Christmas hols, snow and "Tron: Legacy".

Firstly, a belated happy 2011 to all! We had a nice Christmas and New Year's holiday. It was great to be off work for a while and relax a bit, watch some TV/DVD's and eat lots of choc! For an xmas pressie from Carla, I was lucky enough to receive the book "The Making of the Empire Strikes Back". I'm just over halfway through it at the moment, and its proving to be an excellent read, covering the 'making of' process in great detail. Wonderful photos as well! My friend's mini review is on her blog here.

A highlight of late December (for me at least) was seeing "Tron: Legacy" at our local Odeon cinema (in digital 3D.) I thought it was a very entertaining and exciting film, which looked *amazing* on the big screen - a worthy (if rather delayed...by 28 years!) sequel to the original. I'm hoping to catch it again before it ends its run, but maybe in 2D this time. A review I liked is here from Harry at good old 'ainitcool'.

Latest DVDs we've got include "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (2008), "Bad Day at Black Rock", "The NeverEnding Story", and "Black Books" (the complete series), and "Edge of Darkness". We also enjoyed watching a couple of westerns on DVD, "The Searchers" and "Tombstone". Even though we have it on disc, we ended up watching "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" on BBC1 on New Year's Day (the British network premiere) - love it!

We seemed to miss the worst of the very cold weather/snow that hit N.W. Europe from late November, and which lasted about a month. There were lots of cold clear days and nights, which required the car to be scaped free of ice a few times! The Midlands did have some snow, but its effect varied from area to area. Thankfully it didn't affect my day-to-day drive too much, although on the 22nd December it did take me about 1 1/4 hours to drive what would have usually taken about 10 mins! It was a bit weird to see the huge snowflakes come down as the traffic crawled along. Still, at least I didn't have to dig the car out of any major snowdrifts after all that. It was bizarre seeing a bus stopped and parked *across* a road I passed, blocking the traffic down that road. I guess it had skidded into that position - scary! All the snow went a while ago now, and its back to usually winter cloud and rain.



<-- The Moon and planet Venus, as seen looking S.E. from the car park behind our flat in the dawn sky, early December 2010 - taken during the cold snap.

Happy new year and Avatar

Hope you all had a nice Christmas, and a (belated) happy new year. Here's to everyone having a brilliant 2010 film watching. Looks like there is going to be a few cracking blockbusters coming out, from "Iron Man 2" to "Tron: Legacy".

A couple of Wednesdays ago, mid-way through our Christmas break from work (which was lovely as we spent most of it at home doing nothing apart from watching TV, DVDs and eating!) we went to see James Cameron's much hyped (and now $billion grosser) "Avatar" in 3D. I'm glad our local Odeon cinema now has a digital 3D screen so we don't have to go far to see films in that format. Anyway, I thought the CGI visuals were pretty stunning, so full marks to WETA Digital in New Zealand for that. The 3D process worked very well, particularly in the less kinetic shots where you actually had a chance to take in the beautiful vistas. The detail leapt out at you - certainly an improvement on the old 'red and green' glasses of the "Jaws 3D" era! Looks as if more and more films are being made in this new format now the expensive equipment is cropping up in cinemas worldwide. Well, the SPFX were great, but shame about some other basic elements of the film. I felt the script was rather weak, and the characters actually quite dull....very 1D. Also it was too long. I'll give it a 7/10. "District 9" was far better. In fact, we enjoyed watching that on DVD on New Years day! I Look forward to seeing a future sequel.

Picture shows James Cameron (right) directing actor Sam Worthington (playing Jake Sully) in "Avatar".


Even though the snow was pretty heavy in places on the lead up to Xmas, it was ok over the actual holidays. The snow hit the whole of the UK bad over the last week....I wonder when things will get back to the normal cool wet weather? Thankfully the main roads haven't been a problem in this area.

"Star Fleet", "The Clone Wars", and some melted snow....

Last Monday, "Star Fleet" was released on DVD here. This is a wonderful sci-fi puppet series originally broadcast on ITV in the winter of 1982/83. Basically, it's a "Star Wars" rip off, but with a slightly more adult tone than "Thunderbirds" had. It's very popular amongst sci-fi fans who are now in their 30's, who remember the show with wistful nostalgia. I haven't bought it yet, as Carla said she would buy it for me. Once we've got it in the house, I'll do a mini-review of the DVD. There is a fan site and group on 'Facebook' (yes, I'm a member of both) and there is a brilliant fan website here.

Staying with 'space stuff' (as my mother calls it)....at last, I'm watching the new "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" animated series. Starting from yesterday, 'Cartoon Network' has started to show them every Saturday morning, repeated on Saturday evening. The channel broadcast episodes 1 and 2 yesterday. The series picks up after the film released last summer. Episode 1 features a lot of Yoda doing awesome lightsabre battling (bad luck, battle droids), and the second episode featured the return of General Grievous and his new weapon, a super ion cannon. Great fun stuff, and the animation is superb. I'm looking forward to seeing some characters like Jar Jar Binks return in episode 8. What's also funny are the little 'Lego Star Wars' adverts in between the episodes. Hopefully they should be turning up on 'You Tube' soon.

A proper guide to the series can be found here on the official "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" website. Also, my pal in the USA does regular mini reviews of the episodes, and you can find them tucked away on her Livejournal.

The widespread snowfall across the UK over the last two weeks or so seems to be on the wane now, thank goodness. I can't stand it really, it just gets in the way commuting. Thankfully, it wasn't that bad in this area, as I was only affected for one day, and I was able to work at home anyway. This country doesn't really do extreme weather that well, I guess we aren't used to it.
Have a look at what my pal Joe said about it here.

I've joined Carla when she does the 'Leslie Sansone's Walk at Home' workout. It's really good, as I've found since I've been driving (9 months) I walk a lot less, so this is great for basic cardio fitness. Carla sometimes writes about her fitness regime, and you can follow it here.

Yay! She just said she's going to make koshari today! Lovely! :)

Easter and a singing dog!

Wow, Easter 2008 is over already. It's been a nice four day break, and we have two more days of annual leave to go as well! We had our pal Gary up for a couple of days visit, which was nice even though we spent most of the time in the house watching DVDs (such as "Mash", "Jaws", "This is Spinal Tap" and so on.) We did go to Warwick on Saturday morning, but it was *so* cold and windy (and it snowed!) that we came home sooner than expected. The snow had all gone by Sunday lunchtime though.

Oh, talking about Warwick, well, I have a new job there starting sometime in mid April! This means getting a car and learning to get used to the commute!

There is a great advert on British TV at the moment! It's for the new VW Polo and features a cute singing dog! Have a look at you tube here. I wonder if you buy new Polo you get a dog like this!?

First (past the?) post...

Hi to all out there in bloggy-land,

Just a couple of lines to get this thing going. I think I'll use it mainly for DVD and film reviews, but I'm sure I'll write about some other things....err...when I can remember or be bothered to update it! ;)

We watched "Earthquake" this afternoon...part of last weekend's mega DVD purchase at Nuneaton HMV. Not bad...quite entertaining actually. It has a similar structure to "The Towering Inferno", released in the same year - 1974. (Introduce the characters, then waste a third of the film showing their relationships and situations, then start the disaster!) Charlton Heston was his usual hero self, swaggering through the script with several major stars of the time (George Kennedy, Lorne Greene etc.) The film features some good action sequences and matte work, and yet another great score by good old Johnny Williams. However, there was one effect that was so * B A D * it was funny - the blood splattering in the lift as it crashed down the shaft. Its an *animation cell*! Red paint blobs!! Oh. Dear.
Talking about shaft....Richard Roundtree was in it as well, sporting a groovy stunt biker costume. Can yu dig it?

We watched the new ITV series called "Primeval" this evening. Dinosaurs and other such CGI creatures find their way to suburban England. Cue team of experts to investigate and sort it out. Again, quite fun to watch, although very derivative of many sci-fi and fantasy series...we had some "Jurassic Park" mixed with some "Stargate" and "X-files. Hope it develops well. Next week the preview showed them fighting giant bugs in the sewers! More b-movie rip offs then....
It was nice to see Ben Miller as the cynical Government man. He does the voice of the "PG tips monkey" (or "mung-keh" as he is known.) We both liked Rex, the cute little flying dino. I'm sure if the show is a hit, a toy Rex will be in the shops for Xmas!

Thankfully the annoying snowfall of Thursday and Friday seems to have gone now. All that remains on the square at the back of our flat is a very disheveled looking snow man...his carrot nose fell out as he melted!!

see ya'll soon! :)