The other day I went to see the Michael Bay film Bumblebee at Rochester Cinema. On the way to the cinema the tide was low, but was lower on the way out, possibly at a minimum, all the mud banks were showing. Out in the river there’s a crane on a barge! A proper crane with wheels and stuff, just sitting on a large barge. I do love the big stuff we make. So, I started looking for a satellite picture of the mud flats at the edge of the river and ended up getting excited about the historical photographs available in Google Earth. I probably owe them something for using these clips.
1940 Pre Motorway
If you move slightly further east from this picture you can see the Shorts Brothers Flying Boats resting on the river Medway, that must’ve been such an amazing sight. Sunderlands taking off from the Medway before Shorts was relocated to Northern Ireland.
1940 Shorts Flying Boats
Next up are the 60s decade of sex and drugs and rock and roll. No motorway though.
1960 No Motorway Yet
The original Medway motorway bridge opened in 1963 and on closer inspection I think the construction work in the photograph is the building of the supports.
1990 M2 Bridge
By 1990 you can see the bridge and then the area that will be reclaimed for the entertainment complex.
2003 New Bridges
In this photograph the cinema and nightclub are there, along with the new Channel Tunnel Rail Link bridge for the high speed train network and another road bridge. I think the original is also being “beefed up”.
2006 Bridges Complete
The bridges are complete and it looks like there is a trail bike track the other side of the railway.
2015 Medway Gate Houses
This last picture has the new housing estate in the Medway Gate. I’m not sure what their sunlight is like as they live in the bottom of a pit.
Back to the process of writing this film review. I rated the film on IMDB, as usual, and there’s a communication buried in this site to explain the rating process. I tweeted this result, because it makes this site look prettier than me just writing the result.
Well, this film was the usual mess of a Michael Bay film. It starts somewhere and leads us in the knowledge of how Bumblebee and the others got to Earth along with some stuff about saving the world. It really wasn’t an interesting film and I got bored with the middle hour. Worth a watch if you want to complete your set of Transformers movies. But much like the very first movie the transformers were too “busy and quick”.
Would robots fight each other the same way that humans do? Would they try to hit each other about the head until they pass out? Would they have a voice module in the same place as a human? Would they have independently developed bullets and missiles that look like our Earth weapons?
Last night I went to the cinema in Rochester [not in Rochester] to see the latest action film release – Die Hard 30th Anniversary edition. This was an utter delight but there are conventions I need to follow here and although I broke them for the review of Skyscraper I shall not be doing that now.
It was dark driving along the promenade road but I could see the state of the tide reflecting lights from the houses and boats on the other side of the valley. The water was not covering the mud flats at the edges of the river and so that tide was definitely not in.
I also rated this film on IMDB and there’s a communication that deals with the rating system, you should probably read it and the follow up.
What is there to say about this film? It’s iconic and brilliant. It has so many moments that are captured in the collective psyche that there were many times the entire audience [the cinema was full] giggled or laughed or just huffed a sound of appreciation at the film. It’s worth watching and seeing over and over.
Before you read this review of a terrible film please be aware this is published Fooyah.net communication number 1400!
This afternoon after a break of quite a while I went to the cinema. The last film I saw was First Man and that was pretty shit. When I was browsing which film to see this weekend there weren’t really any that moved me but out of all the choices I chose the one with massive cities roaming the Earth. Normally about this time I also mention the state of the tide. It’s one of those things that has developed over the last few years, I mention Rochester or wherever else I went and then I also comment on the tide. I think it was low, but when I was driving along the road I did see a lovely lighting of the river:
River Medway And The Sun
This picture perfectly sums up what the view looked like. The sun was glowing through the clouds and created a great light, but you’ll have to trust me as you can see that I took the photo with perfect timing to block the sun with the CCTV warning sign. What a terrible photograph!
I also rate all the movies I see on the IMDB website. There are warnings and you should read this communication which deals with how that rating system works.
I’m not sure that 6/10 is right. This film left me feeling oddly empty. It didn’t do anything for me. Let’s get a few things out of the way first this movie is based on a stupid, but fun premise. The story was full of clichés. The love story was boring. The terminator was a bit of a surprise and didn’t really fit in any of the plot. In fact it could have been removed and the story would have worked perfectly well. This movie even had a “I’m you father” moment. What shit!
Overall this film was quite boring and dull. It did nothing to excite me or make me feel there was danger or any imposing sense of doom. Terrible. Normally when I see a film I get snippets of sentences and words I am going to write in this communication. Not a lot came to me during this film. The only thing that did bother me was the suspension on these cities. It seemed impressive to be smooth enough to keep the buildings standing through all manner of surfaces and turns.
Perhaps this film should be interpreted through the lens of Brexit and political leadership. A massive city [London, for it is she] is heading to destroy the known world and ruin everything the world has because the “leader” is determined that his mission must succeed. The “leader” is willing to ensure that his plan works at all costs. He is willing to destroy the peaceful land-dwellers using a weapon of ultimate power. The city can’t be turned and must be kept on course no matter how deranged the plan.
This film also illustrates the problem with “class” and being born to the right family. It’s not really dealt with towards the end of the film but it is very clear early on that people born below should stay there and have nothing to do with the leadership of the city. We have that in our own society. This is built into our collective psyche from a young age. We are bred to accept our position and that those who come from certain families are there to serve the country and look out for us.
Think about how many fairy stories and pantomimes have someone born to rule who gets lost and resumes command once their birth story is discovered. Think how many princesses end up poor and in the shit until their true identity is discovered. Think how many poor people are only allowed to get to power if they are beautiful and marry a prince. Think about all those Disney cartoons designed to keep women and the lower classes away from dreaming about doing good and ruling.
Then, you have the royal family. From an early age we look in awe at these people. These poor fucks, whose own human rights are abused, are born into such a one-way life that they don’t dare escape. The role of these people is to rule over us. We fawn over their lives and loves and we have books about their children and photographs in all the newspapers. Their weddings and childbirth are treated like national celebrations because we have even more people to rule over us. It is in our nation’s psyche to be subservient to those in authority. Look at the power projecting from all the TV shows about the royals. Those gold trappings, the army, the flypasts, the glitz, the carriages, the clothes the fucking bullshit. It’s all designed to enforce their position and authority over us plebeians.
The houses of parliament are designed to keep reminding us that they have the power. That they deserve the power. That we are subservient to them. Nothing has made this clearer to me over my existence than the petty bullshit infighting in parliament over this Brexit bullshit. A broken system of representatives who are failing to do the best for the country as a whole. They’ll be ok in the end. I’ll be ok in the end as I have a decent profession. But it will fuck our country over. I mean we already have millions in poverty and families relying on foodbanks. This country is a disgrace and the time for revolution is nigh.
I honestly have come to the conclusion that we need riots and mass civil disobedience to force a change in the way this country is governed. We need to remove the barriers to social progression. We need all people to be represented equally and we need those in charge to do what is right for the country as a whole and not just play bullshit games with the future of the country because it serves their own egotistical ambitions.
But this won’t happen. Not here. We aren’t citizens. We are SUBJECTS. We have been trained to obey and follow the rules. We all believe that those in power are there because it is their right. That they will do the best for us. Look at the last two years. What a shit-show.
I read recently that one of the main reasons the first world war ended was that there are a massive popular uprising in the German empire and that the Kaiser resigned because of that. The next day the war ended. It wasn’t anything to do with us winning or being better than the Germans. It was because their people decided to revolt. Do you know what our ruling classes did? They forced our society to become more observant of the ruling classes and forced large parades on the people to force the masses to forget about revolution. It happened in Russia, in France many times and Germany. We were next but it was all suppressed. The ruling classes held us down and created more generations of subjects. Women only got the vote because they fought for it. Our collective experiences as SUBJECTS forces us to accept these pathetic imperialist ways.
Look at our national obsession for stately homes. I go around them and my anger increases all the time. These massive houses built on the profits of the poor and downtrodden. All that money used for a few while the many have to accept their fate to living a life of shit and misery while the ruling classes continue to benefit.
While I’m on this I’ll have a side swipe at religion. Mostly because it reinforces this whole idea that there is a plan for us. That there is destiny and no matter how shit life is down here once you die and, as long as you’ve followed their rules, you get to live forever in heaven where the big boss will rule over you. Religions are great. It’s how you keep the power. It’s how you enforce the populace to be subservient to you.
In summary. We are screwed because we so readily accept the idea of class and being born to elevation.
God, I’m such a lefty on some matters that it surprises me so much. I thought we were meant to become more selfish and cunty [sorry, I spelt conservative wrong there] as we got older. All I see more and more is the delusion our people are under and the pain and suffering of those oppressed by the rulers of this land.
And O you mortal engines whose rude throats/Th’immortal Jove’s dread clamors counterfeit
Days ago I went to the cinema at Rochester to see the film First Man. It has taken me this long to process what I thought about it along with being away and in an area of limited data coverage. Before I explain what I thought about the film there are some formalities to cover.
I have no idea on the state of the tide that evening. I didn’t particularly look at that tidal area of river as it was dark and raining. I could look it up but that’s not the point. I also rated this film on IMDB and you should see this particular communication which explains the rating system, I’ll give you a hint though, I broke the system for this film.
I’ve a slight feeling that this is going to be a little controversial. But then again, it’s my view and I’m not a professional critic so I don’t make or break movies.
I’m not sure I liked this film.
I wanted to like this film. I wanted to love this film and be amazed at it and learn a bit about Neil Armstrong. I’m not sure I did and that pains me. I think it took me two days before I rated this film on IMDB as I wasn’t sure what score to give the film.
So, we know I am a nerd and I know a fair bit about the moon landings and space travel. I didn’t mind that I didn’t learn anything new about those aspects of the film. I also knew that Mr Armstrong was quite private and quiet but also a professional and extremely clever man. I’m not sure this film captured that.
Here’s what I did like. The emotional aspect of Armstrong attempting to deal with the death of his daughter. This film heavily places that at the centre of the story telling and I am fine with that but it’s almost fiction as the man himself never really opened up about it. I loved the final touch of his offering to the moon and would love that to be true.
What I didn’t like was all the shaking camera work. This film was like watching a tense emotional marriage drama with episodes of shaking camera and stress. I guess that’s what the astronauts’ lives are like but I just don’t like blurry screens.
I didn’t like the way the film side-stepped the knowledge and understanding and skill that is needed to be an astronaut. I like the technical stuff. I know that’s just me and so I get why this film has rave reviews.
So, in the end this film has a 5/10 from me. I didn’t hate it. I just didn’t like it enough.
This afternoon I traveled to the Cineworld cinema at Rochester to see The Meg. The tide was high and the Medway looked nice and pretty as I drove by various parts of it. I rated this film on IMDB and you should read about the scoring system in this communication. Here’s my tweet showing my score:
Well, what can I say about a film that is almost an exact remake of Jaws? It’s not exactly Jaws but it’s pretty close. Firstly, before I give spoilers about the film, I want to make a point about one of the adverts. It was for Facebook and it was trying to say that Facebook is sorry for the way they have allowed selling of data and fake news type things. They are trying to rebuild the trust in the company. Look, I don’t want to seem stupid, but Facebook makes its money from advertising and selling your data. If they full stopped your data being used then the company would have to find another income stream. Anyway, they say that they want Facebook to get back to doing what it was originally for. Keeping in touch with families and friends.
Except that’s not what Facebook was originally about. I mean it is for most users but Facebook started as an online way to rate the attractiveness of students at a university. Just saying.
So, the film? It was a pretty good fun film. There were, of course, many moments where I thought it was absolutely bollocks but those were easily ignored because the story was kinda OK.
So, the idea there is a thermal layer below which more species lurk is pretty fine, placing it so far down isn’t though. Ships and submersibles can’t get there. Also, there’s a massive issue with the nuclear submarine at the beginning being so far down, they can’t get there. Along with the idea that they were attacked above the thermal layer by a Megalodon which couldn’t get above the layer or the sub was below the layer but no-one at that point knew about the layer. That occurs in the first few minutes. But, let’s ignore that shall we?
When they track the Meg attacking boats they decide to go and investigate in their own boat. But they had a HELICOPTER on the research platform. Strange choice really.
Their ship can travel faster than a Meg through the water, this seems pretty poor. I love the fact that they had twenty minutes to get to a shallow area to trap the Meg and in those twenty minutes they managed to rig up many extra gadgets to try and kill the shark.
How come when they got to the shallow area it was really deep for the underwater shots?
How come you can see really far in water? Pretty sure you can’t.
Anyway, I still enjoyed it. Those you expect to die, do. Those you want to live, do. They all seem pretty happy at the end of the film even though there has been massive death and destruction. I guess we ignore all the pain.
Right at the end of the film they projected the French word for the end:
Fin
I laughed. I didn’t notice anyone else laughing. Oh well.
My last movie review was a break from tradition and I’m not sure whether to return to a particular format or not. You should probably see this communication on my rating process. I went to Rochester cinema to see Mission: Impossible – Fallout. Now it had been on my radar that this one was the best in the series or something like that. I don’t read proper movie reviews, unless I see a film that has me really confused, or where the score on IMDB was a lot different from the one I gave it. The metascore on IMDB for this Mission: Impossible is 86. That’s an overall review of 86% by critics. So, I have for you my score out of 10:
This film was utter shit. I got really bored. I would have left the cinema if it hadn’t been for two people in the row of seats blocking me in, so that places this film along with Van Helsing on my scale. I spent quite a lot of this film silently screaming:
I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON
I think there might be people who could explain to me what happened and who was dealing with whom and what the politics were and why they were in Kashmir. There were two bombs in the same village? Because there’s a glacier there? I don’t understand. This film was, and I say it again, utter shite.
There was an opportunity for it to be good. Just one though. SPOILER ALERT. Right at the end when the sun shines on Ethan’s face, if that had been the bombs I would have applauded. I would have stood up and cheered. But it wasn’t and so this film was bollocks.
A couple of things I noticed though. Firstly, the helicopter used above London had the registration G-DEUP which I thought was funny because it sounds like giddy-up. I sniggered and nodded at this.
Then there’s the case of the identical women. There was a woman trying to kill Ethan or the baddie, Ilsa Faust. I’m not sure. Then there was the only woman Ethan loved, Julia Meade-Hunt, his wife I think. To me these people looked the same. I couldn’t tell them apart. I was somewhat surprised when they both appeared in the same frame.
I’m not going to say much about the indestructibility of any of the characters except, THEY WOULD ALL BE DEAD after the first impact.
Last thing, microwave transmitters don’t work that way. The film just says microwaves because it sounds like science. They could have said things that really do work but scriptwriters don’t generally do science.
I should suspend my disbelief and that would be fine if the script or story was any good. I love a well made science fiction film. I can cope with FTL travel and time jumps and interplanetary travel. I can cope with aliens. I can even cope with mystical powers and magic. But the story still has to be good enough so that these things don’t really make it onto the radar. Pretty much every stunt in the MI film would have killed Ethan and so it didn’t do well with the story line part. I am still not really sure what happened or why.
I looked at a few of the IMDB reviews from critics to understand what they liked and the three I read all stated that this film was a great summer blockbuster. They did not say it was a good film, just that it was the best action movie for a summer release. Well, that explains a lot I think, it gives you the level of shit this film is.
Selections from the transcripts of the International Court of Insurance Fraud, Filmstrasse, The Hague. Tidal conditions are irrelevant.
The Pearl
Judge R. Chester: State your name and occupation.
Will Sawyer: Will Sawyer, building safety investigator and licensor.
Judge R. Chester: Please tell the court a brief history of your experience.
Will Sawyer: I’m a military veteran and also SWAT team member, part of the Hostage Rescue Team. I got blown up. Lost my lower leg. My doctor fell in love with her patient but that’s not creepy at all because we are married now with twins.
Judge R Chester: Thank you. Can you please give us a run down of what happened from your point of view when the Pearl was consumed by fire.
Will Sawyer: I was employed by the owner of the building to inspect the fire and safety systems, my job was to approve the works and then the insurance company would agree to insure the Pearl.
Judge R Chester: Do you think that being paid by the building owner to approve his building is a conflict on interest?
Will Sawyer: Err, nope.
Judge R Chester: Shouldn’t this building have had insurance approved before breaking ground and then you would inspect as the construction evolved?
Will Sawyer: Err, maybe. But then we couldn’t have ripped off the story of the Nakatomi Tower.
Intermission.
Judge R Chester: Mr Sawyer, please tell us why this building was taken over by violent gangs.
Will Sawyer: The building project was blackmailed through threats of removing unionised workforce. The Pearl owner decided to pay off these criminals rather than inform the authorities and then managed to track the details of these payments through all the shitty money laundering countries. He then kept the names of these international criminals in a safe in the top of the Skyscraper. The crime bosses wanted those details removed. There are apparently copies of this file elsewhere but those aren’t explained.
Judge R Chester: How did the crime bosses intend to get the memory stick?
Will Sawyer: By setting the building on fire above the open floors it was intended to blackmail the building owner. He would hand over the names he had collected. Neglecting to mention the copies he had made.
Judge R Chester: So it didn’t really matter?
Will Sawyer: I guess not.
Judge R Chester: Let me get this right. The whole episode is moot as there were copies of the file elsewhere?
Will Sawyer: Yes.
Intermission.
Judge R Chester: Did the insurance company representative strike you as odd?
Will Sawyer: Yes, he did seem rather slimy and twisted. It was obvious he was a baddie. But, then he was in insurance and no-one likes them.
Intermission.
Judge R Chester: Was it necessary for the police to turn up at the park where you believed the ground crew were waiting with your blues and twos on?
Head Of Local Police: Yes, we always prefer to give warnings to criminals we are trying to sneak up on.
Intermission.
Judge R Chester: Did you not see the sports ground nearby within the area you were searching for the ground crew and also, how come you know so much about base jumping?
Head Of Local Police: Err, we needed an old industrial area to have a fire fight.
Intermission.
Judge R Chester: Mrs Sawyer, how come you can’t use an iPhone and what are you doing to make it stop working?
Sarah Sawyer: We’d prefer to watch Die Hard. It’s far more realistic.
After hearing from plenty of people that Infinity War was really good I thought I should go and see it. Even when I have said “I don’t like superhero movies anymore” they still seemed insistent that this film was worth it. So I went to Rochester to see Infinity War. The tide was waning but still quite high at 19:00 last night.
Rochester
Once I came out of the film I rated it on IMDB, as is my custom. I had to think a while because I was thinking about what single number could offer my sum total of thoughts and sometimes that’s a hard thing to do. There’s a communication somewhere about what these numbers mean.
There are two versions of this review. The first, tldr, is below:
Whatever.
The second is more subtle but will make a mild attempt to expand on my thoughts in the tldr version:
The first ten minutes had me confused that I was watching the wrong movie. It started with a fight off world straight away and I was a little lost. After that the pattern was
Have a scene with a few quips.
Have a big fight.
Repeat.
Thanos seems to have a rather Malthusian view of the universe and I have to say I agree with him. I would go further than halving the population though because EXPONENTIAL GROWTH. He sets out with a good plan.
The glove is just a glove.
About three of the male characters had beards and I COULDN’T tell them apart. I think that one is on me, I really struggle with faces sometimes.
Is one of the stones the All Spark from the Transformers movies? Have I spelt that correctly?
I don’t think nano-tech works the way the film shows it happening.
Were the dog things from Resident Evil??
Bashing people into buildings is really important.
Also, this film shows us that hitting people is important and fighting is the solution to everything.
I could have quite happily left this movie as I didn’t care about anything in it.
Yesterday evening I journeyed to watch Deadpool 2 at the Cineworld cinema in Rochester. The tide was very definitely low, I could see deep channels in the mud banks along the edge of the river and I was reasonably surprised at spotting them, they aren’t something I’d noticed so much before.
It is customary for me to rate films I see on IMDB and then tweet the result. You might want to read the comments on my rating system contained within this communication.
Look, I’m really off superhero movies. I just do’t find them interesting. You could say I’m continually searching for the ONE that breaks new ground. The one that merges three genres and everyone goes “holy shit! That is the film we were waiting for!”. I haven’t seen that film yet.
This Deadpool film was much like the first. It’s a superhero film with naughty words and some gore. It’s not clever and it doesn’t make it grown up [says the man who swears too much]. I’m not even sure the plot was up to much. There was some time travel aspects and trying to keep that in line is hard work and this film fails at that. Yes, I guess I laughed sometimes, but I think that’s only because of the swearing and sarcasm. This isn’t a good film in the genre of “film”, this is just the naughty boy in the corner.
At one point the word “cunt” was used in this film. I had thought at the beginning that I better hear that word at least once for this to be a decent film and they managed it. This usage of that word didn’t elevate the status to decent though. What surprised me was the gasps of surprise in the rows behind me when cunt was used. I don’t understand why people are shocked when they hear it. I guess the social-causing aspects of this film make it interesting. But not good.
Went to the cinema this evening to see Rampage. Now, I hadn’t seen any of the trailers – I don’t tend to watch them. All I had was the film poster. Before the film I went for a walk along the wharf, not a Worf that would be weird, and noted that the tide was neither in nor out. There was a low level bubbling sound from the mud banks slowly draining their contained water, it was a relaxing sound.
Tidal Medway
As is usual I rated this film on IMDB. You should see this guide to the system within this communication.
It was a terrible film and got worse as it went on. I didn’t even notice one of the main plot points although the camera shot at that exact spot struck me as strange but I didn’t work out why they had done that. I had to ask my neighbour at the end of the film how the antidote got into George.
Chicago didn’t look a whole lot different at the end of the film. Still a trashy place.
The tide was in when I left. The water level was higher than two hours previously.
