The Importance of Being Idle

Something Else. Also Terrible.

And once again there's a huge gap for no apparent reason. At least for no good reason, I've been working, then I've been ill, then I've been working again, and there never seems anything much to say. I've seen movies (on DVD, like Cloverfield which I utterly love, or at the cinema, like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Incredibly Long Subtitle, which was utter bollocks and an insult to my intelligence). Played games, watched TV... the usual.
Cloverfield I feel is deserving of a little love as I was utterly blown away by it. Finally we have a monster movie which understands the fears of it's time! All the greats, from Godzilla onward have done that, captured the paranoia of of it's viewers and distilled them into monster form! With Cloverfield we even have the added bonus of presenting it as found media, which is oh so very zeitgeisty, but effective nonetheless. For all the Spielberg wanted to show War of the Worlds through the prism of 9/11 he failed pretty spectacularly, and Cloverfield just makes that all the more apparent and complete. It's odd that I can be so invested in a movie almost entirely devoid of story or character, which you could even conceivably dismiss as a clever trick, but it really worked for me and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Conversely, Indiana Jones deserves a thorough kicking; whilst the trailers hinted at clever gags on Indy's increasing age, the gags in the trailer were ALL the gags there were, and Indy remains oddly static and re-active throughout this adventure. There are many things to object to (fucking aliens? A fridge?) but as the movie barrels along it all seems enjoyable enough. It was only once the film had stopped (in fact almost immediately it'd stopped!) that the enjoyment faded and I felt that I'd somehow been the victim of a massive fraud! Seriously though, aliens?
No matter how much people tell me The Incredible Hulk is good I just can't believe it, and I still haven't been to see it. There's a part of me that simply will NOT let go of Ang Lee's Hulk, and going to see this "reboot" of the franchise seems to me almost to be dis-honouring it's memory. Which is very extreme, it's just a film. But one I love very much.
Gaming wise, well I've played a LOT of Gran Turismo 4 on the PS2 (yes, I'm still back there in last gen world. It's nice here, I know everybody and the games are cheap) and I can see why it's attracted such devotion. Although for all that, it feels oddly soulless, and the lack of damage modelling and the infuriating driver AI are perhaps the little things that are missing; I know I've enjoyed my time with Forza at least as much, and I've enjoyed knowing that my opponents can and will make mistakes and fuck up their cars! I've played Guitar Hero, but not as much as usual, and have FINALLY got around to Hellgate: London. Which is just wonderful. I know that, like Titan Quest, it's just Diablo II all over again, but unless or until Blizzard get on and actually make Diablo III (we'll see what the next mystery game is on Saturday) it'll do just fine!
What else has happened? The house has been re-arranged again (PC is now downstairs in the living room), Archie caught a frog last week (actually I suspect he found it) and... oh yeah, my car spectacularly failed it's MOT on Friday, to the tune of over four hundred pounds! Yay car! Road tax is due at the end of the month too, bloody thing. Still, it's a nice car and I like it. Not sure I like it THAT much, but there we go.
Oddly I've heard Molly's Chambers by the Kings of Leon twice in the past two days, and it reminded me how awesome I think they are.
And finally, in a random sort of way, the recent release of MGS4 on PS3 has made me want to get Twin Snakes back on the 'Cube, and then MGS3 Subsistence on PS2 (I've already got MGS2 Substance on Xbox) and BLOODY HELL they're expensive! Subsistence is changing hands for anywhere around the £75 mark, and Twin Snakes can set you back as much as £50! Wish I'd never got rid of it now, especially given how far into the game I was...

posted by BadMonkey @ 3:24 PM