Category: Life: TV and Movies

After misreading The Guardian’s TV’s five most memorable mumblers headline, I started wondering what TV’s most memorable numbers actually are/were (from a UK perspective).

1. “911”. Yes, the American emergency services number – crops up a lot in TV programmes aired in the UK, but our own 999 or the European 112 number doesn’t (I don’t think I’ve ever heard the 112 number on TV).

2. “01 811 8181” and later “0181 811 8181” . As used by the BBC for many programmes – such as Live and Kicking, Crimewatch, Going Live, Swap Shop and many others.

3. “0118 999 881 999 119 725 3” : a spoof phone number for the “new emergency services” from “The IT Crowd”.

4. “Darrowby 385” from “All Creatures Great and Small”.

Any others that stick in your mind?

We were just looking for some food to eat on the Dominos Pizza website when I came across their “Box Busting deal” which includes “Large Pizza, Garlic Pizza Bread, Potato Wedges and a [current or library movie] rental” for £19.99. It looked tempting as we were possibly considering going to the cinema to see “something”, so I had a look at which films they had “stocked”.

1) It’s not clear that this are actually “streaming” videos: i.e. you aren’t actually renting a physical item to play in your DVD or Blu-Ray player
2) No technical specifications are given on the main site at http://www.dominos.co.uk/menu/movies/ (they are in the FAQ on http://pizzaboxoffice.co.uk/frequently-asked-questions though: an entirely separate site).
3) It says it can be viewed on a “PC or Mac” (is that Windows and Mac or “Windows, Linux, RISC OS” [i.e. anything in a “PC form factor] and Mac”)
4) It will” only work on the latest versions of Mozilla Firefox 15, Opera 12.02, Chrome 21, IE9 and Safari 5.1.7″. I run Chrome 25 on my Linux laptop: can I actually play the movie (the “latest version” of “Chrome 21” as far as I can tell was Chrome 21.0.1180.90 (released September 24 2012). Since around that, “Chrome 21” has been ended. I would under stand if it said “Latest versions of Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Chrome, IE and Safari” (and is it compatible with IE10?)
5) And the biggest problem I’ve got is the movie choice. The titles are provided by Lions Gate UK Limited and the choices are:

“Latest” (not available under the deal)

(I’ve heard of “What to expect when you’re expecting”, “Magic Mike” and “The Expendables 2”: but I’ve not been tempted to see any of them).[3 heard, 0 “want to watch”, 0 owned]

“Current” (part of the deal)

(I’ve heard of “The Hunger Games”: but not been tempted to see it. I’e not heard of the others).[1 heard, 0 “want to watch”, 0 owned]

“Library Title”

(We own “The Princess Bride”, “Maybe Baby” and “Clerks” and I’ve heard “The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus”, “Dirty Dancing”, “The Blair Witch Project”, “Jeepers Creepers”, “Reservoir Dogs”, “The Expendables” and the 3 “Spy Kids” films and we may be very slightly tempted by “Conan: The Barbarian”). [9 heard, 1 “want to watch”, 3 owned]

So, out of 76 available movies, I’ve heard of 10, own 3 and may be slightly tempted by 1.

I don’t think we’ll bother with this deal.

This week, mainly due to insomnia, my wife and I have watched a number of movies, and here’s a thoughts on them in “worst to best” order. Some spoilers ahead.

5. Prometheus
Looking up its Wikipedia entry afterwards kinda sums up our thoughts of this movie. It started off being a sequel to Alien, then a reboot and then a prequel. It shows its uncertainty quite a bit and it had a lot of potential, but just wasted it with “cut and pasted” sections from Alien (oh – the robot has a different agenda from everyone else and – shock horror – ends up decapitated. Oh, somebody leans over something different and gets a acid-blood face hugger who people then take back to a ship whilst a woman tells them not to break quarantine etc etc). It could have just been so much more – and how did the Space Jockey get back to his ship in his pilot seat (as we see him in Alien with a “chest buster” hole) if he died in the Prometheus emergency pod? Too formulaic, too uncertain what it is (psychological horror horror, sci-fi, straight horror). Very disappointing.

4. Tron: Legacy
I managed to pick this up for just £3 at Sainsburys yesterday – and I’m glad that’s all we paid for it. The young Jeff Bridges/CLU didn’t quite “seem right” (we think it may be because the VFX tried to map the 1980s “Jeff Bridges face” [but not the one from the original Tron] onto the 2010’s Jeff Bridges face and things – due to aging – just don’t match right), the sirens scene seemed extraordinarily redundant (and those heels!) and the light-bikes and curves? A large part of the excitement of the original Tron Light Cycle “race” was the fact they could only make 90 degree turns and be quite limited as to how they could escape: whereas ramps and curves (and not long lasting light trails) means it was just a standard chase sequence. The suits lighting (and the whole “grid lighting/effect”) wasn’t, in my opinion, as good/effective as the original movie, the story line seems a bit forced (especially concerning ENCOM) and there just wasn’t really much Tron in Tron (“Tron” has been reprogrammed as is, in fact, playing a different character for most of the movie). Oh – and Michael Sheen’s Castor/Zuse character was very David Bowie-esque.

3. The Dark Knight Rises
Actually reasonably good – we had problems with the sound level: when Batman was speaking we had to increase the volume and when Bane was speaking, reduce the volume. Quite a few plot holes (how did Batman get to/from the prison when “not-at-all-Manhattan-island” was closed off), but wasn’t bad.

2. Marvel’s The Avengers
Quite enjoyed it, thought “Black Widow” was a bit of a wasted character: she didn’t seem to do much. Loved Iron Man. This was the first movie we saw in the sequence, so my mind is a little bit hazy of the details now.

1. The Hobbit: The Unexpected Journey: Cinema release (2D)
This is the only one we’ve seen at the cinema (at Cineworld in Ashford: all the others were DVDs or iTunes) and it was a little bit loud for us (but this is probably due to the cinema not the film). I’ve never read the book so I can’t really compare them. I felt the Gollum/Sméagol poetry scene was stretched out and didn’t fit (if they had alternated with the Dwarves being in peril it would have given a better “going on at the same time” feeling instead of “dwarves are on pause”). The trolls and the Pale orc seemed a bit “deus ex machina” solved – and why didn’t they just ride the eagles all the way to the mountain. I was surprised the great goblin was actually Dame Edna Everage (well, Barry Humphries). Apart from all that, quite fun and enjoyable.