a mainstream cinema release, which means you'll probably end up visiting the arty cinema rather than the local multiplex. This is why I ended up going where I did, honest!

As I made my way home I witnessed a final couple getting into a fight at the station, how romantic. For a day that celebrates being with someone and usually makes single people feel inferior, my night had been very enjoyable!

Oh, and I saw former Bond Girl Maryam D'Abo at the cinema and looking to be on her own, but she wasn't seeing the same film as me. How Valentinish would that have been?

Apologies

I haven't been posting as much as I've done in the past for 2 reasons.
Firstly work has been pretty busy in the last couple of weeks and is going to continue for the next month. Some tight deadlines coming up!
Secondly I've also been working on antoher project that I'll announce on here soon.

Normal Service Will Resume Soon!

Final Destination 3

Final Destination - A group of sterotyped teenage kids chicken out of a plane flight after one of the group has a premonition of an accident which subsequently becomes true. Having cheated Death once they all end up dying in strange accidents.

Final Destination 2 - A group of sterotyped teenage kids chicken out of a motorway journey after one of the group has a premonition of an accident which subsequently becomes true. Having cheated Death once they all end up dying in strange accidents.

Final Destination 3 - A group of sterotyped teenage kids chicken out of a roller coaster ride after one of the group has a premonition of an accident which subsequently becomes true. Having cheated Death once they all end up dying in strange accidents.

Well if the formula is successful and bringing in the revenue, why change it? This time the original director is back and overseeing the deaths of another round of plucky young kids, including such stereotypes as the Jock that spends all his time in the gym and "never loses sucker!", a Goth couple that seem to get off on all the death. A couple of bimbos that spend all their time building on their tans and wearing skimpy outfits (or in one scene nothing at all), and of course the wholesome all-american girl who is popular to all without conforming to a particular stereotype.

The deaths are very well thought out and there is a lot of fun trying to pre-empt how they're going to get it especially as this film uses pictures of the ride-bunkers each of which contains clues to their demise. The death scenes although extremely gory are laugh out loud funny, perhaps because that's how must of us cope with the shock of seeing someone getting their head smashed in by an engine.

There are some holes in the plot, the biggest being the accident in the premonition being caused by one of the people who ends up not riding it, so the accident shouldn't have happened, which means the premonition shouldn't have taken place. Paradoxical but I guess you can put it down to artistic interpretation, or it being rargeted to a certain mental demographic.

None of the performances are particular great but then this isn't a film that's going to win any Oscars. Being a coaster fan, it was nice to see a park being used as a theme for a film. It was ironic that they quote the true statistic that you're more likely to die on the way to a park than on any of the rides in it, then they proceed to kill a load of characters off.

Although there isn't a protagonist in these films, the guy that plays Candyman has been in both 1 and 2 indirectly playing the part of Death. In this film he's resigned to providing a voiced cameo as the devil statue that welcomes the public to the coaster.

Overall not a bad film at all but if only if you're a fan of the genre.

OK, own up!

How many of you saw this then instantly went and sent themselves a message just to make Tom Baker say something strange or rude. I certainly did and he did sound a bit quick.

Actor Baker becomes voice of text

Cool Panorama Site

A really good website that has panoramic photographs for you to interact with.
Click here

Madame Tussauds

Having travelled back from Milton Keynes, we arrived back at Marylebone station, where the others travelled on home. I thought I'd take the opportunity to visit Madame Tussauds and the Planetarium, which are both a short distance away.

I'd never actually visited the place before, the idea of waxworks didn't really appeal so I have no idea why I chose to go to day. The venue has a number of entrances depending on whether you have a pass, or tickets pre-purchased. Having neither I had to join furthest one away, and the one with the longest queue. I'd heard bad things about the queue times at this place, it is a very popular tourist attraction but this was bad. It took me over an hour to get to the cash desk to buy the ticket, the few pictures in the line didn't offer enough of a distraction. There were TV screens that ran small clips of the attraction, along with adverts for Thorpe Park (ownewd by the same company) but it was pretty out of date. They were still announcing the imminent arrival of the Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston display, and as all OK magazine readers will know, Brad left Jenn and is now with Angelina Jolie.

One thing in the queue line that did catch my attention was a poster advertising the Tussauds season pass. For £80 I could get a year's free entry to 3 of the best theme parks in the country as well as the attraction I was queueing for. The ticket for this was £22 so it made financial sense to get it, I'd easily make my money on it. So I asked to buy one and am taken down some stairs to the entrance for passholders where I was given my new pass. Apparently I could just have walked into this entrance and got the pass without queueing all that time, c'est la vie!


Once I finally got into the attraction, the experience was extremely surreal. The first room is loosely themed to look like a movie premiere and the place was littered with mannequins of famous people, some of which looked extremely lifelike, others barely recognisable. I'm guessing the techniques have gotten better year after year as the most recent ones were the best particularly Lou and Andy from Little Britain. No idea what they would be doing at a premiere though.

The problem with this place is that it was mobbed with tourists, hardly a surprise to be honest but with them standing about taking everything in it is difficult to spot all the waxworks, you just think some of the them are part of the tourist crowd.

The venue is deceptively large and upon leaving that room there are plenty of others. With it being Chinese New Year they had a stage celebrating that with the likes of Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee (who looked weedy) amongst other (asian but not strictly chinese) actors. Taking centre stage though was a model of basketball player Yao Ming who at 7'5" towers over everybody.

There are some interactive displays including one where you can air guitar whilst surrounded anachronistically by Freddy Mercury, Jimmy Hendrix and the balding guy from the Darkness. I didn't see the Pop Idol display, must have missed it and some of the models will blush when you whisper into their ear.

Along with the waxworks the venue houses a couple of other attractions. Chamber Live is a haunted walkthrough that doesn't come anywhere close to similar attractions elsewhere. Having someone coming up behind you and whisper "boo" just doesn't cut it. They also have a London Black Cab themed dark ride which is alright although it's spoiled by having the final scene containing Harrod's owner Mohammed Al Fayed along with an advert to visit his store where you can get your own waxwork made. An ideal place for an advertisement if you can afford the quarter of a million price tag and can successfully get it back to whatever country you're visiting from. A stupid advert that benefits no-one but Fayed's ego.

The final attraction I saw was the Planetarium which is a 360 cinema show detailing the solar system. Quite impressive show but they could have made it 3D or something. A short walk out of here and you have to run the gauntlet of souvenirs before you're deposited out in the street. I didn't think it was a good send off. "We have your money now get out" was the impression it left.

I would go again but only because I can now jump the queue and on this occasion I failed to have my camera on me and so didn't get any shots. It's just too touristy for me.

XScape @ Milton Keynes

After a year of planning, work finally managed to organise a get together with one of our business partners and we all went to the XScape complex in Milton Keynes. It houses amongst other sporting attractions, the UK's largest indoor ski slope and it was there we started our activities with an hour's tobogganing.


The last time I did this was in Stoke two years ago and the toboggans were big metal things with levers that controlled the brakes and I figured I'd know what to expect but this was not the case. These things were tiny pieces of plastic that you sit on with no steering mechanism other than shifting your bodyweight about. I quickly got the hang of this and even though I had a couple of high speed collisions (not the best way to make an introduction) I did great. It was ridiculously tiring though and having to walk up the slope, admittedly assisted by a cable lift soon took it's toll. It wasn't the cleverest move to not bring spare footwear but a quick blast under the hand driers and the trainers were as good as new.


After the exhausting introduction we all went into smaller groups, some remained on the slope doing a mixture of skiing and snowboarding. I joined a smaller group to have a go on the AirKix skydiving simulator, the only one in the UK and something I first saw in Orlando in 2004 but never got around to trying.

You're in an enclosed room standing on a mesh floor beneath which is housed a huge fan that can generate windspeeds in excess of 120 miles per hour, simulating terminal velocity. You get two goes of 1 minute each, which doesn't sound like a lot of time but if you consider most sky dives don't last that long, and the forces on the body are pretty tiring you soon realise it's plenty of time. The room you're in is fully see through so people can come and watch.

My first attempt went pretty bad, the aim of the lesson is to get your body position right so that you can remain stable in the airflow. The instructor in the room with you helps get you into that position using hand signals that indicate the legs need to be bent or straightened, head moves back or the back arched. The slightest body movement can send you off in any direction. At about the 40 second mark in the wind actually managed to blow my goggles and glasses off my face, my hands instinctly went to catch them which then sent me into the wall at high speed. I instantly gave the one hand sign I never wanted to give, 2 thumbs down meaning abort. The fan was then brought down in speed and I flew into the exit door for some readjustment of the strap and an opportunity to await my second go.

This went a lot better, the initial shock of the wind speed (you should see what it does to your face!), the noise and just the whole experience had gone away and it was easier to compose yourself. Initially I started poorly ricocheting off the walls and a bit scared to put my head back for fear of a repeat which puts you into a dive. Once I realised the goggles were going to be OK and that bringing the arms too close in was what was sending me forward I got stable and then I found myself rising up above the control booth, WOOHOO!. But no sooner was I up there that my minute had passed and it was time to leave the room.

When we all had a go the instructors, who I've subsequently discovered to be world champions, put on a demonstration that was just insane and clearly what would happen if you did this all the time and not just 2 minutes a year.

In hindsight it was exciting but I don't think it's for me; I can't even fall gracefully. Maybe after a few more goes I'd get to like it more, but I'm not sure I'd get the opportunity.

The end of the night was spent bowling, going off for a meal, having some drinks in a bar and then returning back to the hotel for some more drinks (at this point it was water) and finishing up with a game of poker, with the few people that were able to remain awake.

A really good day but really really tiring.

Beedogs (!)

The internet is full of strange websites, and this one is no different. Welcome to beedogs (!)

Great film!

Need I say more?

Never a truer word spoken...

Daniel Flavin, A Retrospective

I fancied a bit of a change from staying in all Sunday so I thought I'd go and get a bit of culture. The Hayward Gallery recently opened an exhibition by minimalist artist Dan Flavin, who is noted for doing pieces involving neon tubing. I quite like light displays although they're usually in a concert or clubbing environment so I thought I'd see what could be done with them in a static environment. Beats looking at oil on canvas, anyway.



His earlier pieces were crap to be honest, consisting of single bulbs, mostly neon strip lights but he even had the cheek to mount a single normal lightbulb on a box and call it art. That sort of crap I don't get, call me a philistine! His most famous piece called "diagonal" is the one above, a yellow light positioned at an angle. Not very good at all.

As his vision grew though he started to incorporate bulbs of various lengths and colours together and this is much better. There are some nice pieces that come out really well when mounted against the plain white walls or in the corner of the rooms.



Towards the end of his career he got bolder incorporating his pieces into corridors and making walls of his lights too rather than just placing them against walls as he'd done earlier.

It killed a couple of hours, and some of it worked on a Malcolm wavelength, not all of it did however.

Quite eerily however, whilst I was taking in the art myy iPod, which was on random, played "Neon Lights" from the latest Kraftwerk album - I kid you not!

Jarhead

Welcome to the Suck is the slogan used by the US Marines in Iraq and also used on the poster to this film. However the film does not suck at all and is actually really really good.

If you're expecting a modern day Apocalypse Now, you're not going to get it. This isn't about the violence of war from the point of view of the protagonist, as was common place with the Vietnam War genre. It's more about the futility and tedium in being sent away from home to take part in a war and not getting to contribute, and in doing nothing losing everything you have back home for making that sacrifice. It also shows how the war has moved from being on the ground to attacking from the air, why bother training men to be snipers when you can just call in an air strike and do the work for them.

It's not an anti-war movie but then it doesn't gloss over it or sanitise it as we're used to being shown by the media. Coming across a convoy that has been torched is particularly harrowing, Jake having a small conversation with one of the charred corpses is a nice touch.

Some of the cinematography is stunning, particularly those of the desert at night with the oil fields burning in the background. The majority of the daytime shots are quite bleached though, as you'd expect with filming in the heat. A simple directorial trick to do.


Sam Mendes has done a good job, and whilst this is no American Beauty it is certainly better than Road to Perdition (but then I'm biased as I can't stand Tom Hanks). Gylenhall is very good in the film and he'd be destined to be on the Oscar shortlist. Don't expect this film to have any nominations for Best Actress or Supporting Actress. This film is an all male production (pretty much).

Tom Cruise South Park Episode

South Park made the news this week because Channel 4 pulled the scientology episode after being threatened by freak midget (and definitely not gay) movie star Tom Cruise with legal action. Anyway, here's the episode if you want to see what all the fuss was about. I can only imagine the reason behind the threat is the numerous references to Ton Cruise needing to come out of the closet. Click here to see the episode. Nice joke with the closing credits too!

Underworld Evolution

The first film was a bit of a sleeper hit that appealed to the Goth crowd and ended up doing quite well in both the box office and DVD sales. I should know I did both, and it was primarily to see Kate Beckinsale in a cat suit.

Because the first was a sleeper hit they had to somehow find holes in the story to be able to make a sequel so they introduce two brothers I don't think were mentioned in the first film; Marcus, the first vampire and William, the first werewolf. At the start of the film once all the decapitations are out of the way we see William the Werewolf get captured and imprisoned in a tomb built by Selina's (Kate's character) father. Marcus the vampire decides to rest but is awoken by actions from the first film and thinks unlocking his brother would be a good idea.

Selina, who is on the run following the first film with her wolf-vampire beau then finds herself embroiled in a new silly plot where she has to prevent William from being released and killing lots of people along the way.

The film is actually not too bad and certainly deserves its 18 rating, quite refreshing considering they aren't many these days because you can't make money off the kids. There are weak holes in the plot that let the story down, for example they suddenly decide they need to meet up with a librarian who hasn't been seen for hundreds of years but ends up being a short drive away in a clearly advertised Range Rover.

There is plenty of violence and many of the deaths had me thinking "Fatality" but that's probably because I played too much Mortal Kombat when I was younger. There was one scene where I genuinely went "whooo" like American cineman audiences do. If you decide to go and see this you'll probably do the same thing. Let me know what bit you think it was in the comments box below.

The action scenes are good overall, the standout one being the chase and fight on the truck. The only downside is that I don't know if they'll be able to squeeze another sequel out of it, a shame given that the character is starting to become established but maybe they'll just introduce some new family members that we don't know about - mummy perhaps.

Worth seeing especially if you enjoyed the first one.

Flying Dog

I think these two didn't think this through properly. Poor Mutt