I’m slowly catching up on my RSS feeds but have some lengthy articles on the backlog to read, my email inbox is as far from InboxZero as ever (currently 1446 unread of 10292). My magazine pile is quite high, including Private Eye as I’ve been listening to music rather than reading on the bus in the morning.

I created a site with a friend as project but we haven’t really kicked that off yet so as I get back into writing I’ll throw some stuff over on JoyStuckInThePast.

So I’ll do a quick round up instead of the films I can remember seeing at the cinema so far this year.

Star Wars: Phantom Menace (3D)

I went to see this with low expectations for the film but high expectations for the 3D effects. The trailer for Titanic 3D (spoiler: the boat sinks) made me turn and go I hope they didn’t use the same technique, that looks awful. Unfortunately, they did use the same technique. I saw the 2D version when it came out and then watched it twice on VHS but hadn’t seen it since (having only seen episodes 2 and 3 once each at cinema too). Jar Jar was as annoying as ever. The pod-race was more awesome than I remember. The 3D effects were terrible. Things rushing close to the screen and blurring the background whilst adding even more CGI creatures isn’t my idea of a good movie experience. Nor is the £9.40 asking price.

Unfortunately I will probably end up seeing the next two just so they go ahead and destroy the original trilogy even more when they 3D it up.

John Carter

Having been disappointed at Star Wars my next trip to the pictures was to see John Carter. It was surprisingly good. I hadn’t seen the terrible trailer and promotion which was the source of most peoples negativity of it. Of course it was only good when I eventually got to see it. The first time we went the screen failed during the trailers. Our options were money back and free ticket/see different film/wait 2 hours for the 3D version. We opted for free tickets and went the next night.

Unlike Phantom Menace the 3D blended into the background, in most places was necessary and you didn’t notice it. It was a bit too long but worth it. Unfortunately Hollywood accounting meant it was already a flop before it was released so you have to wonder if the terrible promotion/trailer were deliberate as some kind of tax write off for losses by the studio.

Muppets

Having seen the awesome reviews I took my nieces to see the Muppets movie. Jason Segel was amazing in it. Youngest niece was slightly bored as it took a while for the Muppets to actually be doing anything exciting. She was waiting on the fart shoes and Miss Piggy so once the fart shoes appeared that was the film over as far as she was concerned. The older niece and I really enjoyed it though. The best part for me was that it was a kids film where the adult jokes weren’t innuendos but ripping the piss out of movie cliches that would fly over kids heads.

Electric Man

Electric Man had a showing at DCA with a Q&A session with the director and writer. A really low budget film (I hate low budget films…) set in a comic shop in Edinburgh (not aimed at me at all). It was really good. Obviously it had the flaws you would expect from a low budget film but what it did well far surpassed those. The direction and casting was excellent (Fish! the only other actor for the role would be Tam Dean Burn) and the shots of Edinburgh were fantastic. It really showed off the Grassmarket area really well, normally films set in Edinburgh stick to the Princess St/Castle and the only film that has come close to showing off Edinburgh was Hallam Foe. They are currently looking for a distributor and really deserve it to be shown wider.

The Cabin in the Woods

Dundead Festival opening night had the Cabin in the Woods showing. I was one of the first to buy tickets for it like the rabid Joss Whedon fan-boy that I am. I had avoided the trailer and was glad that I did, watching it afterwards it didn’t really show off the film as trailers should, mainly because of the twists and spoilers. Due to that I won’t talk about it more just now, only to say it dissected the cabin in the woods horror genre from a different angle than Tucker and Dale vs Evil and was as enjoyable if not more so. Definitely more so as I then went to see it on opening night at the chain cinema. The inclusion of 3 Whedon alumni in the cast only added to the awesomeness for me.

The Raid

As part of the @Dundead Festival they showed The Raid as final film. It was the UK premiere of the new cut with Linkin Park member Mike Shinoda produced score. This was an incredibly good action film. I’ll definitely head to see it again when it goes on general release later this month. An amazing baddie who you really believe can beat the goodies and at some points find yourself rooting for.

Instrument

Scott Myles was allowed to pick some films to show alongside his exhibition at the DCA and chose Instrument, a documentary about Fugazi to be shown. I hadn’t seen it before and was totally blown away at how good it was as a music documentary. Heavy Metal in Baghdad had been my favourite one until I saw this. It is also available on YouTube in it’s entirety so you can go view it there.

As part of the introduction the guy said he had watched it several times on VHS, some points in the film looked like it was a copy from his much watched VHS. That fault aside it was really interesting, sometimes with long stretches of no talking, just music, one sequence is just viewing the fans at a show and it was interesting looking at the fashion and dress of the gig-goers. The highlight though had to be the on stage filming of intimate gigs in large venues – especially the opening scenes.

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The two stand-outs for me though were the ingenuously fuelled letter about classical music with the quote the capital is positively stiff with magnificent organs.

The second is the large column with outrage that a comedian has been dumped from a festival, the comedian in question being Paul Merton, he who co-stars with Eye editor Ian Hislop on Have I Got News For You. This got as much disclosure as they look for when the Sun gives 5 star ratings to Fox films though which made me chuckle.

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The latest issue has x years since monarch succession law Brown wants to change, 14 years, time Brown waited before becoming prime minister unelected.

Now whilst strictly true, it is certainly misleading. Gordon Brown was not elected as Prime Minister, the implication is that this is unusual. But neither was any other Prime Minister. Ever.

The most recent example of a situation identical to Brown is John Major. After Thatcher was ousted, he was made Prime Minister on 28 November 1990 and did not call a general election until 9 April 1992.

Unsurprisingly the Tory rags ranting about Brown being unelected did not make the same argument back then!

After a General election the monarch asks the leader of the party with the most MPs to form their government.

Should the accept, as they generally do, they go on to form a government and a cabinet.

It is therefore possible that Labour can have the most MPs elected. Their leader, who is not an MP becomes Prime Minister and then forms his Cabinet out of a load of Lords and Bishops on the Privy Council – none of whom were elected either.

So, the premise is made: this Prime Minister is not elected so that is not democratic.

The other one: no Prime Minister is elected so that is not democratic, is not made.

The conclusion: we don’t live in a democracy, but an oligarchy, is not drawn either.

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If ever you need to complete the input-> process->output diagram with Daily Mail as the input this is your best bet.

My favourite has to be the EUrophobe who rants about the metric temperature measures. The other excellent parody of this section is the From the message boards section in Private Eye

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