World War Zzzzz

During the weekend I decided to watch World War Z. I have read the book, and let me just say the book is as good as the film is bad. Which is to say the book (written by Max Brooks, son of Mel Brooks) is damn good.

The following post is stuffed with SPOILERS, just so you know.

My first reaction when I watched the trailer was one of real disappointment. One of the key features of the book is that the zombies are slow. They even reference the Romero movies (Dawn of the Dead etc.) to give the reader the right image.

In the movie they are fast zombies, a la 28 Days. So what, you ask? So everything, I reply! This changes the entire plot, from the focus to the execution.

In the novel, Gerry collects and correlates survivor stories after WWZ is over. The narrative goes from outbreak to reclamation, and illustrates how it happened, what didn't work and why it didn't, and finally how the earth was slowly an painfully taken back from the shambling hordes.

Every chapter focuses on different people in various parts of the world, from an Indian general to a Japanese otaku. From American families just trying to survive to Russian zealots hunting the dead.

Mr. Brooks also illustrates brilliantly how ineffective modern weapons are against a gargantuan horde of zombies who can't be hurt or demoralized. You have to destroy the brain to kill them, making things like land mines useless. I loved the part where an economic formula is developed to calculate the acceptable cost of killing one zombie, where one bullet per kill is too expensive to make recovery possible.

Now in the movie, Brad Pitt goes on an international run-away-from-zombies tour, only to discover a surprisingly easy solution to the entire problem. Easy but ridiculous. Since they changed the style of zombie, the book no longer works, and you are stuck with a pretty generic movie featuring rage zombies.

Stylistically the film looks great, it truly does, but that's the only good thing I can say about it. Even an actor as good as Brad can't salvage this. All the scenes with his family are wooden and feels unreal, which means that they become annoying rather than gripping. The only reason I didn't want Gerry (Pitt) to die, was because that would have made him the great Martyr, and this film has enough cliches as it is.

Every once in a while, particularly in the beginning, they throw little moral lessons at you, as if to say “Look, we're making statements about humanity here”. The helpful junkie & the uncaring cop, the Israelis and Palestinians living side by side etc etc. This does nothing for the movie what so ever, it only bogs it down with more useless scenes.

Then we come to the dumbest part: the last half hour.

Gerry is in a plane crash on his way to a W.H.O. Center in Wales. Apart from himself, the only survivor is an Israeli soldier who helped him get on the plane in the first place. (A zombie, a hand grenade and explosive decompression took care of all the other passengers).

As Gerry comes to, we see that a bit of metal has been run all the way through his gut. The soldier he's with, had her hand chopped off in Israel, but despite these horrific injuries, both make it to the W.H.O. Center! No shock, no blood loss, no lying down and screaming. Oh no, you see, they're heroes!

Once at the center, Gerry is unconscious for three days and after that, he only expresses mild discomfort when he wakes up. Hours later he's running around bashing in zombie brains with no sign of pain at all. After having his gut impaled? Riiiiight...

Finally the reason he went to Wales in the first place. Gerry-boy has figured out that the undead, and yes, the zombies are undead, not just rabid humans, avoid attacking seriously sick humans! Really? I guess they magically sense this while sprinting around.

So of course he's put in a position where he has to randomly choose a disease and inject himself with it to avoid the zombies. And of course it works, and of course humanity is saved. And no, he didn't choose Ebola by mistake...

End with joyful scene where he is reunited with his boring family. The End, thankfully.

In conclusion, they've taken a well written, thoughtful book and turned it into a boring, generic and pointless action movie.

World War Z could have been a great TV series. It's pretty much already written as one, but no, we get a bland rehash instead.

Technically well made – apart from all the jagged action scenes that are so en vogue these days – but if you're going to watch this, turn off all expectations first. There are many more “What? Really?” scenes that I haven't mentioned, but I'm sure you get the point.

Just read the book instead.

Eldritch Gaming

On the day before yesterday, i.e. Saturday, I grabbed a copy of Eldritch from Steam. At first glance I thought it was a Minecraft clone or at least some kind of spin-off mod. Something like that anyway. The reason is the similar graphics. It has a very blocky 3D style to it's graphics, not unlike the famous mining game.

But Minecraft it is not. What we have is a fun little indie game set in the 1930's Lovecraft-verse that my readers know I'm so fond of.

Eldritch is incidentally created by David Pittman and his brother J. Kyle Pittman. They've previously worked on titles like Borderlands, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified and Bioshock 2, so we're talking experience here.

Now the object of the game is to collect three souls from three realms in order to avert the familiar “The Stars Are Right” scenario. (At least I think so, the game is not too bogged down by story). In order to do this you have to traverse said realms and either avoid or defeat the squamous denizens that dwell therein.

There's nothing too revolutionary about the game as such, apart from one feature I haven't seen before. If you loot a dead enemy, it'll respawn. If you don't, it stays put as well as dead. This leaves you in the position to judge whether you need the resources badly enough to risk encountering the enemy again later. You are very squishy in Eldritch and you go down fast if an enemy gets the drop on you.

The first realm, The Temple of Dagon, was pretty easy, so I was completely unprepared for how hard the Realm of Nyarlathotep was, and I died pretty fast. When you die, you can resurrect in the Library, where the game starts, but you loose all your gear except for any artifacts you have stored in your chest. Only artifacts can be squirreled away, so I lost my gun, all my ammo, my boots of jumping and my compass. Ah well, back in the saddle and off you go again.

I really like this game. It's suitably tense without being stressful. But that said, expect to swear a lot when you die over and over again... Unless you're a Lady (who don't swear) or a better gamer than I am.

In my opinion well worth the about 10€ it costs on Steam. Check it out.

This is the end

A few nights ago I sat down and enjoyed This is the end, the new movie by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen.

I first became aware of this movie from the most natural source there is, it's trailer. This trailer in fact:

Since I'm assuming you just watched that, I don't think I'm in too much danger of spoiling anything, so here goes.

The whole point of the movie is that all actors play themselves in an apocalyptic scenario. Usually I'm a bit leery of that concept, but here it works pretty well.

Now if you were to accuse the creators of this film of tooting their own horns and bragging through out, I couldn't really fault you for it. Nor could I blame you if you complained that it's Christian propaganda, since these accusations are technically a bit true. Can something be a bit true? Eh, just go with it.

These points are valid, but it would be pretty damn unjust to leave it at that, since it's not all This is the end is. Mainly it's a really funny movie. I laughed heartily several times and chuckled even more.

But why are these accusations true? Well the actors keep talking about the stuff they've done previously and it gets a bit much, but what would you expect actors to do at a Hollywood party? Exactly that! So I suppose we'll have to forgive them.

Then there's the religious bit. Maybe a little spoiler, but the trailer does show all the necessary clues. The apocalyptic bit is the Rapture. Now the bible does talk about the Rapture, but the version showed here, and that's so popular especially in the U.S. was invented in the 1830's, and it annoyed me a bit that they couldn't have used another apocalypse. Maybe it's just me.

Either way, this is the route they chose to go down, and the movie as a whole is good enough that I didn't really care too much. At least it wasn't zombies. We've had enough zombies for a while right?

In the end, This is the end is a funny film with good effects and decent acting. If you're looking to just relax and have a good time, check it out.

Anno Primus

Eccentric Spheres was born on 16^th October 2012, which means that this Wednesday is it's first birthday!

To mark this special occasion, I'd like to share a few facts and stats with you, my readers, about you, my readers.

First off, the total page views as of this moment is 1388. Not that many, but I'm happy with each and every one of them.

The post with the single highest page view count apart from the “Welcome to Eccentric Spheres” is the one about Ripper Street, with 59 hits.

Now the blogger stats page is a bit wonky at times, and unfortunately I can't get a proper break down of all the countries that my readers – you – hail from. However the top ten are available, and they read as this;

Finland 664 (no surprise)

United States 271

Germany 111

Russia 95

The UK 64

Netherlands 16

Poland 16

Ukraine 13

Portugal 11

Czech Rep. 7

This adds up to 1268 views which leaves 120 views from other countries I can no longer access, but I seem to remember Australia, Hungary and Saudi Arabia amongst the readers missing from the list.

So a big Thank You to you, the people who inspire me to post week after week all year long! Not a single week have been missed so far, even though I've “cheated” a couple times.

I hope you will all stick around for another year, and perhaps if you feel it's merited, bring new readers to Eccentric Spheres.

It takes guts to do this

Most of only know Stephen Fry as a comedian, but in this clip you wil lsee him in a new light.
to stand in front of a large group of not only Catholics but also Catholic Bishops and with no hestiation tell them they are full of it - and with such eloquence - is not something I think many could have pulled off.

The truth hurts.

Frikkin' Mondays...

Ok, here's a riddle for you;

What do you get if you combine lack of sleep with a full day of work?

That's right, a very tired person. Hey, I didn't say it was good riddle, did I now?

But since you took the trouble to visit me, you deserve something in return, so here's a couple of funny videos from the godd people at Cracked.com.
We return to our regular programming next week.

Drat, I can't seem to get the embed code to obey my commands, but here's the links:

http://www.cracked.com/video_18319_every-video-game-escort-mission-ever.html

http://www.cracked.com/video_18502_the-most-uncomfortable-dinner-party-conversation-ever.html

Frikkin' mondays...

A few easy rules to follow

A couple of weeks ago I sat opposite a middle aged man on the train. He was on his way to some kind of business meeting, a fact I know because I saw his papers. This is of course nothing remarkable, but I couldn't help noticing that he'd committed a couple of crucial mistakes with his wardrobe.

Now most guys will have to wear a suit every once in a while. Weddings, funerals, business meetings, anniversaries, these events pop up every so often. For some more often than others, but I'm as amazed every time I see the following really simple rules not just broken, but sometimes destroyed.

Let's return to the man I shared a train with. He was wearing a dark pin-striped suit. So far so good. Then I noticed his green and white checkered shirt. Strike one. If you're wearing a suit, as opposed to say, a jacket and jeans, you're in formal territory and mustn't use casual shirts.

He had a striped tie, which did sort of match the suit, but really made his unfortunate choice of shirt stand out even more.

Next I saw his watch. A huge sporty watch that again looked really out of place with his conservative suit. Maybe not a big deal, but it clashed badly. Strike two.

His shoes were black leather, but they were dirty. If the weather is really bad, your shoes will get messy, but you can always tell if it's old dust, as in this case. It really made him look sloppy. Strike three.

There aren't that many hard rules for us guys when it comes to dressing up, but the few that exist should be kept. Now I know times change, and to my great annoyance, it's become acceptable to use a backpack with a suit. Please. if you must do that, try to use a discreet bag, OK? Today I saw a guy in a really nice dark suit, good shirt and tie, shoes correct and a bright yellow backpack over his shoulder. Yes you read that right, bright yellow...

If you want to make it easy for yourself and not look like a moron at formal occasions, keep the following in mind;

1. Always wear black shoes with a dark suit, and make sure your socks are black too.
2. When buttoning the jacket, the rule of thumb is from the top; Sometimes – Always – Never. So if the middle button is closed, you can close the top. The bottom is never used, ever.
3. Never wear conflicting patterns and colors. Stripes and squares don't get along. The easiest solution is to wear a white shirt (always fine), and a neutral tie. If you're unsure if colors clash, consult a color wheel. Opposite colors rarely look good together.
4. The tie should cover all the shirt buttons but not pass the belt. This can be fiddly, especially if you're in a hurry, but it looks hideous when the tie is visible when the jacket is closed.

That's it in a nutshell. There are a few others, but these should see you through whatever event you're attending. If you want to learn more, google is your friend.

As a final note, I'd like to point out that if you've removed your coat, gloves and hats must go as well. Try not to use funky materials, like a terrycloth ties and bright silk shirts unless you are certain that you can pull it off. And black ties are usually only used at funerals.

That's it for now, so get out there and look good!