Planetaryquack

Oh lord, back on my bullshit. With this Asylum movie that is "what if there was a planet sized quake?" only not really and in a way in which it only matters to a handful of people they can show on screen.

An undersea nuclear bomb is accidentally dropped, setting off an earthquake that will slowly go around the ring of fire from Japan to eventually hitting the US 72 hours later, because of course only what impacts the US matters. Fortunately, against this is one geologist scientist, her assistant, and her smart brother. They fire some orbital lasers to heat up the plate to stop the incoming energy, but that doesn't work. So then they use four local oil rigs to release gas to relieve the pressure, but that doesn't work either as two of the rigs blow up. Fortunately, they can send a missile down one of the rigs to... explode and create a volcano that saves the day??

Geophysics doesn't get a look it, does it?

Also, the scientist's daughter is on a plane that crashes, and her husband is a military man that heads up search and rescue, and his one mission is to go find his daughter (who saves herself). So... they are also in this movie.

This is a mixture of scenes of "a handful of people in small room sets" plus "random stock footage of search and rescue teams" and, of course, "bad cgi". There are also more people just off screen, but they have lines, and it's just unfortunate that they aren't on camera when they talk.

This is Not Good, but as soon as I heard the premise "A tectonic shift deep below the Mariana Trench causes a series of ever escalating earthquakes. If a team of leading seismologists fails to stop the disaster, the events will break apart the Earth, resulting in billions of casualties." I had to check it out.

Ultimately, yes, it's as bad as you think.

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On the ocean waves

Aside from going places, I was on the boat. They try to make it interesting and there is plenty to eat, but they do try with events. I can't say I was that enthralled by them all, but did some trivia events. In the James Bond trivia... I kinda got more than double second place. And helped another team win at 80s music songs. So woo that!

I also ended up going to one of the fancy restaurants, Sabatini's, which is Italian. It was a five course meal that I enjoyed over two hours, so delicious, but very full. Fortunately, I had the drinks package, so fluid wasn't an issue, although I stayed with soft drink.

The boat wasn't that full, although the general age was retirees. People were even staying on for the next cruise the boat did, but you have to get off some time and get back to work (at least, I did). I am Platinum status, which gave me a few benefits, but nothing that amazing.

Getting to and from the boat was a thing, as I got hit with security screening going over, and if I had going with the time the shuttle suggested I would have missed the plane coming back. That could be more enjoyable.

One last thing, I spotted this while out and about.

The full photo album is available here.

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Yennifer's Bode

So another one was Megan Fox's... I have no idea when this occurred in regard to her other movies, but this was definitely one of them.

People from out of town are just straight up evil, it seems. When Jennifer becomes possessed it is up to her friend Needy (wow, that is a subtle name) to sort her out. Once Needy's own boyfriend gets involved in events, until then Needy is just keeping an eye on things but eventually becomes more active.

If I didn't know better, I would say this is a metaphor for childhood friends who go separate ways on becoming adults, and one might lead the other astray. But what do I know?

You know what's really impressive? This small high school library not only has an occult section, it has an occult section that has the very specific instance of evil happenings that happened to happen here!

Also weird, JK Simmons with hair. Didn't expect that.

This wasn't nearly as exploitative as I was worried about, and indeed the evil side of things was very much secondary to the friendship of Needy and Jennifer. It's largely a slow burn movie, but still moves along well. Quite a decent watch.

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Chronch

Went to a few places in Tasmania.. and of course I did want to check out the wildlife. Indeed, check out these cuties!

This is at the Tasmania Unzoo, which is basically a wildlife sanctuary where you can more interact with the animals, such as birds and kangaroos. But not the devils, they are fenced off. During the devil talk, the person had meat on a leg bone, and when you hear the chronch of devil biting through leg... that stays with you.

I also visited Hobart, walked around the town, and then in Devonport went to some locations, including riding the train.

This is a short 10 minute trip that goes down to a bay... and goes back. Also a maritime museum, and Home Hill.

And some general scenic viewing as we cross between towns.

Otherwise, seas days and other things I'll talk about shortly.

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T'Omen

While on cruise, I saw some movies, 'cos they were there and I didn't have humongous internet access. One such was a lesson that although you can be American to be born evil, you have be raised British to be really evil.

An American couple wants a child, their own dies in childbirth, so are just handed a spare one that was lying around. They move to England where they get an English Nanny, who is immediately evil, but less so than the next nanny, who comes after the first one kills herself. This is combined with a man who cannot take a clean photograph to lead the father to realise that his kid is devil spawn and so something must be done... or something will be done to him!

First point, the kid is (relatively) innocent in all this. Yes, there is a lot happening around him, but he isn't directly causing it himself, on a conscious level. The closest he comes is killing his mother (spoilers?) but that's more because of the evil nanny. The photographs and subsequent deaths are just his aura / his real dad looking out for him? I'm not saying that in the fiction of the movie Damian shouldn't die, but he isn't the direct agent of evil I gather he will be in later movies.

And, hey, Patrick Troughton! In fact, you could almost pretend this is the Second Doctor trying to warn the father against evil, although this is all religious which the Doctor isn't. Gregory Peck and David Warner also turn in good performances although David's death is... somewhat undercut by the state of effects at the time and that his head becomes a football that bounces around...

Will I watch the other movies? I'm not inclined to at the moment, but who knows what future cruises will bring?

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Cruisin'

Amongst the not a lot I did over the past month, I did go on a cruise. From Brisbane, I went down to Tasmania and back. But first... I had to get to Brisbane.

Somehow, I was wearing a sign that said "Give me every security check". It was just as well I wasn't in a hurry (although I was very tired) as it took ages for them to decide to look through my bag and check that I wasn't carrying (unproscribed) drugs and the like... although at least I wasn't in the queue behind me waiting for the one guy to be free. Note: it doesn't help when you think of one set of arrival card questions when they actually ask you something different.

Due to travel fun, it's always advised to get in at least a day early, so I did, then spent another hour or so the day of getting from one side of Myrtletown to the other. There is no public transport, but there are shuttles, which would prove to be useful later.

On the boat itself, I got a Premium Balcony room which, as far as I can tell, involves more balcony space than normal balcony room, so that was nice that I could stretch out.

I would be nearly two weeks in that room, so the space was nice. I wouldn't say I need a balcony room everytime, but the big window letting in outside light was wonderful.

Our first port of call was Sydney, but I couldn't be bothered getting off.. which was just as well. For whatever reason, instead of getting into a port, the ship used a water shuttle to transport people to and from, and due to the number of personal craft in the harbour, there was only one shuttle running and it took people over an hour to get on shore. Not fun.

The next port was Eden, and we docked, so I could get a nice walk in. And see some nice sights.

But I wasn't here for those ports, but for... Tasmania!

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