Category: Movies

Sydney

  • January 12, 2019

I arrived in Sydney yesterday by train, and after checking in to an extraordinary hotel room wasted no time seeing the tourist sites.

I walked from Central to Darling Harbour to Circular Quay and back – some 30k steps – and by the time I crashed in my room after dark I was ruined ?

This morning I was up bright and early to pack, before heading to the Star Wars Identities exhibit at the Powerhouse Museum.

This is a remarkable exhibit of original props, costumes, models etc from the entire Star Wars saga (including Clone Wars). It is beautifully presented and it was magical to be so close to iconic items like the Millennium Falcon model actually used in Empire:

Or costumes worn by most of the major characters:

In addition, via interactive stations throughout the exhibit you create your very own Star Wars character!

I suppose the idea is to reproduce yourself in Star Wars firm, but I found myself compelled to spawn a uniquely original creation. Dear readers, I present my own Star Wars creation, Gab Frogger:

The name was my creation, and I’ll humbly suggest it’s much better than what others used (I saw an Ewok pilot named Brendan). Here’s Gab’s bio:

As with all Gungans, Gab is immediately endearing despite his dark side tendencies, and I’ve grown to love the froggy scamp already. I hope he turns up in Episode IX!

That’s Sydney Tower, which has stood since 1981 in the center of the city. I’ve been up several times but not in quite a few years and figured it was time once again.

Admission includes a surprisingly good (but short) 3D film which you watch before going up. I’m not quite sure why it even exists since it has almost nothing to do with the tower but I imagine the purpose was originally line-management which is redundant now since the tower doesn’t seem too popular.

But it was good! Today was sunny and clear and I could see forever. It wasn’t busy up top and I spent much longer than I’d expected up there. If you like observation towers, this is probably worth it at the slightly elevated price.

This will be my last post from Oz this trip, as early tomorrow I head to the airport for Tokyo where I’ll meet Bernard for the next 8 days! Stay tuned for our eastern adventures…

  • Posted in Australia
  • Robert

Review: Aquaman

  • December 31, 2018

I went and saw Aquaman yesterday, at an impressively early 9:30 am screening. I momentarily baulked at the ticket price…

But then remembered that the film was going to be awesome and couldn’t throw my cash at the attendant fast enough!

The cinema was crazy big. I dutifully sat in my assigned seat (N-16) and when the projector started I was the only person in there! But then I noticed the first half hour or so were just adverts (including many social engineering PSA’s: exercise more, don’t stay in the sun, start a savings account, etc.) and sure enough the locals knowledgeable about such things shuffled in just before the main show.

Aquaman is about a fish-powered dude that fights a lot and seems to wish he was actually a professional wrestler. I’m not going to spoil the overall plot here but I’ll say it starts off strong and within minutes I was intrigued:

Aquaman’s powers are a cross between Superman and Yoda and are frankly absurd (why is he bulletproof?!?) but you won’t question them because after the crazy start the film quickly evolves into madness and then ascends into bonkers territory.

This was my face during the political scene between the aryan riding the zeuglodon and the Viking riding the dragon:

And then when they introduced a pretty redhead fish girl and the film briefly stopped being about fish and became Indiana Jones meets Jurassic Park I was slackjawed.

This was my face when the murlocs (from World of Warcraft) turned up:

But it wasn’t even close to done! When a futuristic city sequence that makes Blade Runner look like the scribblings of a child was followed by a space battle that featured not one, not 1000, not 1000000, but every fish I was just roaring at the screen with joy:

There’s much to love about the film. Its visuals and design are astonishing, its script unfettered by tradition, its actors unconstrained by expectation and it’s easily got the best depiction of cetacean armies fighting a billion crabs that have ever been printed to celluloid.

It makes you feel every emotion, from love to hate to glee and yes, to terror. It’s unfettered fun, and easily gets my highest recommendation. Best fish war film ever by a mile.

Immediately afterwards I languidly strolled over to the Game Center and found a coin-pusher machine:

I was so full of DC comics appreciation I had to win a card, and quickly targeted this Batman that was right at the edge:

As you can see it was about to drop! So close in fact that a shift of only one atom would have caused it to fall…

…

…it only cost me $25 to ‘win’ it 🙂

  • Posted in Animals
  • Robert

A Couple Of Crafts

  • September 10, 2018

It’s been a while since a craft post, and while these two aren’t particular novel I thought they were unusual enough to warrant a mini showcase!

I saw these Figure-rise Bust kits in Japan last year but they were all of (Gundam) characters I didn’t know. Recently however this Miku kit came out and I had to have it. And yes, it’s an actual kit and not a figure:

Pay attention to the face which is molded in many colours thus eliminating the need for stamps:

Assembly was easy, and even though the kit did include some stickers they were easy to apply and are mostly hidden:

Completed, it looks amazing!

The only customization I did was using my Gundam paint pen to give her black fingernails. She’ll sit now forever on a shelf looking pretty 🙂

Next we have this LEGO kit I bought in Scotland:

This was one of those kits designed by ‘normal’ people that – since it received over 10000 votes online – became a real product. It’s based on Tron Legacy, which is a much, much better film than you think…

Assembly was trivial for a LEGO prodigy like myself and I liked the unusual colours and ‘Tronny’ aesthetic. You can either have Sam fighting Rinzler in a high-stakes disc battle, or battling via lightcycles on the grid:

It’s a nifty kit, well worth the cost for someone who appreciates Tron Legacy as the masterpiece many incorrectly think it isn’t. It’ll now sit forever on my shelf looking digital.