Seven Swordsmen

I finally sat down and watched the first episode of Seven Swordsmen, it was a little slow at times but they do have to introduce characters and establish the plot so that's fine.


Based on the series trailer and the first episode I think there's going to be some rather impressive action / stunt work, much better than I would have expected in a TV series.

Visually though this is an odd series, it's a matted 4:3 picture that took a little while to get used to, I haven't seen that done for a while and to be honest it didn't look that great on my wide screen TV ( I might even watch the rest of the series on my old 4:3 TV in the bedroom ), I don't know what they shot it on but it wasn't film but then it doesn't really seem like video either so I guess it's some sort of digital format.

Most of the first episode was shot hand held with the occasional very nice crane shot, unless it's a night shot the producers don't seem too worried about lighting so I guess this was made pretty quickly, the camera operator tends to push right up into the actors faces, or shoot from close to the ground so that the viewer is looking up at the action on screen which takes a bit of getting used to since that's not typical for any TV series I've ever seen.

I terms of production value, the costumes props and sets seem to be of a very high quality although I guess they could be re-using items that were originally made for a movie project, there have been several scenes where there has been squads of men in full armour riding on horse back which I wasn't expecting to see in a TV production.

I'm hoping to watch a couple more episodes over the weekend, this is the first serious live action Chinese TV series I've seen so I think it'll be interesting to compare it to western television productions.

Real Estate Tip Number 1

Never buy a house with a pool, it doesn't matter if your wife or child thinks it's a good idea or if your real estate agent tells you it adds value to the property and if you do make sure you get in writing that they are willing to clean the damn thing other wise you'll will spend large amounts of time topping up water levels, checking the chemical balance of the water and cleaning all sorts fishing all sorts of crap out of the water.

The thing is it rarely gets used and I personally aren't into swimming at all so why is it I've got to maintain the damn thing ?

Fido

It must be a couple of years now but I can recall when there seemed to be a lot of anticipation for Black Sheep and Fido, two horror comedies that were going to be released around the same time, both movies had trailers that looked like fun and I was looking forward to seeing both of them.

I saw Black Sheep on DVD around a year ago and to be honest I was pretty disappointed, it had a couple of funny moments but overall the movie just wasn't very good.

Today I was sorting through some DVDs only to discover I must have bought Fido at some point, I don't remember buying it but sure enough there was the region 2 DVD with Billy Connolly's decaying face on the cover and since I was looking for something to watch this afternoon I though that should do the trick nicely.

It was an interesting movie and I did enjoy it, Fido wasn't as funny as I'd hoped but it was a quirky little film and I liked the whole 50's vibe it had going on, I think I was expecting things to go wrong ( and they did ) and then you'd have a comedy more in line with Shaun of the Dead with moments of horrific gore along with laugh out loud moments and that didn't really happen, this was more like Stand By Me with zombies, I did expect that the Billy Connolly zombie would be revealed as the boy's dead Grandfather and that was why he / it was looking out for him but they didn't do that and upon reflection I guess that would've been a little obvious.

I enjoyed Fido and it's certainly worth a look if you haven't seen it and get the chance.

Dark Water

This was an OK movie, to be honest I expected more of Hideo Nakata, I worked out what was going on and why pretty early on in the film although if you think about it the opening credits pretty much give it away.

The thing that nearly spoiled this movie for me was the 10 years later epilogue, the movie should've ended on the final shot of the water tower.

I have the American remake of Dark Water somewhere so I might check that out sometime soon just to compare the two, to me this felt like a movie that was trying to appeal to an international audience and so a lot of the horror aspects were diluted in order to appeal to the broadest audience.

An OK movie with a lot of untapped potential.

Colour Me Kubrick

This movie was ( loosely ) based on real life events where a con man was impersonating Stanley Kubrick, it must be said I'm a bit of a fan of Kubrick's films so I had fun spotting various references and music cues used in Colour Me Kubrick and I was aware of the man who impersonated Kubrick and some of the events around him being discovered.

A couple of years ago I saw a trailer for the film that made it look like a comedy which I thought was odd at the time but I'd eventually check out the film, Colour Me Kubrick is no comedy, it has a couple of  funny moments but it's certainly no comedy, this is a movie about celebrity ( something Stanley Kubrick never wanted ) and someone who was unhappy with his life so he tried to become someone else

John Malkovich gives an outstanding performance as Alan Conway, the openly gay Stanley Kubrick impersonator who looked nothing like Kubrick and it seemed knew only the basic facts about his work but somehow still managed to convince people he was a talented movie director.

This was a bit different to the things I've been watching lately and I really enjoyed it, it's not a movie I'd buy ( well recommend buying since I did in fact buy it ) but if you can catch it on TV it's certainly worth a look.

The Corpse Bride

I've had the DVD for about three years but today I finally got around to watching The Corpse Bride, I was hoping that this movie would capture the magic of A Nightmare Before Christmas but honestly it didn't which isn't to say the movie was bad because it wasn't, it just wasn't anything special.


I don't know where Tim Burton would be if he wasn't making movies, The Corpse Bride like most of his movies was rather unique both in terms of story and visual style but that is to be expected of Burton.

One thing that did really impress me was the cast of voice actors that worked on this movie, especially Christopher Lee, we don't see enough of Christopher Lee in movies these days.

The Corpse Bride like all Tim Burton movies is worth seeing for yourself, it's not one of his better movies but it's nowhere near as bad as his remake of Planet of the Apes either.

Today, your diary entry will read - "Took a prozzie hostage, and then got shot by three armed bastards!"

Over the last couple of days I've been re-watching the first series of Ashes to Ashes, not sure why really I just suddenly had the urge see it again, I still thinks it's a little weak for the first couple of episodes while Keeley Hawes finds her way as the series lead but as usual it's Gene Hunt that makes the series worth watching, some of his dialog in Life on Mars ( the proper original UK version ) and Ashes to Ashes is just hilarious, it's hard to believe we won't be seeing anymore of the Gene Genie.

A horse with no name........

Well the man had a name but I'm pretty sure the horse didn't, I've spent a rather large part of the last two days replaying Red Dead Redemption, a recent video game release and the closest I think we'll ever come to an interactive Sergio Leone movie.

It's been ages since there has been a decent video game based on the western genre and this has been a blast, the game world is gorgeous, the game play is smooth and there are plenty of different side missions and mini games to keep the player amused.

I guess the western genre won't appeal to everyone but this is works for me, I keep expecting to see Clint Eastwood ride out of the hills and open up a can of whoop ass on the local bandits before riding off into the sunset.

The Amazing Screw-On Head

Well I finally got around to watching The Amazing Screw-On Head, this was a cartoon I was interested in seeing but like so many other things I just never got around to it.

I was shocked and somewhat disappointed to see that it's running time was only around 30 minutes, for some reason I thought it had a longer running time but then according to the special features this was a pilot for an animated series, while I did enjoy the pilot I'm glad I got this DVD very cheap on eBay as I'd be really annoyed if I paid full price for this disc based on it's contents.

I've never read The Amazing Screw-On Head comic which is what this episode is based on but I think I'd like to check it out at some point, it's another quirky creation of Mike Mignola and it had the same feel as Hellboy.

The Amazing Screw-On Head isn't something that I imagine would appeal to everyone but I really liked it, it's a shame that more episodes of this series weren't produced.

One of those days

My Grandfather called me today to say he wanted to buy a high definition plasma screen and he was wondering if I'd go with him to look at them, he knew pretty much what he wanted to spend and roughly what size screen he'd like and thankfully he was prepared to spend a reasonable amount of money.

We found a very nice Panasonic Plasma screen on sale so that's what we bought and took it home, then he decided he needed to reorganise his lounge room ( which actually meant he wanted me to do it ).

Of course with all his components moved around it was back off to the shop to pick up some longer cables and then back to his place to hook up everything, then he asks he if it's possible to connect his old VCR to the plasma, I should've said no but I didn't think quickly enough and answered honestly.

I don't know why but getting that VCR to work with his plasma was a massive pain in the ass, I connected it, disconnected it, swapped cables and did a bunch of other stuff and the damn thing just refused to work for the better part of a couple of hours and then suddenly it was fine, of course using such a poor quality format on such a nice screen seemed criminal but at least it works - for now.

A busy couple of Days

Like the title says it's been a busy couple of days, I re-watched the first series of Spaced as well as watching a few episodes of Relic Hunter and the recent mini-series version of The Phantom.

I also finished reading The Road to Dune which was a book I really enjoyed, then Aaron and I recorded a nearly 3 hour long conversation for Sci-Fi Dig and I finished re-playing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed as well as watching a few more episodes of the iFanboy video podcast.

I never said it was a productive couple of days, just busy.

Moon 44

I remember renting Moon 44 on video many many years ago, I enjoyed it at the time even though the special effects for the most part were pretty bad and so was the acting.

I watched the movie again on DVD last night, the cast with the exception of Malcolm McDowell were pretty bad ( why does he keep making these cheap-ass films ? ) and the production designer seemed to be copying what he saw in Alien / Aliens and Blade Runner but that really helped the movie in terms of atmosphere.

You can see Roland Emmerich's visual style beginning to emerge in this movie, unfortunately he still had a lot to learn as a writer.

Moon 44 is a fun little B-grade sci-fi movie, it's nothing special but it's also not as bad as a lot of people suggest either.

iFanboy

I'd sort of been aware of the iFanboy podcast for a while, like so many other things I'd downloaded a bunch of episodes a while back, I hadn't listened to any of them but I had downloaded them.

A few days ago I discovered they also did a video podcast so I thought I sit down and watch an episode, over the last three days I've watched something like 15 episodes so I've only got something like 150 to go.

I've really enjoyed how they have gotten to interview various comic creators at various conventions and signings at stores but the shows where they just geek out at comics have been a lot of fun as well.

If you even have a mild interest in comics click here to give iFanboy a try

The Road to Dune

I was a big fan of Frank Herbert's first three Dune novels, his later Dune novels were OK but I didn't enjoy them as much as the original three, I haven't read any of the prequel books written by his son Brian and Kevin J Anderson as I've heard mixed ( more bad than good ) things about them.

A while back I picked up The Road to Dune and so far it's been a very interesting read, it's sort of like the print version of DVD special features, it contains letters that were exchanged between Frank Hebert and his agent as well as various other people, the original much shorter original version of Dune which was called Spice Planet ( I didn't like it very much to tell the truth ), deleted and alternate versions of material from Dune and Dune Messiah as well as some short stories.

If you are a fan of the Dune books then I think this is well worth a read .

Actually catching up a little

With Fiona still being somewhat incapacitated after her surgery I haven't been doing too much or going away for too long just in case she needs help with something, the end result of that has been I've been home a lot more than usual, this has enabled me o catch up on my reading a bit, in fact I've read three novels in three days, they were just Doctor Who novels not War and Peace or something like that but at least it's a start, now I only have about 50 unread novels to go and I'm all caught up.