Category: Penguin

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Eye In The Sky

Took a trip to Strood to watch Eye In The Sky. You should know by now that I will have rated this film on IMDB and that there is a certain system and method involved which I explained here.

So, this is a film dealing with a hypothetical capture of fighters by the UK on Al Shabaab members in Kenya. Now, I have no idea about the types of technology used in this film. I don’t know how good camera zooms are on drone planes. I don’t know how good calculating collateral damage is and I don’t know how good communications are. The facial recognition bit seemed most unlikely to me, but then I’m not an expert.

This is a Reaper drone, the type used in the film. From looking at the photos on Wikipedia the film seems to have reconstructed the control room quite well along with the weapons and camera capabilities of the Reaper.

Initially this film is about the capture of some of the most wanted list of Al Shabaab. But the situation changes when the naughty people move suddenly from one house where the Kenyan army are waiting to another in an Al Shabaab controlled area of town. This changes the plans considerably. Also, once the beetle bug gets inside the house there is a clear justification for a Hellfire strike.

This film follows the discussions between the UK Army, USA Air Force and politicians as the UK contemplates essentially assassinating five people including two UK subjects and a USA citizen.

Oh, yeah British people. You aren’t citizens. You are SUBJECTS. You are subservient to the Queen. God Save the Queen, fuck you.

The problem with the air strike is caused by a 10 year old girl selling bread just outside the wall of the target house and so she will likely die if the hellfires are released. I won’t give away the end, I’ll just say this. This film is worth watching. All actors are good. I didn’t like the US pilot and observer and I’d like to point out that not all men and women in the forces are that good looking.

At this point I wanted to write something like RIP Alan Rickman, but that implies that he is resting or his soul is elsewhere. That’s bullshit. So, perhaps I should say he’s dead. He was good.

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Hardcore Henry

I actually spent time and money going to see Hardcore Henry. It was showing at Rochester and I had seen the trailer and was curious. It was an 18, which normally means decent violence and/or language. I rated the film on IMDB, click here to see my ratings profile.

Look, if a film has a unique thing to it, then that gets accepted very quickly and simple things like script and storyline still have to be good. A bad film is still a bad film when it is shown in 3D. 3D isn’t enough to make a film good. First person filming wasn’t enough to make this a good film. It was shit. I hated it. The filming was ok, the violence was of a dark calibre and yet the story and script were terrible.

As the New York Daily News said:

You could see Hardcore Henry or you could gulp down vodka, put on GTA, strap the TV to your face and fall down the stairs.

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God Module – Electrowerkz

Took my sister to see God Module at Electrowerkz near The Angel in London. There were three bands playing and they were all actually pretty good unlike last time. Unusually the room on the ground floor was used as the venue, I’ve been in here before but have only experienced the first floor performance room for gigs. The sound was good and the room was just the right size. There were the usual freaks and geeks floating around all evening.

First band on were Die Kur. They had a very heavy metal sound with some synth stuff. Most enjoyable. My one concern was that the songs seemed a little too start-stop and a little short. Other than that they were very enjoyable.

Die Kur
Die Kur

Second band on the bill were DKAG. It was three blokes with Apple Macs on stage “playing” stuff. It was interesting as my sister spent a while asking “what is going on”, she’s quite a metal/rock fan really. After a while she was dancing and enjoyed it. It turns out I had seen this band before, I though I recognised them and actually searched on this site to see if I had seen them. It turned out I saw them with Combichrist a few years ago.

DKAG
DKAG

Finally God Module came on. I’d spent about a month listening to their stuff a lot and although I like it and it’s my sort of stuff a lot of the songs seemed similar. The sound and structure of the music was pretty much the same for every song. Also, the singer had a distortion effect on his voice.

One of the things about the ground floor room is that there isn’t a backstage. The bands had to walk through the audience to get to the stage which leant a kind of common touch to the evening. All the band members were milling around in the bar area after the gig, they were very approachable. Not that I did. I like to think I don’t fawn and hero worship, but I think I probably do to a certain extent.

God Module
God Module

God Module did what they do very well. The singer is possibly the largest man I have ever seen in a band and he didn’t really move around that much [too much inertia]. But they played a few songs I kinda recognised and the crowd loved them. It was ok for me.

Electrowerkz has gone somewhat upmarket as the gent’s loos had this in them by the sink:

Roses at Electrowerkz
Roses

I’m looking forward to my next gig, which I hope to get out to soon. I must get looking for stuff to see and listen to. My sister liked the evening but preferred the metal sound of the first band. Maybe she’ll convert in time!

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Feeling Agitated

I’ve been feeling agitated today mostly about the news that someone found out who his biological dad was.

So, I played Gran Turismo for a while and apart from a message from my niece about Game Of Thrones I just had stuff tumbling over in my mind. I did win two races, one at the Red Bull Ring short course and another on Deep Forest (reverse). I do like the Deep Forest track. The last race I did I came third! It was at Grand Valley Speedway and I would have one having muscled my way into first place however I braked too late for a sharp corner and went straight on.

So, here’s why I’m angry. I watched a film. Actually I’ve watched many films this break but I specifically watched two that I missed over the last year. They were both critically acclaimed films. The first I watched about two weeks ago:

My communication about IMDB ratings is clear on my scoring system but I have changed the rules. This film isn’t one I’ll watch again and it isn’t one I’ll buy. More importantly than that is the message of this film. You need to go and watch it. NOW. This film is about how a few journalists uncovered the Catholic Church SYSTEMATICALLY protected paedophile priests and helped them avoid justice. FUCKING SYSTEMATICALLY. The church KNEW about this and protected priests. The church KNEW that priests were sexually abusing kids, fucking young children, and SYSTEMATICALLY covered this up.

The message here is clear. If you are a priest in the Catholic Church and you fucked a kid in the arse then you get helped by your church to avoid prosecution and justice.

This message can’t be made loud enough to the member of the church. Every penny you give these assholes goes to help cover this up and keep priests from justice.

Yes my language is brutal. But then that’s what they did. These cunts fucked kids up the arse and got away with it. The church HELPED them. Fuck the church.

The other film I watched was The Big Short. I’m still angry.

This film explained the systematic fraud and cover up perpetrated by the banks prior to the GLOBAL economic crash of 2008. This film is odd at times, but it is brilliant. Again, it explains how people in privileged positions abused that position and how it was covered up by senior members and the government [not the church this time]. Who suffered from this? Normal people who were struggling. People who lost their homes, health and possibly lives because of the greed and stupidity of a few.

The people in power, the governments haven’t intervened to bring people to justice. They haven’t changed the rules. People have paid for this over and over. The current economy is fucked. Ordinary citizens are paying the price for our governments bailing out banks and the global finance system because the entire industry was fraudulent.

I think that’s the point. Both of these stories show how the privileged are able to escape the horrors of normal everyday life. The experiences that normal people go through don’t matter to those in positions of power and trust. Both of these films show that people are self-interested and care not for you and I.

Am I angry? Yes I am. I’m angry at the establishment perpetuating itself and those who suffer are those who can do little to change it.

Child abuse, financial crisis, NHS, tax havens, private trust funds, offshore ownership, PPI, privilege, railways, utilities – these are the things we should be angry about. These things should DOMINATE the agenda and news everyday until something is done. In a month we won’t care about Tax Havens again.

 

 

 

Read Private Eye.

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Listening

The internet and the companies on it are a good thing. I can know whatever I want within seconds. The world wide web is a force for great good. But, much like our social circles we tend to only look at things that confirm our own beliefs and reinforce everything we already think. It’s like newspapers and television channels. If you are liberal in your thoughts it’s reasonable to assume you would read The Guardian or Independent. If you are right wing then you might read The Times or Telegraph. If you are just plain crazy then you might read the Daily Fucking Mail.

Now, most of my friends share the same thoughts about society as I do. Some don’t and it’s always great fun to have conversations and discussions and arguments with them. It would be impossible in life to only spend your time with people who agree with you. You need to learn to accept what people think, even if they are clearly wrong.

I was almost going to turn this communication into a discussion about logical fallacies. You can Google that phrase and see what you find. It’s important to understand logical fallacies and how to spot them. I’m quite good at spotting some but I still don’t really understand the Straw Man argument and I keep reading about it and listening to people explain it.

So, this communication is about listening to opposing views. I have done this on twitter and follow some people who I would really rather not. I try to read what they say and do my best to understand them. I force myself to try and understand from their point of view. It’s a bit like reading the Daily Fucking Mail which I do occasionally to see what poisonous shit they are saying now.

So, one of the first people I started to follow to listen and see what they say was Deepak Chopra. He is often ridiculed on podcasts that I listen to. Here are a few of his tweets so you can see what sort of thing this knobhead says.

Now, I haven’t even read the article. It’s enough to annoy me that he claims consciousness isn’t in the body. Where the fuck else is it going to be?

What does this mean? They are words, but none that make sense.

When I see stuff like this and people retweeting this it pisses me off loads. How can people like this bullshit. I don’t understand. One of my issues is that I find it hard to see why people believe this bullshit. To me it is quite obvious how and why things work. We have explanations for all this stuff. We are finding out more and more as time goes on. We understand. We don’t need this waffle to help us cope with this one life we have. Now, I start to understand why people I listen to make fun of this man. Perhaps I’m jealous? Perhaps I think those who find peace in this shit must have contentment and happiness that I do not. this is a force for making people happy and calm. But then, it’s not really is it? People with faith and belief still hurt and have shit happen to them. They are still sad when people close to them die, they aren’t joyous because the soul lives on. Believers still feel pain but also have a veneer of lies to clutch on to, to comfort them.

I often think of this:

So, onto another tweeter I follow. Perhaps that should be twit. I am not sure. I try to be polite but sometimes I just give up and think these people are fucking arseholes. Ken Ham has spent millions creating an Ark in Kentucky. Let’s see what he has to say:

Sure, the biblical worldview values all human life, unless you are gay, transgender, divorce, have an abortion, don’t believe, are foreign, wear mixed fabrics, have sex before marriage, have an affair and so on. Fuck You Ken for saying this. I also don’t understand his first sentence. What the actual fuck? Evolution leads to euthanasia? How? This man just doesn’t understand evolution, which is rather sad. This man believes the bible is the literal truth. My problem with this is how can someone clearly intelligent [he has raised funds for his Ark and runs several organisations] believe that stuff?

Sure, God’s word is the best evidence. But we don’t have god’s word. We have words written by men, in a book, almost two thousand years ago. This book says it is true, therefore it is true. Awesome logic.

An ark! Noah’s ark. In Kentucky. Purporting to be the truth. Nothing to mock there.

I have to admit, I don’t understand “sin”. It seems to be breaking the rules from a book. It’s worse than breaking the law, I think. I’m not sure. Perhaps “sin” is what old celibate men decide it is. That sounds about right.

The number of times I have read this and tried to understand what it means! Arrrrrgh.

I’ll leave it there. Time to move on to another person I follow on twitter. Pastor Alex Rivas describes himself as “Son of God. Researcher. Leader. Prophet. A human being.” I don’t see much human being in the things he says:

I’m pretty sure bible says nothing about gay marriage, abortion or marijuana. If you can find the verse then please let me know. Obviously if you use the bible to support your ideas then you should surely follow all it’s principles. Leviticus 19:19 says:

You shall keep my statutes. You shall not let your cattle breed with a different kind. You shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor shall you wear a garment of cloth made of two kinds of material.

Here’s another:

There’s NO evidence from the time of Jesus that he existed. NONE. Let alone that he was resurrected. NOT one thing. NADA. ZILCH. NOTHING. All we have are mistranslations of stories written about forty years after whatever happened. Yet we are to believe that these writings exactly reproduce the things that Yeshua said. I don’t understand how people who are so invested in the words of the bible haven’t taken the time and opportunity to look into the history of the bible. To understand from where the stories come. To read up about how this book they hold so dear came to be written.

Actually I do understand why these people haven’t looked into the history of their beloved book. It’s because they know it will destroy their faith. It will bring their world view crumbling down. It’s therefore best to ignore that. We don’t want to feel that the time and resources invested have been wasted.

Dana Ullman MPH CCH:

Homoeopathic meds have plenty of molecules, just none of the “active” ingredient that they claim.

That’s good. Homoeopathy is nothing. Seriously, it’s nothing. Anyway, Dana Ullman has MPH and CCH after his name. What does that mean? Right, MPH is Master of Public Health [not a medical degree] and CCH may be a homoeopathic post graduate degree thing. I’m not sure. Do you know how I introduce bullshit medicine in the school where I work? I explain what homoeopathy [and I spell it correctly] and I give pupils an understanding of the claims Homoeopaths make about how it works. I use official homoeopathy websites to describe the rules of homoeopathy. I don’t even get halfway through the rules before the pupils see it for what it is: bollocks.

If I want to create an air of authority then perhaps I should end everything I write with Ian Parish PGCE BEng (Hons) ACGI. Perhaps the world would like that and find my writings more impressive. I could, legitimately, sign off Plt Off Parish RAFVR(T). But I don’t.

I still follow these people. I still read their shit. I try to understand the world view they come from but I will admit that I struggle. I still find it incredibly weird that intelligent people believe these kids of things.

So, instead of wasting time on what these crazy people think. Here’s what science did today:

You see? Do you see what fantastic stuff we can do when we put our energies and minds to it. Science is fantastic.

As an aside, I love the fact that the Space-X barges are named after ships from Iain M Banks books.

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Midnight Special

I had an afternoon at the flicks. I went to see Midnight Special at Rochester Cineworld. I have, as usual, graded this film on IMDB, please see my ratings guide here.

Now, a lot of the time I watch a film and I have parts of what I write here going through my head. It’s kinda how I experience the movie. I expect that I forget most of what I want to write as I don’t take a pad in to make notes. I do take my phone but suspect I’d get kicked out for having it on all the time. Also that would distract from the film.

Things have changed recently. I no longer hear my own voice or see my website when I watch films. Rather I head Eli, Noah and Heath from the GAMCast. I hear them arguing and making jokes about puppy rape and fat people.

The GAMCast is a podcast I regularly listen to while running or driving. God Awful Movies takes three hilarious atheists and they poke fun at terrible Christian cinema. Sometimes they even take down a good Christian movie! You can find them here:

God Awful Movies

So, this film, Midnight Special. It was a nice science fiction kinda film. I enjoyed it. There were a few moments where I thought “what?” but on the whole the film held together well. The pace is nice and slow, the action and tension builds slowly. Unlike most modern films this one takes its time and ends up being quite satisfying. Well worth a watch.

There, you are. Not a great deal to say. I liked it. Perhaps you should read about films I didn’t like, I tend to write much more!

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London Has Fallen

I feel ashamed. I was told not to see London Has Fallen but still I went. I went to see White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen a few years ago and they were both quite terrible films. They seem to make out that terrorists are superbly intelligent people able to undertake huge operations involving hundreds of people. In reality terrorists are rarely that clever or good at terrorism. So, as ever, I rated this on IMDB and you should read the guide to my system here.

This film was terrible. It replaced plot and intelligence with gunfire and explosions. It didn’t make sense. Perhaps I was hoping for too much realism and not hoping enough for shooting everywhere with guns that have a LOT of ammunition. Holy crap the Gerard Butler character and POTUS seemed indestructible. If you have ninety minutes of your life that you want to waste watching London get blown up while people mill around [the background people don’t react how I would if there were explosions and gunfire] then please watch this.

So, Morgan Freeman turns up playing the Vice-President. Which confused the hell out of me as I was sure he played the president in the previous film and I spent about five minutes trying to figure out what happened politically that would cause the President to swap places with his VP. Then I remembered: that was the other shitty terror film! I was in the wrong franchise!

[So I fucked up. The other film franchise had Jamie Foxx in it. I feel like I’m a racist old fucker now. Shit, damn and bollocks. I was still confused.]

There’s an MI6 man who is part of the CATERING for the wedding at the beginning and confirms that the EVIL MAN is present, at his own fucking house. The wedding is blown up and the USA is surprised that there’s a lot of civilian death. It was a WEDDING. It was clearly a WEDDING. There was a man on the ground who was catering for the WEDDING. The overhead views CLEARLY showed a marquee and many people around who wouldn’t have been there a week before. It was a WEDDING. Anyone with half a brain would have known it was a WEDDING, you know, where lots of people gather to celebrate and probably have not a lot to do with the evil man. The explosion was HUGE. And yet evil man and two of his sons survived? Really?

There was an MI6 safe house in London. Why would MI6 have a safe house in London? They don’t do domestic. That would be MI5.

“The President doesn’t go anywhere without a satellite overhead recording him”. Really? That’s some fucking observation system you have there! I’m impressed. You can manoeuvre a satellite to make it overhead of the President all the time? Haven’t you heard of orbital mechanics?

Gerard Butler makes a hand signal that is spotted by the satellite and interpreted correctly by the bods in the situation room? What? How? What? Seriously what? I laughed, out loud, by myself, in a packed cinema.

“The terrorists have hacked into all communications”.
VP calls Gerard Butler telling him a SEAL team are on their way.
Looks surprised when a SEAL team turn up too quick and then determines they are baddies because they aren’t SWEATING. Nothing to do with brown skin and a beard. No, this film isn’t racist.

The explosion at the end was HUGE. It killed all the terrorists but didn’t get POTUS or Butler? Really?

This film replaced any form of sense and fun and action with gunfire and bullets. Too much gunfire and bullets. And I quite like action films.

My lessons from this film are that white people are OK. Black people are OK. The British are incompetent. Brown people are bad, especially if they have beards or are over 50 and look distinguished. Pakistan and Yemen are really bad. POTUS knows how to handle ten different types of gun and is indestructible.

This is a terrible film and I need to stop pointing out the bullshit.

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Allegiant

I went to Rochester Cineworld cinema to see Allegiant. This is the third in the Divergent series. I reviewed Divergent and Insurgent before. It looks like there’s going to be another of these films, I can’t wait [sarcasm]. I rated this film on IMDB and, as ever, you should read this communication about my rating system.

So, the inhabitants of Chicago get to go beyond the wall, except they don’t because the new leader, 4’s mum or something like that, doesn’t want them to. Do you know what? It’s not worth explaining the plot. It wasn’t worth it. Kids escape one city to be moved to one with exactly the same problems. It’s the same film again. Like my review for Insurgent this future world is a bit shit. It’s not thought through. It doesn’t work.

My issues with this film are numerous. Tris is genetically PURE. What the actual fuck does that mean? Is this a film that is meant to fit in with a Trump world view? If only PURE people can get up to the upper levels at O’Hare then why is everyone else allowed up there too? I think I missed something.

The people at O’Hare and Providence have awesome technology but there isn’t anywhere that has the industrial base to produce that. Where is this stuff made? How does this economy work?

Red rain. Red rain in the badlands or whatever they are called. But there’s a magic forcefield around Chicago to stop this rain from falling on them or even them noticing it when they are up in the towers looking over the badlands.

It’s not actually that far from Chicago to O’Hare airport. I know there is a force field thing protecting Chicago from seeing the airport but they never noticed all the flying things?

chicago

If the population of O’Hare is made from children stolen from tribes living in the badlands then the badlands can’t actually be that bad? If there are adults reproducing healthy children then it seems the outside is OK. Also, what do these people eat?

I need to stop. The film “looked” nice. Other than that is was poor.

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10 Cloverfield Lane

I went to see 10 Cloverfield Lane last night at the Cineworld cinema in Ashford. New cinema for me, about half an hour away, but will probably stick with Rochester in future. The screen auditorium was pretty small although busy for the showing. As usual I rated this film on IMDB but please see my ratings guide.

This film was quite good. Not sure I’d bother watching it again, hence the six. I actually jumped at the initial crash which was just embarrassing.

SPOILER ALERT –  do not read beyond.

Initially this seems to be a thriller about the main man potentially being wrong, the world hadn’t ended and he was just a fuck-head. The woman turning up halfway through disperses with the theme that it wasn’t the end of the world. After that point the film had to end somehow with this “end of world” theme.

It would have been nice for the film to play up the abduction more. I’m not sure it added enough “creep” to the main man, but then again, maybe it was just right. I think I would like to have known definitively.

Killing the young man was a cool point in the film. It showed the crazy just enough. And from there we jump to the last ten minutes. As far as I could see there was a lot of running and panic by the girl when there was no need to. I know it kept the cinematic theme but she wasn’t being threatened by anything at the time and so her panic was stupid. I liked the ending, it had to be either aliens or CHEMICAL WARFARE [cue Slayer song].

My main gripe with this film was that it would take more than an aerosol can to break a frozen brittle padlock. Just sayin’.

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Hocico – Electrowerkz

I took a trip to Electrowerkz to see Hocico with Smith. I’ve been to Electrowerkz a number of times, I really like it. It would have been good to stay for the Slimelight club but I had some stuff on early the next day and so we left after the gig.

First up were Spawn Of Psychosis.

20160312_195119035_iOS
Spawn Of Psychosis

This was the best shot I could be bothered to try and get of the band. They were shit. Seriously, they were terrible. The guitar solos were painful and the rest of the band didn’t do much better. Perhaps they’d just had a bad day but I really wouldn’t want to see them again. Having just googled their name it turns out they are from Maidstone, my nearest town. That’s a shame. I don’t think even my local interest would have saved this review!

The next band were called Biomechanimal. Here’s the best shot I have of them:

Biomechanimal
Biomechanimal

These guys were better. Much better. The songs were quite enjoyable. I can’t remember any specifics, which is a shame. Perhaps the terror of the first band hadn’t quite worked its way out of my head.

Finally we were treated to Hocico. These two guys are cousins from Mexico. Their music seems reasonable, but the vocals are quite distorted on the studio albums so I wasn’t sure how enjoyable they would be live. Here’s what they look like:

Hocico_OfensorWorldTour2016

I definitely remember the song “Sex Sick” and some others from the recent album. Overall they were pretty good. The played for 90 minutes which was probably too long. There wasn’t a great deal of variation in their music and beat.

Hocico
Hocico

As you can see, I didn’t really go out of my way to try and get great photos. I was concentrating on listening and dancing rather than when to take the best shot. Also, the lighting at Electrowerkz tends to all come from behind the stage, there’s a low ceiling in front, and so it’s quite hard to photo.

The singer of Hocico had plenty of energy and was drinking wine on stage which I don’t think I’ve seen before. At least the wine was offered out to the front row.

Hocico were good and I enjoyed it. The atmosphere was really good. I’m looking forward to seeing them again at M’era Luna, should the timetable allow.

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Disaster Area 11 March 2016

Disaster Area opened the MGS Rock Evening last night.

Set List:
Learn To Fly
I Hate Myself For Loving You

Disaster Area is:

  • Miss Alloy
  • Mr Gymer
  • Miss Mason
  • Mr Martin
  • Mr Parish
  • Mr Taylor
Disaster Area
Disaster Area

To see more about us head over to Faceshit. As explained before I don’t do Faceshit.

20160312_173343000_iOS

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Ratings

After a short discussion at work today involving films and my ratings system I decided to look at what films I had rated and what I gave them. First I had to rate True Lies. Yes, the Arnie film. I saw it twice at the cinema on consecutive evenings and have watched it since a couple of times. Therefore it gets a 10.

That then got me to review my ratings over time. I try to make sure I rate films just after I have seen them. That was you still get an “excited about the film” rating rather than one I have time to consider! Here’s the current latest list of scores:

Title My Rating IMDb Rating Year
2001: A Space Odyssey 10 8.3 1968
Akira 10 8.1 1988
Alien 10 8.5 1979
Aliens 10 8.4 1986
By Dawn’s Early Light 10 7.2 1990
Godzilla 10 6.5 2014
Gravity 10 7.9 2013
Guardians of the Galaxy 10 8.1 2014
Human Target 10 7.8 2010
Human Target: Kill Bob 10 8.4 2010
Interstellar 10 8.6 2014
La Luna 10 8 2011
Lost and Found 10 8.3 2008
Serenity 10 8 2005
Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens 10 8.4 2015
The Princess Bride 10 8.1 1987
True Lies 10 7.2 1994
Warehouse 13: Love Sick 10 7.8 2009
The Imitation Game 9 8.1 2014
A Most Wanted Man 8 6.8 2014
Avengers Assemble 8 8.1 2012
Big Hero 6 8 7.9 2014
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) 8 7.8 2014
Chappie 8 6.9 2015
Continuum 8 7.7 2012
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes 8 7.6 2014
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story 8 6.7 2004
Intermission 8 6.9 2003
Kingsman: The Secret Service 8 7.8 2014
Mad Max: Fury Road 8 8.2 2015
Not Going Out 8 7.9 2006
Pacific Rim 8 7 2013
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan 8 7.7 1982
Sunshine 8 7.3 2007
The Abyss 8 7.6 1989
The Amazing Spider-Man 8 7 2012
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 8 6.8 2014
The Heat 8 6.6 2013
The Judge 8 7.4 2014
The Trap Door 8 8.1 1984
Veep 8 8.1 2012
Warehouse 13 8 7.6 2009
12 Years a Slave 6 8.1 2013
2 Guns 6 6.7 2013
American Hustle 6 7.3 2013
Astro Boy 6 6.3 2009
Avengers: Age of Ultron 6 7.5 2015
Battleship 6 5.9 2012
Before I Go to Sleep 6 6.3 2014
Black Swan 6 8 2010
Captain America: The Winter Soldier 6 7.8 2014
Deadpool 6 8.5 2016
Divergent 6 6.8 2014
Ender’s Game 6 6.7 2013
Escape Plan 6 6.7 2013
Ex Machina 6 7.7 2015
Focus 6 6.6 2015
Fury 6 7.6 2014
Gone Girl 6 8.1 2014
Green Lantern 6 5.6 2011
Hawaii Five-0 6 7.4 2010
Horrible Bosses 6 6.9 2011
Insurgent 6 6.3 2015
Jupiter Ascending 6 5.4 2015
Lone Survivor 6 7.6 2013
Love Actually 6 7.7 2003
Machete Kills 6 5.6 2013
Man of Steel 6 7.2 2013
Pain & Gain 6 6.5 2013
Rise of the Guardians 6 7.3 2012
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World 6 7.5 2010
Selma 6 7.5 2014
Space Station 76 6 4.9 2014
Steve Jobs 6 7.3 2015
Ted 6 7 2012
The Boxtrolls 6 6.8 2014
The Danish Girl 6 7 2015
The Equalizer 6 7.2 2014
The Expendables 3 6 6.1 2014
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey 6 7.9 2012
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies 6 7.5 2014
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug 6 7.9 2013
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire 6 7.6 2013
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 6 6.7 2014
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. 6 7.3 2015
The Railway Man 6 7.1 2013
The Two Faces of January 6 6.2 2014
The Village 6 6.5 2004
Thor 2: The Dark World 6 7.1 2013
World War Z 6 7 2013
47 Ronin 4 6.3 2013
American Sniper 4 7.3 2014
Capture the Flag 4 5.8 2015
Iron Man 3 4 7.3 2013
Jurassic World 4 7.1 2015
Lucy 4 6.4 2014
Need for Speed 4 6.5 2014
Now You See Me 4 7.3 2013
Oblivion 4 7 2013
Plebs 4 7.9 2013
Prometheus 4 7 2012
Rambo 4 7.1 2008
Riddick 4 6.4 2013
Rio 2 4 6.4 2014
RoboCop 4 6.2 2014
Sabotage 4 5.7 2014
Skyfall 4 7.8 2012
Spectre 4 6.9 2015
Star Trek Into Darkness 4 7.8 2013
The Call 4 6.7 2013
The Lone Ranger 4 6.5 2013
The World’s End 4 7 2013
Total Recall 4 6.3 2012
Transcendence 4 6.3 2014
Transformers: Age of Extinction 4 5.7 2014
White House Down 4 6.4 2013
Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus 2 2.5 2010
Noah 2 5.8 2014
Sharknado 2 3.3 2013
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900

This is Fooyah communication number 900. I can’t believe I have waffled on for so many years or communications. I can guarantee that if you read all my “posts” you would be bored very quickly.

Enjoy.

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Summer Decided

There was a little debate a while ago about which music festival to attend. The decision has been made.

M’era Luna

I am quite excited about this. It should be good. Having been last year I now know where we are going and what to expect. The festival is based at the airport of Hildesheim. This town has some wonderful buildings in the centre and is one of the oldest cities in northern Germany. Maybe this year Andy and I will get into the town centre to see what it is like.

The line up has some pretty awesome bands although, once again, I’m not sure if we’ll stay for the final Sunday night band. There’s plenty of time to decide.

ML1
ML2

Roll on August.

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Deadpool

Went to see Deadpool earlier today. As ever I have rated a film on IMDB, see my rating guide here. I went to the Cineworld cinema at Rochester, although it’s on the wrong side of the river to be in Rochester.

So, here’s what I thought. It was a superhero movie, which don’t really bother me, and it was entirely like all the other superhero movie except this one included breaking the forth wall and general slutty humour.

Was it funny? Yes.

Was it laugh out loud funny? No.

Was it a good film. Not really. If you remove the humour it wasn’t that great. Just another superhero revenge movie with fights and crashes and stuff. There, I said it.

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It’s Where I Am

So, I have written about music a lot. If people ask what sort of music I like I answer: metal. It’s the easiest answer and everyone pretty much understands what it means. I wrote about my descent into metal here. Something strange happened since I saw Rammstein at Wembley Arena in February 2010. My music tastes shifted after seeing Combichrist. I wrote about that here as it distressed me somewhat.

Now, to give you a taste you can listen to the music here:

There’s plenty of stuff here that I know and quite a bit I don’t. It’s all good by association. It makes me happy, smile and want to dance. It’s new and different.

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XM655

Wellesbourne Airfield in Warwickshire. Home to a flying school, a Saturday market and an AVRO VULCAN: XM655.

This Vulcan is the most complete of all the Vulcans remaining. Although XH558 was the last airworthy Vulcan they had to remove stuff from it to get the airworthiness certificate. Hence, XM655 is more complete and still does high speed taxi runs.

I wrote about XH558 here when I saw her perform for the last time over Coventry airport.

I think the most amusing thing about XM655 is that when it was bought from the RAF it landed at Wellesbourne, but the runway isn’t long enough for it to take off again. That does seem a touch short sighted.

If you get the chance on a Saturday to visit you most definitely should. For a donation the members of the preservation society will give you a tour of the cockpit and tell you wonderful stories about the Vulcan and her history. Did you know that all the money went into the airframe and so the navigation equipment was pretty much the same as the Lancaster? For long flights the crew had a sextant.

Vulcan cockpit
Vulcan cockpit XM655

With a crew of five, but only two ejector seats there were “design” issues  I guess. The three crew facing backwards had to jump out through the entrance door in the floor. That was probably an issue when flying low!

So, the Vulcan is a beautiful plane. It’s very loud and imposing. I am curious as to how good it was compared to other planes of its generation. We Brits love to imagine that our stuff is the best. I just wonder how much that is true.

Vulcan Rear
Vulcan Rear

This beast is graceful and wonderful. I am glad she never was used for her intended mission.

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