Nextflix Reviews - Land of The Lost

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Quantum-Palaeontologist Dr. Rick Marshall, (Will Ferrell), plans to use time warps to solve the energy crisis by travelling to alternate worlds to get their fossil fuels and is ostracized by his peers as a crackpot reduced to teaching unruly schoolkids. He is approached at work by Holly Cantrell, (Anna Friel), who offers convincing proof of his theory's validity which prompts him to finish his "tachyon amplifier". They test the machine in a tachyon rich environment at a run down roadside theme park inside a ride called Devil's Canyon Mystery Cave and transport themselves and the ride operator Will Stanton (Danny McBride), to the Land of The Lost.

So this film is from 2009 I never realised it was so old actually, it's based on the old 1974 serial of the same name. I must admit to being vaguely aware of this movie but I never sought it out as I never watched the original series at all and I am also not a massive fan of Ferrell's movies either.  looking at the reviews of this it was pretty well panned by critics and was nominated for 8 Golden Raspberry Awards winning just the one for Worst Remake.

As comedies go it is pretty dire actually, they manage to get pretty much no laughs out of the situation whatsoever, much of the humour is daft or just plain silly and there are a couple of sex jokes too that seem incongruous in a 12 certificate. As a fantasy/Sci-fi adventure it's pretty weak too, there's peril and running but there's no sense of danger or tension ever.

So in summary, this got panned and it really does deserve it as an action/adventure/comedy it fails to have any of those 3 elements notably within it. The only redeeming feature is the lovely Anna Friel, aww she's so cute, like Lara Croft crossed with Pippi Longstocking.

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Victorian Jurassic Park

I've been wanting to go along to Crystal Palace Park for ages. I've known about it for yonks but I have never gotten around to going there. I heard a lot about it on I Know Dino Podcast which is a great listen for Dino-geeks. I mentioned it on my dinosaur themed episode of my heavy metal podcast High Speed Hangover too. 

In fact I used a photo from the park as my show picture too. Check that out if you love a bit of heavy music folks.

So I finally went along to the park on my recent week off work. For those not in the know Crystal Palace Park has a few claims to fame. There is a massive radio mast there which is a local landmark in the area. Plus historically the Crystal Palace was there. The Crystal Palace was originally in Hyde Park, the site of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Afterwards it was moved to the area which was named for it and with some modifications and enlargements it formed the centrepiece of the Victorian pleasure ground before sadly burning down in a fire in 1936.

It also has the dinosaurs. Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins was commissioned to sculpt the 33 dinosaurs, and they were completed in 1854. They were sculpted to resemble what the scientists of the day imagined the then newly discovered dinosaurs to look like. 

In this work, which took some three years, he collaborated with Sir Richard Owen and other leading scientific figures of the time: Owen estimated the size and overall shape of the animals, leaving Hawkins to sculpt the models according to Owen's directions.

A dinner was held inside the mold used to make the Iguanodon. The dinner party, hosted by Owen on 31 December 1853, garnered attention in the press. Most of the sculptures are still on display in Crystal Palace Park.

The models were classed as Grade II listed buildings from 1973, extensively restored in 2002, and upgraded to Grade I listed in 2007.

The models represent fifteen genera of extinct animals, not all dinosaurs. They are from a wide range of geological ages, and include true dinosaurs, ichthyosaurs, and plesiosaurs mainly from the Mesozoic era, and some mammals from the more recent Cenozoic era.

Iguanodon....

....and on......

..and on...

...and on!!!

Getting on a bit but not dinosaurs yet!

Ladybird Books: Always for kids but now for adults too!!

I have always been a lover of books, my mum loved to read and her delight in reading was passed on to her children. I can not remember ever learning to read, I doubt I was born with the ability but I must have certainly picked it up quick.

I remember taking a reading test when 1st attending infants (or maybe it was juniors school and I remember being quite proud of myself for being able to read the word 'Refrigerator'!! It's funny the things that our young minds retain sometimes isn't it?  

I don't know what books/comics I started reading with but I certainly remember reading plenty of these Ladybird Books in my formative years. They had such a wealth of great subjects. There were all manner of fairy tales like Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Jack and the Beanstalk and history books too about the kings and queens, Robin Hood, Vikings, The Great Fire of London, The Romans, the list seemed endless. 

At school we had the numbered series of learning books, I don't recall how the numbers ran but they started off with easy words like 'ball' and 'dog' and got incrementally harder. As I said in the video the book started in 1940 and are still going strong today, helping children to learn to read and opening their minds and imaginations. They have cool art too :D 

Ladybird Books for Kids

Now I certainly can not recall all the Ladybird books that I read nor do I have any of them now, except for this one book! Well I say 1 but I actually have 2 copies of it!! It is the GREATEST Ladybird book EVER!! Heck maybe the greatest book by any publisher ever full stop!! haha well I certainly loved it as a kid. Those scaly terrible lizards enthralled me as a boy and probably still do. Dinosaurs, simply put, are cool as heck!!

Ladybird Book of Dinosaurs

I dare say this book was my introduction to dinosaurs and the wonder of our world's prehistory, they were amazing, awesome, terrifying!! How I wished I could see one!! The sheer size of them! The claws, the spikes, the teeth!! Dr Who fought the Dinosaurs I seem to recall, and there were those great Ray Harryhausen special effects in films like The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), One Million Years B.C. (1966) and The Valley of Gwangi(1969).

Then came later blockbusters like Jurassic Park and it's sequels, absolutely great films in regards to special effects, I remember seeing the 1st one in the cinema and that early scene where they 1st spot the enormous sauropod Brachiosaurus plodding along and stare at it in amazement. I was doing the same in my seat, smiling like a loon.

I'm not the only person who thinks they are cool either, dinosaurs are every where! In books and TV shows and films and comics, there are even 2 heavy metal bands aimed at children where all the band members dress as dinosaurs!!

DINOSAURS!!! GRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!

Hmm I went off on a bit of a dinosaur shaped tangent there! I was talking about Ladybird books and got distracted... dinosaurs are cool though aren't they? Which one is your favorite? I find it very hard to choose just one. I like Brontosaurus because it was a dinosaur, then it never existed then it was a dinosaur again!! Ankylosaurus and Stegosaurus are kind of cute but them big carnivores though!! Oh my!! Whoops sorry I was meant to be talking about books!

Yes, recently Ladybird Books have launched a great irreverently fun range for 'Grown-ups' with some amazing titles. They pay homage to the old books of the 60's, 70's and 80's even using the same art and writing style but the subjects are treated a lot differently.

Comedy writers Joel Morris and Jason Hazeley,  adapted Ladybird’s archive to create a series of titles that includes The Ladybird Book of the Hipster, The Ladybird Book of the Hangover and How it Works: The Husband. In an article from The Metro they say "Our books are loving pastiches, not savage parodies, so they’re done with enormous affection: the joke isn’t at the expense of the publisher. The joke is that life looks bloody silly from some angles." One thing is for the sure, the joke, whoever it is on, is damned funny. Check out some of these titles they are going to make great stocking fillers for Christmas, I will have great fun working out which one is best to buy for which relative or friend! How it Works: The Cat for my dad for sure, torn between How it Works: The Mum or How it Works: The Sister for my sister! Perhaps I'll treat myself to The Ladybird Book of The Sickie ;)

See this article from the Metro for more details

Ladybird Books for Grown Ups!!