Comics
Watched the Avengers at the cinema a couple of nights ago (or Avengers Assemble as we seem to be calling it here, as we were all SO confused with the old tv show weren't we?), saw it in 3D on the IMAX screen as well, not sure the 3D added too much but the the scale of the whole thing certainly benefited having the IMAX screen. Anyway it was a great film and some of the comic timing was fantastic, mostly these involved the Hulk, although Tony Stark obviously gets a few in as well.
What seeing the film has done is make me go back and read some of the comics, currently I'm reading the "Ultimates" sequence by Millar, Hitch and Currie. Very good take on the whole Avengers thing (so far anyway), I've only read the first three issues but we've already had the death and return of Captain America, bit of Bruce Banner, Henry Pym becoming the Giant Man and Tony Stark being himself.
I think I could read a few each lunchtime, so hopefully more tomorrow.
The Ides of March
I love a good political thriller and this was nearly one of those, but in the end turned out to be pretty good anyway.
Clooneys part as the politician is excellently played, although it couldn't have been that hard to direct himself could it. Ryan Gosling is the star here and plays his part of the naive but ambitious aid really well.
Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti also play their relatively small parts very well, both of them being pretty ruthless without coming across as utter bastards. Well not too much anyway.
Definite recommendation for anyone who likes a film you have to think a bit in, but not too taxing for the brain of an evening spent on the sofa staring at a glowing box.
Rating: 
Submarine
Instead what I got was a beautiful tragi-comic coming of age drama that looks back at the 80's with some obvious nostalgia without being schmaltzy and without using the obvious prompting of songs of the day. In fact even better than those songs which are actually better in my memory than in reality, we get a soundtrack by Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys fame, and bloody good it is too.
All of the actors deserve some serious amounts of credit too, not sure that I'd seen any of them before -- other than Paddy Considine as a quite amusing ex-flame -- but you'd think they were all seasoned pros.
I can't say enough good things about this film. I really don't like discussing plots in my shitty little reviews here, as that information is all over the internet should you want, it's more what I felt about a film and here I felt pure joy at the entertainment on show, obviously there are a few bits that are sad and I wasn't smiling then (I'm not a monster), in fact I may have had to wip away a tear on occasion, but overall I was enormously pleased that I had watched this. I'm sure a lot of people will read what it's about, not recognising the names or whatever and skip on by to some mainstream shite, but they really shouldn't, as it is almost perfect.
Rating:
Millenium
I was going to call this The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo but I've obviously already got that as the book and I want to do the new film on here soon as well (already seen it), so it get's the Millenium name. In case you haven't read the books or seen the films then the title is the name of the magazine that lies at the center of the books (and I believe a spin off tv show in Sweden).
I was already amused to see that when they replaced Noomi Rapace from the original Swedish films she then went on to be in in big budget Hollywood fare, and bizarrely was in SHerlock Holmes: Game of Shadows which I saw a week before the remake of her earlier film.
So I was more surprised when I noticed that the other big film of the Christmas period, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol has Michael Nyqvist as the main villain, the man who was replaced as Blomqvist in Dragon Tattoo. When I saw the new one at the cinema the wife of a colleague told me that she felt let down by the earlier films as she didn't see Nyqvist as being the sex symbol that the character was meant to be, although she did suggest that Daniel Craig certainly did fill the role, before apologising to her husband, not that there is much he could do about Daniel Craig being attractive to ladies though is there?
Pointless little scribble this but I thought that was quite interesting, almost some sort of synchronicity with all three films coming out within a fortnight of each other.
New Years Resolutions
Everyone has them, but I thought if I put them on here I might actually stick to them a bit more.
Ok simple and obvious to begin with:
- Cut out the fizzy drinks (at least the high sugar, high calorie ones), keep the beer flavoured occasional ones though
- Cut out ALL chocolate
- More Tae Kwon Do lessons each week, a minimum of the new Attleborough class and the Hethersett training, also try and get to the Hewitt School one.
A bit more specific:
- Get below 100kg for the first time in God knows how long. (currently 108.4kg)
- Take it even further and get down to 90kg.
- 100 pushups a day
- 100 situps (crunches) a day
- At least 5 Parkruns over the course of the year, preferrably 10.
- 5k time under 30 minutes, I know that sounds poor, but I am quite shit at it currently.
I might update this some more over the next week, but I might not.
update: Just realised that if I get to 90kg then I will also be below 200lbs. Probably be a bit skinny too.
Source Code
Really quite liked this, though the ending was a major headfuck, I thought I got it at the time, but the more I thought about it and tried to align it all in my head the more maddening it all was.
Rating:
Crazy, Stupid, Love
Two women in the house last night, neither would watc any horror or anything remotely thrillerish, so we watched this, a light romantic comedy with just a touch of drama.
Steve Carell plays his usual self, I've seen him do this in several movies now, Julianne Moore is hardly used at at all, Ryan Gosling gets sidetracked from his serious films for a bit so he can show off his pecs and there is a lot of quite predictable accidents.
It was mildly enjoyable, but it really does not show women in a very good light, especially during the early "training" sessions where Gosling beds god knows how many women, but it was alright I suppose.
Rating:
Crimewave 11: Ghosts
All pretty good stories, from authors of whom I'd never read anything before.
Although most of them seem to be working in the short story medium a few are publishing books, but none of the stories had me desperstely hunting the author down for everything they have written. That sounds really negative, but I did really enjoy most of the stories, a couple I thought were just ok, none were poor by any standard.
Rating:
The Pyramid
Took an age over reading this as it's actual four short (although progressively longer) stories, starting with Wallanders early years on the force, on to his first work as a detective through to him being a detective inspector.
I like the fact that as the stories got longer and more involved, Wallander himself has much less of a life outside work.
Rating:
The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest
Very satisfying conclusion to the Millenium trilogy. I do miss the murder mystery plot of the first book, but it's good you can see the way he improved his thinking for the series as it went on, and the fact that just about everything is wrapped up by the end made it all sit quite nicely with me when it was all over.
Shame he died as he could have written some really good followups to the first "trilogy", but I really hope the family don't farm it out to someone else to write sequels, they must have made enough money from these by now to last them quite awhile.
Rating:
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