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[Blade Runner: THe Final Cut]

Had the flat to myself last night so spent it in the dark watching Blade Runner: THe Final Cut. Hadn't seen it on blu-ray yet (and hadn't seen The Final Cut version at all), it's total eye sex. The 5.1 mix is stunning too, I couldn't quite believe how fresh and amazing the movie looks.

Similarly to the Alien director's cut I love how Scott tweaks and perfects things when he revisits his movies, instead of doing a Lucas and getting over-excited and pooping all over it. The adjustments he makes suggest he genuinely has a considered eye for what made the movie special in the first place. Although changing the line 'I want more life fucker' to 'I want more life father' now means it's not the same as the lyric in 'More Human Than Human' by White Zombie, so maybe they should do a special edition of that for continuity.

...the risk of maybe sounding sexist I think men are more practical about things.

That actually did sound very sexist, but all I mean is (broad generalization here) girls are far more likely to enjoy things that serve no purpose other than to be aesthetically pleasing

What, like collecting comics or toys based on popular film franchises? 

Well played.

The Bea (as I've always called Amy for reasons I've actually forgotten) has never bought me flowers, but if she did I reckon I'd find it quite touching. I wouldn't be that fussed about putting them in water or anything, beyond the actual receiving of the flowers they wouldn't serve any further purpose. I think that's why guys aren't generally into flowers, they don't really do anything, and at the risk of maybe sounding sexist I think men are more practical about things.

That actually did sound very sexist, but all I mean is (broad generalization here) girls are far more likely to enjoy things that serve no purpose other than to be aesthetically pleasing, whereas us blokes are far simpler creatures. That's why I own only one pair of shoes but can't walk from one end of the flat to the other without tripping over 4 pairs of hers, and why the incredibly comfy couch we spent a fortune on is covered in so many decorative cushions that it's impossible to get comfy on.

That sounds grumpy, but I love it really.

I like that description of Korean directors! I particularly love it when they seem to be setting out to make something that sounds pretty standard on paper (like The Good, The Bad, The Weird) but it comes out skewed. There's often a particular balance between humor and darkness which you don't really find anywhere else.

I Saw The Devil is a good example, I'd never heard of it and saw it at a horror festival and it blew me away! It's horrifically dark and you know you should be appalled but it somehow manages to be laugh out loud funny pretty often. I definitely can't imagine even a great Hollywood director managing to pull it off. I'm particularly impressed that the 3 Jee-woon Kim movies I've now seen have been 3 different genres, all handled brilliantly.

Hope you like it when you do catch it, will be interesting to see what you think because I can imagine the unpleasantness making it a real love/hate movie.

All the Akira film fuss reminded me that I still haven't read the last book. Not sure why, think money reasons meant I just couldn't buy it and then the moment was gone. At any rate, I rectified that this morning. Akira is bloody marvelous.

THE EAGLE - Solid if unspectacular with a charisma void at the centre. Good roman stuff, nice scenery but goodness me it's violent for a 12a.

Tookey was right!!!

Doublepost, but watched The Good The Bad The Weird last night and absolutely loved it. Rented it on the strength of Tale of Two Sisters and I Saw The Devil, and I would now consider Jee-woon Kim one of my favorite writer/directors. This was so different to those movies but still pulled off with the kind of flair and energy you know Hollywood wishes it could muster. Really funny, action-packed stuff.

I skimmed over that and had actually read it as the return of Caballistics and got well excited! Does it not mention it's still Rennie writing it? If he's been lured back to the prog then there's surely a chance Caballistics could continue. I loved it I did, one of the best series the prog has ever run.

Oh God, I just read that. I can't believe it's true, it's just too awful. Like incredibly unbelievably dreadful. I don't know whether I should feel aggravated or if I should just pity the idiots behind that script.

Thanks, I might actually do that. I liked what I saw, just couldn't comprehend it! Not sure why someone would loan me that as a starting point actually...

Someone loaned me an Evangelion movie once (think it was called Death And Rebirth). It looked nice and was quite disturbing in places, but I couldn't work out what was going on at all.

I had this too but with different box artwork (wonderful glossy seventies/early eighties mopheaded youngsters ISTR) and it was called 'Ghost Castle'. You had a spinner and if it landed on the skull you had to drop a little plastic skull down the central chimney and it could go one of 4 ways, setting off various traps. Bloody brilliant.

I had that too (hopefully still do in some dusty corner). I remember the skull, ghosts and traps and things were glow in the dark. Very cool, but pretty pointless because it's impossible to play a board game in the dark. Great game though.

That's The List put right, thanks for pointing that out. We're really confused now as to how it ended up in The List at all because we certainly hadn't been in touch with, and neither was anyone we know. They'd randomly plucked out a band we played with about 2 years ago as the support band too, bizarre.

Anyhoo, would be good if you could make it, I could be wrong but I'm fairly sure I owe you a pint.

Just finished 'The Strain' today, was a cracking read. Being the second book it just dives right into things, so it lacks the creepy suspense of the first book, but the action is handled a lot better this time round I thought and it's rolls along at some pace. Very interested to see where book 3 goes.

Going to move onto either 'Things I Have Learned' by Karl Pilkington or 'I'm In The Band' by Sean Yseult next. The Yseult book is too big to lump around so will maybe read that but make Pilkington my on the move read.

I'm the same, I hear PC fans complaining a lot about checkpoints overtaking quick saves on multi-format games, and to be honest I think it's an improvement. You want the power to save wherever you want in something like Fallout, but if you can do it in action games it robs it of a lot of tension I reckon. There's nothing quite like fighting your way to a checkpoint by the skin of your teeth to get you in the zone!

Got a mate who bought Crysis 2 so he's gonna give me a loan of it when he's done. I just want to see how shiny the visuals are to be honest.