Saturday, February 10

DVD night - Reviews for Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Leatherface and Alien: Covenant

Another movie date night with my gorgeous Mrs. She fell asleep after 10 minutes as she always does and I watched all these movies as she lightly snored and snuffled beside me on the bed. 
Kingsman: The Golden Circle was her choice and I was more than happy to watch it as we'd both thoroughly enjoyed it's predecessor. The films are based on the Kingsman comic book series by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons released in 2012 though I am sure I read a book that was very similar to this concept before as well which was very, very similar too I thought. I can't recall for the life of me what the book was called or any of the characters names from it but I was SURE it was based on it when I first saw the film. I have tried to have a google up to find it but had no joy there. 

   


Oh well, the 2nd film is another high energy, fight fest full of crazy action and far-fetched gadgets & plot scenes that see the last of the Kingsmen teaming up with members of their US counterparts the Statesmen to take on the drug cartel The Golden Circle who have poisoned their products threatening to kill anyone who has taken them and will only release the antidote if the world agrees to make them all legal! The organisation's leader has also kidnapped Elton John and seems to make a habit of getting her robot dogs to kill her failed underlings and then mincing and making them into hamburgers!! That kind of cannibalistic behaviour would help her fit right in with the protagonists of the next movie from this evening......





...Leatherface. This is not to be confused with Texas Chainsaw Massacre III which had the subtitle Leatherface and a cool Heavy Metal soundtrack, but there are so many chainsaw killing movies based in Texas now that I have totally lost track of them all! (This is #8 it seems!!) It doesn't really matter though does it, you know what you are getting when you buy or hire one of these out don't you? Well, normally I'd say yes you do but this is an origin story for this evil face wearing maniac so it's a bit different. There is still a family of wrong 'uns living on a farm in Texas somewhere and the mother who is raising her kids with very nontraditional family values has one of her boys taken away by the authourities after they kill a sheriff's daughter. There is no proof that it wasn't just an accident so there are no criminal charges instead he is put into what seems to be an asylum or at least a home for VERY maladjusted, twisted teens/young adults. I have to admit I thought that she had 2 children taken from her and Bud another character was Jedidiah's brother, the passage of time in the film and the fact I am sure there were 2 kids in the film's early sequence made me think this but Wikipedia says otherwise so I'll trust it over my own addled memory!

    

He'd been there for 10 years with his mother fighting to get back custody of him. After a bit of chaos caused by his mother a riot and a breakout ensues where he, his friend Bud (who I thought was his brother) and 2 other inmates escape, with a nurse as a hostage in tow. They are pursued by the very sheriff whose daughter they killed all them years ago and he is taking no prisoners. Along the way Leatherface is born making his deranged mother very proud I am sure!!


From a lunatic mother we move on to an alien mother!! Actually there is no alien brood queen mother in this film but there are plenty of eggs, facehuggers and a new alien that infects through mushroom like spores and emerges in splendidly horrific fashion! This, the 6th film in the Alien franchise is about the colony ship Covenant which is carrying settlers to a far off planet to make new lives there. Along the way the crew's stasis sleep is disturbed by an accident. Once awoken they discover signals from a nearby planet, seemingly human in origin they seek the planet out to investigate. Bad idea, terrible idea..... it ends badly. This movie is basically the follow up to the much reviled Prometheus from 2012 and the planet they go to investigate is the one from that movie and the android David played by Michael Fassbender is still living on the planet along with far too many alien killing machines to make it a safe place to visit. Fassbender plays 2 roles, he is David the android on the planet from the Prometheus ship that crashed there and also Walter the later version android from the Covenant. There is plenty of good action and gore and I liked it.

In fact all 3 films tonight were a hit for me :)

      

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Fun fact - Leatherface was filmed in Bulgaria not Texas!!

A Cool Display of Cosplay!!!

As I have doubtlessly mentioned it before I have never done cosplay as such. Fancy dress yes but cosplay no? I think there is a difference, probably dependent on how old you are haha I mean I have dressed as The Joker and a zombie and they are kind of geeky, so maybe I was cosplaying even though we just called it fancy dress back then!! What's in a name anyway? I had fun and whatever you call it having fun is what it's about! Anyway this post is another in my 'recommending something awesome from the internet that I have seen' sort of posts. So any cool blogs, or art or anything cool & geeky that catches my eye I'll make a post about it now and again.

So without further ado I heartily recommend that you check out the amazing page of  Désirée Cosplay. She does a great Fallout cosplay as a lady version of Grognak the Barabarian, something that I think is referred to as a crossplay when someone plays a character of the opposite sex to themselves. Although I am not sure if this counts as that as in game you can wear Grognak's costume as it has a male and female version. Anyway enough of my rambling, check out this great photo and check out her page to see all the different and greatly varied characters she brings to life.

Photo by Michael P Hoover Photography

I particularly like this as in my PS4 playthrough of Fallout Grognak's Axe is my weapon of choice. Check out this video I made using it. 


Panasonic HC-V380


I have just bought myself a new video camera!! My old one has been having a bit of trouble of late as the shutter doesn't seem to open up properly anymore and sometimes you can see it when I am filming something and that simply won't do eh?! It will likely cost more to repair than to replace and I have had it going on 10 years at least. So I was thinking about getting a new one but I'm not that good with technology really. 

I went into a Jessops when I was up in Leicester and enquired about cameras but it seems that the video camera is not so much in demand now as every still-shot type camera now tends to have very good video capturing modes and so they have almost made the video style of camera redundant. For what I want to use it for, mainly recording at gigs and making geeky blogs I much prefer the shape and size of the vidcam. The branch of Jessops I was in was not a large one and they had no video cameras in store whatsoever. 

Later in the week for my lady's birthday we were out shopping and I picked up a new camera in Curry's PC World. They only had a choice of 3 in stock so I went with the most expensive one hoping it'd have all the bells and whistles I need to do a good job :) That's a good scientific way of doing it I reckon!!

So I made a little video about it, check it out if you didn't already and check out my newest gig videos to see what you think of the picture and sound quality. I am quite happy with it actually. Now I might need to get myself a new camera bag and perhaps a new tripod too.


      

Tuesday, February 6

London Lovecraft Festival - The Shadow Over Innsmouth


I have been getting a lot of adverts on my Facebook feed about a London Lovecraft Festival and being a big H.P. geek I had to have a look at it. It's a theatrical celebration of the great man's works and is running from the 6th to the 11th of February. Events include renditions of The Thing on the Doorstep, Pickman's Model, a gender switched Mountains of Madness, a Weird Tales inspired Improv and even a Lovecraftian crooner!!


I happen to have that whole week off of work but I have other plans already in place. I visited my brother and family at the start of the week. Then it's my girlfriend's birthday so I am taking her shopping one day, little pub gathering one evening and a romantic night in with a takeaway has to be done!! Then I have a gig to attend!! Then Sunday I will be recording my regular podcast show. I would've felt really bad if I missed it entirely so I have booked in for the very last show of the event on the Sunday night. 

The Shadow Over Insmouth is a bona fide Lovecraft classic, one of his most seminal works and I am very much looking forward to seeing it. This is how the event is described on the event page, it certainly sounds good for sure -

On a frankly tedious architectural tour of the coastline, Robert Olmstead happens across the ancient seaport of Innsmouth... 

What he discovers there will threaten his life, test his will and shatter his sanity. 

Featuring original music, puppetry and physical theatre, this darkly comic fast paced two hander brings a HP Lovecraft classic to the stage as you've never seen it before, and explores the complex and sometimes deadly relationship between man and fish.

I'll post up a review here in due course :)




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My wants list

I just thought I'd put this online so I can check it on my phone if I ever need to. Also if anyone is looking to trade or anything. ...