October 28th, 2005 James
Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story Being based on Family Guy you should know what you’re in for. If you don’t, Family Guy is possibly the most un-politically correct series on T.V. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, well perhaps it is in some places, but generally it’s a piss-take on anything and everything. And it works! The movie is pretty hilarious, with its no holds barred humour from the outset. Almost always films that go straight to video, in my opinion are a laughable waste of time. However, I can guess the reasons for this going straight to video, being an uproar if it was in the cinemas and a likely chance of it not even being shown in cinemas. However, depending on your taste of humour and your views on the series, I’d say this is worth a shot.
3.5 starfish.
The Corpse Bride The Burton/Depp combination is back again. The Corpse Bride Uses the same animation techniques as the Nightmare Before Christmas, not to mention the same Director, this film has a whole host of celebrity goodness doing the voice acting. Christopher Lee is superb as the sort of evil looking priest (What? You expected him to be a goodie character?!), Johnny Depp plays a strange shrinking-violet and hilariously clumsy lead, which makes a change from his latest roles. You’ll also be priveleged -gets coat- to hear that Joanna Lumley also lends her posh accent.
I thoroughly recommend this film, in fact even if it is different to The Nightmare Before Christmas, I probably prefer this one. On a tangent, I always seem to see the same sort of artistic curly shapes in Tim Burton films, can’t really explain it.
4 Starfish
Oh! And the Corpse Bride is quite hot and before you condemn me for saying that, I know she’s made out of plastic, not real AND corpsified, thankfully I wasn’t the first to suggest it 
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October 17th, 2005 James
Serenity Wow! What a film! Tom, Geffy and I went off to York to see it last Wednesday.
If you’re a fan of Firefly, then you’ve probably already seen it, but heck, go watch it again! I like looking forward to a film for a while, looking at the trailers with baited anticipation and not being let down by the film when I actually see it. OK, so it’s not gonna win any Oscars, but as far as film enjoyment goes, it’s great.
For those people in the dark at this point, Firefly is a series created by Joss Whedon (Who made a little series called Buffy). Yeah it was cut at its high point, in its very first series, with many questions gone unanswered, but there’s no need to turn away laughing because you agree with fat cat TV execs! They wanted something that was as popular and universal as Buffy, but like many hyped up releases, they felt they had to cut it to prevent losses. After the series was cut there was already a large fan following who expressed their displeasure and signed a large petition to get it back. Unfortunately, it was no good until now. This film was all about the fans. Whedon probably wouldn’t have made it if there hadn’t been so many fans that were so supportive, though it was his dream to make it (Take that, Buffy! Umm not too much because you do kick vampire ass and you’re pretty hot!). Anyway you can see the same director flair that you saw in Buffy in Firefly and Serenity, the sort of unseriousness and joke-making in the face of almost certain disaster. Imagine that and a sort of cross sci-fi western in space. Forget Star Wars(for a second and then re-realise that it’s amazing), this is about real people with similar non-perfect situations that you can relate to. My advice is that if you’re not familiar with Firefly or Serenity, certainly take the risk of watching an episode of Firefly, preferrably the pilot episode. They’re shown a fair bit on the Sci-Fi channel, you can buy the DVD, or I guess I could turn a blind eye to ‘alternative’ methods of obtaining the series, so long as you at least try it! If you like, then Serenity is a must! “Special” thanks to Tom for introducing me to Firefly and buying me the DVD boxed set.
A stunning 4 starfish out of 5!
Wallace and Gromit, having seen the 2 previous short films I’m pretty familiar and knew what to expect, but was still pleasantly surprised with the quality of animation and use of humour. It’s really a shame that not more animators will take the plasticine-like animation on seriously as this film shows what can be done with it. Yeah, it’s probably not going to do very well in the states, I guess some of the humour could be called typically British.
I’m going to have to chop a starfish for this rating (but that’s ok, their legs grow back!)
3.5 starfish out of 5!
Oh and I could do a whole review on Scarborough’s ‘lovely’ Hollywood Plaza cinema, but I’ll save you all from my moaning about it. But it really is terrible.
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October 11th, 2005 James
Thought I’d better update this as I haven’t in a while, so to bring everyone back up to speed with my life I’ll start with the meaning of the title. My housemates and I live above a restaurant which we visited a few days ago for a meal. Chris went with Alice, Matt went with Laura, Tom went with Joanna, Luke went with Faith leaving the remaining flatmates; Geffy and I, who unfortunately lack a female partner. So we weren’t too enthusiastic about going. Needless to say we did go though and on Friday evening off we set: down the stairs leading to our front door, out of the front door, turn left and take the next door on the left. The Green Lizard, which boasts envious remarks on blackboards facing the window, like the “Home of the Baked Crab” awaited us. We were understandably hungry and thirsty from our long trek, so we got drinks and some pretty good food. Enviously, Matt plucked up the courage to order the baked crab, for which the restaurant is famous for. Unfortunately it was a bit too expensive for my meager allowances for the night, so I went with the cheaper steak pie. Due to them forgetting my side dish and after repeated attempts to attract attention the unability to order a replacement drink I cannot award them with full marks. The opportunity of sharing other people’s side dishes made up for that slightly. But anyway, I thought it was an ok meal, but nowhere near as good as the time before when I went there. However, the next day it was like the soul of the Green Lizard sensed my dissatisfaction with my meal the previous evening and wanted to punish me! No, I wasn’t ill at all, I was fine. However multiple times throughout Saturday I had to answer the door to people coming in, walking right through the door past me, wondering why our landing, which is full of steps didn’t look like a restaurant. I would feel that the people were even more stupid (more so than a large window next to our door, with a visible entrance to the restaurant door) because of the fact that they had to ring a doorbell to gain access to the would be restaurant that is our home. However, according to Luke there does exist in faraway places, restaurants with which you have to ring a doorbell to gain access. Ok fine, but it does suck that I live closest to the door and had to run down 2 flights of stairs around 3 times that day only to redirect people to the restaurant next door. One guy actually said “Oh!…Isn’t this the home of the baked crab?” Come on people, do I look like a baked crab?!!!! Really?!!! I wish I had said that to him now…
In other Yoghurt news: My individual presentation didn’t go too badly today, glad it’s over though, I do so hate presentations.
I owe Tesco an apology from “The Lord of the Chopsticks: The Fellowship of the Chopstick” post when I named and shamed it for not providing me with a replacement plate. I have recently been handed a ceramic plate from Tom which he claims to have bought from Tesco. Well, that’s not what the lady I asked had said. In fact, she said more to the effect of “We only sell those paper plates”. In fact, I think she owes me an apology more than I owe it to Tesco
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