Recent Posts

Congrats, Bagel!!

Good luck out there, Stu.

[bagel]

6 minute please

It seems that the official time is the 5th minute, so bagel
is the winner, and wins 0.2% of the overall package.

thanks for the review.

was on the fence about investing the time into a two part scifi epic. and i'm someone unfamiliar with the duniverse, and the trailer looked drawn out tbh haha

but it looks like something i'd enjoy and i am looking forward to it, cheers

I can't say I'm at all tempted by the 10/11 about my beloved gunners this evening.

It is however the great Arsene Wenger's birthday and Arsenal are P4/W4 on this hallowed date.

Good take. I didn't expect Villa to fold like that in the first half.

loose stools never pleasant

very good, or bad if you are in that situation.

If it was a stranger's house and the stranger informed me that some bastard had set the thing to collapse if one of the kids sat on it, I'd have gone along with that.  She tends to ask me to fix everything, but I just assumed she could use a spanner.  Not even sure she knows what one is right now. 

loose stools never pleasant

[DUNE]

DUNE

Dune day has finally arrived..its been a while coming and I along with many others have been counting the days. I read the Frank Herbert opus as a young man. A great heaving volume bound in heavy red leather and numbering in excess of 800 pages. I remember it being heavy going, epic in proportion with layers of hard sci-fi,mysticism and religion.

Translating this to the big screen is a huge undertaking. They tried in 1984 with a messy adaptation that tried to fit the whole book into one film.Despite its many failings I liked the film,and still do but it did leave the door open for someone with a vision as great as the work itself.
Step forward Denis Villeneuve a director with a natural instinct for the visually spectacular.Dune is exactly this, beautiful to look at,a true masterpiece of cinematography. Like Blade Runner 2049 (also by Villeneuve) it conveys the epic proportions of the story from the endless swathes of desert waste to the monstrous space ships that hover along the horizon.

A good start is that they have split the book into two film parts, this being part one. The only downside is that part two hasn't been green lighted and that would be a travesty if they left it hanging like this. The two parts are necessary though. To cram like the original film would have left too much out.

So to the actual film.. ok so it looks incredible, although there were a few scenes where it was so dark I thought the projector had broke and I was just staring at a blank screen. Another huge plus is the sound and music, at various points even the cinemas exceptional sound system was struggling to handle the bassy reverbs of music and landing ships alike.

The film keeps to the book pretty well as we explore the great houses of the imperium and all the double dealing and political intrigue/backstabbing that goes on within them. The desert planet Arrakis is the only place in the universe that holds deposits of the spice used by the mysterious navigators to enable safe interstellar spaceflight.Therefore making it the most valuable commodity there is. The House Atrides is instructed by the Emperor to take over the running and mining of the spice from the resident bad guys, the Harkonnens. However it is all part of a plot for the Emperor to allign with the Harkonnes to attack and destroy the House Atreides. Thats the basics and throw in the shadowy religious Bene Gesserit sect who seem to possess some kind of mind powers along with their dark plans and the indigenous Fremen, you have a vast and complicated set of story lines.

The cast is excellent, all top of their game and the young Timothee Chalamet comes across excellent as the young Paul Atriedes, slight of stature but tough and deadly in equal proportion.

The effects too are incredible, the 'Thopters ( insect like helicopters) are the pick.

Due to its depth and complexities, and the fact its trying to stay faithful to the book the film to some may seem ponderous as we flesh out in movie time the various groups and characters. The film is over two and a half hours long and in this society of low attention span many may think it boring. I think a knowledge of the book is a distinct advantage as the uninitiated maybe be confused by all the complexities. Yes there are mutliple injections of action but these are spaced out by story building and dialogue.

Its a tough ask bringing this to the screen and to expect the average moonhead to keep with it before reaching for their phone in frustration to check that latest instagram post from some numbskull that seems to influence their daily life. I for one thoroughly enjoyed it, I knew what to expect though and I was as enthralled and excited as I was all those years ago as I ploughed through Herberts pages my mind filled with epic scale Sci-fi skullduggery.

Dune is not for everyone, lots will says its slow and boring but these are the same people that laugh at videos of people tripping over.Its a cerebral piece, beautiful to look at and as a deep as an ocean.

To the avergage viewer with little knowledge of the text it is based on its probably a 5/10

To me its an 8/10

A fillet mignon amongst the Hamburgers

A couple of years ago my missus put together a piano stool whilst I wasn't around.  I remember thinking at the time that it was unusual, so guessed it must have been easy to assemble.  Yesterday she tells me one of the legs was a bit loose, could I have a look at it.

Assembly consisted of putting 4 nuts on bolts that were already attached to the legs.

I checked today and not a single bolt on any leg was even finger tight.   

Here's an article that may interest you Tom:

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/protests-that-protected-jews-at-cable-street-are-in-danger-we-must-stand-firm/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1634901678

Been watching the progress of this bill carefully for months now Ralph. Many people who value freedom are concerned about it but alas many others see it as a way to curtail the lawlessness of the Gypsy lifestyle. (Be careful what you wish for seems like good advice in this instance)

I have have made representations both personally and via various organisations but I fear the worst.   

xx