Movie: 3D Man Of Steel

This movie has generous lashings of the old ultra violence...

In fact, this movie is barely a Superman movie. There is so much action and violence in this movie that the character of Superman almost gets lost. It's quite a dark sci-fi type movie without much of the character development that you saw in the other Superman movies.

The cast do an ok job, if a little wooden, given that they have to compete with all manner of special effects wizardry. I would have liked to have seen them given the chance to do a little more acting.

I may be hung as a heretic, but I found Superman 3 a more enjoyable film to watch. Man of Steel is way over the top, and I'm surprised that nobody involved with the film tried to pull it back a little. The film is relentless. It hits you like a sledgehammer from the first minute and doesn't stop till the end. Your senses get a real pounding. You need a few quiet scenes in between the action scenes so your brain can digest what has just happened. Otherwise it all just rushes past you in a mad blur.

There sure is a lot of hand held camera work going on in this movie. Now that's fine when the actors are trying to act, but for a fast moving action scene, it gets a little hard to follow what's happening.

It would be true to say that watching this movie is like watching a really good player playing a Superman game on an XBox or a Playstation for two and a bit hours. This movie has gotten as close to a video game as any movie has, so that pretty much indicates the audience that the film makers are trying to attract.

Amy Adams is pretty good to watch... in anything....

...And the music is good. Always a plus in my book.

My Best Songs Ever, Part 3

Part 3 of my continuing series of the best songs I've ever heard.

You can see the first two parts here:

My Best Songs Ever, Part 1
My Best Songs Ever, Part 2

The numbers are only there as a way of counting the songs. None of these songs are in any particular order.

21: Strange Thing Mystifying
Jesus Christ Superstar

"Strange Thing Mystifying" on YouTube

22: Wild Wild Life
Talking Heads

"Wild Wild Life" on YouTube

23: Theme From Grand Canyon
Movie Soundtrack

"Theme From Grand Canyon" on YouTube

24: Forever Young
Youth Group

"Forever Young" on YouTube

25: Getcha Back
Beach Boys

"Getcha Back" on YouTube

26: Here Comes Your Man
The Pixies

"Here Comes Your Man" on YouTube

27: Computer Camp Love
Datarock

"Computer Camp Love" on YouTube

28: Maybe
Split Enz

"Maybe" on YouTube

29: Philadelphia Freedom
Elton John

"Philadelphia Freedom" on YouTube

30: From Rochdale To Ocho Rios
10CC

"From Rochdale To Ocho Rios" on YouTube

Movie: 3D World War Z

Wow, Brad Pitt in a zombie movie. Never thought I'd see that!  Oh wait, he played a vampire once didn't he. Maybe it's not so usual then...

Brad Pitt must have really liked the book, because he stars in it (he's the only big name in the whole thing), and he is also one of the producers. I couldn't imagine any other reason why a big name like Brad Pitt would consent to be in someone else's zombie movie.

Apart from the Resident Evil series of movies, I'm not really a zombie fan, but I do like Brad Pitt as an actor. That's probably the only reason I wanted to see this movie in the first place. Well, maybe the fact that it's in 3D was a contributing factor. I'm a sucker for 3D. I'll go and see any old thing as long as it's in 3D. Having said that, the 3D in this movie doesn't really add all that much to the film, nor take anything away from it. There was one moment I remember when a zombie came towards the camera and the guy in the seat next to mine jumped up a bit, but apart from that, the 3D was fairly unobtrusive.

There's a pretty basic plot in this movie.It's all about the zombies, and in this movie, with it's megabudget, there are literally billions of zombies (what would film makers do without computer programmers I ask you?...). Brad Pit plays some sort of ex-special forces guy (I think), who goes off on a round the world trip trying to find a cure for the zombies. Of course, everywhere he goes, there are zombies. He does a lot of running in this movie.

I'm not sure about the ending, though. The film just sort of stops, and Brad Pitt does a voice-over explaining what happened. Maybe all that should have been saved for a second WWZ film. Mind you, the whole planet now belongs to the zombies, so short of blowing up the whole planet, there could never be a really clean parceled up ending, complete with a nice bow...

But this film has got so much in it anyway. Lots of action, lots of explosions, lots of scary bits, lot's of almost comical looking zombies (there were a few laughs in the near packed audience tonight). It's definitely a fun movie. I came out at the end feeling pretty good. Oh, and the music, by Marco Beltrami and Muse, is fantastic. One of the true highlights of the movie.

Peaceful, Easy Feeling...

Aaaaaahhhh!  Sunday morning, my favourite day of the week for sleeping in, listening to great audio books like "Happiness" by Matthieu Ricard (I'm not a buddhist, but a lot of it makes sense to me), or "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living" by Dale Carnegie (great book, although I like to skip around the overly religious bits), or maybe "A Calm Brain" by Gayatri Deva, or even my current favourite, "Don't Bite the Hook" by Pema Chodron (another buddhist book, but I find it really helpful).

Anyway, here's an old picture that illustrates my state of mind right now:

This is a dove sitting in a tree just outside my office window. I think the human race could learn a lot from this dove. Sometimes it's good to just sit down for a while...

Tonight, I'm going to see Brad Pitt in 3D kill a few zombies. But till then, I'm just gonna be my usual laid back self, and do a few relaxing things like read a few books, watch some DVD's, do dome work (I love my work, I get to be paid for being creative!...), work on my blogs, take a few pictures, spend some time lying on a bench in the park listening to Talking Heads or Patti Smith on my MP3 player....

DVD: The History of the Eagles

No, not the football team, the singing group....

This is a great show. I like to think of myself as a bit of an amateur musical historian, and although I already knew most of the stuff in this documentary, it's really nice to have it all in one place. This documentary covers the entire history of the band, from the very beginning right up to this very moment. One thing I didn't see was an explanation of where the name "Eagles" came from. I'll watch it again an see if I missed it the first time around.

I have read criticism of how dictatorial Glen Frey and Don Henley were portrayed in this film. I don't think being dictatorial in a band situation is necessarily a bad thing. If I was in a hugely successful band being run by two exceptionally smart guys like Frey and Henley I would be extremely happy. I would let them do all the management stuff and I would just enjoy playing. I'm sure I would make good money anyway, but without the stress of making all the tough decisions.

I actually got my copy from my local supermarket for not much money at all and I consider it fantastic value for money, just like all the Eagles CD's I own. The documentary is split over 2 discs, which is nice, but I think they could possibly have fit the whole show onto a single double layered disc. Not that I'm complaining about something trivial like that.

If you're an Eagles fan, you need to get this. If you just like musical documentaries then you need to get this as well, because this is a great one.

My Best Songs Ever, Part 2...

Part 2 of my continuing series of my best songs.

You can read part 1 here: My Best Songs Ever, Part 1

I have used numbers, but just as a count. These songs are not listed in any particular order.

11: Bye Bye Baby
Bay City Rollers

"Bye Bye Baby" on YouTube

12: Love and Peace Or Else
U2

"Love and Peace Or Else" on YouTube

13: Love and Mercy
Brian Wilson

"Love and Mercy" on YouTube

14: Listen to What the Man Said
Wings

"Listen to What the Man Said" on YouTube

15: Carol of the Bells
Pentatonix

"Carol of the Bells" on YouTube

16: Rush
Big Audio Dynamite

"Rush" on YouTube

17: Viva La Vida
Coldplay

"Viva La Vida" on YouTube

18: (Nothing But) Flowers
Talking Heads

"(Nothing But) Flowers" on YouTube

19: Dancing Barefoot
Patti Smith or U2

"Patti Smith - Dancing Barefoot" on YouTube
"U2 - Dancing Barefoot" on YouTube

20: DJ
David Bowie

"DJ" on YouTube

My Latest Project

I first want to say that I absolutely love Windows 8 Pro on a tablet. I'm not talking about the half baked WinRT tablets that a lot of people are complaining about, but the full blown Windows 8 tablets that are capable of running any application that runs on your desktop.  Honestly, they make iPads and Android tablets look like kids toys.

That brings me to my latest, and most exciting project. I wrote the software that our company sales reps use for tracking their customers. I wrote the software for the standard version of Windows running on laptops. Now I get to adapt that software to run on tablets. I need to allow for fingers, rather than a mouse and a keyboard, so the skills I have to learn are different. And I'm having a real fun time doing it.

This is what I've done so far. It's still in the experimental stage at this point. I'm still learning how to deal with various screen and font sizes. I have to make everything fit on the screen no matter what the tablet's owner has set their screen size to be.

This colour scheme was inspired by a computer I owned almost 30 years ago, the fantastic Sinclair QL. You only got 4 colours with a QL: black, white, red and green (in high res mode. In low res you got 8 colours). Of course I get to use a few more colours these days, but the simplicity is what I like. Basically, black and white, with the few colours for the highlights. That also works well on a tablet, where you have to keep in mind the battery life (black doesn't use any power).

There are some things I don't think I'll use, such as finger swipes. This is still Windows 8 after all, and this software may still be used on laptop and desktop computers, which probably won't have touch screens. I need to come up with a way for the software to be used with fingers, but at the same time, with a mouse. So I think I'll be using plenty of colourful buttons, which can be touched and clicked on.

My programming language of choice is Delphi, which gives me the freedom to do almost anything that Windows is able to do. Delphi is the reason that, for me, Windows application development is so much fun. Java and Android was fun too, the little I did of it, but iPad and iPhone development leaves me cold. I'm not a fan of Objective C at all. I'm happy to leave that to other people.

Black and White Birds

These are some of the pictures I took today converted to black and white. In some respects, I find these pictures more interesting than the colour ones.

Some More Bird Pictures

I was out doing my usual walk today, up and down the hill, and I looked up and saw this Magpie just sitting not far away from where I was. Later on he flew up higher in the tree, and was joined by another Magpie, not that I can tell the difference from these pictures. I think one of them had a little bit more white around the shoulder area.

This isn't a Magpie. Not sure what this bird is:

Black and White Magpie

I converted some of my Magpie pictures into black and white. I think they look pretty good, but then again, I may be biased!...

Magpie

With all this lovely weather we've been having lately, I decided to spend this afternoon crawling through the bush at the park, hunting birds. And guess what, I found a volunteer. This Magpie kindly posed for me while I snapped around a couple of hundred pictures of him. I think he may have been expecting me to feed him or something, given the nature of the Magpies at the park. The park Magpies are quite tolerant of humans.

Here are some of the better pictures I got of my Magpie model: