Mark Thomson

Funnier than expected, and most of the laughs coming from Will Ferrell's character. When he's switched on he's hilarious, but not always - Stranger Than Fiction being a recent example. The story is a sports-comedy in similar vein to Dodgeball - sports film about a ridiculous sport - and although the ending is pretty predictable, it's more about what happens along the way that makes it funny. The uncomfortable awkwardness of two men skating together, and having to do manuevers that would be sexually threatening was played to good comedic effect. It's light good fun, so I'd recommend it if you need a laugh.

Plot Synopsis:

Chazz Michael Michaels and Jimmy MacElroy are rival mens figure skaters. At the Winter Olympics they tie for the gold medal, but after fighting on the podium, are stripped of their medals and banned from ever competing in skating again.

Jimmy is abandoned by his rich adoptive father, who only loved him when he was winning medals. Jimmy works in a skating equipment shop. Chazz hits the bottle, and skates drunk in a children's ice show. Jimmy's stalker find him, and tells him that he's found a loophole that will let Jimmy compete again: if he finds a partner, he can skate in pairs competition.

Jimmy contacts his old coach, and eventually ends up with Chazz. The coach trys to get them to resolve their differences and work as a team, and slowly they do. He tries to teach the boys his custom move - the Iron Lotus; a move so dangerous, that a Korean skater beheaded his partner trying to do the move.

Stranz and Fairchild Van Waldenberg find out they will be competing against them, and plot to undermine them. The manipulate their sister, Katie, into spying on Chazz and Jimmy. Katie and Jimmy develop an attraction and go out. When Fairchild finds out she pressures Katie to break them up by sleeping with Chazz. Katie attends Chazz's sex-addicts meeting, and lures him back to her hotel room. She can't go through with it, and doesn't sleep with Chazz, but not before Jimmy arrives and mistakenly thinks she has.

To ensure that they can't compete, Stranz abducts Chazz on his way to the games, and ties him up. Chazz manages to escape, and Stranz chases him on skates all the way to the Games Arena. Fairchild handcuffs Jimmy to a pipe in the toilets, and he only manages to escape by chewing his way through the contents of the mens-room garbage bin!

Chazz (Will Ferrell) and Jimmy (Jon Heder) make up, and begin their sci-fi themed routine. Fairchild, seeing the two doing extremely well, throws some of the pearls she wore in her routine onto the ice. Chazz shatters his ankle on one, and so cannot perform the Iron Lotus, which requires that one partner throw the other into the air. Jimmy then offers to switch parts with him. Never having practiced the other part, Jimmy runs the risk of killing Chazz. But confident in their new friendship, the two decide to try to perform the Iron Lotus.

As the stadium watches in fascination and fear, Jimmy swings Chazz by the ankle, bouncing Chazz's face close to the ice and then throwing him high into the air after several revolutions. As Chazz does a backflip above, Jimmy begins a "butterfly" move underneath. Jimmy's free leg comes so close to Chazz, Jimmy's blade slices off some of Chazz's neck stubble. The Iron Lotus is a success, and Jimmy and Chazz win the competition, thus reclaiming their gold medals.

Jimmy makes up with Katie, and Chazz shows Jimmy a tattoo that he had done which symbolizes that he will never again compete alone, for he has a new partner: Jimmy. Stranz is arrested for his shooting of the Mascot while pursuing Chazz, and he fingers Fairchild as the mastermind of the plot. They are both taken into custody. Jimmy and Chazz receive their gold medals, and reveal rockets in their skates that propel them out of the stadium and into the sky, where they create a new constellation that is reminiscent of one of their first awkward moves, a crotch-grab, by shooting fire into the night sky.

Pretty much a remake of Rear Window, it seems to be unable to decide if it's a teen romance comedy or a thriller. Little happening but teen romance, comedy, and boredom intermixed with the occasional is he/isn't he a killer plot, until the latest 30 minutes when it kicks into full-on thriller mode and goes for it. Shia is likeable as always, and his female co-star provides the eye-candy, but overall a fairly pedestrian thriller. I don't think I'd have any problems letting my kids watch it. It's just not that scary.

Plot Synopsis:

Kale and his father are in an accident after a fishing trip. His father is killed, but he survives. Later, after he's recovered, he punches out his Spanish teacher for making an off-hand remark about his father. Kale is placed under house arrest for the summer and has to wear an ankle monitoring bracelet that confines him to a 100 yard radius around his house. He spies on his neighbors with the help of his friend, Ronnie, and new neighbor, Ashley, and uncovers that there are a lot of similarities between his neighbor, Mr. Turner, and an unknown suspect involved in a string of local disappearances of women.

Kale sends Ronnie to investigate Turner’s house with a video camera but he gets trapped inside. When Kale runs out to help him the police are summoned thus making him look mentally instable after the police see there is nothing suspicious to Turner’s story. Kale’s mother, Julie goes over to plead to Turner to not press charges on Kale. However, when Ronnie returns (he had escaped the house and hidden in Kale’s closet) they view the video footage which shows a woman’s corpse behind a grating in the floor.

Mr. Turner is indeed the serial murder; his house had been expanded on wherein he stores their rotting corpses. Turner attacks Julie and ties her up in his basement, he then goes to Kale’s house and knocks out Ronnie. Kale sees him and tries to run out of the house past the perimeter to summon the police but Turner punches him out before he reaches it. Ashley comes over and rescues Kale and they both jump off the roof into her pool which summons the police. Kale searches Turner’s house and finds a dissection room, a lot of corpses, his mom, and then Turner. A fight entails where Julie stabs Turner in the leg and Kale impales him with garden shears. Julie and Kale leave the house where more cops have arrived after there was no response from the first unit sent: Turner killed the cop. As an award, Kale is released from house arrest and they all live happily ever after.

The house is progressing and we've finally got most of the details hammered out. Rob's just got some fine details to sort out this week, septic, air conditioning, and some minor plan changes to do, and we're on our way to a preliminary contract. There's been a few price shocks (just about needed the paramedic's shock paddles when I got the quote for the water tanks, pumps, etc... 11k for two large plastic containers - what a ripoff!) They've already missed adding in a lot of the changes we requested to the plans, so we've had to go through them again and mark them on the plan ourselves.

The company that's building on the site next door is pissing me off too. They keep dumping their stuff all over our land - we've got piles of rock, porta-loo, piles of piping, metal sheeting, guttering, not to mention their rubbish and waste. And to top it off they've cracked and sunken the driveway from having their heavy trucks driving up our accessway. I've been playing phone tag for the last few weeks with these morons - got a human being today who told me they know nothing about the development. I'm going to have to start playing hard-ball with these guys soon...

UPDATE: Bad news everyone! Those asinine morons at Box have removed the trailer from You Tube. I guess they don't want publicity to sell their DVD's. Go figure! Till then check it out here.
Ezy have a page up for it here, but no release date yet.

Yay Futurama's back! Can't wait for this to come out. No word yet on when it's released in Oz.

Visually it's amazing, story-wise it's a mess. Nothing much happens for awhile, then a series of random events occur causing the heroes to spiral into disaster, and then it ends leaving you going 'meh! - what was the point of that??.' I don't know whether they actually picked up a looney, or whether the crew just went nuts? They make some comments about staring into the sun and having trippy experiences, so who knows? It cribs it's story from other flicks, shades of 2010, Event Horizon, Armageddon and Supernova. It's a shame, because it does look fantastic, and like nothing else. Sometimes it's a little disorientating and hard to understand where events are taking place, particularly with the strange layout of the Icarus, but that could be intentional. The sun effects are beautifully handled. Worth a look if your interested in sci-fi, but as far as replay value, I'll give it a miss. It's going into my so-so file along with Red Planet, Contact, Mission to Mars.

Plot Synopsis:

The Icarus II has been sent on a journey to reignite the sun using an immense stellar bomb. The previous ship Icarus I went missing under mysterious circumstances. On the way to the sun, Icarus II discovers the whereabouts of Icarus I. At Capa’s suggestion, they head towards it to retrieve its payload, reasoning that two payloads would give them twice the chance of completing their mission.

In readjusting their course, they inflict damage to their shields, and Captain Kaneda is killed repairing them, but the oxygen garden is destroyed in the process. Unbeknownst to everyone, Pinbacker, the captain of the Icarus I, has gone made and has been living alone on the ship communing with the sun and waiting for it to die. When the Icarus II docks with Icarus I (now also in order to retrieve its supply of oxygen), Pinbacker gets onto the Icarus II and starts to sabotage it like he did his own ship to prevent either from saving the sun.

Pinbacker begins killing the crew of the Icarus I, but Capa and Cassie escape and ride the payload into the sun to ensure the mission succeeds. Everyone dies, but the sun is reignited for the people of Earth.

Check out this cool animated advert featuring a hand drawn characters adventures, and the animator intervening to help the character through his or her day.

I still remember seeing the first part of the trilogy - I missed out on seeing it at the movies with the family, and had to wait for it to come out on VHS. Still it was a fantastic movie, and even today there's never been another film like it. The story line is so cleverly thought out and meticulously constructed, and the effects still hold up well. The DTS soundtrack on the DVD release is also awesome, with some good surround sound. Buy the trilogy set - it's awesome!

Plot Synopsis:

Marty McFly is an average teenager living in Hill Valley, California. On the morning of October 25, 1985, his eccentric friend, scientist Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown, calls him, asking to meet him at 1:15 a.m. After school that day, a woman approaches Marty and his girlfriend Jennifer, asking for donations to save the town's clock tower which has not run since it was struck by lightning thirty years previous. When he gets home Marty sees the family car wrecked in the driveway and his neurotic father George being bullied by his supervisor Biff Tannen. That night at dinner, Marty's mother Lorraine recounts how she and George first met when her father hit George with a car.

That night, Marty meets the Doc as planned in the parking lot of Twin Pines Mall. Doc shows him a Delorean DMC-12 which he has modified into a time machine, explaining that it requires 1.21 gigawatts of power, generated by plutonium, and that the car must be traveling at eighty-eight miles per hour to travel through time. Doc successfully demonstrates the vehicle by transporting his dog Einstein 1 minute intno the future. Doc shows Marty how to operate the vehicle, and enters in November 5, 1955 as the target date, explaining that this was the day he conceived of the flux capacitor, which is "what makes time travel possible."

Before Doc can depart for his planned trip twenty-five years into the future, the Libyan terrorists he stole his plutonium from show up in a Volkswagen van and shoot him dead. Marty jumps in the Delorean and is pursued until he hits eighty-eight miles per hour and is instantanously transported into the year 1955. He destroys a pine tree while escaping from Peabody's pine plantation. (This leads to the mall being renamed Lone Pine Mall when he returns later).

The car runs out of fuel shortly after his arrival, so Marty abandons it and, after pushing the car to a secluded spot, makes his way into town, finding that the town square now reflects the popular culture of the 1950s and that his own parents are teenagers themselves. Biff is also a teenager and acts as a school bully, tyrannizing the young George.

In the critical moment when George was about to be hit by Lorraine's father's car, Marty saves his father by taking the hit himself. Lorraine becomes infatuated with him, but Marty is disturbed by her sexual advances and leaves to track down the Doc. After managing to convince the scientist that he is from the future, Doc tells him that, aside from plutonium, the only possible source of enough power to send Marty back to 1985 is a bolt of lightning. Since Marty knows the lightning strike to the clock tower will happen the following Saturday, Doc concocts a way to harness the bolt's power.

More pressingly, Doc deduces that Marty has prevented his parents from meeting. Since Marty will not exist unless his parents fall in love, he finds that he is in danger of being erased from time. After several failed attempts, Marty eventually works out a plan to have George "rescue" Lorraine from Marty's advances on the night of a school dance. Biff shows up and attacks the couple, but George manages to defend Lorraine, knocking Biff out with a single punch. Lorraine and George return to the dance together where they kiss for the first time, ensuring Marty's existence. Doc, meanwhile, has used cables to connect the clock tower to two lamp posts, which he plans to have Marty drive under in the Delorean, now sporting a lightning rod, at eighty-eight miles per hour the moment the lightning strikes.

Before Marty can leave, Doc finds a letter in his coat pocket that Marty had written, warning him about his future assassination by the Libyans. Doc rips up the letter without reading it, knowing the dangers of learning about the future. Marty adjusts the time machine to take him back ten minutes early so he can warn Doc right before he is killed. Upon his arrival in 1985, Marty sees the Libyans shoot Doc again, but Doc then unzips his radiation suit to reveal a bulletproof vest. He pulls out Marty's letter from 1955, which he had taped back together.

The next morning, Marty finds his family has been changed for the better. Most notably, George has become self-confident and is no longer bullied by Biff. Just as Jennifer and Marty reunite, Doc arrives from the year 2015, appearing frantic about a problem with the couple's future children. Marty and Jennifer climb aboard the Delorean and, aided by the future technology, the car flies away into the sky.

Usually Part 2 isn't a favourite with most people, but I like the complexity of it. Lots more time travel, technology, and general mind-bending-ness appeals to my inner geek. The effects are an impressive leap beyond the previous installment, and the different versions of Hill Valley are very well done. It's interesting to see the town evolve through the different time periods. Also, the actors playing different characters is well done - although Michael J Fox playing his daughter is disturbing. Revisiting 1955 is cleverly done, with previous events shown again from different perspectives, with other versions of characters interacting within it. An excellent installment to the series.

Plot Synopsis:

Marty has returned home from 1955 to find his future improved. He meets with Jennifer, but is interrupted when Doc Brown returns from the future in a modified Delorean. It no longer relies on nuclear power, running instead on rubbish and the Mr Fusion power generator. Doc tells Marty he has to come back to the future because somethings wrong with his kids. He tells her to bring Jennifer with them. They leave in the Delorean, and it flies away into the future (Doc has also had the car hover-converted). Biff comes outside and see's the car leave for the future.

Marty, Doc and Jennifer arrive in 2015. Doc tranquilizes Jennifer, who is not necessary for his plan, explaining that he brought her along only because she saw the time machine. Doc explains that Marty's son is about to be approached by Griff Tannen, Biff's grandson, and his gang, who will ask him to take part in a robbery. According to Doc, this event leads to the ruin of the entire McFly family. Marty replaces his son and tells Griff he will not join the robbery, leading to a hoverboard chase that damages the nearby courthouse, and causes Griff and his gang to be arrested. This stops the robbery from ever taking place.

Learning the Cubs have won the World Series, Marty purchases a sports almanac covering all sports statistics from 1950 to 2000, so he can bet on future games with certainty and become wealthy. Doc discovers the almanac and throws it away, telling Marty that he did not invent time travel for financial gain. Old Biff overhears the conversation about the almanac and the time machine, and having seen the Delorean before in 1985 figures out what's going on.

Jennifer, still tranquilized, is found by the police, mistaken for her future self after thumbprint identification, and taken to her future home. Hiding in a closet, she witnesses the Marty of 2015 being fired from his job when his boss catches him in an illegal scheme that a colleague (formerly a schoolmate) goaded him into joining. Doc finds Jennifer sneaking her out of the house after she briefly meets her future self, causing both to faint in shock.

While Doc is rescuing Jennifer, the old-aged Biff of 2015 recovers the discarded sports almanac and steals the Delorean. He returns the car to 2015 just as Marty and Doc prepare to leave for their own time. Upon arrival in 1985, Marty and Doc find that Hill Valley has become a crime-ridden slum lorded over by a middle-aged Biff, who is now immeasurably rich and powerful and married to Marty's widowed mother, Lorraine. Doc deduces that the Biff of 2015 must have given the almanac to his younger self sometime in the past. Marty confronts Biff and finds out that he received the almanac on November 12, 1955 from a mysterious old man. Biff then tries to kill Marty, being forewarned by Old Biff that a kid might come looking for the book one day. With the help of Doc, Marty escapes Biff's Pleasure Palace.

Doc later speculates that this date could be a point that has a special significance to the space-time continuum, or that it "might be a huge coincidence." Marty and Doc travel back to 1955 to prevent the corrupted 1985 from happening. Marty eventually manages to steal the almanac from the 1955 Biff, while trying to avoid running into the other versions of himself and Doc in 1955.

When he is no longer in any danger of having it taken by Biff, Marty burns the almanac, restoring history to its proper course. As Doc attempts to land the Delorean, the car is struck by lightning, and it time travels in error. It is sent back to 1885 due to a malfunction in the time circuits.

A few seconds later a Western Union delivery man appears with a letter, which he explains was given to them seventy years ago with the explicit instructions that it be delivered to Marty "at this exact location, at this exact minute, November 12, 1955." Marty tears open the letter, which is from Doc, explaining that he is now trapped in 1885.

Marty locates the Doc of 1955, who is at the clock tower sending Marty back to 1985. After the time machine vanishes, Marty then appears to Doc, who faints when he sees that Marty has come "back from the future". Marty tries to revive Doc as the text TO BE CONCLUDED appears.

This is followed by a teaser to Back to the Future Part 3.

Probably not my absolute favourite of the installments, but it's still a fun installment. I find the love story tends to slow the pace down a bit, especially after the frenetic pace of the previous part. But the continuity is good tying up loose ends while still retaining links to Hill Valley, the McFly's vs Tannen's etc, and the Wild West setting makes for something different. The effects have improved, although I think the effects throughout the trilogy still hold up pretty well. I think the reliance on practical effects at the time really helped with creating effects that look realistic, hence they still look good and not dated. A fitting end to the trilogy - and hey if it still leaves people wanting more, then they must be doing something right.

The extras disc is a smattering of different material, some of it already available on the individual movie discs, but it's still good to have it for completeness. Some of the material on the extras does look very dated though - especially some of the tv documentaries. The best material is the making-of documentaries.

Overall, the trilogy boxed set is well worth having, and a must have set of movies for any movie fan.

Plot Synopsis:

At the end of the last installment, the Delorean was struck by lightning in 1955 and vanished, leaving Marty stranded in 1955. He receives a letter from Doc Brown, sent in 1885. With the help of 50's Doc, he retrieves the time machine and its restored to working order. They discover that the Doc was killed in the Old West by Buford 'Mad Dog' Tannen, Biff's ancestor.

Marty travels back to 1885 to rescue Doc Brown. The Delorean is damaged by indians upon arrival, and is left stranded without fuel. Marty encounters his ancestors, and eventually locates the Doc, who has set himself up as a blacksmith in the fledgling town. Buford has a disagreement with Doc, who refuses to pay Tannen his money. Marty aggravates things further by referring to Tannen as 'Mad Dog'. Buford vows revenge on Doc Brown.

The Doc and Marty inadvertently save Clara Clayton from falling into the future Clayton's Gorge, and Doc is immediately smitten with her. They embark on a burgeoning romance, while Marty is trying to get the Doc to focus on returning home before he is killed by Tannen. When 'Mad Dog' and his thugs rough up Clara and the Doc at the town dance, Marty intervenes and winds up challenging Buford to a shootout in front of the saloon the next day.

Marty convinces the Doc that he has to leave Clara and return to the future. Doc breaks off the romance, but ends up in the town saloon. When Marty finds him in the morning, he's drunk after raving about the future to the bar-folk. While trying to sober him up, Buford arrives for his duel. Marty tries to escape, but gets called out. Buford guns him down, but Marty survives, having used the door of the potbelly stove as body-armor. He defeats Buford, and leaves him face down in the dung cart.

Marty and the Doc steal a train, and use it to push the Delorean up the track to 88 mph. Clara finds them, and while rescuing her from the exploding train, Doc Brown is left behind. The Delorean returns to the future, where it is destroyed by an oncoming freight train.

Marty finds Hill Valley restored to it's post Part 2 state, and picks up Jennifer at her house. He's challenged to a drag race with Needles from Part 2, but chooses not to respond to 'chicken', and avoids the car wreck that would have cost him his future music career. Later back at the tracks, sifting through the wreckage of the Delorean, the Doc arrives with Clara in a huge steam train-converted time machine. He came to say goodbye - he takes Einstein, and his children Jules and Verne, back to the past.

We're finally settling into our new digs. One thing's for sure we can't complain about the lack of space anymore. Everyone seems a lot happier and more relaxed - less like caged animals. I think it's going to be good for us being out of the tiny little shed. I don't want to sound ungrateful though, because our inlaws were very generous to let us stay in there for so long, rent free. But the lack of personal space and privacy was starting to cause far too many fights, and moodiness. We were all starting to think we'd made a big mistake moving here, and wanted to go home. It's much better now. I can't wait till we can get our own house built.

We're still spending the weekends clearing the gully on the property. Rob reckons we're over the halfway mark finally, which is a huge relief. It's been a massive undertaking, not helped by the excessive heat and swarms of flies. I found a nest with duck eggs in it - Rob had inadvertently cleared the long grass from around it, but somehow missed standing in the nest, so it was sitting on the bare cleared ground. I don't think the parent ducks were too impressed, so we covered it back up with some mounds of grass. Mother duck's been sitting on them, so hopefully we'll get some ducklings soon. They're a lot more welcome than the snakes - Rob found a big length of shed snakeskin in the gully. That was enough to send her packing for the day. I took it home for Bay to have a look it and take to school. I wasn't too happy when he came in, and draped it over my shoulders while i was working. At least it didn't have the snake in it.

The Unix utility dd is a disk copying utility that can be used from the command line to create a disk image. It can make a bit copy of the drive it's copying. If you have a drive that spins up, but does not mount because of damage, you can use the following:

dd bs=512 if=/dev/disk1 of=/some_dir/image.dmg conv=noerror,sync

Using the switch noerror allows the copy to ignore the errors, and adding mode sync fills the image with nulls at that point.

The bs=512 selects the block size (in this case 512), and if=/dev/disk1 is the Unix path to the actual disk device. Make sure the chosen directory (some_dir) has enough space free to take the entire disk image. You will end up with a disk image the size of the source drive's maximum capacity.