www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiYeFSu5GGE

If you were expecting some epic apocalyptica, then don’t bother with this snore fest. The trailer was false advertising. Way too much “drama” for my impatient Gen Y taste. It’s more about Viggo Mortensen’s character’s longing for his former life and wife who wandered off into the darkness to die alone because she couldn’t watch Sex in the City anymore.

The apocalyptic event is obviously not the focus of the film’s plot, and it shows. Boy does it show.

No animals survived.

BULLSHIT.

Yet another example of a self-centred species defining itself as not being one of those smelly, dirty animals. A species which is so unique and special that it exists completely outside of nature itself. When a beaver builds a dam to live in, this is nature. Yet when you move into a nice 20 storey condo by the beach with its own mini mall, this is unnatural? When you build a tent out of sticks, is this nature? I say, if a species evolved a big enough brain to build shiny stick tents out of concrete, metal and glass, this is still 100% natural.

There are way tougher animals that would survive long after we’re gone. Humans are not special. Their brains make them weak. They are one of the only few species that makes itself entirely dependent on the infrastructure it creates. Sure, a bird needs to live in a nest, but it doesn’t build itself a bloody three story mansion.

Beyond that gaping hole, the removal of animals can only be an artificial plot construction to facilitate the inclusion of cannibalism — which is only added for shock value. Nowhere does the film mention the only real outcome — vegetarians will take over the world!

The more I examine the vague end-of-world scenario, the more it unravels. The son looks no less than 8 years old. Suppose all the animals did die in the event, including all the fish in all the seas, wouldn’t 8 years of total absence of life drastically upset the balance of gases in the atmosphere?

So there are plenty of dead-looking trees around, but there are still grasses so it’s just winter. The plants are still around, then. But how? Without animals, who’s been doing all that faecal seed-spreading and pollination? OK so there’s one beetle later in the movie, great. That’s one busy beetle.

And what’s with this kid? His character is constructed with some sort of innocence and kindness which is supposed to send a heart-warming message that he’s untouched by the disaster or whatever. But a kid who had grown up fighting for his life and running from cannibals would be the biggest hard-ass. He wouldn’t take shit from anyone. He wouldn’t be constantly asking “Are we still the good guys?” because he’d realise there are no good guys and bad guys. Just hungry guys and dead guys — a.k.a. dinner. Nom.

Electronics retailers like JB Hi-Fi, Dick Smith, Harvey Norman, etc. are misleading you and will try to sell you HDMI cables for ridiculous prices – anywhere from $49 to $299!!!

YOU CAN BUY A PERFECTLY GOOD HDMI CABLE ON EBAY FOR UNDER TEN DOLLARS!!!

Only yesterday, I witnessed a clerk in JB Hi-Fi at Highpoint deceiving his customers saying “You need to spend money to get the best quality”.

OH MY GOD THIS IS A TOTAL MYTH!

HDMI is a DIGITAL signal and even the $8 cables on eBay have HIGH QUALITY SHIELDING. They just wouldn’t work without it. HDMI is not as affected by EM interference, like the “old” kinds of cables. If you are getting interference THE SIGNAL WILL CUT OUT IT WILL NOT GO FUZZY!

As for bandwidth, if you’re using 1080p, you should probably get a cable marked “high speed”.  STANDARD CABLES ARE GOOD ENOUGH FOR 1080i AND BELOW! Anyway, this is not an issue because YOU CAN GET HIGH SPEED CERTIFIED CABLES OFF EBAY FOR EIGHT DOLLARS!

The ONLY thing you need to worry about with HDMI is cable length. As cables get longer, the signal gets weaker (attenuates). That said, UNLESS YOUR CABLE IS OVER 10 METRES LONG, LENGTH IS NOT AN ISSUE!

Please, Australia. Stop buying your HDMI cables in shops. Then, I will stop openly weeping every time I see a salesperson trying to flog a $79.95 cable to a poor defenseless customer.

It’s the classic “stalled elevator device” which is often used in film and TV dramas: trap your characters in a confined space to force character development. Simple. If you’re pressed for time, throw in a real annoying bastard (such as Robert Carlyle’s character) for some added tension to speed things up. However, after three episodes, SGU hasn’t moved past this basic device. If Wright and Cooper plan on stretching this to multiple seasons, no amount of pit stops on random, cliched planets, or dodging close calls with the Sun will make this format sustainable.

The next logical progression of the Stargate franchise became obvious to me after watching True Blood. Here’s a series in which vampires are “out of the coffin” as they put it, meaning the existence of vamp-kind is a fact, and also public knowledge. The series is thus speckled with parallels to historic struggles for minority equality. This results in a portrayal of the “vampires are real” world which is actually convincing, and believable.

The Stargate franchise needs to burn those NDA’s and just go public already! A few episodes in SG-1 touched on the idea, mostly via trips to planets whose Stargate program has already gone public. The challenge would be to develop this idea beyond “Stargates are glorified airports” while minimising the amount of political drama. District 9 showed us that seemingly far-fetched science fiction concepts can be handled with effective realism by drawing parallels with historical events (e.g. refugees).

At this early stage, I’m ready to applaud the creators for daring to diverge from the classic Stargate format: a power struggle between humans and an oppressive alien force. Defeat one, and another one comes along to replace it, and keep the series going. In SG-1, we had the Go’Ald, the Replicators, and finally the Ori. In Atlantis, it was the Wraith. If SGU reverts back to the power struggle format, I’ll stop watching.

Another potential direction, which would likely be more interesting, could be a prequel of sorts following the “Ancients”, their culture, technology (and the creation of the Stargates), and ultimately their path to ascension. If the series was different enough to its predecessors, it could work. It could explore themes such as “with powerful technology, comes great responsibility”, something we know defines the Ancients, who are always held up as the perfect race. With their superior genetics and technology, ultimate wisdom, and curious intervention restraint, they are an example of something we humans should aspire to become. So let’s see it, already! The ascension story arc could also deal with more “spiritual” themes, which would be something refreshing for the franchise.

Why I love it:

• The contrast between, and wide variety of reactions: surprised, amused, completely oblivious, total deadpan, somewhat concerned, “I’m way to stressed to care about that”. Priceless!
• That occasional pause of uncertainty where people’s brains decide how they are going to react.
• The film (intentionally or not) has great dramatic structure. She sat at just the right location to have the dramatic climax at that sweet spot in time. Nice long build-up lures the viewer into a false sense of security, then BAM! Unexpected-Event-desu! Followed by nice quick resolution.
• My brain is now going crazy thinking of weird and wonderful places to put my camera (NO, not THOSE kind of places, geez!)

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! I can feel a new reality TV genre emerging…

Saying I like my Apocalypse movies is probably an understatement. If there’s an Apocalypse movie I haven’t seen, then I either don’t know about it yet, or its sitting somewhere in my house, waiting for me to watch it. Cloverfield fits into a specific sub-genre that we are seeing a lot more of since September 11. It’s a genre I like to call Apocalypse of America. Now “apocalypse” may seem like an incorrect term when it’s just America or a subset of it that’s being destroyed (as opposed to the whole world). I leave it in there because for the majority of its inhabitants, America IS their world. If you destroy America you might as well have destroyed the whole world. Let’s face it, America is going to do whatever it has to in order to come to terms with that event. It’s just my luck that making gripping thriller movies happens to be a part of that.

Recently, while yawning disappointingly at the utterly unscary plastic zombies in I Am Legend, I had time to reflect on the fact that being an Apocalypse movie alone is not enough to entertain. After such a let down I was sceptical about Cloverfield, as I’m sure were others. I recently saw the film and it greatly exceeded my expectations. In fact it’s the first time in a long while that I have watched, jaw dropped with amazement. This film has raised the bar for production values, delivering a degree of realism seldom seen in this genre.

I should start by saying that the idea of the film is not very original. *cough* Godzilla *cough*. But are there really any truly original ideas left? It seems like everything has been done before in one way or another. So if you can put aside your expectation for an original and ground breaking plot, then you might just enjoy this film. After all, Heroes is just X-Men with a different name and I really enjoy that. So it is possible.

Luckily, I’m not fazed at all by handheld camera work. If you are, you might want to avoid this film (and possibly the rest of the review). But this is one film where the handheld shooting style actually works. Despite knowing in the back of my head that parts of it would be impossible to shoot on a handheld, it still adds an element of drama to the film. Somewhat voyeuristically, it gives the viewer a more direct portal through which to enter the movie world, while adding a good amount of “oh my god” factor. In truth, I was hard pressed to find any fault with the film’s visuals. I mean, I was expecting some scenes to look like obvious green screen or CGI composites, but it all looked really frickin’ REAL!

Now the characters. Most of them are nice looking but that alone doesn’t make us care about them. The relationships were pretty well constructed, with some back-story;  we get a glimpse of this through sporadic cuts to “footage previously on the tape”. The dialog and acting was slightly weak in some areas but overall not too distracting. The tipping point for me caring about the characters was a scene in the subway where our lead is confronted with a rather unpleasant responsibility, and that’s all I’m saying about that (it’s not what you think). The film’s entertainment value comes from imagining what it would be like for you to be in such a horrific situation. Second guessing the character’s decisions as if they were your own and empathising with their own tragedy.

But now there’s a new comedy currently in its third week on SBS that’s got me cacking myself sensless at its uncanny accuracy and hilarious one-liners. Bogan Pride is the brainchild of Rebel Wilson, who readers may recognise from The Wedge and Pizza. As well as writing the show, Wilson stars as the lead protagnist, Jenny Cragg, a less-than-popular high school student whom the Skanks lovingly refer to as a “fugly bush pig”.

A simplistic description of Bogan Pride would be Summer Heights High meets Kath & Kim meets that episode of Buffy where everyone bursts into song. Yes it’s a musical. Characters sing about the usual teenage stuff. You know, like how much they love hanging out in the library, or cramming for the Maths Olympiad. Or perhaps the local christian group called “God’s Love Society” performs an intervention on Jenny’s obese mother (my personal favourite, so far).

Most of the characters are exaggerated and borderline stereotypical. And yes, there are similarities with Summer Heights High and Kath & Kim, but the show still manages to stand out as original Aussie satire that definitely warrants interest. Wilson will be one to watch.

The entire show is an absolute crack up loaded with double entendre and subtle punch lines that could easily be missed by the complacent viewer. If you’re a fan of Aussie satire, this won’t dissapoint. I’ve uploaded the opening scene to Vimeo so check it out below.

.

I’ll chuck some more clips up assuming they aren’t going to delete them on me.

Commercial TV stations disregarding their programming schedule, causing missed PVR recordings and much frustration.

The Solution

A new PVR with minimal user interface, where users select the shows they watch from a list of what’s on, just like a regular PVR. Also provide a web interface similar to IceTV but with keyword and category support. For example, you could set it to record all action movies or record anything with “science” and “documentary” in the description or title.

Each PVR maintains a persistent connection to a server which provides semi-realtime programming corrections. The PVR starts recording the stream way before your show is scheduled to start (we’re talking hours here). When the corrected start time comes through, the PVR trims its recorded file at the timestamp (with a small margin for error, say 30 seconds) then trashes the pre-record safety buffer. It keeps recording until it recieves the corrected end time.

You could even go so far as to have, say 10 digital tuners in the one PVR, so that all streams are constantly recording. Think timeshift on steroids.

But how do we get the data for these programming corrections? That’s the easy part.

Get a few TVs, one set to each channel. Then stick an employee in front of each TV (on a nice comfy couch of course) and give them some big shiny buttons. Their job is to watch TV and click said big shiny buttons when each show starts and finishes. This data would go into the database and then be pushed out to all the PVRs. They would of course have to work in shifts but would be well looked after and fed etc. You may want some spare employees on hand to fill in during toilet breaks. The timecodes would then be reviewed by a second set of employees to ensure frame precision.

With this system in place, we could also have the employees push big shiny “Ad Break Start” and “Ad Break Stop” buttons. This data would also be pushed out to the PVRs who conveniently trim the ad breaks from recordings.

All the while in the background, toiling away in a datacentre, there is an A.I. learning from each employee’s button press. Feeding off those few precious frames, yearning to possess the inate ability that we humans so readily demonstrate while channel surfing: the ability to distinguish instantly between advertising and programming (it’s an evolutionary imperative).

The Future?

Would this finally see the death of TV advertising?  Or would advertisers start making ads that look more and more like TV programs to try and fool the A.I.? But the A.I. has a memory of every ad it’s ever seen, similar to humans. So this may work for the first airing, but not after that. Besides, the server could retrospectively push out timecodes for ads after they were identified, then the PVR would trim out those as well. Or would we just see more invasive pop-ups? To the point where we would have to write a new A.I. to remove pop-ups by interpolating the missing pixels?

Or would we just see an increased shift to watching TV on DVD, or downloading our shows?

Ford vs. Holden had the predictable and pointless outcome of “they’re both equally great” and “we are poonces for failing to committ to either one”. With only a drag race and braking test to speak of, what was supposedly a comparative segment lacked thoroughness and it all just seemed like a huge cop out. I think the point they were trying to make was valid, but also quite obvious. We love the Ford vs. Holden debate for what it is, a way for mates to argue themselves senseless. Oh yeah, and driving like hooligans to prove which one’s best.

Mining Pit Challenge was alright. Wazza got lost again. LOLs. The maths of deciding who won took the fun of the challenge, I thought. But the competitive spirit was plentiful, and that’s what I like about the challenges.

I hear the episode didn’t rate so well; down 250,000 or so from last week (no citation, google it). I just hope SBS can ride it out for the whole season.  I’ll be watching.

UPDATE: Here’s that link to the ratings.

So of course I couldn’t help myself but to read a few. And this very quickly snowballed into me skimming through the whole lot. Now, I know there is a stigma out there about YouTube comments, but reading them all was actually pretty interesting.

No, really. Stay with me here…

Interesting in the “I am observing the humans demonstrate their primal instinct of fear” kind of way. Quite poignantly, the comments reflect what we see in the video itself: while discussions questioning people’s beliefs have the potential to be rigorous intellectual debate, they inevitably degrade into insults and defensive remarks. This observation is what prompted me to upload the clip in the first place.

The behaviour of irrationally defending one’s beliefs is entirely understandable as an instinctive response to protect the safeguards one has erected to protect against fear, but this doesn’t make it justified. We suppress our instincts on a daily basis, so should have the ability to transcend them for the purposes of objective analysis.

Some of my favourite comments:

“Science may be a little ‘arrogant’ but time will prove that science has every right to be arrogant.”

“Dawkins isn’t a fundamentalist because he knows what it would take to change his mind.”

“Science will be the end of humanity if anything will be”

“Why should we ‘atheists’ find evidence of a god? We are not the ones making the claim that there is a god.”

“Their brains are so closed, it’s unbelievable. Eat Dawkins’ shit.”

“I would liken Dawkins to a dung beetle not an ant.”

One final point worth considering. Chopra’s exploits and abuse of scientific terms aside, aren’t his spiritual ideals simply reflecting what humans have been doing throughout all of history? Back when our scientific knowledge was much more limited, we developed supernatural or spiritual explanations for phenomena we couldn’t adequately explain through science.

I’m starting to think this is not as simplistic as “Chopra is a nutjob and science is infallible.”

…Nah, I still think he’s a nutjob.

After weeks of eager anticipation, I am very happy to report this was NOT an anticlimax! The hosts work well together, even if they are slightly imperfect clones of the Britons. But they’re genuine Aussie and it’s words like “grouse” that really bring this home. Oh, and the fact that they’re all three of them quite capable shit-stirrers

The production values are as good as ever, and while I’m yet to be blown away by music selection, it shows promise. I’ll be very interested in what, if any, awe inspiring landmarks they’ll visit down under. We don’t exactly have a Millau Viaduct running through the middle of the continent. I’ve been across the Nullarbor and it’s BORING AS SHIT, so if you’re gonna do it guys, chuck a great big slab of Threat-O-Death™ in there like they did on Top Gear Africa. Uluru will be on the list of course, but it’s only open for climbing on a couple of days a month due to high winds and public liability bullshit, so good luck. A race around it against some rock climbers over it could work, though I’m not sure the numbers stack up. I want them to get lost on the ring roads in Canberra, as most drivers would relate to this. Make a challenge out of it, I dare you.

My favourite moment from the first episode:

Charlie Cox: “Beautiful! Get out here, commune with nature… and rip the shit out of it.”
Seconds later, he becomes airborne at the top of a sand dune, very nearly ploughing nose-first into the sand below.
Warren to Charlie: “What did you think when you sort of became airborne?”
Charlie: “I could see I had an issue…”
Warren: “You’ll have to be cleaning up that issue this afternoon.”

So what about them hosts. I’ll try and keep the UK comparisons to a minimum, but this will undoubtedly fail as it’s clear the producers have tried to replicate the dynamic. And why not? It works.

Charlie Cox’s introduction of their mysterious guest reviewer set the tone.

Now, This guy here is an absolute expert on giving advice on Porche driving in particular. It’s his job. He gets paid to teach people how to drive their Porches properly. He even races them sometimes. So when it came time to review the brand new Carrera 911S, it was obvious who should review it… Me.

At first, Cox comes across as somewhat of a know-it-all overachiever, with an ego to match. While this grates briefly, it doesn’t really bother me at all. He reminds me of several men of similar age and attitude that I knew growing up, so I’m genuinely used to it. As long as Cox avoids talking down the other hosts and keeps his self-promotion to a minimum, the equilibrium will be preserved. He just needs to be as funny as Clarkson, then we’ll love him as we do the great JC (those initials are no coincidence).

His discussion with Steve about gear boxes was a clear reminder of the age difference between the two, and the obvious generation gap (Cox was born in 1960, Steve in 1974). Steve actually compared a paddle shift gearbox to the controls “just like on an Xbox”. The look on Cox’s face was priceless!

Steve I would describe as a blokey version of Frank Woodley. He has the same quirky eccentricity and enthusiasm, which makes for great entertainment. He’s a self confessed science geek, so will represent the youthful Knight Rider generation, excited by in-car gadgetry, rather than those old fogies who are scared by it and prefer manual labour to convenience, satisfying some vain desire to get their macho on.

Representing the more tasteful motoring enthusiast, Warren is a less pedantic James May with shorter hair, and a few more balls. He climbed into a shark cage-cum-car for God’s sake! We’ll see over time if he becomes the scapegoat as James has. May’s lack of direction is one aspect that was preserved intact during the cloning process and makes for much amusement.

Now I must state my sheer admiration for the editors of the shark bait stunt. Step one: fill the cage with a lovely blood-red offcuts-and-entrails stew, creating a cloud of crimson fog which conveniently obscures the “host” who is suggestively trapped perilously “inside” the cagecar. Step two: suggest in a voiceover, the worst-case scenario of the cage becoming separated and sinking to it’s depths. Step three: LOTS of quick-cut shots spliced together with artful precision and some scary music. The result (you hope) is a shit-scared audience.

I’ve watched that scene a few times now and I’m regrettably not convinced. I wish I was. I want to be scared up to the edge of my seat, and I do get that for the first few seconds, but then my stupid brain kicks in and I start to go “yeah, right!”. There are a couple of shots with Warren in bloody water, but they contain no evidence of shark. It unfortunately reeks of one of those fake Top Gear moments the cynic in me can’t help discerning. A prime example is the caravan fire incident from the UK series, which was obviously staged. They deny it of course but seriously, what would be cheaper: buy a used caravan for a few thousand pounds, or pay out the insurance on someone else’s caravan you’ve just destroyed? Think about it.

There was only a couple of things that bothered me about the show, and it was Charlie’s way too noticeable references to upcoming ad breaks. “When we come back” is fine, but “It’s time to pay the bills”??? Get off! Then there was Warren’s cartoon of the shark cage. OK, the guy’s a cartoonist, good for him. But I don’t really want to watch him draw a bloody diagram for 10 seconds with a dreary narration… Snore!

Next week: Ford vs. Holden. Good luck avoiding to alienate half your audience (or more) with that one. These Aussies are SERIOUS about their vehicle allegiances, especially when it comes to those two brands.