Caught Public Enemies on Tuesday which, while fantastically acted by all (especially Depp) and boasting great art and production designs, fell short on being a great film due to a lack of an interesting plot, next to no character development and the digital photography which while very cool and created some interesting shots, looked like a home movie in many other scenes and really took you out of the experience.

I was hoping for more expansion on the period and the settings, especially how Dillinger’s actions helped in the formation of the FBI and the bureaucracy surrounding it and the crime scene, but instead focused more on Dillinger going to one place, getting into a firefight, and then moving on to the next until more gunfights until he’s eventually shot.

Michael Mann’s a great filmmaker, one of my favourites in a way and as much as I enjoyed this film, it just felt empty and severely lacking afterwards.

Afterwards, returning to my car, it wasn’t quick to figure out that I had left my car lights on and my cellphone at home. But luckily knew someone working who could give me a jumpstart. Gotta stop doing that.

Also keep meaning to check out District 9 this week as well. Can’t escape the buzz surrounding it (not that I’m expecting it to be bad) and aside from Sunshine (which I love to death), it’s been years since there’s been a really, really good sci-fi film since Minority Report. Probably check it out tomorrow.

In the meantime, there’s this brilliant special article at New Scientist about the many different theoretical dimensions, leading up to string theory (which gets to be too much for me sometimes) and is a good change from dark matter, which New Scientist has been pretty hung up on recently. Mind fuckery to be read here.

Rejoice! As Depressing Comic Week returns to Cyanide and Happiness. {previous weeks here and here).

Laugh! As a man locked out of his house is forced to break back in while dressed up with a sword and ammo belt for a fancy dressed party get the armed offenders squad called out on him. [article]

Amaze! As you read the background of current music obsession, the rapper known as Cage (Chris Palko). Either through his wiki page, this feature article or this interview.

Enjoy! The website of the awesomeness that is Beck. The man has been posting some brilliant stuff, ranging from videos to interviews and all should see. [beck.com]

Just a teaser and not much too it, but damn I’m excited. Announced this year, began filming only a month ago, teasers already out and it’ll be released less than a year away. Christopher Nolan is efficient if not brilliant. (He’s totally brilliant).

Still pretty tired and have to wake up early in the morning so keeping this even briefer.

Cracked.com is great. This new post Clippy Finally Messes With the Wrong Word Doc is pretty amusing.

So is this of a Man Glued to Toilet Seat.

New Scientist presents the Mystery of the Missing Mini-Galaxies and my mind went a little missing reading it.

And finally a very cool Lego animated video tribute to the 8-bit games of yesteryears. Cheers to Fin for the awesomeness there.

Good ol’ VG Cats. Now useless at updating regularly, but ever now and again you get treated to some fried gold.

Still fairly tired from the weekend out so this’ll probably be brief.

Caught the 3D Avatar preview and I gotta say, it was pretty damn awesome. Well worth the hype and I so can’t wait to see it in full at the end of the year.

Also watched Inglourious Basterds and that was most enjoyable for the most of it. Friends definitely liked it more than me, I just wish Mike Myers didn’t have to be in it, or at least wish he had less screen time and a non speaking role.

Other damn fine movies watched this week were Coraline which was gorgeous and wonderfully terrifying, check it out and in 3D if you can. Ip Man was a brilliant martial arts bio-pic, think those kind of films like Walk the Line and Ray, but instead of music, it’s kick-ass baddassery. Also, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People was surprisingly good, but not great… watched some other films as well, but too tired to remember them anymore.

Was hoping to see the first trailer for Christopher Nolan’s new film Inception in front of Inglourious Basterds, but I guess non-US countries or New Zealand at least, doesn’t get that pleasure. Strangely not online yet, but apparently it will in a few days time. Found myself enjoying the simple nothingness of the official website for now.

Right, enough yabbering, gonna check out some of these Real Groovy purchases (still a consumer whore) and then sleep. Night.

Slow day. Trying to configure phone to be able to blog on the go and solve quantum physics equations. Having more success with the quantum physics.

Everyone watched the new Avatar teaser trailer yet? Half the internet already seems to have. Fin’s got some nice screencaps from it on his blog here. There hasn’t been much publicity about the 15 minute 3D previews this weekend which is kinda good, cause I don’t want to risk not getting a ticket so shhhhhh!

Friend Rocky started up a blog this week where he plans to post a photo from around London once per day. He’s already behind, but with his lifestyle sometimes, I’d understand why. [P365 – A Photo A Day]

And then this great article from stuff.co.nz had me gut laugh a bit:

Sting backfires as Aussie police PC hacked
An Australian police boast on TV about breaking up an underground hacker forum has backfired after hackers broke into a police computer system.

Security consultants say police appear to have been using the computer as a honeypot to collect information on members of the forum but the scheme came undone after the officers forgot to set a password. [full article]

It’s now Day Two of the No Internet At Home Crisis and tensions are soaring as a twitchy Chris Tan continues to stare at his empty web browser windows in an attempt to meld his mind to the internet and download lolcat images directly to his brain… Actually, it should be all up by the time I get home, but I thought I’d write a little something on just how horrible and sad it is for me to wake up with no connection sometimes.

In some good news, I finally got my Nokia N95 phone back today and thank sweet baby Jesus riding a Giraffe, my contact list and all my data is still intact. Forgot to back it up before taking it into the repair shop and have been paranoid ever since they’d do a hard wipe and send my life spiraling into more chaos than it currently is. Still, it was a fairly expensive repair, even after a discount for all the screwing around they did on me and something I totally should have done on my own for near half the price and within a few days. Ah well, maybe next time, not like anything was throw outta whack because of the loss… sarcasm.

Anyway, just thought I’d post about this one thing found on Warren Ellis’ blog… The best damn writer’s retreat I’ve ever bothered to read about and totally wish I could go to.

The Jura Malt Whisky Writer Retreat
Scottish Book Trust and Isle of Jura Single Malt Whisky are working together to offer writers the opportunity to spend a month living and writing on the idyllic island of Jura. Each selected writer receives a month’s exclusive use of the luxurious distillery lodge, a bursary and travel expenses. [link]

Copies of Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace and a Criterion of Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well arrived today and that was awesome. If you’re not aware of the awesomeness that is Darkplace (a believable, yet fictitious 80’s horror/drama by the well fictitious Garth Marenghi), then shame on you, or more likely shame on me for not spreading enough word on it.

Woke up with the modem and router completely missing from the house and the kitchen rearranged around and smelling of wet paint. Always hate being severed of a connection to the net. People wonder whether they’d survive living a hundred years ago. I wonder how I’d cope with twenty years ago before the internet boomed as we know it. Meanwhile, I’m still waiting on the asshats who’ve now held my phone hostage for two weeks and still no real garuantee they’ve actually fixed it yet. Heads will soon roll.

Gonna be in Auckland this weekend for a mass screening of Tarantino’s new film Inglorious Basterds and while I’m not holding my breath for it to be awesome, what I do hope to go to and experience awesomeness of is a sneak preview screening of the first 15 minutes from James Cameron’s new film Avatar. For free and in 3D. Further details on the event and session times can be found at https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU0908/S00244.htm.

Still the strong obsession of the week, this is Dream Girl from The Lonely Island’s Incredibad album. Quite possibly my favourite and features the hot talented awesomeness that is Norah Jones.