From One Second to the Next

Hey, do you like to text while you drive? Then you're a jerk! And if you don't believe me, then watch this documentary.


This doesn't present facts and figures, this gives emotional stories from people whose lives have been impacted by someone texting while driving. And you know what? Given how humans work, this will probably be more effective than any dry factual documentary will ever be.

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Black Coal, Thin Ice

This was another of them Festival films I didn't see at the time. The paragraph description did intrigue... but I have to say I'm glad I watched it in my usual faster method.

While investigating a murder, a cop gets shot (although his partners get killed). Five years later, he has drunk himself down, but comes across friends on the force who remind him of the case as they have found new information and new crimes associated with the woman who was the unlucky wife at the time. Only now it seems like death is following her around, which doesn't help as the cop now falls for her...

This was billed as crime and drama, and I've seen a few of those before from Japan, so was set to get into this... although it was more drama than I was wanting, and very little crime. It's quite a slow moving movie, and is happy taking time to overly let scenes play out. Not that everything has to be frenetic editing, but the pace could have been quicker.

I'm sure it works better for others, but not for me.

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The Interveh

Yeah, I saw the movie that North Korea tried to deny the world... and I have to say I'm on NK's side with this. This is not a good movie.

Pretty much the basic plot is already known, so there's not much more to say on that front. Two idiots get an interview with Kim Jong-un, and are waylaid to make it an assassination plot. What wasn't as so revealed were the jokes. There is funny, there is painfully funny... and then there's just painful. Guess where this lot lies? I've never been a major fan of American humour at the best of times, and this is certainly going for the low brow quotient. I will allow that the last half hour is semi-decent, but that doesn't make up for the preceding hour and a half.

Seth Rogan's humour doesn't appeal to me, so there's that. And James Franco is giving a performance to win no favours anywhere. Randall Park is the Supreme Leader... and he isn't just the butt of many jokes (although certainly there are many at him), as everyone gets mocked here, Americans and North Koreans alike.(And they even have more men kissing each other than women kissing each other.)

End of the day... no, this is just not a good movie. If North Korea hadn't said anything, it would have passed without comment. But now everyone will subject themselves to this rubbish to find out what it's like... oh, smooth move, NK, smooth move...

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Trainscenedance

I haven't heard brilliant things about this, and I have to say that the trailer doesn't fill me with confidence, so it's taken me some time to get around to watching it.

Will and others are all about using technology to better ourselves, but RIFT is about using technology to end our dependency on technology (with one line in the movie acknowledging that that premise is stupid). And so RIFT blows everything up, but not before the power of love uploads Will into the internet, because women = emotional beings that will do anything stupid to further the plot, amirite bad script writers? And then in the second half of the movie, technology is made to seem creepy and terrible with how it's saving everyone and everything, but as long as there's love, there's no need for civilisation. Yay?

I can't say there are wonderful performances in this. And the effects look pretty, but I'm still not sure how they justified the whole nanotech (I think?) crawling through the ground and flying into the sky bits. By the end of the movie, this just seemed like a luddite wish come true.

Yep, the not great things about this were justified. It's just... meh.

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DW: 8.Xmas

Given that we have a Santa Claus, I will say that Nick Frost does a good job. However... do we need a Santa Claus? And this episode manages to be Christmassy, and not Christmassy at all.

First up, I'm not a fan of 'is this real?' stories? It's far too easy to leave it on the note of 'but are they really out?', which is where most of them end. Or they do get out, but the audience is left with the questions of 'are they?' whether that's intended or not. Which just throws away any sense of achievement the heroes have. That said, old Clara was a great fake out and would be a different and interesting way to see Jenna off the series, but no, that didn't happen because they all woke up... (Or did they?????)

Second up, when thinking back on this... this episode feels amazingly inconsequential. Even with it all being a dream, what happens? They go to a base at the North Pole and there's an Alien rip-off (as lampshaded by one of the characters), and... that's about it. They run around with the creatures, but what is achieved? The biggest enemy they overcome is waking up! Really? It's not that this is a bad story, just that it just isn't anything.

Okay, let's talk Santa Claus. It's all right, because it's only a dream... or did they????? One or the other, Moffat, don't try for both. And we already went down the 'fairy tales aren't real' route with Robin Hood, and Claus was based on an actual instance, so... what exactly is the point here? Don't worry kids, Santa is real after all!

But yes, good job Nick Frost. And generally good performances all around. Michael Troughton is... on screen. And just how much can we crowbar in (the excellent performance of) Samuel Anderson into every thing? Is the next season going to harp on about him too? Still, a nice send off (if indeed it is a send off).

This one might get better on a second watch, but at the moment it's a middle tier Christmas story.

Next time: C S Lewis story? No wait, that was a nephew...

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In the Name of the Moon

What's this? A Sailor Moon cosplay documentary? But of course! And another project I Kickstartered that I finally got around to watching.

This is about a group of nine women that got together (by one means or another) and started cosplaying as the Sailor Senshi. They started back in 2009, and went to quite a few cons, but grew apart. This is their story, and also them getting together for basically a last hurrah in 2012. We follow them as they try to redo their costumes and attend the actual event. We also get some talking heads of two experts, one who knows about Sailor Moon, and one who knows that cosplaying and going to cons is like a religious event. And yet it isn't as bitter sweet as it could be.

These are friends, and they are having fun. They put a lot of effort into this and it shows. Certainly they get a lot of appreciation at the cons. (And negative comments online, because internet.)

To be honest, there isn't much in this, aside from the fun of a group of friends cosplaying, and yet that's enough.

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A pressie from Maddy!

Madonna has a new album coming out... in March 2015. But before then, you can preorder it on iTunes.

The album is Rebel Heart, and she's been talking up the song Unapologetic Bitch on twitter. So, as you can tell, this is going to be a slow romantic album along the likes of True Blue... or not.

And as part of pre-ordering, you get the first six tracks to download! Woo!

And here's the first track off the album: Living for Love. (Which is a hardcore electronic love song...)

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