wade womersley leeds based web developer

On Tuesday night we went to see Avatar at the IMAX in Bradford’s National Museum of Film and Photography. I had semi high expectations for the film but had heard some bad press so how good it would be was left wide open. someone suggested we go to see it at the IMAX as it is vastly better, so that’s what we did.

The film was visually incredible, the attention to detail in the 3D work is undoubtedly the best I’ve seen. Pandora (the moon the Navi live on) is a world I wish I could experience first hand, from the vast luscious green trees to the plants that illuminate when they’re touched. I find it incredible just how much detail is in the scenery and how difficult it is to realise it is all CG. This is the kind of place I hope awaits us when we finally find a hospitable planet outside of our own.

The Navi themselves are also a work of art, the method used to animate them means they move naturally, down to the slightest movement in the face.  Cameron’s team sought to go far beyond prior efforts, to ensure the complete reality of the characters. To do this, they developed a new “image-based facial performance capture” system, which used a head-rig camera to accurately record the smallest changes in the actors’ faces. Instead of using the motion capture technique of placing reflective markers on the actors’ faces to capture their expressions, the actors wore special headgear, to which a tiny camera was attached. The helmet/camera faced towards the actors’ faces and the camera recorded facial expression and muscle movements to a degree never before possible. Most importantly, the camera recorded eye movement, which had not been the case with prior systems.

Everyone needs to see this film at the cinema, and if you have an IMAX nearby, be sure to see it there.

We went to see St Trinian’s 2, the Legend of Fritton’s Gold on Sunday in Bradford at Cineworld. It was fun to watch, but sadly, it was definitely a sequel, it failed to live up to the sheer audacity and stupidity that St Trinian’s 1 offered. I’m not saying it was terrible, far from it, it’s lines like “We’re your worst nightmare” - “You’re not The Beegees…Take That” that make a film like this good, they’re quick, disappear in a flash but give you a good giggle when they’re delivered (those lines are in the trailer below.)

St Trinian’s 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold sees Annabel (Talulah Riley) promoted to Head Girl at St Trinian’s in the absence of Kelly (Gemma Arterton), who now has a new and exciting career as a superspy. Annabel struggles to unite the warring cliques of Posh Totties (led by Tamsin Egerton as Chelsea), Emos (led by Montserrat Lombard’s Zoe), Rude Girls (led by Zawe Ashton’s Bianca), Geeks (led by Ella Smith’s Lucy) and Eco-Warriors (led by Juno Temple’s Celia) but when the evil, woman-hating Lord Pomfrey (David Tennant) stages a raid on the school looking for clues to a 400-year-old treasure, the girls realise that they’ll have to work together if they’re going to solve the mystery and beat him to it.

Meanwhile, headmistress Camilla Fritton (Rupert Everett in full-on Camilla Parker Bowles drag once again) faces difficulties in her relationship with Minister Geoffrey Thwaites (Colin Firth), especially when it’s revealed that Geoffrey might be a member of Pomfrey’s secret woman-hating cabal.

The film has unfortunately had a lot of negative reviews, but these are the people who review every film, even if it isn’t their style. St Trinian’s 2 offers pantomime style comedy in a movie situation. True, the story could have been a bit more polished and slightly more in line with the first film, but nevertheless, the film is still worth a watch, but not until you’ve seen the first! As always, not-so-big films like the first one are cheap to buy, Amazon has it for less than a fiver; you can buy it here.

I watched 9 last night and while it certainly was emotional, I was left feeling somewhat let down and confused at the end of it. I’m going to talk about specifics in the film here so if you’ve not seen it yet and intend to, don’t ready anymore.

It starts off with a guy creating a small doll (that is to be 9) and bringing it to life. 9 soon meets others who are like him who explain what happened to the world – the film is set in a post apocalyptic future where man has been wiped out. So immediately you’re in a very bleak film here, this, on top of the dead people they show right from the start is a subtle hint as to the direction of the film!

The first doll 9 meets gets kidnapped by a beast just before he meets the rest of the dolls. 9, being the hero of the film, wants to mount a rescue mission and persuades one of the dolls to go along with him. The result of this rescue attempt is the death of the first doll he met and the re-birth of an “evil” machine created by man which creates more evil machines and kills more dolls. The machine incidentally is an artificially intelligent machine – as usual, humans first and last attempt before it went crazy on its creators and killed them all.

By the end of the film, of the 9 dolls you meet, 5 die, 4 survive – considering these are the last 9 “living” things on earth, that’s a pretty bad ratio of life to death. The ending does suggest future hope – the spirits of the 5 who died rise to the clouds causing it to rain, each rain drop appears to contain the souls of the 5 who died in the form of amoeba suggesting life will be reborn. However, given the bleak view the entire film portrays excellently, the loneliness of the final 4 and the unpleasant creations the machine makes, the film left me feeling rather down, I wanted more, this was one of those films I actually wanted a happier ending – I love screwed up endings in films but this was not a film that warranted one. I got emotionally attached to the film and it left me filled with emotions it should have cleared up for me.

Saying all that, I would recommend watching it if you haven’t, it is a visually stunning film and is guaranteed to get you worked up into an emotional state, just be prepared for an ending that could have been nicer.

For those who haven’t seen it, this is the trailer for Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, a direct to DVD movie to fill in the void between the end of Battlestar Galactica and the (hopeful) beginning of Caprica early in the new year.

The Plan is set sometime around the miniseries and series one and will be told from the Cylons perspective explaining things such as the disappearance of Ellen Tigh.

In a word: no. In three words: not worth it. Yeah it was gory, but the second one was better (still not beating the first but that had the advantage of being the first.) It followed the plot of the sequels exactly; people avoid a disaster, guy keeps getting premonitions, one couple refuse to accept it, guy gets guts pulled out of his anus… OK maybe that bit was unique. Then at the end, they think they survived only to find out, no, they didn’t, and dead. If anyone reads that and thinks I spoiled the ending – where have you been the last 2-3 films? Not much else to say on it really, wait for the DVD and rent it (don’t buy it.) I really do hope it is THE final film now.

InnoISAM is what I need, a happy medium between InnoDB and MyISAM. I need the speed of inserts of InnoDB with the speed of selects of MyISAM – no HEAP will not work because the JOIN that I do results in the HEAP table being converted into MyISAM. You get two tables that deal with 2 extreme’s but not good happy medium table.

Monday also became MarketDefender day today, a website I don’t like working on because the work I do on it involves working with a payment gateway – something I have never enjoyed but roped myself into technically before I even started working at StickyEyes. The reason for this being my CV states I have worked with payment gateways in the past, so lucky me gets to work on them more now! It’s one of those websites where you hope it will end, but it never does, like cancer, but maybe not quite so severe or deadly.

Oh yeah, Dan broke more things today However today he also fixed a few things too so equilibrium returned; until tomorrow.

After work, it was straight to the gym, working on my chest again with a new programme that was done for me on Saturday; it aches a LOT so it’s great! Certainly doing the right thing as there’s no injury, just a lot of muscle fatigue. He put me on a system that involves doing some bench presses and lifts, pull-ups and then finishing off with reducing sets of chest curls so by the end of it, lifting 7kg feels like a tonne. Pyramid sets I think they’re called, would be upside down though as you start with a high weight and work down…I don’t always get the naming conventions used for weight training. If anyone is interested in some new ideas for the gym, I’d be happy to give you a few ideas from what I’ve been told.

Over the weekend I went to see District 9 at the cinema. It’s a neat idea for a film, rather than do the now over-used shaky camera a la Cloverfield or a full on documentary style movie; District 9 takes on a mixed approach and does it extremely well – think the War of the Worlds radio broadcast of 1938. The film starts out with interviews of people discussing the main character after all the events had happened (that the film shows) – of course they say it in such an ambiguous way that it gives nothing away about the film coming other than “some guy did something unexpected but we don’t blame him.”

Throughout the film you get short documentary clips that cut down towards the action climax and then peak at the end again so you notice them but they really do add to the film.

It’s a film I’d highly recommend seeing, even for none sci-fi fans because it “feels real” – as much as a film can like this – it’s guaranteed to pull you in and get your emotions flowing.

Buy the District 9 Official Soundtrack