When I saw the trailer, I thought "this is a generic disaster movie". And now I've seen it.
We start with a small incident to show off how much of a hero the father is, and then set up he has a broken family home, with a mother who is seeing someone else, and a daughter who loves them both but is getting to know the new boyfriend. Then disaster hits, and guess what? That's right, the mother and daughter are in trouble, and so the father goes off to save them... and lots of stupid things happen along the way.
This movie doesn't really do anything new. The father is definitely the hero, the mother needs saving. The daughter (who is played by Alexandra Daddario, last seen playing a wife, now a younger daughter) is actually a strong character who helps others... that she got into trouble in the first place. And you can guess what the state of the broken family is by the end of the movie, so nothing that happened surprised me. (Oh, and guess what happens to the scientist's helper?)
Even spectacular-wise, this movie didn't impress. You've seen most of the big effects in the trailer, and there isn't even much quake shaking (did we get a quake-suffers-friendly version?).
Catch when on TV.
[END]
Sunday, 7 June 2015
Sans Andreless
Saturday, 6 June 2015
Furious Roade
While I was up in Auckland, I had some time, so checked out a movie that people seemed to be liking.
Mad Max is wandering along, and falls into someone else's adventure. That being that of Imperious Furiosa, who has decided to take her own stand in this world. And then Max goes around, joins with her, and does about one commanding decision but is otherwise a plot tourist, but then again that's about par for the course.
This is one of those movies where they went to lengths to make the effects practical - although I did spend a lot of time wondering how they did one effect in particular. They also spent a lot of time trying to make things look cool (see the guitar war boy), but I in turn wondered how much resource they could have saved if they hadn't make extremely ridiculous vehicles like that. (If you are going to be post-apocalyptic, I'm going to ask rational questions. I'm not the target audience.)
Some muttering has been made about this being a feminist movie, and sure most of the best acting parts are given to women, but then so are the better characters. Men still have the power, but they act like jerks with it, so no wonder women have more thinking going on. I liked that part, and didn't have a problem with it.
But as I said, I'm not the target audience. I saw this in an otherwise empty theatre, so could just relax into it. In that regard, it was fine, but it's not something I'm up and cheering over.
[END]
Friday, 5 June 2015
Auckland at Night
On the way back from my cruise, I took the opportunity to spend the night in Auckland and take a look around at night. From up the Sky Tower. Unfortunately, the upper upper deck was closed for elevator repair, so I was forced to merely be on deck 51.
Other pictures are available.
[END]
Thursday, 4 June 2015
Noumea
The last past was Noumea. However, we visited it on a Sunday, when everything was closed. You'd think they'd want tourist money? But the only place open was the market place right beside the boat and the duty free store.
I went on the Tchou Tchou train, which was a connected set of carriages with a train theme. We went around the bays and such and saw some nice views and got a good history of the island. And had some nice pastries.
The lady said that to get to the aquarium all I needed to do would be to catch the 10/11 bus and it would be 200 South Pacific Franc (basically $2). I tried to catch the bus, but the driver wasn't interested in money and I needed to have some form of pre-purchased ticket to feed the machine. Um, that didn't work.
So I wandered around, but with the shops shut, it wasn't that exciting a place.
Pictures available here. There is a lookout view here, and:
[END]
Wednesday, 3 June 2015
Lifou
On to New Caledonia, and the island of Lifou. Again, a big place for swimming, and the water did look lovely.
I went on a tour of the forest and secret grotto. The forest section was nice, and we saw a large range of trees and heard about them. The grotto was largely a hole in the ground, so... yeah, not much of a secret. Then we saw some hunting examples, of catching crab, pig and bird. Quite effective.
There was also a nearby church to walk to for the view of the island. While it's a nice view, I'm not entirely convinced it justifies the walk. Still, it was good to get out and around.
Pictures available here. See the view from Notre Dame de Lourdes, and see the Coconut Crab (since I had no control over the camera, the part of me holding the cam is sideways).
[END]
Tuesday, 2 June 2015
Port Vila
The main part of Vanuatu is Port Vila. It was hit badly by a cyclone a few months earlier, and they had to miss out on some cruise ships (which is a large part of their income), but not ours. And so some parts of the city are still suffering from damage and people needing help, but at least us tourists are catered for.
I went on a lagoon cruise around the islands nearby, and for a while wasn't sure we were actually going anywhere because a lot of it looked the same. Hey, they build the same style of huts over and over, I can't be blamed for not recognising them as different. But we do get to see the varied parts of the city, and we heard a lot of how Australian and French peoples are coming in and putting in expensive houses and living large and not paying a lot of wages.
The main part of the city seemed rather haphazard, and I only poked around a little. I'm not really the tourist type.
Pictures available here. Lagoon cruise videos are part 1, part 2 and part 3. And this video of me taking the water taxi.
[END]
Monday, 1 June 2015
Mystery Island
First visit was to Mystery Island, part of Vanuatu. This is largely a flat island, quite small (can walk around it in under an hour), and was used an airstrip during the war. No-one lives there, and islanders from nearby Aneityum Island to staff the stalls and see the usual range of goods.
Basically, it's just an island to hang out on and swim and snorkle (neither of which I do). I did plan on taking the glass bottom boat around the island to get a look around, but it was broken, so that didn't happen. And I was too overheated to do anything else after being there for a few hours.
A pleasant enough island.
Pictures available here. Note that the large island is not Mystery Island. That's the long flat one you see.
[END]
