Mark Thomson

Finally got around to watching this the other day. I've avoided it, primarily because the bad taste MI2 left in my mouth. I couldn't stand the Tom Cruise love-in that was the second one, with its unnecessarily long slow motion sequences - ooh look at me, i'm tom, i'm so great! shudder... Thankfully the third installment is a return to form, and is...

Read More...

What's wrong with some people that they feel they have to go out and steal the gates and sections of fencing from a children's playground? I took the kids down to the local park on the weekend, and some scumbag has stolen the gates and pieces of steel fence out of the small children's playground, you know the one where you generally want...

Read More...

Our work move has degenerated into a sideshow - I keep waiting for the clown car to pull up outside the office and disgorge a collection of brightly colored loons. We've been planning for weeks, but Telstra has seen fit to turn our finely orchestrated plans into a mess of catastrophic proportions. They had two weeks to get the phones on, but decided...

Read More...

Quirky comedy film in the vein of those black Cohen Brother's comedies. I've heard it's similar to Fargo, although I don't remember that one well enough to have an opinion about whether its better or not. I actually quite enjoyed this one. It's not laugh out loud funny, although there are a couple of laughs, particularly when Robin William's character is trying to...

Read More...

Listed in the action section, with a good name cast, should be good right?? Surprisingly not really. It has flashes of good but mostly is confusing and not a lot of fun. The first hour is basically just exposition and a ton of characters. It's kind of like Pulp Fiction with different groups all spiralling towards the same goal, except their are so...

Read More...

McFarlane Toys, creators of the some of the coolest figures ever, have announced they're going to be doing figures for Halo 3. The proposed line up includes:Master ChiefBrute ChieftainJackal SniperGrunt 2-packCortanaThey're also planning on producing die cast figures of the Warthog, Brute Chopper, and Covenant Ghost. Check out the original announcement here. I know one little boy who's going to go apeshit when...

Read More...

I saw an article about backing up your blog on a Google Blog. Kudos to the author! I'm going to reproduce the important stuff here. I've been desperately searching for a way to backup my data. It's extremely irritating to lose it. Although this doesn't make it any easier to restore the data, at least you will have a copy of it. Perhaps...

Read More...

Urgh it's been a long weekend. I'm kind of glad to return to work. It's a battlefield at home with the kids behaviour at the moment. I know you have to be firm with them so they learn to behave, but it's difficult, because punishing them ironically means punishing yourself. They can't play video games, so you can't, they can't watch TV, so...

Read More...

I'd been told the new Zodiac movie is pretty good, so when I saw this older version at the store, I thought I'd give it a rent and learn up on this serial killer. As an informational movie, it's pretty bland. Sure the movie is well made, and the period locations/costumes look authentic, but it's kind of a movie about nothing. Since we...

Read More...

Just about crapped my pants today! Standing on the patio, looking to hang up some paper mache creation that we'd been making with Beeb, when I happen to glance down, and there's a freakin long brown whip snake angling out from under the leaves, up onto the patio, very close to my feet. I've since been told the correct thing to do is...

Read More...

I can't understand my children at the moment. They're a mystery unto me - a bit like women. For some reason they're both grossly misbehaving at school at the moment. Micky's lying like crazy as usual, but we caught her out the other night when her report arrived. She's slacking off as usual. It's disappointing, since she's not a stupid child, but tiring...

Read More...

Wow really good film. I really enjoyed this. It's b-grade sci-fi, but of the highest quality. Definitely not deserving of the negative reviews it had in the press. The story was good, the acting good, effects are impressive, and the location's visually interesting. I'd seen the original MTV cartoon, but found the story frequently confusing. The movie made a lot more sense than...

Read More...

Finally found our first koala on the property in six months. We've occasionally heard them grunting as they "get it on" at nighttime, but we haven't seen one out during the day since we've been here.Beeb found it running across the orchard where it bolted up a tree, and then decided it needed a bit of a rest. He says it moved quite...

Read More...

I didn't bother rushing to the theatre to see this one. I'd heard all the troubling reports during its production, read the reviews after it came out, and relevated it to DVD Rental status. Surprisingly it wasn't too bad. The trailer looked good, and consequently the movie looked good, some good action sequences and effects, but it suffers from too much to do...

Read More...

I've never played the game, but the movie is pretty creepy. I have to confess I'd like to play the game now, after seeing the movie. The atmosphere of the game is maintained pretty well, something that was lacking in Doom - it never felt frightening like this one does. This is probably one of the better video game adaptations I've seen done....

Read More...

Seriously, this movie is a piece of crap. Don't bother renting it. The story is a confusing mish mash of elements lifted from other movies, with story threads that go no where, do nothing, and have no real bearing on the movie. The back of the box shows only effects shots to make it look exciting, but they are really nothing that special,...

Read More...

Watched this the other night on DVD. Pretty good film - mind you anything with Denzel Washington in it is bound to be good. He's usually a guaranteed safe bet when selecting films to watch - bit like Morgan Freeman.The film stylistically feels like Tony Scott's other movies. The story is quite good, and hints are dropped throughout the film that things aren't...

Read More...