"Nothing but the rain"
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 |
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.
There was a little debate a while ago about which music festival to attend. The decision has been made.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Not sure this counts as the worst traffic ever, but it does look pretty bad.
I think there must be a site out there with historic traffic data. Will search.
Went to see Capture The Flag earlier at the Cineworld in Rochester. As is now usual I rated this film on IMDB and you should see an explanation of those ratings on this communication.
I rated Capture the Flag (2015) 4/10 #IMDb https://t.co/ZfVwKn9AN9
— Ian Parish (@iparish) January 23, 2016
So, let me explain a little more about all this. This was a CGI kids film. It was about a kid who wants to get his father speaking to his grandfather. Both are NASA astronauts. The grandfather missed out on the moon for reasons that are explained much later in the film.
SPOILER WARNING
It would appear that an evil corporate head and owner wants to mine all the H3 on the moon and sell it to countries on Earth in a monopoly. In doing so he tells the Earth that the original landings were faked and that he is going to claim the moon by getting there first. The POTUS decides that an Apollo craft needs to be sent to the moon as soon as possible so that the FLAG on the moon can be saved and ownership of the moon is for all humans.
Grandfather then trains the father in Apollo style techniques using craft that have been mothballed for 50 years. By an unfortunate series of coincidences the grandfather, the boy and his best female friend end up launching to the moon. Big evil corporation head gets there too and starts destroying the previous landing sites [even though he also declared in the film he doesn’t care about that only the H3]. Evil man has managed to launch an entire mining operation to the moon, developed within his own corporation. etc. etc.
I had issues with this film. It’s just too implausible. I know it was CGi and all that but there were many points that irritated me. Space suits that would fit a kid. Having to go to the moon rather than orbit Earth and return. Massive moon mining ship that is developed without anyone knowing about it. Surfing over the moon’s surface. Oh, just so much.
It could have been made a much more enjoyable film if it had been made more realistic. In short, it irked me. Hence the low rating.
Met with Smith last night and we chatted about which music festival to attend this year. You may have read about M’era Luna from last year. It was a very good time but this year there’s more choice!
Our preferred choice was to head to Munich for the Dark Festival, but this has been cancelled which is a shame. There were a lot of good bands that we would have liked to see there.
So now there are two choices. M’era Luna at Hildesheim again or Amphi Festival in Cologne. Here’s the line up for M’era Luna:
Of the bands in the above list I would really like to see VNV Nation, Eisbrecher, Combichrist, Hocico and Suicide Commando. But there are more:
This list has a few tasty treats: [:SITD:], Noisuf-X and Centhron. So, M’era Luna has a good selection, worth travelling the 500 miles for!
Next up we have the selection from Amphi Festival.
The list of bands to definitely see at Amphi is: Aesthetic Perfection, Covenant, Faderhead, Frontline Assembly, Mono Inc, Suicide Commando, Unzucht and [X-RX].
It’s a tough choice. The current preference is M’era Luna. Wait and see.
