First Season Filmic Frippery

2003-11-30T15:24:00.000Z

If you're at a loose end, you could do much worse things with your free net time than to check out a fledgling bloggist and work colleague of mine, Andrew, over at his new site, which you'll find HERE...

Why not give a newbie at this whole digital publishing lark a fair read, huh?

2003-11-27T15:49:00.000Z

Hey, long time, no post.

I've been busy these past few months, what with being hired full-time by my mystery employers and spending many of my waking hours learning just how to do my job. I'm not too sure that I've actually worked my way up to having an actual inkling about how to do it, but I'm fairly sure that I might have a glimmer of a hint of a clue sometime soon. Which will be nice.

I have seen movies as well, naturally.

"The Matrix Revolutions" seems to have divided a lot of you. And that's fair enough. A lot of people seemed pissed-off by the lack of answers provided by The Brothers Wachowski - I suspect that many amongst you may well feel that they didn't quite have the all-seeing, all-knowing grasp over the world of Zion that has been professed and that the Wachowski's well-documented enigmatic is but a mask disguising a pair of Neo-come-lately charlatans pulling plot developments straight out of their not inconsiderable bottoms. These folks are, but of course, entitled to their opinions.

For my part, I enjoyed the movie. A heck of a lot, in fact. But I would have to agree with my lovely, talented and beautiful wife, the Righteously Enigmatic K., that "...Revolutions" doesn't always feel like another entry in the series. I don't know exactly what it does feel like, but it doesn't feel terribly like another kung fu-mungous epistle from the Last Free City.

The effects are still good, sometimes fantastic and are often fine enough to slip by you entirely - there's a bit of digital doubling in the opening Club Hell gunfight-on-the-ceiling which was fairly bloody nifty and nigh-on seamless.

The action doesn't exactly have a tendency to batter you into submission by being excessive and instead arrives just when you start shifting in your seat a bit, and begin wondering if this second sequel is going to consist largely of cool, non-sequitur homages to the likes of "Tetsuo" and memorable splash-panels/individual frames from Larry and Andy's favourite Manga series.

Y'know, stuff designed to appeal to the brothers themselves and maybe 5% of the larger, paying audience for this film.

Is this the problem at hand, perhaps? The Wachowskis may just have succeeded in securing the best part of $300 million from their hapless studio of choice and shortly thereafter set out to make a profoundly geeky, oddly personal and ultimately unashamedly culty trilogy that somehow managed to fluke its way into prominence in a way that Alex Proyas' slightly similar "Dark City" never quite did.

Is "The Matrix Revolutions" a wee bit pretentious? Sure it is, probably maddeningly so to most, but, for once, I hardly think that this a bad thing. One person's provocative act of smart alec pretension is another's life-redefining work of art and thought, after all, and might well be described as a flick which encourages discussions and diversions, and philosophical flights of fancy which carry on and resonate long after the movie ends.

It's a kung-fu/SF actioner to most, but to me it's something more. It's a bunch of riddles which beget yet more enigmas which in turn produce a new bunch of ideas to puzzle over. It's a movie series that I'll be going back to again and again in an effort to try and decode The Great Meaning Of It All. Not everybody will do that or even countenance the point of doing so. That's fine. I just enjoy the idea of feeling the resonances and breaking the codes that the Wachowski's have woven through what is surely their magnum opus.

I didn't have the same reaction to "2 Fast 2 Furious", you'll be surprised to learn...

2003-09-22T18:20:00.000Z

Anybody up for some more One-Line Movie Reviews?

"The only frightening thing about 'Underworld' is the level of stomach-punchingly low Bass in the soundtrack - but it's still plenty o' pseudo-goth fun".

"'Le Divorce' is almost grounds for leaving anyone who takes you to see it and certainly begs the question of why anybody sane would subject themselves to a Merchant/Ivory film if they had other options."

"'Spirited Away' is one of the finest movies that you'll see all year - and that even applies to the unusually carefully-dubbed US version."

"'Belleville Rendez-Vous' is the kind of once-in-a-lifetime, skewed animation that defies adequate summary but demands your attention at any cinema playing it."

"'The Sin Eater'(aka 'The Order') is a head-spinningly unlikely follow-up to "A Knight's Tale", from director Brian Helgeland, which chiefly makes me wonder just how badly beaten by the Penguins he must have been as a child to grow up and subsequently craft such a resounding convincing, oft-scary and enthusiastically Catholic-baiting anti-romp like this crazed Heath Ledger vehicle-cum-failed Anne Rice saga."

"'The Italian Job' certainly isn't up to the task of defining a whole genre of crime flicks in the way that the 60's original did, but it is a fun, engaging and crucially Seth Green-centric blast which should leave you with a grin on your face if you can get over the Michael Caine thing for five minutes."

"'Blackball' concerns itself mainly with the uniquely British pastime of Crown Green Bowls. And, happily, also with the glorious sight of The Greatest Living Englishman, Johnny Vegas, ranting, swearing and appearing at all times gloriously dissolute. Do you really need any more reason to hand over the cash at the multiplex box office and pay for your ticket?"

More nonsensical piffle, as and when.

2003-09-08T18:47:00.000Z

Man, it's going to be a busy week at the flicks.

By the time that I go to see the new Brit flick, "BlackBall" tomorrow night, I believe firmly that I may well have wrapped my head around the plotting contortions and reversals so cheerfully served up on Saturday afternoon by a viewing of "Cube" director Vincent Natali's latest SF lobe-punisher, "Cypher"(which can best be described as "The Matrix 2.0", only remade for people who wouldn't be seen dead going to see the zany, wire-abetted adventures of Neo and his happy band of goth club kids).

And by the time that I've recovered from the excesses and disgraceful behaviour contained within director Mel Smith's newie "BlackBall", a home-grown Brit-com/gross-out sports satire, I will be well-placed to curtail my work day and dash back into and across Sheffield on Wednesday afternoon, to take in an advanced screening of F. Gary Gray's "The Italian Job" remake.

I fully anticipate much bitching from a partisan crowd up to dismiss this rehash of a much-beloved Brit-flick, but as I'm going to check out Seth Green and Mos Def's scene-stealing moves, I remain fairly sure that I might well enjoy the noisy, heisty nonsense up on screen (though, is it just me or does it appear that the makers of this version have replaced the for-real, devil-may-care car stunts of the original with slick, edited-to-within-an-inch-of-their-lives, ever-so-slightly unconvincing CG-assisted action sequences?).

And, to cap it all, this Friday sees the infuriatingly-belated, yet absolutely welcome British release of Miyazaki's "Spirited Away", which I can't bloody wait to see. Expect a load of hypebolic, over-the-top-praise just as soon as I can sit down at a computer and funnel it out in your direction.

2003-08-23T14:04:00.000Z

Just a post from Scarborough and the old Cyberia stomping ground - K. and I have gone to spend the August bank holiday with my Mum and to touch base with some old friends and relatives alike, so I thought that I would share with you some revelations:

1) "Terminator 3" is beyond being dross. We're talking pure, dire boredom on an epic level, apart from the last five minutes, which are fantastic.

2) "Tomb Raider 2" isn't that bad. It's better than the first movie, in fact. Angelina should get another shot at this gig, I think. And, to think, I had vowed never to see another movie directed by Jan De Bont after the fiasco that was "The Haunting"...

3) My work contract has been extended further and I should be gainfully employed for a wee bit longer (Next March, to be precise), which should help me if I have to look around for another job. I hope that I won't, but nothing's for certain in the employment market these days, I think you'll agree.

4) Does anybody have an idea about how I can persuade my wife to come to the cinema with me to see "Freddy versus Jason"? She hates goofy slasher flicks - I love 'em: It's a whole 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus'-style paradigm and no mistake.

2003-08-07T13:37:00.000Z

So, as previously noted, your correspendent is presently enjoying a fine holiday on Arran with his excellent missus, the Righteous K., his equally sterling mother-in-law, Mrs Righteous K., family friends, the E2duopoly and the most clearly insane non-retriever-style blonde poochie in the known cosmos, Miss Ella Fluffington-Dementieva.

Things have been just peachy, with Arran enjoying a heatwave roughly commensurate to that enjoyed by the rest of the UK and the continent of Europe (which is to say that the daily heat on this bucolic Scottish isle is just slightly less than that of your average bakery kitchen in the midst of rush hour). And, with the heat, of course, comes the scary spectre of the Ugly Tourist, who brings with him pasty-white legs, a paunch with apparent sentient life of it's own and children so astonishingly badly-behaved that the casual observer can barely believe that they are not under 24-hour armed-guard, let alone a full supervision order.

I've tried not to be an Ugly Tourist, of course - I don't wish to be the kind of thoughtless lummox who steamrollers with his party into local shops and expects the poor, servile wretches behind the counter to enthusitically dance to his beck-and-call, chucking a few crumpled notes over the counter in the manner of a God-King bestowing favour on the unwashed.

I do, however, notice that many of my fellow travellers are not quite as considerate. To put it bluntly, many of the people "enjoying" their Arran break are something short of being complete assholes. These are the kind of tour-cycling dunderheads that you find yourself praying to find in a ditch, further up one of the island's many hilly, winding roads, having tried to execute a flashy, mid-hillock gear change and gone for a burton over the handlebars. I try to content myself with the notion that they've certainly lost their "no-damage" deposit...

Other things to tell you about?

1) Aromatherapy is ace. I encountered it for the first time on Monday afternoon and I'm a convert. It's like being a big, floaty, rainforesty cocoon of chilledness and you should stop reading this crap right now and go and have your extremities worked on. I somehow managed to walk back to our lodge afterwards, but did so replete with a carrier bag full of comfort food and no memory of how I acquired it. Come to the Auchrannie resort on Arran and ask for Marianne. Mention Mrs Righteous K. You'll be so glad that you did.

2) I am typing this piffle downweighed by numerous bangles, bracelets and Nepalese thinga-majigs, which I bought on the island's fine "Arran Asia" store, which is full of the kinds of colourful, vaguely ethnic gubbins beloved of the travelling, lentil-sniffing "Grauniad"-reading set. As such, it's not the kind of place that a card-carrying Jerry Bruckheimer fan would be seen reincarnated in, but those bangles, man - they're super-nifty and no mistake.

More epistles as and when...

2003-08-01T18:43:00.000Z

I'm back again, just in time to tell you that I'm going away on holiday.

We're packing up anew and heading off to Arran, that most charming of Scottish isles, for a week of rest, relaxation and mad doggie chasing. I have been persuaded to get in touch with my feminine side and enjoy an aromatherapy session on Tuesday, which should be of some comic value if nothing else, and will be having a good old go at getting some swimming lessons and indoor pool time to supplant the Monday evening lessons which I've been having here in Sheffield.

Perversely enough? I may be able to blog a bit more up on Arran, as the place that we stay at has leisure facilities, with a broadband PC suite and super-cheap 'net access.

Stay tuned, and all that...

2003-07-17T18:40:00.000Z

One-line movie reviews (It saves space, don't you know?)

'Ghosts of the Abyss' is "IMAX-cculate in it's 3-Diculousness". Whereas 'Charlie's Angels - Full Throttle' is "A near-religious experience for anybody wholly obsessed with Cameron, Lucy and Drew's bottular regions". Which is all very good, but scarcely as universal a truth as the fact that Ang Lee's 'Hulk' is a "Fairly schizophrenic comglomeration of arthouse emotional cartwheeling and summer action flick, property-damaging stupidity (with the most insane performance from Nick Nolte you'll ever see, short of a night on the tiles with him)".

I don't believe that I've ever seen quite so many disappointed twelve-year-olds exiting a movie screening in my life, as I did when we saw "Hulk" last Saturday afternoon. I mean, if you hire Ang Lee then I guess that you expect to get something a bit different and perhaps not the undoubtedly brave, $100 million plus hybrid Greek tragedy/theatrical chamber drama with occasional tank-throwing set-pieces and mutant poodle onslaughts which Mr. Lee has delivered to a largely baffled movie-going audience.

It's ironic that the people who are potentially really going to enjoy "Hulk" - Ang Lee's general crowd of 'Film Comment' readers and 'Sight and Sound' subscribers - arguably wouldn't be seen dead in the general vicinity of the movieplexes presently screening this agreeably demented blockbuster.

I'm not sure that I enjoyed it, but it's a bloody interesting summer movie. I await Jane Campion's doubtless-in-the-works "Avengers" movie with what I can only describe as baited breath...

2003-07-12T15:51:00.000Z

June 20th was the last time that I posted anything on this very blog and that's obviously way too long to be leaving between posts - As an enthusiastic proponent, nay, booster of this fine medium, it clearly behooves me to get with the programme and start posting the kind of exciting content which drew readers here in their tens in the first place.

Well, that's the plan, anyway.

The thing is, I've started a new job, which takes up a whole chunk of my time and doesn't allow me to have access to the 'Net at work - One of the only problems with my new status as a gainfully employed civil servant is that my employers would quite like me to show up and do actual, honest-to-God toil as a proviso of my receiving a regular cheque. They have this whole thing about not using the InterSuperHighwayNetWeb for my own, evil, horrendously nefarious reasons. Ain't that just the kicker?

Accordingly, no easy net access (I am still sans PC, regrettably) and I'm going to have to fit in the blogging as and when I can. So updates may be sporadic for a little while. As you may have already noticed.

Saving up for a PC is, then, one of the things that I'm focussing on and I'll let you know how that's going.

Because, damn it, I need to own one of these computery-type things - they're all the rage and then some...

2003-06-20T09:40:00.000Z

After a few weeks of stalling, and just plain not bothering with it (in the ludicrous belief that I could come up with half-decent content on my own), it's that Friday Five time again....

1. Is your hair naturally curly, wavy, or straight? Long or short?
I am, worse luck, somewhat cursed by unruly, oft-absurdly surreal curly locks, which have frequently been a source of much chagrin. What I'd give for manageable mane of lank, straight, Dave Grohl-esque hair...

2. How has your hair changed over your lifetime?
When I was younger, my hair was much lighter and straighter than it is now. It was almost blonde at one point. Now, I have a darker brown colour atop my bonce, which is wholly natural and which assumed my late father's curly influence in mid-puberty.

3. How do your normally wear your hair?
I normally cut it quite short, so as it make it easier to deal with - if I have my hair shaved to a grade two or so, then I don't have to waste valuable pico-seconds styling or otherwise fussing around with the damn stuff. Ergo, not many bad hair days, which is entirely a bonus.

4. If you could change your hair this minute, what would it look like?
What the hell, I'd go for a sensible, office-friendly, Thomas Anderson-esque barnet (I'm starting a new job on Monday morning and only mildly worrying about how I will be expected to appear, and what constitutes a 'professional' look). Of course, it's all just so I can fit in and perform my task of bringing the company down from the inside without raising undue suspicions...;) Note to my new employers, if they happen to read this: I AM JOKING...

5. Ever had a hair disaster? What happened?
Just prior to the last time that I got my hair cut, Righteous K. and I were at a writing group which we attend and Sean, the husband of Diane who organises said literary gathering (Translation, we drink beverages of differing alcoholic bents and diss movies instead of presenting our new works), commented that I was clearly going for a Wolverine-ish look, if my hirsute sideburns were any indication.

If I'm being ruthlessly honest, they're beginning to look a bit bloody Logan-esque as I type these words...

2003-06-20T09:19:00.000Z

Click here for some Painfully funny "Matrix Reloaded" parody goodness/badness, with props to the man like Darth Phil for the linking heads-up.

Though I am quite the goonsome, Wachowski apologist, I confess to laughing like a very drain at the painfully accurate skewering of their more absurd diversions and silliness.

And, if you're not going over to Phil's site on a daily basis, why bloody not?

2003-06-19T14:55:00.000Z

Here's a news story for any fans out there of good, old-fashioned showmanship and William Castle-style flim-flammery.

With thanks to the good people at Empire Online for the heads-up.

2003-06-18T11:28:00.000Z

It's been so long since I talked about a movie that I've been to see which wasn't "The Matrix Reloaded", that I thought it might be pertinent to point you in the direction of Steven Shainberg's filmic realisation of Mary Gaitskill's short story, the very thought-provoking, blackly comic drama, "Secretary" (18).

Maggie Gyllenhaal is the eponymous heroine, Lee, a fragile soul given to acts of self-harm, and recently released from a stay at a clinic, which has been singularly unsuccessful in trying to disavow her of her desire to cut, burn and scar her body (a compulsion made ever so slightly worse by her wretched home life with an alcoholic father and a fairly out-of-it mother).

Things change radically in Lee's life when she takes and aces a secretarial course and lands a job with E. Edward Gray, a fairly muted, apparently completely unemotional and decidedly off-kilter lawyer (played with characteristic excellence by the eternally undervalued James Spader). He's a dull, blank and impossible-to-know figure, who lurks in the background of Lee's life until he one day happens to glimpse some of his secretary's well-hidden scars and finds his darker impulses beginning to surface anew.

There has been some controversy surrounding this film, and it's mostly been directed at the way in which the character of Lee enters enthusiastically into a sado-masochistic relationship, and seemingly becomes a willing participant in the humiliations and degredations meted out to her by her boss, and the disquieting way in which Lee falls passionately in love with a man who can only express himself by doling out punishment and pain.

I can see the point in that line of viewing the movie, but there is more to it than that - this is a movie which carefully pulls the rug out from under you and manages to defy most of your expectations in the way that it depicts the extremes of relationships and sexuality between men and women.

It's not really giving anything away to tell you, for example, that the person who seems to be in charge ultimately isn't, and that the character who begins the film in a somewhat parlous state of being finds transcendence and fulfillment in a relationship which certainly doesn't resemble a conventional depiction of mutual happiness and contentment (except, in a weird way, it does...).

Maggie Gyllenhaal is fantastic, and almost impossible to take your eyes off, commanding the screen with an expressive, oddly malleable face - sometimes she's very ordinary and quite downtrodden and then abruptly finds a way to convey the beauty and fire beneath her initially placid, slightly blank exterior. Her performance in this film is something of a chameleon-like affair, shedding layers of personality as her character becomes somebody new and different - funny one second, on the brink of brittle destruction the next.

Spader's grand, too, embodying the yuppie everydrone that he epitomised in the mid-to-late 80's and early 90's and finding a way to put a darker spin on the guy you pass in the street and barely manage to register - some of the things that he does in the film raised my liberal wussy-boy heckles more than a little bit, but he still managed somehow to be sympathetic. Neat trick.

If I have an objection to the film, it's that Shainberg's direction lays on the surreal indie cred a little too thick at times - Grey's office is a riot of clashing reds and browns and gaudy, tacky 1970s textures, suggesting that the production designer went to town to create a workplace that screams "Grey's Workplace is a Fantasia of Potential S&M Menace!" and was never asked to dial it down just a tad. The music score, too, is positively invasive at times, never pausing for a second in it's mission to remind you how ironic and kitsch it really jolly well is: It's the musical equivalent of the office bore telling you just how wild and crazy he can be. I'm not asking for Bob Redford levels of clear-hearted sincerity, but a bit less forced smirking lounge tuneage would be nice.

This is certainly a movie which will make you think and question the extent to which Lee and Grey's relationship is positive and healthy, but the movie doesn't really seek to judge them - the conclusion seemingly drawn and depicted is that love is where you find it, and it's never where you might expect it to be. It's not a new idea, but in this case, I can't help but feel that it's more or less on the money.

2003-06-17T10:03:00.000Z

Click here for some possibly very cool H2GG/Douglas Adams movie news

2003-06-11T08:22:00.000Z

After meaning to do so for a few weeks, I thought that I'd post a link to Ben's Loquacious Blog, which always makes me smile and usually cheers me up.

Funny, true stuff and well worth a look-see, if you have a few minutes to spare (The link above is a link to one of those 'Permalink' doohickies - you'll find a link to his main site there, too...).

2003-06-10T12:13:00.000Z

In other news, we decided to take Sunday morning away from our troubles and went to UGC to check out a sparsely-attended 11:00am screening of the new Jack Nicholson/ Adam Sandler comedy, "Anger Management", mostly because we felt the need to take in something dumb, funny and sufficiently transportive from our present minor-key woes.

I won't lie to you and say that this is a film which sticks in the memory for anything more than ten seconds after you exit the theatre, but it's a reasonably diverting romp, which never quite lives up the bad-taste promise of the opening scene and spends way too much time expending energy on making Adam Sandler look like a nice guy beset the vague cruelties of an uncaringly harsh universe. We all know that Adam can do nice (we still love "The Wedding Singer" in our house) but we'd quite like to see him cut loose and do something along the lines of the glorious "Happy Gilmore" again - nobody harnesses the comedic potential of boiling-over fury and borderline rage like Sandler can (I know, I know - "Punch-Drunk Love" was a work of genius, too, but its not exactly a laugh-out-loud yuk-fest, is it?).

Now that he's a bona-fide movie star, though, he seems content to fall back on pleasant, time-wasting, leading-man fluff like "Anger Management", and even play more-or-less straight man to Jack Nicholson, whose work here is fine but seems a wee bit restrained and somewhat on a leash (Surely he's in this movie solely to get a solid, home-run, box-office hit?). A comedy with two straight-men? That's a construct for dissatisfaction in anyone's book...but there's enough funny stuff in this flick to send you outwards with the ghost of a smile on your face.

Cue your Blogsmith and his wife driving to the supermarket after the movie, singing a very personal and intriguingly-keyed version of the "West Side Story" standard "I Feel Pretty" after it's setpiece reprisal in the film and wondering why more movies haven't yet chosen to utilise the comic stylings of the great John C. Reilly, whose cameo in "Anger Management" is something of a miniature joy.

It's probably worth a rental when it arrives on video, and I'll probably be buying it because of my irrational Sandler fandom, but I don't think that you'll be missing a comic gem for the ages if you skip this during it's cinema run...

2003-06-10T12:01:00.000Z

The Righteous K.and your Blogsmith were back to reality with a bump on Saturday evening, as our plans to max and relax the night away were abruptly curtailed by some seriously truculent plumbing in the basement of our house.

Simply described, at around 6:30 on Saturday night, I was sure that I could hear the sound of consistantly running water in the house - it was loudest in the living room, but it took me forever to have the presence of mind to go and have a look-see below and try and identify the problem. After conferring with my wiser and smarter spouse, I went below decks and promptly had a near Level Ten panic attack when I saw that the floor was liberally pooling with water from a leak in a pipe on the wall above.

Lacking the tools and know-how to do any fixing ourselves, we promptly shut off the water supply beneath the sink to head-off any further flooding and made-do for the next 36 hours or so without the luxuries of showering, washing dishes and generally living like a civilised being in the early 21st Century. Thank God that our friends Richard and Julie have just finished up a major renovation/extension project at their home and were able to give us the contact details for a top, very helpful plumber, who came out yesterday and got us back into some semblance of order.

You don't realise just how much you thoughtlessly depend on stuff like plumbing until it vamooses out of your day-to-day life...

2003-06-06T08:15:00.000Z

Face it - you had an inkling about this, didn't you?

You are Neo, from "The Matrix." You
display a perfect fusion of heroism and
compassion.

What Matrix Persona Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

2003-06-06T08:04:00.000Z

Yet still more intriguing Matrix stuff, from the fascinating The Matrix. Talkinbout.us blog, which is well worth your time if you were thrilled, bamboozled or otherwise engaged by "...Reloaded" (With thanks to Matrix Essays for the heads-up).

2003-06-06T07:54:00.000Z

A link for PS2 fans everywhere...

2003-06-03T09:39:00.000Z

Just a note to say that Righteous K., my Mother-In-Law, the redoubtable Mrs Righteous K. and your humble blogsmith attended another spiffy secret preview screening at our local UGC UltraPlex on Monday evening, and after much head-scratching as to the title of the pic that we were to appraise for the benefit of our fellow consumers, enjoyed the ludicrously overwrought, moderately upscale John Cusack/Ray Liotta slash-'em-up, "Identity"
(The purpose of these advanced screenings for holders of UGC's excellent "Unlimited" cards is to recommend films to fellow movie geeks, on the basis, I suppose, that punters are more likely to believe the word of their fellow, fee-paying brethren than the opinions of paid, professional critics...).

I'll try and return with a fuller review soon, but it has a twist-in-the-tale which will either (A) prompt you to hunt down director James Mangold and give him a smart cuffing around the ears for helming such preposterous bobbins or (B) have you really enjoying the experience, but being acutely aware that this is nothing more than an early 80s slice-and-dice fest with arguably better actors and a slightly bigger budget to fabricate decapitated heads with.

To be honest, I prefer my horror flicks to be not as pretentious and a lot less self-regarding than "Identity" ultimately was.

Jeez, at least "Jason X" is supposed to be funny

2003-05-31T11:54:00.000Z

Once more with feeling, it's the luvverly, one-day-late Friday Five!!!

1. What do you most want to be remembered for?

Creating a half-decent, one-hour TV show which enraptured a hardcore of like-minded nerdy boys and geek grrls, and provided them with escapist fun for at least one part of their viewing week. And penning an SF flick which won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar would be kind of neat, too.

2. What quotation best fits your outlook on life?

"Free your mind" - Morpheus (via Larry and Andy Wachowski).

3. What single achievement are you most proud of in the past year?

Sending off that penpal ad to "SFX" magazine.

4. What about the past ten years?

See answer number three. Or the first time that I successfully hooked up my Sony Home Cinema reciever and subjected my neighbours to a DVD compilation mix of James Cameron's Dolby Digital and Dts explosions...(They were as terrible a neighbour as you could hope to find, and deserved every minute of it).

5. If you were asked to give a child a single piece of advice to guide them through life, what would you say?

Trust your instincts, be nice to other people (even when they don't deserve it) and listen to people when they suggest that working hard at school is ultimately for your own benefit. It doesn't matter if you don't like the environment that you're being educated in, or the people who purport to teach you: See the bigger picture and realise that what you get out of your learning years is vastly more important than pursuing spurious notions of surly adolescent cool and slacking off. The impact on your life of education is impossible to quantify until you have the benefit of that knowledge which you have acquired. Aspire to learn and put that learning to good use, for your own good and for the good of those around you.

That qualifies as one piece of advice, right?

2003-05-24T11:20:00.000Z

And for those of you wondering what I made of "The Matrix Reloaded", I'm going to be wholly predictable and tell you that I loved the goddamned thing to death.

As a sequel, it's up there with the best that genre filmmaking has to offer - "The Empire Strikes Back", "Aliens", "Blade 2" - and as a part of an ongoing trilogy, it manages to expand on the themes of the original flick, whilst delivering thrilling new stuff which very nearly caused me to have a cerebral meltdown (Sweet Muscular Jesus, the resolution of the freeway chase almost killed me). And lots of lovely Don Davis's sterling scoring to warm my heartular cockles, too.

I can't wait to see how the Wachowski's wrap all this up in November's "Matrix Revolutions" and resolve that those evil cliffhangers...

More after I see it again and acquire the ability to process what I saw into my mushy-minded brand of verbiage.

2003-05-24T11:12:00.000Z

FRIDAY FIVE!!!

1. What brand of toothpaste do you use?

Now, there's a question that I can get excited about...I use that Theramed stuff which purports to be a combined toothpaste and mouthwashy all-in-one mouthcare solution. It has an intriguingly chemical, clean aftertaste, which is both soothing and slightly unnerving, all at once.

2. What brand of toilet paper do you prefer?

I'll be absolutely honest with you and say that I could give a flying frig about the brand of toilet paper used in our house. It's one of those things which has never so much as crossed my mind.

3. What brand(s) of shoes do you wear?

Having size 14 feet means that it's more a question of which brand of shoe actually makes footwear in your size. I tend to wear Vans a lot, because I love their shoes and because it's easy to obtain them. In Sheffield, happily, we have a store which sells clothing for tall blokes and they stock a reasonable selection of footgear, including Merrell, whose stuff I also kind of dig.

4. What brand of soda do you drink?

Much to the Righteous K.'s chagrin, I prefer Coke to Pepsi. But my favourite beverage is Ginger Beer, which always hits the spot - There's a company who sell their iteration of this drink as being "Jamaican Ginger Beer", and that's the one that I like. Don't ask me to tell you the manufacturer, though.

5. What brand of gum do you chew?

Airwaves, in as many tingly flavours as I can.

2003-05-20T08:21:00.000Z

You're Geek Chic. Offbeat and with a thumbful of
calluses, you spend most of your time catching
Simpsons reruns and sucking down raspberry
Jell-O. However, you're still a hipster,
you've still got your own style, and you
probably dig the Velvet Underground's "Who
Loves the Sun?"

What Kind of Hipster Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

With thanks to Quizilla for the code and the ever-splendid Jeff at Film Cradle for the heads-up....

2003-05-17T10:11:00.000Z

Back my popular demand ( well Paul the Postman seemed to like my last post) I thought I'd have another go at the Friday Five, however, because I'm a day late it has become the Saturday Six:

1. What drinking water do you prefer -- tap, bottle, purifier, etc.?
What can I say I'm a cheapskate, I like my water straight from the tap; but then the water here in Sheffield does actually taste pretty good.

2. What are your favorite flavor of chips?
Being the semi-vegetarian that I am, my favourite flavour of crips (sic) is "Smokey Bacon". But that is near the secure knowledge that the crisps have not been anywhere remotely near a pig.

3. Of all the things you can cook, what dish do you like the most?
One thing I do love is Double Chocolate Cheesecake. It's easy to make (although my lovely hubsand did wonder why I'd go to all that trouble, that was until he tasted it) and it tastes bloody wonderful, even if I do say so myself.
Mind you usually the best food of all is what somebody else has made, just because you haven't had the trouble of making it. My darling Pat making breakfast for me is just the best thing ever.

4. How do you have your eggs?
Eggs are just great, how are you meant to pick only one styling. I do like them scrambled, poached, even boiled; I can make a mean omlette but I really don't like them. But the best way to eat an egg is in a fried egg sandwich with mushrooms and HP sauce. I'm starting to drool just thinking about it. (And I'm making my husband sick in the process - he does not like the fried egg.)

5. Who was the last person who cooked you a meal? How did it turn out?
The last time I had a meal cooked for me, rather than cooking it myself was two weeks ago. My Mum cooked us Sunday lunch when we'd just got back from being spoiled by Pat's Mum in Scarborough. We had roast chicken, with potatoes, stuffing and two veg, followed by Cadbury's Chocolate Trifle and it was great. And just to top off the afternoon we then all went to see "X2", now that's a way to spend a Sunday.

6. What unusual food stuffs are found only in your city?Henderson's Relish - it's a bit like Worcestershire Sauce, but not. Apparently it's a must on Meat and Potato Pie, not that I would know, but my Mum adds it to her Spaghetti Bolognese, which is why its so much better than mine.

2003-05-16T10:06:00.000Z

Man, Carrington Vanston's MOVIE PUNKS is funny...

2003-05-16T09:45:00.000Z

Somewhat earlier than is usual, and with a rewarding lack of ceremonial frippery, it's FRIDAY FIVE time again!

1. What drinking water do you prefer -- tap, bottle, purifier, etc.?
Though I have been known to pay through the nose for a bottle of fancy-schmancy bottled water, sometimes just to prove that I can afford to spare the exhorbitant shekels required for the assumed social kudos that such profligate cash-splashing affords, I tend to just keep it prole and load up my previously-purchased bottle of pseudo-spa water with that from the tap. I doubt that onlookers, or those rare people who share my drink are that much the wiser. Or that they even care.

2. What are your favourite flavor of chips?
Simple. I love those chips - 'crisps' to those of us blogging in the UK - made by a company who package their line of edibles in a lovely cardboard tube. Any flavour will do, as they've stopped selling my favourites, which were cheese or the ridged, ready-salted ones. Nowadays, I go for the 'cream cheese and chives' variety, or the 'Texan Bar B-Q'.

It's true what they say about those crisps - "Once you pop, you can't stop..."

3. Of all the things you can cook, what dish do you like the most?
I'm fairly pathetic in the kitchen, but I like to occasionally make Chilli, and I at least try to participate in the preparation of meals if I can, or if my wife needs me to. She loves to cook. And she's excellent at it. My kitchen skillset is predominantly the subsequent washing-up of the pots and pans, and I'm damned good at it.

4. How do you have your eggs?

Scrambled, on white toast, with turkey rashers, mushrooms and baked beans, whilst watching "The PowerPuff Girls" on Cartoon Network, or something on Discovery Home & Leisure. Is that too specific?

5. Who was the last person who cooked you a meal? How did it turn out?
My wife, early yesterday evening, when we had Chilli and rice. It was lovely, as always. We may have freaked out my wife's dog, Ella, who was most peturbed that we were not including her in this lovely repaste (She had just had her tea, as I recall, but Ella's memory of when she's just eaten is not that fabulous...).

2003-05-16T08:12:00.000Z

Courtesy of your actual Darth Phil, I present a link to possibly the most nerve-grindingly frustrating online gaming experience you'll have encountered for a long while. Don't play this at work on your PC or the damn thing will be going out of the window in two minutes flat.

It's worse, even, Oh Lovely, Wholly Righteous K., than the unremitting, neo-Satanic difficulty of MTV's digital telly game, "Mugshot Mania", which was apparently created by somebody who didn't get enough hugs as a child and felt the need to take out their loss on the world by crafting a fiendishly tricky platformer precisely designed to mess with your mind, make you question your sanity and generally weep out loud in frustration as you try to avoid guards, regain the scattered bits of your camera phone and generally escape the cruelly indifferent bad guys, sub-Miyamoto style.

If you have Sky Digital, press the red button on Channel 440 and book an appointment with a good hair-replacement clinic for immediately afterwards - you'll be needing their skills to replace the follicles you've ripped out whilst playing this game.

2003-05-14T11:18:00.000Z

I'm not quite nervous yet, but the reviews that I've read to date for "The Matrix Reloaded" seem downright muted, if not quite hostile.

A repeated note in many published critiques appears to be a sense of disappointment that the movie doesn't exactly live up to the impact of the original 1999 installment, that the action in the picture exists solely to look cool and never once moves the story forward, that much of the plot is driven onwards by the use/overuse of ponderously-extended monologue and extensive, lengthy philosophical discourses on the nature of choice, the responsibilities which subsequently follow the act and lots of other stuff guaranteed to get psych majors and sociology professors hot and bothered.

It's vexing, but not exactly unexpected. In 1999, "The Matrix" snuck in the back door and royally decked the expected hot button SF hit of the year, George Lucas' "Star Wars: Episode One - The Phantom Menace", by adding a pleasingly cerebral patina to it's overtly obvious arsenal of eye-popping visuals, SFX innovation and sheer, visceral impact. The subtext, as is so often the case, was there if you wanted to look for it, but didn't exactly make a nuisance of itself and overwhelm the movie. Many critics, this time around, appear to be aiming modest, understated, but definitely apparent barbs at "...Reloaded" for it's apparent crime of daring to imagine that the picture's audience are prepared to sit through lengthy intellectual asides and philosophical sidebars.

Those appalling Wachowski brothers, presuming to imagine that their audience have a brain in their heads...

For my part, I really want to reserve judgment on the movie until next Wednesday evening, when I finally get to see the Wachowski's latest cinematic offering for myself - I took my very sanity in trembling hands this morning and hacked through the digital undergrowth of my local cinema's advanced telephone booking system to reserve tickets for Righteous K. and your blogsmith, so the end-result will hopefully be worth braving the computer-activated soporific vocal avatar for. I have every reason to believe that it will be, but these early reviews are hopefully just the product of deadline-pressured writers seeing the movie once, duelling with the demands of publicity-predicated imbargos and then scribbling a tetchy review just to be bloody-minded.

There's an intriguing and only slightly pretentious example of this over at the New York Times website, which is worth reading (You'll have to register for the pleasure, but it's arguably worth it...) Click HERE for more.

2003-05-10T10:23:00.000Z

In the clear!

You can stand up straight and walk tall, no one's after you, unless they're trying to nick something from you! It's good to behave 100% correctly and to the letter of the law, though it's hardly life on the edge…

Based on your answers, we have calculated the maximum penalty for your crimes*:

Years in prison: 5 Potential fine: £0

Dude, The Righteous K. is going to the Big House!

2003-05-09T13:55:00.000Z

Courtesy of that nice young man, Bingo Bowden, this is a fun quiz which establishes just how law-abiding you are. Or are not. I'm freely assuming that my regular readers are paragons of virtue and shining beacons of light in their respective communities. Ahem...

Typically, I'm a hopeless, Johnny Law-Abiding sad case. My combined misdeeds triggered the minimum, generic sentence of a £2000 fine and five years at Her Majesty's pleasure.

Over to you, via the comment box...

2003-05-09T13:37:00.000Z

Only two days after the last incarnation, here comes today's on-time and just darned peachy Friday Five!!!

1. Would you consider yourself an organized person? Why or why not?
Dear God on Earth, No. Just ask my wife, who will attest that I singularly lack much in the way of organisation (K. is slightly peturbed that I refer to her as the 'organised' one in our relationship, as she feels that she isn't especially together, either).

I put my lack of organisation down to a slightly messy mind, which is brimming with out of control enthusiasm for lots of topics and doesn't edit things too well. In my work life, I can prioritise, but on the home front, I tend not to have a clue.

2. Do you keep some type of planner, organizer, calendar, etc. with you, and do you use it regularly?

I used to have a desktop planner, but it wasn't exactly the height of order and frequently managed to echo the more disorganized traits of my humble brain. I was just looking through an old planner before I set off to access the net from my local library and post this update - It was an over-stuffed, 1998-vintage "X-Files" affair, jam-packed with old movie tickets, mini-reviews of films and wise-assed musings on popular culture. Of stuff relating to the smooth running of my life? Not that much, to be honest. But, at least I can find my "Saving Private Ryan" ticket now...

3. Would you say that your desk is organized right now?

Dude, we've just moved. Ask a sensible question already!

4. Do you alphabetize CDs, books, and DVDs, or does it not matter?

I vaguely organise CDs by band, in chronological order, and I've always had my William Gibson books filed together and close to hand. DVDs I mostly gave up on filing - I've tried to go by director, and by series, but then I just end up wondering if "Mission: Impossible 2" goes with its predecessor or in a selection of John Woo flicks? Do I put "Alien 3" with the other "Alien" movies, or in the David Fincher section? So, as long as I can still find stuff without having to quest all over the place when I want to read, listen to or watch something, I guess that I'm pretty chilled on the subject.

5. What's the hardest thing you've ever had to organize?

We've just moved house!

2003-05-08T12:07:00.000Z

A Matrix blog so full of dystopian goodness and V.V. cool, black dust-coated, philosophical chin-strokery that it had to be linked. And by me. Hence this post-ette.

2003-05-08T12:04:00.000Z

Let It Be

!!!!!!!!!!!!!which BEATLES song are you?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
brought to you by Quizilla

I figured as much.

With thanks to the itchy-fingered techies at Quizilla and Jeff at Film Cradle for the heads-up.

2003-05-07T12:07:00.000Z

Click HERE For The Best Movie Review That You Will Ever Read In Your Life.

As a warning, I should warn you that Mr. Cumpston's UBER-SPOILERISED review of "The Matrix Reloaded" contains absurdly fruity language, adult content and generally reads like the deranged work of a man who really needs to get out more.

That said, I nearly had to go and change my jaunty velvet blogging pantaloons after reading this piece, so very loud and long did I laugh at the insane genius prose contained within.

2003-05-07T11:32:00.000Z

And now, without a great deal of ado, I present this week's shocking tardy and lost-in-transit Fri....WEDNESDAY FIVE

1. Name one song you hate to admit you like...

I'm disturbingly into everything that I've heard from Justin Timberlake's solo record - he seems to have the knack of belting out pop songs that cross just about every musical genre and shamelessly nick the best bits of each style he adopts for his own purposes.

So, that said, I'd have to say that "Cry Me A River" is a song that I hate to admit that I love. Oh, and Britney's cover of Joan Jett's glorious "I Love Rock n' Roll" is utterly absurd and yet wholly addictive.

2. Name two songs that always make you cry...

Shawn Colvin's "Polaroids" and Coldplay's "Parachutes" often do the trick for me.

3. Name three songs that turn you on...

Jesus - what a question! Okay, I kind of dig the obvious ones, but Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On" defies overuse to always do the trick, and though it may seem like an odd choice, A Tribe Called Quest's "Electric Relaxation" has the sensual vibe down, even if the subject matter isn't exactly sweetly romantic. And, equally bizarrely, the Red Hot Chili Peppers' sublime "Breaking the Girl" stirs a place in my heart. It ain't exactly a lovey-dovey devotional ballad, but it just sends me, y'know?

4. Name four songs that always make you feel good...

In no particular order, Van Halen's "Panama", The Police's "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic", Radiohead's "Everything In It's Right Place" and the obligatory John Williams selection of his main title theme for the otherwise wholly forgettable Ron Howard flick, "Far and Away".

5. Name five songs you couldn't ever do without...

"Happiness Is All The Rage", by the late, lamented Promise Ring, "Crush" by Jimmy Eat World, "Cherub Rock" by those sort-of-lamented Smashing Pumpkins, "Running With The Devil" by Van Halen and "My Name Is Jonas" by Weezer.

2003-05-07T11:17:00.000Z

To add my twopenneth to the tidal wave of positive word-of-mouth surrounding last weekend's global debut of "X-Men 2", I just want to say that even if you don't really dig the idea of superhero movies, this is one film which should still manage the uphill task of entertaining you.

For one thing, director Bryan Singer hasn't forgotten about including a storyline, characters which are fully fleshed-out and other such staples of half-decent flicks. You might even suggest that this is one movie which focusses largely on character, often at the expense of action set-pieces - I'm sure that many people who turned up to this movie expecting over two hours of wall-to-wall fights, explosions and chases would have been pleasantly surprised by the lengths to which the film's scripts goes to in it's pursuits of character moments and development.

Equally, Singer's sequel doesn't reveal all of its cards in one, fell swoop - though we learn something more about the origins of Hugh Jackman's conflicted, bezerker anti-hero, Wolverine, not all of the blanks are filled-in and there's almost certainly room for us to find out more about him in the inevitable next movie (I assume that Fox are already on the case in this regard, should they have managed the not inconsiderable task of recovering from the colossal hangovers induced by their celebratory partying over this flick's huge opening weekend). Sadly, though, some characters in the sizeable X-ensemble do get slightly short shrift - wither Cyclops? - and you do get the distinct sense that Singer's sympathies lie firmly with the likes of Famke Janssen's Jean Grey and Ian McKellan's wonderfully malevolent Magneto, given their extended screen time.

My favourite X-bloke, this time around, will probably be the same as yours, if and when you take in the movie - Alan Cumming does a sterling job of playing teleporting, blue-skinned, tortured Catholic angst pixie, Nightcrawler, whose styling 70s wardrobe and supremely camp comic relief pretty much make off with the movie (expect an expanded role in "X3", if not a subsequent, "Elektra"-style spin-off...). At times, whilst enjoying the living hell out of Mr Cumming's sterling on-screen work, I was almost transported into the land of reverie and reminded of watching a surreal, big screen version of Mr. Cumming's late, much-beloved BBC sitcom, "The High Life"...

Go to see for the spectacle, by all means, but keep an eye out for the glorious, expectation-defying substance at the heart of this gloriously well-mounted, fully-realised event movie.

2003-05-07T09:23:00.000Z

INDY! INDY! INDY!

Now, if good old Stevie can get some lovely DTS sound on those bad boys, your humble, slightly-missing-in-action blogsmith will be all kinds of happy.

2003-04-29T14:38:00.000Z

We moved into our house yesterday. For a day which I have quietly been anxious about for a while now - would we get the decorating done in time, would all of the utilities be in place, would we be up to the heavy task of moving furniture from K.'s mum's home to our new place? - things went as smoothly as can be imagined.

Our day began at Six AM, with breakfast and a provisional list of tasks to be achieved before K. collected the removal van we had rented, so that the largest items could be moved. These tasks included disassembling her bed - a sizeable, flat-pack monster of a thing, which K. enthusiastically set about, armed only with a winning combination of mechanical nous and a long-suffering electric screwdriver, moving multifarious, outsized receptacles containing all manner of clothing items and the general shifting of the bits of my wife's everyday life to places where they could be safely stored until needed. To give you a picture, your blogsmith's collection of clothing fits into one, humbly-sized chest of drawers.

My wife has two, groaning wardrobes filled with clothing, a cabinet full of shoes and a separate, wall-mounted rack of footwear, a wire rack filled with drawers of clobber, a chest of drawers one-and-a-half times the size of the one that I use and clothing items secreted all over her room which are not filed and just generally hang out in public, on display.

To move all of my wife's wardrobe has been a task accomplished in advance as much as possible, but yesterday saw the bulk of the work undertaken, and her clothing has now aggressively colonised the spare bedroom in our new house.

The major work came with the moving of our sofa, matress and kitchen table and it's a godsend that all hands went to the pumps for these tasks - My mother-in-law has been tireless in her assistance and ruled on Monday more than anybody else who has ever ruled before. Likewise, K.'s brother, A., came up from London to help out and provided a much-needed assist which got us through the heavy work in the afternoon. Also? We found time to bond over "Matrix"-related geek issues and found out that, priorly unbeknownst to either of us, we had both opted for similar, Brothers Wachowski-esque, start-up messages on our mobile phones. For the curious, I publicly confess that my phone now boots-up and greets me with the "Hmm...Upgrades..." Neo-ism from the trailer.

And yes, I realise fully that I am utterly beyond help.

Eventually, the work was done and we had made our home into a more or less habitable space, uncooperative and bizarrely truculent flat-pack wardrobes, missing bolts and difficult to position appliances not withstanding (our kitchen was apparently designed without the thought that it's eventual occupants might want to have such absurd luxuries as fridges, cookers, food storage cabinetry and preparation surfaces close to hand). We went to sleep last night feeling a little melancholic for some of the things that we had lost - K. moving from the home that she's known for a long time to her own house for the first time, and me bemoaning the fact that I will only sparingly get to visit with Ella, the family pooch, whose strong jaws will miss my tender wrists and whose huge, brown eyes are capable of making you forget all too easily that she's often a paper-eating scamp of the highest order.

We have our own place, now, which is a first for both of us - do we have to become adults now, as well?

2003-04-27T14:17:00.000Z

First Season is very pleased to welcome another potential future film geek to the world, in the fine form of young Ryan Morrison, who was born to his parents Paul and Jo at 7:23 AM this morning, at Scarborough Hospital, weighing in at seven pounds and two ounces.

I wish baby, mother and father all of the best and hope to get to see you all at the end of the week.

My kid brother is now a dad and I'm pretty confident that he will do an amazing job. Good luck, Paul...

2003-04-25T16:32:00.000Z

Yip. Yip. Yip. It's about time for the feature which is dividing my readership, providing yours truly with much-needed content inspiration and generally the part of the show that I like to call THE FRIDAY FIVE!

1. What was the last TV show you watched?

I would love to tell you that it was something cool like "Buffy" or "Angel", but I believe that the last thing which was on the TV in the living room before Righteous K. and I ate our tea was an MTV special on - Egad! - Christina Aguilera. In mitigation, it was just on the TV and neither of us were actually watching it. For my part, I was trying to get through the damn show without having Ella, our bestest fluffy Golden Retriever buddy, eat my wrists (It's a thing of hers - don't ask me why she enjoys doing it).

The last thing that I actually consciously viewed and took in was an interview with Patrick Stewart on BBC Breakfast News this morning, to promote next week's significantly excellent-looking, ass-whupping mutie sequel, "X-Men 2". As usual, he was a class act and enjoyable televisual company.

2. What was the last thing you complained about and what was the problem?

I had the misfortune to have to call Sky Television this afternoon, and I found them to be unusually unhelpful, incompetent and downright rude. We've just moved into our house, have subscribed to Sky and had a digital set-top box installed, but as yet Sky have not gotten their act together enough to send us the viewing card that we need to gain access to the subscription channels - a polite request for this necessary item was met with bewildering incompetence, bare-faced rudeness and the general sense that now they have our money, Sky don't really care to provide with us even half-decent customer service. And, as they're the only game in town in the UK, it isn't as though you can go to another television service provider to get digital satellite TV.

3. Who was the last person you complimented and what did you say?

I had an appointment to speak with a careers counsellor this morning and this afternoon and complemented them for the good advice, useful assistance and general courtesy which they provided me with earlier in the day. I was in a slightly nervous frame of mind this morning, as I had another job interview and their help calmed me down enough to hopefully give a good impression and do justice to myself for once (I have a tendancy to sell myself short).

4. What was the last thing that you threw away?

An old bus ticket, the packaging for a caramel latte that I drank after my job interview this morning, and my wallet. Accidentally. A very nice bloke rang me up this afternoon and told me that he had found it and would take it into his work tomorrow for me to collect. There are good people in the big city, after all, it would seem...

5. What was the last website (besides this one) that you visited?

IMDB, which answers more queries and settles more flick-related debates in our household than any other site. Oh, and the usual fine fellows, Jeff at Film Cradle, Darth Phil, and Paul the wily Postman...

If I can persuade K. to respond again, her answers might be up later today or sometime tomorrow...

2003-04-23T14:31:00.000Z

Super. Perfect. One-Sheets
(With the usual props to the spoon-bending techie bad asses at Last Free City).

2003-04-22T16:10:00.000Z

Be Afraid. Be VERY afraid... (With props to Ain't It Cool News)

2003-04-22T15:59:00.000Z

If, like me, you enjoy nothing more than going into HMV and having a good old chortle at what they term a broad church of music, you might well wish to tootle on over to Darth Phil's always splendid blog and check out his new CD Review page, which should please the more musically progressive and curious amongst you.

Hey, I'm an Emo wussie boy and I found plenty to intrigue me amongst the fine array of titles listed within - you should, too.

2003-04-21T19:11:00.000Z

In other news, meanwhile, the DVD details for the two-tiered release of Peter Jackson's "The Two Towers" have begun to sneak out, with a big thanks to the always knowledgeable Digital Bits site for the advance heads-up...

2003-04-21T18:37:00.000Z

On a different note, Paul the Postman may wish to re-read that last Friday Five post and figure out just why I might want to be Keanu Reeves right about now.

Do the words Larry and Andy Wachowski mean anything to you, man?

Have you somehow remained oblivious to the fact that First Season Filmic Frippery has a near-religious mania about all things Matrix-ian? The constant posts with links to the super-perfect Last Free City site? The updates when John Gaeta so much as sneezes near a computer? The yippy-skippy dance which ensues when I even think about the prospect of watching all three movies back to back, in our new house, with better sound than I'll probably get at the cinema? The mere notion, as promised by producer Joel Silver, of a peachy new DVD re-release for the first movie, with the potential for dts-es 6.1 surround sound, and an eye-dazzlingly perfect picture transfer....

Are you blissfully immune to the charms of this modern-day, wire-fu infused cyber-chop-sockey classic and unlikely to take the first of several trips to the cinema come May 23rd, just so you can fully digest every glorious, impossible frame of Le Frere Wachowski's magnum opus?

Aarrggghhh!!! Have I been writing this blog for nothing and to no discernible effect? Or did you just enjoy the movie and am I getting things moderately out of proportion to their actual importance in the actual real world (wouldn't be the first time)?

If you would be nice enough to excuse me for a while, I feel a sudden need to have a nice, quiet lie-down in a suitably darkened room and have a prolonged gibbering session...with the Don Davis score for the first movie on constant repeat, naturally...

2003-04-21T18:35:00.000Z

With thanks to Paul the evil and wrong Postman and Bingo Bowden, I'm happy to link to the text of a very well-reasoned and typically articulate public rebuttal against his critics from full-time enemy of the American people and part-time actor and director, Tim Robbins.

You don't have to be a raving peacenik to take on board some of the points that he raises - he has a gift for nailing some of the more insane hypocrisies to arise from the inflamed emotions surrounding the war in Iraq and you really should try and swing by to read what he has to say.

Click here for a different perspective.

2003-04-18T21:48:00.000Z

My darling hubsand (sic) made the fool hardy suggestion that I participate in the "Friday Five" and just having a quick look at his answers I find that we are inexorably becoming the same person. You'll see what I mean from my answers, its either that or the varnish fumes.
1. Who is your favorite celebrity?
George Clooney - mostly for the same reasons as my fine husband puts forth, Mr Clooney doesn't seem to suffer from the same level of artifice as many a celeb. does. But I also have less esoteric reasons for my fondness of him.

2. Who is your least favorite?
Britney Spears. I really can't put into words why it is I don't like her, her profund "Barbieness" may be part of it and the way her songs insinuate there way into the playlist in your head and just won't quit. The extremely questionable lyrical content of her songs grates with me, if she is meant to be a role model for girls, God help us. I'm going to stop now before I get sued.

3. Have you ever met or seen any celebrities in real life?
When I was working at The Children's Hospital about seven years ago I saw Sean Bean, this is Sheffield who else would you expect me to run into. I also bumped into Stella Gonet, she was the older sister in "The House of Eliott" in the profoundly salubrious setting of the public toilets at Pisa airport.

4. Would you want to be famous? Why or why not?
Yes and no. I would love to write a great book that people would love to read, then to have that book made into a faithful blockbuster movie. And if I could possible do all this without actually having to leave my front room, that would be just great.

5. If you had to trade places with a celebrity for a day, who would you choose and why?
Robin Hartl. This may not be as well known a name as say Julia Roberts, but if you're a "Discovery Home & Leisure" junkie like me, you will know her as one of the stars of "Hometime". So why would I want to be Ms Hartl, well she drives a kick-ass truck, gets to wear a heavy-duty toolbelt, plays at building houses and is allowed loose on every power tool under the sun. Woo-hoo.

2003-04-18T20:45:00.000Z

Because you demanded it (and certainly not because my role in home renovation has left me unable to summon up the wherewithal to post my own stuff), it's that time of the week again: CUE THE FRIDAY FIVE!!!

1. Who is your favorite celebrity?

I have a lot of time for George Clooney. He seems to know that what's going on in the world is a tad bit more important than box office grosses, and seems to be actively trying to make good movies and not just coin in the big bucks by phoning it in in dumb-ass blockbusters. He also seems to be unusually humble - he's the first guy to admit it when he's made a duff choice, or done less than stellar work in a movie. I also really dig Tony Hawk - how can you not love a guy who gets paid absurd amounts of money to try and find new ways to subvert the accepted definition of gravity and cock-a-snook at many people's fear of heights?

2. Who is your least favorite?

I can't say that I know anything more about her than what I read glancingly in newspapers or online, but Jennifer Lopez would certainly seem to be somebody who's more in love with the business of celebrity and the fringe benefits of stardom than in the work that she's ostensibly supposed to be famous for - I would hazard a guess that 90% of her fanbase are more interested in her relationships and glamourous lifestyle than in her music and film career (and given her recent output in both spheres, can you honestly blame them?).

3. Have you ever met or seen any celebrities in real life?

The other week, driving to the cinema in Sheffield, my wife and I saw Prince Naseem Hamed, speeding it up in a gleaming new convertible Benz. And, when I was younger, a terminally awful British comedy duo called 'Little and Large' filmed a sketch for one of their typically unwatchable, Saturday night comedy shows on the street where I used to live in my home town, Scarborough. My Mum, to her eternal credit, interrupted filming whilst returning home and caused these family friendly entertainers to emit a barrage of cursing and bad-frigging-language which rather belied their onscreen geniality. They didn't sign autographs for the neighbourhood kids either, the phonies.

4. Would you want to be famous? Why or why not?

No way on God's earth. Or Krishna's, for that matter. I'll take a profitable backroom role as a screenwriter or script doctor, pocket the overflowing bundles of cash which come with it and derive subsequent, comforting anonymity, thank you very much. The celeb-wannabes can have the press constantly camped on their doorsteps, going through their trash for incriminating evidence of spuriously-reasoned romantic wrongdoings and freely sign themselves up for an ongoing siege mindset and the wrenching sense of personal inadequacy often experienced by the famous and talent-depleted when the inevitable law of decreasing returns kicks in and their precious celebrity status fades into nothingness. Who in their right mind would want to willingly trade off their privacy, peace of mind and freedom just so they can have their name linked to the hot celebrity of the moment, or so that they can hear their name echo to hollow, fleeting acclaim across the world's ravenous media networks? I've said it once and I'll say it again: "CELEBRITY=DEATH!"

5. If you had to trade places with a celebrity for a day, who would you choose and why?

I'd be Keanu Reeves. He knows Kung-Fu. Also? He's probably seen "The Matrix Reloaded" by now, and may very well have a fairly good idea about what happens in "The Matrix Revolutions", too...

2003-04-16T10:04:00.000Z

Kate Beckinsale fans can, meanwhile, rejoice to see the very cool one-sheet for her September horror adventure "Underworld", which is brought to you by the exclusivity pimps at Coming Soon! (Garth at Dark Horizons had it first, but Sony made him take it down, by all accounts..).

2003-04-16T10:01:00.000Z

Clicky on this "DareDevil" link for an early review of the 2-Disc DVD, due out in the US and UK towards the end of July.

With all due props to the fine people at DVD File for being so on the ball...

2003-04-15T16:15:00.000Z

Click HERE for the advance gen on the Region One DVD release of the ludicrously gory teen horror flick, "Final Destination 2", a movie that the Righteous K. watched in its entirety from behind her hands. And the wise bods at New Line have seen fit to give it the "Infinitifilm' treatment, with extras coming out the wazoo and glorious, neighbour-annoying dts 6.1 es digital surround sound?

Time for the patented, Pat Morrison-copyrighted, amusement-guaranteeing "Yippee-Skippy!" dance, I think.

2003-04-15T16:01:00.000Z

Today's raiding of the fine and dandy Last Free City "Matrix" fansite reveals an intriguing new development in Neo-esque apparel which will surely cause a proverbial fashion revolution amongst well-heeled techno-goths seeking that perfect outfit for the release day of "...Reloaded" at their local UberPlex.

That's SUCH a good look...

2003-04-15T15:53:00.000Z

A news nugget straight from the "Truth is stranger than fiction" file.

With thanks to the Bloggerheads site for the heads-up...

2003-04-14T19:26:00.000Z

This morning, I painted an ugly orange room a far nicer shade of light blue. "Contemporary Blue", in fact, to quote the affable folks at Dulux, and realised just why it was that my younger brother, and not yours truly, pursued that career in house painting - after almost two hours of sweating like a pig and singularly failing to make a dent on the hideous sunny hue still poking through, I admitted temporary defeat and decided that a second coat was necessary.

At lunchtime, my mother-in-law, Mrs K., took over and finished off the bathroom, which is looking rather lovely and soothingly aqua green, and neatly distracts attention away from the ugliest carpet that I've seen since my days hauling post around and waiting on doorsteps for people to sign for packages - the things you see when people aren't paying the blindest bit of notice to you would shock and appall the decor-minded of you out there in Readerville.

As for me, I went back into Sheffield and fetched up for a computer training course that I've decided to try and pursue - it wouldn't hurt to brush up on some of my PC fundamentals and get an inkling of what my operating system is actually doing whilst I punch trivial asides into the computer's long-suffering keyboard and hope that the occasional pearl of wisdom escapes by some miracle or other.

That went well-ish...(something tells me that I should actually take the tutorials before sitting through the stuff on the course which actually counts towards my final course credit, and I might do substantially better than achieving a 77% mark which I managed to attain by sheer, fluke-some luck and wild key-stabbing).

Tonight? I'm supposed to be swimming, but three days of decoration, renovation, lack of sleep and no movies have taken it out of me - I've taken the evening off to blog-out this update and read through the links in the "Daily Reading" section of this site.

Tomorrow promises to be busier still...

2003-04-13T18:11:00.000Z

In the name of all that is holy and sacred, "Rolling Stone" film critic Peter Travers gives a positive review to a James Cameron flick.

I'm going off to lie down and rest - talk amongst yourselves until I get back...

2003-04-13T17:15:00.000Z

Despite the inescapable truth that I don't really care about football that much, the undeniable fact that I live in Sheffield leads me to don my splendid colours of self-righteousness and politely suggest that the result of THIS particular footie match was an absolute fricking outrage, and that the referee is, indeed, someone who is apparently entirely comfortable with his own crapulence and stupifying ineptitude.

Arsenal? Chancers, the bloody lot of them.

2003-04-13T17:00:00.000Z

Day two of the revamp of our house and I'm already reasonably concerned that our new neighbours may be getting the impression that Righteous K. and I are a tiny wee bit on the nutty side.

Whilst we were doing some paint touch-ups on awkward high corners and generally finishing-up the colours in our bedroom, we couldn't help but notice that passers-by were taking more than a little interest in the colour scheme we've chosen - there was a definite look on one person's face which suggested that they feared for our sanity and found the contrast between purple/turquoise to be more visually arresting than they were banking on. It is a big room, mind, and the colours do kind of grab even the most casual viewer by the lapel and shout "Notice me! Damn your eyes!"

And the guy with the baby, in the house opposite us over the road, seemed to be holding his young charge up to the window so that his offspring could be shown the room on the other side of the street, and the handiwork of the potentially crazy new neighbours - "See Johnny, that's what we grown-ups call nutcases..."

This morning also saw me taking a roller, an extending brush and some curiously salmon-coloured paint and applying at least some of those items in an effort to give the living room a new lease of colour. It's some testament to the work put in by yours truly that now, some six hours later, I just about have some feeling back in my shoulders, and can move a matter of inches without experiencing jarring, gnawing pain in every part of my muscles (which I have discovered that I actually have, after the decorating exploits of this weekend). Every word typed in this update is a testimony to my ability to circumvent pain, sneak up behind it, get the drop on the son of a bitch and then repeatedly punch him in the throat, all the while yelling hoarsely, "Here comes the real pain, Bubby! How d'ya like them apples?!?"

I'm sorry - I appeared to go psycho then, just for a moment. It must be the paint fumes getting to me...

2003-04-13T16:45:00.000Z

And today in our exciting new feature, Apparent Parody Blog Corner...

2003-04-12T19:00:00.000Z

Today, we painted our bedroom. In our new house.

Nothing particularly new in that, you might think, but the pertinent fact that I've never once in my life picked up a paint brush in anger and used it was enough to make the prospect of six or seven hours painting today somewhat daunting. Typically, though, my worst fears were not realised and the whole day came off quite well, all things considered.

We actually did our painting with rollers, and these helped speed up the workload quite considerably - we now have a 90% painted room, decked out in an eye-catching combination of a fairly vivid purple (the back wall) and a contrasting, very surf-inspired green (every other wall) - If any 90's Comic Book geeks are reading out there, think Caitlin Fairchild's snug-fitting, battle costume from the "Gen 13" comic books and you won't be to far divorced from the colour scheme we've elected to go with.

Some people would call it an aesthetic mismatch and an afront to their very ocular cavitites - We kinda like it, on the other hand.

More news from the renovation battlefront tomorrow, my aching bones permitting...

2003-04-11T18:44:00.000Z

Ladies and gentlepersons - The Friday Five!

1. What was the first band you saw in concert?

Embarassingly enough, it was a David Lee Roth show, at Birmingham's cavernous, atmosphere-sucking NEC Arena, on his "Skyscraper" tour, back in 1990. It was a pleasure to see the shameless old tart trotting out his practiced one-liners, behaving in a manner so camp that it made Graham Norton look like Vin Diesel and boasting old-school metal geniuses like Steve Vai and Billy Sheehan. Back then, I either didn't know or didn't care that I was seeing a totally uncool rock show and I loved every minute of it. Especially when Diamond Dave flew around the arena on his 'floating surfboard' (Translation? Dave preening outrageously atop said dayglo Pink device, whilst a shower of pissed-off roadies carted his sizable behind around).

2. Who is your favorite artist/band now?

Jimmy Eat World. I've gone 180% in the opposite direction, I guess...

3. What's your favorite song?

Or, which one of your kids would you like to sell to the circus? C'mon - what an impossible question! Today, it's "I Feel So", by Box Car Racer, but tomorrow it could very well be a Beatles song, or the new Neptunes thing that's hogging the radio. Jesus, I even found myself humming along to a Ja Rule and Ashanti tune the other day, which is surely a sign that I'm in desperate need of a hardcore dose of self-critiquing musical snobbery...

4. If you could play any instrument, what would it be?

Standing in the background, wrestling vulgar, ear-shatteringly loud barre chords, from a beaten-to-hell Gibson Les Paul electric guitar, as my Marshall stack behind me sounds more or less like the death roar of a recently-felled Wooly Mammoth.

5. If you could meet any musical icon (past or present), who would it be and why?

I'd like to share a coffee break with Jeff Buckley, or a few minutes with Stevie Ray Vaughan. I would probably explode with ill-disguised, teenaged geekboy delight if I ever got to say "Hi!" to Liz Phair or carry Tanya Donelly's guitar. Chuck D. from Public Enemy was a big teenage hero of mine, as was Scott Ian, the manic guitar player from thrash metal legends, Anthrax. I get the impression that Ozzy would be a fun bloke to hang out with.

I'd have to plump for Jeff Buckley, though. Genius, humble with it, with probably one of the most amazing voices that I've ever heard.

2003-04-11T18:15:00.000Z

If you hear a little less from me over the next week, it isn't because I don't love you or because I'm seeing other people.

No, I'm going to be hecka' busy in the next couple of weeks fixing up, sorting out and generally getting our new house fairly ship-shape and lovely-looking.

Yes, after months of agonising tooing and froing, K. and I picked up the keys from the estate agents this morning, and then had a manic old time of it organising electrical supplies, gas supplies, phone service and other vital stuff that needed to hooked up before we could really get down to the fraught business of tearing down the previous occupant's decoration and wondering what the hell they were thinking when they painted the living room ceiling that colour?

Sanding machines were hired and then re-scheduled to Tuesday. Twin couches and a refridgerator belonging to the previous occupant were consigned to the backyard, ready to be collected by persons unknown tomorrow. The truly shocking living room carpet was removed and will be sent to the flooring equivalent of Valhalla on Saturday.

And, thanks to invaluable help from my redoubtable mother-in-law Mrs K., everything fitted together and worked out just fine.
Couldn't have done it without her, frankly.

Dudes? We have a house!

2003-04-10T16:11:00.000Z

And, not to go on about it or anything, but an idle, disinterested viewing of Channel Four's fairly missable morning magazine news show, "RI:SE", was made rather special today by the presence of what appeared to be the skull-meltingly fantastic "Matrix Reloaded" footage that our American compadres have been enjoying during the week.

To say that your Neo-obsessed blogsmith was impressed is to suggest that Jennifer Love Hewitt's lusty geekboy fanbase are interested in her for reasons wholly unconnected to her fine pantheon of acting work - It's a foregone conclusion so obvious that you feel momentarily stupid for briefly countenancing that the result would anything other than what you initially expected.

Were I able to bring myself to swear on this blog, I'd happily tell you just how fricking much this trailer rocked - Bullet-Time(C), mid-air, free-falling, two-shooter gunfight between Trinity and an Agent, anybody? - but as I can't curse on this all-ages forum, I'll just settle for going "Woah!" a lot and doing my patented, Righteous K.-approved "Yippy-Skippy!" dance until May the 23rd.

If this film, and November's "Matrix Revolutions" don't literally redefine the possibilities of cinematic storytelling as we know them, I'll go and buy a Gareth Gates album. And then eat it. Without ketchup.

2003-04-10T15:49:00.000Z

Click HERE for Iggy's intelligent, well-written movie review blog.

There's a lot of interesting reading to be had. Oh, and for more excellent, readable reviewing, check out Milk Plus, which I've just added to the Daily Reading links section.

2003-04-10T15:27:00.000Z

Which Donnie Darko character are you? by Shay

At last, an online personality quiz worth taking... (with props to Keris' "Contains Mild Peril" blog).

2003-04-09T13:35:00.000Z

A mostly positive, only occasionally bemused review of "Blue Crush" (12A).

To begin with, a complete and utterly unrelated sidebar to the main body of the review: On our way to sign off on our mortgage documents last night, whilst taking a swift diversion past Sheffield's rush-hour traffic, we drove past larger-than-life, sometime world champ boxer and full-on egotist, Prince Naseem Hamed, as he cut a dash through the back streets of Attercliffe in his gleaming, Vanity-plated, supremely bling-bling Mercedes-Benz convertible. Not so much a brush with stardom and the glint of celebrity, then, as much as a swift choke on the dual exhaust port of sporting infamy. Still, my kid brother will be mightily impressed...

To the film, then?

In a word, it's good. And I honestly enjoyed it. I wouldn't go as far as to say that this is a film for the ages, or a film that will change your life and how you live it, but it is a fun, sometimes poignant and visually-arresting picture that must look like a million dollars on DVD.

Based on that most fashionable of source material, the extended magazine feature story ("Surf Girls of Maui", as originally written by Susan Orlean, of "Orchid Thief" and "Adaptation" fame), "Blue Crush" is the tale of a trio of would-be professional female surfers who are trying to make their way in Hawaii and finding all kinds of factors - McJobs, the boorish behaviour of local guy waveheads, family responsibilities - standing firmly in their way.

Anne-Marie (Kate Bosworth) is the most talented of the three, and a junior champion, but probably the least focussed, shying away from attacking the really big, legend-creating waves because of an in-competition, near-drowning accident. With her friends Eden (Michelle Rodriguez) and Lena (Sanoe Lake), Anne-Marie's ekeing out an existance by working as a chambermaid for one of the island's ritzier hotels, and helping to keep a roof over the head of her younger sister Penny (Mika Boorem), but it's nobody's idea of a life with any kind of future.

This is most aggravating to Eden, who is Anne-Marie's biggest cheerleader, trainer and crafter of her surfboards, and can tell that the appearance of a new guy on the scene, Matt (Matthew Davis), isn't going to focus Anne-Marie on preparing for the imminent Surf Masters contest and building the pro-career within her grasp.

From the plot summary, you pretty much know what you're going to get with this surf-chick-flick, and if you saw the omnipresent trailer for "Blue Crush" at the cinema, then you almost certainly know just what the deal is with this movie. Except, in fact, you don't. As with director John Stockwell's previous movie, the above-average teen drama "Crazy/Beautiful", there are enough diversions from formula and predictability to hold your attention for the majority of the running time, and the odd slump into storytelling-by-numbers and easy cliche is forgiven by the general air of goodwill that the film manages to accrue. If there is an obvious problem with both of Stockwell's movies, it is almost certainly that his apparent desire to portray a more realistic view of youth and adolescent rituals has been hamstrung by the need to shoot for a PG-13 certificate each time.

The edgier aspects of both "Crazy/Beautiful" and "Blue Crush" have been fatally compromised by the need to attract an audience believed too young to see on-screen depictions of the kinds of behaviour - drinking, sex, general youthful rites-of-passage stuff - that they're probably going to engage in just as soon as they leave the multiplex. It's a weird paradigm, wouldn't you agree?

If ratings are not Stockwell's best friends, he's on more positive ground with his cameras, which constantly capture eye-candy and make this probably the most arrestingly-shot surf movie since, ooh, "Point Break". Sure, the use of CG face replacement to map Kate Bosworth's face onto that of her surfing double is wholly unconvincing and negates a lot of the big moments in the movie, but the surf and underwater photography by David Hennings is top notch - there's a fantastic shot of Kate Bosworth's character, inside a wave pipeline, which is so effective that it makes you wonder why all concerned didn't choose this approach for the surfing scenes, instead of the over-reliance on pixel-wrangling unreality.

As for "Blue Crush"'s soundtrack, if you have a subwoofer in your home theater set-up, get your hands on a copy of the DVD of this movie and prepare to be bludgeoned by your neighbours/violate your tenancy agreement: This is a LOUD-ASS MOVIE.

The performances are quite attractive - give Michelle Rodriguez her own movie vehicle, now! - and the direction is usually assured. The cliches don't bop you over the head and annoy you too much. There's a lot to look at which is wholly positive, and a surprising dearth of cheese. In a final analysis, this is certainly worth a look if you love surf movies, surfer girls and the amusing sight of chunky NFL players trying to defy the laws of gravity by getting their asses into the sea and onto longboards not meant to carry their weight.

A keeper, in short.

2003-04-09T12:15:00.000Z

Oh yes, we dig Bingo Bowden, Oh Yes we do...

2003-04-09T12:12:00.000Z

Take the Radiohead Collective Member Test.

With thanks to the splendid Jeff at Film Cradle for the link (I've been reading/raiding your archives, mate...).

2003-04-09T09:40:00.000Z

Sorry if you're trying to find the "Matrix Reloaded" one-sheets over at Dark Horizons, so feverishly acclaimed in Monday's post - Dark Horizons chief webhead, Garth Franklin, notes in Tuesday's update that Warners have asked him to take them down.

Curses...they were just too cool, I guess...

2003-04-09T09:34:00.000Z

Courtesy of the black-clad bad asses over at The Last Free City, I'm delighted to bring you today's funky, ALL-SPOILER, all-the-time ""Matrix Reloaded" sidebar, with all due props to the saucy so-and-so's at "Wired" magazine.

It's actually an deleted scene-style excision from this month's "Wired" print cover story on "...Reloaded" and FX godhead, John Gaeta. And it's all kinds of funky...

Just keep saying to yourself, if you're reading this in the UK that is, "May 23rd, May 23rd, May 23rd, May 23rd, May 23rd, May 23rd..."

2003-04-08T14:27:00.000Z

A fine movie review and discussion blog is available for your perusal over at Milk Plus, and it certainly has my recommendation, for what it's worth.

Slightly more substantial than First Season, although that's not at all difficult to achieve.

As that link was suggested by Jeff over at the excellent Film Cradle blog, and he has said more nice things about us again, without prior prompting, I'm more than happy to return the favour. Go read. Enjoy. Return here and submit your comment about how much better Film Cradle is than this freestyle bobbins. I won't mind. Honest.

Anyway, must dash - I have a mortgage completition document to sign, and a movie to see: My life? It's a heady old whirligig and no mistake...

2003-04-07T15:54:00.000Z

Oh, and there's an interview with James Cameron over at the Grauniad's site, in which the great one discusses many issues of note, not least his imminent IMAX 3-D drama-doc, "Ghosts of the Abyss".

Cameron? IMAX? 3-D? I am so bloody there...

2003-04-07T15:47:00.000Z

Garth Franklin does it again, as his "Dark Horizons" movie news site scoops anew, with a first look at two new teaser posters for "The Matrix Reloaded", which you can click on HERE.

My comments about wanting to see Keanu and Carrie-Anne's faces on a one-sheet were apparently misplaced and impatient, if these fan-fricking-tastic posters are to be believed.

If you don't mind, I'll just go and lie down before I have a proper geek-overload and my poor wee noggin explodes with barely-supressed joy.

May 23rd can't get here quickly enough, damn it!

2003-04-07T15:27:00.000Z

Darth Phil has updated, streamlined and generally springcleaned his CD page, which should give you more than enough reason to head over to his fine blog and check out some fine musical recommendations.

Just reading through his playlist is enough to remind your humble blogsmith of those glorious days - well, nights, in fact - when he was a humble employee of her majesty's Royal Mail and used to take an AM/FM Discman to work with him to numb the gnawing existensial tedium of his surroundings, blocking out the humdrum bloody routine by listening to the great John Peel, Mary Anne Hobbs' Breezeblock and Rock shows, Radio 3's fantastic Late Junction programme and all kinds of unpredictable musical stuff on the BBC's World Service.

Well, you would do too, if your day used to begin sometime around 10:00PM, and you slept through the day so often that your neighbours began to suspect that you were a creature of the night. The great big secret about Radio One? It's actually kind of bearable if you listen to it at Stupid O' Clock. Not that this helps if you live a normal life, but there you go...

So, anyway, to get back to the point? Darth Phil has changed his CD page. Follow the link above. You know that it makes sense. That is all.

2003-04-07T11:49:00.000Z

You really should take a look at Robotfist.

It's like this site, only irritatingly much better.

2003-04-07T07:54:00.000Z

Click HERE for a shot of Lady Penelope's Uber-pink Rolls-Royce, soon to be seen in Jonathan Frakes' live-action movie version of "Thunderbirds".

Which is all very well, but when is Hollywood going to get with the programme and make a film version of legendary, 80's Saturday morning, anime puppet-fest, "Star Fleet"? Now there's a movie that I'd plunk down my UGC Unlimited card to see...

2003-04-04T10:54:00.000Z

Ladies and Gentlemen, it's time for the feature that provides your overstretched blogsmith with maximum content for a minimum amount of work:

THE FRIDAY FIVE!!!

1. How many houses/apartments have you lived in throughout your life?

Including this one? Five. In about a week's time? Fingers crossed, I should be moving, with my wife, to our new house, which is about ten to fifteen minutes away, by car, from the home we are living in now . In seven days, if the deities align and a long, drawn-out mirthless process finally comes to pass, we should both be joining the mortgage race for the first time in our lives.

2. Which was your favorite and why?

Because of the gleaming new newness of the place, and the fact that it will be our own, and we can do things with decoration and design to stamp our identity on the house and make it our home, it would have to be the new place/

3. Do you find moving house more exciting or stressful? Why?

It's stressful, predominantly because it's difficult to make plans, allow for contingencies and be a hundred per cent ahead of the game when you're moving house. Getting everything done on time, in place and ready to roll is a task for people far more together and confident than I am. Having said all that, it's a finite process and one which does have a positive end result.

4. What's more important, location or price?

Location. Location. Location.

Price is something which can't exactly be controlled, at least in the UK (where house prices are determined by God knows what logic). The balance between what you can afford, and where you would actually like to live, is something that's inherant to every house purchase. It's the old problem of desire exceeding grasp. You go for what you can afford and attempt to reconcile that with what's actually available on the market at any one time. My wife and I would like to live near to where we live now in Sheffield, but house prices around here are somewhere south of absurd. Accordingly, we've gone with a house which is ideal for us as first-time buyers, and is in a reasonably nice neighbourhood, fairly close to our family & friends and the city centre.

5. What features does your dream house have (pool, spa bath, big yard, etc.)?

A nice couch and a kick-ass home theatre system. Preferably an install. Done by the great Theo Kalomirakis.

When I'm disgustingly wealthy, perhaps...

2003-04-04T10:27:00.000Z

Sometimes? Words fail me...

2003-04-04T06:58:00.000Z

ISABELLA'S TEDDY....HAS CHANGED...

Click HERE for the new newness!

There's a redesign, a change of name (shortly to be fully implemented) and - Sweet Muscular Jesus! - even a mission statement of sorts.

It makes me want to redesign this old web shack, quite frankly...

2003-04-03T15:32:00.000Z

A mildly bemused movie review of "Cradle 2 The Grave" (15) Warner Brothers.

Andrzej Bartkowiak is a brave (or perhaps foolish) man. Whereas most of his peers would resolutely seek to avoid being pidgeonholed as genre directors, and would at least try to take on a different, challenging career portfolio, opting to helm a wide variety of pictures dealing with a diverse selection of subject matters, Mr Bartkowiak seems blissfully content to plow one field and build a CV full of relentless, action-driven, thick-ear urban thrillers.

In the recent past, he's brought us, in partnership with legendary producer Joel Silver and his Silver Pictures imprint, the likes of "Romeo Must Die" and "Exit Wounds", pairing martial arts stars like Jet Li and the ever-risible Steven Seagal with hip-hop/R&B stars such as the late Aaliyah and DMX, and adding in comic relief co-stars like Anthony Anderson and Tom Arnold to dissipate the cumulative impact of the head-crunching, limb-breaking, property-damaging mayhem depicted up on screen.

Speaking purely for my part, I don't have any problem with such predictable, "shake-and-bake" cinematic confections - for the most part, these Silver/Bartkowiak collaborations have been fairly unpretentious, modestly entertaining flicks which make no attempt to engage with viewer's intellects and don't skimp on wire-assisted action sequences, car chases and usually dig deep enough to snag a soundtrack loaded with pounding jeep beats and obligatory, devotional soul ballads which rather stick out like a sore thumb amidst the nerve-jangling sonic chaos which makes up the majority of the movie score.

"Cradle 2 The Grave" is no exception to this musical rule, the thunderous score kicking off with a new Eminem/DMX/Obie Trice collaboration, which sonically amounts to Em viciously reeling off unveiled death threats to persons unknown, as the stylish, linear credits sequence unfurls underneath on screen and various protagonists converge to undertake a deadly serious mission of some kind - anybody mistakenly having wandered into the theatre that I saw this movie at would be left in no doubt that they actually wanted to be next door for the "Maid In Manhattan" screening.

This film stars regular Silver player DMX as the morose anti-hero of the piece, Tony Fait, a single dad who spends the majority of the film's running time being concerned about his pre-teen daughter's welfare, going so far as to engage in regular prayer sessions with the wee tyke, even as he goes about his daily business in planning and successfully committing daring high-line jewellry heists. These heists are undertaken with the assistance of his loyal crew, which in true movie fashion comprises of a sexy cat burglar (Gabrielle Union), a callow apprentice (DMX's fellow hip-hoperator Drag-On) and a chunky comic relief getaway wheelman (Anthony Anderson). It's not an exaggeration to suggest that any security guard worth his natty uniform would be on the silent alarm to the cops as soon as he saw this gang of slickly-attired, gadget-toting, hi-tech hoods, but this is isn't the kind of movie where characters are aware of logic.

Fait's charmed, bling-bling life is cursed by fate's metaphorical spanner-in-the-works, when the spoils of his latest robbery turn out not to be rare black diamonds and are revealed, instead, to be component parts of a sophisiticated, next-level weapons platform, recently stolen from their Taiwanese governmental owners and intended to be en-route for an auction to some of the world's more morally-bankrupt and fiscally astute arms-dealers. Fait's abrupt intercession and subsequent loss of the jewels earns him a most-wanted tag from, variously, an incarcerated Don of L.A.'s gangster underworld (Chi McBride), a nascent arms broker with a hands-on approach to recovering his wares (Mark Dacascos), and most immediately, a Secret Service agent charged with the safe return of the stones (JET LI! JET LI! First Season's fave martial arts dude, JET-FRICKING-LI!).

The stage is thus set for mismatched partners DMX and Li to team up and destroy a good section of Los Angeles in an attempt to get the stones back, free X's kidnapped child and provide all concerned with a reason for the next ninety minutes of sound and fury to unfold.

This movie is, of course, as dumb as a box of hammers, but it's occasionally effective in using the resources at hand to create a memorable degree of mayhem - There's a chase sequence roughly half-way through the movie which does a mighty good job of waking you up after a fairly uninspired previous fifteen minutes, with X riding a Quad bike in a quite absurdly dangerous fashion through L.A., pursued by seemingly every cop in the district, the irate Moto Cross dudes he stole the vehicle from and a badly-scripted Greek Chorus TV news crew, all scored to a rabble-rousing DMX track.

It's a moment of almost heroic cinematic idiotic transcendence, badly needed by a previously faintly underwhelming movie, and it succeeds in immediately lifting proceedings and engaging the attention until the inevitable explosive climax, which arrives with the subtlety of a brick being dropped onto your toe, as a Tom Arnold-driven tank crashes through the scenery to save the day, the bad guy's helicopter is shot down, and every principal cast member is pressed into service and duly embroiled in a mass ruck as the plot's threads converge at a covert arms auction.

DMX does fair work as the permanently scowling hero of the piece, but his performance is so one-note that it's difficult to warm to either him or his whiny brat of a kid - this certainly isn't the kind of movie which requires any of it's principals to emote convincingly, but it might be nice in his next movie if DMX could summon up an alternate expression or two - perhaps one which doesn't eerily resemble profound constipation would be nice.

Jet Li is a little bit too restrained in this flick - he's given mostly to whupping everybody's ass with one hand in his pocket and providing nurturing support for X's overwrought dad. He gets a couple of chances to show a bit more of his mind-boggling speed and agility but this is not the charismatic and athletic guy you remember from the "Once Upon A Time In China" movies and it frankly induces more than a little incredulity that Li apparently turned down a role in the "Matrix" sequels to headline this scarcely heart-racing effort. He seems curiously adrift and indifferent during the majority of his time and screen and you can't help but share his ennui watching the end result.

I enjoyed moments of the movie - is Chi McBride's character a direct homage to the Noel Coward anti-hero of "The Italian Job" or is just me imagining things? - but felt curiously deflated after seeing it. Everything is in place to provide a reasonable evening's switch-off-your-brain entertainment, but the finished movie just doesn't manage to particularly inspire on any level. Paradigms are not shattered and recreated. A cinematic bar is not raised particularly highly. It's all a bit "Blah", to be honest.

Expect another batch of more or less the same thing, this time next year.

2003-04-03T13:28:00.000Z

Click on the highlighted link for Weird "Matrix Reloaded" character spoilerage image malarkey.

It's a intriguing pic and no mistake(with thanks to the sterling people over at The Matrix Fans), which carries my usual proviso - If you don't want to know anything about the upcoming movies, then try and restrain yourself from clicking through.

2003-04-02T12:21:00.000Z

"ALIAS" SPOILER ZONE BEGINS!!!

In this week's episode, "The Indicator", of the Jennifer Garner-starring spy action-drama, "ALIAS", the ever-twisting and turning plot approached another, entirely welcome point of storytelling insanity, with the slightly jaw-dropping suggestion that Sydney's dogged pop had more to do with her career choice than he's been prepared to let on.

During the course of the episode, whilst on a relatively run-of-the-mill mission to half-inch this week's McGuffin for those uptight, bad-asses over at SD-6, our heroine stumbled upon what can only be described as a extra-curricular, after-school club for the future political regime destabilisers of Europe, where the young and promising are taught how to assemble weapons blindfolded, brought up to speed on utilising latent skill-sets handy for a later life in the spy game and generally given the opportunity to hone their murderising skills at an early age: Think "Hogwarts for Assassins", and you won't be too far off-beam.

So far, so scary, but the really jaw-dropping revelation in this week's episode was that Syd's Dad was more than a little complicit in signing up his offspring for her own indoctrination at the US equivalent of this pre-teen, wet-work primer course. In fact, he would appear to have set up his own beloved daughter up for a rewarding career path as a sleeper agent, given his central role in formulating the "Project Christmas" programme, to identify child prospects for later-life grooming into spies and government operatives.

Which is shocking mostly because we had little clue that Mr Bristow was responsible for playing the Stage Dad and sending his little girl off down the path of becoming the tortured, conflicted and stylishly-presented lethal instrument of vengeance that she is today. Up until now, Syd's super-espionage artist, double-dealing, stylishly-presented mother has been the primary, uber-Big Bad in this head-scratchingly complex series, manipulating and guiding the principles so as to dance to her own, dubious agenda: This latest reversal, pitching Jack as being actively complicit in his daughter's fate, just seeks to muddy the already dark waters just that little bit more and makes even a more casual "Alias"-phile like your blogsmith wonder if Lena Olin's arch-villainess is as bad as she's been painted up until now. Okay, so she murders with impunity, commits horrible atrocities all over the place and enjoys playing nasty mind games with her own daughter, but at least she didn't send her kid to the Spook equivalent of middle-school.

This week's episode ended on Syd discovering Jack's betrayal and really bad parenting skills, prompting the glam spy to walk away from her dad and into the welcoming arms of her hunksome, sensitive CIA handler, Vaughn (which means that Michael Vartan gets to do a bit more in the next few episodes than he has so far this season, I guess). Where things go from here is your guess, because even I'm going non-spoiler when it comes to this particular series.

"ALIAS" SPOILER ZONE ENDS!!!

2003-04-02T11:44:00.000Z

I'm presently working on a review blitz, which should include mini-discursive epistles concerning Monday evening's ep of "Alias", the latest Big Shouting Al picture, "The Recruit" and the unfeasibly absurd and occasionally entertaining wire-fu urban action flick, "Cradle 2 The Grave".

Should be up sometime today, hopefully.

If my fingers are that crossed, however, I'm going to have a devil of a time typing things out...

2003-04-01T18:36:00.000Z

It would appear that God himself finds the time to blog...

2003-04-01T14:54:00.000Z

This would be today's obligatory, somewhat laboured "Matrix Reloaded" news kernel, courtesy of the hard-working souls at The Last Free City, and it is presented to you with an upfront warning that evil SPOILERS are sneakily concealed therein.

If you really don't want to know anything about the sequels, don't go clicking on that link and spoiling things for yourself. You'll only hate yourself in the morning.

Me? I'm a great big spoiler 'ho, and I don't care who knows it...

2003-04-01T14:31:00.000Z

With a heads-up in the direction of the all-knowing, all-seeing Darth Phil for posting the link in the first place, I present a blog which reminds me that I was once this young, and confused about design, too.

If you've clicked through and regained the use of your eyesight, now you know why First Season is a predominantly text-based blog.

Which is not to say that I wish to diss the person who has put up that site, but that I am confused by the fact that so many kids can throw a site like that together in a comparitively short space of time and yet put much less thought into the presentation of their ideas, or the content of their writing.

And, just to humour me, do schools still teach their young charges how to spell? I know that I leave the occasional howler on the blog pages, but reading that linked site was something quite surreal and troubling.

2003-03-31T15:51:00.000Z

Who is Jack Canfield and why does his advert keep appearing atop my blog? Where, in the fine text that I crudely assemble everyday, have I quoted, suggested, or made any representation which would induce the aforementioned gentleman to be unwittingly promoted via my occasionally readable blog thingy?

I am perplexed, to say the least.

Oh, and in other news, my wife has ordered Michelle Trachtenberg's stunt double's album. Though it was only £6.99, courtesy of one of those helpful online stores, a nifty price is hardly an excuse for such inexplicable behaviour.

2003-03-31T15:34:00.000Z

Click here if you're trying to make sense of the tangled web which is "Alias".

2003-03-31T15:25:00.000Z

Just added a link or two to the relevant sections of the blog. You should find an "Alias" webring button somewhere atop the page, the HTML gods permitting, and a link to the rather excellent "No Rock N' Roll Fun" blog, which is today's recommended click.

A site which bitches and moans about the insubstantial crapulence of UK music mags is more or less in sync with this blog's feelings at the present time.

2003-03-31T14:52:00.000Z

P.T. Anderson's extraordinary "Punch-Drunk Love" is coming to DVD on the 10th of June. If you click on the link, you'll find out more at this excellent and exhaustive site devoted to the Anderson cinematic universe.

2003-03-31T10:23:00.000Z

I promised a somewhat more comprehensive review of Jon Amiel's disaster flick, "The Core" and here it is.

That "The Core" isn't anywhere near as bad as you feared it would be from viewing the film's trailer, is probably a source of some comfort to the good people at Paramount.

The studio have already scrapped one release date for the movie, funded it to the tune of $120,000,000 and watched in a presumed state of some discomfort as the horror of February's space shuttle disaster initially suggested that one of the film's early action sequences would be excised, for providing a shocked, psychologically-battered nation with an uncomfortable echo of a tragedy lingering too recently in the memory.

What won't be a source of any comfort to Paramount is this picture's singularly unimpressive opening weekend, which suggests that America isn't currently in any mood to catch a flick which punctuates it's main plotline with repeated sequences of global destruction and culminates in a sequence depicting the loss of one of America's great landmarks. I may be a entirely humble blogsmith and not know a great deal about the financial workings of the movie business, but I can't see anyone at Paramount crowing about opening in third place and earning just over $12, 000, 000.

The shame of the situation described above is that "The Core" is a mostly successful, unpretentious and oft-gripping yarn, which concentrates as much on character as spectacle and provides it's prospective audience with a smarter bunch of heroes than you might usually expect to encounter in a movie like this.

You might say that this is down to casting adult actors rather than teen heart-throbs in the lead roles - Instead of having Jennifer Love Hewitt pilot the space shuttle, we have Hilary Swank (who has an actual Oscar, saints be praised), and eschewing the temptation to cast Paul Walker as the brilliant, slightly rough-around-the-edges college professor, "The Core" gives Neal Labute veteran Aaron Eckhart a chance to star front and centre in a big studio blockbuster. The end result of this casting is that, with the right role in the right blockbuster, he's got the makings of a proper movie star, handling the physical action with aplomb and more than convincing with his character work. Far be it from me to make wild claims on my blog, but the search for the new Harrison Ford, the next thinking person's action hero, is pretty much over.

The film's central premise concerns an initially inexplicable natural phenomenon - that the very core of the earth has ceased spinning and that this abrupt cessation of momentum is causing all manner of disturbing natural disasters to occur (32 people with pacemakers in a major American city suddenly collapse and die; In London, Trafalgar Square's pidgeon population drops from the sky and cause traffic pile-ups; in the most potentially fraught episode, the space shuttle's navigational data is incorrect, prompting the crew to aim for a worst case scenario, last-ditch landing in downtown Los Angeles), with far worse, planet-ending horrors to come. The world has under a year left before total meltdown.

As is a staple of such films, a grandiose and essentially suicidal scheme to right the problem is put into play and a team of the best and the brightest is assembled to build and then pilot an unfortunately phallic-looking, hugely-experimental craft into the earth's core and restart it with a stock of big-assed nuclear bombs. (if any of this is sounding particularly scientifically implausible to you, I would almost certainly give "The Core" a miss, as it doesn't get any more realistic subsequently).

Basically, this is "Armageddon" redux, but it's none the worse for that. If you could switch off your brain for a couple of hours and just soak in the spectacle, Micheal Bay's box-office goliath frequently provided more than enough bang for your buck and had just enough frenzied technical invention to make the cheesy, written-by-committee screenplay, variable performances and overcaffeinated editing slightly bearable. "The Core", I think that I'm right in saying, is a much more serious enterprise at heart, with all concerned trying to do a little bit more than produce a two-hour, sound-and-fury, insubstantial Coke advert with explosions every five minutes.

Jon Amiel is not the kind of guy you expect to see helming a picture like this - he's previously best-known for directing the likes of "Sommersby", "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter", and the perhaps more directly-linked thrillers, "CopyCat" and "Entrapment". He's not especially thought of as an action director in the vein of a John McTiernan or Antoine Fuqua, so it's a pleasure to see him direct action with a more coherant hand than most of his peers - at no time do you feel lost in a scene, or not know where the characters are in the story from moment to moment. If you fancy seeing an adventure pic where you won't get a headache from the excess of cutting, and be battered around the head by the director's style, this is perhaps a title which you may wish to check out (it's certainly going to rock your home theater set-up if you have one).

The cast more than rise to the challenge, too. Aaron Eckhart is great as the blue-collar, down-to-earth hero of the piece - he's suggested in publicity for "The Core" that his performance was inspired by, and intended as a tribute to, the emergency service personnel who struggled so bravely to find survivors in the wake of the 9/11 disaster, and it's to his credit that his work is never less than totally convincing. Eckhart's character is a guy who solves problems with his grey matter rather than a gun, has an emotional centre and charm to spare. He's matched by Hilary Swank, whose pilot heroine is intelligent, focussed and resolutely not a damsel in need of rescue. There's attraction between the pair, but no forced, predictable romance - it's honestly quite refreshing to see a movie where the leads don't just arbitrarily pair-off just because they've been through a difficult and dangerous situation together.

The other principals are quite fine - It's always a joy to see Delroy Lindo in an ensemble, and his work here is funny, eccentric and entirely appropriate to the tone of the picture: he's a guy that you want on your side in an apocalyptic scenario like this one, and he manages to find every subtle grace note and nuance suggested by his character and in the writing. His final scene in the movie is quietly transcendent and haunting, moving in a way which these epic-scale disaster pieces aim for but never quite reach.

Tcheky Karyo gets to play a good guy for once, and does a beautiful job, playing a neat, unforced friendship with Eckhart's hero - it's just unfortunate that, to many audiences, his character will take on an unintentional villainous cast, merely because he's French and France's political stance on current global issues is somewhat unpopular to some political mindsets, at the present time. DJ Qualls, who you'll remember from expertly embodying geeky roles in "Road Trip", "The New Guy" and Britney's "Boys" video, turns up as the omnipotent hacker running interference for the mission and making sure that not a word of it makes it onto the net. Call me sad if you will, but I love to see computer geeks getting to play a major part in saving the world. Better still, a lot of the computer stuff in this movie is borderline accurate, or at least looks reasonably convincing.

Stanley Tucci steals the picture. That's really all that you need to know. From his entrance, chewing scenery, to his exit, still munching on any delicate morsel provided by the script, it's evident that he's having a ball and perhaps eyeing a lucrative sideline as a villain-for-hire in the Oldman/Rickman/Cox mode of respected actors slumming it slightly in movies that mass audiences actually see.
I loved his performance in this movie.

Evidently, this movie has not performed half-as-well as it's studio might have hoped, but it's an ultimately harmless piece of entertainment, which some very considerable incidental pleasures to soak up and a tone which is closer to "Deep Impact"
than, say, "Volcano". For some of you out there, this may be construed as all of the recommendation that you need.

2003-03-30T17:27:00.000Z

The first casualty of war is, apparently, good business sense.

With a plug to Wil Wheaton Dot Net and Wired magazine for the heads-up about this newest tangential wrinkle in an already remarkably surreal conflict.

2003-03-30T12:13:00.000Z

Surprisingly, the newly-announced full track listing for "The Matrix Reloaded" soundtrack album features lots of noisy herberts with aggressive guitars and a selection of unpleasant-looking piercings.

And there I was, expecting to hear Norah Jones...

2003-03-30T11:55:00.000Z

Australia -
Founded as a gigantic prison colony, Australia has
turned into a Mid-Level world power. Known for
its wildlife and culture.

Positives:

Reformed.

Culturally Admired.

Mid-Level Power.

Renouned Flora and Fauna.

Negatives:

Founded by Criminals.

Island Nation (Isolated).

Talk Funny.

Which Country of the World are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

With thanks to Bingo Bowden for the link.

2003-03-29T18:57:00.000Z

In film review news, particularly for those of you floating in a state of some indecision at the local multiplex's ticket kiosk, I can exclusively reveal that Paramount's big release this weekend, "The Core" is "Kind of okay, if you like that kind of thing".

A full overview should be up tomorrow morning - which I guess would be the middle of the night if you're reading this in America - and it's mostly positive.

The thing to be aware of if you're a fan of the venerable character actor, Stanley Tucci, is that he single-handedly steals the picture and plays the most heroic anti-hero since Gary Oldman's character, Dr. Smith, in the "Lost In Space". Mr Tucci's wig and eyebrows work overtime and almost certainly deserve their own screen credit, so effective are they at focussing your attention when they are on screen. If you're going to see this flick tonight, I think it's safe to say that you'll probably enjoy it, just so long as you put any notion of scientific accuracy or plausibility out of your head: Just focus on Mr. Tucci's hypnotic eyebrows - it'll help, trust me.

More to follow.

2003-03-28T15:11:00.000Z

It would be rude not to make mention of the rather splendid Darth Phil , whose blog is worthy of your time everyday, and today includes all of the vital info you'll need to avoid the endlessly tiresome Lenny Kravitz and his in-no-way-predictable new, anti-war song, "We Want Peace" (just because you can get Heather Graham in your videos, Mr Kravitz, it doesn't mean that I have to pay any attention to you...).

I think that it's patently clear that War Is a Bad Thing, and I don't need a born-again retro-trend vampire to lecture me with his dated, watered-down piffle.

Now, make that a Cave-In anti-war polemic, and we could be talking business...

2003-03-28T13:00:00.000Z

You NEED this in your life...

2003-03-28T12:50:00.000Z

A rare diversion from your humble blogsmith, who is normally blissfully oblivious to modified rides, 20 inch rims and other stuff which fills valuable minutes on MTV's "Cribs": Click HERE to check out Honda's new Element SUV thingy.

Most of the time, I am fairly indifferent to cars, trucks and emission-belching vehicles, being a die-hard, pavement-pounding, motorist-terrifying cyclist of some years standing, but this new Honda is just, well, pretty.

Am I missing the point again?

2003-03-28T10:03:00.000Z

My best-laid plans have been rudely interrupted by the unwanted intrusion of illness, it pains me to say.

I had planned to spend today going into Sheffield to our local UGC plex to go and waste a few braincells by taking in the latest Jet Li/DMX ass-whupping fest on my own, "Cradle 2 the Grave", mainly so that my lovely and splendid wife, the redoubtable K. didn't have to sit in a cinema of caffeine-assisted, testosterone-fuelled blokes, and get a headache from the movie's migraine-inducing soundtrack of loud bangs and people getting kicked Seven Ways To Sunday.

My presently crappy health has meant that I've had to file that movie-going expedition away until early next week, and fill this enforced gap in my flick-viewing calendar by watching some similarly dumb stuff on DVD (I'm halfway through watching "Behind Enemy Lines", which boasts the unusual distinction of having a commentary track which is much more entertaining than the feature which it accompanies, and intend to watch "XXX" again this afternoon).

Never mind, though - there's always the "Armageddon"-lite heroics of Jon Amiel's "The Core" to anticipate on Tuesday (c'mon, the sound has to be half-decent, at least), and Big Shouting Al overacting a storm opposite that glinting-eyed rogue, Colin Farrell, in "The Recruit", so I do have stuff to look forward to which is bound to be silly, entertaining and noisy, which are three qualities that I often look for in a film...

Dear God. I really am a studio executive's dream audience member, after all.