WTF. The Japanese are even stranger than you can think.
A more succinct way to put it
Jebus.
It’s not even worth joking about any more
Movie Review: Transformers
Double header review!
Transformers: The Movie (1986)
The animated cult classic! This movie was cool, man.
Except when you’ve grown up, and you look back, and realise how lame it really was. Plot? What plot? Characterisation? They’re robots… that transform! Oh and there’s a goofy kid to give you the human interest story. Um. Deus Ex Machina!
★☆
Transformers (2007)
Now this, this is proper summer blockbuster. CGI, stuff blowing up, not-quite-b-grade-but-not-A-grade acting talent, and to give it some credibility, it’s got multiple legs to its plot that all tie up together at the end.
Sorta.
So lemme put it this way: don’t go into this movie expecting to use your brain, because you will be too caught up in the many ways in which the plot is just pure dysfunctional that you just won’t enjoy it. This really is a popcorn thriller – you’re here for the ride. While it escapes the animated original’s major foible, in that it actually has breaks between the action to let you calm down, and it also has a much larger human cast, it doesn’t escape from the fact that shit just isn’t explained.
There are three main plot threads: (a) the US soldiers in the Middle East (Qatar, to be exact), consisting of The Guy from Las Vegas (TV show), The Guy from The Fast and the Furious, and The Guy from Prison Break. (b) is the computer analyst team, consisting of no-name stereotypes, an Aussie blonde who doesn’t look like she belongs at all, and eventually that funny overweight black guy that crops up in so many movies. Oh and they’re working with the Pentagon, so we have the Secretary of Defence, Jon Voight. Finally, we have (c), Sam, the high school kid who just wants a girlfriend, and the girl that just so happens to be the one that he wants happens to be available just as the action kicks in and Sam can be a hero.
Notice the lack of names? Only Sam, our main hero that we are supposed to identify with, is with a name that is memorable; and that’s only because it’s repeated so many times as to be drilled into you. If you remember the other names without looking it up on IMDB, lemme know.
Don’t come here looking for real plot, or indeed even proper conclusions and explanations for major characters (fer instance, we have no idea what happens to Aussie Hacker Babe). About the only thing that makes sense is that… no, no, I got nothing. Typical summer blockbuster fluff, but somehow, it’s a fun ride, right? There’s plenty of action and stuff getting blown up, no-one gets hurt too bad, and there’s a few decent jokes in there too. (Just try to keep your eyes blinkered from the product placement while they’re at it). The Deus Ex Machina at the end is entirely plausible because it makes so much sense compared to the alternative courses of action.
★★★
Moved in and all that
I’m finally settled in and feeling like this is “home” for me, in one sense at least. And then…
And then I think, crap, only, what, 5 months to go? And I’m back to Sydney. I’m getting the moving cycles shorter and shorter, which is one thing moving (back) to Sydney was supposed to reverse.
I guess it matters less and less these days, in the context of near-instant communications and the whole e-World that makes the distance near meaningless, or at the very least lets you redefine it to your own needs. I’m at least as up to speed with Australia’s news as I am with England’s, but despite being that much closer to Europe I’m still by and large clueless as to what is happening some 300 – 400 km away on the continent (distances on Australia’s scale are near-meaningless here).
What makes it even more interesting is the people I’m sharing my flat with. One is a Japanese guy, Hiro, studying Moving Image Design. How cool does that sound? I have to make sure I get some lessons or something before I leave. Another guy is Korean, Shin, studying along with Hiro. And finally we have Eun-mi, a Korean girl, who is a hairdresser. Who studied Civil Engineering (Yeah, go figure).
What makes things a little more interesting is that both of the Koreans have Japanese partners (in place of a generic term for boyfriend/girlfriend), and as such everyone in the house has a little Japanese skill at least =) While our language is by default English, occasionally we’ll dip into Japanese. I’m finding it tough to recall those Japanese skills that I did have at one point – the value of practise is not to be underestimated.
We’re a generally smoothly functioning unit. Hiro is the “manager”, taking care of rent, bills, etc. Eun-mi moved in last week and suddenly the house in two days was completely revamped, shiny and new (which is not to say it is new; quite old and creaky in fact). Shin and Hiro between them keep the fridge stocked and the cooking going. And I… well, I’m the regular-job guy =)
There’s things around the house that need fixing, but it’s a decent little place. The location is superb for convenience – about 5 min walk to a 24 hour supermarket (except on Sundays when it’s 11 – 5…), 5 min to cinemas/entertainment complex type thing, 10 min to the station, and not to mention we’re in the old docklands area so there’s heaps of little water courses & artificial lakes from that time, which is really nice to have a stroll around. A 10 minute train ride would make it the perfect spot for commuting if the station on both ends wasn’t 10 min away from the respective destinations, and the fact that it is afterall the Tube and thus hellish in summer. Or winter.
And that for now, is life here in London.
Cooking Tip
Sniffing a onion to tell if it’s bad? Not a good idea.
Dr Haneef: “Case descends into farce”
Turns out the SIM card which Haneef “recklessly supplied to terrorists” (allegedly) wasn’t anywhere near either of the incidents that have landed him in so much shit. And the police knew. And they didn’t say anything about this crucial bit of evidence on which the charges against Haneef hang.
Oh. But he’s still going to be in jail, or detention, and most likely deported, and his future tainted by the fact that his visa was cancelled and his passport suspended. Chances are he’ll never visit a foreign country again, at least through legitimate channels.
Hey, Howard et al, wanna know how to make people not like you and plan acts of violence against you? Lock them up on beat-up non-existent charges. An innocent man beat down by a blatant abuse of power does make for delicious justification.
Or, hey, let’s apply the same theory to the wider public. The National Health Service first up, no doubt, should be locked up for supporting these men by allowing them to enter the country. How is that not reckless! Foreign doctors!
Hey, why just the person who gave the SIM card? Why not the whole freaking mobile company? Y’know, if only the government controlled communications it’d be a-ok, right?
These were just enablers! What about the actual ingredients of the attack? Get Jeep, and Mercedes, and the gas company, and the hardware store where they bought the gas, and the petrol pump! All these people assisted in the committing of an attempted terrorist act! And all that is neglecting to mention the critical party: the match makers. Pure evil I say.
Bloody ridiculous farce is what all of this is. Andrews should resign for his blatant abuse of power; Keelty deserves to at least face a reprimand for allowing this to go ahead, and showing his bias and political pliability (but that’s exactly why he’ll stay). Messers Howard and Ruddock themselves have some explaining to do.
Sorry to be bringing this back, but it does make me angry to see something like this occur.
Design 4
Edition 4 of Pushing the Sky has begun coding (after 4 discarded graphical mockups), with the CSS to be finalised first based on the Sandbox to get me going on the PHP side (though in the end I’m going to rip all that out in favour of slimming down the class overkill).
As you might guess from the top left 27,225 pixels… why I’m a little annoyed at the sudden rush of darker designs =P
Snowed Under
I don’t think I’ve ever understood this term quite as well as I do now. I’ve picked up the work from one of the guys in the team who is off on holidays, and along with the new-found responsibility that I’ve been given myself (I have to find solutions!) I’m suddenly finding myself with too many meetings and not enough time at all.
Never was the lesson that you have to have a concise message more clear than it is now…
March of the Heartless
You’d have to think there’s something about the Immigration portfolio which requires the minister in charge to check their conscience at the door. First we had Ruddock with the Tampa, SIEV X, the “Pacific Solution” and all that illegal immigration muck.
Then we had Vanstone and that little bit of nastiness around the lady deported to the Phillipines, not to mention Cornelia Rau, the German-born lady who forgot who she was momentarily and was locked up for it.
Now, we have Andrews and his total lack of shame at blatantly disregarding the presumption of innocence and the upholding of due process.
Am I making it a political issue? Very well, so I am. It damn well should be.
I’m going to be tagging anything I find relating to this and putting it on del.icio.us – see http://del.icio.us/karanj/haneef