Burned At Both Ends

I finally got round to seeing this after numerous abortive cinema visits, and… it’s pretty good. Very intense at times, a fact emphasised by the style of presentation: the film is exclusively shot from a small video camera carried by one of the survivors. But this isn’t some arthouse scifi flick - there are plenty of big-budget action scenes here, though they’re cleverly staged so you don’t feel like you’re watching a Hollywood blockbuster.

However, despite the motion-sickness-inducing handicam amateur feel, it’s actually a fairly traditional disaster movie at heart. It’s got the lighthearted beginning bit, where characters are introduced and lovelives become increasingly entangled. Then there’s the middle section where the disaster strikes and the monster stomps around trashing NY, most impressively. Then there’s the desperate final section, where major characters are picked off, and things become increasingly fraught as they near their goal.

Kudos to the director for cleverly intercutting footage of two of the main characters from one month before the main events - this adds depth to the relationship, and lends the ending a poignancy it might otherwise have lacked.

I also liked the way the film didn’t focus too much on the creepy crab-like minimonsters - though the section in the subway was scarily good stuff. Overall Cloverfield is well worth watching, but it doesn’t quite live up to all the preceding hype.

Mind you, I’m very glad I saw this film after the earthquake struck on Wednesday morning. That would have properly freaked me out…

Oh yes! Last night at 12:55 am the largest earthquake for 25 years hit the UK. Measuring around 5.3 on the Richter Scale, the epicentre was hardly 20 miles from our house:

I’ve never experienced a quake before, so it was rather unnerving. It only lasted for 10 seconds or so, but the whole house seemed to shake violently. Nothing actually fell off or was damaged, but it felt pretty severe from where I was sitting. Apparently people felt it as far away as London, and even Newcastle to the north!

God bless the Internet, though: at 1 am, when the BBC news site was just showing a line saying “Reports of tremors in the West Midlands”, reddit.com was already live and on the scene with about 20 different stories detailing exactly what was going on. Web 2.0 ftw!

So this week my mate Mark has come to stay — and this time he’s brought his Wii! With Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, no less!

YES!

Strike the pose, people: \m/

I’ve never played any of the Guitar Hero series before and I was well aware that rhythm gaming is not my forte, but I’m still surprised by the degree of skill needed for this game. It’s not just about mindless button-mashing, but actually requires an above-average level of coordination. In fact, I think my (rudimentary) guitar-playing ability helped me out, particularly when I was rockin’ it in the “No More Pencils” harmonics section of “School’s Out” by Alice Cooper. Star Power for the WIN!

Lest any of the above erroneously lead you to the conclusion that I am some sort of Guitar Hero Rock God, rest assured that the most I’ve been able to manage is Medium so far. Hard difficulty is somewhat beyond my meagre capabilities at this point — and let’s not even mention Expert…

In fact, let’s mention the Expert setting. Let’s mention it in the context of the most ridiculously overblown — and downright impossible — Guitar Hero song in existence. Namely: DragonForce - Through the Fire and Flame.

Not knowing anything about the legend that is DragonForce, I foolishly attempted this bad boy on Medium difficulty, only to progress about 5% of the way through the song before unceremoniously being booed offstage. M-Dawg’s run was far better, and he’d been going for over five minutes when he got the boot. But this is DragonForce, and five minute songs are for wimps — the full length is 8 and a half minutes!

This thing is flipping SOLID! Playing it requires some sort of extra-sensory perception: colours race at you at 500bpm with seemingly no pattern, rhyme nor reason, and you’re expected to not only follow what’s going on, but also make some meaningful attempt at playing along! Ludicrous.

But this is Internet, and of course someone somewhere has been locked in a darkened room for six weeks mastering it. Want proof? Here’s the Youtube vid:

Awesome!

And you know what’s even more awesome? The official DragonForce video for Through the Fire and Flames, also handily available on Youtube, albeit in a truncated “radio friendly” version:

Altogether now: “On a cold winter morning, in the time before the light, In flames of death’s eternal reign, we ride towards the fight…”

Light and fight, eh? I see what they’ve done there…

Remember the site which showed you all the buzzwords from the last two hundred-odd years of the US State of the Union? Here’s another I came across just now, but this time it’s a wry look at what the speech might look like in 70 years or so:

2080 State of the Union Address: Key Terms and Phrases (via Waxy.org)

Highlights include ‘Engorged Benefactor Larvae’, ‘Iraq 2.0′, ‘September 11′ and ‘Metaeducation Implants’.

(By the way, here’s the real one for 2008 in case you were wondering…)

Here’s an amusing little snippet which I came across while checking my Gmail inbox earlier this week:

Sender: Amazon.co.uk

Subject: The Queen has been dispatched

Yikes! Has all the power finally gone to Jeff Bezos‘ head?

“Dear lostmoya,

We’ve dispatched The Queen. You can expect to receive it in 1-2 business days…”

Oh ho ho, I see what you’ve done there, because this is all about Stephen Frears’ excellent film starring Helen Mirren and Michael Sheen. Disappointingly, what actually dropped on my door mat three days later was the Amazon DVD rental envelope, and not a severed monarch’s head…

At least the film was good.