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This could be the most important post-Crystal Skull tee-shirt you buy. Ignore the fact that it’s being sold from the Jump Leads tee-shirt store. Just buy it.

I’ve just had a look at the Amazon.com listing for the James Bond Ultimate Collection, and here’s the product description:

Disc 1: James Bond - Volume 1 - Disc 1 Disc 2: James Bond - Volume 1 - Disc 2 Disc 3: James Bond - Volume 1 - Disc 3 Disc 4: James Bond - Volume 1 - Disc 4 Disc 5: James Bond - Volume 1 - Disc 5 Disc 6: James Bond - Volume 1 - Disc 6 Disc 7: James Bond - Volume 1 - Disc 7 Disc 8: James Bond - Volume 1 - Disc 8 Disc 9: James Bond - Volume 1 - Disc 9 Disc 10: James Bond - Volume 1 - Disc 10

Disc 11: James Bond - Volume 2 - Disc 1 Disc 12: James Bond - Volume 2 - Disc 2 Disc 13: James Bond - Volume 2 - Disc 3 Disc 14: James Bond - Volume 2 - Disc 4 Disc 15: James Bond - Volume 2 - Disc 5 Disc 16: James Bond - Volume 2 - Disc 6 Disc 17: James Bond - Volume 2 - Disc 7 Disc 18: James Bond - Volume 2 - Disc 8 Disc 19: James Bond - Volume 2 - Disc 9 Disc 20: James Bond - Volume 2 - Disc 10

Disc 21: James Bond - Volume 3 - Disc 1 Disc 22: James Bond - Volume 3 - Disc 2 Disc 23: James Bond - Volume 3 - Disc 3 Disc 24: James Bond - Volume 3 - Disc 4 Disc 25: James Bond - Volume 3 - Disc 5 Disc 26: James Bond - Volume 3 - Disc 6 Disc 27: James Bond - Volume 3 - Disc 7 Disc 28: James Bond - Volume 3 - Disc 8 Disc 29: James Bond - Volume 3 - Disc 9 Disc 30: James Bond - Volume 3 - Disc 10

Disc 31: James Bond - Volume 4 - Disc 1 Disc 32: James Bond - Volume 4 - Disc 2 Disc 33: James Bond - Volume 4 - Disc 3 Disc 34: James Bond - Volume 4 - Disc 4 Disc 35: James Bond - Volume 4 - Disc 5 Disc 36: James Bond - Volume 4 - Disc 6 Disc 37: James Bond - Volume 4 - Disc 7 Disc 38: James Bond - Volume 4 - Disc 8 Disc 39: James Bond - Volume 4 - Disc 9 Disc 40: James Bond - Volume 4 - Disc 10

Disc 41: Sony - Casino Royale - Disc 1 Disc 42: Sony - Casino Royale - Disc 2

That’s helpful. Thanks.

Yesterday at work, some co-workers and I were wasting time with trivial movie-related junk. A short while later we had a diagram mapped out, and one of the co-workers, Joe, says “Wouldn’t that be great on a tee-shirt?”, further suggesting it would look good done in the style of a London Underground map.

Last night I put up the tee-shirt on the Jump Leads Store. It’s the first tee that has absolutely nothing to do with the comic (save, perhaps, for the scifi theme):

And about fifteen minutes ago I made my first sale. This is heavy.

CNN are reporting it as breaking news. Holy shit.

I love going to see movies on the Big Screen. Since moving to the States I’ve been to see a film at least once every two or three weeks, including some exclusive Disney Staff Only screenings of films like Ratatouille and Dan in Real Life. My Dad, Stepmom and I went to see National Treasure: Book of Secrets and I had a great time, despite the fact that we went to see National Treasure: Book of Secrets.

I love film in general, and we have a killer HD set-up at home - a reasonably-sized Huge HD TV, surround speakers, and both Blu-ray and HD-DVD players as well as a region-free DVD player (which is a Big Deal in the US as hardly anybody makes or sells them) - but nothing beats seeing a film at the theater. It’s fantastic, and the day when films come out on DVD at the same time as they do in theaters will be a sad day for me. It’ll be the beginning of the end of the cinema experience.

Firstly, here’s some advice for you: There’s no need to buy one of those human-head sized buckets of soda. If you’re going to be getting up four or five times during the film, blocking my view of the screen during some pivotal scene as you do so, be aware that I may well have to kick you square in the fork. People who buy those sodas should be forced to sign a document that says, “I acknowledge that putting this much fizzy drink into my body will likely make me need to pee like mad, but that I will restrain myself and wait until the end of the film because, frankly, it’s my own fault if I do.”

Even worse are the people who will pay £8, or $14 or whatever, for the privilege of sitting in a dark room and talking loudly to their friends. Surely you can do that for free at home. Just turn the lights off, sit on the couch and natter. You actually save money on your electricity bill. That’s a net gain, surely.

When I went to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe with my ex, there were these four Chavettes sittings to our right, giggling and talking and texting and generally being rather ignorant and stupid about both the film and the theater in general. The moment Lucy Pevensie steps through the wardrobe into Narnia and her face it lit up at the sight of this snow-covered other-world, they laughed. Why is that funny, I ask you? Am I missing something here? Or are you just missing the necessary part of your brain that allows you to enjoy films like this?

Should I ever become Supreme Ruler of the Known Universe (and I’ll be starting my Election Campaign in March, people!) these are the people who will first feel my wrath. I imagine I’ll force them to sit in a small room in silence, their only form of audio/visual stimuli being Spiceworld: The Movie played in perpetual loop. That’ll learn ‘em.

You already know I was disappointed by the film, but if you fancy a spoiler-laden review of the film, you need only read on. I’ve kept the majority of this post hidden from the front page, for rather obvious reasons.

The review contains spoilers for both Futurama: Bender’s Big Score and, rather oddly, a mild spoiler for the Doctor Who Series 3 finale. If you’ve not seen either yet, I suggest you leave this review alone for now.

Read the rest of this entry »

In three words: “Fun, but disappointing.”

Yesterday was a good ol’ day. We went to the Griffith Observatory with my stepsister’s family to celebrate her husband’s birthday, and while I wasn’t particularly looking forward to the trip having woken up in a real funk, I actually enjoyed myself. At a risk of sounding like a poorly-written piece of PR, there really is a lot to do there. We didn’t get to spend as much time there as we would have liked, though, as we moved on to lunch fairly quickly.

After that, we said our farewells and went on to see a couple of flicks. First we saw Enchanted, which was very cute, exceptionally silly, and surprisingly enjoyable. While I’d wanted to see this film for a while, I will admit I had low expectations but I was quite surprised by just how much I enjoyed myself. The film’s outcome was predictable in the same way that a man eating a cake can predict that he’ll be left with an empty plate when he’s finished. He may have expected the cake to be gone, but that’s not to say he didn’t enjoy eating it. A ton of fun with some very ridiculous musical numbers that work alarmingly well.

Afterwards, we saw Dan in Real Life. Again, this was a film I really wanted to see but had low expectactions of, and again those expectations were met and exceeded several times over. It’s a really great drama-comedy with a lot of heart and some very real performances from a few people, including (rather surprisingly) Steve Carell and Dane Cook. Who knew they could act, eh?

Doesn’t seem like much to ask for, does it? They have my support.

Just a quick message to say that I know haven’t blogged in a good two or three weeks. This is largely because, short of pointing out the fact that one of the cast of High School Musical 2 does not appear to have any ears (it’s true, check out the last-but-one guy on the poster), I haven’t had much on my mind lately. I will probably write a proper blog entry this evening.

Quentin Tarantino is apparently rather angry with the producers of Casino Royale because they made the film without his input. He’s also angry with George Lucas for not involving him in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, with Team17 for not asking his creative assistance with Worms Open Warfare, and with Kelloggs for changing the name of Coco Pops back from Choco Krispies without first consulting him.

I’ve never done the whole Double Feature thing - two films in one day. The concept seems alien to me, like going into a restaurant for lunch and then returning there a couple of hours later, while your stomach is still digesting the previous meal. That was the apprehension I felt when the idea of a Double Feature was brought up yesterday but having done it today, I can say that it’s definitely not a bad thing. Really it’s no different to watching two movies on DVD in a row.

So today we went to see two films, as you may well have gleamed from the above. We saw Stardust, which is a simply incredible film that everyone in the Universe has to see. Really. It’s that good. We also saw The Bourne Ultimatum, which wasn’t bad but I’m sure I would have enjoyed it more had I seen the preceding movies. I’ll probably write more about the two when I can be bothered, but right now my brain is starting to deactivate.