Raithe

Jupiter Ascending. Some glorious visual spectacle, with some plot silliness, wrapped inside vague space opera and a touch of "dear god, how did they say those lines with straight faces". I enjoyed it for what it was. A little bit of camp, a touch of silly, some humour, and lots of pretty. In a lot of ways it does feel like The Matrix, just... in outer space rather than virtual reality, and with all cool martials art fight sequences changed to aerial acrobatics / flight, space opera shoot outs.

Hm, how to explain it. Batman and Superman, along with Wonder Woman form the great three "pillars" of the hero archetype in the DC universe. Batman represents the concepts of humanity. The "normal" man who through superior focus, training and just sheer willpower can hang there and not just survive, but prosper and defeat the bad guys. Superman represents the "other", the alien and yes, the "super" aspect of the hero. Also, in some sense, Superman is there to push the science / sci-fi. The god-touched who can rise above the mundane masses, but still seeks to save the people rather than conquer them. Wonder Woman is there for the "magic", and the fantasy side of comic archetypes. She's there for the mythological side, the demi-gods and legends of the past. Edit: Also... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6cpTjsHTNk

If we're going to look at trees... I shall combine that with eco-friendly burials.. Distractify - Human now, Tree Later

Guff - Consent, The Metaphor

That was one of the worst casualties of the writer's strike. Funny thing, they producer, director and writers say the writer's strike saved them (to a point), without the writer's strike, they'd have been shut down at 6 episodes, but because they had all the scripts written already up to episode 13 they got to make the rest because all the other shows didn't. The time slot following Heroes 2nd season was the killer. The "viewer retention" figures dropping was the glaring button rather than just the figures for watching the show. All the people that stopped watching to jump on the internet and blog about Heroes, and the people that stopped watching Heroes didn't stick around to watch Journeyman. That and just as they started the network head was replaced, and it's pretty standard for new network heads to kill off anything that was started by the guy who just left.

Picked up the dvd set of Journeyman. They've got a couple of interesting special features, getting the cast and crew back to talk about it 5 years after, and the discussions on where they would have gone if it hadn't been cancelled.

The Emperor and the White Snake / The Sorcerer and the White Snake (depending on where you are) A Chinese epic based on the legend of the white snake. Jet Li as the wise but stubborn demon-hunter / exorcist monk, and the story of a 1,000 year old snake demon that falls in love with a mortal apprentice herbalist / doctor. They just can't do an epic without working in some seriously tragic romance... Has some gorgeous visuals, marred by some dodgy CGI effects here and there, and a heart-breaking score.

Worlds Most Patient Pet Owner Strolls Tokyo with his huge Tortoise

Watched Mortdecai and I'm not quite sure what I made of it. It's quirky and it's got a fair few amusing moments, but something didn't feel quite right. Johnny Depp playing that caricature of a scoundrelish, insolvent, art dealing English Lord, who is deeply in love with his wife (Gwyneth Paltrow), and aided by his Manservant/Thug Jock (played pitch perfectly by Paul Bettany). In a tale about stolen art being chased by anarchist terrorists, the Russian mafia, and MI5. You have a slightly weasel-like performance from Ewan McGregor as the MI5 agent who used to go to school with Depp's character and is also deeply in love with his wife... Jeff Goldblum doing an appearance as the rich American, and even Paul Whitehouse turning up as a mechanic slash fence. I think it has that almost surreal feel of a Wes Anderson movie without quite hitting it. That mix of slightly over the top caricatures playing it ever so seriously while being quite silly. Maybe it's Depp playing too many of those types these days, but I will say Bettany pretty much stole every scene he was in.

I haven't made it down to South Africa yet, just hopped around West Africa a bit. I still have fond memories of visiting Sierra Leone and Freetown when I was a kid. Which made it very bizarre to see it on the news during the civil war and go "Hey, I walked down that street and had a picture taken in front of that tree that has all the dead bodies next to it..."

I quite liked the "prequel" The Thing they made a few years back. Telling the story of what happened at the Norwegians camp... The funny thing was that the advanced special effects and CGI while looking less wonky and more "real", actually wasn't as creepy/scary/disturbing as the ones in Carpenter's The Thing.

The Register - China's Great Cannon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4ajQ-foj2Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn3tUOJ9yv4

GameInformer - Meet the Power Players of Deus Ex Mankind Divided

Heh, so far the only thing I noticed about the kid and the knife after was running into the kid while his dad was yelling at him. Then I got to be involved in telling the dad that the kid hadn't stolen it. Out of curiosity, was there any major differences depending on your responses to the kid when you handed him the knife? ie; if you had survival at the level to tell him about being practical and safe with it while getting ready to be an adventurer and not just wave it around?

For that bout of history.. Warhistory Online - Come and Fight a Gurkha

Heh. Snippets from authors that amuse...