Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Wasn't she in Leprechaun?


New game: pick any non scifi/fantasy/horror film and spot all the cast members who have appeared in scifi/fantasy/horror films. For example, bland smugfest Bridget Jones' Diary features the evil scientist from the new Battlestar Galactica, the lead from Texas Chainsaw Massacre 4, Pussy Galore (you may want to appeal to an impartial observer regarding the validity of Bond movies-I'd count them), the Eleventh Doctor (one of many scifi appearances from this actor), a landowner seduced by a snake cult, and the bloke who looked after the Rancor in Return Of The Jedi.

The more embarrassing and/or obscure the scifi/fantasy/horror appearance, the better.

Monday, April 18, 2005

Wanted: Mr Tibbles - Dead Or Alive


Since they discovered that killing Hmong immigrants tends to lead to thorny civil rights issues, Wisconsin hunters have decided to set their sights (literally) on another target, and are applying for permission to allow hunting of stray cats. That permission has already been granted in Minnesota.

I'm not a cat person, but really, are these people so obsessed with killing stuff that they have to go after household pets?

Do Not Attempt.


America has no legal system. Instead of actual laws and punishments, everything seems to be about money. You don't prosecute, you sue. As such, adverts are full of disclaimers, especially ones for cars (and there are a lot of car adverts on telly here). I even saw one which featured someone daydreaming about his car being able to fly, with the not-a-hint-of-irony disclaimer:
Car does not actually fly.

So I'm quite surprised at a recent Jeep advert. Normally, these things show the vehicle of choice sliding about through gravel and mud, pulling handbrake turns and the like. Risky manoeuvres, certainly, but nothing over the top. Nonetheless, there's the ever-present disclaimer:
Closed course. Trained driver. Do not attempt.

Now, in order to tie in with the new Sahara movie, there's one of those half-advert-half-trailer thingies out. It features a Jeep sliding about in gravel and sand, and launching off of the top of sand dunes. It also features the occupants firing heavy automatic weapons at pursuing helicopters and lobbing hand grenades at other vehicles.

Not a peep.

So, apparently it's a big no-no to be driving a four-wheel drive off road vehicle through some deep mud, but using it in dangerous paramilitary operations is fine and dandy.

Still, I suppose the kind of person who'd be using their Jeep as a mobile weapons platform wouldn't be suing the manufacturers because the cupholders snap off at high speeds.

Saturday, April 16, 2005

Cacophony


I know that iTunes does it, but I'm not sure I want to get involved with all that business unless I have a Mac and/or iPod, so is there any other way to standardise the volume of all the mp3s on my hard drive? I'm getting a tad miffed with having to interrupt what I'm doing to adjust the volume every other song.

In completely unrelated news, I notice that the Darth Sidious action figure also gives away the twist in Revenge Of The Sith. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised given that the soundtrack album to The Phantom Menace, which came out over a month before the film, had "The Funeral Of Qui-Gon Jinn" on the tracklisting...

Thursday, April 07, 2005

The Controversy Reloaded


Who's going to argue with Wolverine?


The writer is Joss Whedon, an American. The character is Wolverine, a Canadian. Frankly, if Wolverine says it's "Lego", I'd go with that.

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Scooby Doo In Space

Obviously, I've not seen the film yet, but the novelisation of Revenge Of The Sith makes quite clear something I'd suspected since I saw The Phantom Menace.

Darth Sidious is Chancellor/Emperor Palpatine.

No, that's not the funny bit. The funny bit is that this is supposed to be a big old M Night Shyamalan surprise.

Oh, George... and the trailer had me convinced that you weren't going to cock this one up...