Friday 24 December 2010

Christmas!

Celebrate this happy time of year with the three best christmas films of all time. If you haven't seen them, then it is impossable for you to truly have a great holiday.

3. Die Hard

2. Gremlins

1. Edward Scissorhands.

A shout out needs to go to A Nightmare Before Chirstmas, which is an amazing film, but I usually cannot contain myself, and so end up watching it in the middle of November.

Thursday 23 December 2010

Saturday 11 December 2010

Exeter City FC

Y'know, I feel kinda bad that I live literally a stone's throw away from St. James Park, and haven't been to watch Exeter play a match yet this year. In my defence, they do keep insisting on playing games on a saturday, when I am already busy playing football. Hopefully there will be a couple of mid-week home games in 2011.

Anyway, all that aside, I do get a pretty good view from my bedroom window.

Wednesday 8 December 2010

New TV 2010 – The Mega Review Part 4

Outlaw – NBC

This is the most painfully dull show imaginable. Jimmy Smits is an American Supreme Court Judge, who is fed up with the flaws in the legal system, so quits his job, hires a team of mavericks and becomes a defence attorney. He runs about, shouting words like “indictment” and “declarant” as his team follow him around, taking it in turns to point out his plan is madness, but also that he is a genius. Both of the women seem to be deeply in love with him. It is almost like watching House, except you might actually like that show. The whole thing is so very dumb, and yet also so very boring, that when I was half way through writing this, it got cancelled.

I can’t wait to forget this even existed, and hope in vain for 42 minutes of my life back.


The Whole Truth – ABC

If you find yourself searching for a properly dramatic legal procedural, this is for you. It is interesting and well written, but its real hook is that you see the legal case from both the prosecution and the defence. What this means is that once the set up is established, we see the prosecution prepare every reason why the killer did it, and then the defence take a turn to prepare why he is an innocent man. Then we go to trial, and we see each side present their case. Just like a real courtroom. And because of this, the audience cannot be sure whether the defendant did it or do. When watching, you have to take a side, and end up with a real interest in the decision at the end, one which didn’t rely on bringing out some last minute surprise evidence.

This is interesting. It is fun. It doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously, but I didn’t see any horrible malpractice going on, especially when watched after Outlaw. But most of all, it was really interesting to see two talented lawyers actually doing their job, at such a quick pace, and working as hard as possible to win an argument without knowing from the start that they are right. But it doesn’t exactly leave room for subtlety. But the story is, so very much, the hook that the characters end up as non-people. I can hardly even remember their faces, let alone their names or their personality. And given that I have only seen snippets of Law and Order, (the obvious comparison), I am not in that great a position to say if it compares well or not.

The big problem though is just how procedural it is. There is a rigid formula for each episode I can’t see them breaking. What you see in week one is likely to be what you see in week twelve. Still, definitely worth a look, if it sounds like you’re thing.


Running Wilde – FOX

There is a fine line between a masterpiece and a master-crap. Arrested Development is one of the greatest TV shows of all time. It is hilarious, incredibly influential, and far too few people have seen it. That is a show about a dysfunctional rich family, with characters who are lovably self-centred. It could so easily have gone horribly wrong.

Running Wilde is made by some of the same people, and is an example of how wrong it could have gone.

It stars Will Arnett as a clueless billionaire, who convinces his high-school sweetheart, who is an activist, and her daughter, to move in with him. They will then surely learn life lessons, while suffering through dysfunctionaly wacky situations that in the end strengthen them as a family. But there is no humour. Literally, there is a distinct absence of jokes. It is also so very, very soulless. They are hateful characters. They are annoying, and they are just not funny. He is an entitled rich berk who is completely unrelatable, and she is an annoyingly shrill lover of nature. There is a kid, who is nothing, and so is not worth considering.

This is only worth your time is you believe the pedigree of the writers can save the show. And I would understand if you hold out hope that they might. But this pilot was a horrible mess, and if the Dollhouse fiasco taught me anything, it is that sometimes a bad idea is just a bad idea, and no amount of talent can salvage that.

Just watch Arrested Development again.


Raising Hope – FOX

At first, I thought I was not going to like this sitcom. There were not enough jokes, and I was put off by the darker tone of it. And uneducated, white-collar 20-something, with the help of his family, has to take care of a baby he was unprepared for. But then I realised, it is not a sitcom, it is a black humoured drama. And suddenly everything changed. Things which had felt like padding, now felt like characterisation. The tone started to warm, and I realised I was invested in finding out what happens next.

The plot is that about Jimmy, who lives with his poor parents, working as a gardener for the rich families nearby. He has a one night stand with a girl who hitches a lift in his van. She turns out to be a serial killer, and she also turns out to be pregnant with his baby. Nine months later, the mother is in the electric chair, and Jimmy is stuck with a baby he did not expect. That exposition out of the way, he tries to live his life, while learning how to be a dad to his new daughter. He has help from his eccentric family.

The show has some genuine hilarious moments, and I would like to see where it goes. I would want to watch next week, to give this more time to make an impression, because this is the best half-hours comedy of the season. It helps that Shannon Woodward has a role as the potential love-interest, and she was amazing in The Riches. It is worth a look, even though I am sill unconvinced of how good it will become.

Thursday 2 December 2010

Snowmageddon!

The snow has hit Exeter! Click to embiggen.



Monday 29 November 2010

New TV 2010 - The Mega Review Part 3

Boardwalk Empire

I was thinking about it a couple of months ago, and realised there was a distinct lack of modern show based on prohibition-era gangsters. “Man” I thought, “That would be a cool show to watch. A show with tommy guns, and flappers, and spats. Oh, and imagine if it had Steve Buscemi!” Well, it turns out that HBO pre-emptively read my mind. Set in 1920 Atlantic City, this is everything you could want from an HBO drama. By which I mean it has characters whose motives are complex and who got some of that ‘inner turmoil’ stuff. It is easy to call it The 1920 Sopranos, but with a half-dozen plots set up and several key characters, this first episode is much more an introduction to a bigger story than a standalone piece. It is fairly slow, as you could expect the beginning of a complex saga to be. HBO shows usually are slower, but since they usually build to something later on, it makes is harder to judge this early.

It helps that Buscemi looks to be an amazing main lead. He plays the treasurer of Atlantic City, and since he is not a straight up gangster, there’s the whole larger question of how good or evil he is, compared to if he was a straight out crimelord. One other thing about this show, which I loved, but might get annoying if overdone, is how faithful it is to the period. Though it could easily go too far, and descend into, ‘look at me! I’m in the 1920s! I can talk about votes for women!’

This is a great show, precisely the sort of thing HBO specialises in. If this is the sort of thing you think you might like, chances are you will love this. But it is not as mainstream as say...


Hawaii Five-O

Later that day I was thinking, “I would love to see an old-school, buddy cop show.”
This is a remake of a show from the 70s, set in Hawaii. It follows an elite police task force, mainly centred around the leading cops, Steve McGarrett and Danny Williams, as they share some witty banter and investigate crimes. Steve is following the trail of his father’s murder, and it looks like that will take the back seat as each episode follows the pair as they try to solve crimes.

It doesn’t feel like anything original, it doesn’t feel like must-watch-television. The pair have some quick witted dialogue between them, and the crimes are interesting. There are some fun shoot-outs, and it is all very well filmed. It is what it is, and it didn’t make any attempt to push itself further than what it was. If you want to watch a buddy cop procedural, then this is for you. It is exactly what you want. You don’t have to tune in every week, or pay attention to every little thing that happens, but it is a good show worth your time.


Outsourced

Then I thought to myself, “what if we had a sitcom based solely upon cultural differences. One where a young middle-management dude has to move to India, when his office is outsourced there?” No, hang on, wait, I never thought that because it sounds like a horrible idea.

Seven minutes in there is a joke about how curry makes you poop. Before this, there was a joke about how an Indian man has the name manmeat, and that cows are sacred. Yes, I know, it is funny that foreign countries are... kinda like foreign countries. They do things differently there.

They’ve thrown in a cute Australian girl as the potential love interest, and lots of references to how cultural differences lead to wacky miscommunications. I have no idea why you would want to watch this show, there are already brilliant comedies set in offices. It’s in no way worthy of your time.

Monday 22 November 2010

A Realisation

I need to get myself a haircut.


However, I have never had my haircut in Exeter before. I have always had it cut in the gents barbers at the end of my road. Not becuase they are especially talented, (they're professional,) but because they are nearest and I have no reason to go anywhere else. It has never been something I have ever needed to think about. And now, I have to find somewhere in Exeter.

So that is the thing I have been thinking about today. That and dinner.

Man, my life is dull on a thursday.

Tuesday 16 November 2010

Dara O'Briain

I have always been a fan of Dara O'Briain. He's the guy who hosts Mock The Week, and whenever he shows up ahywhere he is consistently funny. But it was with this video that he entered Godlike status.

Monday 15 November 2010

The Bane of My Essays



The same can be said of using [sic]. It's really a problem I tells ya!

Friday 12 November 2010

The Headache of Summer 2011

It is not as if 2010 is even over yet, but I'm always looking at the next thing. Being excited months in advance is half the fun. So forgive me for talking about things that are still numerous months away.

Also, it is not as is 2010 has been a slow year. There have been several amazing movies. Kick-Ass and Inception were both incredible films, let that not be forgotten. But 2011 is set to have a massive summer in terms of big budget hollywood movies.

Both Marvel and DC are pushing it to be a major summmer for superheroes. So we get Captain America, and Thor, and X-Men: First Class, and Green Lantern. Now, one of the those will probably be a faliure, but here's hoping that one of them will also be incredible.

We also get some big franchises throwing their weight around. The final Harry Potter movie will got up against the thrid Transformers film, and fourth Pirates of the Caribbean.

And those are just the heavy hitters I can think off the top of my head. I am really hoping one of them will turn out to be immense.

Cowboys vs Aliens, anyone?

Tuesday 9 November 2010

Mega TV Review... Excuses

I know it has been over a month since I wrote up a new mega TV review section, and truthfully the reason is very simple.

When I decided it would be a good idea, it was because there was nothing good on TV. By starting to watch these shows, I very quickly found that there were some very good things starting on TV. Keeping up with those shows has killed my momentum...

Oh, the cruel irony.

Saturday 30 October 2010

Skyline

I remember hearing about this movie what seems like half-a-year ago, and putting it to the back of my mind. It looked good when the first trailer was shown before Scott Pilgrim, and then when I realised it was only a fortnight away, I started to get hopeful. And hope leads to excitement!

Reminds me of Independance Day, which is a good thing, and it stars Milo from 24, and Angel Batista from Dexter, which by itself is a good thing, but when you also have Turk from Scrubs running away from aliens, how can this not be epic!?

Thursday 28 October 2010

Pumpkinception

Click the pictures to embiggen.


Wednesday 27 October 2010

Defending my FIFA score.

Well, it turns out that awarding FIFA 11 a review score of "only" 8.5/10 has caused some controversy.

People ask me how I can call a game "the best football game ever made" and yet only give it an 8.5. To them, my answer is long and rambling. Which makes this the best place for it. But still, I will try to keep it brief. I could go on for days.

You see, review scores are tricky things. People always misunderstand what it is that they mean. Sorry to state the obvious, but they are a quick way of comparing games. People assume that if one game gets 7 and another 8, then the second is automatically better, right? But for a reviewer, who has carefully chosen his words, to tell you the good and the bad with each game, throwing an arbitrary number at the end requires little thought. You are meant to use those words to decide if this game appeals to you. And then, if still in doubt, consult the score, only if unsure.

This is because, in my eyes at least, a review score has always been a mark of, should you buy this. A 10/10 will be loved by everybody and all should purchase immediately, while a 9/10 will be loved by all genre fans. An 8/10 will be loved by some, despite the flaws, and so on and so on until a 1/10, which is all but unplayably broken.

FIFA 11 is a great game, better than last year, with gameplay that flows more naturally then last year. And yet, "it is whether it is £40 better than last year which is the difficult choice. Standing on single-player, where it's effectively the same as last year, it doesn’t quite hold up to the pricetag." I recommend that, for those who are not hardcore FIFA fans, this game may be not worth buying. The gameplay is "from what I hear, far tougher for those not in the hardcore." And for those who enjoy FIFA, but bought the game last year, you may be let down by your £40 investment. Considering the only five month old version is available for only £15, and that is brand new! A quick look on Ebay shows that it can be bought for around £4! This is a game that was brand new five months ago and is very similar in terms of gameplay. It is this, that in my eyes, means that FIFA 10 cannot be given that 9/10 score. And yet, despite that flaw of being too similar to what has come before, it will probably be loved by the vast majority of those who buy it. And rightly so, for it is a great game.

Therefore, 8.5/10

Monday 11 October 2010

I wanna be the very best...



I love it whenever it when I have my ipod on shuffle, and that tune starts up.

Friday 8 October 2010

FIFA 11

So, I now own FIFA 11, and I reviewed it for the news edition of Expose, the Offical Exeter Uni Student Paper.


There are days I look forward to every year. Christmas, Easter, talk like a pirate day, and of course, FIFA day. That annual event when the new version of FIFA is released to the world. The hope is that it will be better than last year. This year does not disappoint.

The game looks nicer. Animations are fresh, stadiums look prettier, and player likenesses are, well, more like real life. But in all honesty, it’s not the visuals that bring me to FIFA. It is the gameplay. To put it simply, crosses are now vitally important, and players can now successfully run with the ball. Dribbling has been completely revamped, and the balance between strength and pace makes for some really interesting battles. It takes a while to get used to the changes, but from what I hear, this is far tougher for those not in the hardcore.

Passing has also been revamped, in a positive way that feels more reliant on skill. This also takes some getting used to, but as long as you always playing the way you’re facing, you can still ping about passes like Barcelona. At the same time, referees have become especially cruel. This frequently slows down matches, but it does have the positive outcome of stopping cynical opponents fouling at every opportunity and escaping punishment, one personal gripe from last year.

Aside from those tweaks it is mostly same as before. There is a career mode, and playing as a single player, and playing with friends, but these all feel very similar to before.

Oh, and one other thing. FIFA 11 needs to be registered online before you can play online, and this locks your game to just one console, and it will cost you £6 to unlock it for another console. This will probably never matter to most people, but it does mean that buying pre-owned will cost you extra to play online. I feel slightly sorry for the innocents who’ll be caught by this, so be on guard.

To put it simply, you already know if you wanted to buy FIFA 11. This is a good game, better than last year, and that is saying something. It is the best football game ever made. But whether it is £40 better than last year, which is the difficult choice. Standing on single-player, which is effectively the same as last year, it doesn’t quite hold up to the pricetag. But to play online or with friends, it definitely is.

8.5/10

Saturday 2 October 2010

Excuses

These next few weeks are going to be busy. So I am just saying, the next update for my great tv watching of 2010 may be slightly late. Soz people.

But just for you, here is a brief update: Terriers is amazing, Nikita is enjoyable, and No Ordinary Family is getting worse every week, and I am losing all hope for it.

New reviews soon as I can.

Thursday 30 September 2010

New TV 2010 - The Mega Review Part 2

The Event - NBC

Television networks love starting high concept sci-fi shows, with their over-arching mysteries and season long plots. This time last year, FlashForward was being touted as having a four year plan, and complex shady characters. It was dead by February. Starting these shows is fun... just give them a fancy pilot and a neat concept. But then it hit FlashForward... characters sat about being unpleasant and repetitively inactive. Real people stop watching. The show died, and nobody shed a tear. And now, a year later, we have a new high concept sci-fi mystery show. And The Event sure does have a fancy pilot.

The Event makes a fancy debut. The idea is that an ordinary (read: bland) young man is going on holiday with his ordinary (read: hot) girlfriend, and then a short while later, he is on a plane, with a gun. We don’t see what happened between these two scenes, and are meant to wonder – what did happen between these events? What is going on? Who even is he?

The Event looks like it would be a decent sci-fi story if told by an omnipotent, reliable narrator in chronological order. I know those were a lot of big words, so I will put it simple: this is a show which is told out of order, and by deliberately missing things out in order to create tension. Not knowing what is going on seems key to all the tension. Did you like it on Lost when Locke would say “come with me” and no-one would bother to ask “why?” or “where?” Well, this is that, but constantly. No-one tells anyone what is going on, and we are not told what is going on. And y’know what – I loved it. This was a good debut.

As a show, I will want to watch it next week, to see what is going on. It was the first pilot show of the year which left me with questions for next week. But my advice is to wait. Don’t bother watching the show until next summer. See what people make of it – see if it gets good. It should. And if it does, enjoy. But there is a decent chance it will fail, and it is not worth expending your precious time on a sinking ship.

Added to that, truth be told, this show is coming a tad too soon after Lost. That finale hurt me. That finale did not just ruin Lost, it killed any desire I may have to get invested in a sci-fi mystery show, only to finally have them pull out the most obvious answer, even after swearing for years that was not the answer, and undermining it for six years so that it makes no goddamn sense in the mythology of the show. The Event wants to be the lovechild of Lost and 24, fine, but that comes with baggage.

So here I say it – The Event is Aliens. It is all Aliens.


Mike & Molly – CBS

This is the most boringly average sitcom anyone has ever decided to make. Mike is an obese policeman. I don’t normally define people by their weight, but here it is everything about him. Every word, every action, every single thing, is based upon him being fat. And there is a girl, Molly, who is fat. She likes cake and has difficulty on the stairmaster. They meet at a weightwatchers meeting, and looks set to begin the most average romcom ever. But with the twist that they are fat.

There were a couple of jokes, and Mike & Molly seem like they could be interesting, maybe even funny, people, if only they would stop spending all of their time obsessing over how they are fat. I can see that! It is pretty obvious! You don’t need to keep reminding me, in case I forget!

If you feel like watching this show you need to reconsider your life.


$#*! My Dad Says - CBS

This is another CBS three camera sitcom, filmed in front of a live studio audience, but this has William Shatner as the father to his now adult children, who he is trying to reconnect to. There are funny sitcoms, filmed as though they were made twenty years ago, and they mostly were made twenty years ago. This is not a funny show. Every joke feels like it was flat packed from Ikea, and after dragging out the construction of each one as only The Shat can do, the actors stare into each other’s souls, whist waiting for the audience to stop having a fit laughing at their average zingers and put-downs. It is a painfully average show which will be dead by Christmas. But then that is what people have been hoping would happen to Two And A Half Men, and that is a CBS sitcom which is somehow still breathing.

If you really feel the need for an average sitcom about failing at being a dad and old age, then I can’t advise against this. It was slightly funnier that Mike & Molly, to its credit, but it was so heartless, so soulless, that it really doesn’t deserve your valuable time.


Lone Star - FOX

This is the best hour of television that the last few weeks have given me. It was amazing.

The concept is harder to explain, so please forgive me when I mess it up. Robert Allen is a career con man, who has been working with his dad on a long con, trying to get into the family that runs a big oil company. He has been doing this by marrying the daughter. At the same time, he has fallen in love with girl, living in a town which he conned into buying bad stock. He is trying to keep himself working between both of these lives, “trying to live in his own house of cards” and all the while, trying to figure out who he is and who he wants to be. Now, trust me when I say that this is the second time I am writing this, as my first attempt was three times as long and four times as confusing. Both of these lives, his cons and his dad and himself, they are all filled with real, rich characters, and with the potential for drama and excitement.

It is shot beautifully. There are a huge number of subtle things and subtle scene that tell you who each character is, and why they matter. I have never before seen such incredible use of time to give such a stong feeling for who these people are, and yet I never felt over whelmed.

If I keep going it will sound like gushing, so I had better the problems out of the way now. Becuase there are so many characters introduced, the two women in Robert’s never get a chance to do much. But the bigger problem is that many people will be turned off by what Bob does. He is a con-man, who lies and steals from people, and lies and cheats on the women he loves. That alone will turn some people off. But the biggest problem for me is that this show reeks of being in trouble right from the start. It has been given a terrible timeslot, and has been given almost no advertising. (This is par for the course for a truly good show on Fox.) Partially, I guess that is because it took me almost two-hundred words to sum it up in basic terms, and I left out a whole bunch. And it doesn’t exactly have a name that sells itself, like The Event.

But even if this show doesn’t make it to next year, I cannot wait for next week. This was the best hour of drama so far, and you really don’t want to miss it.


No Ordinary Family - ABC

This is another of the big budget new shows to air, one of the ones with a high concept premise, and recognisable faces in the lead roles. Michael Chiklis, from The Shield, and Julie Benz, who was Rita on Dexter, are the parents in an ordinary American suburban family. They have two teenage kids, (who are both paint-by-numbers nothings in this first episode), and decide to take a family holiday. There is an incident. They get superpowers.

The Dad, and I am going to have to call them by their roles as I can’t remember any of them being called by their names in the entire pilot, becomes Superman as he was in the 1930s. Y’know, he can leap over a building but can’t fly, and can catch a bullet but isn’t bullet-proof. He is also depressed about being a stay-at-home dad with a part time job helping the police. His wife, who is a very successful career scientist, with a speciality that is never made clear, can run really fast. Because it is a metaphor for how she lives her life running through everything, as she repeatedly reminds us. While brooding. The two kids don’t get to do much, and their abilities don’t start to come through until the end, so I will leave that surprise for you. The only problem I had was that they are all so... depressing. I get that these people need to be flawed is they are to have character arcs, and y’know, grow as people. Perfect people are boring, we can all relate to that. But don’t be so depressed all the time. Stop complaining about your lives all the time. It gets very boring, very quick. Thanks in advance.

There is a hint of a conspiracy, which I predict to be painfully dull, and the possibility for monster-of-the-week averageness to be combined with family melodrama. So that is the usual. This family is like watching The Incredibles, but with none of their charm. (The show throws a couple of The Incredibles references up for you, if you keep your eyes open.) Most of all, it looks like a decent show. It doesn’t have the darkness, or the heart of the first season of heroes, but like it could be its own thing. It could be a show about family, who can do superhero things, and it gives the impression of being something I want to watch, not just of being something I feel like I should want to watch.



P.S – I had barely finished writing this when news broke that Lone Star has been cancelled! After two (critically acclaimed by the way) episodes! Seriously, people, what gives? All of you should still watch it, says I, because it really was that good. Looks like I will be crying myself to sleep tonight. Good bye, Lone Star.

Tuesday 28 September 2010

Another Gift

Here is a picture of an Ewok. With Audrey Hepburn.


Now you are another step closer to having seen anything.

Monday 27 September 2010

Soz for the delay

Well, I have now moved back to Exeter. Moving to a new house has had a big impact. Getting used to a new place takes a while. For example, it takes time to get used to how the shower takes the longest second to react to being turned on or off. But most of all, it is not really until you get internet that things start to feel like home.

Soon we will have internet. Soon it will be a new home.

And then I can continue my quest to watch more television. So bear with me...

Friday 17 September 2010

New TV 2010 - The Mega Review Part 1

I love this time of year, as it is the beginning of a new year of American Television. In the USA, tons of big new shows premiere within less than one month in “fall.” These premiers are littered with average crime procedurals and terrible sitcoms that will get cancelled by February. I will watch those to mock them. But the real excitement comes from watching to find the surprise hit show – that show that you take in close to your heart. A new Pushing Daisies, or Middleman. And, spaced out in the crush are the heavy hitters; the big new shows made by big names and with big stars. This is the most exciting fortnight in American Television, and the excitement runs like Christmas morning – where you can see a whole bunch o’ presents, but are not yet sure what they are.

So this season I decided to set myself a challenge. To watch, and review, the debut episodes of every new scripted show, as listed on the tvguide.com fall preview guide. All twenty-three of them.


That includes shows you should be excited for, like The Event or Broadwalk Empire, and the ones that will surely be deader than a dead parrot. If I laugh even once at Outsourced, it will be a shock.

And so it begins:


Terriers - FX

This is the sort of show which should be incredibly formulaic. A pair of middle-aged unlicenced private detectives, get hired every week to go and... privately... detect something. One is younger than the other, and the older is more jaded, having an ex-wife and an ex-drinking problem. But the show feels much more endearing than that. It works hard to not play simply into a formula, clearly channelling Veronica Mars. It has the same fast, quippy dialogue, the same fake identities and a cute dog. Oh, and it’s hinting at a longer running mystery. So that is all good.

The tone of the show is great, with moments of hilarity and seriousness, and it has a certain darkness that makes it clear these characters are not living a dream. Oh course, a show can’t be judged on just one meeting, and that is one of the big problems I just know I am going to keep running up against in this “challenge”, but you can get a sense of whether a show is worth a second date, and this is definitely a show worth watching – especially if you are a Mars fan.


Nikita – The CW


Based on La Femme Nikita, “but remade for the 21st century” as so many new shows are, this show is a spy thriller, based upon the titular Nikita, a female ex-assassin who has gone rouge from “The Division”, with a dual plot based upon Alex, a new recruit at Division. This means we can see our agency of assassins from the outside (Nikita), and the inside (Alex), and I presume the show is going to become a complex mess of agents, double-agents and triple-agents which I'd look forward to being delighted by. Hopefully, this will be just as much fun as it was in Alias, and the spy missions will feel fresh and exciting, as it looks like they will be what the show rests on. The side characters have some nice sparky lines, with The Tech Geek and The Gruff Boss looking like fun, and here’s hoping that the show becomes something worth seeking out. Especially as Nikita herself, played by Maggie Q, looks like she’ll be great to watch.

But then again, remakes of old shows often fail to do the original justice, relying too much on the old name, and female led shows tyically have to work hard to match the viewing figures of shows led by guys. And this is not a show without flaws. The pilot episode felt rushed, trying to cram in all the characters without letting us get a feel for any of them, leaving them all clich̩d and uninteresting. I cannot in all honesty tell you a single personality trait of any of them Рand that is not a good sign. And it is going to have to try pretty hard to be even nearly as good as, or as fun as, Alias. And my spy needs are already more than met by Chuck, which doubles as being hilarious, so an out-and-out spy show will have to work extra hard to earn my loyalty.

I would not be in the least surprised if this burns itself out quickly, relying heavily on ridiculous missions and Nikita fanservice, and is gone by this time next year. Anyone even remember the Bionic Woman remake? But then again, this could be the beginnings of a fun show, once it settles into stride. I will feel I’ll give it a month or so to see how it settles, for I'm still hopeful.


Hellcats – The CW

There's this thing, the Bechdel Test, which is used as a sort of litmus test for female presence is movie and television. In order to pass, the film or show must include at least two women, and they must have at least one conversation about something other than men, or a man. When formed in 1985, this wasn’t some die-hard demand of femininist ultras, but just to draw attention to how many shows completely fail this test.

Hellcats passes with flying colours. The premise of this comedy-drama is that a snarky narcissistic female law student loses her scholarship, and the only way she can stay at University is by gaining a cheerleading scholarship. She passes try-outs, meets a new friend and new rival, and starts competitive cheerleading. Yes, it is laughably formulaic, but that may not be such a horrible thing.

So, as you have probably gathered, this is a show about cheerleading. To its credit, it decides to treat it as a serious sport, (which the most dangerous teen sport probably deserves,) and looks like training and winning competitions is going to be more of a focus than the teen-drama stuff. And it seems well made, with some actually funny jokes and some nice Whedon-esque dialogue. The characters all seem distinguishable, and interesting, which is better than *shudder* Glee managed.

I have no problem with this if it does become popular, and it probably deserves it. But it is a teen drama about cheerleading. So, yeh... If I was a fifteen year old girl, I would probably watch it. But I’m not, so...


Haven - SyFy


The American SyFy channel are making a real move to step up in the world, and make their own original programming – which is a move I truly hope works for them. Any network who are focused on producing quality genre shows get my support all the way. They are not new to the business, being the guys who produced the best years of Stargate, produced Battlestar Galactica, and who’ve since created Stargate Universe, Caprica, and Warehouse 13.

Their new show this summer is Haven, a supernatural series based on a Steven King novel. A female FBI agent with a mysterious past gets sent to investigate a routine case in the sleepy town of Haven, who starts to uncover townsfolk with supernatural abilities. The first episode is a fairly paint by numbers affair, with the town and the characters slowly introduced. The quick wit of the dialogue slips by, flowing mostly unnoticed, hinting that it might become something later on. The characters all make an appearance, but only give vague clues as to who they might become, and the plot of the show is still unclear to me. Is this a “buddy cops investigate the supernatural” show? Is it a “Person investigates their own parents and past” show? Is it a “supernatural conspiracy” show?

You see, I come back to that difficulty of reviewing any pilot episode, of how little time these shows are given to make an impression. Haven feels like it is dragging its heels slightly. After the pilot I should know who people are and what they are doing. The fact that I just don’t makes this a hard show to recommend.

Despite the pilot giving little sense of what this show is, I can say it’s very nicely made, and I was never bored. But it didn’t fill me with a need to watch the next episode either. It was convincing enough to let me give it a second chance next week, but not enough for me to give it a shout out. It may become something, I have a feeeling it might, and here’s hoping it will... but then again, it may not.

Sunday 12 September 2010

Inceptionauts

Combining things good things is good. Evidence:

Wednesday 8 September 2010

Too Many Words on a Simple Bet

My brother and I have put on a bet, between ourselves. He is sure that Gerrard and Joe Cole are going to work for Uncle Woy’s Liverpool, and I believe this is the year that Valencia and Nani come into their own for United down the wings. The bet is who will score more league goals this year? Gerrard & Joe Cole, or Nani & Valencia.

The more I think about it, the more confident I get.

Nani and Valencia are 23 and 25 respectively, they are both young players who are constantly improving. More so, United, with slight problems in the centre of midfield, will be looking more to these wingers to turn in quality performances. Nani, who has been developing into a proper talent, and Valencia, who is the poster-boy for consistency, stand a good chance of really hitting form this year. United will look to them to get forward, to get on the end of attacking moves, and score more goals than last year. Besides, even if they don’t quite hit top form, any player who is part of the United attack is going to score goals.

But more combined goals than Gerrard and Joe Cole?

Joe Cole has always suffered from injuries, often missing months of the season and then returning out of form. He has played most of his career out wide, and will now be asked to perform in the middle, and despite his capacity for moments of greatness, he is not what can be called a consistent player. Or even a goalscorer. In 08-09, he scored 2 league goals, in 14 games. In 09-10, he scored 2 league goals, and that was over 26 games. He scored 1 in 19 cup games, which is a poor show, and even though cup games don’t matter for the bet, it just shows how few goals he has been scoring in recent years. He hasn’t scored internationally since 2008, and that was against Andorra. Joe Cole is not a frequent goal scorer, and his injury record will keep him from being a first teamer for large parts of the season.

But the real force for Liverpool will be their captain, and Gerrard has a habit of scoring goals for his club. However, his tally has not been falling as some people suggest. In fact, Gerrard’s eye for goal has been vastly overrated by many due to one fantastic season. In 08-09, Liverpool pushed for the League Title, and Gerrard scored 16 goals. This was a great haul, but it was an aberration. It was the first time in his career he had scored more than 11 league goals. Last year he scored 9. This seems far more likely to be the situation again.

I say this because of the other factor that we must remember: these two are Liverpool players, and Liverpool are no longer the force they were. Instead of being a team pushing for a potential league title, they are struggling to hit a UEFA cup place. While United took Chelsea to the final day of season, ‘Pool finished 7th. I say this not to gloat, but to point out the obvious; winning teams score more goals. Last year United scored 86 goals, Liverpool scored 61. I don’t have any numbers to back this up, but it is not too much of a leap to suggest that teams that score more, do so because they create more chances. United will be creating more opportunities than ‘Pool, and it is Valencia & Nani who will show the results of this in the goals they score.

Now, what this all means, is that we can expect Joe Cole to score a few goals, likely 1-3 this season, and Gerrard to score around the 10 mark, so maybe 9-12. So between them, (if they don’t personally underperform, which I think they will), we can expect maybe a 12 goal tally.

Last year Nani scored 4 league goals, and Valencia scored 5, a haul I’ll be needing them to build on this year. However, Nani scored an extra 9 goals in cup competitions, and Valencia 3. If they improve, as I think they will, and score some of those cup goals in the league instead, we can expect them to hit double figures as a pairing, and hopefully to hit nearer the 20 goal mark.

The money will so be mine.

Tuesday 31 August 2010

My gift to you.

Here is a picture of an Ewok. In a Delorean.


Now you are that one step closer to having seen eveything.

So. Yeh.

Have you ever noticed.... wait...

... I had something for this.

Oh, well. I was going to write something here, but everytime I started to write, it turned out to be crap, and my own incredibly low standards just would not let me post.

This is coming from the guy who once wrote about some random dream he had, where nothing even really happened, and has now just tricked you into reading a post where he announces he has nothing to say.

SNAP!

Friday 27 August 2010

TRICERATOPS!

It seems that while I was away, an big story broke.

Triceratops, for all two of you who have forgotten, is the coolest of dinosaurs. It is the one which has three horns... one on the nose, like a Rhino, and two over the eyes, looking like someone who's put hairgel on their incredibly long eyebrows and is now using them as a weapon.

They were the coolest.

But scientists have come to a shocking realisation. The new theory is that Triceratops were not actually Triceratops at all, but actually juvenile Torosaurs. This explains why no adult fossilised Triceratops has ever been found.

Now, we already now that cases of mistaken prehistoric identity are common, but I never thought it would hit the coolest of them all. The Han Solo of the Dinosaurs.

And so the curse of Jurrasic Park strikes again. Is science determined to prove everything from that movie wrong?

Thursday 19 August 2010

I'm Back

Don't worry people. I have returned. And only mildly sunburnt.

Saturday 7 August 2010

Chernobyl

Crap... I didn't realise it was that massive before...

Tuesday 3 August 2010

A Song Of Fire And Ice

I just started reading A Game Of Thrones, and it is very, very epic. If it keeps up like this, it will be getting the first Best Book You're Not Reading.

This book is the first in the Song of Fire and Ice series, which is written by George R R Martin, and is set in a fictional medieval land, which acts very much like War of The Roses England. The book is about the key families in the royal court, and the power struggle that is emerging. That may not sound as good as it is, and I assure you, I am just selling it short, because it is truly amazing. Anyhoo, more of this to come once I have finished.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that the book is amazing, and there is a TV adaptation coming next year, which you should really keep an eye out for.

Game of Thrones. Remember that name.

Saturday 31 July 2010

Off on Holiday!

It is that time of year again. The time when I go sit poolside in some Mediterranean paradise, read some books and consider, y'know, life and stuff.

Be right back. ;)

Friday 30 July 2010

A simple question.

Prospective Blackburn owner Ahsan Ali Syed responds when asked on BBC Radio 5Live if he'd ever been to the town.

"Physically? No."

Presumably he's been there emotionally and spiritually though.

Thursday 29 July 2010

Sucker Punch

Man, I hope this film is as fun as it looks. It's from Zack Snyder, who can usually be trusted to make something awesome.

Sunday 18 July 2010

I Cannot Wait

Only nine more days to wait!

Thursday 15 July 2010

Never Surrender

I found this while browsing the internet and felt like it could be the inspiration for an amazing blog post. However, I am lazy, and since my work rate is slower than the Large Hadron Collider (I mean, seriously, it is built to fire protons around a twenty seven kilometre tunnel at only three metres per second slower than the speed of light, and they expect it will be several years before the first results? What?) ... as I was saying, slower than the LHC guys, I decided to just show you this interesting anecdote.

"According to the DVD for Monty Pyton and The Holy Grail, the black knight sequence originated in a story told to John Cleese when he was attending an class during his school days. Two Roman wrestlers were engaged in a particularly intense match and had been fighting for such a substantial length of time that the match had degraded to the two combatants doing little more than leaning into one another with their body weight. When one wrestler finally tapped-out and pulled away from his opponent, it was only then that he and the crowd realized the other man was, in fact, dead and had effectively won the match posthumously. The moral of the tale, according to Cleese's teacher, was that, "If you never give up, you can't possibly lose" - a statement that, Cleese reflected, always struck him as being "philosophically unsound".

Saturday 10 July 2010

Canis Canem Edit

So, about a month ago, I wrote a retro article for the Exeter University student newspaper. For those of you how missed it, here it is:

There is no disguising it. Bully is a game truly made to be GTA in a school. Developed by the same people, there are similart themes and mission types. When most people think of Rockstar, they think GTA, and rightly so. But with Rockstar’s new Red Dead Redemption only a few weeks away, I decided now was the time to give these lesser known adventures of Jimmy Hopkin’s another run.

You may know Bully as Canis Canem Edit, the name it was given for UK release, but if you don’t mind I am going to call it Bully here, just ‘cos it is simpler to write. Now, your time spent in Jimmy Hopkin’s shoes is often spent running missions for other students, as you try to find your place in your new school. Bullworth Academy is my favourite place any game has ever taken me to. I know the corridors like a real place, and can remember the quickest route from the dorm rooms to the football pitch better than I can remember any of my real life shortcuts. It truly feels like a real place.

It needs be remembered just how fantastic the time you will spend in this game is. Jimmy Hopkins spends his first year at Bullworth, and the town beyond, doing odd jobs for the different cliques around school. Jocks, Nerds, Townies, all need Jimmy’s help in different ways. You’ll memorably break an ex-teacher out of the local loony bin, rig the election for student president, and cause lots of trouble at Halloween. Ah yes, Halloween. Bullworth is a living place, and as time passes, the school changes with the seasons. Halloween decorations, snow at Christmas, it even gets summery for summer.

Now, you never do get to drive cars. But this is no loss for there is so much personality to the bikes, and the slower pace makes the world all the more characterful. Even better, released from cars, you’re released from roads. Shortcuts are your bread and butter, through train depots, down back alleys and into trailer parks. Later on you get access to mopeds, but they never compared to the faith I had in my trusty racing bike.

Bully provides a huge variety of things to do. You can cause general mayhem, with kick me signs and stink bombs, start foodfights, or dodgeball, or whatever you feel like. But truth be told it can all be a bit much. You may end up spending so much time in town you lose connection with the school at the heart of the game. Now, this being a game set in a school, lessons play a role. You visit classes, play the minigame within, to learn a new bonus that will help you later. You can play truant if you want, but these lessons are a fun distraction, and the rewards are worth it. The school structure is a great part of the atmosphere, as not playing by the rules puts you on the radar of the prefects. Step out of line and they will come down on you hard, with a menace far greater than the police in ever could. This is a great thing.

The game was a personal favourite of mine years ago on the PS2, and since then has gotten an upgraded release on 360 and PC, and was even ported to the Wii. The gameplay has aged slightly, but It runs smooth and still looks nice, so really this is the kind of fun you should be searching for.

Wednesday 30 June 2010

The Day I Became "Not Young"

About all these youtube videos...

Dear Mr Dawson,

It has come to our attention that your last three blog posts have all contained youtube clips. While it is understood that directing your readers to a helpful or humourous youtube clip is often a crucial part of any blog post, it has come to our attention that your overuse of this necessity has approached the borders of common decency in this regard. Of your last three posts, all have ended with a youtube clip.

While we have no problem with the content of these clips, (The Ke$ha/Star Trek combo was most entertaining,) we feel that a soft reminder of your duties to the blogosphere are in order. Please buffer your life changing videos, (we need more Old Spice!) with more idle talk about that-funny-thing-what-happened-in-Tesco, or the weather.

If you do not head this warning, swift action will be taken. You connection to youtube will be severed in the only way we, the ConDem Gov't know how - by turning off all the internet! All of Britain will suffer from your short-sightedness! When ordinary citizens are forced to play FIFA against the dull and predictable AI, and have to wait eight months for brand new Futurama to cross the Atlantic Ocean to UK television, hopefully then you will learn your lesson.

You have been warned.

Yours,

Jeremy Richard Brian Streynsham Hunt
Secretary of State for Culture
ConDem Allegiance of Evil

Tuesday 29 June 2010

Old Spice

The majority of adverts are soul sucking time sinks that eat away precious minites of your short life. Some are genius.

SWAN DIVE!

Sunday 20 June 2010

Star Tik Tok

When you were younger you were taught that adding two and two makes four. This is true.

Sometimes, however, adding things does something strange. Two and two become more than four. They become greater. They become... AWESOME!


Thursday 17 June 2010

Futurama

So, in case you have not heard, there are new episodes of Futurama coming. And they are now just one week away! If you were wondering, it's moving from Fox to Comedy Central in the USA, which will hopefully turn out to be no bad thing. Best of all, all the original voice-cast are back, even tho' that looked unlikely at one stage. Woo-hoo!

These are going to be the first new episodes for seven years, so as you can imagine, I cannot wait.

There is some justice in the world after all.

Saturday 5 June 2010

Float Out review

Serenity: Float Out is a one issue comic, set after the movie Serenity, and "expanding" upon the character of Wash. I put expanding in quotations because of how spectacularly it fails to do this.

In this comic, three new characters are about to christen their new ship, when one of them mentions Wash, who has recently died. They spend five pages standing there, expositioning at us about their new ship, which is pointless as these characters are ones we have never seen before nor will ever seen again. They have no personalities, and these pages do nothing for the story. This exposition is very bornig, and what makes it worse, it is the most predicatble backstory imaginable. It just feels like padding.

Then these guys decide, for literally no reason, to share stories about Wash. They take it in turns to tell a story which makes Wash into Jesus. (If Jesus were the pilot of a spaceship. Which he surely will be after the second coming. But I digress.) While this, kind of, makes sense for people reminiscing about a dead friend, but it does nothing for the reader. It just makes these stories less usefull for connecting us to Wash.

In the first story Wash pulls off the impossable, literally, in order to escape some Reavers. In the second, Wash pulls off the impossable, literally, in order to escape some Pirates. In the thrid he dumps his smuggled cargo so a friend can escape a trap.

This is really boring.

Wash does things out of character. He was makes jokes when the real Wash would be serious, due to haviing to concentrate on the whole not dying thing. He pulls stunts that the real Wash would know are impossable. The story does not develop Wash, it just has three guys tell us he was a great pilot. It does nothing to build him as a character, or devlop him in anyway. And it is really boring. This comic is a huge let-down.

This is what I hate about post-cancellation Firefly. You cannot just stick the name to it and call it Firefly. It goes deeper. Serenity was a great sci-fi film, but it was not Firefly. It was clearly not in the same 'verse.

If everyone is just gonna act out of character, then what is even the point of using those characters?