With time on my hands I thought I would watch a film

Today’s cinematic treat was Outlander. A predominantly bog-standard hero kills monster affair with the slightly strange twist that I was not really rooting for the hero…

Strip away the sci-fi and the Vikings and our hero can easily be compared to an officer in the SS, merrily following orders and attempting to wipe out an entire race. And wouldn’t you believe the one that got away decides to go on a killing spree against those that would destroy it. Twist this round a little and I could easily imagine the film from the monster’s point of view… “He stands alone, his race wiped from the planet, his family killed before his eyes… His only thoughts now are of Vengeance.”

Still it was a mildly entertaining way of passing the time, so although I would not recommend going out of your way to watch this, if it is on and you have some beers and time to kill, by all means enjoy.

Triangle

First up was Triangle, a horror I suppose, although very little was horrifying. I was apprehensive going into this as I don’t like jumpy-out bits in films, I’m a wuss, however none of those ever came and I found myself watching carefully for signs of inconsistency.

So, basic premise: Some people on a yachting trip, hit sudden nasty weather, end up on ‘empty’ cruise ship… add to this the idea of a looping time line and the sudden and inexplicable realisation that killing everyone will save the day… then comes the twist at the end, we are shown that the story… or loop… actually lasts a bit longer and is all about our main lady saving her child, maybe.

So… I did vaguely like it. I love ‘time’ in films and TV, I love pulling the threads and making sure they come through properly, with no knots. Triangle has knots, quite a few knots.

The film has us following 1 iteration of the largest seen loop. Jess at home, then at harbour, then on sea, then on ship. Here there is a second loop within the first between them boarding the ship and all being killed. Jess gets ‘out’ when she falls overboard, but as this is a loop she should ALWAYS get out when falling overboard, in that exact way, we know this is ‘correct’ as she is involved in the falling from the other side in her iteration. However there is a another Jess we are never properly introduced to, for anyone thats seen it, she is the one that gets shot through the bag on her head by Jess #1. Jess #2, gets shot through bag on head and she kills weedy bloke with banana and stabs weedy bloke’s wife. But after that she vanishes and plays no further part… she may be involved in the 2nd jess/jess fight at the front of the ship. If so she would be the Jess in the jump suite that is actually killed by Jess, lets call her 3. This is witnessed by Jess #1, but Jess #2 and #3 do not interact with her directly at all. My long winded and probably hard to understand point is that for the loop to make real and proper sense, Jess #1 should be the only Jess…or and this is what I’m starting to think we are looking at just one iteration through the larger loop, however since Jess is aware of the loops they ARE different each time, but she’s never able to change the outcome. Of course this leads me to the other thing, she goes back and kills herself… meaning the ‘original’ Jess #0 the one we see in the home, in the dress at the start NEVER makes it to the yacht. So where the hell does Jess #1…etc come from in the first place?

I’m probably just spoiled by other TV and Film which have done loops, but I expect a clear point where xyz enters the loop. Realisation of the loop is almost optional, but if a loop break is accomplished, that too has a clear point.

Basically I think there are too many questions…. oh and what about Heather? Her character was completely pointless, there is actually NO reason for her to be in the film, none whatsoever, she offers nothing. a couple of lines of dialogue and poof she’s dead, or escapes the loop prior to it starting… who knows. I kept expecting her to show up, maybe living on the ship for years in her own loop or something, but nothing. Not even a oh look she survived the whole thing at the end. I really don’t get why she was put in.

So I would not recommend this film.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

This was really weird, very very weird.

The plot, I think, basically involves an old tale of man vs the devil in betting. By far the shiny star in this film is Lily Cole, very hot As for the rest of it, very unusual and difficult to understand.

I wouldn’t recommend this either.

(500) Days of Summer

Definitely my favourite of the evening. A very nice story with some witty lines and Zooey Deschanel. I particularly liked the voice-over, narration and the segments flitting here and there over the 500 days, very cool.

THIS, I recommend.

And… having met the leader of the V’s I have no doubt they have our best interests at heart, drool drool.

But the series… I’ll be honest I don’t remember a great deal from the original series, the biggest thing I remember about it is that my Dad let me stay up late to watch it Friday nights at 11pm, crikey!

Even with 4 episodes watched its still up in the air about which direction they will take it and what they will do with the characters.

Speaking of which we have 4ish main resistance peeps and 4 or so ‘bad’ guys! Really loving our ‘heroes’ but the eyes do focus somewhat on the bad guys… or gals… With mother and daughter V, hommana hommana!!

Only one way to describe this film, sweet, so very very sweet.

Completely enjoyed this film. I know it’s a children’s film, but I really enjoyed the story and characters. Heartily recommended.

Enjoyed it to be sure, but I think I lost the plot a little towards the end and started to miss what was happening story-wise. However that said I do have to mention the awesome martial arts which I have come to expect from these kinds of films now. They were incredibly good.

Watched Gamer, enjoyed thoroughly.

As far fetched as the concept is, I really enjoyed the film. Also loved the two leads Dexter’s Michael C. Hall and Gerard Butler. Look out for the dancing!

Watched Surrogates last night, enjoyed it.

Some decent special effects and an interesting enough story to keep me entertained. I also noticed vague similarities between this film and Gamer… the idea of controlling something else from your own home, be that a machine or person. I’ve noticed that before where a spate of films will come out, all with a similar theme or core. I did however think the idea that over the course of such a short time the human race would almost all decide to live their lives through their surrogates. It also pointed out in the film several times what I think would be the fundamental flaw… you simply don’t know who you are talking to if you are talking to a machine. It’s like the logical extreme of sitting in a chat room anyone can pretend to be anyone else, and that just wouldn’t work.

Don’t really know why. It’s a bit predictable, a bit obvious, but meh I think I was just in the mood for some harmless fun in film form.

I really liked the heroin of the story, loved the ending. Megan Fox I still think is pretty damned hot, not as hot as she is portrayed, but then I am a picky soul

The film is marketed as a Horror / Comedy which I think is interesting. Certainly there were some funny bits.. dark, but funny, but not laugh out loud funny.

Biggest question after watching it… whats with the teacher with one arm and burn marks on his throat? Why? Whats that all about?

It talks about wireless hotspots being open to abuse by a skilled hacker. Well dur yeah!

This sparked an interesting discussion here and I wanted to write it down.

First of all, he ain’t getting usernames and passwords.

From what we can tell he’s simply sniffing the UNENCRYPTED wireless traffic and pulling out web cookies and session details.

He hasn’t hacked into anyones computer or stolen usernames or passwords.

By using your web cookie or session details I could browse xyz site as you, but I can’t fake logging in, or even ‘replay’ your logging in data to get in at a different time. I could only use your currently open session. Thats why he has to ‘freeze’ the session, as logging out would invalidate the cookies/sessions he’s nabbed.

Further it should be pointed out that this issue with with OPEN wireless hotspots. The wireless traffic from your machine to the wireless receiver is unencrypted and therefore at risk. On an encrypted wireless connection the data is encrypted… it still might be at risk if using WEP or course…

Rant over

I think the trailer had fooled me a little into thinking this would be a much more tense and eerie film, but it wasn’t.

Still I did enjoy it, I figured out what was happening very quickly, but I don’t hold that agianst the film. Sam played a great character(s) and Kevin was ok as the robot… to be fair I don’t know why they would get a versatile actor like Kevin and essentially give him a part that requires no acting… still alls well that ends well.

I’d recommend it to those that might enjoy this kind of film, but an action-packed, thrill ride to hell it is not.

I was hooked in from the very start when Metallica’s ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’ rocked over the credits!

The story itself is completely safe and normal. You’ve seen it a hundred times in a hundred different films, just this has the added bonus of Zombies

Woody Harrelson is pretty damned awesome and Bill Murray’s entrance and exit are brilliant.

Not really a lot to say, so I’ll leave it there. Worth a watch though, enjoy!