Sometimes you have to be in the right frame of mind to watch certain movies.
I'm not entirely sure I was in the right frame of mind to watch The Science of Sleep.
The film is French, I believe, although the main character, Stephane, was actually raised mostly in Mexico. This means that although he speaks some French, mostly he speaks in English. The film therefore has a fairly random mix of English and French with subtitles.
But this is the least of the randomness. Stephane it seems has quite an active dream life. I personally am one of those people who almost never remembers their dreams, but Stephane is almost the opposite - he seems to live partly in his dreams and sometimes has trouble telling them apart from real life.
Now this is a tricky thing to convey on film - especially for a lower budget film like this. A modern Hollywood film might achieve the effect with expensive CGI, but here they tend to use more old school stuff, so we get lots of stop motion and rear-projection and stuff like that.
Overall it actually works quite well. There are occasions when you can't quite tell whether it's meant to be the dream world or the real world, but those are clearly deliberate. When it wants you to know it's dream, it's fairly clear, and when it wants to blur the lines, that works well too.
What doesn't quite work so well is the plot.
The basic plot is a romance at heart, with Stephane chasing his neighbour, Stephanie (yeah, I know). However, Stephanie seems to be a bundle of contradictions. She clearly like Stephane and there are lots of moments of them enjoying each other's company and having fun.
But then when he expresses more interest in her, she withdraws and discourages him. At points this seems to be because she thinks he's actually trying to use her to get to her friend, but then later on this seems to be a rather rubbish reason. Most especially because at one point the film moves forward a month and yet there relationship seems to be still stuck on the same basic issue.
Also, there's a lot of stuff that happens that feels unresolved or random. Stephane's relationship with his mother is never fully explained. His job is also bizarre. It's a rubbish job, and he basically stops doing it, but then later an idea he had somehow becomes a big success. But after that success, he's back to avoiding the same job he was in.
It doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
But the thing is, I'm not sure if that was supposed to be the idea - I mean, is this the film of someone who's having some sort of breakdown? People around him never really seem to comment on the bizarre elements, and yet they're often involved in them too.
As I say - I think I might have liked this film more, but I wasn't quite in the right mood for it.
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
breaking into 2010
By breaking into 2010 I'm referring to the scanning of anime mags. Specifically, over the weekend I scanned the January 2010 edition of megami.
I only scanned two mags total and I'm sure if I hadn't been feeling crappy I would have done more. Also I was slightly hampered because I went through the scans I've made and tried to name them.
When I scan there are always some images I can't easily identify at the time, so I then have to search through sites like AP and ANN to work out what they are. I've obviously been concentrating on doing scans, rather than naming them, so there were quite a few without names.
It's one of those jobs that takes ages because it's glacial - you sometimes have to open pages and pages to find the image you're looking for. Or you make a guess that proves to be inaccurate, but does lead you down the right path in the end.
So yeah, it can take hours and all you end up with is a dozen or files that have been renamed :/.
Anyway, the point is I watched some anime while I scanned so here are some mini reviews. There are quite a few, because I didn't watch many episodes. I was also a bit dismissive if I'm honest, probably because I wasn't feeling 100%.
Sora No Otoshimono
Essentially this is an "instant girlfriend" show, where the protagonist suddenly acquires a girlfriend, who usually also happens to be a magical girl or an alien or root or something like that. However, I'd say it was a good example of the genre.
Certainly, the first episode hinted at a lot of promise. In it, the protagonist goes power crazy, using and abusing the girl's power with suitably dramatic consequences. The second episode was less good as it kinda stretched itself a little thin, though if tightened up it would have worked a lit better.
So yeah, an overly familiar genre, but potentially quite a good example.
Sora no Manimani
I have to confess I found this to be okay, although I'm pretty sure it's a fairly standard romantic comedy anime. There's nothing wrong with that, I suppose, but it is a rather well-worn path. There's also a tendency in these sorts of shows to utilise a gimmick, rather than do anything particularly original, and in this case the gimmick seem to be astronomy.
Now to be fair that does score more points with me than most gimmicks, because it's an area of interest for me. So overall a watchable sort of show, but nothing new.
Toaru Kagaku no Railgun
Although this is an adaptation of a manga, that manga was a spin-off from Toaru Majutsu no Index. I quite liked Index, so I was expecting to like this too, but I dunno, it didn't really do anything for me.
I think the problem was that were Index pretty much got into a plot straight away, whereas this felt more like a sort of slice of life job. A slice of an unusual life, maybe, but because I Was expecting plot, it was just kinda dull. Maybe it works better if you've seen all of Index (I've only sampled it) or it develops a proper plot later, or something,
Kaidan Restaurant
Although the 'kaidan' bit generally seems to be translated as "thriller", a better translation would be "ghost story" or "scary story".
Basically, this is a horror Portmanteaux series aimed at kids. In other words, it features the same characters, but each episode has 3 ghost stories (2 featuring the characters and 1 shorter one told by them as a ghost story).
I wouldn't say I found what I watched particularly scary as such, but other culture's ghost stories can often be quite interesting. And everyone loves a ghost story, although to be fair, this is aimed at kids.
Anyamal Tantei Kiruminzoo
Magical girls. Animals. I barely got ten minutes into this - any show that features an animal psychologist (who, incidentally, proceeds to put a cat next to a feeding bowl were several guinea pigs are feeding) isn't going to get very far with me.
Kobato
A CLAMP show. I've said before that CLAMP do little to nothing for me, and this didn't really do anything to reverse that opinion.
Weiß Survive
One of those two and a half minute webisode type shows. If I tell you Weiss is basically a company that makes card games, you can probably fill in the rest yourself.
I've also continued watching Ouran High School Host Club. I'm really enjoying it. This was actually a bit of a surprise, because I wasn't sure it would be my cup of tea.
And I've been reading Gantz at a breakneck speed. To be fair, this is partly because it has one of those structures where it kinda eats pages. It's a bit like Claymore - you happily read a volume and enjoy it, but then realise that actually, it's not progressed very far. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing - I like both - but it does mean it works better reading it in big chunks of multiple volumes, rather than individual chapters or volumes.
I only scanned two mags total and I'm sure if I hadn't been feeling crappy I would have done more. Also I was slightly hampered because I went through the scans I've made and tried to name them.
When I scan there are always some images I can't easily identify at the time, so I then have to search through sites like AP and ANN to work out what they are. I've obviously been concentrating on doing scans, rather than naming them, so there were quite a few without names.
It's one of those jobs that takes ages because it's glacial - you sometimes have to open pages and pages to find the image you're looking for. Or you make a guess that proves to be inaccurate, but does lead you down the right path in the end.
So yeah, it can take hours and all you end up with is a dozen or files that have been renamed :/.
Anyway, the point is I watched some anime while I scanned so here are some mini reviews. There are quite a few, because I didn't watch many episodes. I was also a bit dismissive if I'm honest, probably because I wasn't feeling 100%.
Sora No Otoshimono
Essentially this is an "instant girlfriend" show, where the protagonist suddenly acquires a girlfriend, who usually also happens to be a magical girl or an alien or root or something like that. However, I'd say it was a good example of the genre.
Certainly, the first episode hinted at a lot of promise. In it, the protagonist goes power crazy, using and abusing the girl's power with suitably dramatic consequences. The second episode was less good as it kinda stretched itself a little thin, though if tightened up it would have worked a lit better.
So yeah, an overly familiar genre, but potentially quite a good example.
Sora no Manimani
I have to confess I found this to be okay, although I'm pretty sure it's a fairly standard romantic comedy anime. There's nothing wrong with that, I suppose, but it is a rather well-worn path. There's also a tendency in these sorts of shows to utilise a gimmick, rather than do anything particularly original, and in this case the gimmick seem to be astronomy.
Now to be fair that does score more points with me than most gimmicks, because it's an area of interest for me. So overall a watchable sort of show, but nothing new.
Toaru Kagaku no Railgun
Although this is an adaptation of a manga, that manga was a spin-off from Toaru Majutsu no Index. I quite liked Index, so I was expecting to like this too, but I dunno, it didn't really do anything for me.
I think the problem was that were Index pretty much got into a plot straight away, whereas this felt more like a sort of slice of life job. A slice of an unusual life, maybe, but because I Was expecting plot, it was just kinda dull. Maybe it works better if you've seen all of Index (I've only sampled it) or it develops a proper plot later, or something,
Kaidan Restaurant
Although the 'kaidan' bit generally seems to be translated as "thriller", a better translation would be "ghost story" or "scary story".
Basically, this is a horror Portmanteaux series aimed at kids. In other words, it features the same characters, but each episode has 3 ghost stories (2 featuring the characters and 1 shorter one told by them as a ghost story).
I wouldn't say I found what I watched particularly scary as such, but other culture's ghost stories can often be quite interesting. And everyone loves a ghost story, although to be fair, this is aimed at kids.
Anyamal Tantei Kiruminzoo
Magical girls. Animals. I barely got ten minutes into this - any show that features an animal psychologist (who, incidentally, proceeds to put a cat next to a feeding bowl were several guinea pigs are feeding) isn't going to get very far with me.
Kobato
A CLAMP show. I've said before that CLAMP do little to nothing for me, and this didn't really do anything to reverse that opinion.
Weiß Survive
One of those two and a half minute webisode type shows. If I tell you Weiss is basically a company that makes card games, you can probably fill in the rest yourself.
I've also continued watching Ouran High School Host Club. I'm really enjoying it. This was actually a bit of a surprise, because I wasn't sure it would be my cup of tea.
And I've been reading Gantz at a breakneck speed. To be fair, this is partly because it has one of those structures where it kinda eats pages. It's a bit like Claymore - you happily read a volume and enjoy it, but then realise that actually, it's not progressed very far. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing - I like both - but it does mean it works better reading it in big chunks of multiple volumes, rather than individual chapters or volumes.
Monday, 22 March 2010
man flu
A bit crappy weekend was a bit crappy.
On Saturday I woke up with a lot of discomfort in the roof of my mouth. I sometimes get the effect if I've been snoring particularly badly during the night, but this was slightly different. This was the prelude to disease.
Basically, I've got a bit of a cold. It kinda developed more during Sunday, with me getting a runny nose and sneezing and generally feeling tired and under the weather.
I was therefore fully expecting to get up this morning and be fully in the throws of a proper bout of manflu, except I'm not. There's actually been very little change from yesterday - my nose is a bit runny and the roof of my mouth hurts and while I feel a bit rubbish, it's not too bad.
I get these occasionally, where the cold never really gets going. I don't know why - it's like the cold is a wimpy strain or my body manages to fight it off before it really gets a foothold. Of course it could still get worse, but at the moment it's just a bit annoying.
It also made the weekend a vaguely unpleasant experience, but not enough so that I stayed in bed or anything.
On Saturday morning I went for a bit of a drive. My main intention was to see how the car was after its second new wheel and the results are good. I was a little afraid that the second bent wheel wouldn't be the only reason for the wobble, but signs were good.
It's great to be able to drive it down the A31 and not feel like it's shaking itself to pieces.
Sunday I went to the Opticians for my "these glasses are wrong" appointment and basically they've taken them and are going to replace the right lens.
The bit that I found bizarre was that from what the optician said, the lens they were going to put in the right eye was now basically identical to my old lens. I found this bizarre because at my first test the optician said that the test indicated that my eyes hadn't really changed and so they would put in the same lenses I had before.
So basically, I don't really understand what happened. It sound like, even though she said that, actually, they put in different lenses. So in other words, there would have been no problems if they'd just done what they said they would do :/.
I mean, I may have gotten the wrong end of the stick somewhere, but that's what it sounded like.
On Saturday I woke up with a lot of discomfort in the roof of my mouth. I sometimes get the effect if I've been snoring particularly badly during the night, but this was slightly different. This was the prelude to disease.
Basically, I've got a bit of a cold. It kinda developed more during Sunday, with me getting a runny nose and sneezing and generally feeling tired and under the weather.
I was therefore fully expecting to get up this morning and be fully in the throws of a proper bout of manflu, except I'm not. There's actually been very little change from yesterday - my nose is a bit runny and the roof of my mouth hurts and while I feel a bit rubbish, it's not too bad.
I get these occasionally, where the cold never really gets going. I don't know why - it's like the cold is a wimpy strain or my body manages to fight it off before it really gets a foothold. Of course it could still get worse, but at the moment it's just a bit annoying.
It also made the weekend a vaguely unpleasant experience, but not enough so that I stayed in bed or anything.
On Saturday morning I went for a bit of a drive. My main intention was to see how the car was after its second new wheel and the results are good. I was a little afraid that the second bent wheel wouldn't be the only reason for the wobble, but signs were good.
It's great to be able to drive it down the A31 and not feel like it's shaking itself to pieces.
Sunday I went to the Opticians for my "these glasses are wrong" appointment and basically they've taken them and are going to replace the right lens.
The bit that I found bizarre was that from what the optician said, the lens they were going to put in the right eye was now basically identical to my old lens. I found this bizarre because at my first test the optician said that the test indicated that my eyes hadn't really changed and so they would put in the same lenses I had before.
So basically, I don't really understand what happened. It sound like, even though she said that, actually, they put in different lenses. So in other words, there would have been no problems if they'd just done what they said they would do :/.
I mean, I may have gotten the wrong end of the stick somewhere, but that's what it sounded like.
Friday, 19 March 2010
manga snippets
I don't really know what to talk about today.
My car's in to do the new wheel today, so I'll be £200 lighter by the end of the day. Sigh...
It's actually depressed me a bit, cos it just seems to yet another thing that's gone not well. I mean, I could have hit the pothole and simply burst the tyre. Don't get me wrong - that would have been a pain the arse, and expensive, but it would have been a lot simpler and cheaper than what I've ended up with, which is having to buy two new wheels and all the inconvenience that's gone with it.
So I thought I'd just do some mini-reviews of some manga:
Gurren Lagann (manga version)
This is the manga version of an anime I love.
Overall I'd say it works - there's quite a lot of tweaks to the story, which is good, but it retains the core of the story. Also, the artwork is pretty good.
Dogs: Bullets & Carnage
I read the first volume, which was actually a collection of short stories, that's then been continued in this series, and that was really good. The ongoing series is less so, because where the short stories were quite imaginative and interesting, the ongoing series seems to have fallen back on a lot of clichés.
The artworks' nice (if a little confusing in the action sequences), though.
Bokurano
I used to really like a manga called Shadow Star/Narutaru. I say used to because my enjoyment of it was spoiled a little by the poor treatment it got from Dark Horse. Basically, it used to be published in a monthly manga comic called "Super Manga Blast" with then anthology volumes put out subsequently. Well, SMB died a death and I'd assumed that the manga it contained would still be released as volumes. But nope, that was it - no more releases, you don't get to read the rest of the mangas!
Bokurano is by the same guy and it's very much in the same style - a very dark undercurrent underneath what seems like normality. There's actually been an anime version that I sampled but has never been licensed.
Biomega
Biomega is by the guy who did Blame, which is one of my favourite mangas of all time.
Biomega's strength, and, to be honest, it's weakness is that's it's more of the same. Saying that, there is one big difference here - there's more of a tangible story, and if I'm honest I'm not sure if I like it or not yet. An aspect of Blame I really liked was that, although there was clearly a story there, it was kinda lost and in many ways didn't matter. Biomega's story is more familiar, being roughly a zombie apocalypse deal.
My car's in to do the new wheel today, so I'll be £200 lighter by the end of the day. Sigh...
It's actually depressed me a bit, cos it just seems to yet another thing that's gone not well. I mean, I could have hit the pothole and simply burst the tyre. Don't get me wrong - that would have been a pain the arse, and expensive, but it would have been a lot simpler and cheaper than what I've ended up with, which is having to buy two new wheels and all the inconvenience that's gone with it.
So I thought I'd just do some mini-reviews of some manga:
Gurren Lagann (manga version)
This is the manga version of an anime I love.
Overall I'd say it works - there's quite a lot of tweaks to the story, which is good, but it retains the core of the story. Also, the artwork is pretty good.
Dogs: Bullets & Carnage
I read the first volume, which was actually a collection of short stories, that's then been continued in this series, and that was really good. The ongoing series is less so, because where the short stories were quite imaginative and interesting, the ongoing series seems to have fallen back on a lot of clichés.
The artworks' nice (if a little confusing in the action sequences), though.
Bokurano
I used to really like a manga called Shadow Star/Narutaru. I say used to because my enjoyment of it was spoiled a little by the poor treatment it got from Dark Horse. Basically, it used to be published in a monthly manga comic called "Super Manga Blast" with then anthology volumes put out subsequently. Well, SMB died a death and I'd assumed that the manga it contained would still be released as volumes. But nope, that was it - no more releases, you don't get to read the rest of the mangas!
Bokurano is by the same guy and it's very much in the same style - a very dark undercurrent underneath what seems like normality. There's actually been an anime version that I sampled but has never been licensed.
Biomega
Biomega is by the guy who did Blame, which is one of my favourite mangas of all time.
Biomega's strength, and, to be honest, it's weakness is that's it's more of the same. Saying that, there is one big difference here - there's more of a tangible story, and if I'm honest I'm not sure if I like it or not yet. An aspect of Blame I really liked was that, although there was clearly a story there, it was kinda lost and in many ways didn't matter. Biomega's story is more familiar, being roughly a zombie apocalypse deal.
Thursday, 18 March 2010
ooh, in't it nice
This week has been veritably lovely weather.
I often tend to say about the British weather that it tends to come with exclamation points. By that I mean that when a new season rolls around the weather will change without much warning.
So up until last week we've I've been freezing my knackers off, but then suddenly this week it's been all gloriously spring sunshine and temperatures in the teens. So it wasn't any kind of gradual build up, but a sudden shift from one type of weather to another.
Of course, there's no guarantee that the weather won't flip and we'll get a sudden cold snap, but I think it's safe to say we're pretty much over the worst of the winter. And thank Jesus H Chrimble for that, to be frank.
I bit the bullet and renewed my insurance yesterday. As mentioned, I decided to protect my no claims, which cost about £41 to do, but as noted, given how my luck's been going, if I do need to make a claim I
I finished Dragonaut. The nosedive into total rubbish that I'd heard mentioned in reviews failed to materialise, although if I'm being totally honest, the end was a little bit of a mess.
The problem, though, seemed to bee very much one of ambition outstripping talent. I was actually struck by quite a few resemblances to Evangelion towards the end, but unlike that series, the writing just wasn't good enough to pull it off.
I think the main thing I'd say was it was a little heavy handed in putting across its message, and the dialogue was rather clunky as a result. Admittedly, I ended up pretty much sticking to the dub version as it was quite well done, so that may be a part of it, but still, glances at the subtitles suggested it wasn't all that different.
The other problem is they were left with a few plot holes you could easily drive truck through, but that's nothing new for anime, I'm afraid. Especially Gonzo anime.
I also finished the first volume of Gantz. I was unsure quite what to expect from Gantz. I'd heard it was rather violent and that was it. While it was pretty violent, that's not something that really concerns me, so overall I liked it and decided to order the remaining volumes.
One thing I would say is I'm not sure about the artwork. I don't think I'd classify it as 'bad' in the same way I would, say, DMC (which I think is meant to be like that, btw), but it's not the greatest. The characters don't always look consistent and some of the faces are off and stuff. It's nothing I can't live with, though.
And I also started Ouran High School Host Club last night. Too early to really give an opinion as I've literally watched 2 episode, but I enjoyed them, so it's looking good.
I often tend to say about the British weather that it tends to come with exclamation points. By that I mean that when a new season rolls around the weather will change without much warning.
So up until last week we've I've been freezing my knackers off, but then suddenly this week it's been all gloriously spring sunshine and temperatures in the teens. So it wasn't any kind of gradual build up, but a sudden shift from one type of weather to another.
Of course, there's no guarantee that the weather won't flip and we'll get a sudden cold snap, but I think it's safe to say we're pretty much over the worst of the winter. And thank Jesus H Chrimble for that, to be frank.
I bit the bullet and renewed my insurance yesterday. As mentioned, I decided to protect my no claims, which cost about £41 to do, but as noted, given how my luck's been going, if I do need to make a claim I
I finished Dragonaut. The nosedive into total rubbish that I'd heard mentioned in reviews failed to materialise, although if I'm being totally honest, the end was a little bit of a mess.
The problem, though, seemed to bee very much one of ambition outstripping talent. I was actually struck by quite a few resemblances to Evangelion towards the end, but unlike that series, the writing just wasn't good enough to pull it off.
I think the main thing I'd say was it was a little heavy handed in putting across its message, and the dialogue was rather clunky as a result. Admittedly, I ended up pretty much sticking to the dub version as it was quite well done, so that may be a part of it, but still, glances at the subtitles suggested it wasn't all that different.
The other problem is they were left with a few plot holes you could easily drive truck through, but that's nothing new for anime, I'm afraid. Especially Gonzo anime.
I also finished the first volume of Gantz. I was unsure quite what to expect from Gantz. I'd heard it was rather violent and that was it. While it was pretty violent, that's not something that really concerns me, so overall I liked it and decided to order the remaining volumes.
One thing I would say is I'm not sure about the artwork. I don't think I'd classify it as 'bad' in the same way I would, say, DMC (which I think is meant to be like that, btw), but it's not the greatest. The characters don't always look consistent and some of the faces are off and stuff. It's nothing I can't live with, though.
And I also started Ouran High School Host Club last night. Too early to really give an opinion as I've literally watched 2 episode, but I enjoyed them, so it's looking good.
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
x men origins: wolverine
This weeks movie action was X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which I believe has been almost universally panned by critics.
And if I'm honest, I can see why. One of the problems with adapting comics has got to be that comic book storylines can be rather convoluted at times. They can also be more than a little nerdy.
So there's always going to be a conflict - do you stick closely to the source material and please the fans? Or do you tweak, adapt and add so that non-comic nerds can get it too?
Of course the answer is to tread a fine line between the two - keep enough so that the fans are happy, but tweak enough so that non-fans get it too. The real key of course is telling a compelling story. Which is where this really falls down. The story just isn't that compelling.
Another problem they've got here is that this is a prequel to a successful trilogy of movies, so they have to end at a point where the existing films pick right up. But they have the added disadvantage that Wolverine's past actual forms one of the core parts of the existing trilogy's store. In other words, we know the jist of the film already.
It also doesn't help that what is one of the more interesting bits of Wolverine's origin - him being Weapon X - is actually skipped over pretty quickly in the film. He gets Weapon X-ified, but the whole bit of him being Weapon X is chopped out.
Also, for me personally the whole Wolvie/Sabretooth thing is actually not all that interesting, and that forms the main part of this story. So it's a bit like a horse with three legs before its really even got a chance to entertain us.
What then makes it a not very good film is that where it does have a chance to be purely entertaining, it kinda fails. I mean, given the scale of some of the stuff in the X-Men films, the action sequences here are distinctly lacklustre. I mean, it feels like they were working with a rather limited budget, shall we say? It also doesn't help that the thing about Wolvie is that he's a proper killer, and yet the stuff here is rather bloodless, presumably so they could get a good rating.
So it was kind of a let down, really.
For me personally as a comic-nerd there were also a few additional problems. I don't generally mind them buggering about with the comic characters too much, but I have to say what they did with Deadpool went a bit far - they somehow gave him loads of other people's powers, including, adamantium swords that grow out of his hands, a bit like Wolvie's claws.
Which brings up all sorts of issues - how the heck these long swords fit in his arms, for one thing, but also, does that mean he also has an adamantium skeleton? Wolvie had bone claws onto which the adamantium grafted, so how did they give Deadpool the swords?
And Deadpool also had all sorts of other powers too, but there doesn't seem to be a point in the film where they're removed, so does that mean Deadpool is some sort of super mutant? Which is to ignore the fact of how they managed to give him the powers in the first place - it seemed remarkably simple and begs the question why they aren't doing it to loads of mutant and to non-mutants.
Which is kinda the other thing - there seemed to be loads of plot holes, and not just with Deadpool. For example, there's a scene where Wolvie believes someone to be dead and it's later explained they're not. But this is Wolvie - he has super hearing and smell and stuff - there's no real reason he wouldn't detect the person was still alive.
And if I'm honest, I can see why. One of the problems with adapting comics has got to be that comic book storylines can be rather convoluted at times. They can also be more than a little nerdy.
So there's always going to be a conflict - do you stick closely to the source material and please the fans? Or do you tweak, adapt and add so that non-comic nerds can get it too?
Of course the answer is to tread a fine line between the two - keep enough so that the fans are happy, but tweak enough so that non-fans get it too. The real key of course is telling a compelling story. Which is where this really falls down. The story just isn't that compelling.
Another problem they've got here is that this is a prequel to a successful trilogy of movies, so they have to end at a point where the existing films pick right up. But they have the added disadvantage that Wolverine's past actual forms one of the core parts of the existing trilogy's store. In other words, we know the jist of the film already.
It also doesn't help that what is one of the more interesting bits of Wolverine's origin - him being Weapon X - is actually skipped over pretty quickly in the film. He gets Weapon X-ified, but the whole bit of him being Weapon X is chopped out.
Also, for me personally the whole Wolvie/Sabretooth thing is actually not all that interesting, and that forms the main part of this story. So it's a bit like a horse with three legs before its really even got a chance to entertain us.
What then makes it a not very good film is that where it does have a chance to be purely entertaining, it kinda fails. I mean, given the scale of some of the stuff in the X-Men films, the action sequences here are distinctly lacklustre. I mean, it feels like they were working with a rather limited budget, shall we say? It also doesn't help that the thing about Wolvie is that he's a proper killer, and yet the stuff here is rather bloodless, presumably so they could get a good rating.
So it was kind of a let down, really.
For me personally as a comic-nerd there were also a few additional problems. I don't generally mind them buggering about with the comic characters too much, but I have to say what they did with Deadpool went a bit far - they somehow gave him loads of other people's powers, including, adamantium swords that grow out of his hands, a bit like Wolvie's claws.
Which brings up all sorts of issues - how the heck these long swords fit in his arms, for one thing, but also, does that mean he also has an adamantium skeleton? Wolvie had bone claws onto which the adamantium grafted, so how did they give Deadpool the swords?
And Deadpool also had all sorts of other powers too, but there doesn't seem to be a point in the film where they're removed, so does that mean Deadpool is some sort of super mutant? Which is to ignore the fact of how they managed to give him the powers in the first place - it seemed remarkably simple and begs the question why they aren't doing it to loads of mutant and to non-mutants.
Which is kinda the other thing - there seemed to be loads of plot holes, and not just with Deadpool. For example, there's a scene where Wolvie believes someone to be dead and it's later explained they're not. But this is Wolvie - he has super hearing and smell and stuff - there's no real reason he wouldn't detect the person was still alive.
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
even more scanning
This last weekend I did some more scanning.
I actually completely scanned two whole issues of megami, which I was fairly pleased with. Now the reality is that this isn't a rate that means I'm really catching up - the latest Newtype, Animedia and Animage turned up on Friday, giving a net increase of 1 magazine, but it does mean I've not given up, and that really id the most important thing.
From memory, I've 4 more issues of megami currently unscanned and it's my sincere hope that I'll be able to do some more of them this next weekend. I'm not going to promise myself or anything, because you never know what might happen, but the main point is that last weekend there were additional distractions.
For example, it was one of my cleaning weekends and of course I had to pick up my glasses and buy some petrol, but mainly it was the Bahrain Grand Prix. Any Grand Prix weekend adds a minimum of 3 hours to my viewing schedule - the race is normal about 1.5 hours and qualifying about 1, but spread over about 1.5 hours. Normally, however I also like to watch a good chunk of the punditry, although not all of it.
Anyway, the point is, next weekend is free of most of those types of things, so in theory I should be able to at least get a couple more megamis done like last weekend. Who knows I may even do more, but again, no promises.
Anyway, while I scanned I did watch a bit more anime, although I also had the F1 punditry on for a good chunk of it. I've therefore not watched as much as I might have done, but here's the mini reviews:
Sweet Blue Flowers (Aoi Hana)
I really liked what I watched of this, although it's a bit odd that it appears to be another Yuri (lesbian) themed show. I guess Yuri must be the flavour of the month or something, because there have been a lot of shows featuring it recently.
The take here is quite a gentle one, and it works very well. It's also basically a slice of life show set in high school, so I guess it doesn't win any marks for originality, but it seems well executed and intelligent, so you can't really ask for more.
GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class
I enjoyed this, overall, but it felt a bit like I'd seen it before. I don't actually know, as I've never read the manga, but it had a strong feeling of being an adaptation of a four-panel comic. By that, I mean that the episode was almost divided up into a series of vignettes.
I was also unsure what the target audience was - the art design bit in the title isn't just a framing thing, it kinda teaches you about art techniques and stuff. I was therefore puzzled if that meant it was mean to be aimed at a younger audience, or if that was just the style the manga-ka liked.
I can't say it didn't work, but also it felt too similar to the likes of Sunshine Sketch and Azumanga Daioh, but it looses out to them a bit for me because there wasn't really much in the way of character development.
I also watched a bit more of Dragonaut (6 whole eps at the weekend and then 4 more last night in fact) and I continue to find it reasonably entertaining. Unless it takes a real nosedive towards the end I'm really not sure why so many reviews have crapped all over it. I mean, it's not the greatest thing ever and there are a few clunking episodes (one I dubbed "the power of love" was particularly heavy-handed in terms of spelling out 'the message', but then hey - at least there is a message) but it doesn't seem to match up with the pannings its gotten.
On the manga front I've mainly been catching up with my re-reading. I've discussed it before I'm sure, but I like to read stuff twice, but I also like to read things in chunks. What that means is that I don't immediately re-read a volume, but instead wait until I've a small stack of the same series to re-read and then I tackle them all together.
It means that while I might not get to update my MAL with stuff, I am still consistently plugging away at reading manga.
The only new manga I have read is the first volume of the adaptation of Gurren Lagann and a little bit of the first volume of Gantz. It's too early to really be sure if I like them, but the signs are pretty good.
I actually completely scanned two whole issues of megami, which I was fairly pleased with. Now the reality is that this isn't a rate that means I'm really catching up - the latest Newtype, Animedia and Animage turned up on Friday, giving a net increase of 1 magazine, but it does mean I've not given up, and that really id the most important thing.
From memory, I've 4 more issues of megami currently unscanned and it's my sincere hope that I'll be able to do some more of them this next weekend. I'm not going to promise myself or anything, because you never know what might happen, but the main point is that last weekend there were additional distractions.
For example, it was one of my cleaning weekends and of course I had to pick up my glasses and buy some petrol, but mainly it was the Bahrain Grand Prix. Any Grand Prix weekend adds a minimum of 3 hours to my viewing schedule - the race is normal about 1.5 hours and qualifying about 1, but spread over about 1.5 hours. Normally, however I also like to watch a good chunk of the punditry, although not all of it.
Anyway, the point is, next weekend is free of most of those types of things, so in theory I should be able to at least get a couple more megamis done like last weekend. Who knows I may even do more, but again, no promises.
Anyway, while I scanned I did watch a bit more anime, although I also had the F1 punditry on for a good chunk of it. I've therefore not watched as much as I might have done, but here's the mini reviews:
Sweet Blue Flowers (Aoi Hana)
I really liked what I watched of this, although it's a bit odd that it appears to be another Yuri (lesbian) themed show. I guess Yuri must be the flavour of the month or something, because there have been a lot of shows featuring it recently.
The take here is quite a gentle one, and it works very well. It's also basically a slice of life show set in high school, so I guess it doesn't win any marks for originality, but it seems well executed and intelligent, so you can't really ask for more.
GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class
I enjoyed this, overall, but it felt a bit like I'd seen it before. I don't actually know, as I've never read the manga, but it had a strong feeling of being an adaptation of a four-panel comic. By that, I mean that the episode was almost divided up into a series of vignettes.
I was also unsure what the target audience was - the art design bit in the title isn't just a framing thing, it kinda teaches you about art techniques and stuff. I was therefore puzzled if that meant it was mean to be aimed at a younger audience, or if that was just the style the manga-ka liked.
I can't say it didn't work, but also it felt too similar to the likes of Sunshine Sketch and Azumanga Daioh, but it looses out to them a bit for me because there wasn't really much in the way of character development.
I also watched a bit more of Dragonaut (6 whole eps at the weekend and then 4 more last night in fact) and I continue to find it reasonably entertaining. Unless it takes a real nosedive towards the end I'm really not sure why so many reviews have crapped all over it. I mean, it's not the greatest thing ever and there are a few clunking episodes (one I dubbed "the power of love" was particularly heavy-handed in terms of spelling out 'the message', but then hey - at least there is a message) but it doesn't seem to match up with the pannings its gotten.
On the manga front I've mainly been catching up with my re-reading. I've discussed it before I'm sure, but I like to read stuff twice, but I also like to read things in chunks. What that means is that I don't immediately re-read a volume, but instead wait until I've a small stack of the same series to re-read and then I tackle them all together.
It means that while I might not get to update my MAL with stuff, I am still consistently plugging away at reading manga.
The only new manga I have read is the first volume of the adaptation of Gurren Lagann and a little bit of the first volume of Gantz. It's too early to really be sure if I like them, but the signs are pretty good.
Monday, 15 March 2010
ouch!
Well, the weekend was horribly expensive, as expected.
And not quite in all the ways I was expecting.
For example, the MOT and Service cost me more than expected, because they'd replaced my wipers. Now really they're mean to phone me if they want to do stuff like that, but they didn't, and it meant the total charge was around £65 (wipers are one of those things that cost way more than you'd think).
But also I got some horrible news. You remember the pothole I hit and that has been the bane of my existence (and bank account) for months? Well it turns out the wheel wobble I was getting was because the back wheel was also dented.
That means that hitting one pot hole has damaged 2 of my alloy wheels, which cost £185 each, and a tyre, which costs about £120. With labour, that's more than £500 for hitting 1 pothole.
It also means I've got to go back next Friday and get the wheel replaced (and the tyre changed over and rebalanced and that).
I also did the Nissan Roadside assistance, which was actually cheaper than I was expecting at £65 for the year and paid my Road Tax, which was £150; however after the depressing news at even more expense I didn't do my insurance as well. I'm thinking about protecting my no-claims, which costs about £50, but will also mean if I have an accident (and the way my luck's been going it seems likely) it'll save me money in the long term.
And speaking of my luck, I picked up my glasses on Saturday. And I've come to the conclusion that the right lens isn't the correct prescription. At distance and when reading subtitles on a DVD it's definitely slightly blurry. It's not enough to mean I can't see, but it's not right.
Which means I'll have the hassle of getting it fixed. I mean, why can't I just have something that goes really well and is better than expected?
If I believed in such things as karma, it means I must have been very naughty in a previous life.
And not quite in all the ways I was expecting.
For example, the MOT and Service cost me more than expected, because they'd replaced my wipers. Now really they're mean to phone me if they want to do stuff like that, but they didn't, and it meant the total charge was around £65 (wipers are one of those things that cost way more than you'd think).
But also I got some horrible news. You remember the pothole I hit and that has been the bane of my existence (and bank account) for months? Well it turns out the wheel wobble I was getting was because the back wheel was also dented.
That means that hitting one pot hole has damaged 2 of my alloy wheels, which cost £185 each, and a tyre, which costs about £120. With labour, that's more than £500 for hitting 1 pothole.
It also means I've got to go back next Friday and get the wheel replaced (and the tyre changed over and rebalanced and that).
I also did the Nissan Roadside assistance, which was actually cheaper than I was expecting at £65 for the year and paid my Road Tax, which was £150; however after the depressing news at even more expense I didn't do my insurance as well. I'm thinking about protecting my no-claims, which costs about £50, but will also mean if I have an accident (and the way my luck's been going it seems likely) it'll save me money in the long term.
And speaking of my luck, I picked up my glasses on Saturday. And I've come to the conclusion that the right lens isn't the correct prescription. At distance and when reading subtitles on a DVD it's definitely slightly blurry. It's not enough to mean I can't see, but it's not right.
Which means I'll have the hassle of getting it fixed. I mean, why can't I just have something that goes really well and is better than expected?
If I believed in such things as karma, it means I must have been very naughty in a previous life.
Friday, 12 March 2010
hole in my bucket, dear liza
Today marks the start of a very expensive period, all of which relates to my car.
I got the new car in April 3 years ago and so this year my free service comes to an end. I mean, I get this one free, but from now on it's going to cost me money. And it's going to cost me money anyway today, because as well as being in for its service, its first MOT is due. Not sure how much that is since I've not had one in a long time, but it's got to be about £35.
I'm not anticipating any particular problems, though I suspect I made need some new brake pads, which I'm guessing will be fairly expensive. Also, there's the wheel wobble which I'm hoping doesn't point to anything more than a wheel weight being in the wrong place.
Anyway, the other stuff is that I also need to get my car tax. I can do that online, but it's still another £150 or so.
Then of course there's the Nissan roadside assistance (the RAC, basically) and given the problems I had with the wheel not so long ago, I don't fancy giving that up. I've still to look at the details, but I think it's about £100 for the equivalent level to what I've got now.
And finally of course, there's my insurance, which is due. Now that I'm in my thirties and I've got a long period of no claims, that's not actually bad value, but it's still the best part of £350 for a year, which all adds up.
So yeah - at minimum, this weekend is going to cost me about £650. Money will be veritably pissing out of the bucket that is my bank account.
I got the new car in April 3 years ago and so this year my free service comes to an end. I mean, I get this one free, but from now on it's going to cost me money. And it's going to cost me money anyway today, because as well as being in for its service, its first MOT is due. Not sure how much that is since I've not had one in a long time, but it's got to be about £35.
I'm not anticipating any particular problems, though I suspect I made need some new brake pads, which I'm guessing will be fairly expensive. Also, there's the wheel wobble which I'm hoping doesn't point to anything more than a wheel weight being in the wrong place.
Anyway, the other stuff is that I also need to get my car tax. I can do that online, but it's still another £150 or so.
Then of course there's the Nissan roadside assistance (the RAC, basically) and given the problems I had with the wheel not so long ago, I don't fancy giving that up. I've still to look at the details, but I think it's about £100 for the equivalent level to what I've got now.
And finally of course, there's my insurance, which is due. Now that I'm in my thirties and I've got a long period of no claims, that's not actually bad value, but it's still the best part of £350 for a year, which all adds up.
So yeah - at minimum, this weekend is going to cost me about £650. Money will be veritably pissing out of the bucket that is my bank account.
Thursday, 11 March 2010
venice or bust
I think I'm not hugely impressed with the Anno 1404: Venice expansion.
The problem is that the main thing it's added is the espionage element. Whilst this kinda sounds like fun, in actuality it's a little tedious.
I mean, one of the things is that, even though you're doing espionage, which is meant to be secret, in reality it's more like sabotage. Plus it's not secret. If you do anything, then your victim knows it was you - how is that espionage?
Plus it focuses on adding another of the more tedious elements into city management. Basically, there are a couple of things in the game that I always found a bit boring and tedious. These are kinda 'passive' elements, in that you build the building and then essentially they do their job independent of you.
Of course, they take up space and add cost to your city, which makes them annoying and that's why I always used to turn them off. The things in question are the carpenter, who repairs building and the fire station, that puts out fires.
I mean there are a few other similar things - the game can have storms and sandstorms too - but again, those are pretty tedious, so I used to turn them off too.
Well, the espionage introduces another building like that. The acts of sabotage you can do also mean that you need the other buildings I turn off, because you can start fires and stuff.
Plus, whenever there's an enemy spy in your city you have to do a mission to find them before they cause any problems. Well, those missions were always the most tedious as well - the 'find the person' missions.
So I'm roundly unimpressed.
There are some good aspects - there have been some good game mechanic tweaks (which I suspect are actually mostly in the v1.2 patch - not sure if that's available without the game), for example, and having the new Venetian NPC is quite good. Plus volcanoes are interesting.
They've also done lots of scenarios, which can be fun, but there's no new story element. I would have liked the game much more if there's been a new story-based campaign, I think, as I really liked that part of the original game.
So yeah - mixed bag.
And what doesn't help is that I got so far with my previous open-ended game and the thought of starting a new one, especially now I'm back watching anime and just starting scanning again, actually feels like something I don't want to do.
The problem is that the main thing it's added is the espionage element. Whilst this kinda sounds like fun, in actuality it's a little tedious.
I mean, one of the things is that, even though you're doing espionage, which is meant to be secret, in reality it's more like sabotage. Plus it's not secret. If you do anything, then your victim knows it was you - how is that espionage?
Plus it focuses on adding another of the more tedious elements into city management. Basically, there are a couple of things in the game that I always found a bit boring and tedious. These are kinda 'passive' elements, in that you build the building and then essentially they do their job independent of you.
Of course, they take up space and add cost to your city, which makes them annoying and that's why I always used to turn them off. The things in question are the carpenter, who repairs building and the fire station, that puts out fires.
I mean there are a few other similar things - the game can have storms and sandstorms too - but again, those are pretty tedious, so I used to turn them off too.
Well, the espionage introduces another building like that. The acts of sabotage you can do also mean that you need the other buildings I turn off, because you can start fires and stuff.
Plus, whenever there's an enemy spy in your city you have to do a mission to find them before they cause any problems. Well, those missions were always the most tedious as well - the 'find the person' missions.
So I'm roundly unimpressed.
There are some good aspects - there have been some good game mechanic tweaks (which I suspect are actually mostly in the v1.2 patch - not sure if that's available without the game), for example, and having the new Venetian NPC is quite good. Plus volcanoes are interesting.
They've also done lots of scenarios, which can be fun, but there's no new story element. I would have liked the game much more if there's been a new story-based campaign, I think, as I really liked that part of the original game.
So yeah - mixed bag.
And what doesn't help is that I got so far with my previous open-ended game and the thought of starting a new one, especially now I'm back watching anime and just starting scanning again, actually feels like something I don't want to do.
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
zack and miri make a porno
Most of Kevin Smith's films - especially his first few - were set in the "View Askewniverse". What this meant was that they were all set in the same world, so although the main character of each film might change, the characters from other films would be kicking about somewhere.
Some may appear as secondary characters or as cameos, or not at all, but the idea was they'd all be kicking about somewhere. The films were all pretty much also set in Smith's native New Jersey, although they'd occasionally venture elsewhere too.
But the key point was that the films all shared the same sense of humour and the same overly-verbose style of writing that Smith built his career on.
But more recently, Smith has tried branching out. For example, there was Jersey Girl, which was definitely not a VA film and also marked a very different style, notably with the huge monologing dialogue pretty much gone. By all accounts it tanked.
And that's been kinda a theme: when Smith has done a VA movie - a 'proper' Smith movie - they've done good business, but when he steps outside, there's been a tendency for a more mixed reaction. Sometimes you can see why, but others it's not so clean cut - I quite enjoyed Jersey Girl, for example.
Anyway, the point is that Zack and Miri isn't a VA film, but it might as well be. There's a lot in common here with the VA stuff - the humour is the same, the monologing is very much in attendance and even the theme of the movie is very VA. But it doesn't feature any of the VA characters and isn't set in Jersey, etc, etc.
It does feature some of the actors who have been in VA films, though they don't play their VA characters... except they're not 100% different.
See what I mean - it's technically not a VA film, but it doesn't really represent a huge departure, ether. It's like Smith wanted to make a movie similar to the other VA stuff but by tweaking some things he thought he could sneak it past people and hence break out. Only he change enough stuff, so it's a half-way house film.
I know I've wibbled on a bit about the same basic point for ages, but it kinda sums up my feeling on the film - because it's not a VA film, it kinda feels wrong, somehow. Because it's meant more as a regular comedy, the insertion of the usual Smith stuff also feels odd.
Which isn't to say there's not plenty to laugh at and that the story basically hangs together, it just disconcerted me a bit. I enjoyed it, but it confused me.
There was one element that didn't really work for me, though. The making of the porno stuff felt like a kind of rose-tinted view of it. I mean, they didn't really have any particular problems making the thing. Well, there was one big setback, but for example, there were no performance problems for the porn stars, even though most of them weren't actual porn stars.
Plus the porno that they were making looked like it would actually have been really bad, but then I think that was kinda the point.
I was also a little disappointed with the package - there were no extras at all. I mean, I appreciate it's probably a rental version, but it would have been nice to have something by way of extras.
Some may appear as secondary characters or as cameos, or not at all, but the idea was they'd all be kicking about somewhere. The films were all pretty much also set in Smith's native New Jersey, although they'd occasionally venture elsewhere too.
But the key point was that the films all shared the same sense of humour and the same overly-verbose style of writing that Smith built his career on.
But more recently, Smith has tried branching out. For example, there was Jersey Girl, which was definitely not a VA film and also marked a very different style, notably with the huge monologing dialogue pretty much gone. By all accounts it tanked.
And that's been kinda a theme: when Smith has done a VA movie - a 'proper' Smith movie - they've done good business, but when he steps outside, there's been a tendency for a more mixed reaction. Sometimes you can see why, but others it's not so clean cut - I quite enjoyed Jersey Girl, for example.
Anyway, the point is that Zack and Miri isn't a VA film, but it might as well be. There's a lot in common here with the VA stuff - the humour is the same, the monologing is very much in attendance and even the theme of the movie is very VA. But it doesn't feature any of the VA characters and isn't set in Jersey, etc, etc.
It does feature some of the actors who have been in VA films, though they don't play their VA characters... except they're not 100% different.
See what I mean - it's technically not a VA film, but it doesn't really represent a huge departure, ether. It's like Smith wanted to make a movie similar to the other VA stuff but by tweaking some things he thought he could sneak it past people and hence break out. Only he change enough stuff, so it's a half-way house film.
I know I've wibbled on a bit about the same basic point for ages, but it kinda sums up my feeling on the film - because it's not a VA film, it kinda feels wrong, somehow. Because it's meant more as a regular comedy, the insertion of the usual Smith stuff also feels odd.
Which isn't to say there's not plenty to laugh at and that the story basically hangs together, it just disconcerted me a bit. I enjoyed it, but it confused me.
There was one element that didn't really work for me, though. The making of the porno stuff felt like a kind of rose-tinted view of it. I mean, they didn't really have any particular problems making the thing. Well, there was one big setback, but for example, there were no performance problems for the porn stars, even though most of them weren't actual porn stars.
Plus the porno that they were making looked like it would actually have been really bad, but then I think that was kinda the point.
I was also a little disappointed with the package - there were no extras at all. I mean, I appreciate it's probably a rental version, but it would have been nice to have something by way of extras.
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
pray continue, my good man
Continuing from yesterday...
6) I got infected by Malware from icanhascheeseburger.com
I used to go there every so often and look at the lolcats for a little light relief, but on Wednesday Lunch I got some malware from something on the site. Specifically it was one of those bogus anti-virus jobs that claims to find stuff and then gets you to pay for software that does nothing.
I've no real idea what it was that infected me, but it kinda ruined the afternoon of work, as I spent a lot of time getting rid of it.
7) I updated trismugistus.com
I've uploaded a new review for steamboy and already prepped two more weeks. I've also got a further dozen or so where I've done the review and scanned stuff, but I need to actually turn them into reviews I can upload.
It's weird that it's March already - it only seems like yesterday I was last updating the site, but it was November since my last review and Christmas since I uploaded the chrimbo message. I can't believe that Easter is nearly upon us!
8) I bought some new shoes and clothes
My current ones are falling apart and I'd been meaning to for a while, but never got round to it - much like everything on this list! - so I got a new pair.
I find the sizes weird - these new ones are a 10, but others I've got are 11s, and these 10s don't feel uncomfortable. Well, no more uncomfortable than any new shoe while you're breaking it in. The sizes seems to vary so much from shoe to shoe. Or maybe my feet keep changing sizes - who knows?
I also bought some clothes. Being so fat, I have to get special big-size clothes. There wasn't much of a selection at the usual place I go to. I hope they're not going out of business and running down there stock and it was just a case of me catching it "between lines".
Do clothes shops suffer during recessions? I honestly don't know :/.
9) Steam sucks cock
This is steam by valve, not steam the boiled water.
Basically I put a bunch of auctions up last week on e-bay and they came to an end on Sunday, but someone contacted me asking if one of them - Modern Warfare 2 - would be accompanied by access to my steam account.
After some investigation, I found out that when I registered it on steam, as I was required to on install, that basically locked the CD-key I got with the game to my steam account.
If I'd known I would have set up a special account for the purpose, but I didn't, and I'm unwilling to hand over my entire steam account to someone else.
But seriously - what the fuck is that all about? I mean, it really pisses me off the way these piracy controls have been going - I've now got a game I've no interest in ever playing again that I can't sell second hand.
Selling games second hand is almost at the heart of gaming - it's why the astronomical prices they charge for new games doesn't hurt so bad, because you know you'll get a chunk of it back again. If you're now saying that that's dead, then I may well have to stop buying your games altogether.
In a way I don't even blame them - it's the fuckers that are the pirates that have driven it that way. But still, there should be some consideration for us legal purchasers - what about the ability to simply transfer your CD key from one account to another?
Anyway, it also meant I had to piss off some poor bloke on e-bay who won the auction in good faith, sent his payment and then got all these messages from me apologising, saying it couldn't be transferred and then refunding him his money.
10) I did some scanning and watched some anime
This has to be one of the biggest shocks - I not only sat down and finished Maria Holic, but I also started Dragonaut: The Resonance. Indeed, I've gotten 10 episodes into dragonaut (I think if I'd gone for a half series, I might have made an extra push and finished it, but I didn't, so I didn't). Here are some mini review type notes:
Maria Holic was very inconsistent. Some episodes were very funny, but others a lot less so. Indeed, some were more like a proper dramas than something in a comedy. Unfortunately, it wasn't the best drama, so that didn't really help matters.
Also, I have to admit this is one series that could really have done with a dub. Several of the characters talked incredibly fast and with a few translation notes popping up too, it was horribly difficult to follow at times without pausing and rewinding.
Dragonaut I've been kinda enjoying. I read a lot of stuff totally slating the series, but I think it's alright. I mean, I'm not gonna pretend it's the greatest thing ever, but it's not bad either. Well, not so far, anyway - maybe it goes terrible at the end?
I've a sneaking suspicion that a lot of it is fuelled by the rather extreme character designs, which features more than a few boobs-bigger-than-heads characters. But then to be fair, the actual fan-service is relatively minimal. I mean, there's even been a "hot springs" episode, and even that had little fan service in it. Indeed, it wasn't really a hot springs - more like a swimming pool/water flume place, so everyone was in swimming costumes, rather than naked like they'd be at a hot spring.
And here's the real kicker - I did some scanning too!
Half of it was scanning the freebies and fliers I get with my cd-japan orders, of which there were a surprisingly large number, but I also did a complete issue of megami! I know, I was stunned too.
And while I scanned, I watched some fansubs (it's almost like the old days!):
Needless
Bit of a mixed feeling on this. I kinda liked the first episode, but the second was rather badly paced.
Overall, the show seemed to bare a close resemblance in tone to Gurren Lagann - a mish-mash of familiar ideas, but done with lots of gusto and energy. However, in the second episode there were long periods of people talking at each other (and supposedly during a fight :/), which smacked a bit too much of Dragonball Z syndrome and cheap budgets.
So I dunno - I'd probably watch it, but I've a feeling it would annoy me almost as much as I liked it.
Hipira: The Little Vampire
This is a series of shorts. It's actually cg animated, but it's done in such a way as to look more like normal anime than most.
In essence, it's a kids show and while there's nothing wrong with that, it didn't really appeal to me, to be honest.
I think I might have a bit of the old vampire fatigue too - they're absolutely every-bloody-where.
Charger Girl Juden Chan
A while back I was... well, I wouldn't say up in arms, but I was a bit miffed that Crunchyroll's streaming of this series was being edited. You should note that this was before I'd come to the conclusion that Crunchyroll's streaming is a hateful experience, so it was with reluctance at that time that I dl'ed an uncensored fansub version .
Well, to be perfectly frank if I'd known what Juden chan was like I would have not bothered and tried the Crunchyroll version (as I say, before I came to my current stance on Crunchyroll streaming). Now I say this without any sort of assurance that what I found objectionable is the stuff that's been removed, but I'm fairly sure it is.
The stuff in question is pee.
At least I'm pretty sure it's pee - it's yellow, and it runs down the female character's legs so I'm pretty sure it's pee. Trouble is, there's also a suggestion that it appears not only when the character gets knocked out (and hence looses control of their bladder - quite what the appeal of this fetish is I really don't know. It keeps cropping up in Ikkitousen and to me it's just plain gross.) but also when they're getting sexually aroused.
Of course that's sexual arousal in that faintly misogynistic way that still crops up in anime where the merest hint of contact with a woman's nipples, breasts or crotch area instantly has them dripping. Even when the person touching them is a complete stranger or, worse, a rapist or molester.
To be frank, this is the one aspect of mainstream anime that really annoys me. I can understand it in the total-fantasy that is the world of hentai, but in non-hentai anime, it's just plain wrong, because it's just plain wrong in real life.
I dunno - it's a double standard from me, I guess, as mostly I like fan-service, but to me there's a world of difference between getting a flash of panties or boobs and this.
Anyway, the point is, if it wasn't for the girls peeing themselves all over the place, this would be okay, but with it in, it's just nasty.
6) I got infected by Malware from icanhascheeseburger.com
I used to go there every so often and look at the lolcats for a little light relief, but on Wednesday Lunch I got some malware from something on the site. Specifically it was one of those bogus anti-virus jobs that claims to find stuff and then gets you to pay for software that does nothing.
I've no real idea what it was that infected me, but it kinda ruined the afternoon of work, as I spent a lot of time getting rid of it.
7) I updated trismugistus.com
I've uploaded a new review for steamboy and already prepped two more weeks. I've also got a further dozen or so where I've done the review and scanned stuff, but I need to actually turn them into reviews I can upload.
It's weird that it's March already - it only seems like yesterday I was last updating the site, but it was November since my last review and Christmas since I uploaded the chrimbo message. I can't believe that Easter is nearly upon us!
8) I bought some new shoes and clothes
My current ones are falling apart and I'd been meaning to for a while, but never got round to it - much like everything on this list! - so I got a new pair.
I find the sizes weird - these new ones are a 10, but others I've got are 11s, and these 10s don't feel uncomfortable. Well, no more uncomfortable than any new shoe while you're breaking it in. The sizes seems to vary so much from shoe to shoe. Or maybe my feet keep changing sizes - who knows?
I also bought some clothes. Being so fat, I have to get special big-size clothes. There wasn't much of a selection at the usual place I go to. I hope they're not going out of business and running down there stock and it was just a case of me catching it "between lines".
Do clothes shops suffer during recessions? I honestly don't know :/.
9) Steam sucks cock
This is steam by valve, not steam the boiled water.
Basically I put a bunch of auctions up last week on e-bay and they came to an end on Sunday, but someone contacted me asking if one of them - Modern Warfare 2 - would be accompanied by access to my steam account.
After some investigation, I found out that when I registered it on steam, as I was required to on install, that basically locked the CD-key I got with the game to my steam account.
If I'd known I would have set up a special account for the purpose, but I didn't, and I'm unwilling to hand over my entire steam account to someone else.
But seriously - what the fuck is that all about? I mean, it really pisses me off the way these piracy controls have been going - I've now got a game I've no interest in ever playing again that I can't sell second hand.
Selling games second hand is almost at the heart of gaming - it's why the astronomical prices they charge for new games doesn't hurt so bad, because you know you'll get a chunk of it back again. If you're now saying that that's dead, then I may well have to stop buying your games altogether.
In a way I don't even blame them - it's the fuckers that are the pirates that have driven it that way. But still, there should be some consideration for us legal purchasers - what about the ability to simply transfer your CD key from one account to another?
Anyway, it also meant I had to piss off some poor bloke on e-bay who won the auction in good faith, sent his payment and then got all these messages from me apologising, saying it couldn't be transferred and then refunding him his money.
10) I did some scanning and watched some anime
This has to be one of the biggest shocks - I not only sat down and finished Maria Holic, but I also started Dragonaut: The Resonance. Indeed, I've gotten 10 episodes into dragonaut (I think if I'd gone for a half series, I might have made an extra push and finished it, but I didn't, so I didn't). Here are some mini review type notes:
Maria Holic was very inconsistent. Some episodes were very funny, but others a lot less so. Indeed, some were more like a proper dramas than something in a comedy. Unfortunately, it wasn't the best drama, so that didn't really help matters.
Also, I have to admit this is one series that could really have done with a dub. Several of the characters talked incredibly fast and with a few translation notes popping up too, it was horribly difficult to follow at times without pausing and rewinding.
Dragonaut I've been kinda enjoying. I read a lot of stuff totally slating the series, but I think it's alright. I mean, I'm not gonna pretend it's the greatest thing ever, but it's not bad either. Well, not so far, anyway - maybe it goes terrible at the end?
I've a sneaking suspicion that a lot of it is fuelled by the rather extreme character designs, which features more than a few boobs-bigger-than-heads characters. But then to be fair, the actual fan-service is relatively minimal. I mean, there's even been a "hot springs" episode, and even that had little fan service in it. Indeed, it wasn't really a hot springs - more like a swimming pool/water flume place, so everyone was in swimming costumes, rather than naked like they'd be at a hot spring.
And here's the real kicker - I did some scanning too!
Half of it was scanning the freebies and fliers I get with my cd-japan orders, of which there were a surprisingly large number, but I also did a complete issue of megami! I know, I was stunned too.
And while I scanned, I watched some fansubs (it's almost like the old days!):
Needless
Bit of a mixed feeling on this. I kinda liked the first episode, but the second was rather badly paced.
Overall, the show seemed to bare a close resemblance in tone to Gurren Lagann - a mish-mash of familiar ideas, but done with lots of gusto and energy. However, in the second episode there were long periods of people talking at each other (and supposedly during a fight :/), which smacked a bit too much of Dragonball Z syndrome and cheap budgets.
So I dunno - I'd probably watch it, but I've a feeling it would annoy me almost as much as I liked it.
Hipira: The Little Vampire
This is a series of shorts. It's actually cg animated, but it's done in such a way as to look more like normal anime than most.
In essence, it's a kids show and while there's nothing wrong with that, it didn't really appeal to me, to be honest.
I think I might have a bit of the old vampire fatigue too - they're absolutely every-bloody-where.
Charger Girl Juden Chan
A while back I was... well, I wouldn't say up in arms, but I was a bit miffed that Crunchyroll's streaming of this series was being edited. You should note that this was before I'd come to the conclusion that Crunchyroll's streaming is a hateful experience, so it was with reluctance at that time that I dl'ed an uncensored fansub version .
Well, to be perfectly frank if I'd known what Juden chan was like I would have not bothered and tried the Crunchyroll version (as I say, before I came to my current stance on Crunchyroll streaming). Now I say this without any sort of assurance that what I found objectionable is the stuff that's been removed, but I'm fairly sure it is.
The stuff in question is pee.
At least I'm pretty sure it's pee - it's yellow, and it runs down the female character's legs so I'm pretty sure it's pee. Trouble is, there's also a suggestion that it appears not only when the character gets knocked out (and hence looses control of their bladder - quite what the appeal of this fetish is I really don't know. It keeps cropping up in Ikkitousen and to me it's just plain gross.) but also when they're getting sexually aroused.
Of course that's sexual arousal in that faintly misogynistic way that still crops up in anime where the merest hint of contact with a woman's nipples, breasts or crotch area instantly has them dripping. Even when the person touching them is a complete stranger or, worse, a rapist or molester.
To be frank, this is the one aspect of mainstream anime that really annoys me. I can understand it in the total-fantasy that is the world of hentai, but in non-hentai anime, it's just plain wrong, because it's just plain wrong in real life.
I dunno - it's a double standard from me, I guess, as mostly I like fan-service, but to me there's a world of difference between getting a flash of panties or boobs and this.
Anyway, the point is, if it wasn't for the girls peeing themselves all over the place, this would be okay, but with it in, it's just nasty.
Monday, 8 March 2010
the dreaded return
Well, I'm back at work.
Boo!
And of course, there's been tonnes for me to do. That's one of the problems with only having a couple of days off - people just stack things up on your desk 'because he'll be in a couple of days'. If you're off for two weeks, they don't because it would take so long before you turned it around.
The weekend was pretty much a success. Certainly I did, like, 95% of what I'd intended to. Here's a bit of a list/run-down:
1) Opticians
Went and got my eyes checked. I went to the Specsavers in Farnham - well, when I got the right place I did. Bizarrely, there's another opticians just 2 doors down and I initially went in there. I used to go to an independent opticians in Alton, but the last time they bent the frames of the glasses I'd picked and so I decided not to go there again.
I haven't really had any troubles with the glasses I've got, other than they're scratched to buggery - so much so that I can see weird lines across my vision. Interestingly they said my prescription hadn't really changed, which think is the first time I've ever had them checked and they've not changed, but I got some new specs anyway because of the scratches.
It was a bit weird actually in Specsavers - all of the employees seemed to be in a rush. They all even spoke really quickly. It was like they'd all been downing coffee all day :/. I'll pick the glasses up next Saturday and I guess I can check if they're still all in hyper-fast mode.
2) My dental hygienist is a sadist
You know when the dentist tells you to "have a rinse"? There are two reasons for that - they've either just done something messy, like polish your teeth, so there's gunk all over the shop, or, they've done you some damage and they can't see anymore for all the blood.
I had to rinse three times during my hygienist appointment. None of which were due to polishing.
On the third time she'd given me my glasses back (taken off to prevent splashes getting on them) and I could clearly see big clumps of flesh in the bowl.
A big part of the problem is that the inside edge of my gums is higher than the outside edge, so whenever you stick something through the gap from the outside, there's a good chance you'll injure or impale my gum. She did that a lot.
3) Halfords don't sell wheel nuts!
This was a bizarre one. I've detailed in the blog about my wheel/tyre problems, one of which was these appalling locking wheel nuts, so I thought I'd go to Halfords and see if I could get some ordinary ones to replace them.
But they don't do them - they only sell locking wheel nuts. Initially I thought I was being stupid or that they might only be available to order, so I asked the guy at the parts desk and he said they didn't do them. The reason - they can't make any money on them.
I was a bit stunned, so I just left, but I've been thinking about it and I might get some of the locking nuts. There seemed to be some with much better designs so I may get them. Plus it means I still get the security side of having locking nuts.
4) Got my windscreen fixed and car booked in
It's only taken, like, 5 months, but I went to Autoglass and they did the old crack filling thing. Obviously I wasn't in any sort of a rush, but it took them a good 45 minutes to turn it around from when I got there.
To be perfectly frank, it's not really a lot different to what it was before, but it only cost me £10 and hopefully it means it's sufficiently good to pass an MOT. It's not in the main line of sight, so I think it should be all right.
And I booked said MOT for Next Friday. It's also going in for a service, which will be the last free one as part of my service plan. I've also asked them to take a look at the wheel wobble I've been getting. I've a dreaded feeling it might be damage from the pothole, but I'm hoping it's just a wheel weight not on right.
5) I figured out what I'd done wrong with my scanner
Basically - the answer was the same as the answer to "what's the shortest distance between two points? A straight line - basically, I was trying to thread the cables around the desk, like I do with the other cables, but actually what I did with them was simply have them hanging loose.
Unfortunately, I'd already been to PC World and bought a hugely long USB cable, but I'm sure it'll come in useful anyway. It wasn't cheap - cables are a right rip off at PC World - but I had a voucher thing my dad had given me, so it wasn't too bad.
I also...
Actually, this post is already massive, so I'll chop it in half and post the rest tomorrow, I think. That'll actually help me out because I'm off to a meeting tomorrow.
Boo!
And of course, there's been tonnes for me to do. That's one of the problems with only having a couple of days off - people just stack things up on your desk 'because he'll be in a couple of days'. If you're off for two weeks, they don't because it would take so long before you turned it around.
The weekend was pretty much a success. Certainly I did, like, 95% of what I'd intended to. Here's a bit of a list/run-down:
1) Opticians
Went and got my eyes checked. I went to the Specsavers in Farnham - well, when I got the right place I did. Bizarrely, there's another opticians just 2 doors down and I initially went in there. I used to go to an independent opticians in Alton, but the last time they bent the frames of the glasses I'd picked and so I decided not to go there again.
I haven't really had any troubles with the glasses I've got, other than they're scratched to buggery - so much so that I can see weird lines across my vision. Interestingly they said my prescription hadn't really changed, which think is the first time I've ever had them checked and they've not changed, but I got some new specs anyway because of the scratches.
It was a bit weird actually in Specsavers - all of the employees seemed to be in a rush. They all even spoke really quickly. It was like they'd all been downing coffee all day :/. I'll pick the glasses up next Saturday and I guess I can check if they're still all in hyper-fast mode.
2) My dental hygienist is a sadist
You know when the dentist tells you to "have a rinse"? There are two reasons for that - they've either just done something messy, like polish your teeth, so there's gunk all over the shop, or, they've done you some damage and they can't see anymore for all the blood.
I had to rinse three times during my hygienist appointment. None of which were due to polishing.
On the third time she'd given me my glasses back (taken off to prevent splashes getting on them) and I could clearly see big clumps of flesh in the bowl.
A big part of the problem is that the inside edge of my gums is higher than the outside edge, so whenever you stick something through the gap from the outside, there's a good chance you'll injure or impale my gum. She did that a lot.
3) Halfords don't sell wheel nuts!
This was a bizarre one. I've detailed in the blog about my wheel/tyre problems, one of which was these appalling locking wheel nuts, so I thought I'd go to Halfords and see if I could get some ordinary ones to replace them.
But they don't do them - they only sell locking wheel nuts. Initially I thought I was being stupid or that they might only be available to order, so I asked the guy at the parts desk and he said they didn't do them. The reason - they can't make any money on them.
I was a bit stunned, so I just left, but I've been thinking about it and I might get some of the locking nuts. There seemed to be some with much better designs so I may get them. Plus it means I still get the security side of having locking nuts.
4) Got my windscreen fixed and car booked in
It's only taken, like, 5 months, but I went to Autoglass and they did the old crack filling thing. Obviously I wasn't in any sort of a rush, but it took them a good 45 minutes to turn it around from when I got there.
To be perfectly frank, it's not really a lot different to what it was before, but it only cost me £10 and hopefully it means it's sufficiently good to pass an MOT. It's not in the main line of sight, so I think it should be all right.
And I booked said MOT for Next Friday. It's also going in for a service, which will be the last free one as part of my service plan. I've also asked them to take a look at the wheel wobble I've been getting. I've a dreaded feeling it might be damage from the pothole, but I'm hoping it's just a wheel weight not on right.
5) I figured out what I'd done wrong with my scanner
Basically - the answer was the same as the answer to "what's the shortest distance between two points? A straight line - basically, I was trying to thread the cables around the desk, like I do with the other cables, but actually what I did with them was simply have them hanging loose.
Unfortunately, I'd already been to PC World and bought a hugely long USB cable, but I'm sure it'll come in useful anyway. It wasn't cheap - cables are a right rip off at PC World - but I had a voucher thing my dad had given me, so it wasn't too bad.
I also...
Actually, this post is already massive, so I'll chop it in half and post the rest tomorrow, I think. That'll actually help me out because I'm off to a meeting tomorrow.
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
last day
Today is my last day... of the week.
I'd love for it to be my last day of work forever. Well, I mean if I'd won the lottery or got a better job or something. Not if I'd be fired or made redundant or something. That would obviously suck big, hairy monkey balls.
Anyway, the point is that I've taken tomorrow and Friday off work. It's not for any exciting reason like I'm going on holiday to some tropical paradise or anything. No, basically I'm taking them off in order to get a bunch of stuff done. And the bunch of stuff is all very boring and tedious life stuff.
For example, I've an appointment at the dentists and at the opticians to get my eyes tested. Plus I want to see if I can get my windscreen fixed (with the terrible weather I'm figuring it's best to go to one of their places as they have a covered area) and I need to book to get my car in for an MOT and to get it serviced.
There's other stuff too, but it's all equally tedious.
The only good part is that I'm hoping I'll get a chance to do some fun stuff. I may try to marathon an entire anime show, but at the least I'm hoping I'll start the scanning I keep flirting with.
I actually did some scanning last weekend, but it was DVD covers to put in reviews over at trismugistus.com. One thing I did discover is I can't remember how I set up my scanner.
The problem seemed to be that the cables weren't long enough, but I distinctly remember that before I didn't used to have any problems with cable lengths. It was kinda bizarre actually, as I kept tugging on the wires thinking they must be caught up somewhere, but instead I'd just pull it out of the scanner or pull my USB hub thing off the desk. I did think that maybe I'd got the cables mixed up and put a shorter one in the scanner by mistake, but not of the other USB cables seemed longer.
Plus it turned out the scanner wasn't even plugged into the power, which took me ages to fiddle to get into a plug hole. And then when I did, I again found the cable seemed too short to reach. I've really no idea how I used to route the cables and stuff, but I know I didn't used to have all these problems.
Anyway, I'm sure I'll figure it out.
I'd love for it to be my last day of work forever. Well, I mean if I'd won the lottery or got a better job or something. Not if I'd be fired or made redundant or something. That would obviously suck big, hairy monkey balls.
Anyway, the point is that I've taken tomorrow and Friday off work. It's not for any exciting reason like I'm going on holiday to some tropical paradise or anything. No, basically I'm taking them off in order to get a bunch of stuff done. And the bunch of stuff is all very boring and tedious life stuff.
For example, I've an appointment at the dentists and at the opticians to get my eyes tested. Plus I want to see if I can get my windscreen fixed (with the terrible weather I'm figuring it's best to go to one of their places as they have a covered area) and I need to book to get my car in for an MOT and to get it serviced.
There's other stuff too, but it's all equally tedious.
The only good part is that I'm hoping I'll get a chance to do some fun stuff. I may try to marathon an entire anime show, but at the least I'm hoping I'll start the scanning I keep flirting with.
I actually did some scanning last weekend, but it was DVD covers to put in reviews over at trismugistus.com. One thing I did discover is I can't remember how I set up my scanner.
The problem seemed to be that the cables weren't long enough, but I distinctly remember that before I didn't used to have any problems with cable lengths. It was kinda bizarre actually, as I kept tugging on the wires thinking they must be caught up somewhere, but instead I'd just pull it out of the scanner or pull my USB hub thing off the desk. I did think that maybe I'd got the cables mixed up and put a shorter one in the scanner by mistake, but not of the other USB cables seemed longer.
Plus it turned out the scanner wasn't even plugged into the power, which took me ages to fiddle to get into a plug hole. And then when I did, I again found the cable seemed too short to reach. I've really no idea how I used to route the cables and stuff, but I know I didn't used to have all these problems.
Anyway, I'm sure I'll figure it out.
Tuesday, 2 March 2010
wall-e
Bit of a different order for things this week, so I'm doing the usual Wednesday film review on a Tuesday.
The film in question was WALL-E, which is a CGI film by Pixar.
I have a bit of a tough time with Pixar's films. There are some that I really like, but a lot of them I don't think quite live up to the hype surrounding them. A good example of this is the Incredibles, which I found very disappointing.
Which isn't to say I didn't like it, it's more like it didn't seem as good as it could have been. Another example is Finding Nemo - I just found it a bit disappointing and, if I'm honest, rather predictable.
I dunno, maybe it's because all of Pixar's films are essentially kid's films. Finding Nemo in particular you've got a father loosing his son and trying to find him. I mean, was there ever any doubt that he would find him?
Now don't get me wrong- even if it wasn't animated or it wasn't a kid's film, if that was the core plot it'd be extremely unlikely not to have a successful outcome. I dunno - it's difficult to explain.
I think the best I can cover it is that the jeopardy in Finding Nemo is false because there's that inevitability. However, if you'd got to the end and Nemo had suggested he wanted to stay where he was then I'd have been interested in that jeopardy.
I'm babbling - the point I'm coming round to is that WALL-E didn't disappoint me. I really enjoyed it. The writing in particular was superb.
One of the things I liked about it is that when they do these films they often bits for the adult - gags or whatever that kids won't get but that let the parents enjoy it a bit more. Well, in WALL-E, they didn't r really need to do that, because it's a more grown up story.
It's a love story, essentially, and I'm not sure Pixar have really tackled a love story like this before.
I will say that I did have a couple of reservations about the film, but they were more from me being a pedant about stuff than actual problems.
I won't go into detail over these, but one of the ones that did kinda puzzle me was towards the end. It's not really a spoiler as all I'll say is that there's a part where the ship they end up on gets tilted to the side and all the humans slide out of their chairs.
The basic idea is that all the people have become fat and feeble from having everything done for them. This includes walking and they all kinda sit in these automatic wheel chairs (we'll leave how they defecate out of proceedings).
Anyway, so the idea is the ship tilts, they all slide out of their chairs and then down the floor. Okay, it sorta works. Except think about this - in space there is no "up". It's clearly shown in other bits that there's no gravity in space and so the suggestion is that there's an artificial gravity system at work somewhere.
But wouldn't that gravity system be orientated along the axis of the ship? Which is to say, if you tilt the ship, you tilt the gravity too, so from the perspective of the humans in the chairs, there should be no sense of leaning.
Even if you come up with some reason for that, then why aren't the chairs affected too? Even if you say they're anchored in place, they should lean in the opposite direction if that stays fixed. So in other words, there's no way in which the chairs would upend and evict their users.
Another one that didn't quite make sense was that WALL-E and EVE end up in a trash compactor that's basically flinging all the ship's waste otut into space. And yet they've been in space for 700 years - wouldn't they have run out of raw materials if the ship was designed to just dump waste into space, rather than recycle/reuse it?
But as I say, these things don't affect the core story and you can happily ignore them as otherwise it's very, very good.
The film in question was WALL-E, which is a CGI film by Pixar.
I have a bit of a tough time with Pixar's films. There are some that I really like, but a lot of them I don't think quite live up to the hype surrounding them. A good example of this is the Incredibles, which I found very disappointing.
Which isn't to say I didn't like it, it's more like it didn't seem as good as it could have been. Another example is Finding Nemo - I just found it a bit disappointing and, if I'm honest, rather predictable.
I dunno, maybe it's because all of Pixar's films are essentially kid's films. Finding Nemo in particular you've got a father loosing his son and trying to find him. I mean, was there ever any doubt that he would find him?
Now don't get me wrong- even if it wasn't animated or it wasn't a kid's film, if that was the core plot it'd be extremely unlikely not to have a successful outcome. I dunno - it's difficult to explain.
I think the best I can cover it is that the jeopardy in Finding Nemo is false because there's that inevitability. However, if you'd got to the end and Nemo had suggested he wanted to stay where he was then I'd have been interested in that jeopardy.
I'm babbling - the point I'm coming round to is that WALL-E didn't disappoint me. I really enjoyed it. The writing in particular was superb.
One of the things I liked about it is that when they do these films they often bits for the adult - gags or whatever that kids won't get but that let the parents enjoy it a bit more. Well, in WALL-E, they didn't r really need to do that, because it's a more grown up story.
It's a love story, essentially, and I'm not sure Pixar have really tackled a love story like this before.
I will say that I did have a couple of reservations about the film, but they were more from me being a pedant about stuff than actual problems.
I won't go into detail over these, but one of the ones that did kinda puzzle me was towards the end. It's not really a spoiler as all I'll say is that there's a part where the ship they end up on gets tilted to the side and all the humans slide out of their chairs.
The basic idea is that all the people have become fat and feeble from having everything done for them. This includes walking and they all kinda sit in these automatic wheel chairs (we'll leave how they defecate out of proceedings).
Anyway, so the idea is the ship tilts, they all slide out of their chairs and then down the floor. Okay, it sorta works. Except think about this - in space there is no "up". It's clearly shown in other bits that there's no gravity in space and so the suggestion is that there's an artificial gravity system at work somewhere.
But wouldn't that gravity system be orientated along the axis of the ship? Which is to say, if you tilt the ship, you tilt the gravity too, so from the perspective of the humans in the chairs, there should be no sense of leaning.
Even if you come up with some reason for that, then why aren't the chairs affected too? Even if you say they're anchored in place, they should lean in the opposite direction if that stays fixed. So in other words, there's no way in which the chairs would upend and evict their users.
Another one that didn't quite make sense was that WALL-E and EVE end up in a trash compactor that's basically flinging all the ship's waste otut into space. And yet they've been in space for 700 years - wouldn't they have run out of raw materials if the ship was designed to just dump waste into space, rather than recycle/reuse it?
But as I say, these things don't affect the core story and you can happily ignore them as otherwise it's very, very good.
Monday, 1 March 2010
commence floggery
My main goal this last weekend was to get some stuff on e-bay.
I have a box that I keep next to my bed and as I finish reading or watching something I dump it in the box. When the box is overflowing with stuff is usually my cue (I had a real thicko moment there where I couldn't remember how to spell cue!) to get some stuff flogged.
The thing about this pile though is that it can be a little deceptive. Although it often gets the point of overflowing, sometimes there's not actually much in it that I can actually sell.
The reason is that often the majority of the pile is made up of manga volumes and while I will eventually sell them, I've learned that manga sells best when you sell it as a complete collection. That's particularly true at the moment where I've got a lot of ongoing series that I'm collected, but that aren't really keepers.
I mean, they're not bad, but equally they're not ones I want to hang onto in the long term. That means I have to put them away in boxes until the series is complete and I can sell them all in one go.
The other thing that does work is if I dump a series and I'm up to date. They usually sell quite well if it's a case of "all released so far" as you're effectively kick-starting someone else collecting them. The thing that doesn't sell at all well is single volumes in the middle of a series.
The problem, I guess, is that you're relying on several people being on that same volume in order to get multiple bids and also that they'll be looking on e-bay for that specific volume. It's usually fairly unlikely.
But what that does mean is you can't sell, say, volumes 1-10 in a lot and then try and sell the individual volumes as you read them. I've tied something similar to that before and I just cannot sell them at anything like a reasonable price. Where I would at minimum get a third back from selling multiple volumes or a complete series, with individual volumes I'm lucky to be getting 5% back.
When you consider postage and e-bay fees, that means it's almost guaranteed to be a loss-maker. And while I don't mind selling stuff and not making a lot of money so that other people can enjoy the series, I'm not happy about loosing money for the privilege.
Anyway, the upshot of going through the pile was that I've ended up with about a dozen things on e-bay. The pile had a lot more stuff in it that I've boxed away for the time being, but a dozen things isn't bad all things considered.
Hopefully I'll have more stuff to get rid of soon as well, because for the first time in ages I sat down and marathoned a load of episodes on DVD on Sunday. And that was on top of playing a load of Anno 1404: Venice, so a fairly successful weekend.
I have a box that I keep next to my bed and as I finish reading or watching something I dump it in the box. When the box is overflowing with stuff is usually my cue (I had a real thicko moment there where I couldn't remember how to spell cue!) to get some stuff flogged.
The thing about this pile though is that it can be a little deceptive. Although it often gets the point of overflowing, sometimes there's not actually much in it that I can actually sell.
The reason is that often the majority of the pile is made up of manga volumes and while I will eventually sell them, I've learned that manga sells best when you sell it as a complete collection. That's particularly true at the moment where I've got a lot of ongoing series that I'm collected, but that aren't really keepers.
I mean, they're not bad, but equally they're not ones I want to hang onto in the long term. That means I have to put them away in boxes until the series is complete and I can sell them all in one go.
The other thing that does work is if I dump a series and I'm up to date. They usually sell quite well if it's a case of "all released so far" as you're effectively kick-starting someone else collecting them. The thing that doesn't sell at all well is single volumes in the middle of a series.
The problem, I guess, is that you're relying on several people being on that same volume in order to get multiple bids and also that they'll be looking on e-bay for that specific volume. It's usually fairly unlikely.
But what that does mean is you can't sell, say, volumes 1-10 in a lot and then try and sell the individual volumes as you read them. I've tied something similar to that before and I just cannot sell them at anything like a reasonable price. Where I would at minimum get a third back from selling multiple volumes or a complete series, with individual volumes I'm lucky to be getting 5% back.
When you consider postage and e-bay fees, that means it's almost guaranteed to be a loss-maker. And while I don't mind selling stuff and not making a lot of money so that other people can enjoy the series, I'm not happy about loosing money for the privilege.
Anyway, the upshot of going through the pile was that I've ended up with about a dozen things on e-bay. The pile had a lot more stuff in it that I've boxed away for the time being, but a dozen things isn't bad all things considered.
Hopefully I'll have more stuff to get rid of soon as well, because for the first time in ages I sat down and marathoned a load of episodes on DVD on Sunday. And that was on top of playing a load of Anno 1404: Venice, so a fairly successful weekend.
Friday, 26 February 2010
seasonal norm?
For the last couple of days the weather's almost been mild.
I wouldn't go as far as to say that it's been warm and there's been plenty of rain, so it's not been great weather, but it has definitely not been as cold as it has these last few months.
As I understand it this almost-mild spell has been rather restricted to the South, with plenty of snow and cold weather further north, but then I don't live there. I live in the South and down here it's not been too bad.
The bad news is that looking at the forecasts it's meant to get cold again next week, but for now I'm enjoying not freezing to death at work at the very least.
It was fully my intention this week to watch some anime. However, for the early part of the week I focused more on watching some things I'd recorded. My logic was that this weekend is going to be quite a busy one, so the more stuff I could clear the better.
That's all fine, but then I'd completely forgotten about something. Anno 1404 - Venice turned up yesterday. Of course, if I was sensible I would have held back and watched the anime as I'd promised myself. But of course I didn't do that. I installed the game and gave it a quick go.
I was a little disappointed by one thing if I'm honest - there's no new campaign, which is the story-based version of the game.
Instead they've introduced a lot more Scenarios. The first one of these I played did feature an animated cut scene like the campaign has, so my guess would be they've built cut scenes for all of the scenarios, but I don't know.
What they have introduced, as per the name, is a whole load of new stuff that mainly relates to Venice. There's a bunch of new NPCs, which by the looks of things includes a new equivalent to the Occident and Orient quest givers for Venice.
There also appears to be multiplayer, which is of little interest to me. But the big introduction of interest to me seems to be 'espionage', which allows you to plant spies and to undertake sabotage missions. This looks interesting, but I have to confess in the sample I played in that first scenario there was something that puzzled me.
If the idea is that these are secret espionage missions then it seemed odd that the player I was doing them on keeping sending me messages about loosing reputation for conducting them. I mean, I understood some of these when he caught my spy, but it also seemed like I got them when the spy successfully completed his mission.
Maybe it was my not understanding it properly, but doesn't that kinda defeat the point? If he knows it's me all the time then they're hardly secret espionage missions are they :/.
Anyway, the big point here is that I can already feel that I'm going to end up being a naughty boy and playing Venice this weekend.
I wouldn't go as far as to say that it's been warm and there's been plenty of rain, so it's not been great weather, but it has definitely not been as cold as it has these last few months.
As I understand it this almost-mild spell has been rather restricted to the South, with plenty of snow and cold weather further north, but then I don't live there. I live in the South and down here it's not been too bad.
The bad news is that looking at the forecasts it's meant to get cold again next week, but for now I'm enjoying not freezing to death at work at the very least.
It was fully my intention this week to watch some anime. However, for the early part of the week I focused more on watching some things I'd recorded. My logic was that this weekend is going to be quite a busy one, so the more stuff I could clear the better.
That's all fine, but then I'd completely forgotten about something. Anno 1404 - Venice turned up yesterday. Of course, if I was sensible I would have held back and watched the anime as I'd promised myself. But of course I didn't do that. I installed the game and gave it a quick go.
I was a little disappointed by one thing if I'm honest - there's no new campaign, which is the story-based version of the game.
Instead they've introduced a lot more Scenarios. The first one of these I played did feature an animated cut scene like the campaign has, so my guess would be they've built cut scenes for all of the scenarios, but I don't know.
What they have introduced, as per the name, is a whole load of new stuff that mainly relates to Venice. There's a bunch of new NPCs, which by the looks of things includes a new equivalent to the Occident and Orient quest givers for Venice.
There also appears to be multiplayer, which is of little interest to me. But the big introduction of interest to me seems to be 'espionage', which allows you to plant spies and to undertake sabotage missions. This looks interesting, but I have to confess in the sample I played in that first scenario there was something that puzzled me.
If the idea is that these are secret espionage missions then it seemed odd that the player I was doing them on keeping sending me messages about loosing reputation for conducting them. I mean, I understood some of these when he caught my spy, but it also seemed like I got them when the spy successfully completed his mission.
Maybe it was my not understanding it properly, but doesn't that kinda defeat the point? If he knows it's me all the time then they're hardly secret espionage missions are they :/.
Anyway, the big point here is that I can already feel that I'm going to end up being a naughty boy and playing Venice this weekend.
Thursday, 25 February 2010
ripping good time
The other day I was ordering a was browsing Amazon for a couple of CDs (yes, I still buy CDs! How very old school of me!) when it occurred to me I hadn't mentioned the completing of a grand project.
A lot of this time this blog is all about how rubbish I am at completing or doing stuff. I'm supposed to be an anime fan, but I can't be bothered watching all my anime DVDs. I'm supposed to be buying the anime mags so I can scan them, but can't be arsed. I'm supposed to enjoy reading, but instead of reading the books I buy, I read manga instead. I'm supposed to be a gamer, but fixate on 1 game and play that to the exclusion of all others. And all the other stuff.
Well, the project in question was also a bit of a victim of this effect to. The project in question was the ripping of all of my CD collection to MP3.
I used to be really into music, but when after Uni I kinda rediscovered anime and manga and what gave way was my interest in music. Plus, at the time the bands I was most into had all either broken up or had started releasing crap.
What I'm saying is that my music collection used to be huge, given the amount of time I'd been building it, but since Uni I've hardly bought anything, so I guess now it's just big.
Anyway, the idea was that given the MP3 player I got for my thirtieth I should start ripping my CDs. I started on this and got a long way, but then I hit a problem.
The ripping program I was using has a database that looks up the album and track titles and it covered 95% of my CDs. Admittedly it wasn't perfect - some of the album names especially are a bit wonky - but it was good enough.
But then I found that some of my CDs weren't in there. And I also found that tying the stuff in was horribly tortuous. So I put these to the side and did the rest. There weren't many, but enough that once I'd completed the others I kept making excuse to not do them.
Well recently I made the time and ripped them plus the few newer CDs I'd bought since putting the project on hold. Now, interestingly and technically, I also found about half a dozen disks that had some sort of copy protection on them, so I've not ripped them, but I'm pretty happy to say that I've completed the project.
It's kinda a good feeling to really finish something.
A lot of this time this blog is all about how rubbish I am at completing or doing stuff. I'm supposed to be an anime fan, but I can't be bothered watching all my anime DVDs. I'm supposed to be buying the anime mags so I can scan them, but can't be arsed. I'm supposed to enjoy reading, but instead of reading the books I buy, I read manga instead. I'm supposed to be a gamer, but fixate on 1 game and play that to the exclusion of all others. And all the other stuff.
Well, the project in question was also a bit of a victim of this effect to. The project in question was the ripping of all of my CD collection to MP3.
I used to be really into music, but when after Uni I kinda rediscovered anime and manga and what gave way was my interest in music. Plus, at the time the bands I was most into had all either broken up or had started releasing crap.
What I'm saying is that my music collection used to be huge, given the amount of time I'd been building it, but since Uni I've hardly bought anything, so I guess now it's just big.
Anyway, the idea was that given the MP3 player I got for my thirtieth I should start ripping my CDs. I started on this and got a long way, but then I hit a problem.
The ripping program I was using has a database that looks up the album and track titles and it covered 95% of my CDs. Admittedly it wasn't perfect - some of the album names especially are a bit wonky - but it was good enough.
But then I found that some of my CDs weren't in there. And I also found that tying the stuff in was horribly tortuous. So I put these to the side and did the rest. There weren't many, but enough that once I'd completed the others I kept making excuse to not do them.
Well recently I made the time and ripped them plus the few newer CDs I'd bought since putting the project on hold. Now, interestingly and technically, I also found about half a dozen disks that had some sort of copy protection on them, so I've not ripped them, but I'm pretty happy to say that I've completed the project.
It's kinda a good feeling to really finish something.
Wednesday, 24 February 2010
the incredible hulk
This has to be one of the quickest reboots in the history of reboots.
The Incredible Hulk is not a sequel to "Hulk", the Ang Lee movie from 2003. Interestingly, though, it's also not an origin story, as such. Indeed, the origin stuff is covered across the opening title sequence.
Instead, we get what would work quite well as a sequel movie, except that the origin movie wasn't made. Or, to put it another way, if you've seen the Ang Lee movie which does have origin stuff in it, but instead of making a sequel to that, they switched back to the comic, but made a sequel.
I know - it's a bit confusing when you actually think about it.
Not the movie itself that is - the movie is relatively simple, story-wise - but the meta-textual stuff. The real world and outside stuff.
And to some extent that stuff is detectable in the movie. The main feeling you get is that they're trying to cram all the stuff into this movie from the comics and the TV series that Ang Lee either didn't want to or decided not to include in the first one.
Some examples are that Lou Ferrigno (who played the hulk in the TV show) pops up in a cameo, there's a tiny burst of the TV show's theme and that the iconic line "Hulk Smash!" makes it into the film. There are quite a few others that you'll pick up on if you know the comic or the TV series and these add a nice, fun layer to this film that perhaps wasn't there in the original.
But this is where things get a little weird - the film tries to both have its cake and eat it. It tries to be that fun, comic-book film that wasn't really the case in the first one (although, weirdly, the first one was shot to look like a comic, even though it wasn't really a comic book film in tone), but it also tries to be a bit more serious.
There are quite a few heavy scenes between Bruce and Betty, for example and they try to play up the tragic nature of being the Hulk. But I dunno, it doesn't quite sit well here. Edward Norton's performance in particular is played pretty straight and while it works in and of itself, it seems to jar a bit with the more comic-booky stuff.
In a way, it's like he thought he was in a sequel to the Ang Lee movie, where the producers (Marvel) were trying to bring in more of the fun, fan-favourite comic book and TV stuff. I got the feeling then that the director was caught in the middle a bit - trying to do both and kinda agreeing with both sides and keep them happy at the same time.
I think I'm being a bit overly analytical here. This stuff doesn't really detract from the film as a whole, which is basically okay.
Part of the trouble with the hulk, and it was particularly evident in the TV show, is that basically it's a rather simple, repetitive story. Bruce Banner can't have a proper life with the woman he loves because when he gets angry he turns into a huge green monster that smashes stuff up. So instead, he spends his life looking for a cure and (obviously, otherwise the whole story would stop) not finding it. That's also why he doesn't just go and live in a monastery or deep in the woods - he needs a cure so he can be with Betty.
It's also why over the years they've had to do so much buggering about with that basic story. It's repetitive and predictable unless you start doing stuff like make the hulk intelligent.
Its also why they pitch him against all sorts of good and bad guys - it at least gives him something different to do.
The Incredible Hulk is not a sequel to "Hulk", the Ang Lee movie from 2003. Interestingly, though, it's also not an origin story, as such. Indeed, the origin stuff is covered across the opening title sequence.
Instead, we get what would work quite well as a sequel movie, except that the origin movie wasn't made. Or, to put it another way, if you've seen the Ang Lee movie which does have origin stuff in it, but instead of making a sequel to that, they switched back to the comic, but made a sequel.
I know - it's a bit confusing when you actually think about it.
Not the movie itself that is - the movie is relatively simple, story-wise - but the meta-textual stuff. The real world and outside stuff.
And to some extent that stuff is detectable in the movie. The main feeling you get is that they're trying to cram all the stuff into this movie from the comics and the TV series that Ang Lee either didn't want to or decided not to include in the first one.
Some examples are that Lou Ferrigno (who played the hulk in the TV show) pops up in a cameo, there's a tiny burst of the TV show's theme and that the iconic line "Hulk Smash!" makes it into the film. There are quite a few others that you'll pick up on if you know the comic or the TV series and these add a nice, fun layer to this film that perhaps wasn't there in the original.
But this is where things get a little weird - the film tries to both have its cake and eat it. It tries to be that fun, comic-book film that wasn't really the case in the first one (although, weirdly, the first one was shot to look like a comic, even though it wasn't really a comic book film in tone), but it also tries to be a bit more serious.
There are quite a few heavy scenes between Bruce and Betty, for example and they try to play up the tragic nature of being the Hulk. But I dunno, it doesn't quite sit well here. Edward Norton's performance in particular is played pretty straight and while it works in and of itself, it seems to jar a bit with the more comic-booky stuff.
In a way, it's like he thought he was in a sequel to the Ang Lee movie, where the producers (Marvel) were trying to bring in more of the fun, fan-favourite comic book and TV stuff. I got the feeling then that the director was caught in the middle a bit - trying to do both and kinda agreeing with both sides and keep them happy at the same time.
I think I'm being a bit overly analytical here. This stuff doesn't really detract from the film as a whole, which is basically okay.
Part of the trouble with the hulk, and it was particularly evident in the TV show, is that basically it's a rather simple, repetitive story. Bruce Banner can't have a proper life with the woman he loves because when he gets angry he turns into a huge green monster that smashes stuff up. So instead, he spends his life looking for a cure and (obviously, otherwise the whole story would stop) not finding it. That's also why he doesn't just go and live in a monastery or deep in the woods - he needs a cure so he can be with Betty.
It's also why over the years they've had to do so much buggering about with that basic story. It's repetitive and predictable unless you start doing stuff like make the hulk intelligent.
Its also why they pitch him against all sorts of good and bad guys - it at least gives him something different to do.
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
too much food
Dinner last night was a bit weird.
When I went home for Christmas my Dad gave me a bunch of food. This happens every Christmas, because, even though he doesn't buy excessive amounts, he still buys too much stuff. Basically, it's because he's buying extra things on top of what he normally buys anyway.
But also recently, he's started giving me meat. The reason is that a friend of his gives him meat (it's complicated) and because he can't eat it all, he bungs it in the freezer and then passes it on to me when I visit.
Now this is fine in concept, only he doesn't really tend to think it through enough. So, for example, last time he gave me some pork chops. This would be great - ideal even, because obviously you can do as many chops as you need, right? Except he froze all four chops as one lump.
That's a lot of chops in anyone's book and it also means you can't cook them individually under the grill or anything. I effectively had to treat them as a large roast, but then they're rubbish like that, because they're very bony and fatty, so you can't really keep the leftovers. In other words, I cooked the whole thing, but could only eat the main meat part of the chop.
Plus, I don't know about you, but I can't just eat a chop on its own as a meal, so I ended up doing a full roast, so it's really a big meal. So anyway, I informed him of this when I next saw him and he now freezes the chops individually.
However, at Christmas he game me a proper roasting joint of pork. It was a big joint and I finally decided this weekend to tackle it.
One of the things about pork I find is that it doesn't really shrink. Most meats do - if you roast beef, for example, what comes out of the oven will be up to a third smaller that what went in, in my experience. But that doesn't seem to work for pork - what come out is roughly the size of what went in.
I could easily have gotten four meals off of this joint, but instead I had big portions and did three meals. In other words, on Saturday I cooked a full roast that featured pork, apple sauce, gravy, Yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes, carrots and peas.
From that, I ended up with cold meat, Yorkshires, apple sauce and the gravy, so on Sunday I reheated those and did some more roast potatoes, carrots and peas and had another roast.
But then Monday I obviously still had meat, Yorkshires, apple sauce and gravy left, so what to do?
Normally when I do a roast, what I do is I have the Saturday and Sunday roast, but then I make a stew on Monday, half of which I can keep and have on Tuesday. I don't do it that often - perhaps once a month? - as it's complicated and time consuming, but it also represents great value for money. Generally speaking home cooking is always cheaper, especially when your most expensive ingredient (the meat) goes a long way.
Anyway, the problem was that I don't really like making stews with pork. My stew recipe works for dark meats - beef and lamb, in particular - but it's not so good for white meats like pork and chicken.
That meant only one option - do more potatoes and carrots and have another 'roast' (I actually boiled the potatoes as it was quicker - well I steamed them technically, but you know what I mean).
So rather bizarrely I've eaten full roast dinner for three days in a row. I still feel a bit full now :/.
When I went home for Christmas my Dad gave me a bunch of food. This happens every Christmas, because, even though he doesn't buy excessive amounts, he still buys too much stuff. Basically, it's because he's buying extra things on top of what he normally buys anyway.
But also recently, he's started giving me meat. The reason is that a friend of his gives him meat (it's complicated) and because he can't eat it all, he bungs it in the freezer and then passes it on to me when I visit.
Now this is fine in concept, only he doesn't really tend to think it through enough. So, for example, last time he gave me some pork chops. This would be great - ideal even, because obviously you can do as many chops as you need, right? Except he froze all four chops as one lump.
That's a lot of chops in anyone's book and it also means you can't cook them individually under the grill or anything. I effectively had to treat them as a large roast, but then they're rubbish like that, because they're very bony and fatty, so you can't really keep the leftovers. In other words, I cooked the whole thing, but could only eat the main meat part of the chop.
Plus, I don't know about you, but I can't just eat a chop on its own as a meal, so I ended up doing a full roast, so it's really a big meal. So anyway, I informed him of this when I next saw him and he now freezes the chops individually.
However, at Christmas he game me a proper roasting joint of pork. It was a big joint and I finally decided this weekend to tackle it.
One of the things about pork I find is that it doesn't really shrink. Most meats do - if you roast beef, for example, what comes out of the oven will be up to a third smaller that what went in, in my experience. But that doesn't seem to work for pork - what come out is roughly the size of what went in.
I could easily have gotten four meals off of this joint, but instead I had big portions and did three meals. In other words, on Saturday I cooked a full roast that featured pork, apple sauce, gravy, Yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes, carrots and peas.
From that, I ended up with cold meat, Yorkshires, apple sauce and the gravy, so on Sunday I reheated those and did some more roast potatoes, carrots and peas and had another roast.
But then Monday I obviously still had meat, Yorkshires, apple sauce and gravy left, so what to do?
Normally when I do a roast, what I do is I have the Saturday and Sunday roast, but then I make a stew on Monday, half of which I can keep and have on Tuesday. I don't do it that often - perhaps once a month? - as it's complicated and time consuming, but it also represents great value for money. Generally speaking home cooking is always cheaper, especially when your most expensive ingredient (the meat) goes a long way.
Anyway, the problem was that I don't really like making stews with pork. My stew recipe works for dark meats - beef and lamb, in particular - but it's not so good for white meats like pork and chicken.
That meant only one option - do more potatoes and carrots and have another 'roast' (I actually boiled the potatoes as it was quicker - well I steamed them technically, but you know what I mean).
So rather bizarrely I've eaten full roast dinner for three days in a row. I still feel a bit full now :/.
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