TV: Sky News

Bush Whacked



I know I'm not the first to post this, but I couldn't resist. Who says Sky News isn't objective?

House of Mouse

Working on a sci-fi mag can obviously turn you paranoid. Ever since I reviewed those X-Files DVD box sets I knew they would come for me. It wouldn't be an Independence Day invasion with motherships hovering over the world's capital cities. It would be much more subtle than that.

So the other night when we heard the scurrying sound in our bedroom I knew the invasion had started. Strange creatures had come to our world (the house) from a far away land (I'm guessing the garden, but maybe from next door - you never know). They had their eyes set on the precious commodities we humans had collected, namely the contents of my wife's wheat bag. It took us a few days to understand what was happening, but when we saw the wheat scattered on the floor under the cupboard and saw their signs (or mouse faeces to give them their proper name) we knew we had to act fast.

Yes, we have mice. No, really! What is this, the 1800s? Should I call my Victorian butler and ask him to send for the rat catcher? And why not get the chimney sweep in while he's at it. Anyway, we're a practical couple so we moved into the spare room for a few days and searched the interweb for a solution. Of course being the lefty loonies we are, we didn't want to kill the mice using normal traps. And we definately didn't want to feed them poison and have them crawl back under the floorboards to die. There's a reason they don't make dead mouse-scented air freshener.

So we settled on a box-type affair that they can crawl into but can't crawl out of. We baited it with more contents from the wheat bag, since we know they like that. On the second night we caught two mice! That in itself was a big surprise as we thought we only had one.

And that, you might think, is that. And it would be if we hadn't heard more of the little feckers last night. I was pretty sure there'd be a new batch to empty out of the trap today (we've been taking them to a nearby park as the cat population in Walthamstow would surely make toys out of them). But checking the trap, it's empty!

Oh well, there's always tonight. We will repel the invaders. Unless they're like the mice in The Hitchhiker's Guide- in which case we're up against the finest minds in the galaxy.

POKER: Reaching the poker limit

Just a quick update, as it's press week for the magazine and I'm still working!

I've had no face-to-face games since last I spoke (the London Meetup is next week), but my online game has definitely improved. I picked up small winnings in some $1 mini-tournaments, but the 50c/$1 limit games are really paying off. I tend to play twice round the table and come off at least $5 up. In honour of that - and because it's a slow freelance month - I've withdrawn $75 from Party Poker and £30 from Victor Chandler. OMG, it's like being paid to play!

Face-to-face
-£77 (+0)
Online
£27.34 Victor Chandler Poker (+£9.29, £30 cashout)
£27.61 PartyPoker (+£19.78, £41.15 cashout)
£1.05 PokerStars (+0)
Cashed Out Winnings
£71.15
----------------------------
£50.15 Poker Balance (+£29.07)

DVD: Box of the Banned

Banned Aid

It's a week until we go to press so I'm on mop-up duty for a lot of reviews that need doing at the last minute. Every month I promise myself I won't take on too much, but I've gone a bit mad this time. The list of those still to be written is below, although I've already played or watched the ones in bold:

FILM – R-Point (100 words)
DVD - Box of the Banned (180 words)
DVD - The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lava Girl in 3D (250 words)
DVD – Star Trek: Enterprise Season Four (250 words)
GAME – X-Men Legends II (250 words)
GAME – The Suffering Ties That Bind (100 words)
MERCHANDISE – Corpse Bride figures (150 words)
MERCHANDISE – Christine remote control car (100 words)



The one that's taking the most time is Box of the Banned. This is made up of six movies that were only available as dodgy-copy videos when I was at school, plus a new documentary. You'd think out of Driller Killer, The Evil Dead, Zombie Flesh Eaters, Last House on the Left, Nightmares in a Damaged Brain and I Spit on Your Grave I'd have seen at least one of them. But the reason I took this job on is that I've made it to the tender age of 32 without ever crossing their paths. (criminal!)

So far today I've fed my brain The Evil Dead, Last House on the Left and Driller Killer. I think I might have a break before I go any further. Of course, if The Daily Mail is right and these films are a danger to society then I will kill soon. Possibly as part of a spree. Just keep an eye out for my photofit picture on Crime Watch.

INTERVIEW: Harry Potter's Emma Watson

Granger garbled

Sorry to keep going on about the Potter stuff, but it has taken over my life at the moment. However, it does provide the occasional gem. When transcribing the interviews I re-listen to anything that's unclear a few times, but if it is still too faint or mumbled to understand I add (garbled) in its place so I know something is missing.

That’s not very funny on its own, but when I was reading back the transcript I came across the following piece by Emma Watson (Hermione) that made me laugh:

“She’s not even aware of what’s happening to her but in effect she’s being (garbled) by Viktor Krumm, so that’s a whole new experience for her.”

Magic moment

Finally, the last Harry Potter interview is logged in word form. I started this job on Sunday and have been hard at it for three days. That's 12,349 words worth of transcribing and it's just lucky that someone else did the Daniel Radcliffe piece for me (another 4,100 words in itself).

I'm going to bed. Tommorrow the features themselves start to take shape, with about 9,000 of those words getting the axe. That means you chirpy producer guy!

INTERVIEW: Set piece

I'm just transcribing all the interviews from my Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire set visit - I've been doing this since Sunday morning and it's getting a little tedious now. Almost done, then I just have to turn it into a series of features!

One fact about J.K. Rowling (Jo to her friends) really peaked my interest. It's something I'd read elsewhere but having the producer say it made it seem more real:
"Jo is and always has been incredibly supportive... But does she come down here? No, she hasn’t been down here once."

So with my one visit I've been on the Harry Potter set more times than the boy wizard's creator. How odd is that? If they were making my series of books into a movie you couldn't keep me away. It's a shame I'll probably never get the chance to ask her why.

POKER: Poker in your shell-like

Since there are already a couple of dedicated TV stations for poker, I guess it was only a matter of time before poker branched out into radio. Victor Chandler radio mixes poker tips with music, which sounds handy but might be turn out to be quite dull. I'll give it a go and let you know.

Spam attack

I've noticed the Comments section of these posts is attracting spam. On the one hand, it's good to know that my ramblings could support advertising - maybe I'll try and get a sponsor.

On the other hand, it shows up how rubbish Blogger is at dealing with peoples' comments. I don't have the power to delete individual comments, even though this is technically my site and I should have moderator privileges. I can only turn off all comments and hide the existing ones. How annoying.

Anyway, I'm only writing this message to see if it attracts more spam. It keeps my sense of irony ticking over.

Joy and pain

I've just found out there's a possible press trip to the States in a couple of weeks. Oh the joy of finally getting a sniff at a good freebie. And where might this little jaunt be taking place? Baton Rouge, Louisiana. You know, just up the road from what used to be New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina blew into town! The place where looting and gang warfare has just reached a point where the goverment has OK'd a shoot-to-kill policy.

Am I insane to even think of going on that?!? I'll have to tell my mum it's a trip to New York - if she's worried about me sitting with the Millwall fans then this won't be something she wants to hear about.

Anyway, nothing's sorted yet. These things have a habit of falling through.

FILM: Night Watch

I thought I'd post my initial musings about Night Watch, before I have to write them up into a proper review. Maybe that'll annoy the folks at work, but you don't find these things out unless you try them.

I have to admit I was very excited about seeing this film. There was a lot of hype about it being the next big thing, plans for a trilogy, and screening reactions on the net were completely over the top in favour of it. Normally I'm cautious about what people who go to advance screenings say - often they just say something is great because they know no-one else has seen it yet, and they want to create their own little clique. What's the point of getting to see something first if you have to 'fess up and tell everyone it was crap?

Night Watch was different, though. This movie had already pulled in serious money in its Russian homeland and wowed the critics at the same time. Maybe because of all that it couldn't live up to my expectations. Or maybe it's just a jumbled mess that doesn't deliver. Director Timur Bekmanbetov has been quoted as saying “Russian culture is more mysterious, so people don’t care about understanding everything”. That's no reason to have whole segments of your movie's mythos unexplained. Maybe all will be revealed in the following two sequels, but I shouldn't have to wait for an explanation. The first Matrix movie told you everything you needed to know in its first outing, so if you never came back to the franchise you weren't left wondering. For all its dreams of trilogy a movie must still stand up on its own. Unfortunately, so much of Night Watch's problems stem from not knowing the rules of the world - can the characters sit in the Gloom for long periods or is it dangerous? Are the two leaders of the opposing sides enemies or grudging friends? And so on...

Still, you should rejoice if you've seen the current version. Bekmanbetov is currently cutting it for the US market so that it makes more sense. In the process he's ripping out the relationship between Anton and his vampire neighbour Kostya (at least I'm betting he is based on his comments), which is one of the more subtle, character driven parts of the movie.

It's not all bad news, though. You have to applaud the scope of this movie when you consider it only cost $4m. There are also some fine performances, particularly Konstantin Khabensky's turn as the flawed but heroic Anton Gorodetsky. Its main strength is in shying away from the obvious white hat/black hat villains - not easy when the two sides are polarised as light and dark. Nothing is ever that simple in such a murky world, where the Night Watch polices the dark elements and the Day Watch keeps tabs on their so-called light counterparts.

Unfortunately, these highlights only make you more annoyed at what turned up onscreen - a tighter script, a little more control and this could have been a modern masterpiece.