Sweeny Todd

For those of you that haven't seen Sweeny Todd yet... it's a musical... now before all the men flatly refuse to see it, remember it's not "High School Musical" or "Grease" (Which strangely I love... must be because I find it funny), but a gritty tale of the revenge of a man falsely exiled and stripped of all the things he once loved. Interested now hmm?

Sweeney Todd is played by Johnny Depp who for years now has been playing exceptional roles as quirky characters (With the possible exception of his roll as Willy Wonka in the 2005 version of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", but that was more a dislike of the film rather than his acting). And as usual he manages to capture the maddening torment that Sweeny Todd has suffered convincingly. Always slightly comic (Like a Jim Carrey on a heavy dose of prozac), but not enough to push him over the edge of realism, just enough for you to chuckle "he's mad he is".

Anyway enough of the Depp appreciation society.

Mrs. Lovett self confessed purveyor of the "Worst Pies in London" (See bellow) is played by Helena Bonham Carter who personally I like, as she (At least in the films I can remember her being in) always does good eccentric characters. Throughout this film she was pregnant and you've got to hand it to her, she didn't let it slow her down.

Neither of them have come from musical backgrounds. Which makes this film all the more impressive. Does anyone else think Johnny Depps singing sounds like David Bowie?

The part of Toby (Sweeny's somewhat accidental apprentice) is played by Ed Sanders, who I could have sworn I recognised from elsewhere but apparently this is his first credited part in a film.

Anyway I seem to be ranting too much about the actors... on to the film:

The film is excellent, portrayed in a dark and grimy London, where the majority of colour is either grey or brown. It's made to look Gothic and bleak (A reflection of the feelings of Sweeny), the only real colour in the film is the red of blood and the dresses Johanna (Sweenys estranged Daughter) wears.

The plot is dark and moody, following the last moments of Sweenys colapse into maniacal revenge. As is customary with most films today a love story is thrown in between Johanna and Anthony Hope (Sweenys companion on the ship to England), however it serves little purpose and is rather thinly followed, as it is only a mechanism for Sweeny to get his revenge upon Judge Turpin, this didn't spoil the film for me (As it does in many others), but it did leave me a little frustrated about the lack of development on those two characters.

All in all an excellent film, and the musical score is fantastic. I'd highly recommend to anyone that considers musicals "girly" to give this film a try.

Another point to be made about the film is that a scene cut from the film (For reasons unknown to me) was to include of the spirits of Sweeney Todd's victims (including actors Anthony Head and Christopher Lee). I think this was a real shame as Christopher Lee is a fantastic Opera singer (I had the good fortune to hear him at the MCM Expo last year).

I'll leave you with my favourite song (At least for Helena Bonham Carters accent):

MRS. LOVETT:
(spoken) A customer!

Wait!
What's your rush?
What's your hurry?
You gave me such a --
Fright, I thought you was a ghost!
Half a minute, can'tcher sit!
Sit you down, sit!
All I meant is that I haven't seen a customer for weeks!
Did you come here for a pie, sir?
Do forgive me if me head's a little vague --
Ugh! What is that?
But you think we had the plague!
From the way that people
Keep avoiding --
No you don't!
Heaven knows I try, sir!
Ick!
But there's no one comes in even to inhale!
Right you are, sir, would you like a drop of ale?
Mind you, I can't hardly blame them!
These are probably the worst pies in London!
I know why nobody cares to take them,
I should know,
I make them,
But good? No!
The worst pies in London,
Even that's polite!
The worst pies in London,
If you doubt it, take a bite!
Is that just disgusting?
You have to concede it!
It's nothing but crusting!
Here, drink this, you'll need it!
The worst pies in London...
And no wonder with the price of meat
What it is
When you get it
Never
Thought I'd live to see the day
Men'd think it was a treat
Findin' poor
Animals
Wot are dyin' in the street!
Mrs. Mooney has a pie shop!
Does a business but I notice something weird.
Lately all her neighbors' cats have disappeared!
Have to hand it to her --
Wot I calls
Enterprise
Poppin' pussies into pies!
Wouldn't do in my shop!
Just the thought of it's enough to make you sick!
And I'm tellin' you, them pussycats is quick!
No denying times is hard, sir
Even harder
than the worst pies in London!
Only lard and nothing more --
Is that just revolting,
All greasy and gritty?
It looks like it's molting,
And tastes like,
Well, pity
A woman alone,
With limited wind,
And the worst pies in London!
Ah, sir, times is hard,
Times is hard!

Lyrics courtesy of http://www.allmusicals.com/

AvP2

Now I'm a massive hardcore fan of the Alien(s) franchise. So I always go into see any of the franchises films with baited breath (Their hasn't really been a very good film since Aliens).

In one sentence I'll summaries my thoughts on it: "It was better than AvP, but still not perfect".

I'll warn you now I'm going to throw in a whole host of spoilers as I'm writing a critique of the films plot and sub-text, not a review so don't read on if you've not seen it and don't want to spoil it. This is more of a explanation of my thoughts on the storyline than anything else.

The opening starts off exactly where AvP left us. A Pred-Alien chest burster emerges from the corpse of the dead predator.

I assume that a significant time period elapses and the Pred-Alien is now at maturity and does what Aliens do best, kills people, or in this case Predators. A fight ensues and the last surviving Predator inadvertently blows a hole in the side of the ship with his shoulder cannon. This leaved me a little flummoxed, as it's a little out of character for a predator to do that, I shall explain:

1. I imagine it would see this as the ultimate trophy, so it would like to keep it's "hide" intact, so it would generally melee attack.
2. One on one is more honourable up close and personal, Predators only fire when outnumbered or outgunned.

But I can immediately poo poo these by saying:

1. It may been seen as an abomination that needs destroying, hence the shock of seeing one may cause a predator to panic and open fire.
2. Knowing how strong it is the predator may have opened fire attempting to ensure a kill, and hoping for a clean shot that would leave something of a "trophy" to show off

The ship crashes to earth and the Pred-Alien and a few face huggers run off, leaving a mortally wounded (In the crash) Predator behind. Now instead of the usual "set wrist device to blow the hell out of everything", he sends a signal home which is received by a lone Predator who promptly prepares for battle and sets off, now a few more arguments:

1. He calls home to say what's happened afraid that the Pred-Alien may survive the blast
2. He wants someone else to continue the hunt
3. Honour requires vengeance for his death (As he died in an accident technically)

What about the reason only one Predator goes:

1. He's actually related to the Dead Predator (Father-Son?) and is avenging his death
2. He's a cleaner
3. One-on-One honour

So the Predator begins stalking his "Prey" by following the trails left by the Aliens, he discovers the bodies f the first 2 face hugger victims and using a blue goo dissolves them leaving no trace, he continues to do this throughout the majority of the film hiding "evidence" of the alien presence (Strangely he doesn't hide his own, when he killed a human witness he exhibited normal predator hunting rites and skinned him, leaving him for all to see). This supports the fact that he's here to "clean up" the pred-alien mess.

Suddenly the entire town is overrun by Aliens, how I've heard a lot of people bemoaning this on forums, but there is a simple explanation, the original AvP Aliens gestated and matured very quickly, the reason for this may be they are specially bred Aliens genetically modified by the Predators to grow quickly so they can have a ample supply of Aliens to hunt. This could explain (But I still don't like it) why the pred-alien is able to "inject" multiple chest-bursters into a host, I shall explain:

1. We know nothing of Predator re-production, so this may be how they mate (Although it's commonly thought amongst fans that they're similar to humans)
2. As mentioned above, the genetic tampering the Predators did to the Aliens to allow them to grow faster advanced their evolution to this stage
3. Without the presence of a queen this is how Aliens "fast breed" to establish a hive for a queen.

It fits (Barely) within the storyline, but I feel like they're resisting the days of Alien Resurrection and the Mutant Alien, simply put, I'd rather they didn't mess with established law within a story to make it more entertaining.



The film finishes off with the entire town being destroyed by the military (The Pred-Alien and Predator die just before this as a result of a final dramatic battle that ends in them both dealing killing blows to each other). The reasons behind the militaries motives, and quick use of nuclear weapons isn't made clear, but this is my thoughts:

1. Weyland/Yutani have some knowledge on Predators/Aliens and have told the military this is the only way (Though if the future is anything to go by, they want samples, and will go to any lengths to get them)
2. They’re aware of the crash, and video footage from the National Guard has scared the military into a radical decision.

At the very end the survivors (Who escape via helicopter) are captured by the US army when they crash land (Presumably due to the EMP pulse from the Nuclear bomb). The Predator "Pistol" (Modified shoulder cannon) is surrendered along with the rest of their weapons. The weapon is then taken to a Miss Yutani. This is a reference to the involvement of Charles Bishop Weyland from the original AvP and possibly goes to show the future merger of the two companies to create Weyland-Yutani as seen in the Aliens film.

Tutankhamun at the O2

After seeing Spamalot we had pre-booked ticket to go see the Tutankhamun exhibit at the O2 (The landmark formerly known as the Millennium Dome). I won't bore you with the details, but due to some unforeseen closure in London's otherwise reliable(ish) public transport system, getting there was a nightmare.

We did however arrive on time (By about 5 mins). On the way in we were treated to airport style security checks, passed through the 1st one, carrying my bag and the mountain of electronic equipment I usually carry. The second one however (To my embarrassment) picked up that I had a pen knife in my bag pocket. Thankfully all that meant was I had to pick it up later.

The exhibit was really well thought out, with plenty of room around the cases to see what was in them, however even though they were using this pre-booked ticket system to limit numbers (At least that's what I hope it was doing) their was still far too many people scrabbling to take a look at the exhibits.

Everything was well lit so you could see all the fine details, as an engineer I always look at the way things are constructed, It's very humbling to look at some of these items that are well over 3000 years old and appreciate the meticulous craftsmanship that went into making them. One particular statue that sprang to mind was carved from wood with a interlocking series of alternate triangles which gave the impression of a twist/locs hairstyle. The intricacy of this amazed me, as instinctively I worked out a CAD design to achieve such a pattern, it suddenly dawned on me that by hand this must have taken hours to achieve, and to do it so accurately (And without making a single mistake) would take a level of skill only a master craftsman with many years of experience would have. I doubt they'd be many people the world over that could replicate such work using the tools and methods the Egyptians had, which is very sad.

Humbling to think that whilst the Egyptians had been creating all this beauty for thousands of years the British Isles was still relatively primitive and had only just started using stone buildings for housing.

Spamalot

Spam... Spam... Spam... Spam... Wonderful SPAM!

Sorry just had to say that.

I like going to the theatre, but sadly I rarely get the chance. Thankfully the shows I have seen I have never been disappointed with, and Spamalot was no exception :-)

A musical version of Monty Python and the Holy Grail with a few scenes added and removed for continuity. The scenery was excellent, with essentially only one main set piece (Which rotated to allow for different scenes) and a series of interchangeable backdrops, all the scenes were acted out to fantastic effect. Special effects came in the form of some pyrotechnics and a projector to do some lettering and highlighting. One thing that sticks out in my mind is the use of two actors who had a long strip of fabric wrapped around them like a conveyor or scroll, and they span on the spot to "wind" the scenery, this allowed for a scene where they crossed several different continents to be done to very good comic effect.

I'd never have noticed were it not for Naomi mentioning it, but the lead role (King Arthur) was played by Peter Davison who is not a particularly skilled singer, the original was played by Tim Currie who is an accomplished singer, so they re-wrote the script somewhat to remove the parts solos. Why they didn't cast a better singer in the role I do not know (There must be people screaming to land a role like that!).

The play was typical Monty Python humour through and through and had us in stitches throughout, the funniest scene by far was a Sooty and Sweep style "Vicious Rabbit" puppet scene. But my hat goes off to the scene with the black knight, had I not seen it I never would have thought they'd have included it due to the difficulty of being able to hack off the limbs of a suit of armour. To do it they must have had a false left arm, as that was the first to be hacked off. The Right arm was next, and as this was the sword arm, it was occupied by the actors actual limb. Using a bit of slight of hand his real arm was moved inside the armour and the "sleeve" cut off

For the legs it was a little more difficult so the audience was distracted whilst the black knight was "hooked" onto a wall and his legs poked through the wall leaving just the trousers. Which were again hacked off... this in all was a brilliant scene that received a lot of applause from the audience

The best bit however was the "best peasant award", unknown to me at every performance seat D1 has the grail place under it, and in the 2nd to last scene the actors break through the 4th wall and collect it. The person sitting in D1 is then pulled up on stage and awarded the "best peasant award". Suffice to say this seat has been booked up years in advance :-(

St. Trinian's

Sadly I can't really remember the original St. Trinian's films, but I do remember them being a Beano-esk style of humour much akin to a children's version on the Carry on Films.


The remake thankfully lives up to this... I walked into the cinema expecting it to be dire with the odd funny moment, but was thankfully pleasantly surprised.


The cast list contains a few well known actors, such as:

• Colin Firth Again playing a Mr Darcy clone, but funny in a typecast way
• Rupert Everett Hilarious as a Female character and cunningly playing her brother too
• Russell Brand A strange casting, but his charisma shows through as a "Del Boy" type character
• Stephen Fry Superb as the quiz master of a pseudo University Challenge

But the majority of the characters (IE The girls of St Trinians) were played by unknown or upcoming actresses, the only notable exception is Kathryn Drysdale, better known from "Two Pints of Lager (And a Packet of Crisps)". It's quite disturbing seeing her dressed up as a ~16 y/o schoolgirl given she's about the same age as me (General consensus on the web says 25-30).


The casting was at 2 ends of the scale, the girls were either extremely young (Such as the 2 mischievous twins around 10 y/o) or approaching 30. I imagine the casting of older women in the 6th former roles was to allow for a more raunchier portrayal without the paedophile vigilantes rearing their heads.

Visually the film required little or no CGI effects, only traditional pyrotechnics for a couple of scenes which were well put together the only quibble I'd have is that the C4 explosives they used would not have been placed like that, but that's only because I understand how explosives work, to the common cinema goer it's just me being nit picky. And that's it i really can only be nit picky about a film that is funny tongue in cheek comedy at its best. I'll leave you with a classic quote from the film:

Daddy, you can't expect me to stay here. It's like Hogwarts for Pikeys!

- Annabelle Fritton

What Daemon Am I?

Naomi sent me this interesting little app from The Golden Compass.

Numb Finger Nomi

You know you play too much guitar hero when:

1. You can't feel your index finger
2. You get Whammy Bar cramp
3. You have a bruise on your arm from being too vigorous with star power
4. You break the Whammy Bar and have to take the guitar back to the shop
5. You've done all this in little over a week

Yep, Nomi is definitely a hardcore gamer... she puts me to shame :-(

Thankfully her finger is better now... but this is only because she's had flu and hasn't been able to get up and play very much.

As for the guitar... she's gonna be more selective with the whammying :-) On a good note taking it back resulted in me getting a new chrome faceplate for my guitar (Sadly there wasn't a Wii one available)... and it was free :-)

Click here for possibly the best review of Guitar Hero 3, and here for my attempt :-)

New Years Resolutions

1. Actually lose weight rather than just talk about it,
2. Edit the hours of video I have of my computer from the last few Minami's and my trip to Germany,
3. Actually play the games I buy (More than the once when I get them home),
4. Use my PS3 online,
5. Tidy my hovel, and keep it tidy,
6. Blog more often (And on time, rather than days afterwards)
7. Plus a few more I've forgotten

Auld Lang Syne

At the stroke of midnight we had a fireworks display in the "beer garden" of the pub. It was a little weird not hearing the bongs of Big Ben, but fireworks more than made up for it :-)

Weird thing was no one broke out into singing Auld Lang Syne. So we had an impromptu one when we realised about an hour later :-)

Should old acquaintance be forgot,and never brought to mind? Should old acquaintance be forgot,and auld lang syne ?

CHORUS:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And surely you’ll buy your pint cup !And surely I’ll buy mine ! And we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet,for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We two have run about the slopes,and picked the daisies fine ;But we’ve wandered many a weary foot,since auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We two have paddled in the stream,from morning sun till dine ;But seas between us broad have roaredsince auld lang syne.

CHORUS

And there’s a hand my trusty friend !And give us a hand o’thine !And we’ll take a right good-will draught,for auld lang syne.

CHORUS