In an unusual move I went to the cinema this morning to an 11:00 showing! I’d already had a run so I figured why not? I won’t embed that here, you can search my Twitter timeline if you want to see that. As is usual I rated the film on IMDB and for an explanation of the rating system you should read this communication.
So, I enjoyed the film. It was pretty violent and very well done. It wasn’t that violent given what I have seen in the past but I guess for a 15 it was impressive.
WARNING there are SPOILERS from HERE.
I don’t like superhero films. Or mutant films. Most of them are rubbish. This one was good but not brilliant. I’ve seen people raving about it and I think that’s mostly the rubbish they’ve been fed over the years colouring their view.
I need to add that the whole idea that the kids would be safe once they “crossed the border” was odd given that the company chasing them was perfectly happy to blow shit up in Mexico and the USA and so probably wouldn’t mind popping into Canada.
It was lovely to see Richard E Grant being evil.
This film was going to be rated 6/10 but I have given it 8/10 because of the major deaths that take place in the film. I though it was important to give those characters some honour.
Last night I went to see Hidden Figures. It has been a while since I’ve been to the cinema as things are just a little busy at the moment. I’m sure I’ll catch up in the next month or so. I’ve had a recommendation to see Logan and given my general dislike of superhero films it will be interesting to see it.
I went to see Hidden Figures. It is customary for me to rate films on IMDB and I did so.
Perhaps you should read my reasoning behind my ratings, although I have to admit the logic is shifting slowly over time, as should be expected I guess.
Hidden Figures was a good film. It was about some of my favourite topics; space, rockets, maths, civil rights, humanity.
Quite a broad range of topics there, but this film managed them all. This was the story of three mathematicians at NASA. That doesn’t sound particularly impressive until you suddenly say BLACK FEMALE mathematicians at NASA in the early 1960s. Everyone should see this film, it has the right amount of everything, really worth while.
It stuns me to see how different people were treated. God, people can be fucking assholes.
In part of the O2 arena complex there is an exhibition at the moment entitled Star Wars Identities. I went to see it today. The Millenium Dome as people my age remember it, the white elephant of bullshit that cost nearly a BILLION pounds for a year’s worth of exhibition about stuff at the turn of the millennium [although they got the wrong year, it should have been 2001 obviously]. I went to the dome in 2000 and it was shit. Then it lay empty as far as I know and at some point O2 coughed up money and it seems to be a half decent venue. I’ve not seen a band there but I have seen tennis and it was OK for that. The outer part of the arena seems to consist solely of places to buy food.
The exhibition was a little underwhelming. I knew there were going to be outfits, models and robots but I didn’t realise just how much “identity” was going to be in it. It was very nice to see the stuff from the films and I really enjoyed that but I’m not a fan enough to want to see developmental sketches and stuff like that. Just show me the real stuff.
C3PO – with silver leg
The opening video section was about how Anakin and Luke were both heroes. How the choices they made changed them. And then there was more stuff but I had stopped listening. I just wasn’t interested in trying to shoehorn a reason for this exhibition into the exhibition. It wasn’t necessary. This sort of thing would have been good just by itself.
THE Falcon
The best bit was being given a wrist RFID thing that meant I could create my own Star Wars character as I went around. By answering questions and making choices about my fictional life I would end up with a character.
I chose to be a wookie. There were nine other question stations and in the final hall area I could see the chosen character on the wall. I also got an emailed version which will appear below.
Slave 1
Snowspeeder
Storm Trooper
Bobba Fett
AT-AT
Luke’s Kit
Chewie
Anakin’s Speederbike
THE Vader
THE Falcon
C3PO
Tuskan Raider
There was an expensive lot of tat being sold in the regulation shop at the end of the exhibition. I bought a few things including these glasses.
Expensive Tat
So, here is my character:
My Star Wars Identity
Here is my biography:
I was raised on the gas planet Bespin, where members of my community made their living working as engineers in Cloud City’s reactor core. On holidays my friends and I would traditionally relax in the luxurious floating spas.
My parents raised me with a mix of independence and support, and I inherited my natural abilities from them. Later on I spent some time with the wise Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, whose guidance left me with knowledge I still use every day in my job as a fighter pilot.
I remember this one time when I crash-landed on a strange planet. I didn’t let this affect me too much, though; instead I became a successful trader of scrap metal and found a home among the Jawas.
People often tell me I’m a generally organised and prepared person, I also tend to be adventurous and curious. But the most important thing to me is universalism: after all, as they say, equal rights for all and special privileges for none.
I have only a low sensitivity to the Force, but the Emperor saw potential in me. When he offered me limitless power in exchange for my allegiance, I fought the urge to join him and his evil minions and rejected his offer.
Overall it was expensive for what it was, although I expected that. I remember seeing a Lord Of The Rings exhibition at the Science Museum years ago and that was great. I’m glad I went as I love the photo I took of the Tusken Raider and the view from the cable car.
I also took a trip over the Thames in the cable cars sponsored by Emirates.
I went to the cinema by the river Medway [Rochester] and watched Hacksaw Ridge. I rated it on the IMDB website and as ever you should read this communication about my rating system.
My general overview is that I won’t watch this film again. I enjoyed it but I am thoroughly depressed at man’s ability to kill and destroy each other. I do understand that at times it is necessary to do these things but I wish it wasn’t.
If you want to see a boot camp sequence then you only need watch Full Metal Jacket. There was a lot of soap opera joyness about the USA scenes. I will say that Hugo Weaving was fantastic as the father, he really showed the horror of coping with war. I am not sure that his friends would have been buried in the hometown but I could be wrong.
When we get into battle this film blows you away and I almost cowered waiting for the calm. The noise and assault was impressive. The battle scenes are brilliantly horrific and scary. Fuck war.
This was a “true story” and the interviews at then end played out some of what we saw. This is worth a watch.
I tried to coast the car as far as possible to Rochester cinema today, but there are too many uphills in the way and I had to use a fair bit of fuel. I do tell myself that all journeys that start and end at home are potential energy neutral [given particular losses for downhill and energy conversion] but still, hills annoy me. I also don’t want to be a particularly sad Prius driver, I do like power mode. I went to see Lego Batman and I rated the film on IMDB, perhaps I could trouble you to read this communication about the rating system.
Well, overall I would say I was largely not affected by this film. The opening was good, I liked the Batman character and his voice-over. but I think I’m too old for these films now. It all seemed just a little too busy. There was always so much going on in the film and on the screen it was hard to keep up with the characters and potential jokes that were happening. I am positive it was funnier than I thought, but I only smiled a couple of times.
While I guess this film was inevitable after the Lego Movie, I think Batman has been done to death. Putting it in Lego didn’t change or improve it. If anything it possibly messed up the Lego brand a bit. This film could have just as easily been live action or animated [not Lego] and it would have been the same. There wasn’t any reason for it to be Lego.
I didn’t leave the cinema amazed with what I had just seen, I left feeling “huh”, or whatever letters spell the equivalent of a “shoulder shrug”. It is quite possible that I just don’t like Batman. I remember seeing the Tim Burton version and thinking “whatever”, I do now recognise it as great though. All versions since have left me cold and irritated. I’m just not made for Batman.
I went and visited Scotney Castle today. The sun was shining and it was lovely out, a little cold but largely nice. The skies looked great, far better than all the grey we’ve had recently. The car managed 62 mpg on the way home, so I’m quite happy with that. Scotney is a lovely large house that definitely isn’t a castle. The owners deliberately ruined the old castle to create a good looking folly after the newer house was built.
Scotney Castle
While wandering around the newer house I noticed a wooden panel in the library.
Sith Panel
Now this is quite disturbing. When you focus on the words it becomes obvious that there may be secret Star Wars fans when the house was designed in the 1800s!
Sith Alert
Apparently the phrase should be:
I care not for quotations of kings and queens. Also, they are quotations, not quotes.
18. It was a proper 18 film. These are quite a delight because you get proper violence and language and sex. These films are grittier and more interesting than those certified below 18. When I think about it, you don’t get many horror films that hit the 18 mark anymore, I wonder if that’s because the market for those types of films is really teenagers. I’m pretty sure that some films change certification over time. Alien was an X on release [over 18] but is now a 15 on DVD release, people’s sensitivities get less as society evolves.
So, I went to the cinema at Royal Tunbridge Wells, it’s an Odeon, or the one I went to is, there may be other cinemas available. The cinema has an Italian restaurant on the mezzanine floor, which was nice and saved having to go to a big-chain-edge-of-town restaurant. Here is my rating which I score on IMDB and you should read this communication if you don’t get how my system works.
I really enjoyed this film. It was funny, touching and terrifying at the same time. I thoroughly liked the original and this is a good follow on. T2 shows how films can be sequels without just re-running the original film. There were plot points that were similar but you can watch this without knowing the original.
The film looked great and the soundtrack was excellent as expected.
It is quite scary just how much the actors have changed while also looking exactly the same, the cutting from one film into another deals with this brilliantly. There is liberal use of the word “cunt” by Begbie and at times I almost needed subtitles for him.
Many of the communications within this domain are based on films I have seen or television episodes. Whenever I go to the cinema I rate the film on the IMDB website. You should see this communication which will explain my scoring rationale. A good thing about the IMDB site is that you can download your data.
So, here’s an idea of what how many times I have used each score.
Now, the odd scored films are a worry and definitely against my general rules. The film that scored 9 was The Imitation Game and the shittiest film that scored a 1 was God’s Not Dead 2.
The mean score of my ratings is 6.36 and this compares to an IMDB rating mean score of 7.05. I don’t know what this tells us.
The top of the table is here:
I’m not convinced that the TV Episode and TV Series scores should be in there, but can’t be bothered to remove those rows from my spreadsheet. Now, I know you want the list of the bottom films so here they are:
A couple of religious films at the bottom, possibly not a surprise, but then maybe they could have made good religious films instead. I’m not against religious films, they are just badly made. And then there’s the Sci-Fi. It’s a shame that some Sci-Fi is terrible, but terrible exists in all genres.
I had a nice day in London on Thursday past. I was attending a course which should give me decent information to help people at work. It was interesting and also quite difficult at the same time. It was good to be challenged and made to do new things. I had to walk down Marylebone High Street to get to the venue and it looked quite a nice place with small independent shops that were selling stuff way more expensive than I could afford.
I had a spare ninety minutes in the day before meeting Smith and so I went for a walk, mostly to help work off the flap jacks I had eaten. London is nice and calm, as long as you stay away from the main tourist routes. Don’t walk down Oxford Street use Wigmore Street instead.
This gives you an idea of my activity through the day. The red bars are when I was doing maths. The other bits show me walking around. I walked 20km that day compared to an average 12.4km.
This chart shows total steps per month over the last year. Quite clearly we can see that when the weather is warmer and daylight lasts longer I walk more. That’s not really a surprise.
I’ve been having a bit of an Anime resurgence. I’ve started watching some on Netflix and it made me think about my “collection”. Now, I don’t collect films any more. I went through
Anime
a phase of wanting DVDs, just wanting to own them. I have quite a few I’ve never watched.
Apart from Dark City and Serenity on the far left the others are all Anime. I really like the bold colours and stories. I like reading cartoons too. There’s something about the simplicity of the drawings, the lack of chaos in the colours. I just like it.
Looking at that list I know I own Urotsukidōji parts one and two but they don’t seem to be in the family cabinet. Well, that makes perfect sense, they are borderline porn.
