Monday, June 27, 2016

The Great War

I've been operating on a small sleep deficit the last few days, so I'm taking a “short-cut” this week.

But instead of showing you a video or two, I want to introduce you to an entire channel:


Whether you have a deep interest in World War I or just a passing curiosity, I can't recommend this channel enough. The production values are amazing, and there's a wealth of information from technology to tactics, politics to science. Even a week to week series, detailing the entire conflict! It's staggering how much info this channel has.
So head on over and have a look, you may find something interesting.

In the mean time, I'm going to wish you a Great Week!. See you next time.

Monday, June 20, 2016

Fascinating Facts

Today is all about fact. Movie facts, in fact.

As usual when I do these lists, all facts are taken form kickassfacts.com so if you want more, head over there.

Here we go:

Mark Hamill was 63 years old while filming Star War: The Force Awakens, the same age as Sir Alec Guiness was while filming his scenes as Ben Kenobi in the original Star Wars film in 1977.

V for Vendetta (2005) – The domino scene, where V tips over black and red dominoes to form a giant letter V, involved 22,000 dominoes. It took 4 professional domino assemblers 200 hours to set it up.

Halloween (1978) – Due to its shoestring budget, the prop department had to use the cheapest $2 mask that they could find in the costume store: a Star Trek William Shatner mask. They later spray-painted the face white, teased out the hair, and reshaped the eye holes. Shatner admitted that for years he had no idea his likeness was used for this film. It was only during an interview that someone mentioned his mask was being used. He has since stated that he is honored by this gesture.

Jurassic Park (1993) – When the T-Rex comes through the glass roof of the Explorer in the first attack, the glass was not meant to break, producing the noticeably genuine screams from the children.

Alien (1979) – Ridley Scott found a practical solution to lighting the aliens’ egg chamber by borrowing blue laser lighting from The Who, who were rehearsing their stage show in the soundstage next door.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) – Charlie Sheen stayed awake for 48 hours to achieve a suitably wasted look for his cameo as a drugged-up felon.

Jurassic Park (1993) – Hurricane Iniki ravaged the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i, where the movie was shot, but Richard Attenborough managed to sleep through it. When questioned how by Steven Spielberg, Dickie replied: “Dear boy, I survived the blitz!”

Raiders of the Lost Ark: The filmmakers discovered to their chagrin that the snakes used for the Well of Souls sequence weren’t afraid of fire at all. In fact, they would always try to get closer to the fire to warm themselves. At one point director Spielberg was caught on camera picking up a snake and telling it, face to face, “In the script, you’re supposed to hate fire. Why do you like fire? You’re ruining my movie.”

Predator: Jesse Ventura was delighted to find out from the wardrobe department that his arms were 1″ bigger than Arnold Schwarzenegger’s. He suggested to Schwarzenegger that they measure arms, with the winner getting a bottle of champagne. Ventura lost because Schwarzenegger had told the wardrobe department to tell Ventura that his arms were bigger.

During the filming of ‘Cabin Fever,’ Rider Strong decided to explore the forest alone after a shoot, still in his gruesome makeup. He came across a group of schoolgirls on a field trip, who were horrified, but then recognized him from ‘Boy Meets World,’ and he had to escape from the fangirls.

That's it for this time. A small reminder to all gamers out there, the Steam summer sale is supposed to start on the 23rd, so get ready for that, but until we meet again, have a great week!

Monday, June 13, 2016

Legend

This week we're taking a look at a movie called Legend. Not Ridley Scott's fantasy film from 1985, but the gangster movie from last year.

This is the story of the Kray twins, Reggie and Ron, and their journey towards becoming the preeminent organized crime lords of London. Or it should be, since it really isn't. Legend is based on true events, but as with all movies, the “truth” only goes so far. The film takes liberties with facts but not too wildly. There was no one moment that made me think “Hang on, that can't be true.” It was all in all a very well put together film, and Tom Hardy (the new Mad Max) does an amazing job portraying both twins. It can't have been easy, but he does it really well, especially since Ronnie was mentally ill.

The movie is set in the 60's and 70's, and as with everything else it is very well done. You truly get a feeling of the era and that's always fun to see. I don't regret watching Legend, but it is essentially not the film it should be in my opinion.

So what's the problem? Simple. It's far more about the stormy relationship between Ron and his girlfriend/wife Frances. Obviously she was a big part of Ron's life and needed to be in the movie, but I entered into things expecting a crime film, not a rocky romance, but that is what I essentially got. Several scenes revolve around her and neither Kray is even there. If they wanted to make a film about Frances, I'm sure it would have been really good, but that's not what's supposed to happen here, and thanks to this, the movie lacks focus. There are of course crime elements in the film, but far less than there are romance and argument scenes. It's simply not what I either expected or wanted, and I don't think it's what was advertized.

Legend could have been the British answer to Goodfellas, but it falls way short. Imagine if Goodfellas had been 85% about Henry and his marriage. That wouldn't have been a very interesting crime drama now would it? No, of course not. Sure Henry's marriage to Karen is an important, no a crucial part of Goodfellas, but there is just as much and more going on elsewhere, and this is not the case in Legend.

Copy-Paste from the start of the Kray's entry on Wikipedia:

Twin brothers Ronald "Ronnie" Kray (24 October 1933 – 17 March 1995) and Reginald "Reggie" Kray (24 October 1933 – 1 October 2000) were English gangsters who were the foremost perpetrators of organized crime in the East End of London during the 1950s and 1960s. “

All we get to see is some nightclub business and some deals with the American Mafia. Add some violence and the rest is the Ron/Frances angle. Such a shame really, this could have been an epic film.

Finally I want to mention a point about Frances. She in no way deserves what happens to her, but she knew full well who and what Ron was when they met and she married him anyway. It makes it hard to feel sorry for her, when it's so incredibly obvious that her boyfriend is a complete sociopath gangster (and his brother is worse), and yet she happily gives him chance after chance. Combine this with the screen time their relationship occupies, and it just fails.

I won't say I don't recommend Legend, but know what you are about to watch.

Until next time, have a great week!

Monday, June 6, 2016

Computers

So last Tuesday, I decided to upgrade from Windows 7 to 10. Well, actually it was sort of Windows who decided for me.
I had already made up my mind to upgrade while it was still free, I just hadn't gotten around to it. After all, it contains the new DirectX, and as a gamer I will need it sooner or later. Then it popped up and said that my upgrade was scheduled for Tuesday at 23.00 hours. I figured, hell why not? Otherwise I'd just forget to, and then, just to annoy me, Dishonored 2 would of course not run on Windows 7. (This is just my pessimism, I have no reason to assume this.)

At about 22.45 on Tuesday evening, a pop up told me to save my work and press the upgrade button. I politely complied. All went well, it took about half an hour to download the stuff, and I suppose fifteen minutes to install. Then my PC lost it's connection to the internet. Not just the net either, it lost connection to everything. Everything else worked flawlessly, I just couldn't connect anywhere. My wife's computer was happily humming away online, as was my tablet, so it wasn't our connection. We stayed up until after two in the morning trying to fix it, but to no avail. We scoured the net trying to find a solution but nothing worked. Finally we were just too tired to keep trying and stumbled off to bed.

I woke up the following morning ready to do battle against my problem, but like a thief in the night it had slipped away. Yeah, my connection had somehow repaired itself when my PC was shut down. I restarted my PC several times during the previous night, but now (luckily) it was A-OK! I suspect that it was my anti-virus that caused the problem. Lot's of people have had issues with their anti-virus causing errors, so if you're reading this, and you want to upgrade but haven't yet done so: uninstall your anti-virus before you press upgrade. Microsoft won't tell you to do this but it might save you a lot of hassle.

Otherwise my upgrade has been alright, even though I'm not a fan of the tile based menu. No program or game has refused to work, but time will tell.

Speaking of computers, I have a video for you. It's from Tested with Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame. If you have any interest in computers, I urge you to watch it. It should help you appreciate your computer a bit more.

Until next time, have a fantabulous week! (I don't know if that's a word, but it sounds fun).

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