Comments for iestyn.net

Comment on Mini-review: Threads (1984) by Iestyn

Iestyn — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:38:18 +0000

@matt: I remember seeing that yearrrrrs ago!

Comment on Mini-review: Threads (1984) by Iestyn

Iestyn — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:36:01 +0000

@dave: I was 6 when it was released, so I was a bit too young to comprehend the effects of thermonuclear war. I think that’s probably a good thing. Watching it now means I have the best of both worlds: It’s made me even more scared of war kicking off, and yet i’m old enough to rationalise it and not have reoccurring nightmares of dying a long, painful death from radiation poisoning..

I remember my dad telling me that we’d be hit by several blasts, as there were a number of strategic targets nearby. Didcot, Swindon, a few RAF and military bases.. of course, it depends whether KT nukes were used. If they were we might just die after a few weeks..

There’s an interesting article on Wikipedia about Square Leg, which shows this map of “a reasonably realistic scenario”:

Comment on Mini-review: The Cottage (2008) by zenbullets

zenbullets — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:54:51 +0000

I’m betting that was Nik. The lesson here: ignore Nik.

Comment on Mini-review: Threads (1984) by zenbullets

zenbullets — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:48:50 +0000

Just remembered, I did a Flash anim based on the “Protect and Survive” leaflet, long, long time ago. So old it’s embarrassing to link to, but I’m going to anyway.

Dave - Newhaven port looks like a post-apocalyptic wilderness already. Do you really think someone would waste a nuke on it? Nuke’s can’t come too cheap.

Comment on Mini-review: Threads (1984) by Dave Phelan-Player

Dave Phelan-Player — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 23:26:42 +0000

Yezzer, you’re probably too young to have seen this on the beeb, but it’s probably a large part of why all the forty-somethings or old thirty-somethings you know are shit-scared of anything kicking off with Russia. Or China. Or India. Or Pakistan. Or Israel, who of course don’t have *any* nukes, no sirree.

We are toast the moment any President Bush, Putin or Musharaff gets a first strike in. I used to know all the first and second-strike targets round my home town, the ones that meant Protect and Survive was just BS for anyone in the 10km airburst blast radius. Did you? Do you?

For the record: Shoreham Power Station, Shoreham docks, Newhaven port.

Comment on Mini-review: Threads (1984) by Iestyn

Iestyn — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:00:50 +0000

It seems like it frightened a generation. If I had seen this when I was younger, I think I’d have been absolutely terrified.

Becca was saying they were made to watch it at school! That’s just screwed up.. but.. also I can kinda see why.

Comment on Mini-review: Batman: The Dark Knight (2008) by Iestyn

Iestyn — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:58:45 +0000

I’m not a huge comic fan, so I’ve completely missed out on anything relating to that. I saw a few of the TV episodes a long, long time ago, but that’s it.

Dark Knight was - i guess - the second best Batman film, as the ones previous to Batman Begins.. sucked.

I just wanted to see an enjoyable film.. and to me, it just wasn’t that much fun

Comment on Mini-review: Batman: The Dark Knight (2008) by zenbullets

zenbullets — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:53:25 +0000

I’m not going to get into this one, except to say: “WRONG, WRONG, WRONG”.

Finally someone gets the character right, and not just Batman, but Lucius Fox, Harvey Dent, Alfred, Joker and (particularly) Gordon. Spot on. The best Batman stories have always been the police procedurals, the ones where we see how a city copes with something as stupid as a man in a bat costume running around (Year One, The Dark Knight Returns, The Long Halloween), and this did it perfectly.

Surely you wouldn’t argue that any of the Burton/Schumaker’s were any better than this?

Comment on Mini-review: Threads (1984) by zenbullets

zenbullets — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:44:29 +0000

They don’t make ‘em like they used to. This scared the hell out of me as a kid. But then, in the Thatcher years, even Grange Hill was a nightmarish social distopia.

Comment on Mini-review: WALL-E (2008) by zenbullets

zenbullets — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:40:07 +0000

Yeah, it looked great, beautiful design, beautiful animation, touching story, etc., but there was one huge problem - it’s not a kids film. I tried this with Rudy and it held his attention for a matter of minutes, compared to, say, Nemo, Robots or Surfs Up, which he watches for hours without taking his eyes off.

Same went for Ratatouille. Pixar have lost sight of their demographic, they are making films for adults, but packaging them as kids films. Which makes for an uneasy compromise. Which was why I thought Wall-E was ultimately a failure, because it fell between two stools - it was too simple to be an adult film (but we forgive it because it’s a kids film right), and too bleak to be a kids film.

Doesn’t Pixar have the balls to make an arthouse film? Or won’t the accountants let them?