Avatar (and Sherlock Holmes) Film Review

We went to see Avatar tonight. This was our third attempt to see the film. The first time we were snowed out, the second time it was full and we had to go and see Sherlock Homes instead.

Sherlock Homes is a blast. Just don’t go expecting to see anything which will stretch you intellectually (although it will stretch your credibility quite a lot). It has a lot in common with the Dan Brown novels. There are sinister cartels, strange goings on in high places and maps with lines drawn on them that point to the most obvious places - An attack on the Houses of Parliament? And not the whelk stall next door to it? How surprising.

Anyhoo, I found the Sherlock served up by Robert Downey Jr. much more fun than Robert Langton and Victorian London was very well realised.  If you have any pre-conceived ideas about Homes or Watson I suggest you leave them at the door though, along with a big chunk of your brain…

Avatar is a bit deeper. but only just. It was a story of  attempts by an evil company to subjugate the population of a planet made up entirely of scenes from old Yes and Ossibiza album covers (Note this is a very old reference, but if you are as old as me you can remember the art of Roger Dean). They - The Evil Company (tm)  that is – hire a crippled marine who is the genetically identical twin of his much more useful scientist brother, who was killed before the start of the film for reasons of plot.  Their Evil Plan (tm) is to gain the confidence of the natives and get intelligence by using a remote controlled Avatar which is bonded to our marine. Unfortunately (for the company) he goes native in a rather spectacular way, by falling for the Chief’s daughter (Who’d have thought?) and then things get explosively nasty.

The film is in 3D and this part works very well. At the start I was surprised by things that appeared to come out of the screen but by the end I was just watching a movie in 3D. And very impressive it was too.

As you would expect from a James Cameron film, the action sequences are great, but if you want deep philosophical content then you will have to look somewhere else. I think for me the most important aspect was the way that the computer generated elements were so well fused with the real actors and how the computer produced characters were both non-cartoonish and on the right side of the uncanny valley. Pretty soon we won’t need actors I reckon.

New Years Damage

Another attempt for Humanclock. It snowed a bit last night. Use your powers of deduction to work out what time the picture was taken…

I’ve hurt my “mouseing” finger. The index finger of my right hand. The one I click with. I did it by removing some cable trunking covers. It is a rule (at least in my house) that the TV with the worst low signal performance is on the end of the longest aerial cable. This means that it can’t receive some channels, in particular the new “Quest” channel (38) which was showing a marathon of Mythbusters today. So we removed a bunch of wires in an attempt to find out where all the signal was going. The results were inconclusive, but I did carve a nice chunk out of the side of my finger, which counts as progress I suppose, but not necessarily in a desirable direction.

Update on Monday, January 4, 2010 at 09:09AM by Rob

Both my pictures are now on Human Clock. Wahay!

Happy New Year’s Eve

Had a great time this evening. Amongst other things we had a go at Bohnanza.  This is a card based training game that is a bit like a cross between Happy Families and Pit. You collect and plant sets of bean seeds in fields in an attempt to harvest them and get the most gold coins. It has a lot of trading and negotiation, which was the bit I enjoyed the most.   We got so engrossed in playing that we nearly forgot to celebrate the New Year itself.

The card game was a gift from the folks at Black Marble, who have an eye for a good game it seems. Thanks folks.

I’d like to wish all my readers (gosh, this sounds like I have readers) a very happy new year and all the best for 2010 (which doesn’t sound like a year to me – more like an eye test result….)

Evil Inkjet Prices

I ran out of yellow ink today. I thought I’d been rather cunning by getting a printer with separate ink tanks for each colour, so that I don’t have to replace an entire expensive cartridge just because one colour runs out. Unfortunately it seems I’ve actually been a bit silly, in that the price of a single colour refill seems to be about the same as my old “expensive” all in one option. Ho hum.

The good news for me though is that I can get a complete set of compatible refills for much less than the cost of a single authentic one. Usually I try to get the proper ink, because this does seem to produce better printouts, but with a price difference like this I’m feeling that I would be daft to go full price.

Human Clock

The Human Clock project is a really neat idea.  The creator is taking pictures from all over the world which contain the time and then using them to make a clock from all the different images. You can submit your own images on their web site, and if the author approves you can get a tiny slice of sort-of immortality. I’ve just sent the picture above. I’ve no idea how busy the 3:10 pm slot is (you can find out how many photos they have for each time) but you never know…