This may contain spoilers so stop reading now if you care about that sort of thing.

Clash of the Titans – a classic movie that was almost an integral part of my childhood … but was never one of my favorites. I was more of a Jason and the Argonauts fan and so approached the remake with a comfortably open mind. I was moderately excited to see what Hollywood had managed to do with such an Epic tale as the scope for effects and big budget sequences was massive and in that regard I wasn’t disappointed.

A quick note before I continue, Jersey’s cinema does not (yet) have the facility to play 3D movies so I saw the film as it was intended, in the original 2D. Also for some reason the first reel of the movie had sound issues meaning it cut out for a second or 2 every half an hour which had the effect of disconnecting the suspension of realism and replacing it with mild annoyance on a regular basis.

With those two bits of background out of the way – on with my review:

Effects

Let’s start with the flashy stuff shall we, as this was the main driver behind going to see the movie in the first place. The effects were – awesome! Almost seamless blend of CGI and real world settings to produce a rich, immersive experience. The live action sequences were pacey but not so fast as to lose detail (something the Transformers 2 was noticeably the poorer for). The monsters were monstrous, indeed Acrisius was so nasty as to make me question the film’s 12a rating, the fights were suitably violent and the settings were awe inspiring if a little irksomely recognisable in some places (who knew Ethiopia was only 5 days on foot from Argos?).

My only complaints? They didn’t make enough of some sequences - Charon and the Styx could have been much more impressive than a bonehead boat driver who seems to be melded to the boat in a very animatronic fashion. Indeed the Underworld seemed a lot like the Overworld but with more rocks and dead trees. And Medusa, despite being a badass, suffered from poor composition – she was obviously CGI. The makers could have taken a leaf out of Alien’s book and realized that less is more – had we seen less of her then a) she would have been more scary and b) they wouldn’t have needed to worry about the quality of the animation.

Plot

For those not familiar with the plot it’s a standard good vs evil quest affair with one twist – the good are humans on a quest to defeat the bad (the Gods of Olympus) before the bad, destroy their city due to waning religious tolerance. So we get a Fellowship who tronk off across the world to find some one who will tell them how to do something and then come back just in time to do it and save the world … nothing new there then. The plot was solid but felt a little rushed in places and seemed to lack a lot of depth. Indeed whole character sets (see below) showed up to assist our hero only to decide they’d had enough one or two scenes later and bugger off again.

An equally refreshing but slightly annoying touch was the complete inability of the hero and posse to actually get into a fight without getting their respective arses kicked. As I said, a refreshing change to the usual “invincible goody” syndrome that most movies of a similar ilk suffer from, but irksome when you consider that Perseus is a damn demi god and his posse are the veterans of the Arogsian army – you’d expect them to be a little more capable than they appear to be. In fact pretty much every fight seemed to be a more by luck than skill affair that could have been won just as easily by a group of grumpy girl guides.

The writers kept it light and family friendly so there was no real love arc and not masses in the way of back story or dialog to deal with. In fact it seemed a little too on task at times. That said, the core of the story is a theological war between believers and their gods – heavy stuff and rather unfortunately managed in that the humans came over as arrogant and deserving of being taken down a peg or too whilst the gods, for the most part, acted more like a county council chamber than the omnipotent beings of legend.

Characters & Cast

My biggest issue with the whole movie was the supporting ensemble. The writers exerted precisely no effort in setting up anything more than the most cursory of inter-character relationships and whilst Perseus and Io were well defined the rest of them were totally two-dimensional. In fact I have to admit that I have no idea of the names of most of the supporting warriors. It seems odd given the  number of other characters that were added to the fellowship as the plot unraveled.

The hunters (sorry, no idea what they were called) promised light comic relief and provided it … for about 10 minutes before deciding they didn’t want to follow Perseus any more and promptly buggered off.

The Djin, a potentially fascinating set of characters, equally showed up to be and proved to be little more than mysterious taxi drivers (albeit in taxis based around giant killer scorpion beasties) for the crew and also disappeared with the speed of a group of school kids on hearing the lunch bell … except one who hung around for no good reason (maybe the studio had paid a lot for the blue glow effect and wanted to use it some more?).

Finally we have the major battle scene between our hapless heroes and the Medusa … who neatly killed everyone of them in the space of 5 minutes including Mr BluGlo 2010 despite proving to be not exactly hard for Perseus to decapitate in order to complete his quest.

There seemed to be a lot of wasted character space once you remove Perseues, adequately but woodenly, played by Sam Worthington from the equation. Zeus and Voldemo … sorry … Hades, who were fairly powerful in their on screen presence.

Neeson’s Zeus was almost arrogant enough but seemed a bit too … thin, and Fiennes’ Hades was creepy but just not evil enough. odd considering how good a job of playing a maligned magical sociopath Ralphy managed in a certain wizarding series.

Some of the other cast members, including the incredibly talented Kaya Scodelario, may as well have stayed at home for all the input they had to the plot.

Overall

I said I went in with an open mind and I was never a massive fan of the original so I like to think the following conclusion comes from a genuine appraisal of a promising big budget epic. If you want a seat of you pants action packed ride through some very pretty scenery, like your monsters big and scary and don’t really care for heroes that make you care for them – you’ll love it. Like wise if you are between 12 – 16 you’ll love it although the top end will probably be a bit miffed that there are no boobies or sex of any kind ala 300.

If you like your films well-rounded and are expecting something on the same level as Lord of the Rings – you’ll walk out happy but quietly disappointed.

They get the job done but, as my primary school teacher used to say, they could have tried harder.

ЯD

It’s odd but the older I get the less I’m inclined to blog. I guess it’s the combination of having more things going on in my life and Twitter to take care of the little link posts that would previously have taken up a couple of hundred posts per year. Either way I’m not planning on making any empty promises about updating regularly nor am I planning to shut it down. I’ll drip the posts out as and when I’m ready thank you very much … starting with this one:

So The GGF, myself and out two mogletts have moved house again. We finally found somewhere that met the requirements and moved in a couple of weeks before Christmas. We’re still in the phase of decorating and furnishing (You actually need a sofa? Who knew???) but the place is slowly becoming a home rather than simply a series of walls and windows.

Of course from a geek* perspective the most exciting thing about moving is simply that I am now in charge of my own Internet connectivity again without the need for a cursed VPN tunnel to ensure privacy and reliability of service. I know it will make (most of) you smile but we’re running on JTs 4MB line and I can’t believe how much of a difference it makes!

Given that we’re still Sky TV free, the majority of our household entertainment comes via teh InterTubes and having access to iPlayer content, 4OD and other *ahem* sources is a massive help! Not to mention because I have total control of the bandwidth up to the modem, we can actually run QOS which, thus far, has ensured hassle free browsing even whilst iPlayer is streaming and COD MWII is running with a perfectly reasonable ping!

It’s also wonderful to actually have a space to sit at the computer and work/play/muck about online rather than sitting in a damp hole in the corner of the bedroom in the old flat. In terms of said old flat, hopefully sometime this week we’ll be getting out deposit back which we’re promptly spending on … a sofa! That said, our previous land lord doesn’t have the best reputation when it comes to being speedy about this kind of thing so fingers crossed…

There is one tiny downside to moving here though – a bakery downstairs means fresh pastries for breakfast are becoming something of a fixture and I can see my waistline suffering if we’re not too careful!

* Seriously Firefox**? You don’t have Geek in your dictionary?

** Or Firefox come to that ???!!!???

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Watch out for the break down at 1’30″ … it’ll blow your legs off!!!

2009 saw the 6th year of this blog’s existence. 6 years, 1,580 posts, 2,520 comments and goodness knows how many words (actually it’s 270,390 if my SQL is correct … feel free to count them and let me know if I’m off in my calculations).

So happy blogiversary XSet – here’s to many more!

Note: those of you prone to doing a bit of digging will realise that the domain was registered back in May 2001 making the site 8 years old but the blog content only goes back to 2003

Overview

We’re looking to move to fulfil one of the following goals:

• Considerable monthly savings in rent
• Considerably improved quality of property

Requirements

Must have / be:

• Parking for 1 car
• 2 x Cat friendly
• A fair whack of storage space
• sufficient space for small office setup (corner of a room is fine)
• No shared facilities (i.e. own bathroom!)
• Well insulated
• Dry!

Nice to have:

• Outside area
• 2 bedrooms
• More parking
• Space for a table in the living room / kitchen
• A-H quals

Location

Ideally looking for something in St Mary but will consider St John, St Ouen, St Lawrence, St Peter.

We’re prepared to consider anywhere for the right place!

Budget

Our current place is costing just over £1,200 per month for a fully furnished 1 bedroom, parking for 1 car plus bike, pet friendly etc.

• Current Rent: £1,083 p/m
• Current Utilities: £160 p/m
• Current Total: £1,243 p/m

We’re happy to meet our existing budget for the right property (although would really like to save a little on the utilities) but for a one bed we’d be looking at a guide price of £800 – £900 a month. To go up to the full £1,083 we’d be looking for 2 bed or very, very nice 1 bed place.

If you are aware of anywhere that might be suitable, please drop me an email (robert@xset.co.uk) or give me a call.

Anyone who successfully recommends the suitable property will be rewarded with a) the eternal gratitude of myself, the GGF and the two pussy hounds and b) a bottle half a case of something eminently drinkable!

It turns out that the majority of landlords on this lovely island of ours have a serious objection to pets (which incidentally are nearly always classed alongside children despite the plainly obvious fact the kids can be infinitely more damaging to houses than most pets excluding perhaps the family who own a Rhino and have a tendency to get it a bit squiffy on barley wine) that is causing us a few problems.

What has amazed me is the range of reactions to be asked the (perfectly reasonable?) question “Are you ok with two cats?”. Some landlords have more or less ended the conversation right there as if we’d been asking to move in with a couple of pet cobras or similar. Some attempt to negotiate, indeed one woman who shall remain nameless (mostly because I’ve forgotten her name rather than out of any misguided desire to protect her anonymity) even went so far as to point out that 1 cat was ok but 2 would be unacceptable. Well that’s alright then! We’ll just decide which one of our two we like least and drop her off at the shelter shall we? Why would you even bother telling a prospective tenant that?

I have now taken on board a new strategy – don’t tell them about the cats until we’ve had a viewing and they’ve become quietly and greedily excited about getting two young professional people into their property and have invested an hour or so in the viewing (I’m very thorough when it comes to prospective homes as I’ve been burned in the past by dodgy electricity supplies, damp, crappy neighbours, more damp and trumped up utility bills … and that’s just our current flat). Then spring the question on them just as I’m confirming the deposit details.

I’ve yet to see if this will work any better but at least we can get out there seeing some properties on the off chance that we find the perfect flat and can move in without having to re home either of the two smaller members of our family!

(please note I resisted the considerable temptation to title this post How much pussy is too much? I figured you’d thank me for it in the long run

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(Bourgeois Shangri La by Miss Li taken from the album Dancing the Whole Way Home)

Those with good memories will probably recognise it as the music behind the new iPod Nano advert

The rest of the album is similarly awesome (if a little short) so go grab a copy – now!!!

Let’s get cracking shall we? And let me say “I have HAD IT with these mother f####n snakes on this mother f####n … cash machine” (editor’s note: this may actually have made more sense as a film than Samuel O’s little in flight romp). Please note the reporter’s desperate attempts to make the story more interesting by changing the pitch of his voice at random… like this story needed making more interesting.

For the first batch of Sex in today’s massive melange of movie moments, we have a classic scenario of a guy, a girl and a half fulfilled wish – what? It’s not like it’s actually her birthday.

At risk of this slot turning into Animals do the Funniest things (which by the way is a show scripted by people, so clearly deprived of humour that a dramatic interpretation of War and Peace through the medium of expressive dance would be classified as “funny”) I have to proffer the following:

How do you like your pussy? If you answered dumb and slightly concussed then you’ll love this and may be interested in the Lower Winklestock Amateur Dramatic Society’s rendition of War and Peace as interpreted through the medium of expressive dance.

For those of you who are still with me – something a little more serious. For the past 100 years we’ve been making movies and for the past 2 years we’ve been sticking them on the Internet. Our next piece is a tribute to those hard working men and women of the Lower Winklestock Amateur Dra… sorry … to the hard working men and women who have taken suspension of disbelief to extremes and provided us with a century of almost believable escapism.

Back to the sex now (I bet you’ve been waiting for this one) and proof that women are a lot like Wireless Networks – some are easier to get onto than others

To wrap up, the final video is 30 odd minutes of an odd swede operating under the most thinly veiled excuse for a constant piss up I’ve ever seen … that said it may prove interesting and should distract you long enough to not notice I’ve slipped quietly out the back before any of you ask for your money back.

TTFN

First up! We have a JAPANESE PIG RODEO. There really isn’t anything at all I can add to explain that any further is there?

Are you on Twitter? If so this break.com re-imagining of BeetleJuice might raise a smile. If not it’s just going to confuse the hell out of you so feel free to move on to…

…big men in small cars in the snow … I know – I’m just too good to you all

In an unlikely moment of sobriety (semantically speaking of course) I found the following vid on hacking quite entertaining, if only because it includes clips of my fave 1337 movies

Almost done for the week – penultimately I’ve seen a couple of vids that have taken a literal interpretation of music videos and re-worked the lyrics to the tune to match the words to the oddities of the video. This version of Turn Around by Bonnie Tyler is not necessarily the best vocally but some of it is simply wet yourself funny!

And finally, a classic giggle factory from the Fast Show – Unlucky Alf on a windy day (it’s only on here because it came up in the office on Monday and I’d forgotten just how darned funny he can be)

That’s all from me for this week but see you again in 168 hours for more!

We kick off with Earth shattering proof that … Britney Spears cannot sing! I mean seriously, who would have guessed that she was humming tunelessly along to a backing track for all these years? I feel betrayed I tell you, betrayed!

Moving swiftly on, my apologies to anyone who actually watched the previous vid all the way through – I should really have added a health warning. Anyway, shooting off in a manner so tangentially it could be described as obtuse (what? to early for Geometary puns?) we have a perfect demonstration of why we don’t use industrial dumper diggers to wash our cars. USE A BUCKET LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!!!

Onto our 2 lucky guys, the first has a (relatively) lucky escape from a moving train meets van combo (the commentary is rather amusing in a base, colonial fashion, mwaha) and the second narrowly avoids sticking in a very serious relationship with a complete fruitloop (note to self, if leaving the country ensure either a) phone is on or b) cuckoo crazy girlfriend is dumped before leaving)

And just to wrap things up – a very funny demonstration of what it’s like to drive on a selection of drugs – sure its in German and in places is a bit icky but it’s funny!!!

That’s it for this week. I’ll see you next Friday for a further fantasia of fun filled filmic fragments!