Possibly the scariest film ever

I'd heard about the cinema goer at the film festival who shat themselves when watching Spanish horror flick - [REC] - so I was quite excited about the prospect.

It's along the lines of the Blair Witch Project with a film crew following a fire crew on their call outs. Their first call out is to an apartment building where an old lady is locked in her house screaming and the Police need help breaking in. From there things go badly awry and it becomes a cross between Blair Witch and 28 Days Later.

Unlike the Blair Witch you see the source here and frankly it had most of the audience jumping out of their seats - and the friend I was with, screaming like a bitch. And what better promo for a film than the audience reaction - which was used in this trailer.

I won't say much more - but I definitely recommend [REC]. Trailer below.

Sweded vision

There is a new film coming out called Son of Rambow - based on the re-make Garth Jennings did of First Blood as a 10 year old. It's a similar story to that of the famous cult classic eight-year Raiders of the Lost Ark Adaptation project done by a couple of brothers and looks something like a sweeter version of Be Kind Rewind.

Empire pulled together a list of some of the best 'sweded' versions of films on the choob.

The Shining


The Empire Strikes Back: In 60 Seconds


Star Wars: A Cardboard Hope (the X-Wing v Tie Fighter scene is awesome - look out for R2 made from a keg too and the hub cap Millennium Falcon)


Jurassic Park


And finally Michel Gondry sweding his own trailer for Be Kind Rewind

Portrayal Of Obama As Snob Hailed As Step Forward For Blacks

In other news John McCain gave another speech today, attempting to distance himself from his policies.

Hell of a good song

Stunning Swedish folk version of an Aussie classic - cut to the 1:40 mark.

And I thought - what could I do?
And I knew there was no help from you, no help from you
Sound of the drums beating in my heart
Thunder of guns tore me apart
You have been.... Thunderstruck



Check out other great covers by Hellsongs from their album Hymns in the key of 666 - Jump, We're not Going to Take it, and their beautiful version of Black Sabbath's Paranoid

Hell of a good film

Oh its pun overload!

Went to see Hellboy II tonight and as expected it kicked ass. Guillermo Del Toro just plain rules and looks to be an inspired choice for the helm of the two Hobbit/LOTR prequels.

The only question is where will the eye balls pop up in the Hobbit? LOL - In Pans Labyrinth that dude had eye balls in his hand and in this the witch doctor type dude at the end had them in his wings.

If you enjoyed the first Hellboy - you will like this. Its funnier and way bigger with huge fight scenes, great new characters and stunning effects.

PS Del Toro's take on tooth fairies (little bug things in the vid below) must have his kids shitting it every time they get a loose tooth!

Trailer below

TFI next Friday

I'm taking next Friday off for the first 'boys' day I've had in over a year.

With a couple of mates I'm off to play a round of golf and then head along to Brew NZ's BEERVANA at the Overseas Terminal!

Basically all of NZ's best breweries come together under one roof including Dunedin's Emersons, Nelson's organic brewers Founders, Waikanae's Tuatara and my favourite - Epic from Auckland.

I'm sure we'll be able to fit in a dirty slab of cow and eggs at Crazy Horse or the Green Parrot before we start again for the Saturday session.

Vincent's sister

Not sure what made this come to mind - but it rules all the same.

There was a deleted scene from Pulp Fiction in which Mia Wallace asks Vincent what his last name is - he says Vega, and she replies - like the folk singer? and he says yeah she's my sister. But anyway here is Suzanne Vega with the classic Tom's Diner - just try to get this out of your head for the rest of the day!

Fizzle Quizzle

Two weeks in a row now we've been short of numbers which has seen us only taken home $10 at the Shepherds Quiz.

We were bloody close on the Jackpot at the end - but the ruling went against us meaning we didnt get the $160 on offer there - bugger.

There was a funny moment though when I recognised someone in one of the other teams - only to discover their team was the most hated team in the quiz - the Gambino Crime Family (they question answers all the time). They were shocked to find out that almost all other teams despised their constant moaning! lol.

But anyway I pulled out a big call in the jackpot round - so here is the question of the week:
Who won the bronze at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and silver at the 2000 Sydney Olympics in the 100m sprint race?

The answer is of course not Asafa Powell as my amateur team mates wanted to say (duh) it was Alto Bolden of Trinidad and Tobago.

Vote Bro

Labour announces its list placings in a couple of weeks - and fingers crossed new talent will be promoted ahead of the hacks.

And for our overseas readers - one of the three or four standout new candidates is Jacinda Ardern who is running the ex-pat campaign from London. God knows what that will exactly involve - but hey its exciting and like I say - she's one of the good candidates.

Check out the ex-pat campaign site www.kiwivote.co.uk

C'mon Phoenix

Had a little karma moment yesterday. In the morning I happily rejoiced in Arsenal's loss to Mr Harrods' Fulham, sending off a text to a colleague to rub it in, only to have it blow up in my face last night with Phoenix putting on their worst performance yet, going down 4-2 to Melbourne.

I thought the Dominion caught it quite well, noting the similarities between almost every game last year:

An enterprising start, the concession of a goal against the run of play, vulnerability on the counter-attack, a mini-fight-back and a wonderful Shane Smeltz goal, but then a lapse at the back gifting a soft but well-taken goal.

It was pouring with rain as well so there was basically no walk-up crowd, meaning it was the worst turn out in the club's short history.

The season started well enough with the Phoenix making the Pre-Season Cup final (which desperately needs a new name), but the first two games in the A-League have been ordinary to say the least. Our defence at times resembled the shambolic amateur hour that was the White Ferns at the Olympics. The strategies just don't seem to make sense - when it was a fine evening they played a conservative game with long balls, yet last night when it was bucketing down on a water-logged pitch, they played a short quick passing game.

I dunno, but they need to get it together as soon as possible - otherwise more and more people will choose to stay away.

Like the Phantom Menace... only worse

I went to the new Star Wars film over the weekend. Stupidly I thought - it can't possibly be any worse than Attack of the Clones or the Phantom Menace... Oh how wrong I was.

While the animation kicked ass and a lot of the action sequences were great - the script was absolutely diabolical. It was sooo painfully lame - almost every line you rolled your eyes. I can't explain just how rubbish it was - it was like some sort of cruel and unusual torture, akin to having your finger nails removed.

From the very beginning it was doomed to failure - they replaced the scrolling yellow text with a daft voice-over - WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT ABOUT?

Unbelievable new Jarjar-like comic elements such as Anakin's Padawan learner, Asoka, and the lame slapstick bits with the battle droids just made it even more horrific, but the nicknames they had for each other really took the cake ('Sky Guy' and 'Snips') causing widespread involuntary groans at regular intervals.

I would normally talk about the story - but forget it - we walked out after roughly 45-50 minutes.

George Lucas can not write and he should not be allowed to do anything but act as producer in future.

This was probably the worst film I have ever seen - right up there with Battlefield Earth.

Limpuc Gory

Couple of Limpuc Choob moments - the nasty nasty vid of the Hungarian weightlifter fucking himself up - and the always awesome Happy Tree Friends take on the Olympics.





My favourite Happy Tree Friends clip is here - Flippy flippin out!

Big dividends

Well buying the Freeview box just just paid off!

The mens RS:X boardsailing medal race just finished - and NZ's Tom Ashley stormed through to take the Gold. But since the race kicked off after 6pm NZ time, TV One were busy with the news and Close Up - so only those with Freeview were able to watch it live on the Olympic channel!

Its been just about the best games ever for New Zealand - including a bronze for cuzzy-bro of One Moment Caller - right up there with the golden days of Seoul and LA.

And we still have the finals of the BMX to come (how kick ass was that today??) - lets hope World number 1, Sarah Walker, can get up for gold there too!

The ceremonies

The stink over the Milli-Vanilli moment, the blue screen of death moment and the fake-fireworks have made the Beijing opening ceremony a little controversial.

So with the help of the You Choob, I thought we would take a wander down memory lane to less controversial times at previous opening ceremonies and take a look at the lighting of the cauldrons

1968 Mexico
1972 Munich - no sign of the opening on the choob
1976 Montreal
1984 Los Angeles (complete with John Williams doing the music)
1988 Seoul (one of my favourites - and the first Olympics I remember)
1992 Barcelona (the best cauldron lighting ever)
1996 Atlanta (the shittest one with a cauldron that looked like a carton of McDonalds fries)
2000 Sydney
2004 Athens

Why I love the interweb

I saw this on the Spare Room and just about messed myself at its awesomeness so I thought I better share.

It's the closest thing to a supernova you will ever see - Star Wars and Flashdance colliding. I just love the fact that someone has gone to so much trouble to make their Bobba Fett figure do Flashdance. Badass - I salute you!

Mandalorian Dance @ Yahoo! Video

Them again? Really?

Has anyone else noticed the very late 80s/early 90s look to TVNZs Olympic coverage?

Sure, Tony Veitch would have had a big role before he was found out - but still, they seem to dredge up the same tired old hacks every four years. Look at their frontline team - Geoff Bryan, Peter Williams, Keith Quinn, John McBeth and Peter Montgomery. I guarantee they were the nucleus of the team that presented the 1988 games in Seoul.

Yes, yes they're experienced and all that - but surely we could do better than this? All I have ever known is these boring grey old men mispronouncing names and dealing in cliches. Even just some of their other presenters would be better - Neil Waka? Bernadine Oliver Kerby? The grip? Camera Operator 1?

Mind you, on the flipside - what's with the two 10 year olds presenting Breakfast? I seriously don't think that the dude shaves.

Just a Bronze

Tuesdays is of course big quiz night at the Shepherds Arms and we finished Second equal before losing out in the tie-breaker (first tie-breaker we've lost!). With these its the closest answer (its always a number question - like how many people does Millenium Stadium hold?) and this week's question was in minutes and seconds how long was the album 'Faith' by George Michael? My initial guess was 58 minutes - but was over ruled by the team and we went with 42 minutes 27 seconds. Correct answer was 52 minutes something... if only they had listened, we would have another $25 in the bank.

But anyway we got 10/10's in two rounds - my big call on one paid huge dividends - there were pictures of sports team uniforms and you had to pick the team or country. And being the nerd that I am I can even remember them - Manu Samoa, New Jersey Devils, San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Mariners, Juventus, Stormers, Leeds Rhinos, South Sydney Rabbitohs, Liverpool and Pakistan.

So for the two 10/10s we got $10 each and another $25 for third (should have been $50 for second!) which makes $45 for the night, taking our total to $785 for the year.

We got the Ponderous Puzzle on the second round too (where they give you clues each round) - For those in training for Thursday - see if you can get it on the first!
First round clues: I am a Film and I won 37 awards but no Oscars. Toni Collette turned down the lead role to do a stage show on Broadway.

Second round: Kate Winslet auditioned for the main role but didn't get it as she was thought to be 'too young'. My soundtrack included I'm Every Woman by Chaka Khan, All By Myself by Jamie O'Neal and Out of Reach by Gabrielle.

The second song gave it away - Bridget Jones' Diary.

Knight Rider

It was with quite a bit apprehension that I watched the tele-movie/pilot for the new series of Knight Rider - and unsurprisingly it was well-founded apprehension.

This time KITT is a badass Shelby Mustang - which can change colour through the nanotechnology (as you do) and its driven by Michael Knight's son - Mike Traceur.

The story is about the scientist who developed KITT and these bad dudes from a corrupt security agency who produce weapons and are doing dodgy stuff in Iraq (no silly not the US Government!) who try to capture him and his secret work (called Prometheus) so they can make their own KITT.

We were talking about this today - and we all agreed that it would it be hilarious to 'leak' some official looking documents to someone like Kedgeley or Locke from the Greens talking about this outrageous top secret US defense project called Prometheus and make up some bullshit about it being connected to Echelon and the Waihopai Base, just to see if they ask questions about it in the house! Imagine the response - yes I am aware of Prometheus as well as the Knight 2000 Trans-Am and Knight 3000 Mustang and of course David Hasselhoff. However the Government is not contributing any money to these projects.

Anyway back to the movie - there are some wicked bits with KITT - like coming out of C130 like it used to out of a truck - but the script is ridiculous and the plot was even worse. My favourite line had to be: "These are the most complex algorhythms I've ever seen!" ROFL! But hey, you don't watch Knight Rider for the story do you?

The Hoff pops his head in at the end - but someone who's star has clearly fallen even further is Val Kilmer - he does KITT's voice - Iceman and Top Secret are distant memories huh? You know you've hit rock bottom when you're doing voice work for a fuckin car!

How good were they?

Well a couple of weeks ago I nicely put my foot in it (as most of you know) when I was (drunkenly) talking (like the expert I am) about our medal hopes for the games when 'someone' said to look out for the Evers-Swindell twins taking Gold - and I mocked this saying something like - Ha! Bronze at best.... forgetting that the person I was talking to was an Olympic Rowing Bronze medalist... nice one! Thats right up there with inadvertently taking highly strung lesbians to an evening of stand up jokes about lesbians! But probably not as bad as my other recent faux-pas - I was giving a colleague from Christchurch shit for not being at work on a particular Friday - long weekend haha etc etc - she replied oh no I was shifting my husbands stuff out as he has left me. Brilliant, glad I brought it up.

Its been a great year. lol

But anyway - turns out he might have been on the money as the twins stormed back into contention last night qualifying directly for the final. Rowing on the whole seemed to go well - Waddell and Cohen turned it on in the last 1000m to come from a boat length behind to take it by a length, the twins were like some sort of possessed machine (in a good way - not like Terminator), Twigg looked strong and Drysdale was predictably dominant.

Also while we're on rowing - there was a great doco on TVNZ 7 last night about the 1984 rowing 8s, following their campaign start to finish - but don't worry I won't mock their fourth placing out of fear of offending anyone else! A cool thing I found was on the World Rowing website - results from all Olympic games with times etc - i find this sort of stuff fascinating.

Limpuc Games

I love the Olympics and on paper this is looking like a great games for New Zealand - world class rowing crews for africa, Valerie Vili in the shot put, Hayden Roulston in the cycling, Ben Fouhy in the kayaking, Sarah Walker in the BMX, Bevan Docherty in the triathlon and of course the reliable Barbara Kendall.

And this year TVNZ have upped their coverage with their usual coverage on TV1, a dedicated Olympic channel on Freeview and two other streaming online channels. Its a real shame they still drag out Keith Quinn and John McBeth every four years - I mean Murray Mexted may say some daft things, but at least he has a pulse. I love the way they felt there was a need to inform us that they were fireworks that were going off - yeah thanks Keith I think we can work that out.

But anyway I couldnt resist the pull and ended up buying a Freeview box today. Yes yes I already have Sky - but you can't get the extra Freeview channels (including the extra Olympic channel) on Sky! For our overseas readers - Freeview is based on the UK digital platform with the same name that the BBC run - its like Sky, but funnily enough free - but you do have to buy a set top box for around $200.

Its great though - took all of 10 minutes to set up (assuming you already have a Sky dish) and now I have the best of both worlds! Plus I know a few people who have been considering getting a box so I figure I can flog it off after the games if I stop using it.

Sometimes

Sometimes I do really, really, really, stupid things. Like unbelievably stupid.

Things like accepting daft bets for a weeks worth of coffees.

So over the next week/fortnight or so my 'exploratory committee' is going to examine whether or not this is even plausible. Going on tonight's effort - we have some work ahead of us.

You're wondering - what the fuck has he got himself into? Well you will never guess - and I will reveal all once preparations are a little more advanced... or I've chucked in the towel and bought the coffees.

Advancement in protecting personnel

Perhaps the Pentagon are getting their ideas from Crosby-Textor too? More Onion goodness.

I love the ticker tape at the bottom too - "Obama delivers speech dressed as deer to get attention of hunter demographic".



Also an alarming new study found that 78 per cent of Alzheimers patients said they did not have Alzheimers.

Stand up for the Phoenix

The Hobson St Posse pocketed another $100 towards the quiz night kitty tonight - taking our winnings over the $700 mark for the year. We have decided once we reach the $1000 mark we will all take a day off to get slaughtered down there!

But what was also great was that we got three tickets to the A-League Pre-Season Cup final which is of course in Wellington tomorrow night. While this Cup is largely meaningless - it is the first final of any kind for any New Zealand A-League or NSL side so people should get along and support the guys as they take on the Melbourne Victory. The Phoenix were unbeaten in the round-robin and last years shaky defence looks a lot tidier so things are shaping up for a good season.

Rugby analogies - gotta love em

Well what a difference a week makes... or should I say a conference makes. Has anyone else noticed what a shambles the tories have made of their conferences for two years running?

And its the shambolic conference that has offered up the perfect opportunity to attack. Its like that moment in early in the second half of the Bledisloe test the other night when Ma'a Nonu scored. Like the Nats election year conference, the Auckland test should have been a triumph for Australia - and with a Wallaby try before the break it looked like they were getting into their work again.

But from a Wallaby lineout Richie McCaw put pressure on halfback, Luke Burgess, with a huge tackle causing him to spill the ball forward - now instead of chest pumping and enjoying that play - the All Blacks scooped up the ball, spread it wide and a few scrappy phases later - Nonu scored in the corner. Knock-on's only ever matter if the opposition capitalise on them. Basically what I'm saying is that now is the time to strike against the Nats - while they're on the back foot and in disarray (plus I wanted to bring that game up again).

Which is a perfect opportunity for me to jot down the thoughts I've had on what Labour needs to do - as I promised in my much criticised pointing out of the obvious last week (too negative/defeatist/polls are unscientific (hmm begs the question - why does Labour so heavily rely on internal polling and focus groups??) etc etc). But anyway I think its too late now for strategies, billboards and TV ads - Labour needs fresh policy initiatives to take things up a notch.

I think there are two main reasons why Labour has been behind in the polls since early 2007 - people are tired of Clark and Cullen (especially the perceived arrogance of Cullen and his unwillingness to let people have tax cuts) and secondly the cost of living has shot up with dairy and petrol prices especially hurting people.

There is no question in my mind that the reshuffle was a missed opportunity - Cullen should have moved down the rankings and focussed on Attorney General and Treaty Negotiations - possibly even Justice and Goff should have been deputy and finance. But Labour now can't and won't do anything about the leadership team pairing, however, they can tackle the cost of living.

Cut and cap the excise tax on petrol to a set amount. As I understand it - the government currently takes a percentage of the cost of petrol in tax to pay for transport projects. In theory you would say -its fine, just leave it alone. But that policy was set when petrol cost 80 cents a litre and when you consider that not even a year ago petrol was around 50-60 cents cheaper - the government is taking in stacks of additional revenue as the price has gone up. So why not lower the dollar level of the tax level at a certain point - say where it was in dollar figures at Budget time in 2007? This would be a bold move and would piss the Greens off - but it would immediately reduce the pain workers are feeling in their hip pockets and further it would actually demonstrate that the government was aware people are hurting and is prepared to do something about it - which is all they're really asking for.

The Education Revolution. There needs to be some sort of bold future focussed policy to counter the Nats 'ambitious' (ie daft) FTTH policy and I think Education is a great front to attack on as the Nats will be weak with their private school/voucher agenda. I've said on here before that its through education and training, by upskilling the workforce that New Zealand's productivity and wages will improve. To be blunt having a low-skilled workforce is holding the country back and our education system frankly needs a kick up the arse to ensure we stop producing so many unskilled workers. The focus really needs to be on results and building up our skill base in the areas where we need workers - IT, accountancy, medical and legal. Personally I think we could even be so bold as to halve or even wipe student loans of those who study in those areas and then work in New Zealand for five years? Why not if it works? (On second thought they probably shouldn't steal Rudd's slogan though - even though it is better than Schools Plus - which sounded like a stationery retailer). A vision of a skilled workforce with high wages also needs to be painted - point out that its not because of broadband that Singapore and Hong Kong kick ass - its because of their high skill levels.

Knock waiting lists on the head by guaranteeing oldies won't wait longer than 6 months. Nothing hacks people off more than having loved ones sit on waiting lists - or worse die while on a waiting list. So Labour should step up and draw a line in the sand and guarantee that if you're over 60 you will have your surgery done within six months - or your treatment will be done by a private provider. As Tony Blair once said - the Labour value is getting people treated quickly and funded by the state - this achieves that.

I really do think its that simple for Labour now - these sorts of policies would provide the punch - or Nonu-esque try if you will - to allow it to actually front foot the solid container load of policy it has - KiwiRail, KiwiSaver, tax cuts, yadda yadda yadda.

Do I think Labour would do any of these things? Lol don't be silly - as we now know, even John Howard rejected the idea of reducing petrol tax. But I do hope there are some decent Aces (or set pieces - to keep the rugby thing going) tucked away.

Where did they find these people?

Has anyone else noticed the savvy-high-calibre individuals the electoral commission have out enrolling people to vote?

Until I saw their ashtray, I was wondering whether the two outside the ANZ on Lambton Quay were of 'no fixed abode' - I mean the matted hair? Really?

The guy with the van in Manners Mall looked like some sort of serial offender who was just waiting to nab someone and I was really surprised that Westfield's were allowing a couple of tattooed ex-cons to man the stall at Queensgate.

I'm hoping that this crack squad of go-getters is all part of some incredible strategy to reach out to people - but it does look like a tory-esque Make-Work scheme gone bad!

I wanted to believe

I checked out the X-Files: I want to believe tonight and thankfully it didn't have any of the god damn aliens that haunted the first film in 1998 - but it did feature the old school theme, which brought the memories flooding back.

But while it was great to see Mulder and Scully back on screen I felt it was just lacking something and frankly it felt more like an extended TV-film rather than a proper motion picture.

The story was ok - although I did have to laugh at its similarity to a particular episode of The League of Gentlemen. Basically the FBI call back Mulder, who is in hiding living conspicuously as Scully's lover while she works as a surgeon, after a psychic priest gets visions of where a missing FBI agent is.

Frankly you get a bit sick of the whole on again/off again nature of Mulder and Scully's relationship and Scully's willingness to go back - you just want them to suck it up and get on with it already.

It did make me wonder if the future of the X-Files could be a series of annual TV mini-series'?

Check it out if you're a fan from back in the day - but it basically is just a new extended episode.

Satisfaction

I've just got in from a bit of a boys night down at my old work place. It was fair to say I was tempting fate to spend the evening watching the Bledisloe Cup with a bunch of Australians on their territory.

But god damn - you can't match the satisfaction of a 39-10 victory. Naturally I was very sporting... ok I did start chanting - "Are you England? Are you England? Are You England in disguise?" But other than that... well ok there was the attempted flag raising.. but other than that I was a good sport.

Anyway it was a great fight back from the All Blacks tonight - one of the best performances I can remember - right up there with Wellington in 1996, Sydney in 2000, Paris in 2004, Wellington in 2005 and Lyon in 2006. Hopefully this will ease some of the pathetic-media's attention on Henry and put some heat on their golden boy. The only thing more satisfying than an amazing victory against all odds is being able to savour it with the enemy!