Went to see 10,000 BC this afternoon. Oh boy, history, biology, geography, astronomy - they all get a hammering in this film. I can’t be bothered to even start listing everything that was goofy here.

It was one of the most by-the-numbers renditions of (the easy to understand bits of) Joseph Campbell’s monomyth that I’d seen in a while. I smiled at the bemusement when hunter-gatherers first came across the evidence of agriculture, but of course in Campbell’s scheme there has to be a ‘boon’ to take back home at the end (sorry, that was a spoiler). There were also bits lifted from the Bible, Stargate, Conan and 300, just in case the mention of Campbell misled you into thinking there were highbrow sources being used.

The action and CGI were very good, the actors managed to keep straight face. It’s not a bad movie in the sense that it’s exciting and visual, but it’s certainly one to watch with the brain switched off.

Oh, by the way, the Doctor Who and Star Trek trailers look amazing on the big screen.

Very True Mood: sleepy

There’s a pro-creationism, anti-science movie called Expelled, in which a number of prominent scientists were conned into providing interviews by the producers describing a very different and more balanced movie. One of these scientists, PZ Myers, tried to attend a screening and was turned away on instructions from the producers, but there’s a twist. To see why this was as about a perfect own goal as can be, read his account of the evening.

Very True Mood: chipper

There’s a film about to open (on my birthday as it happens) called Shoot ’Em Up and the posters for it have infested bus stops all over London. And everytime I see them something niggles me. The problem is that the posters, indeed all art for the film that I’ve seen, use a left single quotation mark ‘ in place of the apostrophe ’.

(Yes, anyone who examines the code of this page will see that the only way to produce a typographically correct apostrophe on the WWW is to use the right single quotation mark character - it’s a long and messy story and I won’t go into it now except to note that the typographically incorrect but now traditional ‘apostrophe’ ' is now recommended for SEO because that’s what people are able to type into search forms.)

I saw this Build Your Own Stonehenge kit in the shop yesterday. A miniature Stonehenge. How Spinal Tap is that?

And on Amazon: “20 used & new available” … does anyone want a second hand Stonehenge?

ObWargames: Not sure of the scale but I suppose it would work quite well with 6mm or smaller figures. Or with a 28mm rock band…

Very True Mood: amused

Went down the Croydon yesterday, bought two mauve shirts (what was I thinking?) and then went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - not a lot to say about that, a did a fair job of making a decent film out of a book that’s more teenage grumpiness than actual plot. It’s now quite clear that some of the teenagers simply can’t act and that some of the veteran thesps can’t be bothered to do anything except ham it up. Excellent special effects with the exception of the CGI creatures which still look like they’re made of plasticine.

But before the film they showed a trailer for the film adaptation of Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising.

Oh dear.

You see I don’t care what sort of changes they make to Harry Potter, or how they redesign the Transformers, but when you start messing around with The Dark is Rising you’re messing with something very important from my childhood.

Firefly

The miniature in some shots is Captain Nathan from Heresy Miniatures (adds to potential shopping list foir Salute tomorrow) and he’s “heroic 28mm” scale, so 30-35mm tall. That makes that paper model of the Serenity quite big.

Very True Mood: impressed

Which of the following characters from the following science fiction movies/ programmes do you think is the most attractive?

• Seven of Nine (Star Trek Voyager)
• Princess Leia (Star Wars)
• Rachael (Blade Runner)
• SuperGirl (SuperGirl)
• Barbarella (Barbarella)
• LeeLoo (Fifth Element)
• Padme (Phantom Menace)
• TX (Terminator 3)
• Lt Uhura (Star Trek)
• Sil (Species)
• Don’t know
• None of these

Having watched Vengeance on Varos last night I read Sil and had a very different image leap to mind than the one they intended. Has anyone see if there’s an equivalent question about the boys?

Sign up with YouGov and get paid to do dumb surveys.

Very True Mood: amused

I must post the conclusion of the City Link saga and an unexpected piece of good customer service from another company that happened soon afterwards, but for now it’s enough to know that I got my new computer and have been busy installing software.

First thing I installed was anti-virus (that’s a lie, first thing was Opera to make downloading all the other things less of a pain). But so far I haven’t installed a firewall, so I’m running with AVG Anti-Virus and Windows Firewall. I’d like a better firewall but I don’t know what to pick.

On my old laptop I’ve been using Kaspersky Anti-Hacker which is a bit old but reliable. This came as part of System Mechanic which I’ve found to be very handy. But, Iolo have produced a new version of System Mechanic and I get a spam pop up everytime I start it. I e-mailed them asking where I could a change log for the new version and they haven’t replied, but from the web site it looks like Kaspersky is no longer part of the package. I’m not sure whether to buy the latest Kaspersky product, or the latest version of System Mechanic, or both, or something else entirely. Any advice for a free or cheap firewall for a Windows XP machine?

I also have installed a BitTorrent client yet. The one built into Opera downloads much slower than the standalone ones I’ve used before. Which have mainly been Azureus, but that seems to have a memory leak in it somewhere ‘cos even when I shut it down completely the system is still clogged up until I reboot (or use System Mechanic to reclaim the RAM). I keep on hearing about μTorrent, is that any good? What’s your BitTorrent client of choice?

Finally, is there a site out there that could be described as LibraryThing for DVDs? I’ve found DVD Spot but it’s not really tickling my web 2.0 fabcy in the way that LT does. I could use Squirl, indeed I could use Squirl for just about any collection, but I’d like to see if there’s anything a bit more specialised first.

Very True Mood: curious

But why is it opening a day late?

Very True Mood: curious

I saw 300 yesterday. Is it historically inaccurate? Yes. Does it illogically put modern notions of freedom and democracy into the mouths of the Spartans? Yes. Does it look like a montage from Braveheart, Gladiator and Lord of the Rings? Yes. Does any of that really matter? No, ‘cos it’s just a damn good heroic action movie in its own right.

Everyone seems to want to read some sort of modern political message into this film. As the heroic Spartans are shown both supporting “modern western” values against an eastern religious tyranny and as supporting native defenders against overwhelming foreign invaders, it is hence seen as both supporting the US against Islamic fundamentalism, and as supporting the Iraqi insurgents against the US occupation. Considering these contradictory interpretations it seems that if the makes intended it as a comment on the war against terror/war in Iraq then they didn’t do a very good job of getting their message across.

Screw all that, this is a movie about violence, heroism and warriors. It’s visually stunning and full of blood and guts and thrills. The first battle scene, with the two forces pushing and shoving, shield-to-shield, stabbing and slashing, is one of the best depictions of pre-gunpowder warfare that I’ve ever seen. After that things stray into heroic fantasy territory, rather like a big budget Xena with lots (really, lots) of blood splatter.

Not going to be everyone’s taste, but if you like this sort of thing, you’ll probably love this one.

Very True Mood: relaxed