Quick reviews
A few quick reviews of things I’ve read or watched recently…
(The DVDs fall into the category of “I’ve been meaning to watch that; I’ll buy that if it’s less than $10. Ooh, there it is!” One book was borrowed, the other I got for Christmas.)
A Hard Day’s Night — got this cheap on Amazon, and thought the kids would enjoy it, which they did. Occasionally the accents are a tad hard to follow, but the antics of the Beatles, together with Paul’s “very clean” grandfather got some laughs. And because it’s based loosely on the real life experiences of The Beatles, it’s also a view into life in 1960s Britain.
Tron — found this cheap in JB Hifi. It smells a bit of 80s computer-age wonder cash-in, with users having real beings inside the computer who run all their jobs. But it was quite enjoyable, and very interesting graphics for a 1982 film.
A Nest of Occasionals, Tony Martin — very funny stuff, particularly the tales of writing radio adverts, which had me in stitches at one point. I’m going to have to check out his other book, Lolly Scramble.
Jasper Jones (by Craig Silvey)– Superb, a real page turner, really enjoyed it. And again, fully intending to get hold of his other novel, Rhubarb.
(Currently reading Shane Maloney: “Stiff”.)
Which movies are suitable for older kids?
As my kids have grown, the choices of movies has become a little harder. With one 14 and the other 11, most kids’ movies aren’t very appealing, but many adult M-rated movies aren’t suitable either.
MA15+ is a legal restriction — kids under 15 can’t legally see the movie unsupervised, and although they can see them if supervised by a guardian, that rating doesn’t get applied for no reason. It’s almost always quite strong stuff. I don’t go there.
In contrast, M is just a recommendation, and the content can vary widely. I’m of the view that there are movies which are stronger than PG and fall into M without really being too bad.
So how does one determine which are suitable, preferably without watching them first?
One easy way is to check the ratings in other countries. The USA’s MPAA ratings include a PG-13 rating, for which there is no Australian equivalent. There are a number of movies which get PG-13 in the States, but M here, and my view is that generally these are okay for my kids to watch. Examples include all three Lord of the Rings films, Avatar, Star Wars episode 3, and the latest Star Trek movie.
It’s easy to look them up at imdb.com, and it also shows you the ratings in a variety of other countries. For Star Trek for instance it lists all of these:
USA:PG-13 (certificate #44847) | South Korea:12 | UK:12A | Netherlands:12 | Ireland:12A | Finland:K-13 | Singapore:PG | Norway:11 | Switzerland:10 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:10 (canton of Geneva) | Australia:M | Portugal:M/12 | Italy:T | Canada:G (Quebec) | Canada:PG (Alberta/British Columbia/Manitoba/Ontario) | Brazil:12 | Sweden:11 | Philippines:G (MTRCB) | Hong Kong:IIA | Argentina:Atp | Peru:PT | Iceland:10 | Germany:12 | South Africa:10V | New Zealand:M | Mexico:B | France:U | Canada:PG (Canadian Home Video rating) | Austria:10 | Denmark:12 | Denmark:11
If more detail is required, ScreenIt.com has lots of information for recent movies, though you have to negotiate your way past all the ads to the list of all titles, and some are behind a pay wall.
I suppose everybody has a different strategy for this. That’s mine.
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Bullet time
You may think you’ve seen some cool stuff today, but I’ll wager you haven’t seen yourself in Matrix-style “bullet time“.
It’s part of the new “Screen Worlds” exhibit at ACMI at Federation Square.
Pretty damn cool huh?
Tags: ACMI, bullet time, The Matrix
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Too long to blog on their own, too short to Tweet
Forgot to review the Star Trek movie. In summary: great stuff, really enjoyable. (And still chuckling over The Onion’s take on it.)
How is it that Rivers in Victoria have 7 retail outlets, but 31 clearance centres?
For those of you who want to browse PT timetables online while out and about, bookmark this in your web-enabled mobile: metlink.mobi. (Okay, so I did Tweet this.)
You’ve heard of the Big Mac Index, for comparing the spending power of world currencies? Here’s a theory that the Mars Bar can be used to track historical value of currencies.
Tags: money, public transport, Star Trek
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Quick things
Why is Westpac bank turning into my mother? Do they really expect to get more customers like this?
Great quote:
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
– Robert J. Hanlon
Star Trek: all creeds and colours of humanity, in a spirit of co-operation and harmony, working together at hating the Romulans.
This trailer for the movie Knowing… doesn’t really make me want to see it, but if the train carriages look familiar to Melburnians, that would be because it was filmed here, and they used old Melbourne Hitachi carriages for filming, though apparently the subway scene is set in New York City.
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The General
A few weeks ago we watched Buster Keaton’s The General the other day. It’s public domain, a free download from the Internet Archive.
Very funny stuff, and some quite remarkable stunts considering they had so few safety precautions compared to nowadays.
I had been pondering if it was rude to talk during a silent movie.
The conclusion was: yes. It may not stop you hearing the dialogue, but it does interrupt your concentration.
Keaton’s Steamboat Bill Jr is also on my list.
Tags: comedy, films, public domain
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Brief things
Computer: I like it when computers reach the point at which a good upgrade is cheap, quick and cheerful. In this case on my two-year-old box, tripling the RAM cost me $45, tripling the hard disk space cost $130. And as the new disk is faster than the old one, I’ll take the opportunity to re-install everything onto it, and clear out its sinuses in the process. … Would have helped if I’d bought the correct hard disk cable, of course.
Cluster headaches: They came back for autumn, but the medication has pretty much got them under control.
Solar hot water: It’s been a year since I got solar hot water installed. From a user point of view, there’s absolutely no difference. By the time it reaches you at the tap, it’s just hot water. I’d love to tell you it made a clear and noticeable difference to the gas bills, but looking through them, I’m not seeing it, in part because water, heating, and cooking is all tied up in there, and also apparently (at least according to some BOM figures I cast my untrained eye over), 2008 was slightly colder than 2007.
The toe: It’s healing. Most of the swelling has gone, but it’s still a little uncomfortable to walk in shoes.
Star Trek: Booked for Sunday in Gold Class. Looking forward to this.
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No country for old captains
A few quick reviews.
No Country for Old Men — great stuff from the Coens. Gripping. Quite violent though; bits of it almost gave me nightmares. Is it trying to make a point at the end? Ummm… probably.
Burn After Reading — more Coen brothers. Some very funny characters, and genuine surprises along the way. Amusingly noticed a scene where George Clooney was running in the exact spot Josh Lyman from The West Wing had a running scene. Quite a few laugh-out-loud moments.
Hyperdrive — Some good gags, such as resetting the entire ship to default settings (rendering the phasers inoperable until you’ve accepted the End User Licence Agreement), but just doesn’t quite fall into the unmissable brilliant comedic masterpiece that the reviews on the cover imply.
Star Trek Generations — Kirk meets Picard… a kind of Star Trek Time Crash. I saw this in the cinema in 1995, and watched it again a few weeks ago on DVD with the kids. Good stuff, though not as impressive as on the big screen. Data’s exclamation (courtesy of his new emotion chip) as the Enterprise heads crashing towards the planet is particularly funny; I remember many in the cinema laughing out loud over that.
(Mind you, according to the Star Trek Curse theory, Generations was a dud. Hmm, I’ve never seen the next one, First Contact, but it sounds like a cracker.)
The Hollowmen — Just brilliant, and as an outsider, I suspect frighteningly accurate.
Dad’s Army — I loved this show as a kid, so grabbed it recently from the local public library. But it’s aged terribly, and not just because the premise is from almost 70 years ago. It raised a few laughs, but just doesn’t seem as funny as it was thirty years ago. I know it’s considered a classic, but I won’t be seeking out more to watch any time soon.
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