Ian – Page 146 – Fooyah

March 10 2016

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.

I rated True Lies (1994) 10/10 #IMDb https://t.co/PHHCo7pLlQ

— Ian Parish (@iparish) March 10, 2016

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

March 9 2016March 9 2016

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.

Roll on August.

March 8 2016March 8 2016

G’n’R Lies – Guns And Roses

So, it has taken a while and we are finally into the Gs of my album reviews. These reviews have been organised by album title and also don’t include a lot of the aggrotech that I have bought over the last two years. I doubt I’ll get around to those, also I am starting to stream music more than just buy or download albums. I’m not sure how that will turn out, I like the idea of “owning” an album rather than knowing it’s there to listen to via streaming. Let’s wait and see.

There’s an overriding problem with all of the cock rock from the 80s and G ‘n’ R is one of the main culprits. The lyrics are very sexist, bordering on obscene. I don’t think that the music alone can justify these lyrics. We could use the argument that society of the time was embedded within these albums but I’m not sure about that either. There have always been people working towards equality. Let me make this clear: equality means everyone being treated the same, it’s that simple.

Anyway, on to the album. This was released after Appetite For Destruction but has songs from before those days. It’s a pretty good rock EP and displays the destructive talent that was Guns and Roses. Patience is a pretty good ballad. Used To Love her is a great song. It reminds me of a time I saw Guns and Roses at Milton Keynes with a recent-ex-girlfriend. I may have sung along to Used To Love Her very loudly. The acoustic version of You’re Crazy is a delight.

The biggest problem is the song One In A Million. Whether we should judge the entire output of a band upon one song and the lyrics it contains or their behaviour off stage is something I haven’t got an answer for. I do know that I don’t listen to any LostProphets any more, it makes me feel ill. So, the dodgiest lyrics in One In A Million are:

Police and Niggers, that’s right
Get out of my way

Immigrants and faggots
They make no sense to me

Radicals and Racists
Don’t point your finger at me

I don’t know if these lyrics mean Guns and Roses are homophobic, racist or just trying to be controversial. Maybe it’s something we can’t know. They seem immature and a poor decision. The sort of thing a young person would write when trying to connect with the world.

February 28 2016

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.

I rated Deadpool (2016) 6/10 #IMDb https://t.co/WLDjpfD54z

— Ian Parish (@iparish) February 28, 2016

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.

February 28 2016

Fuckit – :wumpscut:

This was the first album by :wumpscut: that I bought. Along with my descent into aggrotech and hellecktro I started searching and reading Wikipedia about the genre trying to find new artists. There also seems to be cross pollination within the genre as quite often songs are re-mixed by other artists so by reading credits on albums it’s easy to see which bands associate with others. For instance Rotersand have remixed stuff for Aesthetic Perfection. Another method for finding new bands is to read the gig leaflets given out at venues [even if the mostly end up on the floor like a carpet of unwanted postcards].

So, :wumpscut: has been around for ages. This is a nicely produced album with some great tunes. It’s never going to make the mainstream but all the songs have a good beat and it’s well worth a listen. Youtube carries plenty of the music with people adding their own images. Go have a look.

February 28 2016

The Fragile (Right) – Nine Inch Nails

NIN. The place to go when you want dirty industrial with haunting melodies and lyrics that speak to you. Along with the Left this album is great for me to listen to while working. It has all the usual NIN experience and hasn’t been overplayed by me so always sounds fresh.

I’ve seen NIN twice, once at Wembley Stadium [the old one] when they supported GnR and also at Brixton Academy [or whatever it is called now]. The Brixton gig was damn brilliant.

February 28 2016

The Fragile (Left) – Nine Inch Nails

It’s been a while since I posted anything about album reviews. In fact it’s been so long I can’t remember the format I worked on. That doesn’t matter. I wrote about Broken and also Fixed. Nine Inch Nails are an awesome collective who write angry industrial sounding music. Trent Reznor follows on from the Revolting Cocks and Ministry and others and creates a niche sound. Everything NIN is clearly him.

This album is good. If I want that sound then this is where I come. It’s not an album I have over played and so I can listen to it and it always sounds fresh. A good start point although you should really go to The Downward Spiral first.

February 12 2016

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.

February 11 2016July 22 2021

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.

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.

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