The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
Went to see this at the ANU Film Group
tonight with Kate, Trevor (brother-in-law) and our two nieces Kira and
Angela (Trevor's daughters, you see). Unfortunately they're still
struggling with technology troubles - they had got an alternate print
that had three large reels instead of half a dozen small ones, but because
one projector is dead and awaiting its costly technician to wander
Canberra-ward, they had to show one reel and then take a five minute break
to unthread the old reel and thread the new. This was surprisingly
bearable.
It's been a long long time since I read the book, and as far as I can recall the movie is surprisingly faithful to it. It's reasonably paced, doesn't do the 'gripping thrill a minute' thing that they obviously strive for in Harry Potter (which is a mercy), and nicely free from American accents. Interestingly, they start with a bombing raid over London to show both the times and the characters, before you get to the old mansion with its large number of hiding places. It's a nice touch.
The special effects are wonderful - a very few times I (being the picky sod that I am for effects) picked up something not quite right. But the ability to have all these creatures, big and small, hideous and beautiful, hairy and feathered and horned and grimy, appear so convincingly real; so many directors must be wishing they'd had this technology. I remember going to see Tron, and being blown away by those effects - these days they can render that in real time... Tron had its 20th anniversary not too long ago, either.
The only incongrous bit, to me, was the age of the characters versus the storyline. Put simply, I just don't think like a twelve-year-old any more. Even Harry Potter, despite sharing the common theme that any old person could suddenly turn out to be fated by prophecy to bring down the evil empire, has Harry not wanting the fame or fortunes. Maybe I'm being too harsh - certainly the film doesn't have Peter or Sarah saying "Oh, we're the children from the prophecy, let's go off and slay the evil queen, then!" The sight of a fifteen-year-old boy drawing a sword and leading the army just doesn't quite have that ring of believability to me any more. Sad, when these things die in us.
I will probably be corrected here, but I see it as a good sign that there are production companies willing to make books into films and not bugger the story with a forty-tonne pile-driver. I have this hope that someone will go to Terry Pratchett and say, "You know that book 'Thief Of Time' you wrote? We'd like to do it, exactly as you wrote it." Or 'Mort'; the famous 'lose the Death angle' book. Or even 'Good Omens', which would be a lot easier to do and has more talk about it than any other pTerry work. That or The Belgariad by David and Leigh Eddings. I live in hope.
Have fun,
Paul
posted at: 23:29 | path: /personal/movies | permanent link to this entry
Only a matter of time...
One thing that gets on my goat is people who think the rules don't apply
to them. People who think that getting in other people's way and taking
lots of risks is their way of proving how great they are. People who
think that laws are just around to irritate and annoy, rather than to
save their lives.
So my goat was well and truly ridden hard this afternoon by a 'Lycra Lizard' cyclist in yellow jersey not wearing a helmet while riding on the road not five metres from the cycle path. The urge to say something to educate these pole-sitters that the rest of the world isn't going to always slow down and drive safely around them had finally got too much for me: I wound down the window and yelled out "Get a helmet!" I don't know if he heard me or not, because he was jacked into his iPod with headphones.
So congratulations, older moron! You've completed the Stupid Trifecta! Keep on riding around like you own the road, because someone else who also thinks they own the road - and is driving a tonne or more of heavy, cyclist-crushing car - is going to prove you wrong. And then your precious bonce isn't going to be so holier-than-thou. And your insurance is probably not going to pay for your medical bill, either.
Grrrr.
Paul.
posted at: 23:07 | path: /personal/goat | permanent link to this entry
How big a pipe, you say?
I'm probably the third-last Fedora fan to find this out, but version five
is now steaming and fresh on the
various mirrors I have
access to. I'd resolved long
ago to share FC5 when it came out via torrents, but it makes more sense for
me to download it from a mirror I don't get charged for. I ssh'd in from
work to my home machine and started downloading it across the 512/512 DSL,
and then thought, "hang on a minute..." and checked AARNET.
Which the ANU has three 55Mbit Frame Relay links to.
Which means that I downloaded the five images in about five minutes - at the average rate of 10MB/sec (the speed of my link to the building switch, as it turns out. I've got a gigabit switch here but my upstream is still limited...).
Then I copied it onto my 80GB portable laptop drive, and whisked it home, for the purposes of sharing for those less fortunate.
Internode still only has the DVD image. I'll get that too. That can wait until I get home.
posted at: 17:34 | path: /tech/fedora | permanent link to this entry
Make It Nice, Mr Sulu!
Just one final note: yes, I will be applying some styling to this blog
to make it more like the rest of my home page. Maybe that'll actually
encourage me to have some style for the rest of the page. Now,
does Pascal owe me any favours... :-)
Have fun,
Paul
posted at: 17:32 | path: /personal | permanent link to this entry
So who is this Paul guy anyway?
I suppose you can find out most of this from my domain:
mabula.net. I'm 34 years old; I live
in Canberra, ACT, Australia; I work at the ANU doing Perl and C programming
on ways to search and classify DNA; I teach Irish Set Dancing; I ride,
rollerblade, ski and walk for exercise; I play computer, board and card
games, as well as roleplaying using the GURPS system; I also do wood turning
and woodwork at the ACT Woodcraft Guild; I live with my partner
Kate (currently doing her PhD). We have no children, no pets, few debts,
occasional arguments, more fun, and lots of stuff to do.
I won't try to list all the things I do here. You'll just have to keep on reading to find out. :-)
Have fun,
Paul
posted at: 16:20 | path: /personal | permanent link to this entry
Too Busy For Words - let's see if it's true...
A few things have finally moved me to create a blog.
One is reading the excellent Planet Linux Australia - the aggregator for Australian Linux bloggers. Few things inspire me more to get up and do something that to see a whole bunch of other people doing interesting stuff and talking about it. It makes me want to try to inspire other people, and add my voice to the community.
Another is the sheer quantity of ideas that I have. I'm not trying to puff myself up, but I've got to a stage where I just don't believe that some of the good ideas I've got should disappear off into the distant corners of my mind, to only be acted on in that mythical future where I have enough time to do everything I want to. It's too much to hope for that something I write will inspire someone else to actually get up and do something. But this is as good a way of getting in touch with people of like mind, or people who know more about the topic and know the solution to the problem I'm posing.
Further down the list is the desire to try to round out the body (perhaps somewhat literally) of bloggers. I seem to cross a lot of topics and be interested in a lot of fields - everything from woodwork to fractals to music mixing to Irish Set Dancing to programming. Everyone has their own little interests that they fear to mention at work, or at their social clubs, because of stereotypes and stigmas. Sometimes I think the best way to combat this is to talk about it - to stick it out in the open and say, "Well, what about it?".
And, perhaps lastly, to prove that nagging internal doubt wrong - that I don't have the patience or the energy or the time to keep a blog up-to- date. If not, then this really will be a blog that is Too Busy For Words.
Have fun,
Paul
posted at: 16:12 | path: /personal | permanent link to this entry
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