Month: May 2005

Kingdom of Heaven

Reading time: 2 mins

Movie info from IMDB
Movie reviews from Metacritic

Orlando Bloom stars in this EPIC STORY, starting life as a blacksmith who turns out to be not only a Lord’s son but an amazing swordsman (can anyone say typecast?). The SWEEPING VISTAS are plentiful as are the STUNNING BATTLESCENES, all very big and impressive. I’ll stop with the shouting now, I think you get the picture.

Story wise it’s the old good versus evil thing again, and Romeo and Juliet is pulled into the equation too. Ohh yes, the backdrop is some religious nonsense from around 1100, something to do with Jerusalem, Crusaders, Saracens (not the rugby team), and a couple of hundred thousands Muslims. But that’s all by the by and on the whole the story does it’s best to stay out of the road.

Alternatively you could say that it’s the heroic tale of rags to riches, a lowly blacksmith who becomes the defender of truth, justice and the American way!!… or something, he may not have said it quite like that…

By now you’ve probably gathered that it didn’t make a great impression on me, and I should pause to correct that. Slightly. The cinematography is nicely handled, the effects, costumes and so on are all very well done, and the battle scenes are well executed and (and I’m guessing here) reasonably realistically bloody.

However it just never really grabbed me and made me care enough about the characters or the plight of Jerusalem to stop various random thoughts popping into my head, such as:

“What is it with Ridley Scott and these semi-androgenous woman, first Sigourney Weaver and now Eva Green… hang on.. was it Ridley that did Alien?? Or was that James Cameron? Or did Cameron do the second one?? Dammit, can’t remember…”

“What kind of speech is that, the rallying cry to an army of Christians in the 1100s is “COME ON!!!”… what is this? Saturday afternoon at races?”

“Crap, I bet that malteser melts…”

If you like your movies EPIC and GRAND and not too involving then I’d recommend this… it’s not a bad movie, but it’s long way from being a good one.

May 22, 2005

Snippets

Reading time: < 1 min

Arsenal stealing the FA Cup, what a travesy. Of course Manchester United’s failure to score has been their undoing this season… I wonder who’ll win the SPL tomorrow??

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Eurovision still “so bad it’s good” (what WAS that “surprise” in the green room thing, with the boxer… how awful was that!). Congratulations to Helena from Greece. I missed all the songs but on looks alone she’d get my vote!

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Poker can be addictive, once you get past all the lingo of course. We’ve started learning. Desperate Housewives may be an influence.

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Watching movies on a channel with adverts is something we don’t tolerate anymore. Our attention spans hit zero when the adverts kick in, especially those ringtone ones. I remember when adverts were well written, funny, clever and were talked about. These days they have me reaching for the remote and changing channels.

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Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds STILL freaks me out. I can still remember first hearing it, that descending BEEEOOooo beeoooo beoooooo sent shivers down my spine, Richard Burton’s narration was chilling and I still get the same sense of darkness and terror from it.

May 21, 2005

The Lovely Bones

Reading time: < 1 min

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

The story of a murdered schoolgirl, this book offers a unique perspective of how her death affects her family, her community and herself. Told through Susie’s eyes, as she watches the people in her life from heaven, this is both a thriller, a love story, and an exploration of life and death all wrapped up into a very readable package.

The scope of the book is at once huge and yet focussed, and the storyline moves along nicely ensuring you are never bored, and always intrigued as to what is going to happen next. The characters are nicely developed and this was a pleasure to read. One of those books that slowly draws you in, and before you realise it you can’t wait to turn the next page, read the next chapter.

Excellent stuff, thanks to whoever recommended it (I really must start writing these things down somewhere). Now, what next?

May 21, 2005

Revenge of the Sith

Reading time: 2 mins

Movie info from IMDB
Movie reviews from Metacritic

I’ve been very aware of this movie for a while now, and very aware of avoiding reading reviews, articles and spoilers. I figured it was a last chance for George Lucas to put things right. He almost does.

The obvious stuff first then, and I’ll begin with a small suggestion. Should Mr.Lucas decide to make another movie, of any kind, he really MUST employ someone who will disagree with him. The most recent Star Wars movies seem full of little moments where you can almost imagine the conversations:

“I think we should make that into a little comedy moment… ”
“Yes George”

“These lines are ideal, don’t you think?”
“Yes George”

“These ARE the actors you’re looking for…” *waves hand in front of producers face*
“.. these are the actors we’re looking for…”

Speaking of which, and it pains me to say this because I’ve enjoyed some of his other work, Ewan McGregor is awful. Natalie Portman isn’t much better and Hayden Christiansen just isn’t threatening enough for me. Ian McDiarmid steals ever seen he is in, but even he has some awful AWFUL dialogue. It’s almost painful at times, at least the original movies tried to keep these things to a minimum. Unforunately all the action sequences in the world don’t make up for those moments when a badly written, badly delivered line jerks you from the Star Wars universe straight back into the cinema you are sitting in.

The good bits are very good though. Some of the battle scenes are fantastic (in every sense of the word) to the point of feeling a little forced on occasion. The reliance on closeups during some of the lightsaber battles is a huge annoyance, and I think they would have been better served training the actors for longer to make it appear more realistic.

Beyond the obvious and jaw-dropping special effects I’m struggling though. I’m a huge fan of the original three movies, and had hoped that this movie would finally bridge the gap in terms of quality. It almost gets there, almost. There are some funny comic moments (one nearer the end with Yoda is spot on), and it certainly is a darker movie than its predecessors not least due to the settings. Watching Senator Palpatine manipulate Anakin is the key part of the movie and is handled well, Padme’s death less so, and the loose ends are tied up quite nicely with the bonus of not being dragged out (as everyone knows how it’s going to end).

Anyway, it’s one of those movies that you will go and see regardless of what I say, if you are a Star Wars fan there is no way you can not watch this, and you’ll enjoy it on some levels (we are a forgiving bunch it seems), if you aren’t a fan then I think it still stands up well as a Sci-Fi romp.

I can’t wait to see what happens in Episode 4!

Note: I reserve the right to change my mind on this, as I’ll be watching it again next week.

May 20, 2005

Get connected

Reading time: 2 mins

A few months back Andrew Sullivan wrote:

“What was once an occasional musical diversion became a compulsive obsession. Now I have my iTunes in my iMac for my iPod in my iWorld. It’s Narcissus heaven: we’ve finally put the “iâ€? into Me.”

In the article he makes a few valid points, and whilst this is hardly stellar journalism it does offer a few little hooks that got me thinking. As he points out with the choices we have available to us we can tailor our daily life, and the flow of information in it, to meet our needs. No longer do I need to tune to a 12 o’clock news bulletin, or wait until I get home to hear that new CD. I can check my emails on my phone, and most of the links on my blog are from people with a similar liberal outlook like myself. I skim read the news sites using my RSS reader, focussing more on topics that interest me, and generally know when to steer clear of something that I don’t agree with (the latter may just be common sense, rather than an effort to control the inputs to my brain).

I filter out what I don’t want and create my own little utopia. I’m sure you do something similar, even if the degree of filtering changes.

So maybe we should be challenging that. Not just being more aware of surroundings, or even walking around in public sans headphones (gasp), but actually pursuing other viewpoints with an aim of at least understanding them a bit better? So whilst I think that guns should be under tighter control, how much do I actually know about the situation? I disagree with the way George Galloway conducts himself in most cases, but his recent “show” has reminded me that he is a smart guy, have I been selling him short? Is the Catholic religion as controlling and antiquated as I believe it to be? Is abortion a bad thing?

If there is one thing the internet is most definitely MADE for it’s providing a platform for differing points of view. So, where should I start? After all, there is nothing worse than a closed mind.

May 19, 2005

Miscellany

Reading time: < 1 min

Bit busy so a few quick thoughts.

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Remember that musical meme which went round in January? Well I’ve been spotting it all over the place in the last couple of days. Apparently it’s hit the “design” guys and gals. I used to think that they set the trends, but it seems like we are all further ahead than we think!!

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Paul (brother-in-law) and Angela (his girlfriend) are over tonight for dinner. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with him buying a new MP3 player, and even less to do with the fact that I have 58GB of music on my PC.

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Blog etiquette. More on this later, but it’s a bit like life. If you wouldn’t say something to someone’s face then don’t say it online. Ohhh and there is NEVER any reason to degenerate into name calling and whatnot. I’ll happily disagree with someone, and have them disagree with me, but everyone has the right to expect courtesy and politeness. Pausing before you type is usually the best method.

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Football starting up again soon. Must get fit. No chocolate has passed my lips for three days. Yes, I’m counting!

May 18, 2005