The Geekorium

Unfortunately I have two movies that spring to mind when I was given this suggestion:

Review the worst movie you’ve seen this year.

The first is The Ugly Truth with Whatserface and That Bloke who always seem to be in these awful movies. Normally I would have steered clear of something like this¹, but occasionally I have to watch a romantic comedy so that my wife will keep watching SciFi with me.

Bleh

What a dreadful movie. I’m not sure there’s much to be said beyond that.

The second was Surrogates with Bruce Willis. I had heard it wasn’t fantastic, but the idea behind it intrigued me: what if everyone lived their lives virtually through robot simulacrum²?

Bruce Willis: Bored.

The movie’s conceit is ridiculous in execution though, with almost the entire world having chosen to live in little pods that feed sensory input from their virtual bodies back to them. I cannot imagine anyone but the elite and a select few ever going for it. The movie world is one where doctors no longer espouse the benefits of sunlight or fresh air, where muscles don’t atrophy from under-use, and the technology is so good that no one misses reality.

Except Bruce Willis of course.

He has that same sort of bemused look he has in every film. Except in this one it doesn’t suit. I also recently re-watched 12 Monkeys and the man can act, but when the script is bad, he just spends the entire film with a little half-smirk like he knows something the director doesn’t. Well his character hates his virtual life for some reason. He’s a cop put on the trail of a man with technology to kill someone through the surrogate. There’s all sorts of interesting questions that this raises³, but none of them are really explored or adequately covered.

Which is the essence of this film really. The premise is interesting, but the execution is flawed. About half way in the movie starts showing all its cards until there are no surprises by the end. None of the characters are “real”, so you don’t care about them in any way. The technology is so magical you just cannot believe any of it.

The final indication that this was not a good film came about 2 minutes after Bruce Willis saved the entire planet⁴ and my wife woke up. Oh how I envied her.

Cheers Zombie_Plan. Hope it was good for you too…

I don’t want a separate app where I have to gather all my friends and influencers in one place all over again - I have that in Twitter.

What I want from you is a way to flag a user (secretly) as someone whose opinion has aligned with mine in the past, so that when they say “I love this new movie”, I’ll be reasonably certain that I will too. And if I could flag someone’s opinion as wrong¹ most of the time, then I will know that when they say “I love this song”, not to bother clicking through to it. It might mean that some of the users in my stream have slightly darker or lighter updates so I can tell at a glance which ones I’ve flagged as trustworthy or mostly wrong.

Heck, just being able to easily see that someone is in a “trusted” private Twitter list with a glance at my main stream would be double handy. Do that.

Thank you for listening. If you do this, you will win the world.

PS. to all the people I follow: I’m not talking about any of you. I think all of you have fantastic taste. It’s those oter people I worry about…

Why don’t I just learn, once and for all… if I’ve not seen someone in ages, and want to talk and hang out and drink… DON’T GO TO A MOVIE. Unless the movie is the greatest movie ever, I’ll just be disappointed.

Stupid life doesn’t have do-overs if you do it wrong the first time.

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Herwin is dangerous! He will kill you. You have been warned.

My first clay-mation… if you could call it that.

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This is another movie I did a while ago with iStopMotion.

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This was the first stop motion video I created using iStopMotion, an excellent little mac program for creating frame-by-frame movies. I added the sound in Final Cut Express.

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I’m gonna start putting this stuff online, as it’s wasted sitting on my hard drive. It’s my blog - I’ll do as I like

Yippee! My biggest Christmas present so far has been finally getting a copy of Hercules Returns on DVD. For those of you who don’t know why I’m so excited, check out my previous post on Hercules Returns

A classic Australian film featuring the talent of the wonderful Des Mangan and Sally Patience (and those other three who somehow get all the credit) has finally been made available legitimately on DVD.

If you checked out my previous post you’ll realise that I’ve had a wonderful run out of my quest to get Hercules Returns on DVD. I’ve contacted shadowy figures at the production company that owns the rights (thanks Tim), found the website of the original genius, lost it again (Oh, I haven’t mentioned that yet have I?), and had more comments and emails about this one topic than all the other posts I’ve made across two blogs and my accounts at Reddit, Newsvine and Digg combined. Frankly I’m thrilled that so many people share this passion with me and I’m delighted to tell you all that you can buy your copy online now at Atlantic DVD. I bought mine today (what a great Christmas present) and am proud to bring you a brief review of the DVD (not the movie… I mean that’s five stars right there… no hesitation).

Hercules Returns DVD review

First up, the packaging tells us that this isn’t a high-class, fancy new directors-cut special-edition release of the movie. The cover image (and critic’s quotes) are straight from the VHS copy - at least it looks identical to the one on IMDB. The only difference I can see is the new Australian rating info (which is one of the only things that makes me think the the DVD is actually legit).

Popping the DVD into my player I’m slightly surprised that someone has made a nice animated menu with two options: Play and Extras.

The main dvd menu

I’ll get to the extras later.

The movie is a straight transfer of the original by the looks. It doesn’t look particularly polished and it isn’t digitally re-mastered, but it’s clear and as crisp as any Aussie film from 1992 might look today.

The opening shot shows this best I think:

The opening shot

You probably can’t see it very well, but there’s a slight glitch at the bottom that looks a little ugly, but probably won’t show up on a TV screen (I’m viewing it on my computer - it might even be a software problem). The film looks a bit dated now, but I think everything made then looks that way.

Really the whole thing seems to be exactly as I last saw it on VHS, the only difference is that this is captured in time, and shouldn’t get degraded with re-watching (which it will get a lot of). The audio is nothing more either. But frankly, I didn’t have this DVD yesterday, and today I’m so happy I do that I don’t really care how it looks, as long as I can show my friends this classic film.

Finally a quick mention of the “extras”. The DVD contains actor bios for the three main leads of the “real-life” part of the movie: David Argue, Mary Coustas, and Bruce Spence.

Fancy menus

Probably the saddest part of the DVD transfer is this half-hearted attempt at extras. It’s all very well and good to put these poor excuses for extras on a DVD, but the least you could do is check it before you ship it. Notice something wrong here?

Something’s wrong here…

Poor Bruce Spence gets Mary Coustas’ bio write up. Someone forgot to change what they cut-and-pasted. We weren’t expecting much here, but this looks like someone was in a hurry to get this out of their inbox. The other two actors were written up OK, but frankly I’d rather just the film without the pretend extras. To anyone with any say in future re-releases, perhaps a commentary by, oh say, anyone involved might be nice, and a big mention of the ACTUAL stars of the film - the original Double Take.

All in all this is well worth the fifteen dollars you’ll pay for it, and I really can’t complain. Atlantic DVD had seventy in stock at the beginning of December, and twenty when I got there today (Christmas), so you might need to be quick (if they haven’t gone already). They did tell me though that this is their second - bigger - shipment, and I suspect that this might be a trial to see if it is popular as I couldn’t get it anywhere but Atlantic DVD.

I never did get another message from Tim (so I don’t know if he is responsible - if you are thanks!). Double Take’s website no longer exists, so I don’t know if they had a say. I’d like to think that I might be a little bit responsible (but I know of at least one other person who contacted Beyond International to enquire as I did).

And last, I’d like to thank the guy I only know as Fanus, who alerted me via my contact page to the fact that Atlantic DVD were selling Hercules Returns. You rock.

I’ll leave you with shot from my favourite scene (with my favourite quote).

Hehe

“I’ll fight you on one condition: that you lower your nipples.”

Go. Buy. Now.

P.S. I have no idea if this is region locked, as the DVD doesn’t say. I’d say there’s probably a neato Linux hacker way of telling (or a simple way) but I don’t know it.

I want to share one of my favourite things with you. Superheroes. Actually I want to share a few of my favourite things - Superheroes, old crappy movies, and animated GIFs of people doing amusing things.

Check this out:

Check the pointy ears

Yes, that is supposed to be Batman. Nice eh?

Batman has pointy antenna sticking out of his head. This is from the 1949 Batman and Robin movie serial, as seen on DVD. I bought it to grow my ever expanding superhero collection, and wound up watching it one saturday while Mil hogged the computer. Her selfishness bought about something good, as I was slowly drawn into the Dynamic Duo’s web (sorry, mixing my super-hero allusions). See, I wasn’t expecting something amazing - and I wasn’t surprised that it is silly and badly done - but I’ve found myself addicted. I have to watch 3 episodes every Saturday to get my fix. It really is very fun. Firstly, every time I see Batman’s cowl, I laugh out loud. Those ridiculous ears and that pointy nose - cracks me up. Let me share how marvellous this truly is.

Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson - played by Robert Lowery and John Duncan are our dashing heroes on the trail of the dastardly Wizard.

Run Batman, run!

Who is the Wizard? Well I don’t know, as I’ve only seen ten episodes, but there are a few suspects.

It’s the dastardly Wizard

The eccentric Genius, Dr Hammil who created the remote control device that the Wizard is using to terrorise Gotham City.

Surely a man in a wheelchair can’t be the bad guy.

He’s very shifty - he’s got a device that gives him back use of his legs for a time:

It’s a festivus miracle!

Then there’s the radio presenter Barry Brown, who always seems to know what the Wizard is planning.

Who is that “Barry Brown” character?

Then there’s Carter - Hammil’s butler/helper - he seems a bit sly, but I don’t know if he’s mixed up in this crazy game.

Hmmm, suspicious

Batman and Robin are a little different to how we’ve come to know them. They don’t drive a Batmobile as such, but you know that when Bruce Wayne’s Mercury Convertible has the top down - Batman and Robin are on the case! And when Vicki Vale asks if Bruce Wayne knows Batman is using his car? Classic!

Na Na Na Na Na BATMAAAANNNNN

I thought for the first 8 or so episodes that Batman and Robin might have well have been plain clothes detectives for all the distinctly un-bat-like things they did - but then in a cliff-hanger moment - Batman pulled a blow-torch from his utility belt. The thing was huge!

And the cliff-hangers are what it’s about. Like the time Batman was helplessly electrocuted above a cliff by the Wizard. It made him dance apparently… Check it if you don’t believe me.

Batman’s life “hangs” in the balance

At least you might think the cliff-hangers were important, that is until the following week, when Batman (or Robin occasionally) simply punches the bad guy, or grabs a branch to stop their fall, to continue the adventure another week (I think this series paved the way for the cheesy camp of the 60’s series - Batman just brushes off things that were guaranteed to be lethal by the voice over guy the week before).

Since starting this write-up, I’ve finished the series (and started on the 60’s series - even more fun!) and trust me - you won’t see the ending coming. Well worth the $16 bucks I spent on it (and the money my sister and brother spent on it later for a thoughtful, but too-late birthday present - thanks!). Just the ridiculous costume was enough for one chuckle every Saturday for a month, not to mention the stunts.

Oh yes, this is one action-filled romp. Batman and Robin run, leap, fall, punch, drive, dodge and detect like the heroes they are. And to prove it - I’ll leave you with one last animation of Robin leaping to Batman’s aid. Around a corner, and for no real reason.

Oh, he’s so pretty…

Went to see above-mentioned film on the weekend. First off let me take the opportunity to say, “Shove over d#@-head!”. The session I went to was the biggest of the 30 screens on offer, but it was still overcrowded. Which wouldn’t make me annoyed (well not in the same self-righteous sort of way) except that each group of people decided that everyone that didn’t belong to their little group was smelly or evil and left one seat between them and the next group of xenophobes.

So my friend and I were forced to split up and sit either side of one fat guy with a B.O. problem… no, I’m fibbing - we had to sit in the second row.

Thus begins the discussion of “Pirates of the Caribbean”, starring Orlando Bloom‘s Nostrils, Johnny Depp‘s Mascara, and Keira Knightley‘s… pores. Don’t get me wrong - they’re beautiful pores (actually I will say this for the film - when you’re looking up at the pores of a real person and a CG character and they’re equally as detailed - it’s good CG), but no one should be forced to critically analyse an actor’s skin because of another person’s ignorance.

So on to the movie.

Seriously. Rant over.

What a ride! It was intense. I cannot tell how much of the dizziness I experienced was intentional on the part of Gore Verbinski and how much was my terrible seating (OK, enough now), but it was a fair spectacle. With stunning computer created creatures, and some terrific characters. I had heard that Johnny Depp was particularly good in this (and especially in the second half) - I don’t know. Johnny Depp does some marvellous work, but I just couldn’t like Jack Sparrow. In the first movie I remember liking him a lot, but in this he grated on me - which made the ending (and you’ll understand when you see it) particularly hard for me to believe.

The story is sprawling. I wasn’t aware going in that this is the second in what will be a trilogy, which gives the writers a lot of room to create multiple stories. And at three hours for this movie alone, they jam pack it full of stories. They go this way, they go that way, and there’s sword fighting, comical chases, and Depp doing that girly running. It’s all very good fun, but looking back it’s all a bit much.

And knowing that it is a two-parter might help some people deal with what I saw as the most annoying part of the whole film. After hours of crazy running and complicated plot twists, and a cast of characters that could sink a ship (get it?) instead of wrapping up, the film ends. NOTHING IS RESOLVED. As my mate put it - this is the longest teaser trailer for a movie ever made (Barring LOTR: FOTR and TT - which at least wrapped up the occasional sub-plot). It p##d me off that now I’ve invested three hours in this movie I’m forced to see the last one. How did I miss that it was split in two? I don’t know.

My mate thoroughly enjoyed himself. That’s a good endorsement to me. He enjoyed it ‘cause it followed so well from the original - bringing back favourite characters, and developing ideas that didn’t get fully explored. Oh, but read up on your pirate myths before you go. The stories of Davy Jones et al are kind of explained throughout, but with everything going on you might want to have a better understanding of how all the stories fit together… My exposure to the story of the Flying Dutchman is limited to episodes of Spongebob. And watch part one just before. I didn’t (can you tell) and I couldn’t remember what the hell anyone was talking about.

Pluses:

• Very fun

• Pirates (this may well be enough)

• Sword-fighting

• Returning characters

• Keira Knightley

• Johnny Depp (if you’re so inclined)

• Fantastic CG

Minuses

• Long

• Part two of three

• Pirates (yes this is a minus for some… they aren’t nice people)

• Keira Knightley’s massive chin (it’s only in one scene, so it’s not terrible)

So all up, I give it 24 ’s for being fun. And if you REALLY enjoyed the first one add another 10‘s, but I’m adding 10 -’s away for not making it really obvious that it was gonna stop half way thr…

I was reading about some stupid but fun movies on DVD Verdict, and thought I’d get their opinion on a movie released in 1993 that was one of the silliest, and most quotable movies of all time - Hercules Returns.

It turns out they haven’t reviewed it. Neither has Rotten Tomatoes. “What is wrong with the world”, think I.

Searching IMDB finds it, but sadness sets in as I realise that it can only be bought legally on VHS from the UK (and if memory serves the quality wasn’t great to begin with).

To my international reader - Hercules Returns was a movie made by a few of our comedians by re-dubbing an old 1960’s Hercules movie with new dialogue. It’s some of the funniest stuff to ever be made in Australia, and is one of those films that gets mentioned in passing in a social situation, and dominates the rest of the evening being quoted over and over until someone says they haven’t seen it, and you all troop to the nearest (or furthest if necessary) video shop to hire it immediately because they MUST SEE IT NOW.

“I’ll fight you on one condition… that you lower your nipples.”

Seriously, this is a must see for any Aussie. Sadly, it is becoming increasingly difficult to induct friends into the Hercules Returns club because it’s just so difficult to find now.

So I researched. You can buy it on eBay, but as there has never been a DVD release it makes it tough for me to believe that these ‘extremely rare’ copies are anything but bootleg forgeries. And it’s a real shame - a proper DVD transfer of this would be marvellously popular - judging by the gushing comments on IMDB, and the number of (ahem) copies available online.

Eventually I found the email address of the sales contact for the film, and sent them this email:

To whom it may concern,

I would simply like to enquire as to the possibilities of Hercules Returns, a wonderful Australian film, being released on DVD here in Australia. I have found it available on VHS in the UK, and on (presumably bootleg) DVD from eBay an other sellers, but would love to own a properly converted (and fully legal) copy of my own on DVD.

You may get requests like this all the time, and I may not even have the correct email address (as found on the Australian Film Commission website), but if you could let me know if this might be in the works (sometime in the next twenty years even?), or who I might have to bribe to make this happen I (and a thousand other fans) would be eternally grateful.

Thanks for your time in this matter, and I will attempt to contact you by phone or mail to confirm this address if I have not heard in a few weeks.

Sincerely,

---

Josh Nunn

As I said, I’ll contact them again in a few weeks, and post the progress here. When I have it in my hands I will force everyone I know to buy it and watch it. Once they’ve seen it they’ll thank me.

Update 2006-12-25 It’s here! Check out my latest post on this subject for an explanation and review!

To my 3 loyal readers, sorry I haven’t written in a while. To be honest, I keep up with you regularly anyway, and you know all my news. And frankly, anything I think I’d like to share with the world gets covered in other blogs very quickly by a lot of people before I can anyway.

So on to my update:

• I have a new job working in a school. I already worked in a school, but this time I get to make the big decisions.

• I have a new Mac - my dad’s mini, which is very cool, but in vital need of a stick of RAM.

• I’m at my parent’s-in-law’s place - a very nice house between two little towns outside Adelaide, where Mil and I have been trying to recharge. While my Internet credit has suffered (my father-in-law doesn’t use it as much as I), we are appreciating the chance to stretch out in a house three or for times the size of our flat (and we aren’t even using a third of the house!)

• I purchased the 1949 movie serial ‘Batman and Robin’ and have finished watching all 15 episodes. It’s really fun, and I’m gonna take the time to write something on it soon. Until then, here is a little taste of how marvellous it is.

• I’ve got a few extra plans for my site (or my ‘NunnOne Network’ as I’ve facetiously called it). One is to create a wiki, where (in a genius moment of sheer egotism) Josh Nunn’s (and only Josh Nunn’s) from all over the web can write about themselves. Hehe.
  Edit: It’s done… kinda… When I’m ready to tell other Josh’s I’ll make an official post, but check it at Josh Nunn Wiki

• One amazing discovery I’ve made is that setting a text editor to default to Unicode line breaks and then forgetting can make a whole bunch of web-site files stop working when you upload them. I’ve set it to Unix line endings - now my .htaccess files might work properly…

• I’ve got my bookmarks to follow me around now, so no matter where I am, I can find that site quickly. You can check out my setup at http://bm.nunnone.com(site no longer active) - but you’ll only see my public bookmarks.

• By the way, does anyone want to give me money? I’ll take it… I’ve been eyeing off the new Intel Macs you see…

• Nothing else. There is no third thing… (my text based ‘Spanish Inquisition’ impression needs work I know)

I saw Kung-Fu Hussle on the weekend. It was tops.

It was a lot of good fun. Don’t see it expecting your life to be changed, see it to laugh. See it to watch groups of people fighting in totally improbable ways. Watch it to pick out the references to other movies. I think the eastern superhero is growing on me.

The western superhero has a scientific origin. Superman is an alien, the Green Lantern has a device, Spider-Man was bitten by a modified spider - all very clear-cut scientifically explainable origins. The eastern heroes on the other hand all have the same origins. The power comes from within. Each character has a special power just like our western heroes, but it is a manifestation of their inner power and their training. So one character may have the power of the wind, or the power of a particular animal. They’re just like our heroes, but with very different back-stories.

So check out Kung-Fu Hussle if you’re in need of a superhero fix before the release of Spider-Man 3 next year, or are lonely for The Matrix, or just need something to see next Friday night.

I have just started reading Psycho by Robert Bloch. Actually, I think I may have read it before, but it’s hard to tell. Of course I’ve seen the movie, which confuses the issue further, but I can’t help feeling like I’ve compared it to the movie before. Please understand, it’s not that I remember reading it, just comparing it to the movie…

So now I’m all confused. For those of you who haven’t seen the movie: Why not? Do yourself a favour. Those of you jaded by today’s clichéd Hollywood movies, rent this and see it tonight. Don’t get the colour remake, get the Alfred Hitchcock original. It’s a masterpiece. The story (courtesy of Robert Bloch) is stunning, and in Alfred’s hands could have only be made even better.

So no, it doesn’t matter that I haven’t read it. Or don’t think I have. Only that I’m going to.

Update: 2006-03-14 I’ve finished reading it now, and I made Mil re-watch it with me (I ignored her protests - it’s not scary

It really is great. I didn’t understand what people meant when I first watched it - but it truly is a remarkable story, in both forms. If Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings couldn’t convince you that a book can be made into a movie without some of the bits you’d think should be kept, then maybe Alfred’s treatment of Robert’s story will. And Mil loved it too.\