Sunday, January 3rd, 2010
James Cameron has always been an interesting film maker. Although on one level most of his films could be classified as pulpy genre-related fare, they usually have a more interesting subtext lurking below the explosions. Previous Cameron films have investigated such themes as mother/daughter relationships, humanity's fear of the unknown, ...
Posted in Culture | 4 Comments »
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
I own all of the Star Wars DVDs except for one - The Phantom Menace. Even the weakest of the others have a certain charm, but TPM was stupid through and through. Even the title is stupid! I have yet to work out exactly what the titular menace actually was. ...
Posted in Culture | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
I love the Settlers of Catan board game, so when an iPod version appeared in the App Store for $6.49 I grabbed it straight away. Dubbed "Catan - The First Island", the app includes everything in the core game, I assume more games based on the Catan expansions are on ...
Posted in Computer | 1 Comment »
Thursday, July 30th, 2009
Remember Space Ace? The massive machine at the back of the greasy arcade you used to frequent? The one that played a cartoon that you had to react to? The one that cost twice as much as any other game? Of course you do. Well now it is back, and ...
Posted in Computer, Games | 3 Comments »
Monday, July 27th, 2009
The New Zealand Film Festival is on at the moment, giving us all the chance to see exciting, stimulating cinema from around the world; and also this film.
Paper Solder is a Russian production set in the weeks before the launch of Yuri Gagarin's famous day trip. The story focuses on ...
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Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
Hyperionby Dan Simmons
After years of hearing "Hyperion is the bestest book evar!", I finally managed to read it. And frankly, it is pretty good.
Set in the far future where humanity has created The Hegemony of Man, a culture that spans many planets thanks to portals ("farcasters") that have openings many ...
Posted in Culture | 2 Comments »
Friday, May 15th, 2009
Once again Hollywood dredges up the corpse of a much-loved TV show to desecrate with a pointless remake that misses the whole point of wha....Hey wait a minute! My brain just typed that automatically. Even now I have trouble gathering my wits to write the truth, so shocking and unbelievable ...
Posted in Culture | 10 Comments »
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel by Susanna Clarke
Possibly going for the title of "Most English Book Ever Written", Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell tells the unlikely story of two magicians in the early 1800s, a time when magic is all-but forgotten. The two title characters have very different ...
Posted in Culture | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009
Watchmen is a difficult movie to categorize. As an adaption of an existing work, it is excellent. The attention to detail is amazing, the cast all fit well with their characters and an impressive amount of the plot is exactly the same. A for effort.
As a stand-alone work, Watchmen is ...
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Sunday, March 8th, 2009
Alright! This is the last one of these I am going to do, partly due to the time they take, but mostly because they make me look bad.
Fantasy is a much (and accurately) maligned genre. Unlike SciFi, Fantasy cannot pretend that its authors are offering up visions of our ...
Posted in Culture | 6 Comments »
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009
Yesterdays list of the 100 best books was judged by some to be a little unfair to the more nerdy side of the spectrum. To make up for it, here is the same thing done with this list of the 100 top SciFi novels.
Related posts:Book Review : Three Books Jonathan ...
Posted in Culture | 8 Comments »
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009
A friend of mine (Hi Liesl!) recently went through a list of the 100 greatest books and marked off the ones she had read. She then posted it to Facebook, obviously proud of her total (53 - impressive).
Related posts:Book Review : Three Books Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel ...
Posted in Culture | 9 Comments »
Sunday, February 8th, 2009
What better use of a long weekend take my girlfriend to Wenderholm Regional Park? And what better way to get there than the new(ish) long-awaited Northern Gateway Toll Road? 4 lanes of brand-new seal followed by a tunnel cutting its way through a inconvenient ridge, a bargain at only $2 ...
Posted in Culture, Places | No Comments »
Friday, January 16th, 2009
If you are getting a bunch of guys together to play a board game, you may as well make it a nerdy one. Battlestar Gallactica (BSG) is the board game version of the recent TV show of the same name, and is the best game tie-ins that I have ever ...
Posted in Games | 2 Comments »
Sunday, January 11th, 2009
The summer holidays are the one time of year when it is acceptable to stuff your face with cheap food and drink, and stuff your brain with cheap paperback novels. As with the food, you tend to have a good time during the consumption of the books but regret it ...
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