Category: Life: TV and Movies

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.

After watching “Victoria Wood with all the Trimmings” last night, I wondered how many actors had been in Doctor Who, Eastenders and Coronation Street (three extremely popular UK TV shows) and therefore, being the geek I am, decided to find out.

It turns out (according to the IMDB and a Google Spreadsheet: where the formula “=CONCATENATE((ROW()-1)-COUNTBLANK(F2:F54),”/”,ROW()-1)” came in handy), that out of the 54 credited actors, 14 (25.92%) were in Dr Who, 11 (20.37%) in Coronation Street and 6 (11.11%) were in Eastenders (with some in two of the three shows). Quite a hefty overlap!

Actor	Dr Who	Eastenders	Coronation Street
Victoria Wood
Caroline Aherne
Bruce Alexander		Mr Burgess
Susie Blake			Bev Unwin
James Bolam	Sir Achibald Flint (audio book: The Spectre of Lanyon Moor
Betty Boothroyd
June Brown	Eleanor (The Time Warrior)	Dot Cotton
Richenda Carey
Craig Cash
Helen Coker
Roger Cook
Lindsay Duncan	Adelaide Brooke (The Waters of Mars)
Andrew Dunn	Max (Scream of the Shalka)		Roger Stiles / Laurie Dyson
Richard E. Grant	“The Doctor (The Curse of Fatal Death) The Doctor (Scream of the Shalka) Doctor Simeon (The Snowmen)”
Hannah Gordon	Kirsty McClaren (The Highlanders)
Shobna Gulati		Ameena	Sunita Alahan / Parekh
Charlie Hicks
Nichola Holt
Adrian Hood
Celia Imrie
Philip Jackson			Smitty
Derek Jacobi	Professor Yana (Utopia)
Hugh Laurie
Robert Lindsay
Geraldine McEwan
Bob Monkhouse
Deborah Moore
Roger Moore
Michael Parkinson
Bill Paterson	Bracewell (Victory of the Daleks / Pandorica Opens)
Maxine Peake			Belinda Peach
Billie Piper	Rose Tyler (2005-2010)
Pete Postlethwaite			Detective Sergeant Cross
Anne Reid	Florence Finnegan (Smith and Jones)		Valerie Barlow / Tatlock
Alan Rickman
Paul Rider		Howard
Angela Rippon
Amy Robbins
Emma Robbins
Kate Robbins
Ted Robbins			Officer McAlister / DJ
Delia Smith
Kathy Staff			Vera Hopkins / Customer
Joe Starrs
Imelda Staunton	Interface (The Girl Who Waited)
Alan Titchmarsh
Julie Walters
Ian “H” Watkins
Jim Watson
Honeysuckle Weeks
Penelope Wilton	Harriet Jones (2005-2008)
Anna Wing	Anatta (Kinda: Part One)	Lou Beale
Bernard Wrigley			Chauffeur / Comedian
Totals	14/54	6/54	11/54

Is it really non-commercial “piracy” “killing” the movie industry, or is it due to things like this which I saw in Sainsbury’s a month ago.

Yep, Disney/Pixar’s “Brave” has only very recently gone in the cinema, yet “Brightspark” has “Braver” out about the “Bravest Princess in all time”..

Hmm…

After my May 2005 blog post about a Jaffa Cake song, I’m overjoyed to say that “Jo” has found a YouTube copy:

1992 Jaffa Cake Calypso Song.

Uploaded by CultOfJaffa

Many thanks Jo!