I knew I'd forgotten to blog about something, and it was the rental DVD I watched this last weekend - My Super Ex Girlfriend.
As ideas for films go, this one's a pretty good one. It's pretty much all contained in the title so it doesn't need much explanation from me.
It's essentially a rom-com, as you'd expect, but with the twist that one of the girls is super-powered. The character is played by Uma Thurman, who I kinda have issues with. She's hot looking, but I don't really rate her as an actress; however, having said that I thought this was about one of the best performances I've seen her give.
The other actors were all top-notch and the characters were generally great. I also thought that the basic plotting was pretty good, although for me it was a little under-done. Normally I complain about films being too long nowadays, running at well over two-hours when really they could easily be 1.5 hours. This film could have done with some more fleshing out - especially with some of the more minor characters.
I think this was more to do with them cramming quite a lengthy arc in. The title is super ex-girlfriend, but it's a surprisingly log time before she actually become ex. Perhaps if it had started closer to that point they would have had more time to devote to some of the characters.
The worst hit by this is Eddie Izzard's character, who is ostensibly the bad guy. But the thing is we don't really see him doing anything bad, as such, and he's pretty poorly fleshed out. There's kinda reason for that because of the end, but still, that whole side of it is quite unsatisfying.
I was also slightly prejudiced against the film in that when I read Kevin Smith's recent diary book he indicated that he'd basically had the same idea at a similar time but had not gotten his arse in gear to make the film. As such, because I'm such a fan of Smith I couldn't help wondering if his take wouldn't have been a lot better - even though this wasn't really bad as such.
Extras were a bit flimsy, I have to say - a couple of featurretes, basically.
Still, if you're after a rom-com that's not too heavy and a bit different from the norm then this is a pretty good film to go for, I think.
Friday, 12 December 2008
my super ex-girlfriend
I knew I'd forgotten to blog about something, and it was the rental DVD I watched this last weekend - My Super Ex Girlfriend.
As ideas for films go, this one's a pretty good one. It's pretty much all contained in the title so it doesn't need much explanation from me.
It's essentially a rom-com, as you'd expect, but with the twist that one of the girls is super-powered. The character is played by Uma Thurman, who I kinda have issues with. She's hot looking, but I don't really rate her as an actress; however, having said that I thought this was about one of the best performances I've seen her give.
The other actors were all top-notch and the characters were generally great. I also thought that the basic plotting was pretty good, although for me it was a little under-done. Normally I complain about films being too long nowadays, running at well over two-hours when really they could easily be 1.5 hours. This film could have done with some more fleshing out - especially with some of the more minor characters.
I think this was more to do with them cramming quite a lengthy arc in. The title is super ex-girlfriend, but it's a surprisingly log time before she actually become ex. Perhaps if it had started closer to that point they would have had more time to devote to some of the characters.
The worst hit by this is Eddie Izzard's character, who is ostensibly the bad guy. But the thing is we don't really see him doing anything bad, as such, and he's pretty poorly fleshed out. There's kinda reason for that because of the end, but still, that whole side of it is quite unsatisfying.
I was also slightly prejudiced against the film in that when I read Kevin Smith's recent diary book he indicated that he'd basically had the same idea at a similar time but had not gotten his arse in gear to make the film. As such, because I'm such a fan of Smith I couldn't help wondering if his take wouldn't have been a lot better - even though this wasn't really bad as such.
Extras were a bit flimsy, I have to say - a couple of featurretes, basically.
Still, if you're after a rom-com that's not too heavy and a bit different from the norm then this is a pretty good film to go for, I think.
As ideas for films go, this one's a pretty good one. It's pretty much all contained in the title so it doesn't need much explanation from me.
It's essentially a rom-com, as you'd expect, but with the twist that one of the girls is super-powered. The character is played by Uma Thurman, who I kinda have issues with. She's hot looking, but I don't really rate her as an actress; however, having said that I thought this was about one of the best performances I've seen her give.
The other actors were all top-notch and the characters were generally great. I also thought that the basic plotting was pretty good, although for me it was a little under-done. Normally I complain about films being too long nowadays, running at well over two-hours when really they could easily be 1.5 hours. This film could have done with some more fleshing out - especially with some of the more minor characters.
I think this was more to do with them cramming quite a lengthy arc in. The title is super ex-girlfriend, but it's a surprisingly log time before she actually become ex. Perhaps if it had started closer to that point they would have had more time to devote to some of the characters.
The worst hit by this is Eddie Izzard's character, who is ostensibly the bad guy. But the thing is we don't really see him doing anything bad, as such, and he's pretty poorly fleshed out. There's kinda reason for that because of the end, but still, that whole side of it is quite unsatisfying.
I was also slightly prejudiced against the film in that when I read Kevin Smith's recent diary book he indicated that he'd basically had the same idea at a similar time but had not gotten his arse in gear to make the film. As such, because I'm such a fan of Smith I couldn't help wondering if his take wouldn't have been a lot better - even though this wasn't really bad as such.
Extras were a bit flimsy, I have to say - a couple of featurretes, basically.
Still, if you're after a rom-com that's not too heavy and a bit different from the norm then this is a pretty good film to go for, I think.
Thursday, 11 December 2008
treading water
It feels a lot like I'm just treading water until the Chrimbo holidays at the moment.
My first day of proper holiday is the 22nd, but with the weekend before it means my last day of work is on the 19th, so there's only next week to go.
Also, the office is now virtually dead - most everybody's on contract so that adds to the "end of term" feeling.
I've also kinda become disinterested in doing much of anything in my spare time and I think that's down to the approaching holidays too. I keep finding myself thinking "well, why bother doing it now - I can do it when I'm off in a couple of weeks."
Trouble with that, of course, is that I'm going to have tonnes to do over Christmas and New Year (what with it being Christmas and New Year :/) so it's not good for me to put off even more stuff to do then as well.
What makes it all worse if I'm so bloody tired - it's really difficult to get a good nights sleep when it's so cold like this. I may just break the bank and get more electricity (I'm on a meter thing) so I can at least not freeze to death - bugger the financials, I'll sort that out later.
My first day of proper holiday is the 22nd, but with the weekend before it means my last day of work is on the 19th, so there's only next week to go.
Also, the office is now virtually dead - most everybody's on contract so that adds to the "end of term" feeling.
I've also kinda become disinterested in doing much of anything in my spare time and I think that's down to the approaching holidays too. I keep finding myself thinking "well, why bother doing it now - I can do it when I'm off in a couple of weeks."
Trouble with that, of course, is that I'm going to have tonnes to do over Christmas and New Year (what with it being Christmas and New Year :/) so it's not good for me to put off even more stuff to do then as well.
What makes it all worse if I'm so bloody tired - it's really difficult to get a good nights sleep when it's so cold like this. I may just break the bank and get more electricity (I'm on a meter thing) so I can at least not freeze to death - bugger the financials, I'll sort that out later.
Wednesday, 10 December 2008
scratchy throat
Been in the wars a bit lately
Yesterday the muscles in my groin were really aching. I've no idea why, though my suspicion was the horribly uncomfortable chairs they have at the pub we had Chrimbo lunch at. They're okay if you're just having a normal lunch, but we were there for the best part of 3 hours.
They seem a heck of a lot better today though - just a little bit of twingyness.
However, today I've woken up with a really scratchy throat. There could be a variety of reasons for this, ranging from the fact it's sub-zero in my room at night (I can't afford the heating) to the one I'm most afraid of - that I'm coming down with a cold.
Unfortunately, several people at the Chrimbo do did seem to have colds, so I could well have picked the germs up there :(.
I'd really hate it if I've got a cold - the weather's rubbish as it is, I don't need a disease making me feel horrible too :/.
Yesterday the muscles in my groin were really aching. I've no idea why, though my suspicion was the horribly uncomfortable chairs they have at the pub we had Chrimbo lunch at. They're okay if you're just having a normal lunch, but we were there for the best part of 3 hours.
They seem a heck of a lot better today though - just a little bit of twingyness.
However, today I've woken up with a really scratchy throat. There could be a variety of reasons for this, ranging from the fact it's sub-zero in my room at night (I can't afford the heating) to the one I'm most afraid of - that I'm coming down with a cold.
Unfortunately, several people at the Chrimbo do did seem to have colds, so I could well have picked the germs up there :(.
I'd really hate it if I've got a cold - the weather's rubbish as it is, I don't need a disease making me feel horrible too :/.
Tuesday, 9 December 2008
tap that!
So break out the party streamers and the booze juice - my work colleague who taps his feet all the bloody time is gone. Well, by that I mean is he's on contract somewhere and so will no longer be driving me insane with his thumper impression for at least 6 months. Six whole months of blissful tap-free-ness! Huzzah!
It was the company Christmas lunch yesterday. The food was all perfectly reasonable, but it wasn't all that much fun. The problem is I think the bosses had decided to use it as a sort of networking opportunity so there were loads of people who I've never met there before.
Which is okay, I guess, but I'd have preferred a smaller thing - we occupied the entire room and it was a bit bewildering when all you want to do is cram down some turkey and Christmas pud.
Still, it's a lot better than nothing, which is what I understand a lot of companies are doing with the whole credit crunch thing.
It was the company Christmas lunch yesterday. The food was all perfectly reasonable, but it wasn't all that much fun. The problem is I think the bosses had decided to use it as a sort of networking opportunity so there were loads of people who I've never met there before.
Which is okay, I guess, but I'd have preferred a smaller thing - we occupied the entire room and it was a bit bewildering when all you want to do is cram down some turkey and Christmas pud.
Still, it's a lot better than nothing, which is what I understand a lot of companies are doing with the whole credit crunch thing.
Monday, 8 December 2008
holy shit it's cold
It's been absolutely freezing the last couple of days - I mean really sub-zero, brass-monkeys type cold.
Fundamentally I quite like cold weather - or at least given the choice between massively hot or cold I'd go for the cold. There are various reasons for this, but basically the whole thing of being in a toasty warm house and looking at on frozen scenes really appeals to me.
The key there is being warm inside. However, wear I live this is really difficult to achieve. Basically the heating I have is electric and it costs a fortune to have on - I mean literally if I have it on all day in weather like this it would cost me about £20 a day, which is a horrendous amount.
So I try to avoid heating the whole place, just heating the living room instead. I also try to wear more clothes so that there's less need to have the heating on full boar, but it can be a little sufffocating wrapped up in ten layers of shirts and jumpers.
Anyway, the point of this is I kinda don't like it when it's cold where I'm living now - it's a bit of a pain.
I tried to get the artbook scanning finished this w/end, but didn't quite succeed. Partly I was hampered by the cold - my computer is in one of the colder corners in the living room (I need to buy a new heater for the corner, I think) but also it was jst fatiguing.
The good news I now only have 1 artbook left and I've actually started it. The bad news is it's huge (around 125 scans!) so I doubt I'll get it done before the weekend.
I've grown a little tired of scanning as well, and may well have reached something of a mental blockade - I wouldn't be surprisde if I just stop now until somewhere around chrimbo time when I'm on holiday.
To give you some idea of how much scanning I've been doing I sampled all of these shows across the end of last week and the weekend:
Blimey!
Fundamentally I quite like cold weather - or at least given the choice between massively hot or cold I'd go for the cold. There are various reasons for this, but basically the whole thing of being in a toasty warm house and looking at on frozen scenes really appeals to me.
The key there is being warm inside. However, wear I live this is really difficult to achieve. Basically the heating I have is electric and it costs a fortune to have on - I mean literally if I have it on all day in weather like this it would cost me about £20 a day, which is a horrendous amount.
So I try to avoid heating the whole place, just heating the living room instead. I also try to wear more clothes so that there's less need to have the heating on full boar, but it can be a little sufffocating wrapped up in ten layers of shirts and jumpers.
Anyway, the point of this is I kinda don't like it when it's cold where I'm living now - it's a bit of a pain.
I tried to get the artbook scanning finished this w/end, but didn't quite succeed. Partly I was hampered by the cold - my computer is in one of the colder corners in the living room (I need to buy a new heater for the corner, I think) but also it was jst fatiguing.
The good news I now only have 1 artbook left and I've actually started it. The bad news is it's huge (around 125 scans!) so I doubt I'll get it done before the weekend.
I've grown a little tired of scanning as well, and may well have reached something of a mental blockade - I wouldn't be surprisde if I just stop now until somewhere around chrimbo time when I'm on holiday.
To give you some idea of how much scanning I've been doing I sampled all of these shows across the end of last week and the weekend:
- To Aru Majutsu no Index was surprisingly good. There seems to be a surfeit of shows that fall into the "echii romantic-comedy" category this season and I'd say this was one of the better ones. It also seemed to have quite a bit going for it besides the whole rom-com thing and it's extremely well animated.
- Toradora! was also surprisingly good. This again is another echii romantic comedy, although the echii-ness is actually fairly light. It's also got an interesting set of lead characters and a nice misdirect in that at the start they're not interested in each other. How this develops will presumably make the show a bit more interesting than the usual fair. It was also well animated again.
- Kannagi was okay. This was the third of the rom-com type shows I tackled almost in a row and it may therefore be a little bit of fatigue on my part but this didn't quite peak my interest in the way the other two did. I think it's because it's slightly more "standard" than the others - there didn't seem to be anything to make it stand out particularly. However, it was again very well animated. I dunno if it's just a weird co-incidence or the order I've watched them in, but the Autumn '08 shows all seem to be quite well animated.
- Kyou no Go no was okay. Think Azumanga Daioh but a little more realistic and you're pretty much there. I think the kids in this are a little younger, but it's essentially the same sort of idea - it's a slice of life job and they're in school and the stuff in the episodes happens during the breaks between lessons or at lunch or after school, etc. It's quite good, but I dunno it felt slightly too light for me. Plus there's a stylistic thing they do with serious faces (it's difficult to explain) that didn't really appeal to me.
- ef - a tale of melodies was okay. This is basically a sequel to ef - a tale of memories and if you liked that show then I'm sure you'd like this one. However, I didn't really like it so it didn't really do much for me. I'd say I found this less annoying, but not enough to elevate the series overall. Plus it still had that whole weird angles, bizarre effects and odd pacing that I found tedious in memories.
Blimey!
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