CG and The Bass Collective

Making Movies (A Short Film)

2012-03-13T15:14:00.000Z

Here's a short film that I made last week. Let me know what you think.

Review: John Carter/The Raven/Bel Ami

2012-03-12T14:21:00.000Z

JOHN CARTER

THE RAVEN

BEL AMI

Doctor Who Review: The End of Time Part 2

2012-03-08T22:13:00.000Z

I’d advise watching the episode before this review. I won’t explain every little detail and I will talk spoilers, so check out the show first. Also, have a read of the review of the first part of The End of Time.

Last time, I said I liked the first part of this story, but not the story as a whole. Now obviously this means I don’t like the second half of the story. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate everything. So here’s a list of the things I do like:
- The acting of the regulars is top notch, especially David Tennant, Bernard Cribbins and John Simm
- The casting of Timothy Dalton. He’s brilliant and it’s nice to see him in things again
- The fact they brought back the Master and the Time Lords. I like them both, I’m glad they came back, although, as I’ll talk about later, I don’t like the way they were used.
- That the cacti’s ship looked like Starbug from Red Dwarf. I don’t know if this was intentional, but if it was, it’s a nice nod to a fellow BBC show.
- The fact the Master sacrificed himself for the Doctor. This was planned in the Third Doctor’s finale, but due to the actor who played the Master, Roger Delgado’s untimely death, it was scrapped. It’s nice to see it here.
- Seeing the happy endings of the companions. Although there’s a but which we’ll get to.
- Matt Smith’s first scene. For cheering us up.

Never let it be said I hate this story. I just don’t like it very much. The reason, it’s like a big dumb action movie. Action’s ramped up, stakes are heightened, emotions are explosive, but then none of it really fits together, the climax is muffled, characters don’t make sense and the plot has more holes than Swiss cheese. It’s a story that attempts to be epic and powerful without first making sure that it’s even solid, which gives it a outer sheen of being great, but scratch the surface and it’s a mess. So let’s see why The End of Time: Part 2 is the Independence Day of modern Doctor Who.

Problem 1: Plot-holes
-When the Time Lords return the Master-race to being human, the effect of them being turned into the Master is reversed. What’s the problem with that? That means they are in exactly the same place they were the day before. Did every member of the Master-race just stand still for a whole day?
-Why do all the Masters obey the original? He’s incredibly untrustworthy, and there isn’t even a throwaway line to explain why all his copies are loyal and not trying to take power themselves.
- Are the Master-race human? If they copy him exactly, then why does he want the Time Lords, surely they would all be Time Lords? If they aren’t exact copies, instead just in the outer looks and personality, then why are they hungry, like he was in part 1? That was because of his Time Lord body being damaged. But then, if they’re hungry, why is he never hungry in Part 2? He’s still ripped apart, because he still has his powers, but he doesn’t have his hunger? That don’t make no sense.
- Why won’t the Doctor kill the Master? We’ve seen him kill in extreme circumstances before, but hey, he’s changed his ways since the Time War. So let’s revise this question. Why does the Master think the Doctor won’t kill him? The Master doesn’t really know the post-Time War Doctor that well. He remembers him more from his old ways. When he might have killed him. The Doctor from the classic series let the Master die a few times and killed a couple people himself, and that is the Doctor the Master knows. So why is he so certain the Doctor would never do it?
- Why do the writers miss a vital opportunity to fix something? The Master never had the drumming in his head before the new series. It’s established in this episode that the Time Lords put it in his head as a child while they were in the time war. Perfect, that’s why it only started after, because it was an effect of time being changed. But then the Time Lords say he had it all along before they put it there. Why ruin this perfect chance to make things make sense?
- The drumming as a signal. This is not so much a plot hole, more of just a piece of lazy writing. It doesn’t really seem to make any sense and is very sketchy. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems very like the writers couldn’t think of a way the drum beat could bring the Time Lords, so just said, “Fuck it, it does.”
- Why do the Time Lords arrive at this time? Let me explain. The Time Lords use the signal to find the Master “now”. But that’s now from their perspective. Also, the Doctor and the Master are always at the same time as each other from their perspectives. That means they can meet anywhere and anytime, but the John Simm Master will never meet the ninth Doctor, because that time has passed. The Doctor and the Master always meet each other in the same order as each other because their times are both the same. Do you vaguely understand? Well that fact holds true for all Time Lords. And there is a Doctor in the ‘now’ the Time Lords are at who is probably the eighth Doctor. So surely finding the Master ‘now’ would lead them to the Master at the end of time as seen in Utopia. It would not lead them to the Master from their future. That’s not how it works. It could be argued that they’re desperate and there’s a way round it. But it’s not. At no point is any explanation given.
- Why is the vanguard of the Time Lords: The President, two official looking blokes and the people who are against their plan? The President knows the Doctor or the Master or both will be there when he arrives and he knows they are both dangerous and opposed to him. Surely he would just bring some guys with guns? Or at the very least not bring the two people who would want to help the Doctor?
- Why can the Woman appear to Wilf? She seems to be a Time Lord. So why is she able to talk to Wilf before the bridge from Gallifrey to Earth is formed? The President can’t talk to the Master, so what makes her special?
- Why is there a line which goes “The star was a diamond and the diamond was a white point star”? That just sounds awful… wait, I’m being too nitpicky here.

But you see what I mean by plot holes? There’s probably more holes than plot in this story, and these aren’t for the most part little nitpicky problems, they are major obvious story telling flaws.

Problem Number 2: Characters

Another story telling flaw. Characters. There are three more than one-dimensional characters in this story. The Doctor, who doesn’t make sense, but that’s in the end, which we’re coming to. The Master, who is supposed to be a villain, but then as soon as the Time Lords appear, is reduced to some stupid kid who’s out of his depth and trying anything to save himself, making him seem like an enormous coward, which isn’t support by any of his other actions in this story. And Wilf. I don’t have a problem with Wilf.
You might say, what about Donna? She’s only in it for about three minutes. What about the cactus people? They are very flat characters with one character trait each. He’s cowardly and not used to action and she’s bossy. And the president? He’s a cardboard cut-out power-hungry villain. He only seems more because he’s played by Timothy Dalton, who’s a great actor. The characters in this story are either one-dimensional, inconsistent, or Wilf.

Problem Number 3: Pacing

Why is there a missile shooting space battle? Because otherwise the only action sequence would be the escape bit at the start. This is not a good reason for action. That’s a problem. But the main one here is not that, but the fact that everything is rushed so we can have the big long goodbye. The Master-Race don’t do anything but summon the Time Lords then get changed back to humans, they don’t have a purpose beyond furthering the plot. So all the time spent on making them a threat, was pointless as they’re dealt with in about ten seconds. And the Time Lords, the big return everything was leading up to… are on screen for five minutes. I mean, really. They were built up so much, then they appear, do nothing but talk, and the Doctor shoots a Magoffin and they’re gone. What a waste. Everything in this story was built up so much by Part 1, but then is let down due to a rush for the over-long ending.

You might think that it’s weird I’ve written all this without touching on the ending. And that’s because, well the ending is really annoying in its own right and deserves a blog to itself. So come back next time for the final end of my review. We’ll look at the ending which makes this already majorly flawed story even worse and then you’ll get my final thoughts on the story as a whole and the overall rating on part 2. We’ve not much longer to go, don’t worry. See you next time, for one last time.

Review: One for the Money/Project X/Wanderlust/This Means War

2012-03-05T15:32:00.000Z

ONE FOR THE MONEY

PROJECT X

WANDERLUST

THIS MEANS WAR

Doctor Who Review: The End of Time (Part 1)

2012-02-29T21:24:00.000Z

I would advise watching the episode I’m talking about before reading this review. There are some bits that might not make sense to you if you haven’t and there are most definitely spoilers.

This year there isn’t any new Doctor Who until autumn. Fair enough, they’re probably setting up something spectacular for the show’s 50^th anniversary next year. I don’t mind this because it means I’m probably going to end up with a really good set of episodes. On the other hand, it does mean I don’t get to write any new reviews. Luckily however, there are 48 years worth of episodes I’ve got to choose from. So, to get us started on our trip through the archives let’s look at one I’ve actually been asked about. I told someone I didn’t like the last David Tennant story and they were shocked. They wanted me to explain why. And so, I will. Here we go, or should I say ‘Allonsey!’ No, I probably shouldn’t.

Normally when I talk about a two-parter, I talk about both parts together. But in this case, the two halves have such different tones and purposes that I think they might as well get a look at individually. The first part is the set-up. Does it do that job well? I’d say so. We have a mysterious voiceover from a man that we see more and more of each time he speaks, and what he says doesn’t really match up with any circumstance where he would say them, but it doesn’t really matter. Timothy Dalton is a brilliant actor, and he brings a lot of mystery and an epic feel to this episode. We also have an interesting idea with the Master.

The Master in this episode is both good and bad. Good, because of John Simm’s performance and I for one like the idea of the Master’s body falling apart and him becoming an outcast in the wastelands. He’s desperate and this makes him seem more dangerous as he might and could kill you any time, as exemplified by the murders of the burger stand people. The see-through skull might be taking it to extremes and this isn’t how I’d like to see the Master all the time, but for a one-off, I like it. The bad though. Two things. One is the Master’s resurrection. This scene is stupid. I want to say a better word than stupid, but really that is the only word to describe it. Why are there followers of Saxon? Why are there secret books of Saxon? What is the point of using weird magic potions in this scene instead of some kind of Time Lord science thing? This is Doctor Who not Harry Potter. Why was Lucy Saxon needed, surely after about two years any trace of the Master on her would be gone? Why was there a focus on Lucy Saxon by the Ood when she was only in it for about two minutes? We’ll get back to the Ood in a minute. So, basically that scene asks too many questions and is a really strange scene that feels like it’s from a completely different show. The other problem isn’t really one with this episode, but more with the next, the whole idea of the Master-Race. It seems like a good idea that makes a huge threat and has a good build-up for the second half of The End of Time but, it doesn’t pay off. But more on that when we look at Part 2.

So I said we’d get to the Ood. Now we have. The Ood can see through time. Why? How is time bleeding? The Time Lords haven’t done anything yet. Even if it was due to the Time Lords, why would they have visions of each of the important characters in the story? This seems awfully not-make-sense-just-there-to-make-the-plot-work-y. The Ood need to see these things to give the Doctor a prophecy to make the stakes seem higher and to get him involved in the story. However, in the story there is no reason for them to know these things so it doesn’t feel right. Because the plot says so, that’s why. That’s the reason. It’s also the reason the Naismith’s kidnap the Master instead of the Doctor when due to their connection to Torchwood and their knowledge of Saxon, you’d think they’d know about the Doctor and that he’s more trustworthy. But then the Master couldn’t get control of the machine and we wouldn’t have a plot. We also wouldn’t have a plot if the human race didn’t have dreams of the Master… long before he gets anywhere near the machine to put him into them. So why do people have dreams of him? If it’s because ‘time is bleeding’ surely they’d have dreams about Lucy and the Naismith’s too and they’d find out what was going on. But then we wouldn’t have a plot.

Beside the fact the whole plot relies on things that don’t make sense and there are a couple of weird scenes, does it work though? Yes. The story elements all add up to provide a sense of dread and it builds up the tension and stakes to get us hyped for the next episode. It’s not all serious though and has moments of humour with the brilliant chemistry between David Tennant and Bernard Cribbens. When they are both on screen they are fantastic and really bring the show up to greatness. Also any parts with ‘the silver cloak’ or Donna’s mother are hilarious. I would say that it doesn’t really follow up on any of the issues raised in the previous story The Waters of Mars, which is a shame, but in general this is a very good episode. It’s not the best ever, it has its flaws, but it really builds up a good atmosphere for the final episode of David Tennant’s run. But, I did say I didn’t like The End of Time. And if I like Part 1, what does that imply about Part 2. Well, find out tomorrow when we look at the second half of this story and see why it’s all downhill from here.

4/5

Review: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel/Safe House

2012-02-28T14:59:00.000Z

THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL

SAFE HOUSE

Review: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close/Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

2012-02-21T11:38:00.000Z

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE

Review: The Woman in Black/The Vow/The Muppets

2012-02-14T15:44:00.000Z

THE WOMAN IN BLACK

THE VOW

THE MUPPETS

Poundcorner: An Ant's Life

2012-02-10T21:12:00.001Z

Poundcorner's been updated, redone and restarted, hopefully now a lot better than the old ones. So dive right in for the Bass Collective's 100th post spectacular, a review of the awful rip-off 'An Ant's Life'.

Does he look happy because it's the 100th post? No. It's because he's an idiot.

Review: Chronicle / Young Adult / Jack and Jill / Journey 2 / Man on a Ledge

2012-02-07T15:16:00.000Z

Because of the amount of films I saw this week I've split up this week's reviews, with a video for each film.

CHRONICLE

YOUNG ADULT

JACK AND JILL

JOURNEY 2: THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND

MAN ON A LEDGE

Review: The Descedants/The Grey/A Monster in Paris

2012-01-30T18:59:00.000Z

WSIFITS: Haggis crisps

2012-01-26T16:29:00.000Z

In a little late-Burns night special...

Right, so normally these things I find in shops are a bit weird and rare. But, this is probably something you can get in any supermarket. In Scotland. But… that doesn’t stop it from being fucking weird as shit. Haggis flavoured crisps. Which is just weird. Was there really such a group of people calling out for this? Oh well, I saw them and I bought them. Because I’m an idiot. On closer inspection however (I ate them) they... weren’t very haggisy. They’re kinda spicy, and they have a really strange unexplainable taste, but one thing is for sure, it’s definitely not haggis. And also, it’s definitely not tasty. So don’t get these. I really don’t know why they exist. Haggis flavoured crisps that don't taste like haggis and aren't very good either, mmmmmmmm. Why did I buy these?

This is a horrible picture.

Review: J.Edgar/The Sitter/Underworld: Awakening

2012-01-23T17:20:00.000Z

This week's releases review.

Review: Haywire/The Artist

2012-01-20T12:14:00.000Z

A midweek review of one new film and one that Cineworld didn't put out.

Holy Shit. There's a Cyborg Cop III... review.

2012-01-18T19:12:00.000Z

So finally the last Cyborg Cop film. I feel I was a bit harsh on the original. At least it had an FBI agent who got turned into a cyborg. I complained at the time he wasn’t really a cop. Well this movie has two federal marshals, who aren’t technically cops, and neither of them are at any point cyborgs. It should have been called ‘Cyborgs and sort-of Cops’ but that doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. Luckily we get an alternate title, a sure sign of a shitty movie, which is… Terminal Impact. Why? Is it because of the one scene of the cyborg being used a car crash dummy? Well, that’s lovely and all but it doesn’t have anything to do with the film as a whole.

This film unfortunately doesn’t have our old favourite David Bradley in it. In fact the only connection with the previous films is it has cops and a cyborg and it’s called Cyborg Cop. Seriously that’s it. Luckily we have our two new cop stars. One is called Saint and that’s literally his entire character except for a joke about how he learnt to fly in a book, except it goes on so long that it’s either unbelievably unfunny, or it wasn’t a joke and he’s actually meant to have learnt from a book, which is just dumb. And the other is an idiot. That’s all I have to say about him. He keeps wanting to eat ‘tootsie rolls’, there’s a running joke about people slagging off his mother and him getting annoyed and he keeps just being generally childish, stupid and obnoxious. Then there’s Miss Generic Reporter Woman who falls for the idiot in one scene after never showing any interesting before. And to round it off we have our evil boss who’s trying to act like someone, but I can’t think who, all I know is he’s doing it badly and our cyborg. And the cyborg is rubbish. One, we never see any machinery, he could just be a tough man, I mean Cyborg Cop I looked a bit plastic, but at least it showed some of the machine part, this has about two shots of the insides before skin repairs on top and the rest is just a man in funny clothes. And two, the cyborgs aren’t very tough. Like one gets a car dropped on it and a few get blown up, one even drops his gun which is then used to kill it immediately. So rubbish cyborgs.

Also, the whole thing doesn’t make any sense. Like at one point the reporter is knocked out and wakes up at an evil doctor’s. This sets up her being turned into a cyborg later, I think. But I’m not very sure. It seems to be pointless. Also the businessman lets her see the cyborgs pretending they are actually just men with radiation drugs. Then he lets her hang out in her office, and she finds out what he’s really doing. What is his plan? If it’s to kill her/turn her into a cyborg, why show her round? If it’s to make her think he’s a legitimate businessman, why leave her in the office when you have secrets in there, and why conduct a trial of the cyborg’s gun fighting abilities while she’s still there (which he does). And even if she bought it for a bit, surely people would become suspicious when the drugs never arrived. It’s not like his plan is to take over the world, it’s just to sell the cyborgs as weapons. Oh, never mind. Why am I expecting it to make sense, have I not watched the first two films?

So basically: plot makes no sense, actors can’t act, characters are ridiculous, cyborg is rubbish, effects are bad and direction is bland. So, it’s shit. It doesn’t even have David Bradley in it, cause he’s clearly the star of the Cyborg Cop franchise. Now you’d think I’d be finished with Robocop rip-offs. And I would be. If someone hadn’t disguised one as a Terminator rip-off. Back next with: TC-2000. Fuck.

Because clearly this is a quality movie when it runs out of pictures from itself on the first page of a google image search.

Review: The Darkest Hour/War Horse

2012-01-16T17:30:00.002Z

My review of this week's releases.

Review: The Iron Lady/Goon

2012-01-09T16:00:00.001Z

A review of The Iron Lady and Goon.

PART 1

PART 2

Films of 2011

2012-01-06T10:55:00.000Z

This is the one I've been waiting for, I think I might've gone a bit mad with how much I wrote, but I hope you like what we have to say. Over to me. Then Lewis.

CHRIS

BEST: DRIVE/HUGO
Wow. I wasn’t being very impressed by the films this year until the start of December. I mean, some were ok, but I just didn’t see anything that made me excited about the quality. That was until one week where I watched both Drive and Hugo. Both these films are fantastic. Drive is a dark action film about a get-away driver who gets involved in shady dealings and it brings down his whole world. It’s the most intelligent action movie I’ve seen in years, with some of the best performances this year from Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan and a surprisingly dark turn from Albert Brooks (Nemo’s Dad in Finding Nemo). Everyone in this is brilliant, every shot brilliantly put together and it’s a real call back to thrillers from the 80s, which is definitely not a bad thing. It’s one of the very best made films of the year and it’s also right up my alley, exactly the sort of film I like. Oh, and it has a fantastic soundtrack.

Hugo is a completely different affair. It’s a surprising film from director Martin Scorsese, mainly because it’s not incredibly dark and violent for adults only. This is a family film, and definitely the best I’ve seen in years. It’s a magical experience, all the characters are interesting and it has some of the only child acting I’ve actually ever liked in it. It starts off as a moving story of a boy who’s lost his father, but then it changes into a love letter to the art of the cinema, and to the early pioneers. It’s also the only film I’ve ever seen where the 3D adds anything. I won’t give anything more away, because really, just go and watch it right now. It’s one of the best made and definitely the most heart-warming film that’s come out this year.

RUNNERS-UP: X-MEN: FIRST CLASS/HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN
This is where things get interesting. Up until about a month ago, I was all set to give the best movie to X-Men: First Class. Now that I’ve seen Drive and Hugo, I see that it’s just because of the poor quality of films this year that I was going to do that. First Class is a really good film, but it’s really not best film material. But, being one of the good films this year has to count for something, especially as it’s the X-men film that followed the Wolverine movie, which was just awful. It was well made, exciting and entertaining, but at the end of the day it was just a superhero action movie. It was a very good one, but except the Nolan Batman films, superhero films are never going to win any films of the year awards. Definitely one of the best of the genre though.

Another film that would never get a mention on any other best of lists is Hobo with a Shotgun. It carries on the grind house film movement, started by well, Grindhouse, but moves it along a bit, by making a very 80/90s film with a modern twist. It’s incredibly over the top, with mad violence and ridiculous characters like a guy who kills his enemies by putting them down a manhole and pulling their heads off with a rope attached to a car. A really over the top action fest, this is hugely entertaining, but with a brilliant and quite seriously played performance by Rutger Hauer as the Hobo, this film has made it as one of my favourites from this year.

WORST: THE SMURFS/GREEN LANTERN
I hate The Smurfs. I’ve talked about it before here, and here. And really, there’s nothing more to say, except it’s definitely the worst film this year.

My reaction to The Smurfs.

But since I actually have to write something here, I’ll talk about what would have been the worst film of the year if it hadn’t been for Smurfs. Green Lantern. I don’t get this film. There are plenty of other superheroes that could have had films made about them, so why didn’t they do someone more interesting? Green Lantern as a character is not interesting. So, was it made for fans? Well it can’t have been. The character of Green Lantern/Hal Jordan is completely wrong as Ryan Reynolds is spectacularly miscast. The main villain Parallax is just a big cloud, instead of what it’s meant to be, and a big cloud is not an interesting villain. There’s also a guy with a big head who’s meant to have back story with Green Lantern, but it’s never shown so it means nothing to us. And there’s Sinestro who’s another Lantern who turns evil, but he kind of disappears in the film and is only evil after the end credits. You can’t do that. That’s like when The Thing (2011) tried to put important story details into the end credits, it’s annoying and when the credits roll the film should be over. Basically half the film doesn’t make sense, like half the connecting scenes were cut out, so things happen and they’re not connected, for example, there’s evil stuff going on in an underground bunker, then BOOM, Green Lantern’s there. How did he know stuff was going down and why is he there so quick? Not explained. A lot like that happens. And there’s too much going on with the aliens at the Lantern Corps, that’s the sort of stuff that’s normally kept for a sequel once we understand what our basic characters are about. So it’s got too much shit we don’t understand for non-fans and it’s all changed from the comics, so fans won’t like it either. Who is this film for? No-one. It’s shit. Oh and since I’ll get a slap if I don’t mention it, the effects in this film are god-awful. Why did they make the Lantern suit CGI? It looks terrible. Superman 4: The Quest for Peace looks better, and that’s complete shite. So Green Lantern should be the worst film of the year if it wasn’t for that one film I hate even more.

WISH I [HADN’T] SEEN: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES
I watch a lot of films, so I really see all of them I want to. So I can’t really do a ‘wish I’d seen’ for film. If I did it would end up having to say I wish I’d seen Breaking Dawn, Fast Five or Cars 2, which would just be a lie. Well actually I would like to see Cars 2 but that’s just so I can see the first bad Pixar movie and I don’t think that’s a legitimate reason. So instead, I’m doing a ‘wish I hadn’t seen’, for the films that weren’t the worst of the year, but they were still a complete waste of my time to watch. One of these is the new Pirates of the Caribbean film. It’s not awful, it’s just dull. There’s none of the original cast except the first mate, who’s alright but hardly a major character, Barbossa, who’s character has almost completely changed until he’s almost unrecognisable and Jack Sparrow, and Johnny Depp just seems so uninterested in the film, it’s like he’s only there for the pay cheque. Oh wait. The new character aren’t interesting, the new thing they’re looking for isn’t interesting, it’s blandly directed and just nothing gets me involved. It just sat there bored waiting for it to end, because I didn’t care. And I really liked the other films, so I especially disappointed.

There were other bad films this year, Bridesmaids, where not even Roy from The IT Crowd could make it the slightest bit funny, Alvin and the Chipmunks 3: Chipwrecked, which was truly awful, but it is the third one so by now anyone seeing it should know what they’re getting into, The Tree of [Fucking] Life, which is just wildy pretentious and unbelievably boring, probably the hardest film I had to sit through this year and so on, but I think I’ll drive myself mad if I keep going. Here’s hoping I survive 2012.

LEWIS

BEST: Evangelion 2.0: You Can (not) Advance

I’m a huge fan of the 1996 anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, which in itself was stunning, wonderful animation and design, with a complex and absorbing plot. Some fans -I must say, I am not one of them- were largely unimpressed with the ending, which was rushed through on a lack of time and money. This led to an alternate ending being released as End of Evangelion, which replaces the final two episodes as a film, showing a more physical version of the ending, rather than the artistic and psychological end in the series.

In more recent years, the studio behind NGE have decided to make a reboot of the series, released as four films. You Can (not) Advance is the second of these, where the plot is more different from the original than the first film, which sticks closely to the series. The visuals were beautiful, and the re-imaging of the plot was superb, it was truly faithful to the fans of the original series, but still make it justified for anyone new to the concept. I seriously can’t wait for three and four, now.

RUNNER UP: Hobo With A Shotgun

This. Film. Is. Mental. Oh my goodness, Hobo With a Shotgun is a modern exploitation film following a hobo who seeks to clean up a terrible city with his trusty shotgun. It features ridiculous gore, gangsters, swearing, assassin cult orders, swearing, blood, drugs and other 18-rated filth, all presented with an old-school area of baaaaaad production values -done on purpose, of course.- This B Movie style horror was exceptionally well done, and thoroughly enjoyable.

WORST: The Thing (2011)

I’m so surprised this was actually made, a prequel to the incredible ‘The Thing’ from 1982. I honestly thought this was one of those passing rumours about remakes and sequels that just fizzles out quietly, (often to the relief of fans) but this actually got through to completion, and release.

Frankly, and as obscure as this sounds, I think it’s too modern. It has too many elements of modern horror bringing it down, as well as not very effective covering up of the change from a remake to a prequel, with sequences and events happening suspiciously the same as the original. I’ll admit it wasn’t horrendous, but still not good, and nothing in comparison to John Carpenter’s original.

Full Review HERE

WISH I’D SEEN: The Adventures of Tintin

I used to love the comics and the animated series of Tintin, and this modern film looked pretty damn good, but I just never found an ideal time to go see it, so hopefully I can get my hands on a copy in 2012, as I’m really disappointed I missed this.

Last Films of 2011 Review

2012-01-04T10:35:00.001Z

Because of christmas and new year and me being ill, I never really had the chance to do a video about the last films I saw in 2011. Buuut, I was round at Tara's and the chance arose so here is a video review of Sherlock Holmes 2, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, Mission Impossible 4 and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Enjoy!

Part 1

Part 2

TV of 2011

2011-12-29T16:48:00.000Z

So today it's time to look at the tv of 2011 and see what we liked and disliked.

CHRIS

BEST: Doctor Who
I think you all know what I’ll put here. If you know me or read this blog at all, then you’ll realise that it’s Doctor Who. I love that show. But hey, this is the best of 2011, not just what I like all the time, so I can’t just give the best to Who because I always like it. No, instead it’s getting it because it’s been possibly the best year of the revived series so far. There were only two episodes I didn’t like and even one of them had its moments. People have said this year was too complex, well I like my Doctor Who complex, it’s a family show, not a kids’ show, so it should have stuff in it that makes you use your brain. Oh and some people are still moaning about the lack of David Tennant. Well, he’s gone, there were better Doctors before him and there’s been a better one since, so I really don’t see what people are complaining about. So, interesting storyline, great individual episodes, great cast and scripts, I hope this streak of great Who continues.

After writing this we had the Christmas special. I am disappointed in the sudden drop in quality, but it doesn’t ruin the fun I had watching the earlier episodes.

RUNNERS-UP: Futurama/Chuck
I have two. One is Futurama. After a troubled return, it’s back on form and is generally a great show again. It’s not best show material though, except for one episode. The last episode of the current series was called “Re-incarnation”. Now, maybe it’s just my film geeky side talking, but this is one of the best half hours of TV I’ve seen this year. I won’t say much, but definitely check it out if you haven’t already.
And the other one is a show no-one watches, Chuck. It’s a show about a man who works in an electrical store that gets a supercomputer downloaded into his brain and he has to use it to help the government as a spy. The first series was on Virgin 1, but I’ve not seen it on British TV since. The show went downhill for a bit, but this series has really picked up, and I’d advise you to check it out, it’s a very entertaining and well-made show, and it’s a shame it never really got much attention.

After writing this I found Season 1 in Grouchos. Very pleased.

WORST: Family Guy
Family Guy. Right let’s move on. Oh, I suppose I should say a few words. The show hasn’t been funny for years, but this year it’s decided to tackle series issues and it’s just offensive for no reason. It’s a sick show that deserves to get cancelled. If you want to hear more, listen to episode II of the Damn Dirty Apes podcast, I get mad.
A special mention here should go to Misfits. I can’t give it the worst TV show of the year award, because technically it’s not, but it’s really disappointed me this year. It used to be a story about people with superpowers with the twist being they’re ‘ASBO kids’. But now it’s a story about ASBO kids with the twist being they have superpowers. Now that doesn’t sound like much has changed, but it now has a fundamentally different base on which the stories are built. The stories now centre around the relationships of the characters with the superpowers taking a back seat. I don’t know whether that makes it a worse show, but it makes it far less interesting to me. I watched the first four episodes this series and except for the Nazi episode which was brilliant, the show just doesn’t seem entertaining anymore. So that’s it lost one viewer.
Oh, and Desperate Scousewives looks like the worst thing ever. I haven’t seen it so I can’t give a proper opinion, but I saw the advert for it and I’ve lost all faith in humanity.

WISH I’D SEEN: The Walking Dead… I suppose.

The Walking Dead. People keep telling me to watch this and telling me how good it is. I mean, I don’t doubt it, but I find it kind of difficult to start watching new TV shows. Especially the ones with over-arching stories, I just don’t have time. I mean I still haven’t watched season three of The Wire, so maybe I will see this in seven years time. But I doubt it. Sounds good, but sounding isn’t enough. To be honest I don’t watch much TV nowadays except my old favourites, the only new show I watched was Black Mirror and I really didn’t see what the fuss was about it. So, while I say I wish I’d seen things, I really don’t mind. I watch the things I like and the other things don’t bother me.

LEWIS

As a heads-up, I don’t actually watch TV. Ever. I very rarely make an effort to watch anything, so these reviews are far less based than the games one. So apologies for how shit they are, this is more like a little round-up thing.

BEST: Limmy’s Show Series 2

I’m a big fan of Limmy from back when his stuff was online, so when his sketch show was aired on the BBC, I was clearly excited. The first series was excellent, and the second even better, a really good laugh, and one to watch again, and again, and again.

RUNNER UP: Doctor Who Series 6

Doctor Who had to be here somewhere. This series was superb, improving on the formula of the previous one, with a lot of emphasis on consequences, rather than just adventure.

WORST: Doctor Who Christmas Special 2011

What even was this? I mean, the overall quality of this episode was a huge drop from the series earlier this year. The plot was some nonsense loosely based on The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, with undercurrents of save the planet, thrown in without much thought. Now, I know that last year it was based on A Christmas Carol, and that was excellent. But this year’s was only based in the setting of the Narnia novel, rather than actually being in the story.

Another issue I have with this episode is the visual effects. i don’t know if it’s down to lack of funds or time or whatever, all I know is I was really not impressed, from even before the title, they seemed nowhere near as good as those of the series.

WISH I’D SEEN: Black Mirror
Charlie Brooker’s new program sounded really quite good, and I’ve only heard good things about since it’s been on, but I just forgot to watch it. I’d heard interviews with Brooker on the radio and read about it and been really quite excited, but when it was actually on I didn’t even think to watch it. My loss, I guess.

Come back tomorrow for third and final part, our look at the films of 2011.

Games of 2011

2011-12-28T11:35:00.001Z

Myself and Lewis have taken a bit out of our busy schedules to write about the games we liked and disliked this year. So, without further ado, here it is.

CHRIS
BEST: Portal 2
I don’t really play a lot of games to be honest I’ve probably only played about five that came out this year. But I’ll try my best with this. My favourite game of the year was probably Portal 2. For three reasons. First, it’s a fun game to play, I liked the puzzles in the first Portal and this one is more of that with a couple of nice new things. Second, it’s really funny. I was laughing out loud at some of the comments in it, especially the part with the original owner of the Aperture facility, Cave Johnston (COMBUSTABLE LEMON!). And third, it really got me into the other valve games. I’d never played Half-Life until this year, which might make me sound behind the times, but I don’t care. Portal 2 got me interested enough to check them out and I’m glad I did. So yeh, very well made, very enjoyable, I’d advise you go out and play it.

RUNNER UP: Saints Row The Third
I wanted to put this at number one. I really did, but that’s because I’ve only just got it a couple of weeks ago. Saints Row The Third. This game is just so fun. It’s the ultimate sandbox game. You can do anything and get away with it. Want to skydive in a tank? Want to beat up mascots with a giant sex toy? Want to fly a jet and then hover and blast people with lasers? Etc, etc, etc. There are only two complaints I have. One, you can’t replay story missions. I don’t know why, they had it in the last game, but in this one you have to start a whole new campaign. It’s annoying. And also, the story is total shite. It leads you to fun missions and has hilarious cut scenes, but it’s just not very good. One of your crew gets killed by a man in a suit and you think he’ll be the main villain, but then he dies a few missions later and you get a whole load of different gang leaders, but it just doesn’t feel like it matters. I mean the story isn’t the main focus and it’s a really fun game to play, just, it wasn’t as good as it could have been.

WORST: Duke Nukem Forever
There’s only really one game I can put in here. A game that was 12 years in the making. A game we all knew wouldn’t be good. But really, did it need to be this bad? It’s Duke Nukem Forever. It’s offensively bad. It starts off with Duke starting a war and we’re suppose to think he’s the hero, then it goes to an alien spaceship where there are girls stuck in the spaceship as hosts for aliens. Now that would be good in a horror game, but this is Duke Nukem, and it’s just sick and unnecessary. The controls are shit, the load times are loooong, and when I got to the second boss, the Quick Time Event got stuck and I can’t finish the game. Basically, it’s awful. If you want to read more, here’s Daniel Taylor’s review and I agree with every word he says.

http://www.ltww.co.uk/reviews-dukenukemforever.html

WISH I PLAYED: Skyrim
Skyrim. I don’t really like games like that, but I’ve heard so much good about it. I think I might pick it up at some point, but by then everyone’ll moved on, and I’ll be running along trying to catch up. It was either that or SR3 for me, so I think I chose wisely for myself, even if other people wouldn’t agree. My main reason for not getting it was Oblivion. I got told that was a great game and I bought it. Then it was shit. I really just couldn’t get into it and it was a total waste of my money, so I’m not doing that again. So if anyone feels like buying it for it, I'd be quite willing to play it. Please? Oh fine then.

LEWIS
BEST: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)

This was inevitable, how could I ever pick a game that wasn’t this? I mean, a mainline Zelda game? It honestly doesn’t get any better in my head, and this one really is brilliant.

When Skyward Sword was first really shown off I wasn’t entirely convinced. I was hoping for a more realistic, and dark Zelda game like the last main story one; Twilight Princess, but no, these screenshots were a colourful, arty, impressionist world far more similair to Wind Waker. I wasn’t impressed. But, as time went on I was more and more interested, and eventually really excited once it was dated for release here. And so it came out, and was released in a special edition bundle with a gold Wii remote+ which is gorgeous, and a CD of a recorded show from the Zelda 25th anniversary orchestra, which is excellent, but lets talk about the actual game itself.

I instantly took back every bad thing I’d said about the graphical style, it’s wonderful. The colours and design are so perfect even down to a distance effect which I didn’t know about before, where as things blur into the distance, they become like swirled painted versions of themselves. The gameplay is brilliant, improved upon perfection with adding more modern RPG elements to the already existing Zelda style, with a Stamina gauge, levelling-up equipment, and several choice based parts of the plot. The sword controls are also particularly good, being controlled with motion+ it feels far superior to those of Twilight Princess.

Overall, best game in my opinion, of 2011, and I’m so glad.

RUNNER UP: Sonic Generations (Xbox 360/PS3)

I love Sonic the Hedgehog games, I always have, and I always will. Almost. Since Shadow the Hedgehog was released last generation, things haven’t really been the same, games being churned out with weak, sometimes god-awful plots, based on fairytales or sometimes just bizarre creations of the writers. I still loved the series though, and I persevered. Something had to get better. And then, to celebrate 20 years of the series, Sonic Generations was announced, as if rewarding my faith and my struggle and giving me what I’ve always wanted.

A bit far, but you can tell I was excited for this game, and rightly so. The premise of Sonic Generations is basically a time warp, where Sonic from modern games meets his younger, chubbier self from the original Mega Drive games and together, they have to find out why their timelines have been so disrupted. The levels are all taken from Sonic’s past, with boss fights and stages separated into three categories; Mega Drive(Genesis), Dreamcast and Modern Sonic (Modern Sonic actually being everything after Sonic Heroes, rather than everything after Dreamcast). The re-imagined stages are beautiful, the music is second to none, and it’s clear that an awful lot of effort has gone into making this perfect, a true game for the fans.

WORST: Pilotwings Resort (3DS)

I’m not someone who buys games on a whim, that’d be ridiculous, and I just don’t have the money, so I can’t really say what was a bad game this year. I mean, it’d be unfair to say this is the worst game of 2011, it’s just the one was personally disappointed me, and was certainly not worth it’s price.

Pilotwings Resort is a flight simulator in the Pilotwings game series which lets the player fly planes, gliders, and jetpacks around the Wii Sports Resort island of Wuhu. In it players can either play challenges or free flight, which is basically about collecting different items in different craft. The visuals for the game are genuinely pleasing, being a very good example of the graphical quality and depth that the 3DS can put out, meaning it was one of the more visually impressive of the console’s frankly...shit launch line-up. Now, this all sounds great, but this is a game with no plot, no obligation to advance, nothing to gain from progress and no characters. The overall gameplay is horrendously short, I mean you could get all collectibles and gold trophies in a very, very short period of time. This is my problem, the game doesn’t feel like a game, or at least one you can buy full price in a shop. It seems like it would have come preloaded, or offered as a download, or, maybe like the original NDS’s bundled demo of Metroid Prime: Hunters before it, packaged on a cartridge just to show what the console can do. So yeah, as fun and pretty as this game may be, it’s definitely not worth the price of a full game, because it isn’t one.

WISH I PLAYED: Conduit 2 (Wii)

The sequel to the amazing The Conduit, possibly the best first person shooter on Wii was released in April, after being pushed back by about half a year, and since has been one of the hardest games to find in-store. I loved The Conduit, it’s gameplay and visuals were absolutely superb, it was good to see a company really pushing the console rather than churning out the same on-par-with-PS2 or if you’re lucky, Gamecube trash that’s weighed the console down since the start, and destroyed the console’s credibility. But those games aren’t important. We’re talking about Conduit 2. Now this, promised to improve on the original, graphically and in amply, with the addition of support for Wii Motion+, as well as the Wi’‘s Classic Controller and Classic Controller Pro. The multiplayer also seems to be amazing, as it’s an extreme improvement on the original, which was great already, but maybe felt slightly lacking compared to the other current-generation consoles. I’m sure you could tell by now that I want this game, but I’ve only ever seen it for sale once. Ever. In London. The game was for sale preowned in second-hand electronics store CEX, but I only got here after spending an enormous chunk of money, so I couldn’t afford it. It broke my heart. Now, I’m sure you’re thinking ‘why don’t you just buy it online?’ and you’re right, I should. But I don’t want to. I’m weird with buying stuff online like games and DVDs, I far prefer buying from shops so I might hold out and hope that I find a copy of it in a high street game store...maybe.

So there you have it. Lewis and I's best and worst games of the year. Check back in tomorrow to see what we thought of the TV of 2011.

Doctor Who Review: The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe

2011-12-27T10:09:00.000Z

First off, Merry Christmas, I hope you all had a great time. Now though is time to be a little more depressing as we talk about this year’s Doctor Who Christmas special. Normally it’s one of my favourite parts of Christmas, but not this year. So settle down after your leftover sandwiches and a half-drunk bottle of wine and I’ll try and explain why it didn’t work for me.

First nitpicky things that annoyed me. The name. I can barely be bothered saying The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe every time I want to talk about it, never mind writing it down, and it sounds kind of lumpy, like The Curse of the Black Spot. And the name’s a bit misleading anyhow considering the story has very little to do with the Narnia story. Except the kids being moved to a big country house in the war and the portal to a snow kingdom, there’s no connection, so it seems a bit of a cheat calling it that, especially the year after The Christmas Carol which stuck quite close to the story while giving it a new twist. Oh and the harvesters being from Androzani. That’s a planet from the old series. And while I like a good shout-out to the classics, this really didn’t work. They said it too much and it was too obvious. It was like Moffat was shouting at us “Look at me, I’m making a reference! Look, Look, look!”. Just didn’t work for me.

So that’s enough of the stupid wee things that annoy me personally, now on to the actual major problems with the story.
1. Characters.
Bill Bailey is good, but he and the other harvesters are barely in it. If you’re going to get a great guest star like that, actually use them.
The children are dull. As in, they aren’t interesting characters. The boy is generic smart kid and the girl is generic fairytale girl.
The mother isn’t anything special. Now, complaining that someone just does an ok job seems a bit pedantic, but remember last year we had Michael Gambon, and the year before John Simm and Bernard Cribbins and so on, every year has a great central character. Now, while there’s nothing wrong with the mother here, she’s just not up to the standard set by previous years.
2. Cliché.
All of the story is clichéd. The saving of the father, the Doctor as the caretaker, the mother being the strongest, etc, they were all coming obviously, and you could see the story twists about a mile off. But the main example of this was the harvester machine. As soon as the mother says “this looks a bit like a plane”, I knew she would drive it. And I hate when things like that happen, if it takes years of training, then it takes years of training, not just strong emotions.
3. Ridiculousness.
Doctor Who is hardly a sensible show, but this episode went too far. Because it was just a fairytale. However stupid the show gets it’s always about science. But this episode about the tree’s souls just didn’t sit right. It would be like if there had been actual ghosts last year. I don’t know what it was exactly but the whole forest with living Christmas trees, tree souls and just happening to light the way for the father, just seemed to childish and silly for Doctor Who.

Don’t get me wrong, there were things I enjoyed about the special. The start however over the top was brilliant and it was all a good bit of fun until the forest. The Doctor fixing the house was mad, but the right kind of mad. And the ending with Amy and Rory was just brilliant. So basically, it had a few moments, but it just came off as a story trying to be cleverer than it was and then it losing the charm of the Christmas special because of it.

2/5

Oh Mariah. Just stop.

2011-12-22T11:28:00.003Z

So annual Mariah slamming time. Not in that way, you dirty boy. Almost brings the blog full circle. I recently heard the new version of “All I Want For Christmas”. Featuring Justin Bieber. Now while this wasn’t as personally as offensive as Auld Lang Syne, it was just generally offensive by the lack of quality.

Now, the video has two major flaws, one it’s huge lack of originality, really, a chick dressed as Santa in a store, even Destiny’s Child did that. And it’s disconnect with the song. The song says all she wants is her baby and while that’s happening we see Justin looking at some Nintendo 3DS’s. Nice way to stick to the meaning there. Oh and there’s the problem with both the video and the song, that Justin Bieber and Mariah Carey are singing a love song to each other, that’s just creepy, she’s old enough to be his mother.

And of course the main flaw. Justin Bieber. Now, I don’t like to admit it, because I really dislike Mariah’s music in general, but I quite like “All I Want For Christmas”. So her bits in this version are roughly the same. But then we get Bieber coming in. He sounds autotuned, but he still is out of tune, I don’t even know how that’s possible. He gets the whole rhythm of the song wrong and doesn’t have nearly enough talent to match Mariah’s singing. He just ruins a good song. So yeah. It’s shit, try to avoid, but it’s not as bad as Auld Lang Syne. I ain’t over that.

And no-one leave a comment about Bieber’s Christmas album, I know about it, I’m trying to ignore it.

Puss in Boots/Chipwrecked

2011-12-13T10:54:00.001Z

The first video review of the year. Not as good as I would've hoped, but I hope it's still good.

The Plan for the Year. Going to see every movie.

2011-12-08T20:27:00.001Z

For my christmas I've just got the unlimited pass from Cineworld. It means I can go and see as many films from there as i want. Which is good. But then it's me and I love to ruin good things, so I'm going to see EVERY film that comes out in the next year, starting now. I'm not gonna see the one which are already out, but anything that comes out from now on, I will go and see. I'll try and see them as soon as they come out as possible, and then after I do, then I'll do a nice wee video for you all to see, telling you about the film and giving a bit of a review. And maybe I'll have a few guests in these videos, aka, the people I went to see the film with. I hope you enjoy it, and hey, if there's ever a film you can't find anyone to go see with you, I'm your man.

So, what's coming out this weekend? Puss in Boots and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked. Oh shit, I regret it already.

Review: The Thing (2011)

2011-12-06T17:14:00.001Z

Think John Carpenter’s The Thing but made by idiots. The end.

Ok, no. I can’t just say this film is awful don’t watch it, because much as that is true, I kind of need to justify myself. Basically it’s a prequel to the 80s Thing. And I really like that film, so I was a bit worried before I even saw anything about this film. I thought it was too long since the original, I thought it couldn’t work without John Carpenter and mainly I thought about how unnecessary it was. Yeah, at the start of the original we see the Norwegian base, but basically we just see how exactly the same thing happened to them as happens to the characters in the film. So basically we already know the story and we don’t need it laid out. But obvious that sounded like a ripe money plant to be picking and a prequel was born. I already hated the idea, then I heard reviews from America where they hated it, so I went into the cinema knowing it was going to be bad, and I wasn’t wrong.

There is a huge pile of issues with this film but six major problems.

Problem number one: The characters
The characters are bland. The original film didn’t have a great level of character depth, but we could at least tell them apart, in this film, except for the two women, the black guy, the boss and the guy who looks like Ewan McGregor, the rest are just lots of the same bearded Norwegian. I couldn’t keep track of who was who, or how many were left or when they could’ve been infected, which somewhat ruined the suspense. And even the characters I just described, that was their whole personally. Take the boss, all we ever find out about him is… he’s the boss? That’s it. No-one is developed at all which means we neither understand nor care what’s happening to them. Oh and it misses the point because the original was all men so they could all try and take charge and be paranoid of each other, but the woman’s presence seems to have removed all the tension.

Problem number two: The effects
Ok, I’d better get this out of the way. This film doesn’t use practical effects, it uses CGI. This immediately makes it inferior to the original, which has some of the best practical effects ever. But hey, just because it’s not as good as the original doesn’t mean it’s rubbish. But the fact the effects are worse than The Phantom Menace really does. Seriously, the CGI is some of the worst I’ve ever seen. It’s bad enough that we have bad CG, but the human face seems to HAVE to been on all the things, which leads to some of the most unintentional funny moments in this year’s movies. Seeing the boss guy’s face complete with beard on this huge video-game looking monster literally made me laugh out loud. This is not good for a horror movie.

Problem number three: Its connections with the original
This film really doesn’t know what it’s doing in this sense. At times it goes out of its way to show things we see in the first place, for example the two headed thing we see in the deserted base in John Carpenter’s film, is shown in this film, but there’s not really any reason for it to be there, except it ties into the original. Other times there’s stuff that just doesn’t appear, like the guy we see in the original who’s cut his wrists, he’s here at the end, but we never see him do it, or get any impression he was going to, he just does it off camera and we see the result. Even little things like the shit not being dug up in this film when it was in the original, it’s like the makers of this version saw the original, but it was a couple of years ago so it’s like they’re doing the script from fuzzy memories. And of course there’s the fact that half the stuff from the original happens here, the attack on the dog, the unfreezing, the locking people up, the testing scene, the small things in the rec room, etc, tec. This film started off as a remake and it’s pretty obvious from the amount of similarities between the two Things, but this isn’t good for this new movie, because it begins in even more comparison between it and the original, which it loses horribly.

Problem number four: The plot doesn’t make any sense
The entire plot revolves about the thing killing and replacing people so it can survive and spread. So they need to stop the thing escaping so they disable all the snowmobiles. But then later they fix them in about a second, so how did it do any good if they could be fixed so quickly? The thing at the end goes back to the spaceship (we’ll go back to that), and tries to escape in that. But if the ship worked in the first place why did it leave it instead of using it to travel somewhere more populated? And how did Lars survive when he was attacked? And why did they get Americans involved? And why did no-one get surprised when he gets the flamethrower? And…

Problem number five: The plot doesn’t make any fucking sense
Ok, there are a million tiny plot holes, but out of any other reviews I’ve read of this no-one seems to have picked up on the one that annoyed me the most. The way they find out who is the thing is by checking their fillings, because the thing can’t recreate inorganic material. But wait. If the thing can’t recreate inorganic material, what’s up with the clothes. We’ve seen the thing wearing plastic jackets and watches, so explain. If they get attacked and the clothes are ripped off then they shouldn’t have them. Or if they are infected subtlety and their cells are changed from the inside then why would the fillings fall out? So that makes no sense. And why does no-one check the main girl’s fillings, hey we know she’s not the thing but they don’t. And why does the thing change into the monster at the exact moments it’s at its weakest? And… You get the point. It makes no sense.

Problem number six: The ending
So we reach the ending. And yes, they go in the spaceship. That doesn’t make any sense for one thing, and for another it barely looks like a spaceship except for some weird CGI 16-bit tower thing, which is never explained. This scene could’ve just as well happened in a cave than a spaceship. It jumps the shark too, as in the original we know it’s an alien, but the rest of the world is pretty normal, which makes it scarier. This just jumps directly into straight sci-fi. So they kill the thing, the woman could still be the thing but just drives off to a Russian base. Wait. A Russian base? But the point of the film is they’re isolated, and now there are three bases within driving distance? And really the only reason there is a Russian base is so there’s somewhere to send the woman, because we couldn’t possibly have a sad ending, oh wait, the original has them both about to freeze to death. And then they have the ending that links into the first where conveniently only the two Norwegians who don’t speak English survive and chase the dog thing with a gun, which doesn’t make any sense. Oh and the pilot hasn’t been around for the whole film so he just believes Lars about the alien instead of maybe thinking Lars killed them all. Oh I give up trying to make sense of it.

In conclusion, this was a film that no-one was asking for and should never have been made. The plot almost exactly mirrors the original until the insane spaceship bit at the end, the characters are bland and forgettable and the effects are laughable. Oh and it makes no sense. The main problem is it’s dull. It’s the same film we saw in 1982, but just made by a bunch of hacks. There is no reason to watch this film over John Carpenter’s The Thing so just watch that again and you’ll have a far better time.

1/5

The Olympic Advert and the sorry state of this december's trailers.

2011-12-05T13:10:00.000Z

I've just come back from seeing the 2011 remake/prequel thing version of The Thing. See what I did there? Anyway, I'll talk about that on it's own later, because it was already pretty shit without the pain I endured beforehand. So, I went to the Odeon, and I was, well not late, but not early enough to catch the shitty tv adverts. So far, so good. I fucking hate them. It came up with a notice "the following adverts are suitable for the feature presentation" or something like that, and so you'd think, ah here come the trailers. And they did. Eventually. First though we had... this.

Well, we didn't just have that. It had a really children's story voiceover by Stephen Fry and after the part we see above there was a really shitty montage of the people shown helping bring a bus to the school to replace the library.

Now. Here's the part I start to complain. First, problems with the advert itself. It's terribly animated, the story is stupid (like, the school library get destroyed? who is gonna care about that?), the mascots do nothing except call the athletes so why even have them, although it has athletes we don't know who they are and they don't really do anything that makes the olympics seem more appealing and just, the mascots are shit. Like really shit. So basically it would be a good advert if it was for a shop or a bank or something, but for the olympics that the government's putting all this money into to advertise, well I'm not impressed.

My main problem however isn't the advert in itself. Yeah it's shitty, but I don't care about the olympics. The problem... why is there a fucking stupid olympics advert at the cinema? I see enough shitty tv adverts I don't need this one as well. One, it's not suitable. I'm going to see a horror movie, I don't want to have the mood ruined by a cheesy colourful patronising advert for the olympics. I don't care about them, what is it even advertising? That they're happening? I don't live under a rock, I fucking know already. That I can get tickets? No, because they've already all been sold. That I can watch it on tv? No, cause it's not for 6/7 months so it's too early for that. I don't get what the point is. All it seems to be is an advert to be like "look at us, we've got the olympics!" but everyone at the odeon already knows, and would rather the government spent their money on something useful than adverts telling us stuff we already know. This really annoyed me, because bad adverts are bad enough, but this one didn't even have a point to it, so it was just wasting my time for no reason.

I was put into a great mood by that piece of shit, then I got even more to love by the trailers I got. First, one for an exorcism film. I can't be bothered going into detail, but it's the same shit we've seen a million times before, it looked unbelievably unoriginal and quite poorly made, there was nothing about the trailer that made me want to see the film. Second was about invisible aliens invading Russia. Invisible aliens? Come on, that's such a cheap trick. The trailer ironically only showed the aliens, and it gave no idea what the story'll be and whether there's anything worth seeing in it, something that gives me the impression that there really won't be. And the third and final trailer was one for the new Alvin and the Chipmunks film. It was really shit. I don't even need to explain why, you understand. It just upset me that we got so few trailers and none of them looked good.

Oh and there was a muppets orange advert. I liked that.

Robocop’s stup-wait no… Cyborg Cop, no... oh for fuck sake. It's Cyborg Cop II.

2011-12-02T18:59:00.000Z

The last time I did one of these it was almost what you could call a review. I can’t do that for this one. Because… erm… I fell asleep during it. Yep. That happened. Don’t blame me. I was tired and it wasn’t very interesting.

From what I remember they commit the Robocop 2 sin of making the cyborg out of an evil criminal. That goes about as well as you’d expect. Well actually, it went well to begin with, because they had a control device to override the cyborg. Oh dear, Rob 2, you’ve been outdone by your rip-off. Not good. But basically everything’s going hunky dory, then the main scientist who has a control device, takes it off to have sex. Now that’s fine. BUT, he does it right in front of the evil cyborg, who has a mind of his own and that mind is of an evil killer. So obviously he takes the remote and now he’s free and can control the other cyborgs. Like seriously, how did the scientist not see that coming? He deserved what he got for being wildly irresponsible. And then, even though all the other scientists seem to have the same control device, which has a kill switch in it, they are all overpowered and surrender their remotes. Why did they use them to kill the evil cyborg? I don’t know. That’s how he gets beaten at the end.

David Bradley is back, big woop. I mean, he’s good enough in this, but it’s nothing to get excited by. The kid’s around, but I don’t remember him doing anything and the girlfriend from the last film is gone, but we have a new one, so it’s all good. Really though, except for a dull proper cop bit at the start (WOW! There’s a real cop in Cyborg Cop! Pity he’s not a cyborg though), I don’t remember anything else. Now, you might think I’d being lazy not watching it again. You’d be right. But I don’t want to and you can’t make me, so tough. It’s stupid and it’s kind of dull, not as good as the first one.

Talking of not as good as the first one… that’s like the actual Robocop films. Now, it would be too much of a coincidence for there to be a third Cyborg Cop film without the main lead actor of the first two and a major drop in quality, wait, you know where I’m going with this. Yes, there is. I’ll watch it, but if the Cyborg Cop gets in a pimp mobile or fights robot ninjas then, I’m out. I’ll turn it off. You’ve been warned CC3.

It also has a really misleading cover, because the Cyborg from the first one is dead.
So the tagline's wrong and he shouldn't be on the cover.

Michael Kane? No. That joke's too easy.

2011-11-29T17:06:00.000Z

So, just looked at the back of the box of Halloween 4: Return of Michael Myers. A certain shot stood out to me, a certain shot that I couldn't find in the movie, but I took a really bad quality photo of with my laptop. Somewhat familiar in fact...

Just saying. Someone might have seen Citizen Kane.

WSIFITS: Seven Samurai 20XX

2011-11-24T18:08:00.000Z

Well this is a weird one. Seven Samurai was a film made in 1954 by Akira Kurosawa and widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made. So, 50 years after the film’s release Sammy Studios decided it was high time to make… a video game of it. For the ps2. And set it in the future. I don’t know why either.

Yeh, I’m not going to do a review of it. It’s not very good, it looks like Final Fantasy, but plays like a cross between God of War and Street Fighter, except with only about one attack button I can find. And it’s just really weird, you’re a samurai but then you have to go and fight some alien mutant thing. I played about 20 minutes and it was all dull and repetitive with a slow boring story. I just thought that people needed to know about this really weird game, that no-one asked for, and no-one really appreciated.

Anonymous Review

2011-11-22T10:19:00.001Z

http://www.thenationalstudent.com/Film/2011-11-17/anonymous_review.html

I did a review and it's now on this student website. It's not my finest work, as I feel it's a bit short, but still check it out.

WSIFITS: Evil Dead 4 and wrong dvds.

2011-11-17T17:50:00.000Z

Earlier this year I bought a set of four DVDs for a pound, which I assumed would all be awful except one of them was The Shawshank Redemption aka the highest voted film on imdb, read more here. However, at the time I didn’t realise what else was in the set. But I’ve just found out something about one of the other films.

Witchcraft is a horror movie starring a grown up little girl from The Exorcist and a sex crazed David Hasselhoff. Now that might already sound weird enough, but the original title of the film was La Casa 4. That’s because it was originally released in Italy. Now, when released in UK and the US it was called Witchcraft and wasn’t credited as any kind of sequel, it doesn’t have any connection with the previous La Casa films. And do you know how I know that? It’s not that I went out looking for an obscure Italian horror series, oh no. It’s that the first two La Casas were actually just retitled Evil Dead movies. Not changed in any way, well dubbed into Italian, but the exact same movies as we had. And due to the popularity of those films, the Italians just decided to name any old movie La Casa 3, 4 and 5 to make more money because people thought it was a sequel to Evil Dead. So basically I have an unofficial sequel to Evil Dead starring David Hasselhoff. What the actual fuck.

Ok. Last thing. I promise, and I’ll try to keep it brief. Well, basically the DVDs on the cover aren’t the DVDs in the case. It does have Shawshank and Evil Dead 4. However the other disc doesn’t have Shivers and Final Scream. No, instead of two horror movies we instead have a romance drama with a you Russell Crowe and a romantic comedy. I’m not going to watch these. It doesn’t hugely upset me, because watching the two it said wasn’t going to be my greatest moment, but it is a bit weird. Was it the publisher, the guy who handed the DVDs to Cash Generator or the guy in Cash Generator got confused and gave me the wrong discs? I don’t know, or very much care. All I know is I don’t watch romance, so this DVD set is over. I’m annoyed, I spend £1 on this. I deserve 50p back for false advertising.

I discussed this on the podcast, but this was already written, so here's it again.

DOCTOR WHO MOVIE

2011-11-15T18:09:00.002Z

I read today that there’s plans to make a movie of my favourite TV show Doctor Who. Now you’d think I’d be loving this news but I’m not. In fact, I think it’s a terrible idea. I would’ve just posted why on Facebook or something similar, but no, I have more to say on it, than I could fit in one status. But before I explain why I think this particular film shouldn’t be made, let’s have a quick look back at the other Doctor Who movies there’s been and see how well they worked.

There have been three of them to this date; the first two were made in 1965/1966. These starred Peter Cushing as ‘Dr Who’ a human inventor who builds a time machine out of a police box and then he and his family and friends travel in time and encounter the Daleks. The two films take their plots note for note from the first two Dalek stories of the television series. They are basically just big screen versions of the stories. They’re bigger budget; they have huge sets, famous faces and are bright and colourful. There are a few differences, due to time constraints some parts of the stories are left out, and because they were made two years after Doctor Who debuted on television, the characters are simplified so audiences who hadn’t heard of the show to understand, the Doctor changing from a mysterious grumpy old man who seems a bit alien, to a kindly human grandfather for instance. These films couldn’t be made now, as the concepts of the show are too well know and have proper rules, but at the time they were made, the show hadn’t even explicitly stated that the Doctor wasn’t from Earth, so for all audiences knew, the origins shown in the films could’ve been the real ones. This doesn’t completely excuse the films; they are pretty ridiculous, haven’t really aged very well and are definitely directed towards kids who at the time were in the middle of Dalekmania (yes that was a real thing. Look it up.) and just wanted to see more of their favourite villains in colour and on the big screen. They’re all spectacle, not substance, but they’re fun and have Peter Cushing, who’s brilliant. It was the 60s; lots of weird things happen then, just accept the films as part of the era they were from and move on.

A proper big screen return has never really happened. There were plans for one during the Tom Baker era and after the cancellation of the series in 1989, but these never really arrived. The closest we have is a television movie made in 1996. Made by a partnership of Fox and BBC, this is a very odd film. Unlike the previous films it is in continuity with the TV series and although it introduces a new Doctor, Paul McGann, for most of the action, the start does contain the regeneration of the last televised Doctor, Sylvester McCoy into our new hero. Now I won’t say too much, because I might do a review of this film one day, but it didn’t really work. The influence of Fox is obvious, as it’s too americanized, it’s set in San Francisco, as the characters except the Doctor are American and it just misses the British charm of the original series. To counter-act how obvious it is that the makers of film didn’t get what made the show great, it’s also filled with continuity references to make them look like they do, but it doesn’t work, and just makes it confusing for new viewers. It also has many other flaws, like the claim the Doctor is half-human, the casting of Eric Roberts as the Master, the plot doesn’t make any sense, etc. However, there are a couple of good moments and Paul McGann is amazing as the Eighth Doctor, so it’s not a complete failure. It probably shouldn’t have been made, and if it had been made at a time the series had been running regularly it would have been despised, because it is pretty awful in comparison, but there hadn’t been any new Doctor Who in 7 years and there wouldn’t be again for another 9 years, so at least they did something, even if it didn’t work.

Now how can I defend an awful TV movie and then complain about one coming out now? The reason is timing. The TV movie was made when people were asking for more Doctor Who. Some had to be made, and even though it didn’t work, the 1996 movie did fill a gap. The thing is though now, is that we have a series on TV. And it’s good. So, we can just watch that, was anyone really saying, no I can’t handle just a TV show that’s been running for 48 years, I really need a film as well. So that’s the first reason it’s a bad idea, there isn’t a demand for it. But hey, that alone doesn’t mean it won’t work, so let’s look at the other things. The man who’s planning this is David Yates, director the last few Harry Potter films and he’s expressed interest in making it into a franchise. A franchise? Well that brings up a problem. The films will obviously have a bigger budget, so they can do things the TV show can’t. Great you say? Well… no. If this was just one film, then yeh maybe, but if it was a franchise this would overshadow anything the show tried to do. If they did an episode with 100 Daleks then, people would say, who cares we’ve seen a film with a million of them. Although I might not agree with the need to have a big world ending finale every series, it would mean that if they did try and do one, it wouldn’t be a big deal, because we would have seen better in the films. It means that although the films might be good and spectacular, it would cheapen the TV series, which is what Doctor Who is all about.

Also if it was a franchise then you would have the sequel problem. I doubt they would have a big storyline planned out over a series of films, in case the films didn’t do well. So each sequel would a separate story. However, as we all know, sequels don’t really work. Maybe the first film would be good. Maybe even the second. But it would just be a matter of time for the films to deteriorate. They’d get shit. And that’s not something that happens with the show now, but if people had just come out of the cinema after seeing an awful Doctor Who movie, would they really want to watch the TV show? In fact, even if it was good, some people would stop caring about the show if it was overshadowed by a movie franchise. And maybe it’s just me but, is David Yates just looking for a new franchise to do now he’s run out of Harry Potters. That’s just speculation, and I hope it’s not true, because if it was his heart wouldn’t be in it, and if it wasn’t we would end up with a very lacklustre set of films.

And finally the biggest problem. The films if made wouldn’t be in the continuity of the series. They wouldn’t have the TV Doctor and they wouldn’t have any connection to the BBC show except for the concept. It would be like a reboot. Now you might say, why does it bother you then? Three things.
1. If I was a fan, why would I want to see a film with no connection to the show I love. It’s not like a comic book, when although it’s not linked to the comics, it’s a big deal to see, say your favourite superhero, in live action. We’ve seen the Doctor in live action, ever week. Just seeing it on a bigger screen with better effects doesn’t make up for it having no connection to the show. So why would I want to see it?
2. There might be too much Who. Let me explain. If there was a movie franchise and a TV show, general audiences might go for the movies as they would be bigger budget, require less time and less explanation. Now, you might say what if it brings new fans to the show? Well they’ll be confused as to who this other man playing the Doctor is and what’s going on with all this background continuity and might well give up and only care about the films. It wouldn’t be like they would understand regeneration or anything, because that wouldn’t happen in the films, or if it did, it would really cheapen the whole thing. Say a different man was the Doctor after two films, why would we care about regeneration? It wouldn’t be a big deal. But it should be. The films may just ruin the mythology of the show by dumbing it down, or overusing it.
3. It would a big budget movie. Why’s that a problem? Well, maybe they’ll market it to Americans and have say, Justin Timberlake as the Doctor. Or maybe they’ll not be idiots and actually have a Brit as the main character, but it would probably make him more of an action hero. But really can you see Gerard Butler as the Timelord? Or maybe they’d do the casting right, and even have a good companion. But I would put money down on the companion being a love interest, which is just not how the show should work. There are just so many things that if it was made into a film, would be changed and it would just not be Doctor Who any more.

So hopefully you now see my problems with the idea and I really hope they don’t make the film, because I just can’t see any way this would work. Maybe you disagree and maybe I’ll be proved wrong, but right now, just no. Unless, maybe David Mitchell as the Doctor and Michael Caine as Davros, but that’s just in my head, and will never be made. Unfortunately.

Story this article is based on can be found: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118046098

PODCAST NOW ON ITUNES

2011-11-08T20:43:00.000Z

The Lewis and Chris Podcast now has a new name and a new place to listen.

Damn Dirty Apes is now on itunes. In fact, here's the link...

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/damn-dirty-apes/id478603015

Basically it's the same ramblings as before, but with a bit more slickness to make it less amateur and more itunes material. So it's as insane as ever, but just slightly more polished. Have a listen, give a rating... preferably a good one, subscribe, tell your friends and most of all... enjoy.

Imdb Top 10: 10-6

2011-11-02T17:53:00.001Z

And now we’re finally here. The top ten films of imdb. Obviously these aren’t the official top 10 films ever, it’s your own choice for that. But these are the films the most people voted high, so it’s a very good guide. I’ve split the list into 10-6 and the top 5, so I can give a little more detail to these films than I’ve done to the others we’ve already looked at. So without further ado, the top 10 of imdb, part 1.

10. Inception
Everyone knows what this is. It was the big craze of last year when Inception came out and everyone would talk about how good it was, or how confusing it was, or just go on about it in general. I missed out a bit because at the time it came out I was poor, so I couldn’t go and see it and I didn’t get the DVD for a while either because it was pretty expensive. So by the time I saw it I’d heard pretty much everything there was to say about the film. But even with all the high expectations I had for this film, it surpassed them. I love this film. The first time I saw it, my mind was blown, I thought it was amazing, best film ever. Over time I realised it was just sort of shock value, and the movie itself wasn’t quite as good as it first appears. It’s still a brilliant, well made film with plenty of interesting and well done ideas; it just misses the emotional heart that most other films on this list have. I would still rank it as one of the best films ever made, but maybe not quite top ten material. Give it a few more years and I have a feeling this’ll be one that goes down the list with time. Oh and it’s not as confusing as people say. Yes it’s hard to explain in a short paragraph, but if you watch it, you won’t be confused, well as long as you pay attention and aren’t an idiot.

9. The Dark Knight
Now this is one of my favourite films. I readily admit that the 8 films above it are better, but if you gave me the choice of which to watch, I’d choose The Dark Knight. The Batman films are a bit patchy to say the least, starting very camp in the 60s, going dark and really weird with Tim Burton, then family friendly, then Batman and Robin, the worst superhero movie this side of Green Lantern, however the funniest superhero comedy ever. Except for the fact it’s not meant to be a comedy. So Bats went away for a few years and then came back in 2005 with Batman Begins. It was a good film, but as an origins story it got bogged down in setting everything up and didn’t really get going properly. However it set everything up right for the sequel. We knew who everyone was, and how they got on, so there wasn’t any wasting time. It brought back all the old favourites, learnt from the mistakes of the last film and brought in two of the greatest Batman villains, Harvey Dent/Two-Face and the one and only, the Joker. Everyone is at the top of their game, especially the late Heath Ledger, giving the performance of his career, the stakes are raised, and everything is just bigger and better than any Batman film had been before. This is the film that showed that comic book movies didn’t have to be stupid or looked down on, and could in fact be masterpieces. My only problem with it is that it’s set the bar so high for the last in Nolan’s Batman trilogy and that The Dark Knight Rises will become this generation’s Return of the Jedi, still good, but not the conclusion we were hoping for.

8. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
We’ve got a slower, more psychological film here at number 8. This film is really disturbing. I can really think of what genre it belongs to. It’s the story of a man in jail who pretends to be insane to get into a mental asylum because he thinks he’ll get out quicker. But instead he’s trapped with a group of crazy people all presided over by the callous Nurse Ratchet. Sometimes it’s a happy film, with the inmates escaping and having fun on a boat, but other times, well let’s just say that this has some of the darkest moments ever put on film. This is Jack Nicholson at his finest. There’s not much more to say than this is one of the smartest, darkest and thought provoking films ever made and you should definitely give it a watch if you haven’t already seen it.

7. Schindler’s List
This is just wow. I really have nothing to say about this film. At the time it might seem like a strange choice to give a serious film about the Holocaust to a man who’d previously only directed action and scary movies. Well made action and scary movies, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, Jaws, but still nothing quite like this. But really Steven Spielberg must have been really passionate about this film and it shows, it is a masterpiece. I like to make jokes about films or tell my stories about them, but really Schindler’s List stands on its own. I don’t really have any good stories about it, there’s no time to go into an in-depth analysis of why it works and it would be in poor taste to make jokes. So yeh, it’s breathtaking and unbelievably moving and that’s all I have to say about it.

6. 12 Angry Men
This is probably the least generally watched of the top ten. Now whether it’s because the film’s old or obscure, or that not a lot actually happens, I don’t know. What I do know is that considering how well known the others are compared to it, it’s a surprise this is so high up. Until that is, you watch it. To be honest if as many people had seen this as had seen Shawshank then I think it could’ve been the top film. It really is that good. The film shows a set of jurors who are all sure of the guilt of the accused man, except for one who isn’t sure. He keeps questioning the reasons behind why they believe the man is guilty and disproves them one by one and begins to persuade the other jurors who were so sure, that maybe they were wrong. It’s a very psychological film, which the entirety of the action set in one room while we see the workings of the men’s minds. It’s very intriguing and far more interesting than you would expect after hearing the plot. Well made, well acted, and just great all round, this film should be far more popular than it is, but when you say black and courtroom psychological drama from 1957 all set in one room with 12 characters without names just numbers, it puts a lot of people off. It shouldn’t though, give it a watch.

Smurfs 2? Fuck off.

2011-10-27T17:06:00.000Z

Fuck you Sony. Seriously. Fuck you.

Making a fucking sequel to The Smurfs?! Seriously. Just no. Stop. I can't allow it. The first Smurfs was so bad that it wasn't funny, it was wasn't just forgettable, it just made me really mad. And guess what? Every critic I've seen said the same thing. I mean most of them didn't hate it as much as I did, but I haven't heard of one who said it was good, or even just ok, they all said it sucked. But hey, you made some money because people are stupid and actually went to see this piece of shit, so obviously there has to be a sequel. I don't know whether to be angry, disappointed or just plain tired, but just... it's gonna be awful. I'm telling you right now, it will be the worst film of that year. And if it's worse than the first one, which I know it will be, I don't think it qualifies as a movie and it just shouldn't be shown anywhere, ever.

So yeh, can't fuckin wait.

Robocop’s stup-wait no… Cyborg Cop?! (Review-ish)

2011-10-26T16:38:00.001Z

Erm. Well. Cyborg Cop. It’s sort of a Robocop rip-off. And kind of not. And sort of a Terminator rip-off. But kind of not that either. Let me explain. It’s practically got nothing to do with Rob. The only connection is the name, but the reason I need to bring it up is the fact that the Cyborg of the title isn’t really a cop. He’s some kind of secret agent. NOT a cop. So the only reason this film is called Cyborg Cop is so that some idiots might buy it, thinking it was Robocop. So, in that sense I feel it’s connected enough to talk about in my Robocop section.
And the Terminator rip-off part? Well that’s one of the villains. In fact it’s the guy on the cover who is not, I repeat, not the cyborg cop. Just another cyborg, who’s better for the cover because he’s missing half his face so it looks more hardcore.
So now we’ve got all the misleading advertising out of the way, how is the film itself? Well… it’s not, good. It’s fun, definitely. But not for the right reasons. Basically an ex-cop’s agent brother goes missing after a dangerous mission to a Caribbean island. The ex-cop, Jack Ryan, not Alec Baldwin from Hunt for Red October, goes to the island against the agency’s wishes to find out what happened to his brother.
So, basic plot. And don’t think it gets any more engaging, everything plays out exactly as you would imagine. Bad guys try to get Jack deported then killed then he goes to their base and stops them. The Agency turn out to be evil and that’s why they didn’t want Jack to go looking into it and the main villain, lets call him, Gimli, because that’s who plays him, tries to sell his cyborg as a weapon but it doesn’t work and that whole point strand is pointless. So the point is predictable and also shit.
Are the effects good? No, of course not you idiot. At least the direction makes sense though, although it is pretty bland.
Right so characters:
Jack Ryan: He has no character except he wants to know what happened to his brother. That is his whole character.
Gimli: He is a mad power hungry scientist. John Rhys-Davies is obviously having a lot of fun but that doesn’t really excuse him from not being any good.
Jack’s brother: He didn’t have a character at the start except he adopted a son. At the end he’s turned into a cyborg, and has even less personality before turning back into himself after a 20 second chat with his brother, even though he should be completely brainwashed. Oh and he dies. But we never see his kid’s reaction, he just seems to be cool with it, because it’s happy music over the credits.
Jack’s love interest: She is… a journalist? I think that’s it. All that happens is she gets into trouble, then her and Jack quarrel, then they’re together, then she gets kidnapped, he saves her, the end. She does, nothing.
Gimli’s accomplice: He’s a posh guy who seems to be comedy relief. He is not funny.
Jack’s Caribbean friend: He’s another comedy character. He’s not funny and either the guy is a terrible actor or he just has the most racism accent ever. Or both.
The Evil Agent: He’s an evil traitor agent. That’s it, you’ve seen him like a million times before.
The People Who Want To Buy The Cyborg: They do nothing. They turn up so we can get shown the cyborg’s moves then they get killed at the end. That is all.
AND FINALLY.

THE CYBORG ON THE COVER: He is a robot. He has no personality. He walks around like a robot, so he’s not fun to watch. His skin keeps coming off but it’s clearly just rubber underneath so it looks terrible. He carries a gun about but never uses it. And he’s supposed to be indestructible but he gets defeated in every fight he has with a main character, I think three times in total. So just awful.

Really this film is terrible. Even aspect of it fails. It’s fun though. Like it’s awful film, but it’s a laugh for 90 minutes. I think if I might hate it if it’d gone on for longer though. Or if there was a sequel…

(spoiler. There is.)

2/5

The DVD also inexplicably says "Cyborg Cop 1" on it. As if we'd be
confused without it blatantly telling us it's the first one.

Review: Johnny English Reborn

2011-10-17T18:07:00.001Z

When I left the cinema after seeing the sequel to Johnny English I had a very odd feeling, and in fact I still have it. I felt as though I’d enjoyed the film. Now that’s not that unusual, enjoying a film, but it is when it’s a comedy and I didn’t laugh at it, in fact I think it only made me smirk about twice. But still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d had a lot of fun, and I really can’t work out why. It’s a film that although not awful is fundamentally flawed at almost every level, but still manages to escape with a strange likeability. So, although it’s not a film many people will care about the review, I feel it must be tackled, even if just to give me peace of mind. Let’s split it up into three categories which a comedy film must excel in at least one to be good: plot, characters, jokes.

PLOT

The plot is nuts. Like it’s just ridiculous. Basically it involves Johnny travelling to different places to be involved in different comedy set pieces and ignores the fact that it should also make some kind of sense. Every time he goes somewhere we meet new characters with new revelations and then they go away again either dead or never seen again. First guy, there’s a key used for an evil group, then he dies, second guy, there’s a mole in MI7, then he dies, then we meet the most obvious mole in history who persuades Johnny he’s innocent by, being trustworthy? I think it’s supposed to be a joke, but it goes on for so long and gets so strained it’s just not funny anymore. Also, Johnny saw him and has a memory that’s hidden just long enough that the plot manages to make it useless. And half of the action happens off-screen and why are they meeting the Chiense ambassador in snowy mountains and why does the wheelchair guy not realize something’s off when Johnny tells him that he thinks he’s the mole when he thinks Johnny is, and how can Johnny survive getting poisoned, he fights the mind control, but surely it should still kill him and not just bring him back with the power of love? Basically, the plot’s confusing and so full of holes that it’s more holes than plot at this stage.

CHARACTERS

There are only really five characters who are on screen for any kind of time. Johnny English, his sidekick, his boss, his love interest and the obvious mole.
Johnny English is Rowan Atkinson doing a cross between Mr Bean and Blackadder, but with kung-fu and it doesn’t work at all. He is supposedly now a master of martial arts and self control and is also a lot more mature with more put downs and sarcasm. But then he’s also an idiot who can’t see the truth in front of him, can’t remember what any of the gadgets are and doesn’t even put his trousers on the right way round and one point. Basically there seems to be two Johnny’s a smart one and a stupid one and it makes him the most inconsistent man ever. One second he’s fighting off three men at once with a chain and the next he can’t even work a chain. At least he isn’t quite as irritating as he was in the first film.
The sidekick is a naïve but keen student of Johnny’s and basically that plays out the way you’d think. He has ideas but Johnny shoots him down, but it turns out he was right and Johnny’s sorry him and he helps to save the day. The end.
His boss is an angry woman who doesn’t approve of Johnny. That’s about it.
His love interest is a scientist who’s a bit cold and initially doesn’t like Johnny but she’s charmed by him and they get together. That’s it.
The obvious mole is obviously the bad guy. It’s McNulty from The Wire hamming it up as a villain and it’s very entertaining. But he’s still just a cardboard villain.
So the characters are all just stereotypes and not even very interesting ones at that.

JOKES

Is it funny? No. The set pieces are barely jokes at all, it just seems to be Johnny English doing cool stuff. It’s fun to watch but it’s not funny. There’s a running joke of Johnny getting attacked by an old Asian woman and getting confused with her and other women, such as his boss’s mother and the Queen in the most cringe worthy ending put to film. Most of the jokes you can tell from a mile away, like the scene where Johnny looks at his gadgets and gets confused between them and you know he’ll get confused later on in a stupid circumstance. And even the other jokes are very funny, Johnny can’t work a chair in a meeting and goes up and down while they discuss serious things, it’s old, it’s predictable and it’s dull.

So in conclusion, this film has a nonsensical plot, stock characters and unfunny jokes. This makes it a complete failure as a comedy film. Therefore I should hate it. I don’t though and I think I know realise why. It’s fun. It’s not inventive or funny or doing anything interesting, but it’s got a very likeable atmosphere. It doesn’t mean to offend and it just goes along doing it’s thing and then ends. You didn’t get anything out of it, but it’s relaxing. That isn’t the aim of the film and it’s still an awful film, but just not in a way that smacks you in the face with how bad it is. Therefore, terrible film, don’t pay for it, but if it was on TV one day and there’s nothing better on, maybe give it one viewing before forgetting about it forever.

2/5

Perfect analogy for the film. Fun for a second, and then just awful.

The Contraversial Podcast

2011-10-07T16:06:00.000Z

New podcast. It features the debut of my section Trick Lewis and Lewis's section sit eating ribs. It also involves me saying things no-one argees with me on and does not have either of us on the computer or the phone because we are so professional. Or maybe I just cut those parts. The link below SHOULD take you to the podcast which is arranged in a lovely little playlist. Or it might not work. Let me know

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYUNCDPB8MA&list=PL762B6159D9AB6745&index=1

This is the second photo of me and Lewis ever. Enjoy. Well I say enjoy, i mean more, laugh your face off.

Looks familiar...

2011-10-05T10:10:00.000Z

George McFly looks like Matt Smith. I think. Maybe it's just me and Lewis. Maybe it's just his hair...

Doctor Who Review: The Wedding of River Song

2011-10-02T15:43:00.000Z

So this is it. The final episode, could it answer all the questions, could it satisfy all our expectations for the end of the series, and could it still be a good episode? Well, yes actually.

To be honest, I don't know what to think of this episode. It's very disjointed, with characters just appearing and disappearing to serve the plot. The ending is very deus ex machina, with the Teselecta just being there to save the Doctor and not much else. There's really distracting green screen of River's face into the spacesuit, plot holes like why did they keep a huge amount of silence in the pyramid instead of killing them, what's the story with the Dalek, why is it in that condition, why if the Doctor can find them that easily and they are so dangerous he doesn't do something about them, amongst other things. And there's a very obvious sense we've seen a lot of this before, the Doctor going to see his old enemies for information with the Dalek here and Cybermen in Good Man Goes To War, and the whole plot of an alien alliance thinking the Doctor is too dangerous to live so they try to put him out of the way, but something goes wrong and the whole universe is dying, aka, last series's finale. So there are a number of things I should be complaining about, reused idea and a non-cohesive story, but these are minor concerns because they barely dent the quality of the story. I mean, it's not the best story ever, but it's just so... fun.

The whole of time happening at the same time, brilliant idea, just used enough that it's mad but not too over the top. The flashback style of the story, totally works so why the world is messed up is revealed slowly and we're introduced to this mad world from the start, it's not an awkward jump when River changes her mind. The whole silence falling and why the Doctor has to die is explained more, but also simplified, so it isn't as cringeworthy as I found it in Lets Kill Hitler and hiding the question until the end of the episode gave a real sense that the Doctor might actually be accepting his fate. The scene in the bar where the Doctor shows the Dalek eye, shows how scary they still are and how much worse he must be to have it. The mentions of Jack and... Rose were nice, showing this is a continuation of the David Tennant stories, since most of the time they never seem to mention events or people from them, even though I do hate Rose. And the scene about the Brigadier's death was touching and very well handled, a fitting tribute to the excellant Nicolas Courtney and working well in the story. I could go on listing all the great moments, like the return of Dorium and... no, stop it. You get the idea, this episode is just filled with great scene after great scene. The characters are engaging, even small parts like "the viking chess guy" were funny and well used , the main cast get to play with their roles a bit and have fun, theres the return of old favourites for small parts, like Churchill and Dickens, and even Madame Kovarian isn't quite as annoying, because now she's powerless she can't chew the scenary as much saying how she's so great and the Doctor will die and the like.

But obviously the main heart of the episode is the relationship of the Doctor and River. And much as she's annoyed me before, here they were brilliant, Matt Smith giving a great performance as a Doctor who seemed to have given up and Alex Kingston as a heartbroken lover. They work off each other as a great double act, funny and moving at the same time. The climax scene was amazing with the moving revelation of the lives the Doctor has touched and then the marriage and then the apparent death of the Doctor. But as always the show must go on and the Doctor's plan is both expected and very surprising at the same time. Next year are we going to go back to the classic approach of the Doctor just as a stranger who appears and helps people and less of a god and legend as he appears to be becoming. And will we find out the answer to the question, the genius question, so simple, but brilliant of "Doctor Who?". Who knows, but this episode really put me in a mood to see more.

So, yes, it's a brilliant episode, the plot is insane but in a good way, the characters are interesting and well rounded, the direction is amazing and just the whole thing is a huge adventure. It's the series finale we're used to, but it's definately one of the best. It's a fitting ending of a series, with the except of Black Spot and Lets Kill Hitler has been consistantly great and one of, if not the best of the revived series. I just can't wait to see what happens next.

5/5

Oh dear. Should I be pleased or ashamed.

2011-09-29T10:40:00.001Z

that's right. 5000 views. I'm pleased. BUT. Right underneath, traffic sources... top result, google search for robocop brain in a jar. I'm not pleased.

And yeh, that's what the blogspot editing looks like, a bit of behind the scenes for you.

Doctor Who Review: Closing Time

2011-09-25T12:03:00.001Z

Right so, like probably half of the other reviewer on the internet will say, this year we've been spoiled. The last 3 weeks have been brilliant episodes that any other year each would be hailed as the best of the series. So when a good, not great, not special, just a good episode comes along, we get disappointed. And I mean there is a lot to be disapppointed about in this episode.

There's the use of the cybermen. They are used quite creepily in the first half of the episode, I especially liked the scars on their faces, could've made them even scarier than usual. But then the Doctor goes to their ship and him and Craig beat them with the power of love in about 5 minutes. They don't even lift a hand to stop him, and thus their threat is completely nulified. They weren't scary, the weren't even a danger to the Doc and Craig and so why should we care? That would be bad enough with a throwaway villian, but these are the cybermen, some of the aliens that have been with the series since the 1960s. They deserved better. And the other problems are... well, really there aren't any in the main episode, I'll get to the ending in a minute. The only problem is the enemies aren't a threat, so it's only one, but it's a big one. But although people will blow it out of proportion, I don't think that it completely ruined the episode. There's still a lot of good in it.

I really like James Corden as Craig. He's funny of his own, because he's such an awkward idiot and when him and Matt Smith are on screen together they really are just a perfect double act. That's my main draw to this episode, they were hilarious last year and they are hilarious this year. The Doctor talking to the baby was good, to begin with, it got a bit old, but Stormageddon was inspired. The supporting cast were again pretty funny, especially the moment where the Doctor explains the Cybermen's defeat to his friend is woman's wear and she says "why are you telling me this?". That moment had me laughing out loud. Even little touches like the scene with Amy and Rory and the slight nods to the Doctor having moved on since we last met him, almost leaving without getting involved because he's tired of it, show at least some effort was made to build more character over the 200 years between episodes, if not enough in my opinion. And last but not least, they brought back a cybermat and cybermats are brilliant.

So all in all, it's a very flawed episode, but I enjoyed it. It's not up to this series's standard but it's by far better than The Curse of the Black Spot and contraversially, I think it was better than Let's Kill Hitler. I'm definately disappointed, because if the plot had been as good as the Doctor and Craig's banter then we could've had something really special here, but we've still ended up with a pretty solid episode.

3/5

This bit is one of the best moments of this series.

So as I said, let's talk about the ending. I've not included it in the review, because, I'm not really reviewing it, more questioning and it didn't really connect with the rest of the episode, seemed more tacked on. Is anyone else fed of the eye-patch woman, or Madame Korvanian to give her, her real title. Because I really can't take her as a threat anymore, she's just too over the top and hammed up. She doesn't seem like a real character, more a characature of a villian. And River Song is in the spacesuit? Really? I mean the whole series has been leading up to her being in the suit and you'd think knowing Moffat that there would be some twist that it was actually someone else. But obviously not. And another song? REALLY. These songs and poem just make me cringe. Although it is nice to see the Silence again. So, I suppose we'll just need to see what happens next week.

Imdb Top 100 Part 6: 25-11

2011-09-22T17:42:00.000Z

25. The Silence of the Lambs
This is one of my favourite horror films, if you can even describe it as that. It’s clever, dark and Anthony Hopkins is just amazing. And the part which really made it for me is when the main character is put in danger, and I was actually really scared for her. Lots of films can make you scared about what’ll jump out next, but it takes a special kind of film to make you worry for the characters.
24. The Usual Suspects
I like this film. I don’t really know what to say about this good parts. It’s well made, inventive and has great characters except for the whole film I want to slap Kevin Spacey for being so annoying. But then it has simultaneously one of the best and worst twists in film history. It’s a great twist, I won’t ruin it here. But there isn’t one hint in the film leading up to. Now you might think that’s a god thing, but for this type of reveal there really should be some clues. Clues that you don’t notice until you’ve seen the ending, but something. But here it just comes completely out of nowhere. So, it’s a great film, but with an annoying ending.
23. Raiders of the Lost Ark
Indiana Jones. I love Indy. Well, the first three. And this one is clearly the best. It’s got the best characters, best action and best sense of adventure. It’s definitely still as entertaining as ever. If you haven’t seen it, I’d definitely advise to watch it, and if you have... watch it again. My only problem with it, is it doesn’t have Sean Connery in it. Because him in Indy 3 is just the best thing, ever.
22. The Matrix
I don’t know if I’d agree the placing of the The Matrix. I mean it’s good, but it really this good? The actors aren’t half bad, except Keanu Reeves, and although he’s playing the part the way it’s probably meant to be, it’s still not that interesting. The plot has been done before and although it’s done well here, but it’s filled with philosophical rubbish that means nothing and doesn’t really go anywhere. Really the best things are the fight scenes and they are amazing, but should they really propel what is basically just a “good” film, into the top 100. Personally I don’t think so. Nothing against the film, I just don’t think it’s as good as it’s hyped up to be.
21. Rear Window
This is as simple as a film can get. A man breaks his leg and is stuck in his flat. To fill him time he looks out his window, but he starts to notice some very odd behaviour in his neighbours, until he’ll convinced that a man murdered his wife. Is Jimmy Stewart right? No-one seems to believe him, but every time his argument starts to fall apart something new comes along to strengthen his beliefs. A truly brilliant mystery.
20. Once Upon A Time In The West
This is my favourite western. It’s got all the tricks of the Dollars trilogy, but it’s refined into a better film than any of them. The characters are memorable, the harmonica is instantly stuck in your head and it looks like a huge sprawling world. The mysteries are intriguing and that have a good pay-off. This was the last film I saw out of the Imdb Top 100 and it definitely didn’t disappoint.
19. Casablanca
Casablanca is a romance film. But it’s like a romance film for men. All men want to be like the main character, because Humphrey Bogart is just so cool. It’s got a selection of interesting characters, mainly men and deals with Bogart’s simultaneous love and hate for a woman, but from his perspective. Really, if you’ve heard the plot and you think “nawh, it’ll be soppy romance” think again. It’s dark, entertaining and brilliant.
18. City Of God
I can’t really explain this film. I love it. If it was in English I think people might claim it was the greatest film ever made. Obviously because most critics we hear from are English speakers they’re prejudiced against it a little, but really this film has it all. It’s funny, it’s sad, it’s happy, it’s dark, it’s romantic, it’s heartbreaking, it’s gritty and over the top at different point and it leaves an impression. Really I can’t praise this film enough, and even though I say watch it even though it’s in a foreign language with any film on this list, this film I really mean it. It’s a true masterpiece.
17. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Fellowship might be might favourite of all the LOTR films. The others are very battle driven, but what I really like about this film is the sense of adventure there is. For the most part the film is just a journey rather than some world changing events and while it might not be as epic as the other films, I think it’s far more fun than them.
16. Star Wars
Come on. It’s Star Wars. What do you expect me to say? Everyone’s seen it, or should’ve seen it. It’s a grand adventure and the film that started the greatest film trilogy of all time. Sure it’s what spawned The Phantom Menace, but if the originals weren’t so good no-one would’ve cared about that film. Seriously, there’s nothing to be said you don’t already know. If you haven’t seen it, get out from under your rock and watch it right this second.
15. Goodfellas
Sorry to disappoint people, but The Godfather is not my favourite gangster film. This is. And the reason why? Even though it has very dark moments and deals with a lot of violence and death, it definitely has a lot of fun. I’ve always found Godfather , although a brilliant film a bit serious for my taste. Goodfellas is just great fun to watch. And you’ll still get your De Niro fix. One problem with this film, is now I’ve seen Home Alone I can’t take Joe Pesci seriously anymore.
14. Fight Club
Is Fight Club one of those films everyone’s seen? Like Forrest Gump? I don’t know. It should be. It’s brilliant. I think everyone knows the twist by now which is disappointing, because it’s very well done. It’s got hints that you realize after learning the twist, but before you just think it’s part of the mystery. This is a very powerful and entertaining film. Norton and Pitt are brilliant in it and I didn’t even mind Helena Bonham Carter, an actress I normally find unbelievably annoying. A must see.
13. Seven Samurai
This is a film I really want to like. I like the characters, I like the designs and visuals, I like the story, I like the lines. But there’s something about it. Maybe it’s how long it is, considering it’s in a foreign language, and maybe I don’t have the patience for that. I’d like to hope not. I can’t really explain what it is, but I can see this is a brilliant and inspired film, but I just can’t bring myself to advise it. I bought a video game based on it the other day for PS2, which looked more like a Final Fantasy game. Maybe that’ll change my mind. Or maybe it’ll just annoy me for ruining a brilliant film. Either way I’m sure I’ll enjoy it.
12. The Empire Strikes Back
Again, why do you need to ask? I can understand people not having seen the LOTR trilogy or not having seen the new Star Wars films. But everyone’s seen this. The AT-AT battle on Hoth, Yoda in the swamp, Vader and Luke’s battle leading to a shocking revelation. This is old news, but still as good as ever. Also it has my favourite bad-ass moment of any movie villain ever.
11. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
And finally, just missing out on the top ten is the last of the LOTR trilogy. I personally don’t think of this as a great film, more of a spectacle. There’s character and heart, but it’s all overshadowed by the battles. Really this film is, well, spectacular. No other word. You sit there like “woaw...”. And the best thing about it is that you actually care about the people in it, not like most other effect covered films. We want to see want happens with our favourite characters. It’s all been leading up to this and it doesn’t disappoint.
NEXT TIME. THE TOP TEN.

WSIFITS: The Shawshank... wait, NO. No it just can't be.

2011-09-19T18:28:00.000Z

Right so, in Cash Generator they sell 4 packs of DVDs in a single case. You’re probably seen them in other shops too, but you won’t have paid a lot of attention, because although it’s 4 films for the price of 1, it’s unbelievably obvious to see why. Last set I bought was a creature features set featuring: Octopus, Octopus 2, Spiders and Spiders 2. They all have an Imdb rating of lower than 3/10 and were all straight to dvd b-movies. And that was one of the better sets. Pretty much what I’m saying is that all the sets are total shite. In Cash Generator it costs £1 for a set. That’s 25 pence per film. Hardly bank breaking. So I bought a set the other day. It featured Final Scream, Shivers and Witchcraft. These, well I haven’t watched them yet, but I looked them up and they seem to be the usual standard of trash they put on these sets. So far, so bad. Then, we come to the reason I bought a set of four films which I knew would be bad and didn’t even look very funny. Packed with those three, was this little film called The Shawshank Redemption. Wait. WHAT?

Seriously… What the actual fuck? Shawshank has been voted the greatest film of all time, how did “Prism Leisure” get the rights to distribute it? And when they did, why did they think it was a good idea to pack in a multipack with three rubbish films. I have no more to say about this because I literally can’t comprehend this. It’s completely beyond me. Just… what?

Look at it. I'm not even kidding. This thing exists. It cost me £1.

Doctor Who Review: The God Complex

2011-09-17T21:05:00.000Z

I'm going to say to say what we've all been thinking. I like how Doctor Who is going this series. After a lack-luster premiere, every week has been consistantly brilliant and this week is no different. It's a classic Who set-up. The Tardis crew get trapped somewhere creepy with a group of others who are also trapped and they have to get away before a mysterious menace gets them. There's one of these practically every series, which it all the better that this episode feels wholly new and exciting.

Right so, lets go through what works. Plot. Compelling mystery, the minotaur's motivation makes the story more than just a monster of the week affair, idea of the rooms and the way they're used, very effective, the twists and turns good, and the photos at the start very intreguing. Again this week not everything is revealed until the end and it being hidden makes the story far more engaging and the conclusion wasn't a let down either. The episode is well directed and has a very unnerving atmosphere to it, which draws greatly from the setting in the 80s hotel, which is just far away from the norm to make it worrying but not over the top. The main cast bring their a-games with hilarious and heartbreaking performances throughout and the supporting actors are also impressive especially David Walliams as the hilarious Gibbis and Amara Karan as Rita who made me really care about her, so much I was truly upset when she died.

But I think we all know what brought this episode up from just a great story to one of the best of the season. The last 15 minutes involve the Doctor having to make Amy lose her faith in him, and it's just horrifying to see her finally accept him as just a flawed man when the whole time she's worshipped him as a hero. The disappointment in her eyes is so real, and she finally sees what Rory has seen in the Doctor all along. Then comes the ending. The Doctor and his companions part ways. And the heartbreaking thing is it's not because of them being forced or reaching a point where they have to leave, just the Doctor can't bring himself to put them in danger any more. Amy doesn't want to leave and the Doctor doesn't want to leave her either, but he knows if she stays with him, she'll die one day. The lead actors are brilliant in this scene and you can really see the torture in Matt Smith's eyes. It's done with such subtly as well, in contrast to the overblown exits of Rose, Martha and Donna, and I know Amy and Rory will be back, but if this had been the last time we saw them, I'd be glad because their exit is done with such class that it was hard not to enjoy it, but be devastated at the same time.

So, any flaws? None that I can think of. I'm sure if I really tried I could think of something, but I'd need to try, on a casual viewing this seems like a perfect Doctor Who experiance. It's funny, scary, unnerving and heart breaking and I can't think of what more to ask for. Let's just hope this streak of classic stories continues.

5/5

Coming Soon... if you're really that bothered.

2011-09-15T17:20:00.000Z

Ah! This is more like it. Forget lists and reviews for a minutes and let me just say a few words that really have nothing to do with anything important. Right, so now everyone’s stopped reading, let me continue. Lots of things are going on right now. I’ve moved into my new flat. It’s boiling hot and this chair sits oddly like it’s trying to throw me out of it. But overall it’s not bad. I’ve got a new girl, which is unfortunate, because it might lead to me being not quite as filled with hate for everything, but after a search for a suit that took about 9 years yesterday, I somehow feel that might not be the case. I’ve started at uni, which means I both have more and less time. I have more time in my flat for me to write and that, but I also have to read texts and do actual writing for important things. Oh dear. Hopefully it won’t drain the creative juices. Oh and at the time of writing I’m away to go to the Sensation for the first time. Better be good.

And now for a list of things…. COMING SOON. I know, I know, calm your excitement.

1. My laptop has an inbuilt webcam so now I can again record video of me talking, it can’t be long til the return of Poundcorner, and I definitely have a fair few things to talk about now.
2. I’m in the process of finding a camcorder. Now you might say, why do I need one if I can record vlogs on my laptop. Well, you can’t know yet… well only kidding. I’d gonna make a short film/sketch. It’s written, but you don’t get to see it yet.
3. I have ideas for some new blogs all buzzing about my head, so now I’m settled in the flat, I should be getting them out more often that when I was working 9 days in a row then moving then freshers.
4. For either the 75^th or 100^th post, or even maybe the 5000 view if we’re organized enough, there’s gonna be another podcast. But this time. It’s personal.
And 4. Project Vincent. It’s a plan Lewis Bage and I have hatched. All I can tell you is it’s within the law. That’s it. We’re not revealing any more at this moment. It’s been on hold for about a week and a half, but now we’re back in business, so get ready to hear more of that soon.

And as with all these blogs about nothing I need to make it up to you with a picture of me doing something stupid. So here's me and Mr T. Ish.

Imdb Top 100 Part 5: 40-26

2011-09-13T10:15:00.001Z

40. American Beauty
This is truly a film not like any other. I mean, what genre is it? I don’t know. It’s not romance, it’s way to creepy and dark for that, it’s not a thriller, the only word I can use is a “psychological” film. It’s about a man who’s attracted to his daughter’s friend and that inspires him to live his life, but everything around eventually falls apart. Really a must-see, you’ll never see anything else like it.
39. North by Northwest
Another Hitchcock thriller, this time about a man mistaken for a spy. It’s not just any 60’s spy film though, there are twists and turns that really surprise and shock you. There’s a brilliant plot and cast, especially the main characters mother, my favourite character. Her scene in the lift is hilarious. Watch and find out what I mean.
38. Citizen Kane
The Citizen Kane of all movies is of course, Citizen Kane. Regarded by many as the greatest film of all time, I can’t really fault it. Not because I’m scared of getting attacked by fans, but because it is actually that good. Well, maybe not the best film ever, but definitely up there. It’s the best film I’ve seen from its time and for years after, and while I don’t worship it, I would definitely say it’s one of the best and most influencial
37. Toy Story 3
The first Toy Story was brilliant, the second was great, but this one really gives us everything it’s got. The toys we’ve grown up with are given away when Andy goes to university. But the nursery they end up in turns out to be a terrible place, and they lose Woody, then things go terribly wrong until the most emotional animated scene ever. If you’ve seen it, you know what I mean, if you haven’t then you won’t believe how moving it is until you do.
36. American History X
A Neo-Nazi, played by Edward Norton, comes out of prison a changed man. Unfortunately his brother is heading down the dark past that put Norton in jail to begin with. The film follows the story of both brothers in the present and in flashback, and it was really an eye opener. I didn’t really understand how such people could still exist even now, but this film really explains the culture and shows the terrible effects it has on families and the community.
35. Apocalypse Now
One of the most brilliant war films of all time. It’s just great to watch and asks many questions, until it reaches my major problem with it. SPOILER WARNING. At the end of the film Martin Sheen meets the crazed Marlon Brando and his cult, but I really can’t understand what it is about Brando that all these people are enthralled by. I work with people with mental problems and I can see lots of their behaviour in his character which really means I can’t see why anyone would think he was wise and not just ill. Maybe it’s just me, but it’s never really sat right.
34. Dr Strangelove or How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
One of the few Stanley Kubrick films I don’t have a problem with. Normally something in the way he directs bugs me, but I really enjoy this film. It’s truly hilarious, but in a really dark way. Every joke works, and by the end you’re both thinking about the implications and still laughing. It’s the perfect example of an intelligent comedy.
33. Leon
I saw this film recently, but I’d wanting to see it for ages. It’s the story of a hitman who adopts a little girl after her family are murdered. That sounds awful, but it’s done really well. All the parts are played really well, subtle Leon, surprising good child actress Natalie Portman isn’t completely annoying, and Gary Oldman... well he’s just fucking insane. It’s brilliant. It’s like a feel bonding tale crossed with a tragedy crossed with an action movie crossed with an art film, and I love it.
32. Sunset Boulevard
There were a lot of films about aging stars back in the 50s, but this is by far the best. It’s classic film noir, with the dark visuals and twisting plot and it really is just a descent into madness. You don’t know whether to feel pity or be repulsed and the things that happen to the main male character, well no-one deserved that. It’s grand and impressive but filled with anger and bitterness, just like the characters.
31. Memento
This is Christopher Nolan at his best. This is a very complex film, but it’s totally worth it. It’s about a man who can’t form short term memories. His memory only lasts about 10,20 minutes. So we see each section of his memory, but we see it in reverse order. Things at the end which he doesn’t understand are revealed to us in the flashbacks and the revelations are truly shocking, and utterly brilliant. Definitely one to watch if you’re wanting to used your head.
30. Forrest Gump
I must be one of the few people not to have seen Forrest Gump years ago. I only saw it a few months ago after people said how shocking it was I’d never seen it. And I can see why it’s a brilliant film now I’ve watched it, but I can’t really see what makes it a much watch over the other films in this list. My only idea is that it’s because of how easy it is to watch. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing to it like a dumb action film, it’s just you can sit down, turn it on and the time passes without you even realizing it. At the end you feel happy and relaxed and I can’t really explain why, but it’s a great experience.
29. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
And now we come to our first LOTR film. I used to love LOTR when I was younger, not as much as Star Wars but almost. I think everyone knows what LOTR is, even if you haven’t seen it, so there’s not really much to explain. The reason I think this one gets voted less well than the others is that it’s the middle one. In my opinion they’re all of equal quality, but this one doesn’t really begin or end any stories, so it’s a great watch, but much as there are a number of huge battles, there isn’t the sense of conclusion as you get with ROTK and there’s not the sense of anticipation as you get with FOTR. But it’s still a great film, don’t get me wrong.
28. It’s a Wonderful Life
This is one of my top ten films ever. Really. I love it. I love Jimmy Stewart, I love Clarence, I love the supporting cast and this tragedy of the man’s life and I love the darkness of the world without him. And most of all I love the ending. If you’ve seen it you know why, and if you’ve not, I cried at it, and I don’t cry at anything, so that should give you the impression of the impact it has, it’s just so happy. Look it up now. But watch the B&W version, that just feels better than the computer added colours which seem unnatural.
27. Se7en
It’s a good mystery, great main characters, interesting mode of murder and sinister atmosphere. And now, SPOILER WARNING. At the end of the film it turns out that the murderer has planned a whole situation and before allowing himself to get caught he went to one of the detective’s houses and cut off their wife’s head and put it in a box. This is supposed to be shocking and all that, but I just can’t take it seriously. Like come on, head in a box? He’s not a supervillian off a particularly dark cartoon. It really ruins the movie, because for me it just takes one step over the line of suspending my disbelief and makes the film just seem silly. At least to me. Obviously you can decide yourself.
26. Psycho
Everyone knows the shower scene. But I wonder how many people have actually seen the rest of the film. Because it’s an intriguing mystery and a dark slashed film, with a mad, but brilliant twist at the end. It’s the most perfect slashed film, and very entertaining. But the last scene, with the Doctor is just... awful. I don’t understand why it’s there. But still, great film.

Doctor Who Review: The Girl Who Waited.

2011-09-12T13:09:00.000Z

Right well… This is a complicated one. It’s very different. Like Lets Kill Hitler this is a story that only really involves the main cast and some under-developed villains. Unlike that episode though, this actually has an interesting story to tell. It’s far too complex to explain in a couple of sentences, so I’m not going to try. Really if you’re reading this, you should have watched the episode because otherwise I will probably spoil it for you. Oh yeah, spoiler alert by the way.

One thing that I really enjoyed about this episode is it centered on the companions Amy and Rory. That’s not to say I haven’t liked the previous stories looking at the Doctor, but the couple haven’t been given a lot to do lately, so it’s good to see them take centre stage. Karen Gillian is brilliant as the two Amys, showing how the years have ruined the older Amy’s life, but still keeping hints of the woman she used to be. I’d say that her two performances were the high point of the episode, but the best part has to be the relationship between Amy and Rory. The scenes where they are together are just brilliant, and it’s great to see that old Amy still loves Rory even after 36 years apart, especially when they started the series on such rocky ground. The visual design, something I don’t comment on a lot, is very striking. When the Tardis doors open to the white room, it’s a shock to the system and the giant magnifying glass communicator looks brilliantly retro as do Rory’s specs.

It isn’t a perfect episode. The mechanics behind the two Amy’s getting to the same time and place aren’t explained at all and the of hundreds of people possibly being trapped like Amy aren’t explored but really that’s nitpicking. Theres only one major problem and that was the robots. I don’t know what it was about them, maybe it was how they were defeated so easily, maybe it was their bland design, but something just really didn’t sit right with me, and I think they brought the episode down a bit.

But let’s end on a cheery note. Something properly introduced in this episode and hinted at before. The Doctor lies and manipulates people. More and more we’re seeing a dark side to him, but it’s in this episode where he tricks old Amy into helping him then refuses to save her, that really brings it to the forefront. The scene where he locks her out of the Tardis is really moving and finally starts to open Rory’s eyes about who the Doctor really is. I definitely hoping for more of this to come, maybe even this is why they part their ways? Who knows? We’ll just have to wait and see. Another very good episode of Doctor Who, and I hope next week keeps up the trend.

4/5

Doctor Who Review: Night Terrors

2011-09-06T11:24:00.000Z

Now THAT is what I call entertainment. I absolutely loved this episode. I really don't know what to say about it, it really just had everything. It was funny, especially the part at the start where the Tardis crew investigate the council estate, which I partically liked, because it showed up my problem with the Russell T Davies stories, the Doctor fitted too well into the estates in those series. I've always thought that the Doctor would stand out there, I mean he's a 900ish year old alien who dresses like an old man and talks like a manaic, and he never got any hate before? This was far more like what would really happen if a guy like him turned up in a place like that.

But enough of other series's problems. Back to Night Terrors. Again, more things I liked. The idea of the Doctor coming all the way across the universe to save one scared boy was a sweet one, and although the kid playing George wasn't the best actor, the way they used him, mean you barely noticed. The dolls' house and the dolls themselves were wonderfully inventive and surprisingly creepy and the idea of all the monsters in the cupboard was the stuff of nightmares. The plot was intreguing and I thought it had a rewarding reveal. And the main credit for this story being so good has to go the cast. The regulars were on top form, especially Matt Smith, and his scenes with Daniel Mays shined with brilliant acting from both of them. Even the bit parts, such as the landlord and the old woman were hilarious and unbelievably well developed for the short time they were on screen. And there was even a speech misquoted from the old series to keep me happy. Honestly, I can't find fault in this story, and in fact it's already my favourite Matt Smith episode, and after repeated viewing could be my favourite from the new series. I really can't praise it enough, and I hope we see more of this caliber in years to come.

5/5

Imdb Top 100 Part 4: 55-41

2011-08-30T19:06:00.001Z

55. The Lives of Others
This is the story of a communist agent who spies on a writer and his girlfriend to try and see whether they are undesirables. He sits in their attic and listens in to their conversations. And as the story goes on he is drawn in by their life and changes his beliefs. It’s the sort of story that been told plenty of times before, but really it’s not been told much better than this. It’s set in a time and place I knew nothing about, but it was still easy to understand and well worth a watch.

54. Double Indemnity
This is the first film noir that I watched. I wasn’t sure whether I’d enjoy it. But it’s very entertaining, and shows off the best qualities of the genre. The dark imagery, the gritty characters, the backstabbing and complex plots. This film was a real eye-opener for me, and led me to watch other classic films, so I’d give it a watch and see whether it inspires you as well.

53. M
I don’t like Metropolis, so I didn’t have high hopes watching another German expressionist film by Fritz Lang. However I really liked M. I’m not really sure why. Maybe it’s because it’s set in the present day and real world for the time. Maybe it’s because it’s not a silent film any more. Or maybe it’s the strong visuals such as the chalk M on the murderer’s coat. It’s probably a mix of them all, but I was very pleasantly surprised by this film.

52. Wall. E
I’m not sure why this is so high up. I could see if the film was all like the first half. It’s the story of two robots on a ruined Earth told just by visuals and music, there’s no dialog. It’s like 2001, except not incredibly pretentious. It’s like a work of art. But then it turns into a silly comedy on a spaceship filled with fat people. I mean it’s not bad, but it’s nothing special. It’s a bit of a mixed bag.

51. The Pianist
We all know the terrible things that happened during WW2. However this is the first film that made me truly angry at the Nazis. It really gets you invested in the struggle the characters face. The despair, the horror, the sadness, you feel them all, and really what more can you ask for. Definitely one of the best WW2 films, obviously highly personal due to the director living through events like though shown in the film.

50. Paths of Glory
This film shows the terrible treatment by the men in WW1 by their superior officers. Three men are chosen to be executed because their squadron refused to go on a charge that would have been suicide. We see the reactions of the men as they are chosen and sentenced to death and of the high officers who couldn’t care less, and of the men’s captain who tries everything to save them. Some bits are heartbreaking, some bits are hilarious, it’s a real mix of a film, but it’s still very good.

49. City Lights
Another Charlie Chaplin film. I prefer Modern Times on the whole, but this film has two things that make it a better film. One is a millionaire who when sober hates Chaplin, but loves him when drunk. This guy is one of the funniest things on film, he needs to be seen to be believed. And the other is Chaplin’s love story with a blind girl. I didn’t think it was possibly to get emotionally invested in a silent slapstick comedy, but this film really proved me wrong.

48. The Shining
I can’t say I see why The Shining is supposed to be so good. I liked it, except the part with the psychic black guy, up until the part where Jack gets let out of the freezer by the ghosts. Up until then I could believe that the ghosts where all just in his head and he was being driven insane by the loneliness. I thought that kind of psychological horror would be really interesting, but then, because it’s Stephen King, it turn out he wasn’t just crazy it was ghosts, and I couldn’t take the film seriously anymore. Also that kid saying “redrum”? He needs a good slap.

47. Amelie
It’s a love story. I can’t think of any love story films that I like except this one. But this really isn’t like any others. It’s quirky and whimsical and it lives in its own magical world. It’s really funny. And moving and sad and happy and... well it just jumps from one thing to another, it’s got the air of a dream almost. So don’t get put off by the romance, even a manly man could enjoy this film.

46. Spirited Away
I don’t like anime. I’m not sure what it is. I tell myself it’s because it doesn’t explain itself, like in this film a little girl ends up in a magical world where lots of really odd things happen and you just have to accept them. But really that can’t be true, because some of myself favourite films are sci-fi or fantasy, which are different sorts of weird but equally strange. So I can’t explain it. But I don’t like anime, so I don’t like this film. If you like anime you might like this, but I’m in no position to judge.

45. Vertigo
The first Hitchcock film we’ve come across on the list. It shows the dark mystery, brilliant characters and unexpected twists that I love in his films. Not to mention, it has Jimmy Stewart, one of my favourite actors in it. This really draws you in, and you really want to know what is going on, but it just keeps getting stranger, until the reveal which isn’t a disappointment.

44. Alien
The original and the best. Forget about the one good sequel, the three mediocre to poor sequels and AVP 2, a film I hate with a passion. This is the one that started the whole series. And it’s brilliant. The alien is just that, an alien. It can’t be reasoned with, it can’t be understood and it can’t be stopped. It’s just a terrifying monster in the shadows that strikes down the crew one by one. The best sci-fi horror film ever.

43. Saving Private Ryan
Much as I hate Braveheart with its historic inaccuracies, this film has enough impact to get away with it. The heart of the soldiers and their struggles makes this film draining, but heart-warming by the end. However the first scene, the D-Day landings are just... incredible. It’s the most impressive war movie scene I’ve ever seen, it leaves such an impact.

42. Taxi Driver
This is a difficult film to explain. It’s the story of a Vietnam veteran suffering in a life he hates. He meets a woman, but things go wrong and spiral out of control until the last act, which is mind-blowing. Of course there’s a lot more to it than that short description, but I really don’t know how to say much about it without ruining it. Watch this film, there’s nothing else quite like it.

41. Terminator 2: Judgement Day
My second favourite sequel of all time, this is the follow-up to a story of a killer robot coming back in time. This time there’s two, but ones on our side. The first film is just an action movie. There are some good parts, so it’s better than average but it’s nothing special. But Judgement Day? It’s got the whole package. The effects are incredible, the acting is great, the story is engaging and it’s got heart too. I really can’t think of anyway this could have been better. In fact if you’re only going to watch one Terminator film, I’d skip the first one and watch this.

Doctor Who Review: Let's Kill Hitler

2011-08-27T21:47:00.000Z

"Spoilers." Also. Spoiler Warning.

Wow, this was quick wasn't it? One, Doctor Who being back, it really doesn't feel like that long since the last lot ended, and two, me putting up my review a few hours after the show was on tv. Now there's a reason for it being up this quick. And if you've seen the latest episode Let's Kill Hitler, then you'll understand. But I think it might be hard to put it into words.

Let me say one thing. I liked some of this. I liked the bit with Hitler, "Rory, put Hitler in the cupboard" has to be one of the best lines ever. I liked the bit in the Tardis while the Doctor's dying, funny and touching. I liked the bit where River and the Doctor have both expected each other's actions. And I liked the idea of the Justice Department and them being tiny inside a human sized machine, although it was woefully underused and it reminded me of Meet Dave of all things. Now we've got the good out of the way though...

The problem is it's a disappointment. Like every part. With the title Let's Kill Hitler you'd think they'd spend more than 5 minutes with him, but the only reason he's there is to get a reason to have the Justice Police there. And they're only there to provide exposition and to give a situation to have Amy and Rory in danger in. Really the majority of this episode could be set anywhere and could have been done with anything replacing the Justice Police or JP. And I liked the JP, I thought there were a good idea, but all they do is tell the Tardis crew what they need to know for the plot to work and then leave, leaving Amy and Rory to get chased by their "anti-bodies". Which were also a good idea. But again, they're just "a threat", I liked them, but they could have been replaced by literally anything and the story would have been the same. Also Mels. I had a problem with her before she was even revealed to be anything else. The introduction was awful, just by showing us a couple of flashbacks are we really supposed to accept she's been there the whole time? And for just Amy and Rory's friend she was far too ridiculous to accept as a real person. I'm not saying everyone in Dr Who should be realistic, but she was clearly going to be revealed as something more. Really though, would the Doctor when threatened with a gun and told to go back in time and change history... do it? Because that's what happens. The Doctor wasn't tricking Mels and going somewhere else, he was going to take her to Hitler's office. People have threatened the Doctor to do things like this before and he's either said no or tricked them. It seems somewhat out of character for him to get bullied by one girl with a gun.

And that one girl is the problem. Melody Pond, aka River Song. Because really. Is this how you expected the Doctor and River to first meet? I mean, I dont know how I expected it but it definately wasn't this. I don't say that in a good way. Some random girl, that I already didn't like gets shot and regenerates into River. Maybe if she hadn't only been in the story for about 5 minutes and was obviously a River Song type of character, so it wasn't even a surprise. Then she's a psycopath brainwashed to kill the Doctor. But we only find that out after she's done it, before that she just seems like she's nuts. And after that. You'd think they might do something with her being Amy and Rory's daughter, but they don't really, there's hardly anything to do with it, especially at the end where they seem to just give up looking for her and leave River, so they might not see their daughter ever again. River's apparently brainwashed, but all it takes is the Doctor showing he's a good guy for her to join his side, there was no kind of struggle, it didn't even seem like she was brainwashed at all, just nuts. Oh, River can regenerate so will there be any stories dealing how now there are two Timelords? No, she just uses up all her regenerations to save the Doctor so the audience can forgive her for killing him in the first place. And since when could regeneration stop you getting shot? Maybe that would've been helpful when in 1970's Spearhead From Space where the Doctor gets shot soon after regeneration and it knocks him out for hours. Also, the explanation of the Silence is given far too quickly and just replaces one mystery with an even stupider sounding one.

Really, this episode is a huge disappointment for all the questions being asked all series. Maybe I could have forgiven it slightly if the River Song story had been a subplot, and maybe... the Justice Police were going to kill Hitler but the Doctor has to stop them changing time, even though helping Hitler is against everything he stands for. Wait, I've just written a better idea than the plot of this episode. There's so much more I could say but I'll leav you with this. We've been waiting over a series to see River meet the Doctor, but this episode fails to deliver, and it doesn't have any other story to fall back on, so the flaws are painfully obvious and make a truly uninspired piece of television.

Although it does have Rory punching Hitler so I can't give it 1/5.

2/5

Imdb Top 100 Part 3: 70-56

2011-08-24T10:44:00.002Z

70. Chinatown
Pretty much, it's the sort of film noir that was all the rage in the 1940s/50s but by 1974 when this was released it wasn't such a big film movement anymore. Could a film like that still work even now? Well it does. Mainly due to Jack Nicholson being as entertaining as ever and the dark twists near the end of the film. I don't want to spoil anything so I'll just say if you ever wanted to get into film noir I'd start with this because it's a very easy to watch film.

69. L.A. Confidential
Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce play cops in the corrupt city of 50s L.A. What more is there to say. It's a very modern film in the way it's done, so it's easy for modern audiences to get into, the characters are all really entertaining, even the smaller parts, especially James Cromwell (the guy who's in everything but no-one knows his name) as the police chief. One of my favourites on the list.

68. Back to the Future
Some people might write this off because it's about time travel, but they're stupid. Back to the Future is so much more than just some silly sci-fi film. It's got mad science, high school hijinks, a mad plot, some hilarious jokes, a classic villian, some touching moments and it's all wrapped up in a great adventure. Most people reading this'll have seen it, and if you've not, go out and watch it now. And watch the sequels, because in my opinion they're as, if not more funny than the first film.

67.The Third Man
Starring Orson Welles this is a great piece of cinema. I watched this for the first time in about, 2004ish, so I was only about 11. And to be honest all I really watched at the time was Star Wars, but I watched this with my parents and I really enjoyed it. So if an 11 year old sci-fi geek is blown away by it, I think anyone could have a good time watching it.

66. Reservoir Dogs
I love Tarantino's films and I think this one might just be my favourite. It's primarily set in one room with the rest of the story told in flashback. What I like is that although it's a film about a robbery, all thats shown is the lead-up and the consequences. It shows restraint not to have the bloody heist on screen, and lack of restraint is what I think ruins some of his later films. This one is my favourite though and I'd definately recommend it.

65. Life is Beautiful
This is one of my three favourite foreign language films. It starts off as just a joker trying to woo a woman, then it jumps to when they're married and it's during WW2. The main character and his son are both Jews though and start by getting persecuted before getting sent to a concentration camp. But although it's sad film it's also really heart warming, seeing how the father risks his life to keep his son happy all through the terrible things that happen to them.

64. Modern Times
Another Charlie Chaplin film, this time it's a silent film. But unlike some films don't let the silence put you off. This film is unbelievably funny. It's an hour and a half of completely ridiculous slapstick, and it's just so funny. It's hard to talk about it without ruining the fun so I'd say have a look.

63. Das Boot
This is an odd film. It's a film about a Nazi submarine crew, and you'd think after all the other WW2 films I would hate them. But it makes the crew strangely likable, mainly due to them being just tired old sailors who're fed up of their orders but carry them out as their duty. It's over 3 hours long and I didn't get bored in all that time, so they're definately doing something right. And the ending, well, I won't ruin it, but it definately gets it's point across.

62. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Jim Carrey plays a man who wants the memories of his ex removed. Half of the film takes place in his head as while the memories of her fade he realises he still loves her. That sounds like a sappy romantic comedy but it's a lot darker than you would expect. Also, the other half of the film takes place with the people removing his memory and they are not good people, but they are sure as hell entertaining. I didn't think this would be my sort of film, but I was pleasantly surprised.

61. Requiem For A Dream
Well, this is a hard film to look at. And I mean that literally. I love it, but it's like watching a crash. You don't enjoy it, but you can't look away. I don't mean it's a bad film, anything but. But the things that happen in the film I think would be unwatchable to some people, especially one scene at the end. But it's a very well made and enjoyable film as well, so if you think you can take it, I'd say give it a look.

60. Aliens
The first Alien is a horror movie, where the crew of a ship are stalked and killed one by one by an alien monster. But we'll get to that later. Right now it's the turn of the sequel which is one of the best sequels of all time. And it managed that by... completely changing what kind of film it was. Aliens is an action film. It's about a survivor of the first film and a group of marines going to a planet filled with the aliens and killing them. There's a lot more to it than that, but thats the bit that makes it great. It's still scary but in a different way and it's exciting, and if I still was in the 90s I'd say it was awesome.

59. To Kill A Mockingbird
Its based on a brilliant book, so it already has the groundwork of a great plot. But what really makes it for me are the performances. It's about a lawyer fighting to save a black man in the 1930s in Southern USA. I love the conviction of Gregory Peck, but my favourite part of the film is the main racist. He's just such a completely unlikable character, but he's great to watch. The sad thing is you know that there's still people like him out there.

58. A Clockwork Orange
I have mixed feelings for this film. I like the plot and the ideas behind it. And although I find some of the imagery to be a bit over the top, like the outfits the main characters wear, I could get behind it if it wasn't for one thing. The slang they use. It was especially invented for the novel this film was based on and I suppose it's mean to be symbolic or something I don't know. It just makes me be unable to take the characters seriously, but they talk like stupid children. But maybe that's just me.

57. Lawrence of Arabia
This is the definition of an epic film. It looks amazing. The parts shot on location in the desert are just breathtaking. That isn't to mean it doesn't have a plot though, it's not 2001. The story stretches over an entire war campaign and tells the story of a very unusual soldier. It's thoughtprovoking and moving and it's one of the most visually impressive films of all time.

56. The Departed
The police have a mole in the mob and the mob have a mole in the police and they're trying to find out who each other are and bring down the opposite organisation from their own. Confused yet? This film has a very convoluted plot, but that something I always like in a movie. It has possibly the best performances of Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon and it also has Jack Nicholson which always makes for a good film. This film is definately worth a watch for all the backstabbing and tricks and lies and just everything in it that make it a truly intelligent thriller.

WSIFITS: New Frijj

2011-08-20T11:54:00.001Z

In another weird drinks I found in the shop blog, there's two new flavours of Frijj milkshake. And for some reason they're packaged like they're circus posters with circus act animals on them. I don't know why. Maybe because they're limited edition? They both start with "The Incredible..." so maybe it's a marketing thing I don't know. Or care.

The two flavours I've come across are "Raspberry Jam Doughnut" and "Honeycomb Choc Swirl". The doughnut one is... well it tastes like a jam doughnut really. It's a bit sweeter than their normal strawberry and obviously more raspberry flavoured, but I prefer the original. This new one does taste like a jam doughnut, true, but not a very good one and even then it just makes me want to eat a real doughnut and the novelty of the taste wears off to reveal it's just a mediocre milkshake. The HCS tastes... like... well it's hard to describe, it's like a cross between the Chocholate Fudge milkshake and a toffee yoghurt. And not as good as either. Pretty much they're both ok, but I really wouldn't get them again. So I'd advise against them.

Imdb Top 100 Part 2: 85-71

2011-08-15T21:31:00.003Z

85. Full Metal Jacket
I must be the only person who preferred the second half of this film. I thought the drill sergeant in the first half was just annoying. But hey, the second half was one of my favourite war films, so swings and roundabouts.

84. The Bridge On The River Kwai
This film is amazing. It seems like a typical old war film, but excellent performances especially from Alec Guinness really make it something special. I got shivers down my spine at the line “what have I done?” and when that happens you know it’s a good film.

83. All About Eve
There’s not a lot I can say about what I like in this film without giving away the plot. It’s about an old star getting eclipsed by new fresh talent. But it’s not just some coming of age story, there’s something more sinister at work. I didn’t think it would be my type of film, but it really won me over.

82. Pan’s Labyrinth
I really like Guillermo Del Toro’s work. I love Hellboy II, one of my favourite films. This takes the same sort of magical world, and instead of an action movie makes a dark twisted fairy tale. And it really works. It’s like Alice In Wonderland but by Tim Burton... oh wait, that actually exists. And it was shit. Never mind.

81. Amadeus
This would be a good film. Good script. Good direction. Good actors for the most part. Except for one thing. I cannot stand Mozart in this film. He’s just so annoying. His voice is annoying; the way he acts is annoying and his fucking laugh... I don’t know if that’s the point but he just ruined the film for me. He was so annoying I could barely watch it. If you can stand him it’s a great film, but I really can’t.

80. Singin’ In The Rain
I hate musicals. The only one I like is The Blues Brothers so I can’t really give an opinion on one. It wasn’t as bad as some other ones. That’s the best I can say.

79. Rashomon
It’s aged a bit now, but this is still a really interesting film. It’s a clear inspiration for some newer films like Hero, so I’d say give it a look. I like the way it’s presented with the three tales and the framing of the storytellers, so with a bit of patience I’d say check it out.

78. Some Like It Hot
This film is hilarious. I thought the humour of the 50s might be lost on me, but I was sitting laughing the whole way through. The disguises are so funny; especially the millionaire and the ending scenes are just completely mad and hilarious. It’s probably the old film on this list that’s aged the best, as it’s still as funny as it would’ve been at the time.

77. Once Upon A Time In America
This is tied with Goodfellas as my favourite gangster film of all time. It’s set over 50 years, took 10 years to make and is almost 4 hours long. It’s truly a film epic, and you’re worn out after watching it. But it’s really rewarding as well. It’s also my favourite Sergio Leone film, and his only non-western film I’ve seen, shows that westerns aren’t the only things he was good at making.

76. Raging Bull
The only other boxing movie I’ve seen is Rocky, and I really liked seeing the same sort of story going in the opposite direction. The main character is not a good man, and because of this all his success escapes him and in the end brings him down lower than he started.

75. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
This film is hilarious. I’ve never seen the Python TV series, so this was my first experience of them. And it really didn’t disappoint. From the bridge, to the black knight, to the rabbit, this film is incredibly witty and hilarious. Personally I prefer Life of Brian, but they’re both equally good. Just avoid Meaning of Life, maybe it’s just me, but I didn’t find that funny at all.

74. Cinema Paradiso
It sounds bad. A boy befriends the old projectionist in a cinema. He starts off getting annoyed with the boy them learns to love him. It sounds like retread of a story told so many times before. But the enthusiasm of the actors and the richness of the script just bring it to life unlike any other film of this type. Truly heart-warming and heartbreaking at the same time. And don’t ask me to explain how it can be both. Just watch it.

73. The Green Mile
I don’t like Stephen King. And this film has all the usual small townsfolk, magical black guy problems of his other works. It’s a well made film and it’s quite entertaining for a bit, but I really got fed up with it all after a while. I would be more behind this film if it wasn’t so damn long. But it was a real drain after the halfway mark and I really stopped caring.

72. The Treasure of the Sierre Madre
This is a film that hasn’t aged very well. But, unlike Metropolis, you can still enjoy it. And the main reason you can enjoy it is the three main actors. The rest of the story doesn’t hold up so well but the parts with just the three men really shine. And the ending is brilliant.

71. The Prestige
My least favourite Christopher Nolan film, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad film, it means he makes really good films. The magicians and their tricks are brilliant and the mystery leading up to Tesla’s machine is also gripping, but as soon as you find out what it really is and what it does, I was disappointed and it brings up a whole bag of plot holes. It’s still a great film, but I’d watch Nolan’s other work first before searching this one out.

WSIFITS: Reggae Reggae Juice?!

2011-08-14T18:02:00.001Z

Well not exactly. But it is two drinks made by Levi Roots, the guy who made Reggae Reggae Sauce. I was in a shop in town and I saw these and I couldn't resist.

Caribbean Crush just tastes like pineapple juice, but it is at least good juice. And the Fiery Ginger Beer's not bad either, it is damn spicy though. But really who cares if they're good, it's just the fact they even exist that shocked me.

I hate Braveheart and if you're Scottish, you should too.

2011-08-09T16:21:00.000Z

I fucking hate Braveheart. Lets just get that out of the way. Well to be honest, I probably wouldn't hate it if it was just some shitty movie that everyone forgot about a couple of months after. Because that's what it should've been. It looks nice and that's it. I don't think a film with no other redeeming qualities should ever have got as popular as it has. I kind of understand why Americans might like it. Because they're idiots and wouldn't know how offensive this film is, but why would any Scots put up with it? There are people in Scotland who think it's a great patriotic film. Are you fucking kidding me? This film really just disgusts me.

For one thing there's hardly any Scottish people in it. There's Brian Cox, and maybe one or two others, but that's practically it. Everyone else is Irish. And it's not even like they put on Scottish accents, or if they do they're some of the worse I've ever heard. At one point a guy who's supposed to be Irish turns up and until someone mentioned that he was Irish, I didn't realize, because he sounded exactly the same as all the people who were supposedly Scottish. Oh and William Wallace, great Scottish icon is played by Mel Gibson. From Australia. Who can't do a Scottish accent either. So, there's no Scottish characters. So I'm supposed to root my country as played by no-one from it.

The history is all messed up too. Edward II is clearly supposed to be gay and made fun of for this, and what I don't get is why this was in the film. Edward II in real life wasn't as famously gay as he is here, so the only reason it's in here is because Mel Gibson deliberately wrote in his homophobia. And the famous battle of Stirling Bridge was fought in the film... on a field. Which required the English to be monumentally stupid to get tricked by Wallace's strategy. And the English are totally evil in this film, raping women, killing innocents, and why? That didn't happen. Oh, just another thing put in by Mel Gibson, this time because he hates the English. Which brings me to my main problem with the film.

What this film should've been is a film glorifying Scotland and William Wallace. It's not. It might pretend to be that, what it actually is, is an ago trip for Mel Gibson. He changes the character of William Wallace from a nobleman to a peasant, because it would be so much more heroic for just an everyman to stand up to the English. He changes Robert the Bruce into a lying coward who was inspired by the hero Wallace, which is just a lie. Robert the Bruce was far more of a hero to Scotland, because he was the one who actually freed Scotland. He wasn't perfect but he was a lot better a man than this film makes out and he definitely wasn't just some disciple of William Wallace. Edward I died years after William Wallace was executed and not at the same time because it was symbolic. And Wallace didn't fucking shout freedom while he was being killed, because no-one would do that except a movie star who's ego is just so huge that he thinks he can get away with raping a country's history.

And finally. The thing that I hate more than anything else in this piece of shit that I barely call a film. When Mel Gibson went even further than too far. Apparently Wallace met Edward II's wife, had sex with her and the next King of England was his son. I literally cannot describe how angry that makes me. One, she was 10 when Wallace died. Two, she never met him. Three, the ONLY reason is in the film is because Mel Gibson thought that it would make him look really cool. I'm Scottish and I find it hugely offensive to suggest that the English monarcy are all descendands of a Queen cheating with their enemy just to make Mel Gibson feel good because they wouldn't let his ego play Jesus Christ for another 9 years. I actually root for the English in this film even though they're fighting my country and they're cartoon villians just because I hate Gibson so much.

If you're going to make a film about a fictional Scottish hero who did these things, fine. If you're going to do a film about William Wallace, that's also fine. But don't you fucking dare take the name of a Scottish icon and then just invent a story so that it makes the main actor look good enough to fill his massive ego. That's just taking a shit all over our history and I can't believe that so many Scottish people are stupid enough to fall for Gibson's self indulgant hero-worshipping of himself. Go fuck yourself Mel Gibson.

I suppose you have to give him credit for making something
more offensive to me than Mariah's "Auld Lang Syne"

Imdb Top 100 Part 1: 100-86

2011-08-07T21:13:00.002Z

Recently I told you I'd watched all the imdb top 100. Someone asked me which of the films was the best. Although techinically the list says Shawshank Redemption is the best, I think most are equally good. And so i've decided to share a few words about my views about each film here. I'll do 15 at a time then do the top 10.

100. Black Swan
I didn’t think I could be interested in a film about ballet. But by focusing on the main character with the Swan Lake swans as a metaphor for what happens in the her head, it really drew me in and surprised me a gripping psychological drama.

99. Up
For the most part this is a typical Pixar adventure film. Brilliantly mad ideas with a good story and good animation. But what brings it onto this list is that you care for the characters and there are some really heartrending scenes.

98. Gran Torino
One of my favourite films on the list. Clint Eastwood plays a bitter old man who’s racist and doesn’t talk to his family. As the film goes on he draws closer to his asian neighbours and is drawn into gang fights. And the ending... well I don’t want to ruin it, but wow. Seriously amazing.

97. The Sting
The box for this film says it’s a comedy. I wouldn’t really agree, it’s more of a drama that just doesn’t take itself too seriously. The cuts in this film look great, the cast are fun and the plot is a good laugh. There’s nothing in this film that stands above the rest, but it’s just got such a great sense of fun that it deserves its place on the list.

96. Unforgiven
This film is made by its casting. Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, Gene Hackman and the other supporting cast make what could be a standard western flick into a masterpiece. And again Eastwood shows he really knows how to end a film, with the last 20 minutes my favourite western scenes in any film.

95. Oldboy
The first foreign language film on the list. This film works because of two reasons. One is the action, which looks amazing, especially the corridor scene. The second is the intrigue as to why the main character has been locked away for 15 years. And this film does not disappoint with the answer with one of the most shocking and horrific twists in movie history.

94. Downfall
A film about Hitler’s bunker during the fall of Berlin, leading up to his suicide. This film shows Hitler as he was near the end, as a desperate madman on the edge of giving up. It really feels like you’re watching the events that happened and not just actors portraying them.

93. Inglorious Basterds
Another WW2 film, but this time from Quentin Tarantino. He brings his own style to the war film and all the different storylines entertain especially when they combine for the epic finale. As with all Tarantino films this is a mad but hugely enjoyable film. And Christoph Waltz is fantastic.

92. Metropolis
This is the first film I disagree with. At the time this must have been a revelation. It looks amazing for 1927 and would have a good story for a silent film. But I think now it’s too dated to compare. It’s too slow for today’s audience and the look of the film, although distinct, doesn’t look impressive anymore. We’ve seen better. So basically, it was at the time probably the greatest film ever, but its day has past.

91. The Apartment
This film starts as a comedy and then suddenly it’s a drama. And you don’t feel like any dramatic change has occurred. It’s just the way the film’s story goes. You really get invested in the characters and this was the first of the old 1940s-60s films I watched in my imdb quest that I forgot about watching it for the list and just enjoyed it.

90. Gladiator
I don’t have much to say about this film. It’s good, and I can tell that, but it’s not really my type of film so I don’t like it. All I can say is it’s good if you like this sort of thing. Also, listen to the music. Hans Zimmer totally didn’t rip himself off from this when he did Pirates of the Caribbean...

89. Braveheart
I hate this film. It doesn’t deserve to be on this list. I have a full written explanation of how much I hate this film, here.

88. 2001: A Space Odyssey
This is an example of a film that is more about style than substance. The first and last third are basically just images to music. It looks amazing, but it’s not what I want in a film. I want a proper story which it doesn’t deliver. If you like art films then you’ll like this. But I personally don’t. EXCEPT. I really like the middle third. That looks good and has a plot and if the whole film was like it, it would probably be one of my favourite films.

87: Bicycle Thieves
This starts as a touching tale of a father and son bonding, but as time goes on it gets more and more depressing as they get desperate and their bonds start to break. Don’t be put off by it being in Italian and black and white. This is a very good and moving film.

86: The Great Dictator
Charlie Chaplin does a parody of the Nazis. What else is there to say? It was made during the war and still works as a complete mockery of the Nazi party and Hitler. It makes you sit there laughing at them the whole way through. Apparently Hitler saw the film once and I can’t imagine how furious it would make him. It’s a well made and intelligent film and still well worth a watch.

To be continued

Imdb Top 100. And Harry Fucking Potter

2011-08-01T00:12:00.000Z

For those not in the know, and seriously, there can't be many of you, Imdb is a website where anyone can go on and rate films out of ten. Critics and the general public alike it all gets averaged out. The top 100 are the films which have recieved the highest ratings from the most people. Basically they're the best films ever made.
I never really gave much thought to this, until on my favourite waste of time there was a question which allowed you to tick off which films you'd seen off the Top 100. I only had about 30, which considering I'm studying film next year seemed far too low for my liking. Oh, and Lewis had about 25 and he watched 2 films this year and I made him watch both of them. So he challenged me to watch them all. And so, I did. I've now seen every film on the imdb top 100. I've sat through them all, enjoying all of them, well except maybe Metropolis. But apart from that, I've really enjoyed myself. It started off as, "hey i'll watch these films so I can say I have!", but as time's gone past and I saw more and more, the top 100 just became an excuse to watch good films. I mean M is fantastic, but when I go into the shop and buy it people do give you odd looks. It's easier to say, "I want to watch all the Top 100", instead of just "I want to watch a black and white foreign language film from the 1930s". But I'm not worried about what people say anymore. I've seen a huge amount of the greatest films ever made and so I think I can get away with watching anything I want to.
I'm thinking about doing a blog with a couple of words about all the films on the Top 100, giving a short view of whether I think they deserve their place on the list and generally what I thought of them.

But first. Something that annoyed me about the list. Unless you live in a cave where there is no contact with the outside world... oh wait, then you couldn't read this. Scratch that, everyone knows about the newest Harry Potter film. I went to see it. It was good. It was infact very good. And I got a wee twinge of nostalia watching it, considering it was the last film in a series I've grown up with. But what it isn't is one of the greatest films of all time. I could explain why not, but as long as you're not a Harry Potter fan you should be able to see that for yourself. Because it's obvious. But my problem isn't with the film. It's very good. It's with the fans. I said, where were we supposed to cry because it wasn't sad, and I was bombarded with hate and half facts by Harry Potter fans. I hadn't even being saying the film wasn't good. I just said it wasn't sad, and fans went mad. So I went onto Imdb to see what people thought of the film and found it at no. 69 in the Top 100. 69?! Oh yeah, I'm sure that Harry Potter could possibly be better than Chinatown, Gran Torino, Once Upon A Time In America, Inglorious Basterds, Full Metal Jacket or so many more better films I could name. All the fans just went on and said "Oh my god, this is the best thing ever, I love Harry Potter, I cried when Harry died." Oh, spoiler alert. But seriously, you can't just say 10/10 because you are love it. That might sound odd, but I LOVE Men In Black II. But I'll admit in a second that it isn't very good. I don't care about it's faults though, because the things that work I like a lot more than most people. Harry Potter fans were going to say this film was amazing however it turned out and really they put people off the franchise by being so obsessed by it. Harry Potter is not a love it or hate it thing, but thats the kind of atmosphere the fans create. I feel like someone who didn't like The Dark Knight would in 2008, but that's not really a fair comparison because HP is just a good film, but TDK is a masterpiece. It truly is one of the best films ever. Harry Potter is most definately not. Luckily for my blood-pressure the film's moved down to no 109, which is still far higher than it should ever be allowed, but not as bad. But fans need to calm down. The Harry Potter films are ok. Some are very good like the final one, and some are boring pieces of shit, aka The Order Of The Phoenix. But they're just films based on fantasy novels. It's not like filming the entire Bible. Calm down.

Itunes

2011-07-29T20:59:00.002Z

About a year ago I lost Itunes. Not down the back of the couch, but rather it just decided it hated me and stopped working on my computer. Maybe because I used Windows Vista, offically the most annoying operating system I've used. Maybe it's just because Apple thought I didn't deserve it. Probably a bit of both. So, pretty much it stopped working and even when I completly deleted it, I couldn't get it to reinstall on my computer. Poor show by Apple.

To begin with this really annoyed me. I used to listen to about 20 different podcasts and get the itunes "song of the week" every week. I'd go onto it looking forward to these things, because itunes would find them for me. When it abandoned me, I started looking on the source sites for the podcasts, but I slowly gave up, and one by one I stopped listening to them. It was just too much hassle. But now I didn't listen to these podcasts I had to fill my time with other things. I started playing more and better games, eventually leading to me owning every Valve game. I got back into watching films, and the more films I watched, the more I liked and eventually it made me realise what I wanted to study at uni and do with my life. And it gave me the time to use my brain to write things. Such as this very blog. So, it could be said that losing itunes gave me the kick to start to do the things I always should have been doing.

Which brings me to my problem. I've just been given a new laptop for using when I go to university. And it has windows 7. Which means I have itunes again. I'm going to get it back, because using an ipod and an old mp3 player, which I've been having to do is incredibly awkward. But what will this do to my life. Will I go back to my old ways, fiddling about on itunes for half my day, listening to podcasts while going on facebook? I hope not. I don't plan to. But if this blog stops and people stop seeing me in cash converters buying 15 dvds at a time, give me a shout and tell me "Get rid of itunes, it's making you a vegetable". I'll laugh and smile and tell you you're an idiot, but maybe, just maybe it'll remind me of now and the good times I had when I didn't have Apple in my life.

50th Post Special Podcast.

2011-07-16T18:23:00.000Z

WOO. It's my 50th post. Some people might nit-pick and say, excuse me, isn't this your 48th post, but fuck those guys. I want to do my celebrating now then probably just talk about an obscure old Dr Who for my real 50th post. So to celebrate me and Lewis made a spectacular podcast for you. Without further ado, here it is:

PART 1

PART 2

Oh, and heres a picture of me passed out on holiday.

Infamous 2

2011-06-30T17:27:00.000Z

When I first got my PS3, I got a couple of free games. One was Call of Duty, but the other one was a little game called Infamous. And out of the two of those, I much preferred the second. In fact I’ve preferred it to most of the games I have for the PS3, and is a contender for my favourite game on the console. One thing it did that made me love it even more was it had an ending clearly designed for a sequel. In a film I’d hate that, and in a bad game it’s inexcusable, but I loved Infamous and I couldn’t wait to see where the story went and what new powers you got in the sequel. And... I was disappointed. It’s not the worst game ever; it’s not even the worst game that came out that week, hello Duke Nukem. But it’s definitely not the sequel I was hoping for. Nothing’s awful, but there seems to be a problem with practically every aspect of the game. So let’s dig in.

Story
Right, so I’ll admit the story of Infamous wasn’t perfect. But one thing it did do was seem like it mattered. The basic story of Infamous 2 is that superpowered protagonist Cole McGrath travels to the city of New Marais to gain new powers so he can fight an unstoppable monster, The Beast. While there he gets involved in the dealings of a violent Militia who are trying to rid their city of any superpowered people and have imposed martial law. Now, after the intro you might as well forget about the Beast until about three quarters of the way through. It’s the main villain, the whole point of the story, but about half way through, I forgot it was in the game. They don’t mention it, in fact it just sort of appears at the end, then disappears then they have a chat and it turns out was Cole’s old partner in a shocking twist that doesn’t really make any sense. Oh yeah, spoilers by the way.
There’s really no sense of danger. About half way through you fight the chief of the militia who turns into a huge monster. And then you beat him. And he runs away into the slums. You’d think that things would be getting tenser as the game goes on, but you’ve just beaten the second most powerful thing in the game and you’re only half way through. Later on you fight him again and it’s even easier. Compare this to the first game, where you fight a huge cyborg, you beat him, but then there’s another more powerful enemy. Here, you completely beat him, and then you are still supposed to buy him as a threat. It... doesn’t work.
To be fair the story is no more ridiculous than Infamous the problem is that you just don’t care. Things happen and they either come from nowhere, aka the moment where your friend just turns up with a nuke that you’ve never heard of before, or they make no sense at all, that being the part where you are told to swap powers even though it sounds like a terrible idea since you already have the best ones out of the people you’re allowed to swap with. And you aren’t allowed to say no. So, the story is flawed. It didn’t put me off the game, but it really didn’t make me want to play any more.

Powers
This really annoyed me. At the start of the game they take away some of the powers you have in the first game. Then throughout the game you get these powers back, and they try to claim these are new. So you unlock lots of powers but nearly all of them are just the same as the powers as in the first game. Another trick they have is the ice/fire upgrades. You gain ice or fire powers in the middle of the game, so you’d think you’d gain some cool new powers like fireballs or freezing, but no. You just get upgrades for the powers you already have that look different, but pretty much do the same as the power you had already did. There are new powers such as the ability to pick up metal items and carry them and throw them, which is fun to start with, but just ends up making you have to some really dull and frustrating missions were you have to carry boxes around. And there are some new movement abilities that help you travel better but there are no new attacks. At all. You could claim throwing cars at people, but considering I have never managed to hit anyone with this power, so it doesn’t really count. Because it’s shit. Oh and there’s the amp, which is just a huge electrified tuning fork Cole can hit things with. But it’s basically just an improvement on the awful melee attacks in the first game and nothing new. Sure in most games it would be fine just to leave things the way they are, but this is a superhero game. You’d think they could give you something new.

Enemies
This is a short complaint, but the militia seem to be exactly the same as the reapers from the first game. Not in their story, but they have the same attacks and a similar look. The same goes for the ice warriors near the end, they have very similar looks to later enemies in the first game. And one of the more powerful ice enemies is practically the exact same enemy as one of the robots from Infamous but with ice instead of metal. There are also swamp monsters. Maybe it’s just me, but they really smack of Prototype, a similar game. I can totally see a meeting where the developers looked at it and thought “what good things did they have that we didn’t?” and blatantly ripping off the monsters from there. Well at least you fight them differently to most enemies which brings us to...

Gameplay
I could forgive all the other problems if it was fun to play. So luckily, for the most part, it is. It’s the same as the first game, down to Cole being almost magnetically attracted to walls. But, it’s still fun to roam the city searching for items and the attacks although nothing new are enjoyable. Except, there are still a few problems. Fighting the basic monsters is best with melee attacks. Problem is, there’s only one melee attack button, so when you’re attacked by a group it just means you sit tapping square for a few minutes. It gets old pretty quickly.
And the biggest problem with the game, the problem that almost made me stop playing are the mini-bosses. Not the bosses, no, they’re a challenge, but it’s fun. The mini-bosses however turn up in practically every mission after they’re introduced and they take a completely unreasonable amount of damage. The worst part is they’re not even challenging. They’re easy to beat, it just takes forever. And they are only so many times I can be bothered to fight the same dull enemy that takes about 5 minutes to take out. This really made me stop playing for bit, because I was tired of it. This is not a good sign.

So to round off, Infamous 2 is a similar game to the first, not bringing anything new except a worse story and some dull gameplay. It isn’t however a bad game. I still played the whole game through and enjoyed it. But it’s definitely not a worthy sequel or a particularly exciting game, just mediocre in most ways.

3/5

Back from holiday.

2011-06-27T19:42:00.000Z

And so I'm back from holiday. I feel I should write about the things I did while I was away, but I know what it's like to hear stories you weren't part of and I don't want to bore you. Well, I probably wouldn't bore, but possibly make you question my sanity with stories of getting lost and turning up in a hotel bar pretending to be irish with no memory and no shoes. Or shouting all the way through Ireland about DOBACK while making a four bed superbed.

These are the sort of things that happen on my holidays, and I had fun. Even when I was stuck in bed for two days due to heat stroke, and when I ran out of money, twice. And when I crashed about 10 on my last night because I'd pretty much been up drinking to the early hours of the morning for 19 days in a row. So just, I had fun, it was a bit weird, and now I'm back. I'll write something people want to read soon, but currently I'm too busy being really tired and getting annoyed at Infamous 2. So now, heres a nice wee song.

Things to keep you amused.

2011-06-10T19:18:00.000Z

I'm away on holiday until pretty much the end of the month. So I thought I'd collect all the things I've done, but forgotten to post over the past few months for you lot to watch, read and listen to until I'm back.

Distant Thunder
A short student film I was in, written and directed by Jayne Ferris. The actual film isn't online yet, but there's both the trailer and a collection of bloopers to watch.

Trailer
Blooper reel

My Youtube Channel
I've got lots of old videos on here. Most of them are terrible, but even if they are, they're still worth a watch for a laugh. And theres a video of Alan Coull getting it on.

Professor Green
This is strictly speaking cheating. I didn't make this at all. But hey, I'm in it. And so's a hilarious girl. So watch it.

LTWW
I'm featured a number of times on this site. Mainly because I know the people who own it. But still...
So lots of things to read:

Enter the Matrix Review
Duke Nukem: Time to Kill Review
Leprechaun In Da Hood Review

They also have a furiously award winning podcast. The episodes featuring me are Season 2: Episode 1 and Season 2: Bonus Speciale. But hey, it's free so I'd advise you to listen to more than just those two. Either way, here's the itunes link.

So that's it. Hopefully it'll keep you going til I'm back. See you suckas in July.

Cheers lads!

The Wii U might be the worst idea I've ever heard.

2011-06-07T21:32:00.001Z

I posted on facebook about my dislike of the wii u. But then I explained myself terribly. So after another viewing of the launch video I now have a proper argument as to why this is a terrible idea and no-one should buy it and definately not be looking forward to it.

The Wii U has two screens, one being a screen you look at while pressing buttons that affect what happens on said screen, and the other which is touchscreen that you can draw on or press allowing for more than one set of controls or inventory screen, or various uses. That sounds familiar. Oh wait, it's the exact description of the DS. But let's not be too quick to call this an uninventive non-portable awkward DS. Maybe it's got some interesting new features. So, lets look at the trailer and look at all the many uses this wonderful new piece of tech has. And then take them apart one by one.

1. Switch from the TV to the new controller
The trailer shows a man coming in and wanting to watch the tv, so the gamer switches from using the tv to the controller's inbuilt screen. Well aside from the fact that if you have enough money to buy a Wii U, you'd think you'd be able to watch TV in one room and game in another, theres a major problem. If he switches to the controller screen, then what was on it before? Was it just black, or the same image as on the TV? If it was either of them then playing the game on the TV to begin with just means you're playing a game on the TV, like you would with the current wii, but just with a huge awkward controller. If on the other hand he was playing a game which had different displays on the TV and the controller, then where does what the controller was showing go when he switches the TV's display to it's screen. Does it just disappear and mean you have to press start to see it, like on a normal game on any normal console? Or does it come out on a secret third screen? Nah, that last one was a joke. But it still wouldnt surprise me in the level of nuts this is, if that was true.

2. Draw on the new controller
This is just a blatant rip-off of the DS. Which is odd, considering it's Nintendo ripping off themselves. But any drawing required ingame could easily be done with a wii remote as it's motion controls should allow basic drawing. And the drawing as shown in the video, like drawing as art, would be far easier and allow a real copy if you just got a couple of pencils and a bit of paper. I'm not saying this feature is particularly BAD, it's just when you get beaten by your last generation of console and a writing impliment invented in 1565, then it can hardly be called good.

3. Play only on the new controller

Well this is just stupid. If you were only meant to play on the new controller without the TV then it should have just been a handheld console. But since you need to be close to the wii 2 base console, then it's non-portable. And what is the point in a non-portable handheld? Well, there isn't one. You might as well go buy a DS and you'll have saved yourself a lot of money and shame. Also I like how the game they choose to show in this clips is a variant on Othello, a board game I have in my house, which is more fun to play with real pieces, and has already been made into a video game on the Atari 2600. Very new.

4. Use motion to control with the new controller

It's the wii's motion control again, except instead of a small box the size of a tv remote, you have to use a tablet bigger than the ipad to control it. This is a step backwards. Oh, but you can look through it at the tv screen. Well on the wii you didn't have to look through it, because it wasn't the size of a fucking house. You could look round it, by tilting your head about a centimetre. Whatever anyone says I will be never be convinced this is an improvement. They've just made it the same motion control as they already had but with a more awkward controller than when they tried motion control on the 3DS.

5. Get new views with the new controller.

If you want to see what's happening in a part of the screen you're not looking at in a game, then turn your character to turn and look. Don't turn and look in real life. It means you cant look at both screens and also it makes you look like an idiot. Like the shooting head game on the 3DS that makes you look inexplicably stupid. Also, the trailer shows this feature in that you can see the ball on the ground in wii golf. Which you don't need to see to play the game at all. In fact if you were really playing this game I don't think you'd look at the ball once. So, pointless gimmickery.

6. Stay fit with the new controller.

From what I can tell this is just playing wii fit, but instead of looking at the tv screen, you look at the new controller. I don't get it. What's so much infinitely better at looking at the little screen instead of a bigger and better tv?

7. Take aim with the new controller.

Again, what's wrong with just aiming with a normal wii remote? In this video, the only advantage seems to be it's zoomed in more than on the tv. But I've zoomed in on my ps3 and I don't have a second tv attacted to my controller. No, I just have a zoom button. Far simpler and easier and also less likely for you to drop the new controller and break it, making your wii u useless. Until you buy a new controller, which i'm sure would be really cheap with an inbuilt screen...

8. Play across your new controller and TV.

So from the trailer it looks like you just move your hand on the new screen and it affects the big screen. Pretty much it looks like motion control, except moving a hand across a screen instead of moving your whole body, so I'm sure that'll be fun. Maybe this feature will be used to have a map or an inventory screen on the new controller. Well if so, then let me remind you, inventory screens mean you have to take your attention off the game, so it's better just to put one on a pause menu. And maps can be either on a pause menu or at the corner of the screen like they are in games on every single console except the DS and Wii U. So I hardly think this gimmick justifies buying the console.

9. Make video calls with the new controller.

I can do this on my computer. People have phones that can do this. I don't agree with video calling in general. And the people doing it in this trailer look like the biggest douches on the planet. This is not interesting or new.

10. Browse with the new controller.

Every console can browse the internet. Hell, even the 3DS is meant to be able to do it. Looking at the brower through the new controller is like looking at your computer monitor through a magnifying glass. Sure you can do it, but it's pointless and ridiculous.

11. Share from the new controller to the TV.

If you want to show something to people, say "hey guys look at this, give me a second to find it". Then you can look it up on the browser on the TV and it's not a problem to anyone. If on the other hand you are sitting in the corner like a loser, like the gamer seems to be doing in this video, and then send something while the rest of the people actually having fun are watching something else, then you're just asking for trouble. All I see this being used for is to annoy people. Maybe you're watching the TV then your brother sends you a video of a parrot and you miss your program. You're not going to laugh, you'll be pissed.

12. Get more detail with the new controller.

This is the fact that the graphics are improved from the wii. And they are improved to... the standard of the other consoles of the wii's generation. This is not a great thing, it's just fixing a problem the wii had. It's not doing anything better than anyone else.

So basically, it's a bunch of ideas from different Nintendo products stuck together into one console. Nothing is new, everything has either been done better before or is a pointless gimmick that is more trouble that it's worth. And half of things are both. Maybe you agree with me. Or maybe you think you can change my mind, and to be honest, I'd be glad for you to try. But you won't. Then the wii u will released and you'll buy it. And you'll either be incredibly disappointed, or you'll blind yourself from all the flaws, get taken for a fool by the money grabbing Nintendoeons and just be happy with your new toy, you fanboy.

Doctor Who Review: A Good Man Goes To War

2011-06-06T21:57:00.000Z

So, we reached the final episode of this half of 2011's run of Doctor Who. There were many questions needing answered and some were, and some were left for the autumn. But was it any good? Well, I'm going to go against most people's opinions that I've talked to raving about how great it was, and say I thought was only good. I didn't hate it, it was a perfectly good episode of Doctor Who. But I just wasn't as impressed as I have been with other episodes this series.

Before I go into my problems with this episode, first the things I did like. Rory was great in this episode. From the brilliant first scene where they talk about him like he's the Doctor then it's revealed it's Rory, to the last, Arthur Darvill did a great job. And for once he didn't die. The idea of the humans being the Doctor's enemies, while he teams up with a set of aliens who would normally be against him was clever. I really enjoyed the character of Dorium, the blue fat alien, kind of upset he wont be back. I liked the cyberships being the same design as they were in the classic series. And I loved the speech by the Doctor to "Colonel Runaway". But it's always good TV when the Doctor gets angry.

There were other good parts but those where the bits that stood out to me. I just thought I'd mention them to make sure no-one thought I hated this episode. No, I really liked it. But that said there were definately flaws. The idea of the Doctor going round collecting his debts was a clever one, but it was terribly done. It reminded of the part in last year's finale where all the characters over the series make a return cameo to deliver a painting to the Doctor. Except last year it was people we knew, this year except for brief 30 second scenes explaining them, we had no idea who these people coming to help were, so they didn't really mean anything. There was a sontaran nurse, but I really don't like the new sontarans so I didn't enjoy him. There was a silurian detective, who I actually quite liked, so that's enough of her. There was the space-spitfire, which seemed really out of place since it came from an episode over a year ago. And there were the returning space pirates, but I hated their episode and all they did was remind me of it, so I wish they hadn't been in this episode. Seriously, fuck those guys.

Another returning alien was the cybermen, and it always annoys me when they turn up. Entirely because of the fact that Stephen Moffat decided the Daleks needed a redesign(which was a terrible idea) but has never bothered to redesign the cybermen, who currently still look like the cybermen from the alternate universe, but they cant be them because they dont have spaceships... and so on unnecessary geeky rant. Back to this episode though, I thought the poem was a bit weak. It sounded like something that was meant to sound epic, but it just didn't work for me, I just thought it was out of place. I was disappointed that the eyepatch woman was just another villian out to get the Doctor, I thought there might have been slightly more to it, but maybe there is and we just haven't found it out yet. But I was more disappointed after hearing River's description of "This is the Doctor's darkest hour. He'll rise higher than ever before and then fall so much further." Which gave me the impression something really epic and world changing was going to happen. But no. I mean it was bigger than the average episode, even in the last series the universe was destroyed then the Doctor created a second Big Bang before being removed from all of time and space. I think that might have been a slightly darker hour than losing one baby. And talking of the baby, it seemed pretty cheap to have that as flesh as well as Amy. I mean it was a bit like playing Mario, you think you have the baby, but then, sorry it's in another castle.

And now for the biggest problem. The twist. That River Song is Amy and Rory's daughter. My problem isn't what the twist was. I have no trouble buying that, in fact I'm looking forward to how it's dealt with. My problem is the fact that everyone seems to be completely blown by it, when I knew it from less than 5 minutes in. Maybe it was because I'd already thought of that as the sort of wild idea that Moffat would write for her origin, but I knew she was there daughter from about the first second in when the baby's name was revealed. Melody Pond, River Song. So I got the twist then, and the big reveal had no effect on me. Maybe that why I wasn't so impressed by this episode. It was all leading up to the reveal, and since I already knew it I was disappointed. Oh well. Overall a solid episode of Doctor Who, entertaining, but nothing better than usual, so disappointing as a half-season finale.

3/5

Doctor Who Review: The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People

2011-06-01T00:23:00.002Z

This is the second of the two part stories this series and it’s definitely not the better of the two. It is paced too slowly in the first episode with all the events contained in that, taking about twice the length they should have. The main cast act in odd out of character ways, such as Rory tricking the humans and the Doctor, surely if he’d found something worth looking at he’d tell them rather that tricking them into going down easily allowing them to get caught by the gangers and Amy not caring nearly enough about what’s happening to Rory and being strangely offensive to the Doctor’s ganger. Losing the Tardis and the shoe thing are hardly original and I could work out half the twists before they happened. And the Jennifer ganger’s weird powers that no-one else had were never explained, were poor effects and felt out of place with the rest of the story. And there were a lot of weird scenes like that, example: the room with the eyes and the blood clot storyline which just seemed to be really insensitive to people who have them in real life. So normally I’d say it was a good idea but it wasn’t done very well and had definitely been done better before in other stories.

But even though everything I’ve said is true I still managed to really enjoy this story. Maybe it was the supporting cast who, except for one guy I remember literally nothing about and I don’t think did a thing through the whole story, were really likable. Maybe it was the good idea behind the story with the ideas of the gangers and their creepy make-up. Maybe it was the humour, “Time to break out the big guns”, oh Rory. Maybe it was the two Doctors being great fun and done really well. Or maybe it was just the moment where Tom Baker’s voice was dubbed over Matt Smith, in the biggest bit of fan service in this series, somehow outdoing a whole episode about the Tardis. I’m not sure which of these it was, but although the story had many, many faults, it just had a real sense of fun that made it hard to dislike. So not a classic, but still a solid 90 minutes of entertainment. And the cliff-hanger, well, the sooner next week arrives the better.

3/5

Cinema adverts.

2011-05-30T09:38:00.002Z

So I go into the cinema, get a seat, chat to my friends for a wee bit then the lights start to dim. Then two idiots come on the screen and start making bad jokes and showing clips of Red Bull covered vehicles doing stunts. So this is an advert right? Well it is. But with a twist. This advert lasts for about 10, 15 minutes. Excuse me what? That’s like when Disney show little short films before the main feature. Except they’re good. This is just a couple of “cool” ex-snowboarders making bad puns and showing us clips of unimpressive stunts. And it’s clearly all as an advert for Red Bull, which would’ve been better if they’d mentioned Red Bull more than about once, and you know what, would’ve been better if they’d just had a funny 30 second ad. Making me sit this long has actively put me off buying Red Bull. If I ever had any desire to buy it it’s gone now that they’re the guys who made me sit for 15 minutes bored stiff in the cinema. Then at the end of this mammoth advert the guys say “Now here’s the film!” and I could almost have forgiven them if it had been the film.

But no. It was more adverts. Lots and lots of adverts. And these adverts took 20 minutes. So that’s 35 minutes of adverts in total so far. And the kicker is that one of the second lot of adverts was another one for Red Bull. Have we not had enough from them already? Then there was two trailers. Which bring me to my main point. We all hate adverts in the cinema. We go to see a film not adverts and they’re just kind of forced onto us, but there’s nothing we can do because the funding from the adverts is one of the things that keeps the cinemas open. But if you’re going to see a film can the adverts at least be for other films? I don’t mind sitting through trailers because maybe I’ll see a film I didn’t know about and it’ll make me want to go and see it. But I don’t want to see the exact same adverts as I see on TV. If I wanted to see a 3 minute long 14 year old’s emo poem advertising an energy drink, then I’d see it on the TV. That’s where adverts like this belong. They don’t belong in the cinema. There are three reasons to go to the cinema and one of them is to get out of your house. And if you’re just watching bigger versions of the adverts on your TV then you might as well have stayed at home.

Doctor Who Review: Meglos

2011-05-24T20:21:00.000Z

This week's Doctor Who, The Rebel Flesh, was the first part of a two part story. And that means I haven't got the whole story yet. I thought week's was alright, but what if next week's is fantastic, then the whole story will be better or if it's awful the opposite. Although they're on two seperate weeks, they are one story, so I don't want to review half. I wouldn't review half of a film, so why do it with this. So next week find out what I think of the story.

But of course I couldn't leave you with nothing this week. So I trawled the archives of my big box of videos and came up with a classic Doctor Who with a tenuous link to this week's. I say classic, because it's from the original run of Doctor Who, not because of the quality, because well, I'm about to explain. So lets have a look at Meglos, another story where there's someone who looks like the Doctor but with a weird alien twist.

Yes. I know this is the least convincing connection ever. I don't care.

This is a classic Who, so it's split into 4 parts, each lasting 25 minutes. It's a Fourth Doctor story, starring Tom Baker as the Doctor, Lalla Ward as his companion Romana, and it has K-9 in it.

Part 1
The episode starts with a thrilling piece of techobabble between the Doctor and Romana while fixing K-9. Then it cuts to a group of people, from a planet called Tigella, we don't know and they spout exposition and then have a religious debate. In a third so far unconnected story some space pirates bring a man to an alien planet where he merges with a cactus, and reveals himself as title character, Meglos. The Tigellans call for the Doctor to help them mediate their debate, Meglos finds out and traps the Doctor in a "Chronic Hysterisis". Then he turns into a double of the Doctor.

I've just summed up 25 minutes in just over a hundred words. And I've not missed anything out. Almost nothing happens in this episode they just talk to each other explain things they should already know so the audience knows what's going on. But as almost nothing happens. We don't care. The Tigellans are in three groups, agressive scientists, who are right but conpletely unlikable, religious fantatics, who are portrayed like fundamental creationists, so also unlikable, and one old guy who's in charge of both groups, but refuses to make any decisions or do anything interesting. The space pirates are stereotypical pirates, but also somehow dull. And the Doctor and Romana do literally nothing at all, until they get caught in the "Chronic Hysterisis" which is a unneccesary complicated way of saying time loop. And this timeloop means they just show the same 30 seconds of film over and over again, further padding out a completely actionless episode. Oh, and the Doctor already knowing the Tigellans so they can call him for help is just lazy writing to allow the plot to continue.

And they all have ridiculous costumes.

Part 2
Meglos disguised as the Doctor travels to Tigella with the pirates and meets the Tigellans. He acts unbelievably suspiciously, not recognising a man the Doctor knows, not knowing his way round a place he's been before and asking to view the Tigellans power soure, the Dodecahedron, on his own with some bullshit reason that he says only a Timelord could understand. But for some reason, no-one seems to think the slightest thing is wrong and are all shocked when he steals the Dodecahedron. Because... they're stupid? The Doctor meanwhile in trapped in a timeloop where the same 30 seconds is still repeating and there's also an extra bit of time after each loop where he and Romana discuss the situation. Why is there extra time? Because according to Meglos that's how long it takes for the loop to restart. Which doesn't make sense. Him and Romana then escape the timeloop by repeating their actions from within the loop in their extra time. And that works because... it's never explained. And they don't even repeat the exact actions, they get it really wrong, but it still works because... it's never explained.

The Doctor arrives on Tigella and Romana gets attacked by a plant because they needed to seperate her and the Doctor somehow for plot purposes. K-9 runs out of battery, so he can get put out of the way too. The Doctor gets captured because the Tigellans think he's Meglos and Meglos now looks like a cross between the Doctor and a cactus, because... the audience need to tell the two Doctors apart? Then Romana gets cornered by the pirates and they decide to kill her. Cue credits. So, more happened here, but it was still incredibly padded out with unneccesary rubbish. And the things that did happen made no sense.

I challenge anyone to explain the timeloop escape. It make literally no sense.

Part 3
The pattern of stuff happening, but nothing really mattering or making sense continues. Romana isn't killed for very flimsy reasons, and she leads the pirates round in circles til they meet the plot-convenience plants and she escapes. Meglos meets a Tigellan but instead of her screaming or shooting him or anything sensible, she leads him to the exit then gets knocked out by Romana who thinks Meglos is the Doctor. Meanwhile the Doctor is with the Tigellans when the religious nuts take over the city off screen, because it was clearly too exciting for this story. K-9 does nothing, just gets carried around. Meglos has made the dodecahedron tiny so he could steal it and meets the piratesand they all fly away in their spaceship while he manages to make the grand reveal of the tiny dodecahedron twice in the space of 5 minutes to the same group of people. Which, doesn't make sense. And then the religious nuts decide to execute the Doctor by dropping a huge rock on him. Dun dun dun.

Because this is clearly the most practical way to sacrifice.

Part 4
Romana and the dull old man run in and tell the religious nuts that they've seen Meglos. And for some reason this immediately convices them and they release the Doctor. Then the Doctor heads to the Tardis and the leader of the religion gets shot by pirate to save Romana, because... the writers wanted her redeemed? She was played by an old Doctor Who companion so they gave her a big exit? Well who cares because she's forgotten immediately and never mentioned again. The Doctor then follows the pirates to Meglos's base which turns out to be a superweapon and there's a long 30 second reveal of it even though it's not a good model and we saw it in part 1 so it's hardly a surprise. So that's pointless. Meglos plans to destroy Tigella and the Doctor arrives to stop him. There's a bit of them pretending to be each other which is too complex for me to explain here, but they end up betrayed by the pirates and locked in the pirate's ship's brig. Romana arrives to rescue them and you expect the 'which one is the real one' routine, but no. Meglos immediately reveals he's Meglos, and seperates into the cactus and human again. The human, the Doctor and friends all run away in the Tardis and it turns out the Doctor's rigged the superweapon to explode taking Meglos and the pirate with it. Because the Doctor always blows people up. He doesn't try and make peaceful solutions at all.

But the Tardis doesn't seem to be taking off, can they escape before the countdown ends? Of course they do. That was terrible false tension. The weapon explodes. Then suddenly we cut to the Doctor getting thanked on Tigella. He blew up the dodecahedron, their only power source so now they have to live in an area with killer plants, but thats ok. Apparently. I'm not sure why this isn't a major problem, but apparently it's not, because the Doctor's recieved a message and has to leave. So he takes the human back home telling him "you'll be back before you left!" and the story ends on the man looking puzzled. Which is surprisingly suitable for my views on this episode.

For the most part nothing happens in Meglos, and when it does none of it makes sense. The acting and script are simultaneously dull, bland and completely nonsensical. There are fun moments and Tom Baker is clearly enjoying himself, but it doesn't save this poor story.

And it has some really terrible bluescreen.

2/5

Doctor Who Review: The Doctor's Wife

2011-05-17T11:24:00.001Z

I’m a fan of Doctor Who. I’m not ashamed to admit that. So when I heard about this episode I was very interested. The title, the promo pictures, that it was being written by Neil Gaiman and my favourite, the clip from the trailer where a voice taunts the Doctor “Fear me, I’ve killed hundreds of Time Lords” and he replies “Fear me, I’ve killed all of them”. That just made it look like this one, would be one to remember. And, I wasn’t disappointed.

I couldn’t say it had me rethinking anything about the series, which Gaiman promised it would. It wasn’t an episode with any shocking revelations. But what it was, was very well written. The dialogue in this episode made me laugh, made me sit on the edge of my seat, and if I wasn’t such a hard nut to crack up, then it probably would’ve made me cry. Matt Smith gave a great performance acting pretty much every emotion possible in 45 minutes, and Suranne Jones was fantastic as “Idris”. Michael Sheen, House, had a menacing voice, but I don’t think his character was very well developed. He had a complex plan, but we never really found out why he wanted to do any of this, except for fun. But he was still fun to watch, like Auntie and Uncle, who I wish there’d be more of, because they did make me laugh.

So I liked the dialogue, I liked the acting, I liked the set design, the junk planet looked suitably barren and the temporary Tardis looked great reminding me of the Tardis from the classic series. I didn’t really like the look of the Tardis’s corridors, they looked a bit bland compared to the parts we’ve seen before, but they look better than in the old series.

"Will we make a Tardis set?" "No, let's just use an empty factory!"

I did like seeing the old control room back, and the Doctor’s plan was reasonably good compared to the “hope for the best” shit from last week and the “turn everyone into killers” plan from the week before. There wasn’t a lot for Amy and Rory to do, except for Rory to die, again, which seems to be a theme now. But it wasn’t their story. It was the Doctor’s and the Tardis’s. So good story, well written, good acting, good look, well shot, and hardly anything for me to complain about. Overall, a very good episode, much needed after last week.

5/5

Whatever happened to the 30 day challenge?

2011-05-15T14:15:00.004Z

I started a 30 day challenge recently. But I gave up after about 8 days. I doubt anyone missed it hugely, but I thought I’d better explain where it went. I don’t like to upload more than one thing a day. Or even one thing every 2 days. Because if I write lots and lots of things people can’t be bothered reading them all and what’s the point in me writing all my stuff if people don’t read it? So with all my other things I wanted to do, like the Doctor Who reviews, I would need to keep putting off the challenge to another day. And I can’t be bothered with that. I’m a lazy guy, and I don’t wanted to keep doing it for months. But what if people actually wanted to hear what I had to say for each day? Well then, here’s the quick version of the rest of the days.

Number 9 - How you hope your future will be like
This is the same question as the second day. Recycling questions already and we’re only on day 9? Not a good sign.

Number 10 - Discuss your first love and first kiss
First love, myself, that’s still going pretty well. First kiss, on a school trip got dared to kiss a girl, does that count? If not, then I don’t know. I don’t really remember shite like that. I keep my memory for important things, like what yoghurt I had when I was 8.

Number 11 - Put your iPod on shuffle and write 10 songs that pop up.
I’ve lost my iPod, due to me not having iTunes. Apple hate me.
UPDATE. I have found my iPod. So:
1. 5iliconeater – Calvin Harris
2. Storm In A Teacup - RHCP
3. Gimme Gimme – ABBA (don’t judge me)
4. Out of Orbit - Comatoast
5. Little Angel – Hard-Fi
6. I Talk Too Much – Just Jack
7. Livin Da Vida Loca – Ricky Martin
8. I’m Comin’ – Will Smith
9. Roseability - Idlewild
10. Sexual Healing (Original AvR Mix) – Alibi vs Rockafella

Number 12 - Bullet your whole day
That seems a bit violent for me.

Number 13 - Somewhere you’d like to move or visit
Somewhere I’d like to move? I can’t move places, I’m not superman. He moved the whole moon once.

Number 14 - Your earliest memory
Eating yoghurt. See above.

Number 15 - Your favourite tumblrs.
None. Tumblr is a terrible waste of time. On here I think of good ideas, then take in writing things, if I was on there I could just post a picture everyone’s already seen, and no-one would complain. Some of my friends have tumblrs. They disgust me.

Number 16 - Your views on mainstream music.
I like just out of mainstream music. Like the music everyone’s heard, but no-one seems to admit to buying. I’ve never had a problem with mainstream music as a concept, but some of the things which are popular are the worse pieces of shite out. So views are mixed but a bit negative.

Number 17 - Your highs and lows of this past year
High – Being held by Ruari Waugh.
Low – Because I was being sick at the time.

Number 18 - Your beliefs
Another recycled question. This day 4. Religion and beliefs are very different in real life, but in a quiz like this, you’d talk about your beliefs on day 4.

Number 19 - Disrespecting parents
This is not a question in any way. It doesn’t ask what I think of that, or if I do it. Or even whether it means me disrespecting parents or parents disrespecting me. So due to lack of clarity I refuse to answer.

Number 20 - How important you think education is.
I think it’s good to have one, but as someone who left school, it’s not the most important thing in life. I’ve not been called to used any of the stuff I learnt in school since I left, except to sound smart. Qualifications get you jobs, but aren’t practically useful.

Number 21 - One of your favourite shows.
Doctor Who. I know it’s geeky. But I love it. It’s probably the only thing I watched as a kid I still watch and it’s still as good. This means I’m allowed to say “I LIKED IT BEFORE IT WAS POPULAR!” But I don’t think I will.

Number 22 - How have you changed in the past 2 years?
I have less hair, but more of a beard? I’m more productive, but less well behaved. I like to think I’m funnier. But that probably ain’t true.

Number 23 - 5 guys who are famous who you find attractive.
I feel this might be a question for girls. In fact I’m starting to think this whole 30 day challenge was designed for little 13 year olds who think they’re smart by doing it. Which means I’ve been suckered in to a blog version of twilight. I’m going to ignore that thought, it’s too horrible to contemplate.

Number 24 - Your favourite movie and what it’s about.
I’m not going to tell my favourite. I’ve seen a lot of films, and if I start having a favourite that means I have to compare every film I watch to it. And nothing would hold up. I mean, I love Men In Black 2 more than Shawshank Redemption, even though the latter is clearly a better film. If I think about it too much it’ll make me look about all the flaws of MIB II. Then I won’t enjoy it as much. So I don’t have a favourite.

Number 25 - Someone who fascinates you and why.
People with total amnesia. I understand how you could forget part of your life, or slowly forget everything as you get old. But it really fascinates me how you could just forget everything, including your name, in an instant. What happens to the old you? Have they died? I don’t know it just interests me.

Number 26 - What kind of person attracts you and why.
Bored now, so short answers.

Number 27 - A problem that you have had.
Lots. Who cares though, lets move on.

Number 28 - Something that you miss.
My holiday to Switzerland. It was fun

Number 29 - Goals for the next 30 days.
Never do anything like this again. Keep in work. Write more because I enjoy it. Watch my dvds. Have fun in parties.

Number 30 - Your highs and lows of this month.
Lows – When blogger broke. When I couldn’t watch Grindhouse.
Highs – Now. Because I never have to see this challenge again J

The Real Box Podcast

2011-05-14T11:38:00.000Z

The podcast I posted before as the box podcast wasn't the box podcast. Mainly because it didn't involve a box. You might ask, how did I get between the two, well... I didnt listen to the first one. I did however listen to this one. And in fact, I did a bit of editing. So it's not quite as much of of an awful mess. Only just though. At least this one's short.

So in the style of the 80's Ghostbusters cartoons, here is The Real Box Podcast.

ps. Blogger has been down a few days, so you've been deprived of my ramblings and I've had nowhere to ramble. It's been a bad time for me, with this and the PSN down, with nothing to do but watch films and actually go out and make human contact. But this has meant I've got a couple of things written in advance for the blog, so they'll be on their way soon.

Doctor Who Review: Curse of The Black Spot

2011-05-09T19:42:00.002Z

So the opening episodes created a huge mystery which you wanted to know the answers to straight away. How could a standalone episode work at this point, well by being fantastic. Unfortunately Curse of the Black Spot, isn’t. It’s not the worst Doctor Who episode ever. But I was not a fan. I’ll assume anyone reading this has seen the episode and just skip the plot summary straight to my problems with this episode. It’s dull. It has lots of good ideas. Pirates, good, but they weren’t interesting enough to be well rounded characters and they weren’t over the top enough to be plain fun. The main pirate, wasn’t bad, but I was put off him from that one scene in the Tardis where he says that the controls are like parts of his ship, it could’ve been funny, but it wasn’t and just didn’t sit right. I couldn’t tell you what was wrong with the scene, maybe it was his lack of wonder as the amazing machine. The Doctor has met some of the smartest men ever and they can hardly handle the inside being bigger than the outside and this pirate wanders in and immediately understands everything.

The scenes of the pirate ship were alright but they seemed to be leading up a big shock. And it turned out the killer spirit was actually a holographic nurse who was just trying to help everyone. Which just seemed like an enormous anticlimax, reminding me of last year’s The Beast Below. In that everyone on a ship is hiding a huge secret and it turned out that the ship had no engines and was instead being moved by a giant space whale. Both these stories had me interested to hear what the twist was, only to make it completely uninteresting. Also, due to the fact the mermaid was a nurse there is no tension at the end, so they have to make fake tension by making the nurse unable to heal people so Amy has to resuscitate a drowning Rory herself. Which she fails at. He comes back to life once she’s given up. Oh, yes, she gave up, and the only reason Rory asked her to do it, instead of the Doctor, who name is the Doctor and has been around for 900 years so he’s obviously going to be better at CPR than Amy, is that she wouldn’t give up. But she did. Urgh. This story annoyed me.

And of course, the pirates going off into space in the ship. It’s so obviously just there to get people to say “Hey, remember that bit where it’s like pirates in space? That was so cool!” Well it wasn’t. It was clearly meant to be, but it failed.

So, it was a dull episode with plenty of parts which didn’t make sense or just annoyed me. Not the worst story ever, but definitely my least favourite Matt Smith episode by far. Hopefully next week’s will be back on form.

1/5

More Robocop TV

2011-05-07T21:53:00.000Z

I don't know why I watch so much Robocop. It just seems to get worse and worse and annoys me more and more, but sometimes something good turns up.

ROBOCOP: THE SERIES - EPISODE 2 (Prime Suspect)
After the pilot episode I thought there might be a drop in quality, but in fact it’s actually got better. The acting’s actually got better, it’s less cheesy now. It’s still as well made and shot, and this time the story’s actually pretty good.

There’s a religious nut who’s got a whole crew together to protest against Rob, which is a pretty interesting idea, what the church would think of a cyborg brought back from the dead. But the priest gets killed by Rob’s gun and he has to go on the run, which happens in practically every piece of Robocop media. Whole set of things happen and it turns out the inventor of Rob’s gun had a prototype which he used to kill the priest because he was making it unlikely there would be more Robocops made.

That’s the main plot, and I really enjoyed it. It’s improved on the pilot episode and now I’m actually annoyed I only have those two episodes of the show, because it’s really got me in the mood to watch more. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than I ever expected.

Day 7/8 and why I don't think we should talk to Lewis.

2011-05-03T15:24:00.000Z

Day 7: Your Zodiac Sign and...SHITE. Zodiac is shite. So i'll tell you about something freaky that happened with me and a fortune cookie. I said "Bet this says something shite like "Your lucky flower is rose"" and then I opened the cookie and it did. A bit creepy, isn't it?

Day 8: A moment you felt most satisfied in your life.Not the most satisfied moment, but I felt very satusfied when I managed to revise for about 20 minutes then get an A for all my highers. There's not a lot of point to this, but it just reminded me of everyone staying in every night and day to get their grades while I was having fun, then I still did well. And I always take pleasure in doing as little work as possible.

And now for a little story. I was in town with my friend Lewis the other day. And I saw a hot girl, I said "She's a nice looking lassie" or something like that, but possibly more sexist. Then Lewis turned round and said "Yeh, she's alright. For a coloured girl!" What depths will he reach next? Will he trip up a blind man? Or steal candy from a baby? All I know is, I don't approve of this behavior by Mr Bage, and I will be seeing him in court.

what a racist.

Doctor Who Review: The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon

2011-05-02T21:11:00.004Z

The new series of Doctor Who has begun on the BBC. I love a good bit of it, so I felt this year the blog could let me share my thoughts about each week’s episode in the new running feature, Doctor Who Review. This week I’ll look at the opening two-parter, The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon. This is the first year that a series started on a double, and so it was a gamble to whether it would draw people into the show if there was a proper conclusion in the first week. Luckily it’s done better than ever, with each week providing a great cliffhanger (but more on that later).

The story opens with the Doctor summoning his companions in a funny little scene, but one thing did occur to me. If you hadn’t seen the show before this doesn’t really explain who any of them are. It wasn’t a problem for me, or for probably anyone who’s reading this, but there was a lot of action going on, but not much explanation, so for existing fans it was a fantastic opening, but I don’t think it’d win any new fans. But except for this little problem the set up for the story is brilliant. The Doctor explains they have to go to 1969, and then is killed by a spaceman. So immediately you want to know what happens there and after a past version of him turns up, how they will save the one who dies. It’s a very effective hook. And from there the proper story begins.

I’m not going to go into detail about the plot. If you don’t know the story then go and watch it. Don’t come here for it. I’m just going to say the things I liked and I thought worked and the things that didn’t. Number one of course, being the new monsters, The Silence. I love the concept behind them. If you can’t remember them if you aren’t looking at them, they can be right behind you and you would never know. Very creepy. I’m glad they didn’t make them speak too much, because a being called the Silence would be slightly ruined by being chatty. They had a nice look as well, based on the grey aliens everyone thinks of when talking about abductions, a common side-effect being memory loss, clearly an inspiration for this alien.

The story itself seemed a bit rushed. One minute they’re at the White House, then the warehouse, then Area 51, then NASA, then an orphanage then back to the warehouse and it’s over. And that’s it. But I don’t think it was because it was disjointed it was due to the lack of conclusion. They never find out who the girl is, or why she’s important. They never find out what the Silence’s plan was. They never find out why the Silence have a Tardis. Or how the Doctor survives from the first part. Or how Amy is pregnant/non pregnant. And so on. And I know that there’s a plan and they’ll come back to all these things, but I really didn’t like the Doctor just going off on an adventure instead of trying to find out what was going on. He’s always seemed to be the kind of guy who’d want to get to the bottom of things, and not just leave them until later. Maybe that’s just me but that bugged me. Once thing I did like was the resolution to the story, the TV message with The Silence. It wasn’t a very Doctor Who style thing ordering people’s deaths but it was a lot cleverer than I thought it might be.

It wasn’t a perfect story, but it was still great fun. All the cast gave a good performance and the show looked fantastic with all the filming from the US. And the cliffhanger with the little girl? Got me hooked. Who is she? Amy's daughter? A timelord definately. Or is she? Can't wait. It’s looking like we’ve got a very interesting series on it’s way.

4/5

30 Day Catch-Up. Days 4/5/6

2011-04-30T22:54:00.000Z

I haven't really been doing these days when I've been meant to, so now the podcast is finished with we can catch up to where we should be. Luckily these 3 days are quite short due to me not having a lot to say about them. So lets dive right in with:

DAY 4: YOUR VIEWS ON RELIGIONLook back to my Easter Blog to get a rant about religion which gives the idea of my views. I think if it makes you happy then you can believe what you want, but don't try and tell me you're right. I don't really have a lot more to say about it really. My view of religion is simple, but at least it's clear. I don't believe in anything like God, and even if a god did exist then you shouldn't need to worship them because if they have an ego that big that everyone has to, then they don't deserve your praise.

DAY 5: A TIME YOU THOUGHT ABOUT ENDING YOUR OWN LIFEI haven't. But if I had I'd hardly post it up here so everyone I know can see it. If you've felt that way it should be private, between you and anyone you choose to tell, and whoever came up with this day's idea is an insensative prick. But, I did deliberately faint to get out of P.E. once, maybe that's good enough?

DAY 6: WRITE 30 INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT YOURSELFDepends what your idea of interesting is. Here are 30 facts. You can decide if they're interesting.
1. One of my favourite films is Men In Black 2.
2. I own all the big Hollywood Batman and Superman films.
3. I never had a home console til I was 14.
4. I was on River City.
5. I know all the words to Sexual Healing and sing it on rides at the carnival.
6. I also know all the words to Jump In My Car which is odd because just the other day I got told I look like David Hasselhoff.
7. I'm watching Red Dwarf while I write this.
8. I currently smell of vinegar because I was trying to take stickers off my dvd's.
9. I've seen every episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
10. I have a rap about me.
11. The rap's about the time I had it off in The Shore toilets.
12. I threw an egg out a 8th floor window yesterday.
13. I seem to be immune to alcohol.
14. I was on River City.
15. I used to be in a band. We were pretty poor.

And there's more. More than 15 more. But I'm bored writing them so I'm sure you're bored reading them, and I don't want to bore you.

The CG and Lewis Bage Podcast Part 3 + Day 3

2011-04-29T22:54:00.000Z

That's the final part of The Box Podcast. BUT, never fear. There's an extra 12 minute podcast already made for your listening pleasure. That'll be up in due course, putting it up now might be a bit too much in whole go for your fragile minds to handle.

Unfortunately I've been a busy boy for the last few days what with the Royal Wedding, my appearance on LTWW Season 2, and various nights out I haven't planned. So I've fallen behind on the 30 day challenge. But now it's time to catch up.

Day 3: Your views on alcohol and drugs
I'm now 18. So my view on alcohol has changed from "ooh, forbidden drink! it must be good!" to an actual opinion. I would like it. It makes people do stupid things and behave terribly, but I don't think there's anything wrong with being an idiot every so often. If you need alcohol to have a good time then you're doing something wrong, but if it just makes the fun times even better I don't see any crime in that. But my major problem with alcohol is that it doesn't work anymore.

I used to have half a bottle of vodka and my head would be swimming my thoughts would be all blurry and I'd be falling about all over the place, but it doesn't happen anymore. I don't think i've been drunk in about 3 months. I just drink huge amounts, get at most tipsy then get bored because everyone is a lot drunker than I am. For instance, today was the Royal Wedding and we did a drinking game. Everyone was very drunk, BB shouted at randoms in the street, Tara collapsed into a pile, and I had a lot of fun, but I would have had the exact same amount of fun if I was sober. Alcohol added nothing. I walked the streets of Dundee in a womens almost fur coat, scarf, hat and shades, but I'd be perfectly happy to do that sober. All that happens now is my head feels a bit blurry. But my mind still works completely fine. Which is disappointing, I want to get drunk so I'm a mess. But what does that say about me? My last proper drunk night, I stole a jacket and phone from a house and just left them lying in town, puked out the door of a moving taxi and almost had sex with my friend's mum. And that sounds fun, I'd like more nights like that. Unfortunately, I don't remember it.

Drugs, though. I'm not embarassed to admit I've done some light drugs. But I must not have done enough, because I've never felt any different after doing them. So, at the moment I don't see the appeal and I'm not going to inject myself with smack to find out what it is. So I don't have an opinion, except weed pizza was the cause of the Box Podcast, so it should never be legalized or everyone'll stuck in a box. And we can't have that.

The CG and Lewis Bage Podcast Part 2 + Day 2

2011-04-27T23:04:00.000Z

The second part of our podcast. It's all the same thing, but youtube seemed disgusted with the idea of me uploading more than 15 minutes at a time so I had to split it into 3 parts. The warning from yesterday still applies.

Also, I've unfortunately missed the deadline for the 30 day thing, but do you really care? I don't. Only means there'll be two today instead of just one.

DAY 2: Where You'd Like To Be In 10 Years
Hmmm, that's an interesting question. In 10 years I'll be 28. So I'll need to have something going for me. I'm guessing this is where you'd realistically like to be, not I'd like to be King of The World and have Will Smith as the jester in my court. So yes. At 28, following yesterday's question, I'd like to have a long term girlfriend. I don't know whether I'd like to be married by then, depends on the girl, but I seriously doubt I'll want to have children. Much as I think it'd be better for kids to have young parents, within reason, not 12, I really can't see myself settling down that much in the next 10 years. But you never know.

I'd like to still talk to my good friends, and make more as well, I'm a glutton for social interaction. I never sit about in my house when I can go out and hopefully I still have plenty of people who'll put up with me hanging around with them and being annoying. I also want to be healthier and to be more knowledgable in the things that interest me, namely film. But these are just general musings, the big one is what I'd like to be doing. And I'm not sure.

I'd like to do something media-related. I'm going to apply every year to drama schools to see whether I can get in, but I don't know if this is do-able. If not, I'd like to go into the business of making films. I don't know a lot about it at the moment, mainly due to my lack of funds for a video-camera. But I'd like to continue making my short videos, then move onto short films, and so on. I know it might seem a bit stupid, but I like planning the look and sound of videos, but right now, I don't have the right equipment to do anything particularly impressive. But in the next 10 years I hope this changes, and maybe I can team up to make some sketches and films with my friend Lewis who's becoming an engineer of sound, whatever that is.

The CG and Lewis Bage Podcast + Day 1.

2011-04-26T22:22:00.001Z

Here's part 1 of The Box Podcast. Parts 2 and 3 will be up daily this week.

WARNING. This video was made in summer 2010 while we were on some substances which for legal reasons I can't disclose. So it's very surreal. If you feel yourself losing your mind then I apologise. I also apoligise to Matt McDevitt, Pirate Chris, Fat Niall, Stooart Mitchell, Joeface, Jamaicans, Gordon Brown, Sean Connery, Gays, The Chinese, and anyone else we insult in the podcast. And when I say we, I mean me. I'm about as offensive as I can be and still be able to upload without getting arrested for hate-crime. So have a listen. Lewis and I are planning a proper podcast which won't just be us having a chat you don't understand soon, so don't write that off because of the horrors of what you'll hear on this.

And now onto the promised first day of the 30 day challenge. Almost out of time, in the last hour of the day.

Day 1: Your current relationship, if single then discuss how single life is.
Well, I am indeed single. Now I need to discuss it. Well, I could say that it gives me the freedom to sleep around and party ever night. But since I don't really do those things, I can't say that. I do like the freedom though. If I want to go to the pub with my mates, then I can. If I want to do stupid things with girls that made my past girls jealous, then I can. If I just want to sit about and watch Superman 2, then I can, and currently am. But to be honest I don't have a lot to compare it to. I've had girlfriends before, but never for any significant period of time. Some girls have broken up with me, and I don't blame them, I'm an idiot, but it did bug me for about a couple of days, then I manned up and moved on, I ain't the soppy sort. But my main problem is I break up with girls. Lots of people do that, but I never have a reason. Just after about a month or two, I get bored and feel the need to move on. I don't understand it, some of them have been perfectly nice. But then some of them were stalkers. But that's a story for another time. So, yeah, I don't know what it would be like to be in a longterm relationship, but I think it would be pretty boring. I prefer to just see who's about where I go. It's not a particularly good strategy, as most people I see I already know, but occasionally in the pit of despair that is Fat Sams I'll meet someone nice. Whatever happens, I'm happy the way I am.

30 Day Challenge

2011-04-25T22:56:00.000Z

Like the new Doctor Who needs a story arc, my blog's needing a running feature. Well, it's not. I've got more views than ever and except for my Robocop obsession, nothing is connected at all. But whatever, it's my blog I can do what I like.

So prepare to jump on the bandwagon and like nearly all the blogs I read, I'm going to do this 30 day challenge. I'd explain what it is, but if from the picture you can't work it out... then you're an idiot.

Check back tomorrow evening for Day 1.