Generation Kill

I bought Generation Kill today at my local chainstore. This is by, I think, David Simon, formerly of the Wire. I was a bit gutted after the Wire finished because really anything else after that is a bit of a disappointment. So something new by mr Simon is something to look forward too. Hopefully I am not going to be disappointed.

Halloween Howl 4

... is coming. Read all about it here folks!

I encourage you all to get out and support New Zealand pro-wrestling. The details currently are Friday October 30th, Wellington High School, Wellytown. Tickets can be purchased on the door or, I think, from the Powerhouse Gym.

The best there was... the best there is... the best there ever will be.

A while back Bret Hart and Vincent K MacMahon set aside their differences long enough to put together a dvd retrospective of his career. I have been working my way through this, so far I have seen the documentary and four to five of his matches.

Two things in particular struck me. The first thing was that, at least for the purposes of the dvd, time seems to have mellowed Bret Hart with regard to Montreal. That is positive. That much bitterness can't be good for your health. The second thing was how sweet tag-team wrestling was in the 80s with the Rockers, the Bulldogs, the Road Warriors, and Demolition wandering through the squared circle. Great times and I think wrestling is the poorer for the lack of really good tag-teams. I lied, there's a third thing, it's a crime that so many of those who wrestled then and were comparatively young men have passed away. Sad.

Thumbs-up.

Batman...

As public servants often do, today I was thinking about historical Batman movie serials. In that vein I found an amusing picture of the 1940s Batman engaging in derring do and forwarded on to some chums. I also thought I need to see some of this goodness for myself. Luckily, it seems my local video store, Aro Video, seems to have a copy of one particular season. Then I thought about YouTube and found this bit of goodness...

SEEN: District 9

Well, this movie is as good as people say it is. What an unexpected bonus. Setting aside the obvious analogies in the plot that have been spoken about elsewhere, I was impressed by how subtly they moved the audience's view of the characters. The way life and meaning was given to the aliens was particularly impressive. Thank goodness they didn't make a Halo movie instead. I will go as far to say this is one of my best watches of the year.

RECOMMENDATION: Big thumbs-up with a cheesy grin.

Wipe on - wipe off

I went away to Auckland the other weekend. It was good. I managed to get up to Mount Eden and One Tree Hill in one day, bit of a mammoth walk, but worth it. The views were great. My highlight, as I have mentioned elsewhere was the Auckland War Memorial museum. It was just way, way, way better than Te Papa. I am generally not moved by war memorials, but there was some affecting about the museum's one.

Um, yeah.

BSG S4PT2

Take a bunch of stuff, throw it against a wall, and hope like #### it sticks. That sort of describes the first two episodes of season 4 part 2 of Battlestar Galactica. You don't need all those plotlines kiddies, what you will need is a convincing ending. The next two episodes I watched benefited from a more coherent and connected story, but this is still a way from the heights of three seasons. Still, I have this come far and I will see this out to its bitter end.

CURRENT RECOMMENDATION: thumbs in the middle, tending down.

Sunshine cleaning

Amy Adams, the quirky one (why doesn't her name stay in my head...?), and Alan Arkin do a good turn in this comedy about two sisters who clean up crime scenes. It's in the vain, stylistically, of Little Miss Sunshine. Funny, touching, and clever. I now why to try trestling, see the movie to understand.

RECOMMENDATION: Thumbs-up

A new scam of a different kind...

#1#

"Oh look", I say to myself. Extraordinarily cheap free-range eggs from [NEW BRAND NAME] at [VERY EXPENSIVE SUPERMARKET], wow I want some of that proteiny goodness baby. That's nearly a $1.00 cheaper than my usual brand. Wow, I can be both green/animal loving and a smart shopper all at the same time. So, I get home and the next day I cook up the eggs and they are, indeed, mighty tasty. BUT... the carton seems smaller. Is it because I bought organic, hormone and drug free eggs? NO, it's not. It's because there are only 10 ####k!ng eggs in the carton. I bought a 10, not a dozen, but a 10. As they say. when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me.

HEARD: Metallica - All Nightmare LOng

Perusing Real Groovy's single bins I found this, surprising, gem. It is a Metallica single off Death Magnetic. Basically it's thrash but in a "good return to form way" as opposed to a "bloated I've run out of ideas" scenario. Yes, this gladdened my heart. RECOMMENDATION: Buy!

Film Festival - Flame and Citron

... or is it Citron and Flame. I forget. On a whim I went to this on Friday night. It had been something that had come close to a "watch" when I had originally browsed the booklet. It proved to be an inspired choice. It was a complex tale of the resistance in WW2 in which no one is right, everyone seems to be playing a game, and your friends were the ones you had to watch out for the most. Mads Mikkelson (spelling??) was great.

RECOMMENDATION: thumbs-up!

SEEN RockNRolla (or that Guy Ritchie movie)

It's a rehash of every other Guy Ritchie movie, only not as good, or as fun. Multiple plotlines that I didn't care about and some average acting made it a bit of a waste time. It was interesting to see Idris Elba in a different role without his Baltimore accent. A victory of style over substance.

The more I think about this one, the harsher I am inclined to be, thumbs DOWN.

Wire Season 5 "Do more with less"

I am now well into the final season, I had heard that this series wasn't good as the rest but I am inclined to differ. It is wee bit strained in places, but that is because there is just so much going on there. Without giving too much away, there is a focus on the newspaper, in line with the writer's previous career. It is very good and is of course a microcosm of what is happening everywhere in media. I expect I will write a fuller review once I've seen it all and it has had a chance to settle.

I have garlic to plant...

This weekend I will manage it, as this blog is my witness. It's already to rock in and start growing and also protect future broccoli. Last year was disastrous for those green lovelies. In general I just need a bit more light in the mornings to feel compelled to something.

SEEN: Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - the movie...

Absolutely excruciatingly awful, except for two, maybe even three, scenes. There is nothing to redeem this movie. Even Mos def disappoints. Avoid like the [topical reference] swine flu [/topical reference].

RECOMMENDATION: thumbs wayyyyyyyy down.

Wow, so many tumbleweeds

I.

Just.

Can't.

Be bothered.

As per the LJ, winter, this winter in particular, is a bearch. At least the fire is going.

The Departed

Speaking of bringing of Asia to Hollywood, we have the Departed. The Departed is a complicated of betrayal and double-cross set in Boston based on another set of movies, Internal Affairs. The leads are Leonardon Dicaprio (the Irish cop posing as a gangster) and Matt Damon (the Irish gangster posing as a cop). Both are surprisingly convincing in their roles. I know that some people prefer the original, but the Departed stands in its own right as a compelling bit of cinema. Go and watch!

RECOMMENDATION: thumbs-up.

WATCHED: The Replacement Killers

Recently I got a Chow Yun Fat 3-pack. This was one movie I hadn't seen before and forms one of his first forays into Hollywood. Sadly, it was appalling, not Triple XXX bad (few movies are...), but pretty dreadful. I should have just rewatched some Hong Kong work instead. Chow is bad misused and not helped by attempting to graft Hong Kong sensibilities onto American dreck. Avoid.

RECOMMENDATION: thumbs down!

READ: Daywatch by that Russian guy whose name escapes me

The back cover compares Daywatch to JK Rowlings which for me is sort of like comparing Tolkien to Eddings. I am hard to please though... So... this is a Russian modern fantasy book, I can't think of much to say except it's really good and I now I want to see the movie they made of it. It can only be better than Underworld.

RECOMMENDATION: thumbs-up!

Music playing as I write this: the Band - the Weight