Jon Curnow's Digital Home
Repeat movies? Sometimes it’s OK to watch a film again.
So last night I saw S.W.A.T on DVD. PY had not seen it, although I had watched it back in December on a plane to the US. It was as good as I remembered, and I don’t think they cut too much from the version I saw on the plane. Always worth watching Colin Farrell in – almost – anything.
He shares my birthday you know.
Just re-read yesterday’s post about The Day After Tomorrow and the link to Ian Holm’s page at IMDb. I see he was born on the same day (admittedly, in a different year) as I was. Which, in turn, made me look at who else they say was born on that day. Turns out it also lists those who died on 12th September, which is quite a depressing way to start a new week.
The message to all of Planet Earth is, of course, corrupted to work for the film and lost after the first third. But that doesn’t make any difference.
So I’ve just got back from a nice – but rushed – meal and a visit to Clapham Picture House to see Roland Emmerich’s The Day After Tomorrow, starring Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal. It’s a vision of what will happen if we don’t all take up cycling, ditch the cars and stop throwing out refrigerators with the trash (or some such thing).
Actually, it’s a disaster movie with a message, and it certainly makes the grade as the first, although the message is somewhat lost along the way, and the plot is, like all movies in this genre, ridiculously enjoyable. Basically, it starts to rain and then gets very cold, and the only place where you seem to be able to survive is in New York, the public library (and that’s because you can burn the books). Gyllenhaal’s dad is, of course, the only person on the whole of the American continent who can save him, so he tries to. Marvellous, stupid and thoroughly entertaining.
Ian Holm puts in a notable performance from a remote Scottish weather station where, at the moment of disaster, they decide to toast England, Manchester United and Mankind (so not very convincingly Scottish – although they, of course, drink a decent malt to ward off the end).
It’s a mankind-in-peril, gripping disaster movie, and I found it immensely entertaining. It’s stunning when it’s building, and the effects are at their best (and who cares if the ice at the start looks computer-generated)? Sadly, it does fade a little towards the end – especially as any last elements of believability fly out the window – but as a couple of hours’ entertainment, you must go and see this film.
The message to all of Planet Earth is, of course, corrupted to work for the film and lost after the first third. But that doesn’t make any difference.
The “Absolut Hunk” is suing the Absolut Spirits Co., alleging it promoted the make-believe ad as an actual advertisement.
Not that I really needed another excuse to show this picture again, but hell, it’s Friday, so who cares? AdAge is reporting that ‘the hunk’, Jason Lewis, is claiming Absolut used the fake ad as a genuine one:
The actor who posed as the “Absolut Hunk” in a fictitious ad that appeared in an episode of Sex and the City is suing the Absolut Spirits Co., alleging it promoted the make-believe ad from the HBO series as an actual advertisement without his permission [source]
Previously: Silent For A Week.
Brother Beyond star charged with kerb crawling.
The Scotsman is tonight reporting:
The former lead singer with boy band Brother Beyond was charged with trying to pick up a street prostitute in London’s seedy King’s Cross red light district. But friends of the former model claimed the accusation was ‘ludicrous’ because he is gay. Moore is to appear at Highbury Corner magistrates’ court in north London tomorrow, charged under the Sex Offences Act. [source]
And more on this story from Google.
UPDATE: 6 JUNE 2004: Moore pleaded guilty to soliciting a prostitute at Highbury Corner magistrates’ court.
A nice quiet day off, thankfully.
So, today is both Memorial Day in the US and the Whitsun bank holiday in the UK. Apparently, Whit Sunday commemorates the coming of the Holy Spirit in the form of flames to the disciples (source). I see the cheese rollers of Gloucestershire have been at it again. That must really rank as one of the oddest of the British customs. Honestly, people roll cheese down a hill in the name of sport.
I am having a quiet bank holiday before returning to work tomorrow.
Sadly, not as great as I had hoped for a movie on such a big scale.
So why did I go and see this film? Perhaps it was for the epic nature of the story, or perhaps it was to see the battle scenes in all their cinematic glory. Of course, it could have been just to see Orlando Bloom and Brad Pitt buffed up and clad only in armour for a couple of hours on the screen.
The film was a huge let-down. The epic, cinematic battles looked old hat when compared to The Lord of the Rings. The story seemed disjointed and unfulfilling. There was nobody to side with, nobody to support and precious little humour to lighten the feel. It may be based on real-life events, but if you are going to take a license, you may as well bring some feeling into it.
Trojan champion Prince Hector (Eric Bana) is the most likeable, but while not wanting to spoil anything for you, his fate is entirely predictable even if you didn’t know the story. Pitt had all the moves, looks and swagger, but was an unsympathetic mercenary, and Orlando Bloom came across as a wishy-washy waste of space. Sadly, Achilles’ end (the heel, if you will) is entirely lost despite the best efforts of the filmmakers.
I’d wait until it’s on television if I were you.
You’ll never guess what is this year’s fashion is going to be.
If you don’t try and keep up with boifromtroy, you end up with so much to read you keep putting it off. It’s an amazing amount of material. Anyway, in case you – like me – have missed out on this season’s fashion tip (hot from New York City), you should click across right now and learn that polo shirts are back. Honest. When I was at university in the early nineties, there was a hall warden in the residences who must have worn a polo shirt every day of the four years I was there (I do not believe it was the same one). His collars were always up and, unlike most people’s collars, they never went limp. I don’t know who did his laundry (maybe he did), but it was incredible. Now the fact I can’t remember his name is starting to trouble me.
Big Brother is back on Channel Four in the UK.
Last night saw the last Friends in the UK (it was Black Friday) and the first of the new series of Big Brother. As we all knew the ending to Friends it seemed like something of a disappointment really. Big Brother on the other hand was a very different beast. Having had a few hours to think about it, I am slightly less caught up in it than I thought I would be. It would appear the producers have selected all the people who claimed that they would ‘mix it up’. The house is full of individuals who claimed that they would be outspoken. Last night I thought this was a dangerous tactic. Yes, it will be fun when they first explode at each other (which they surely will), but I think it risks getting dull. Part of the fun of the original series was the fact that the housemates had fun and were, therefore, funny to watch. Car-crash television isn’t that interesting after the initial look. A high quota of lesbian, gay and bisexuals looks like exploitation to me and doesn’t make me think of a happy, diverse home.
UPDATE 2 JUNE. The Big Brother links:
The Big Brother popularity poll is a neat interactive idea to get you coming back to the site again and again. I do quite like that idea.
It certainly doesn’t seem like twelve months since I was sitting in Helsinki for the first time and listening to an afternoon, outdoor Jazz concert. It wasn’t what I expected of that city at all. And it looks like we may be doing more business in that part of the world over the rest of the year. I hope so.
I know y’all won’t care, but I’ve said before that the primary reason for the existence of this site is for me and as a kind of diary/journal. The fact it is online is probably the incentive that makes me keep it up. The fact that you occasionally comment makes it feel more worthwhile. Ever since I introduced the ‘on this day’ link against relevant entries on the homepage, I’ve found a great memory jogger. I end up re-reading entries from this day last year – or the year before. It certainly doesn’t seem like twelve months since I was sitting in Helsinki for the first time and listening to an afternoon, outdoor jazz concert. It wasn’t what I expected of that city at all. And it looks like we may be doing more business in that part of the world over the rest of the year. I hope so.
In 2004 there were proposals to create new top-level domains which included .mobi and .xxx. Tim Berners-Lee considers these harmful.
A number of sites are pointing to Tim Berners-Lee’s discussion on new top-level domains. I found it a fascinating insight into some of the concepts which were put in place in the early days of the internet. What I also see as interesting is that the tree-like structure of the domain system evolved from good technical reasons and was – back then – less about maintaining the concept of a trademark or brand. It’s a shame that it’s moved away from that, really.
Some site maintenance notes regarding broken images in some feed readers and entries reported as new when they are not.
Just in case you are reading this via a feed/RSS reader of some kind – like Bloglines– then you might be seeing your reader marking a whole stack of entries as new when they are, clearly, not. I’ve made some minor code changes to the site to have the feeds validate with the Feed Validator as well as link to the comments from the feed. Additionally, I’ve added a couple of Movable Type plug-ins that will help me keep the rest of the site validated. Nothing major, but it does mean some of the entries have been marked as updated when it’s just the background code that has been amended.
If you happen to use a web-based feed reader or aggregator, you may see that images are broken. I’ve prevented images from being called if the referrer is not this site because some of the images from the Man of the Moment section were being called by external sites, and I don’t want to end up paying for that bandwidth. It’s not intended to stop people from reading the site from seeing anything, so let me know what reader you use, and I will try to open images up to the relevant domains.
Junk mail now accounts for nearly 70% of e-mails worldwide, according to filtering firm MessageLabs.
There are a lot of reports around at the moment about the levels of spam.BBC News is saying that junk mail now accounts for nearly 70% of e-mails worldwide. If this is true, then I am doing rather better than most people. You may recall that my ISP is Demon, which introduced spam filtering earlier this year. This has had a fantastic impact on the levels of spam I receive. Curnow.org is hosted with DreamHost, which uses razor spam filtering server-side, and then I use Mozilla’s junk mail filter at my end of the chain. If one message a day gets through, then I am surprised indeed. I’m so used to this level of filtering that I hardly ever look at the spam folder. I just looked at it, and while there are lots of pre-filtered messages, none of them was the mails I should have had. All in all, this is working very well indeed.
Sounds like it was a fab night on Coronation Street yesterday.
Reading the Yahoo group, it seems the storyline for Coronation Street got all exciting last night, and so I now have to remember to catch the ITV2 repeat. It’s funny, but I really do only watch it for the gay storyline and fast-forward through the rest of the episode.
For the uninitiated, Coronation Street is a classic British soap that has been on-screen forever (see the FAQ). Rumour has it that Adam and Eve watched it back at the beginning of time. Anyway, Todd (engaged to be married, father) had a ‘moment’ with his fiancée’s brother (who, to be honest, is hot). It was the first ever openly gay moment on The Street (which is what it’s known as here and has no link whatsoever to stocks and shares and New York City). So, Todd gradually realises his preference is for men and falls for hunky nurse Karl. This week was the big coming out moment. The storyline is helped by the fact that Bruno Langley is also cute as hell too. So, despite the fact I don’t watch the soaps anymore, I keep watching bits of this storyline (and so, apparently, did lots of other people).
And if my friend Steve is reading this, I am expecting a nice long comment about Gail Tilsley and what a joy she has been since her arrival on The Street (a hundred years ago – or so).
Michael Moore wins an award for a film most people can’t yet see.
Congratulations to Michael Moore for winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes for Fahrenheit 9/11. Previously I have enjoyed his books and films not just because, personally, I often find myself agreeing with his points but also because I believe it’s important for any democracy to have people who challenge the accepted wisdom. The fact that the film has not been distributed yet suggests says a great deal. I find it amusing/ironic/scary that we will happily criticise countries where government media censorship is quite clear but when censorship happens by the back door we don’t stand up to it. When big business censor media does this really make our democracies any better than when government’s take their scissors?
UPDATE 25 May:Just came across an interesting piece at BBC News today about documentary films: Documentaries turn up cinema heat. I am quite interested in seeing ‘Super Size Me’.
Apparently, there is also a film in the works,Michael Moore Hates America and the makers can’t get an interview with Mr Moore.