Thursday 31 December 2009

Sheerluck Holmes

After going Under the Mountain, I hung around and caught the Iron Man Prequel. Robert Downey Jr is the epitome of the hard-nosed, tight-fisted, punchiest, kickiest, hittingest man of action evah! I mean, Sherlock Holmes.

Okay, not so much with the fighting, but a lot is made of how Holmes can easily glimpse a man, plan a series of moves to completely incapacitate him (which allows us to view the fight in slow motion), then do so (so we see the fight again), but this wonderful ability isn't really paid off. He only uses it to take out minor thugs, so I'm wondering if there was a deleted scene whereby he dispatched a greater villain... but I'm not sure who that could be.

Never mind, to the plot! There's a bad man afoot, and he is going to take down society through the use of MAGIC! Only if two men can combine their forces to smack their way through minor villains, and bring the girl onto their side, can they make the final boss fight. Now, fine, Holmes has been portrayed as various different types of personalities, and this one is more physical than others, but... there isn't that much made of his superior reasoning abilities to get from one set of clues to the next (there are two scenes, one which is a rip off from the books so everyone can follow along, the other being the only really proper Holmes thinking scene), and most of the time it's simply tracking down the obvious and/or being taken to the next person. The main character is called Holmes, and his compatriot Watson, but there are only superficial similarities to the characters of fame.

Which isn't to say this isn't a good movie. Good performances by the leads, fast paced direction by Guy Ritchie, and it roars along at a great pace. And what Holmesian patina there is is quite enjoyable.

So check it out, but don't expect to see a faithful reproduction of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's works.

[END]

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Wednesday 30 December 2009

WFRP 3e In Cincinnati!

Because we were gamer lite, we did a go at the (presumed included demo) game of Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing Game 3rd Edition. Also known as an rpg layered on top of a board game.

Now, it was fun enough, but nearly lethal! If it had been one hit more to my character, I would be dead, instead of unconscious, in the first fight. The social "combat" afterward was more fun (although that might have been biased by the fact that a) I wasn't a combat character and b) I nearly died!).

The adventure itself was straight forward, but it was just getting things happening to demo out the system. However, there is a learning curve to the game, so it needs a few go arounds in order to sort out what abilities and talents and whatnot can be used in each round. I kept noticing that I could have done such and such after my turn finished. Oh well.

Wouldn't mind another game, but there is overhead in the cards to keep track of, and reading the specialty dice. Fun, but not something to be mastered quickly.

[END]

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Tuesday 29 December 2009

Back Under that Mountain

While all was quite, I hit the cinema for the cheap movie of the week, which was the remake of the TV Series I had recently watched. (For those taking note, although I don't remember details, I think the TV series was the more faithful reproduction.)

From the story as it was, a lot had to be compressed. The Mr Jones stuff was slimmed down, and they just had to get to one mountain instead of two. The biggest change was in the twins themselves, they were older and the focus was on an emotional break between them and them coming together over that, rather than them trying to get to grips with the stones. A better character choice for the movie, I thought. Oh, and Ricky's character arc is also changed.

Effects wise, definitely a lot of money is on screen in the form of the Wilberforces, and they look good. In that they look bad. And I wouldn't be surprised to find out some Cthulhu inspiration behind the Gargantua. The fire effects... less well integrated.

Much is made of Sam Neill being in this, being the only really big name to help promote it, but not much is made of him in the movie (aside from amusing comments of him being a "dirty, old man"). The twins, Sophie McBride and Tom Cameron, are good. And keep an eye out for a cameo by Nathaniel Lees. Not to mention the original Rachel - Kirsty Wilkinson (which I have to admit I missed).

I wasn't overly enthused about seeing this, having just watched the TV series, but its different enough for me to recommend: go check out the local talent!

[END]

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Monday 28 December 2009

No more Eta-ing

That's something to put you off eating their peanut butter. But before I get to that...

Why Eta Peanut Butter? Because they don't add extra salt. I'm not sure why all the others feel the need to add more salt in, but I guess I'll be finding out soon when I try an alternative product. Could end up being "one bite and no more" if it's too salty, but I'll give it a go...

Because... well, first of all, take a look at this video:

Yeah, I know. But, anyway, interesting that in one shot we see an ant in the peanut butter. Hmm... that's familiar... 'cos that's what happened to me! I had ants in my peanut butter. Hey, Chuck, I got life! (Oh wait, they have an easy out of "contamination", well that's convenient.) Oh yeah, that also makes me suspicious of home made anti-ant recipes that involve peanut butter.

Thing is, this is not the first time I've had this. Last time, it was white ants, this time black ants. However, I can't remember if it was Eta or not, and it was a very long time ago. But now I'm blogging this to record it for prosperity.

And yes, I could complain to Eta/Watties, but I'm cynical so doubt anything would come of it. And they'd just say the product got contaminated after I brought it (I have eaten half the peanut butter) so I can't defend against that other than to say there are no sign of ants elsewhere.

You ever come across this?

[END]

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Sunday 27 December 2009

DW: The End of Time

Slow... slow... slow... incrediablyfastending!

The hells was that about? From the introduction of the Master in a sequence more reminiscent of something out of Harry Potter, to him with superpowers, to the exciting sequence of hearing about Donna's tedious life, to finding out that a cyborg had cousins... frankly, none of that made any real sense, nor impact worth noting. In fact, nothing here really needed to be said, from the recapping sequence of the Ood to the thrilling moment of the Master eating chicken... take away pretty much all of that and see how much the story is impacted.

Because it's all set-up, and not just for the ending five minutes where there is a lot of running around in a pretense of excitement (which is still not present, see the scene where we have the Master basically exposit what's going on) before the big reveal of everyone is the Master, which I'm sure John Simm was enthused about filming (what happened to all the kids and babies? Did they suddenly grow bigger?).

No, it's really set-up for the next episode, which has the return of the Time Lords. With spittle problems it seems. I guess the Time War was an exceptionally important moment then, considering how it's been completely undercut now by the return of the Daleks and now the Time Lords. Seriously, what was the point of the past five years then? Oh, he's the Last of the Time Lords... until RTD gets to the end of his series, and then never mind that. The least we can hope for is that RTD clears it all away so Moffat can start with a clean slate.

Still, lovely as ever to see the lovely Bernard Cribbens. So important he gets into the title credits, yay! John Simm is still serving his Master with whole sty fills of pork, and David Tennant is ramping up his manic depressive disorder.

While this partnership of Tennant and RTD could continue on, it seems that RTD is trying to shoot it down as hard as he can.


Next Time: It doesn't look like it's getting any better...

[END]

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Friday 25 December 2009

I believe the word is "Woot!"

I picked up a ton of mail yesterday, which reminds me that I need to put some more money on my credit card, but one thing in particular was a wonderful thing to receive.

Yay! Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space! I already had the pdfs, but now I have the physical copies! That's the (cardboard) box on the left and the player's guide on the right.

There's also a Gamemaster's book, a book of Adventures, a Quick Start guide, several characters, story point tokens and dice! (Like I needed more of those.)

One extra reason I'm happy is that... I was a playtester! Unfortunately, they don't list the playtesters, so I can't point to that to prove it, but I was! So there's a good chance I'll have more to say as I look over this and remember...

[END]

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Wednesday 23 December 2009

Who are these people?

I've lived at my current place for... I lose track, three, four years? By myself. So there has been plenty of opportunities for other people to figure out that other people do not live here.

So why am I still getting mail for people who aren't me?

I've got a Christmas Card for "Joanne and Peter". Who? No last name given. No return address. Can't do anything about it.

And now I've got something for "Gloria ." Who? Return address is Santa's Workshop, so I'm guessing this is some kind of Christmas letter that was arranged for Gloria, but they got the address wrong.

How? It is specifically my address (I'm in the first flat so get given mail to this number). Someone things that these people are living in my flat. Somehow are here even though no-one but me has been around for three or more years...

Anyone know of a service to find out who's listed as living at my home?

[END]

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Tuesday 22 December 2009

Avatari

Yes, that's right, I've seen the latest special effects film. Let's not pretend here, that's the reason people are going to see it, nothing to with the plot, the characters, the originality, all of which are missing, but for the effects.

The idea is that Great White Man saves the Noble Savage... and that's about it. (Go see Overthinking for a great piece written before the film's release about why this film will suck.) So much for that. And yes, the characters are as superficial.

But at least we have lots of lovely CGI, which we haven't seen before. Oh, hang on, we have! Cameron had to wait for nearly a decade for the effects to be affordable, but in the intervening time, it's not like we haven't had CGI epics already on our screen. And before he started planning the movie as it happens. Because, no matter how good the computer created creatures (including the Navajo... I mean, Na'Vi) are... they are still computer created, and they obviously are. I'm not sure what is so innovative about this that we are supposed to go 'wooo', but it's not for the seamless way the effects blend together.

(And I would also like to complain about the evolution of the species. Major 'themes' of this picture are savage vs coloniser, religion vs science, nature vs machine, and one better hope for an intelligent designer because I'm highly skeptical they could have developed so integrated together. Oh, and adding another pair of fore-limbs does not a credible alien monster make.)

Apparently one should see this in 3D, not in 2D. Yet another reason that the point of this movie is the effects...

[END]

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Monday 21 December 2009

Power Brokers

Episode two sees us violating the principle of the universe. How you get more powerful is by killing. But what happens when you don't kill? Or, alternatively, when you don't get the chance. (Mooks don't count. Some of them probably died, but eh...)

I finally get to show up my "I don't care about your gun" ability, but in the second fight the big scene goes to Captain Star who gets to meet his nemesis (other than the Space Nazis!). Oh, and I am basically absent from the beginning scene for in character reasons... although not necessarily silent.

The files can be downloaded as a zip from my RapidShare account (Episode 1 updated to include a similar file).

[END]

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Sunday 20 December 2009

There and Back Again

There is a video going around at the moment that is a zoom out from Tibet to the edge of the universe and back again... and here is The Known Universe:

But this isn't the only example around. A classic video is Power of Ten, which changes a power of ten each ten seconds, and not only goes out but goes in as well.

And that's not the only one, behold the Cosmic Zoom:

[END]

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Saturday 19 December 2009

Planetoba 51

Another company, Spanish this time, throws its hat into the animation ring with a wee piece that has been described as a "reverse ET".

The idea is an amusing one: human spaceman comes to a planet, fails to look out his window to see that it is inhabited, and goes out to have hilarious adventures! Fortunately, the planet atmosphere is the same as earth, and the aliens speak English and have exactly the same motivations as any other coming of age teen movie. Which is what it really is. So you know the guy-alien-thingy will end up with the girl-alien-thingy.

The message is about the unknown. You can tell this, because the movie comes to a screeching halt to deliver it! The unknown in this case is outer space and aliens, and the movie has many references to 1950s sci-fi paranoia, and more recent movies (I won't mention Ripley, as everyone else has).

While the plot isn't up to much, it's still a fun movie. Fortunately the named actors don't get in the way, although Jessica Biel tries to hard to comes across as (literally in this case) the girl next door. (Although John Cleese is eminently noticeable, but then he's playing the Evil Bad Guy.)

I'd say... check it out if you happen to be there, but not something to go otu of your way to watch.

[END]

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Thursday 17 December 2009

TW: Consequences

Here we go, the biggest Torchwood book this year, no less that five authors have combined their stories to bring you... Torchwood: Consequences!

This book promised to span over Torchwood's history, and completely fails to live up to that very basic premise. The first story, The Baby Farmers by David Llewellyn, is set in Torchwood early years, where it is run by those two women, with Jack recently joined them, and a Mr Gaskell, whose notable feature is, according to the story, that he is black. None of the stories in this book can really develop due to limited size, and considering that this is in the past, it is disappointing that we don't get more than them going around and solving the situation presented... and not much more. Certainly no character development worth discussing...

So, on to the next story. Maybe with George and Harriet? Or in the 1950s? Or even, if we must, with Suzie? Nope. Kaleidoscope by Sarah Pinborough is set between series one and two, and focusses on the team without Jack. The story is a nice character piece, developing the team dynamic and the one off character Danny, but I can't help feel that the very ending is off. A point is made that Jack would have caught the human factor, but wasn't the whole point of Gwen that she brought in the human factor because the rest of the team missing it?

But never mind, as we are onto The Wrong Hands by Andrew Cartmel, who takes the bold step of having the team as they are after the last book. That's right, no more Torchwood historical teams, we're in the same setting as the previous pair of books. Sigh. And aside from a plot point at the end of this story, not much to talk about there either.

That plot point does feed into Virus by James Moran, who forgoes anything storywise to go for an Ianto action piece. Nice change of pace, but realistic? He's the coffee boy!

At the end, we have Consequences by Joseph Lidster, who goes for tying together many elements from the books, mainly in the form of Nina Rodgers. We get a little of an outsider perspective to the activities of Torchwood, but as to the explanation of what's going on... I'm sure it's supposed to be very meta, and contextual, and other things that mean much to English literature students, which I am not. So rather disappointing.


...meh...

[END]

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Wednesday 16 December 2009

Power Brokers

With Heroic Cthulhu on hiatus (no, I haven't not been posting up stuff, as there has been no stuff to post up), it was likely I would have had my Saturdays free. But Travis has stepped up and offered to GM myself and others in a new game, using the system Mutants and Masterminds.

The campaign is called Power Brokers. Ten years ago multiple realities merged, bringing many new peoples together, and unleashing powers. My character was in a normal reality, but since gained powers of strength and hitting. To make him not just a brick, he also cares about animals. Introducting: Smackdown.

Our first episode was last week, and the files are available for listening. Although I recorded and processed these, got something wrong and they are slower than normal. Use something like VLC or similar to kick it up 5%-10% and it's fine.

Lady Bug: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six.

A correctly sped version can be downloaded in a zip file from my RapidShare account. (This was done at 32 bit rate. Should still be fine quality wise.)

[END]

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Tuesday 15 December 2009

It's a Musical... Commentary!

You remember Dr. Horrible Sing-A-Long Blog? Sure, we all do! But did you get the DVD? And listen to the commentary? And that commentary? If you didn't... check it out on Youtube! (No idea if this legal or not, but while it's around...)

That was song one, check out part two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen... or just go to the Commentary TheMusical channel.

(And here are the lyrics.)

[END]

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Monday 14 December 2009

Headsmack! No, not a UFO...

Big news for New Zealandarians! You may have seen one of the giant spacecraft orbitting the earth!

Or maybe a rocket. It's hard to tell. "The foundation's South Island spokeswoman, Val Parker, a former Timaruvian, said "there are two versions – believe what you like"."

Yeah... two versions. One in which there are giant spacecrafts orbitting the earth, which you can take pictures of by photographing the sunset and making up images in the picture...

Or the version in which a rocket spun out of control. Which Russian Defence Ministry has admitted happened. Which the Bad Astronomer called even before they admitted it!

Which, in fact, happened again! This time with video:


Yeah... two versions... insert your own crazy joke here, they already did...

[END]

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Saturday 12 December 2009

TW: The Undertaker's Gift

Took a while, but I got around to the second book: The Undertaker's Gift by Trevor Baxendale.

Torchwood are to blame for not taking care of the twenty-first century, and so are bestowed with the Undertaker's Gift. And that's not the only problem going on. As a story, it's mainly all action, with one thing or another getting in the way, and there's lot's of cutting between people and various menaces that have to be fought...

And hardly any character development, aside from some for some of the extras. However, given that in previous book "character development" was taken to mean "here's more badly delivered exposition about their backstory", I'm not complaining. Indeed, nice to have a book that just got on with things.

There is a mention of Risk Assessment, but understandably Baxendale ignores that ending (and would have been unlikely to deal with it unless there was a lot more collaboration between the authors). However, with the events heating up in this book, I was beginning to wonder if the style of this set of books was 'let's do what we want, never mind the TV continuity' (no idea how much of Children of Earth the authors had seen when they developed their stories). To get around his events, Baxendale gives us a very heavy handed plot device that just is too convenient to set well with the rest of the story, and instead feels like an idea he had that he wanted to use, but couldn't fit into the story properly.

Character wise, the regulars are not that deep, fitting in with the more action focused story, and we get two main extras who are given some depth. It's a fine balance between developing them and having a book with Torchwood in it, and Baxendale does get close to the edge. But I had somewhat forgotten them by the end...


A decent run-around, and a good escapist read.

[END]

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Friday 11 December 2009

It's happening here, too

Currently the main picture story over on Stuff: 'No God' campaign arrives.

This has been making headlines overseas. The simple idea: bus slogan reads "There is probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." What could be wrong with that? Free speech and all that.

It's amazing how many religion groups (other places where this advert screened) complained, basically, "hey, they can't say that! They can only say our religious message!" Most of the comments that I've skimmed are supportive of this, as a free speech issue. We don't have the hardcore religosity that other countries have. Although no doubt Destiny Church might get asked. Oh, and Bob McCoskrie too.

[As you might suspect, I'd prefer a stronger term than "probably", although one can't prove the negative that there is no god anywhere...]

Other interesting reactions are complains to advertising authorities, pushing legislation, and some bus drivers refusing to drive a bus where this slogan is promoted.

To get your chance at helping this outrage, go over to www.nogod.co.nz and donate.

[END]

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Wednesday 9 December 2009

Rogue Trading 3

While repairing our ship at Footfall, some of our crew stirred up trouble in the local population, which caused us grief. Finding the perpetrator wasn't too much of a problem for our Seneshal, leaving us only with the option of what to do with him. Death quick and easy? Long and painful? Eventually, we decided to garner favour with the locals by handing him over to them for their justice. The little tick should be glad we didn't do worse to him.

With the ship repaired, we continued out to our destination of Magoros, and found there two planets, one icy, one desert, and a ring of asteroids. Visiting the ice planet first, we found the remains on an ork ship crashed into xeno-archaic ruins, and in those ruins the remains of a power grid that was beaming remnants of power to the other planet.

Switching planets, we tracked the beam to the north pole, but couldn't land there due to turbulent air, so settled down and had to walk in (not a particularly pleasent experience for me). Nearing the goal, some kind of ruin, we came across the woman who had attempted to steal from us earlier, now caught up in a squabble with some orks. We were tempted to leave her to it, but then decided it would be good for her to owe us a favour.

There were, however, very many orks. While others took pot shots, I tried to go in an intimidate them with my mighty Navigator-ness [go Lidless stare]. I did quite well with a first glaring, that I tried to do it again... but over-exerted myself and passed out. However, I was only the first of many to do so, with one of my shipmates doing so instead of dying [bye-bye Fate Point]. And, indeed, the woman we came to rescue ended up no more. With all but one of us down for the count, the one remainder drew the orks away, leaving us to be scooped up by the Teleportarium...

[That fight was rather unbalanced. Indeed, the whole adventure hasn't been that good. It's an example adventure, designed to show off various parts of the system. So far it's called for a lore skill none of us have (and can only be gotten if you happen to pick the right background option). It's put us in ship-to-ship combat that nearly destroyed us (with some initial excellent rolls from the GM). And then it put us up against twelve armoured, unnaturally tough creatures. Frankly, TPK was well possible... I hate to see what the final fight/scene will be!]

[But I will say that having now seen the Critical Hit tables, they are very amusing, and remind me of the Rolemaster ones...]

[END]

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Tuesday 8 December 2009

Wanting to Want to Believe

No, it doesn't take me weeks to read the next Torchwood book. Instead, I've been distracted by reading a tome by Robert Shearman. All about his opinions of the X-Files.

This isn't a discontinuity guide of any kind. There are episode synopses, written by Lars Pearson, but the point of the book is an opinion piece by Shearman for every X-Files episode. And every Millennium episode. And every Lone Gunman episode. All as a lead to review The X-Files: I Want To Believe movie.

This makes for very entertaining reading. Shearman is good at writing reviews, and could easily produce many volumes of his reviews for Doctor Who. (A small sampling of those were published in previous TSVs.) Hopefully, the full set will see the light of day some time...

As every, with reviews, I don't agree with everything he says, but he does make many insightful comments, and certainly you'll see many episodes in a new light. Not that, admittedly, I'm wanting to rewatch the series again, but if I ever do...

Definitely a book to pick up if you want to read reasoned thinking about every episode of a groundbreaking series.

[END]

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Monday 7 December 2009

Prestigious

Since this was recommended during my science fiction movie education, I finally got around to checking out The Prestige. The premise? Wolverine and Batman face off in the grudge match fight of the century we've all been waiting for. [Now, there's slash fiction I don't want to know about!]

Well, maybe not those two characters, but certainly it's Hugh Jackman versus Christopher Bale, as two magicians who snipe at each other after one of them leads to the death of the wife of the other. (And, while watching it, it is pretty clear what those circumstances were.) The back and forth goes on, as they try to one-up each other magically, finally leading to the greatest trick of all of going in one door and out the other.

(To be honest, it wasn't that hard to work out what was going on. Certainly, I picked up on it pretty early on, and far before the final "reveal" which told me nothing new.)

The problem I had with this movie was that neither of the two leads were likable, so I wasn't rooting for one of them to win out over the other. The movie gets pretty obvious as to who the hero is supposed to be by the end, but I'm not accepting it. Frankly both men got their hands dirty, so there is definitely no moral ground to be had, and it's only because of one of them having a familial connection that we are meant to take that connection as the win.

In all, the movie takes far too long to get to the big revelation, which the audience is already ahead of, and the ending leaves a bad taste in the mouth anyway. Watch with caution.

[END]

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Sunday 6 December 2009

Would I Lie To You?

A world where no-one lies does give rise to some interesting possibilities. We do get a lot of social interactions which are amusing as people spend most of their time with facial observations, but it's really typified by the television. Ads are truthful, but there are no programs which are not documentaries, most of which are presented by someone reading the information (as there can be no actors pretending to be people they are not).

But I do wonder how humanity could have reached basically the present age like that. Mating rituals can't have developed into dating, and people know immediately if there is a chance or not, and given the number of arguments people get into anyway when the truth is involved, people would have to have been far more forgiving that given here.

However, given this world, we get the one chap who can lie. ("Invention"? Or "discovery"? Or "development"? Or "The genetic aberration that leads to the ability"... but that one might be a bit long.) What we get is, given this is only a 90 minute movie, some quick indications of what might happen. More interesting television for one. And more social lubricant along the lines of platitudes... which leads to a different take on religion.

Ultimately, this is still a movie that is a romantic comedy, so we have to see the two leads get together. However, there is a huge flaw with this movie, in that "truthness" is associated with "stupidity", and so the only rounded character is Mark (Ricky Gervais) and everyone else seems like a moron, including the lead Anna (Jennifer Garner), so that anyone would want to be with her other than for physical reasons (and the truth talking people do indicate that is the only reason to want her) is an ask too much. Thus, the basic template falls.

Ricky Gervais movies tend to be a bit of a struggle to get into, and while they can be enjoyed superficially, there is a lack of ultimate depth. This one is no exception.

[END]

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Friday 4 December 2009

Target Australia: 2025

Have you seen the work the Taskforce 2025 has come up with? They are looking at closing the GDP gap between us and Australia (ranking wise) by the year 2025.

They have a number of recommendations, which can be found in summary in their Summary Report. The basic idea is: less taxes, but commensurately less spending by the Government.

Highlights include:

* Cuts to health, including cuts to subsidizing doctor visits and prescription drugs.
* Cuts to subsides in education.
* Pushing out New Zealand Superannuation.

* All tax rates (personal, company, trust) to 20%.

* Government to sell off services if they are in a competitive market.

* The 90 Day probationary period for new employees to be pushed out to 12 months.

Really? This might be what we need to do, but is this a good thing from the "average Joe" perspective? More costs to education and doctors. More chance for the private sector to price hike. More chance for the private sector to use disposable people...

To be honest, if some of these are implemented, I'm thinking "political suicide". But take a look at the documents and decide for yourselves.

[END]

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Wednesday 2 December 2009

Imagine Doctor Parnassus

Big fan of Terry Gilliam, so definitely had to check out his latest pic. Love Brazil, but have to admit not much love for The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen. And, unfortunately, this movie is more the latter than the former.

The concept of the movie is that the Master came to Logopolis and silenced all the Logopolitans. (Seriously, this is totally the same plot.) In this case, the Monitor goes on to have many rematches against the Master, and finally ends up with a kid that he makes a final bargain over to save her from him (much like Nyssa!). The bet involves creating Block Transfer Computation realities and seeing if people can see their way through the recursive occlusions. Or something like that.

Christopher Plummer spends a lot of time hidden behind his false beard, Andrew Garfield hasn't heard of subtlety, Verne Troyer has fun, Lily Cole has a rather thankless role to act, but Tom Waits steals every scene (even ones he's not in!).

Okay, let's talk Heath Ledger. Not that impressed by his performance, prefer his previous role. And as for the other Heath Ledgers, Johnny Depp is good, Colin Firth is all right, but Jude Law is the least Heath Ledger of them all.

But what we really want to see are gloriously hugely imagined set pieces, and the movie takes far too long to get there and doesn't have enough of them. Frankly, I want more Gilliam here, but don't think I got enough.

Definitely have to see this on the big screen, but I'm not going to rate this as the best Gilliam movie ever. (That's stil Brazil.)

[END]

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Tuesday 1 December 2009

That Was It

Work was over, it was cheap, had a good review, so I popped by the cinema to check out the last ever Michael Jackson work This is It.

And this is as close as I'll ever get to an MJ concert. Basically, it is the rehearsal footage, edited together with the filmed sequences, to replicate a filmed concert experience of the intended concert. In that regards, it works. It also has scattered about various brief clips of the various performers saying how excited they are to be working with MJ.

Say what you like (and his nose did keep distracting me), the man knew how to put on a concert. And had a lot of energy, keeping up with various other performer who were likely half his age. (That said, he's not the only 50 something putting on concerts with younger dancers.)

It would definitely have been an impressive performance, with various classic pieces, including a tribute to the Jackson 5, and a nice slowed down remix of "The Way You Make Me Feel".

If you like MJ, or at least don't mind him, or want to see a concert come together, this is an entertaining way to spend two hours.

[END]

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