I didn't see that coming either. She's actually a he?

That's a man baby!

It sounds like the prinicpal complaint is that the movie sits in that half way space between being a serious drama and a cheesy fun blockbuster. By dipping a toe in both waters, the story fails to be very effective at either one.

So it fails on the Deep Impact level, and fails too on the Armaggedon level.

I thought the movie was ok, but I'm kinda shocked at how almost cavalier it is about death. We're seeing literally millions of people dying on screen and it lacks any sort of emotional power. I think this is partly a result of the audience being focused on the ridiculous escapes and the plot shields around the leads. LA is being totally destroyed, homes are being crushed, swallowed and wiped away, and here is a car outdriving it all. It undermines the danger and thus distances us from the fact that people are actually dying, a feeling which is helped along by the epic wide shots. I think wow (or worse, cool), that is a nice effect, when I should be horrified.

So what weapons would be appropriate? I was thinking a sword or a spear. Hiding away in a remote place isn't a long-term survival option. Ultimately, to survive a zombie apocalypse, you have to kill them all. So you need to be able to kill them quickly and safely, preferrable without making too much noise or getting too close.

A bow may be suitable for hunting (assuming the animals aren't going to be zombies as well) but it'd be a poor choice for taking down zombies. Your ammo would be too limited (and would run out much faster than bullets, since you will rarely be able to secure an infested area long enough to wander around and retrieve them) and you'd have to be very skilled to hit heads. With a slow reload time, you'd also get overwhelmed too easily.

To start with, a back-up pistol is a necessity. You may not want to use it as your main weapon but it'd would come in handy when things get a bit more hectic than you bargained for.

As a long range weapon I'd take a sniper rifle. With the approach to survival being a matter of eliminating the zombies in your area, you'd need to park yourself in a secure position and practice taking them out, killing as many as you can. The danger of zombies is their melee attack, and a sniper rifle removes that by putting you as far away as possible.

But eventually you'll run out of bullets for your guns, so a melee weapon is a must. But you need to keep yourself as far away as possible so a knife or hammer is suicidal. A big axe is too unwieldy and slow so that's out as well. I was thinking a sword, either a viking type or a bastard sword, one that can be used both one-handed and two-handed and is relatively simple and quick to use. None of this samurai sword crap. You want a weapon that you can swing both ways and that stabs as well. Unless you're trained, you want the weight of the sword to do a lot of the work for you.

And speaking of stabbing, you'll want an edged spear. One of the oldest weapons, the spear is perfect for medium range combat. Allowing you to stab or make short swipes at exposed targets about 4 feet away. You don't have to be a martial arts whiz to use it proficiently.

If you were serious about living through this, you should think about armour too. Especially on your legs, arms and shoulders.  Even the most crude forms of armour can ward off bites, human teeth aren't the most dangerous weapons out there.

And grab a shield if you can too. Nothing fancy or overly large, just something you can use to bash or push zombies without putting your hands on them.

I started reading Walking Dead last night and before I knew it was 15 issues in and way past my bed time. Absolutely brilliant writing and good effective artwork. Even saw the pilot of the brand spanking so new it's not even out yet TV series, which was pretty good too.

But yeah, there's a finite amount of zombies. Every time you kill one you're a little safer. I was just disappointed that no-one on the roster thought to take advantage of tightly packed zombies and take out a number of them. They do do this later on, and somehow manage to survive a blast about 30 yards from their A-Team buses.

And fuck that girl and her stupid dog.

Hmmm... Space Truckers? And Spaceballs.

There aren't really many Space Operas period.

Wing Commander is hilarious, but I doubt that was intended.

I've never bought into the possibility that Deckard is a Replicant, purely because it doesn't make much sense. Given that even a pleasure model can kick his arse, I'm not sure he makes for a very effective replicant hunter.

What thing I didn't know until last week when I watched a documentary on the making of Blade Runner was that there was an idea to have Tyrell as a replicant.

Actually, it's the other way around. And the placement of ending punctuation depends entirely on the sentence. So:

"You two characters are going to Top Gun."
- Placement of full stop/period is inside because the entire sentence is direct speech.

He then says to them "You two characters are going to Top Gun".
- Placement of full stop/period is outside because the direct speech part is only a clause of the sentence.

The same is true for brackets too. If the whole sentence is in brackets then the full stop goes inside the ), but if the bracketed clause is only a part of the sentence then the full stop goes outside the ).

I actually enjoyed Clash of the Titans more. Big flashy movies are nothing new, Avatar just does it a bit better than most.

But a longer cut? This movie needs to be shorter. (And I don't often ask for that - hell, I want 4 hour versions of the LOTR movies).

Bear in mind, though, this is the same duo that brought 'going to the mansion' into the popular vernacular.

If the script says that a crazy survivor emerges from Icarus I and starts killing them all, I can't see how the finished film could have done it in any other way that what we saw in the final film - without changing the story completely. I can't see how having too much money made them opt for a shitty lens tilt effect.

I think this is just a case of Garland not quite realising what was wrong with the third act of Sunshine. The problem isn't that it's 'meaningless', the problem is that a promising Apollo 13-that-hasn't-happened-yet film suddenly takes a detour into slasher territory. The problem isn't that they built a massive set at the end, it's that they had shitty blurry vision whenever this supernatural killer appeared on the screen... leading most in the audience to suspect an atrocious make-up job.

Just seen Strange Days again for the second time in what feels like 10 years. I remember Trey liking this one so maybe it has a good chance of getting a commentary once all the Halloween stuff is over.

Interesting... just seen the movie and I thought it was pretty clearly a story about a girl trying to cope with reality by creating a fantasy world.

My first clue that she was crazy and that the faun etc weren't actually real was that the mandrake required 2 drops - precisely the same as the substance the doctor gives to her mother. Her imagination creates a medicine that mimics a real medicine that she overhears.

That she has to be alone to read the book, that she's virtually always in bed or 'just woken' when visited by the faun or his fairy friends (and always in a nighty), that her goal is to return to a place where she can be with her real father, that her mother in the underworld looks like her real recently dead mother, that the knife doesn't exist unless she's seeing it, and that the mandrake only moves in her POV of it burning all solidify the fact that what we are seeing is her delusion.

Further, it isn't until Mercedes said she doesn't trust fauns that the faun character becomes darker, more deceitful and less kind.

The framing device is interesting and arguably confusing, but it's still very much Ofelia telling a story to herself as she's dying. Another coping mechanism.

I haven't listened to the commentary yet but from the comments I think I agree with the gist- it's unfortunate that the film is so schizophrenic and doesn't know what story to tell. It just gives too much time to Mercedes and the rebels, without really giving us much reason to care other than making their enemy a total shit.

Had it focused on Ofelia and really dealt with the psychology of a child going through grief, anger, jealousy, isolation and fear, it might have been a sharper, more poignant story. Instead, the backdrop too often takes over.

Edited to add: So yeah, it's not a fairy tale. It's Fight Club. I am Jack's mind being blown...