Post Christmas/New Year Movie Catch-up

It's been a while since I wrote anything, so I thought I'd do a quick catch-up.

Child 44

An adaption of the book by Tom Rob Smith. Leo Demidov (Tom Hardy), a former Soviet war hero and working for State Security, tracks down a child-killer while trying to save himself from an ambitious colleague (Joel Kinnaman).

Not as good as it could have been, too much of the plot revolves around Leo and his wife trying to avoid the Gulag and, when he does catch up with the villain, it's almost an afterthought. Not bad, but might lead to better sequels.

Noah

Based on the book of Genesis characters, Noah (Russell Crowe), the last descendant of Abel, is tasked by God to save the creatures of the Earth at the cost of the human race, which has become corrupt and barbarous.

Despite a faintly ridiculous plot, it's a reasonably coherent film, marred only by it's length.The acting is good enough, even from Ray Winstone as Noah's nemesis, but it's only an average pizza movie. Ray Winstone as God might have been entertaining, though.

The Wolf of Wall Street

A story of greed and excess from Martin Scorsese, Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio), an out of work trader, realises there's a clever way to separate the unsuspecting from their money...

Can't say I like it, 'cause I don't. It's puerile and hollow, a pale shadow next to any of his previous films, even Goodfellas.

Taken 3

The latest of the Taken series sees Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) framed for the murder of his ex-wife, kill a load of Russian gangsters and finding out it's her new husband wot done it. Or something. I am past caring.

Birdman

Winner of this years Oscar for Best Film, beating Grand Hotel Budapest, Selma and The Imitation Game, Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton), a has-been actor used to super-hero roles, tries to stage a play on Broadway.

I'm not quite sure how this got onto the list, but it must have seemed a good idea at the time. A gesture to stepping outside the comfort zone, perhaps. It does seem like a film that actors, especially film actors, would understand, a sort of in-joke. It left me feeling a bit cold, however, with the mix of fantasy and reality recalling Terry Gilliams The Fisher King, without any of the latter's charm. Played straight, it might have worked.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

I got to see the latest Star Wars and jolly good it is too. Abrams hasn't disappointed. The production is slick, with unobtrusive CGI. The plot, while including elements of the original, is workman-like and has enough twists and turns to make it enjoyable. The best parts for me, however, are the knowing nods to the fans (I especially liked the Millenium Falcon with a tarpaulin over it). Above all, there was no cuteness in it: no Ewoks or Jar-jar. And the Stormtroopers still can't shoot straight.

Rather than show yet another trailer, Disney are promoting Star Wars: Rebels, which is worth a look:

Have a happy New Year, everybody.

London Java Community Open Conference 2015

Yesterday, I saved up enough pennies to go to the annual LJC Open Conference at the IBM building, right next to the National Theatre on London's South Bank, and done in the same brutalist style.

Open Conferences, sometimes called Un-conferences, are where there is no set schedule, other than perhaps, as here, a key-note to start. It's left to the participants to organise the presentations and workshops. This is what makes it cheap, but you get what you pay for.

The Conference Key-note: 20 Years of Java

Starting off with the key note by Simon Ritter and Steve Elliot, both former employees of Sun Micro-Systems (Steve still works for Oracle, Simon does not). This covered Java since it's launch in 1995, showing how the language has evolved from the 200 odd classes in version 1 to the 4000+ in the latest version, 8. They commented that this bloated situation would improve with the introduction of "Jigsaw", the modularisation of the JDK.

Performance by the Numbers with Simon Maple

The first presentation I attended concerned a survey conducted by Simon and his company to see how much performance testing was done by the profession and what effect it had. Unsurprisingly, few tested regularly and most tested in reaction to performance bottlenecks when they were found in production. Most performance bugs were connected to databases as much, if not slightly more, than the applications themselves: JPA and Hibernate being the worse culprits in this regard. The lesson here being performance test early, often and with the right tools.

Microservices in the Real World with Chris Batey

Given the popularity at the moment, and linked, to some extent, with the previous talk, Chris took us through his experiences with microservices, especially dealing with outages and his efforts to make the applications more robust (he recommended Netfix's Hysterix). His slides of the talk can be found here.

Lightning Talks and Lunch

Both before and after lunch there were lightning talks, five minutes where anyone could talk about almost anything. One involved the use of Microsoft's Kinetix to create ghostly 3D images, like a cut-price 3D scanner. Another mentioned a book called "Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" by Douglas Hofstadter, with a view to writing every algorithm that ever could be written.

JDK8 Lambdas and Streams: Beyond the Basics with Simon Ritter

The first proper presentation after lunch was regarding the new features of JDK 8. Simon gave us a few examples of how he has changed his style of programming from the procedural style to the new functional style using lambdas and, especially, streams. In particular, he showed how using the Supplier interface could allow lazy evaluation, something normally only available in interpreted or functional languages such Scala, and how to design and use accumulators for use with Streams.

IoT 4 Java with Carl Jokl

Having been to the presentation earlier in the week on the BBC micro:bit, I was interested to see what the LJC was doing about this. Unfortunately, it's all at the very early stages at the moment and Carl didn't have much to show other than a few concepts: it would have been nice to see some actual things.

Generics: Past, Present and Future with Richard Warburton

Lastly, Richard gave a short presentation on the use of Generics and how they might evolve with future versions. Generics are Java's way of implementing meta-classes, classes built around other classes, Collections being a usual example. Java 7 introduced intersection types to generics, which can make things even more confusing, so you get code like this:

private static <I extends DataInput & Closeable> PersonWithGenerics read(I source)

Allowing any object that implements both DataInput and Closable in it's hierarchy of classes and interfaces to be used. It's a bit like a multiple inheritance workaround.

Richard also showed us was an actual use of the "super" keyword in Generics, something you don't often get. I won't go into it here, as it was somewhat involved, but he put the code for the session on Github.

He also mentioned some ideas for future versions, including Generics for primitive types (not just the objects of types, as at the moment).

Conclusion

Was it worth the £25? Yes, I think so, and 200 other people thought so too. The presentations were of reasonable quality, what I saw, and better than you would expect. Perhaps because it's less contrived than a more expensive conference.

An impression I did get was that Java is starting to be very retrospective: the key-note said nothing about the future, only the past, and it's new features added with JDK 8 are struggling to be accepted. A concern I have with our profession, and Java in particular, is this conservatism and resistance to change.

IoT Innovators Meetup: Meet the BBC micro:bit with Howard Baker

It's been a while since I attended any hardware meetups and so I went along to a new group meeting at Canonical (the organisation behind Ubuntu) on London's South Bank, behind Tate Modern. Nice offices:

The presentation was given by Howard Baker who is a lead at BBC Learning looking at innovating technologies.

His talk was about the background to the micro:bit, the BBC's initiative to promote software development in schools through a micro device.

It turns out that software development is not taught at schools, something that astounded me (A-Level at least...) and that Universities complain that the entrants to Computer Science courses have to be taught basic programming skills. In answer to this. the current Director General of the BBC wants an initiative to promote programming, in the same way the Model B did all those years ago. Everyone has a computer these days so, after a few false starts, Howard and his team came up with the micro:bit. It has a small ARM chip, a magnetometer, accelerometer and a neat 5 X 5 led display, along with a low power blu-tooth transmitter/receiver. It also has a mini-USB port and external analogue/digital connector.

It's also got a nice web site with on-line editors for producing code to run the hardware, one in a Scratch-like block language, which translates into Microsoft's Touch Develop language, and one for JavaScript. There will, hopefully, be a Python one as well.

The goal is to roll out the device to 1 million children of 11-12 year old's (1st year secondary). Howard emphasised the social aspects of the program, saying that it wasn't just aimed at the children but that the parents could see their children being creative and enthusiastic. In particular, he said that he thought that the idea of owning the technology and making it themselves was fundanental, turning children "from consumers into creators", being influenced to some extent by the Maker movement.

Overall, it was an excellent presentation on an engaging subject, expecially for anyone who tried to play Elite on a Model B. So if you want a look at the future of technology, it will be available from a teenager near you.

After the presentation, I took a few snaps of the buildings around the river, all lit up.

Very festive.

Movie Hardmen - Riddick, The Gunman and Run All Night

In a bit of a movie update, first the belated and imaginatively titled third instalment of the Riddick series.

Our eponymous hero, having grown slipshod in his security arrangements as leader of the Necromongers, finds himself stranded on a hostile planet, pursued by two groups of bounty hunters.

Other than money, it's difficult to see why this film was made, as it's just a rehash of the first film, with bits of the second thrown in for good measure. Mr. Diesel looks like he had fun, and it's all workman-like, just... why bother?

Much better is Sean Penn's attempt at the tough-guy genre with The Gunman. Jim Terrier (Penn), a mercenary working for an NGO in Africa, searches for who sent a hit squad after him.

With a good plot, if a bit slow, and a decent supporting cast including Javier Bardem, Ray Winstone and Mark Rylance, Penn's able to hold down the hard-man role pretty well, and there's plenty of bangs and crashes. It's different enough to be an above average pizza movie.

Lastly, the latest Liam Neeson vehicle. Burn-out gangster and estranged father, Jimmy Conlon, is given a chance at redemption when his son Mike (Joel Kinneman) witnesses a murder.

Neeson seems to be picking better films to do between Taken sequels at the moment, and this is no exception. It's plot keeps a decent pace, if a little predictable, and there's a great supporting cast with Ed Harris as the former friend turned Nemesis. And just in time for Christmas.

Autumnal Equinox

Taking advantage of the light and the air, I took some photos of the trees around the work's estate, resplendent in the Seasons glory:

I also managed to take some photos of the fireworks:

The Trouble with Robots - CHAPPiE and The Avengers: Age of Ultron

A movie update, while we're all waiting for Star Wars to turn up in December. This time it's all about robots and their relationship with their creators (without Mary Shelley, where would the film industry be?).

First up, CHAPPiE from District 9 and Elysium director Neill Blomkamp. To cope with the increasing crime rate in Johannesburg, the police turn to Tetravaal and their latest robot invention, created by Deon Wilson (Dev Patel), while Deon has a bright idea...

With a workable, if rather slow, story and decent enough effects, with a few A-List names to pull in the punters (Sigourney Weaver as Deon's boss and Hugh Jackman as his rival), this is a pretty good pizza movie IF you can stomach the idea of Afrikaaner Punks, which is where it falls down for me. And, for South Africa, surprisingly few black people.

Continuing the theme, I watched the latest Marvel release (Antman hasn't come out on DVD yet). After a successful raid by the Avengers on a Hydra fortress, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) experiments with what appears to be a new form of intelligence.

With lots of bangs and crashes we've become accustomed to by now, the plot is reasonable and tries to include a softer side, with the unlikely romance between Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), and Hawkeye's (Jeremy Renner) domesticity. James Spader provides the wit as the voice of Ultron, and I liked Iron Man's Hulk Smasher suit, but this felt to me like a mash-up of previous films, a film between other films. Plus this looks just awesome in comparison!

London Java Community, Docklands - Swagger and Hazlecast

Tonight I went along to see two presentations hosted by the London Java Community Docklands branch at Credit Suisse, all wood panelling and soft carpets in the lobby:

First up was David Garry, whose soft Irish tones introduced us to Swagger, an open source REST API definition language and tool suite. You can either reverse engineer you existing API into Swagger or create a new one and generate code from that. The web site has a rather natty online editor:

which will allow you to roll your own definition as well as creating the source code for both server and client. Shown below is some the code produced for SpringMVC:

@Controller
@RequestMapping(value = "/addresses", produces = {APPLICATION_JSON_VALUE})
@Api(value = "/addresses", description = "the addresses API")
@javax.annotation.Generated(value = "class io.swagger.codegen.languages.SpringMVCServerCodegen", date = "2015-10-13T22:20:28.432Z")
public class AddressesApi {

  @ApiOperation(value = "Addresses", 
                notes = "A collection of addresses.", 
    response = Address.class, 
    responseContainer = "List")
  @ApiResponses(value = { 
    @ApiResponse(code = 200, message = "An array of addresses"),
    @ApiResponse(code = 200, message = "Unexpected error") })
  @RequestMapping(value = "", 
                  method = RequestMethod.POST)
  public ResponseEntity<List<Address>> addressesPost(@ApiParam(value = "Latitude component of location.", 
  required = true) 
  @RequestParam(value = "latitude", required = true) Double latitude

It's a mess of annotations, as you can see, but I suppose if you've got a couple of hundred of these definitions, and you have to keep them all documented, Swagger can come in handy.

Next was David Brimley who introduced us to Hazelcast. A few months ago, Pakt had a free book offer and one I downloaded was on an introduction to the subject:

It's a kind of middleware for data services, styled as an "In-memory Data Grid", implying caching of data. It does implement the JCache standard (JSR107), but it also includes a messaging and event API, allowing you to be notified of changes in data; clustering and scaling of data "nodes"; and remote code execution (imagine Java stored procedures... sort of). David gave us a very thorough overview, given the limited time available to him.

Overall, it was a good set of lectures, but it wasn't a particularly relaxed venue: we had to give our name tags back, and there were no refreshments as at SkillsMatter. Next months Docklands do is at Barclays, so that might be a bit more relaxed. Not banking on it, though (sorry!).

A Boy and His Robot: Big Hero Six, Interstellar, Jupiter Ascending and Black Sea

A bit of a movie catch-up with three sci-fi and one psychological thriller.

First up, Interstellar. With a looming ecological catastrophe, former astronaut Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is asked to venture through a recently discovered wormhole to find a new home for Humanity.

While the acting and special effects are good, at two hours plus, this seemed a little dragged out to me. Plus, although they had expert advice on the physics concepts involved, the plot did seems a little contrived (I didn't understand how they managed to get down to the first planet without being ripped apart by tidal forces from gravity stong enough to slow down time). Quite a good pizza movie, though, and a more positive spin on the future than most films.

Next, Black Sea. Unemployed submariner Robinson (Jude Law) is offered an opportunity to salvage gold from a sunken U-Boat.

A claustrophobic and tense thriller, with some genuine starts (for me anyway), it's spoiled by technical errors (there's a reason they use diesel in ships: it's inflammable) and the silliness of the plot. An average pizza movie, but no more than that.

From the Wachowski siblings, who brought you the Matrix, comes Jupiter Ascending. Jupiter (Mila Kunis) a cleaner in Chicago turns out to be the genetic twin of a long dead Queen of... Lord, I can't be bothered. Instead of showing you the trailer, I'll let Honest Trailer's explain (if they can):

I didn't think it was that bad, but, like they say, the plot has holes you could drive a tank through and the acting is bad enough to make Sean Bean look like Laurence Olivier. Harmless enough, I suppose, but more expensive than Black Sea for a not much better result.

Lastly, we have Disney's attempt to cash in on the Manga phenomena with Big Hero Six. After losing his brother in a fire, Hiro (geddit?) Hamada and the formers robot creation Baymax try to find out what happened.

Although still a Disney film, and, therefore, a bit cardboard cut-out, it's a reasonable plot and good enough characters to make it an enjoyable 90 minutes. I liked it.

From the 3R's to 6 (or 7) D's, with Julia Begbie

Subtitled "Digital Disruption within Education", this was a presentation I attended yesterday, hosted by the London Futurists at Birbeck. Julia and her colleagues at the KLC School of Design have created the U.K.' s first completely on-line Design degree.

Essentially, aside from giving an overview of her experiences creating online education, Julia presentation centred on the affects of MOOC's (Massive Open Online Course) on education. Having been on a few courses via Coursera, this was quite topical, and Julia showed that the initial popularity, failure and resurgence of the MOOC's mirrored the Gartner cycle quite accurately:

The 6D's in the title of the presentation are from the entrepreneur Peter Diamandes, "the 6 D's of Exponential Growth":

Julia added a 7th D, Data. Education (citing Khan Academy in particular) benefits from feedback through the huge data sets created by the courses. She also showed a few sections of Sir Ken Robinson's talk animated by the RSA a while ago:

Overall, it was a good presentation by an enthusiastic speaker. However, there was something that's been bothering me about technological, and with it human, progress, which this presentation illustrates unconsciously. What was preventing all this happening years ago? All the bits where there: Drupal, for example, now at version 7, has been around for fifteen years; Wordpress for about twelve. Why the wait?

Last Films - God's Pocket, The Drop and Drone

It's been more than a month since I wrote and I'd like to say it was because I was busy, but I can't. I have managed to watch a few films, however and, by coincidence, the last films of Philip Seymour Hoffman and James Gandolfini, as well as a prescient documentary.

First up, God's Pocket. Mickey Scarpato (Hoffman), resident of tough neighbourhood, tries to give his step-son a decent funeral after his fatal work "accident", while trying to console his grieving wife (Christina Hendricks) and make ends meet selling the proceeds of a heist.

Notable for being one of Hoffmans last films (he filmed Mockingjay parts one and two), he was also a producer. Styled as a black comedy, it does seem to be a bit of a self indulgent film, although not a bad story, and as well acted as you'd expect, with a supporting cast to die for (John Turturro, as well as quality TV actors Peter Gerety, Domenick Lombardozzi, Eddie Marsan and Molly Price). However, it has the feeling, as Hoffmans character does at the end to the place he lives, of being best left behind.

Much better is a crime film, The Drop, written by novelist Denis Lehane (who wrote Gone, Baby, Gone) from his book of the same name. Serving behind a Brooklyn bar, which is also a cover for a criminal money bank (a "drop"), Bob Saginowski (Tom Hardy) tries to keep his head down while keeping his eye on his cousin Marv (Gandolfini) who used to own the bar.

A genuinely good plot, as you'd expect, with a few twists and turns. Hardy tries a bit too hard to be the innocent criminal, but it's the skilled Gandolfini who makes it look easy as the down-on-his-luck former petty gangster. Worth watching.

Lastly, a documentary all about drone warfare and the impact it's had on a forgotten part of Pakistan.

It's easy to forget that there's been a one-sided war going on fought, not with men but machines. What the film shows most vividly, as much as the victims, is how easy it is to recruit young men, skilled in video games, to kill people on the other side of the world and that this technology, more than plutonium or anthrax, is available to almost everyone.

Minions! (in 3D)

I'm on holiday at the moment and, to take a break from all the running around I usually do, I went to see the new Despicable Me prequel.

Minions Kevin, Bob and Stuart set out to find a new evil boss to serve.

Although not as good as the originals, probably because it lacked Gru and the girls, the plot's clever enough and there's the odd swipe at the Brits (or, rather, everyone else's perception of us). Light summer viewing for kids of any age.

Rhythms of the World 2015 - And It Rained!

I turned up again to do my annual stint of picking up litter at the Rhythms of the World music festival at the Priory in Hitchin, Hertfordshire. My mate John has finally settled in gay Paris and so was not present. There were the usual aging punk bands:

and the new punk bands (sorry I don't have the names of the groups as I forgot to get a programme):

There was also a rather sweet sounding girl band:

There was also the traditional mural in progress, which looks pretty impressive:

After a tiring four hour shift, during which I got soaked to the skin, despite the waterproof coat, I treated myself to the latest festival must-have, a fruit slushie in an odd platic glass:

Cheers!

Lego Minifigs - Lucky for Some

Although these chappies don't look much, they're significant for me:

They're the last two minifigs of series thirteen that I needed to complete the set, all sixteen:

They range in colour from brown (a paleontologist and the town sheriff):

To the, er, 1970's:

But, at least, the cyclops is back with his missus:

Monads - Asking the Right Question, with Pawel Szulc

On Monday, 1st June, I went to an evening presentation given by Pawel Szulc at Skillmatter regarding Monads in Scala (the videocast of it is here).

It's an obscure subject and not one I really understand, and this presentation didn't help much (too many cognative leaps, like reading a technical book with most of the pages stuck together).

Monads are a kind of contract or pattern, encapsulating a data type in a consistant interface. The interface consists of two functions: a "bind" or "flatMap" function that, given a translation function, allows another monad to be created from the first; and a unit function which creates the monad from the original type in the first place.

Pavel's got a thing about monads and tried to explain how they can be used as a design technique, but I think it's something that going to take a bit more than a presentation to explain. A monograph on the subject, perhaps. Clever bloke, though.

Movie Catchup - Donald Rumsfeld: A Man Who Wasn't There

I've been a little busy of late doing an online course in Scala, so I'm doing a bit of catching up.

First up, The Unknown Known, a strange documentary from Errol Morris about the former U.S. Secretary of Defence and Neo-Conservative Donald Rumsfeld.

This can be contrasted, explicitly, with the documentary that Morris did previously about another Defence Secretary, Robert McNamara. Whereas McNamara seemed to be an active participant in the decisions made by himself and the presidents he served, and suffered accordingly, Rumsfeld seems to have merely been an observer, unengaged, just a place-holder until a real decision maker turned up. Intriguingly, Nixon thought of him as unreliable and so he escaped the Watergate scandal.

Next, Dracula Untold, the story of Prince Vlad Tepes (Luke Evans) and his struggles to save his people from the Ottoman Emperor Mehemed II (Dominic Cooper).

A ripping yarn, and an attempt at blending real history (Prince Vlad did defeat the forces of Mehemed in night battle and impaled 20,000 prisoners) with the Dracula story of Bram Stoker, this is a really good pizza movie and worth the watch.

Lastly, Officer Down, a cop movie starring Steven Dorff.

Based on a true story, it's not a bad little film, hampered only by the initial flash-backs, which just confuse rather than add style. The acting isn't bad, with good support by Walton Coggins and James Woods. Better than you would think.

Oooooo, on TV over in the 'States is a new series about us IT people. Called Mr. Robot, it's about a dysfuctional hacker (so no cliches there then) who finds himself embroiled in a shadowy world corporate intrigue.

Yeah, it sounds like clap-trap, but, in the absense of anything better, it might be worth a watch (assuming you can find it amongst all the dross on our networks).

Man Without Fear - Daredevil, The Homesman and Brute Force

A few films, courtesy of my Amazon subscription. First, a western directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones.

In pre-Civil War Nebraska Territory, a homesteader (Hillary Swank), tasked with escorting three women, driven mad by their experiences, back to a sanctuary in Iowa, recruits an experienced escort (Jones).

Although this is a decent enough drama, and certainly well acted by Swank, Jones and the other cast members, it's not really a western in the classic sense. For that it would require an ultimate antagonist, and the only real one in the film is the wild and randomly dangerous Frontier.

Next up, Brute Force, a prison drama starring Burt Lancaster. Driven to desperate measures by a sadistic and ambitious prison guard captain (Hume Cronyn), Joe Collins (Lancaster) and his fellow inmates attempt an escape from the notorious Westgate Prison.

A classic noire from the 1940's by Jules Dassin, Lancaster is at his toughest in this gritty drama where nobody wins. Fantastic stuff.

Netflix release it's own creations in job-lots and they've done that with one of Marvel's more ambiguous characters, Daredevil. In the aftermath of the attack on New York, depicted in The Avengers film, Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) investigates seemingly unconnected criminal activities in Hell's Kitchen and the shadowy figure behind them.

It looks pretty good, avoiding the usual cliches, and the martial arts looks top notch. Only available through Netflix, though, which is a shame.

Powers, Lucy and Grand Budapest Hotel

Over the Easter break I've been watching a few films. First up, a sci-fi film from Luc Besson starring Scarlett Johansson.

Lucy

Lucy (Johansson), while being forced to smuggle a designer drug, accidentally takes a massive overdose.

Based on the joke that only 10% of the brain is used by the average human (in Chelmsford it's a lot less), imagine that someone had re-written Johnny Depp's film Transcendence, but had thought "throw out all the existential stuff, put Scarlett Johansson in it as a drug-enhanced psychic Ninja and a load of Chinese gangsters shooting things up with French police. And keep Morgan Freeman in it." It makes District 13 look like it had been written by Jean-Paul Sartre. Even a pizza movie has some standards, but if you only want to use 10% of your brain, one way would be to watch this.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

An author reflects on his stay at an odd hotel in a fictional eastern bloc country during it's communist days and his encounter with the owner.

Wes Andersen specialises in making odd films, (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Royal Tenenbaums), and this is no less weird. It's a story within a story within a story, the main one being of the Concierge of the Hotel (Ralph Fiennes) back in the 1930's, being framed for the murder of one of his aged "clients", an unrecognisable Tilda Swinton. It's not a bad yarn and the supporting cast is stuffed with A-Listers, most of whom have been in Andersens films before. It got a few Oscars and Bafta's, but you can see that the oddness would be a bit too much for a jury's taste. I liked it, but I can't actually figure out why.

Powers

To finish off, I thought I'd mention a comic book TV adaption, available only through your Sony PlayStation, if you have one.

Former super-hero Christian Walker a.k.a. Diamond (Sharlto Copley) is now a detective with the L.A.P.D. Powers Division.

It's a variation of the "if people really did have super-powers, who would police them?" idea (like The Boys). I've not read the comics, although I've heard good things, and anything where Eddy Izzard plays Hannibal Lecter with super-powers can't be all bad. Worth a watch, although not enough to get you to actually buy a PlayStation.

Movie Catchup: "If It Bleeds, It Leads"

It's been a while since I wrote about the films I've been watching, so here goes. First up, a comment on modern news media.

Nightcrawler

Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal), a petty thief and hustler in Los Angeles, encounters a freelance news crew at the scene of an accident.

An update of Network with a central character that makes Tony Curtis's Sidney Falco look compassionate and altruistic, Gyllenhaal gives a strange and chilling performance as the amoral anti-hero Bloom. The plot and direction are excellent, and he's ably supported by Rene Russo, as the news director who encourages him, and Riz Ahmed, as his gullible assistant. Both the movie and Gyllenhaal's performance are Oscar material, in my view, and the film is highly recommended.

The Equaliser

Next, a remake of the 80's TV series with Denzel Washington. Working in a hardware super-store, Robert McCall (Washington) lives a quiet, unassuming life until he tries to help a young prostitute.

Although it nods to the original TV series, this film is really a copy of an earlier Denzel movie, Man on Fire. Washington adds class to what would otherwise be another addition to the vigilante genre (Taken, Three Days, etc.), and there's been a bit more thought put into the plot and characters than normal, Marton Csokas as his Russian nemesis is particularly sinister. It is just a pizza movie at heart, however, just not a bad one.

Transcendence

This is Johnny Depp's attempt to make a serious science fiction movie. After being assassinated by an anti-technology terrorist group, Dr. Will Caster (Depp), an A.I. expert, has his consciousness uploaded into a computer.

Although the special effects are good, the film is let down by the plot, which lacks pace and energy at critical points. This is probably because it's trying to deal with philosophical issues (human identity and the singularity) in a medium that doesn't easily support their discussion. The acting is okay, if a bit pedestrian, which reflects the dull dialogue, and there's a few A-Listers to fill in, but overall I felt that it was just a little too slow.

A Walk Among The Tombstones

The latest vehicle for Liam Neeson, he plays a retired policeman hired by a drug dealer to investigate the disappearance his girlfriend.

From a novel by Lawrence Block, Neeson does well as the recovering alcoholic Matt Scudder (the start of a possible series). The plot is well conceived and translates well onto the screen, although Scudder's teenage sidekick T.J. (Brian Bradley) could have done with being older. After seeing Neeson in worse films, it was nice to see him in something decent. This was also the second film with David Harbour in a supporting role (he played a crooked cop in The Equalizer)

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

Yup, Tom Clancy's hero gets a reboot. After recovering from his injuries in Afghanistan, former marine Jack Ryan (Chris Pine) becomes a financial analyst working secretly for the C.I.A. when he comes across a plot by Russian intelligence to collapse the American economy.

Directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also plays Ryan's nemesis, the plot is reasonably good, if a bit cartoon, and the acting more than adequate, given that Pine is supported by Kevin Costner (much better cast than in the previous movie), as his boss, and Keira Knightley as his wife. Not a bad pizza movie, if a bit predictable.

The Naked City

A classic not-quite-noire from the 1940's, New York police detectives Lt. Dan Muldoon (Barry Fitzgerald) and James Halloran (Don Taylor) investigate the murder of a good-time girl.

The acting is a bit wooden and there's not a bad cop in sight, but the real gem is seeing New York, New York in the 1940's (some of the sound is bad because they were filming in people's apartments and houses). The director, Jules Dassin, was one of the more adventurous in America, but was eventually blacklisted for his communist sympathies and moved to Europe. There are a thousand stories in the Naked City, and this was one of them.

The Winning of The Carbon War, with Jeremy Leggett

Yesterday I went to a presentation, hosted by the London Futurists, by Jeremy Leggett, who gave a similar presentation about eighteen months ago. His new book is currently in production and he gave us a brief overview of it's themes and possible content.

His main thrust was that renewables are succeeding to the loss of fossil fuels. Renewables, mostly solar and wind, but also wave and tidal, have become much cheaper over the last few years, in particular solar technology. This contrasts to fossil fuels, which investors are seeing as increasingly risky: in particular he cited the reluctance of Shell's shareholders to back it's exploration of the Arctic and the cost overruns of Kashagan oil field, which has only just started production after more than ten years. As previously, he also highlighted the problem with shale oil and gas production. The third theme is the concerns over climate change and the reduction in greenhouse gasses.

Jeremy was quite bullish, even when some of the audience pointed out flaws in his arguments, and he's almost as myopic in his support for renewables as his opponents are for fossil fuels (one question concerned the degradation of solar cells and the difficulty in recycling them, for which he had no answer).

There seems to be two main problems with renewable energy, and energy in general. The first is that renewables don't seem to be very portable or storable. Most renewables concentrate on generating electricity, which is relatively easy to do, but they are unreliable and to make them truly an alternative to fossil fuels will require the storage of the electrical output. I'm not talking car batteries here, but of the size that can keep a small town supplied for, say, a week. My father was involved, briefly, in the Dinorwic pump storage scheme in Snowdonia. This was designed to allow nuclear power stations to run at a constant rate, storing the excess power at low demand times for use a peak times. On a smaller scale, this is what's needed for renewables to viable as an alternative to, say, gas, which can be used on demand.

The other problem, slightly related, is that electricity cannot be used in places where fossil fuels are used due to energy density. Aviation, i.e. jet, fuel has a density of about 40 MJ/L. Lithium-ion batteries, such as you have in mobile phones, have about 3 MJ/L. You can't power a jet aircraft on batteries. You can create hydrogen using the electrolysis of water, which could then be liquefied. It might also be possible to chemically create hydrocarbon fuels, such as ethanol, which has a energy density of around 20 MJ/L. Still, it's a fair way off and not currently achievable.

Another, more subtle, point is that the "war" hasn't been won at all. The energy companies are starting to look at renewables and investing in them, thus increasing and extending their hold on energy production in the future. On those terms, it doesn't feel like a victory. We've merely swapped one form of cartel for another. Maybe it was the wrong war?

Ultimately, despite Jeremy's hubris, my electric bill is not going to get smaller and there's no renewable answer that gets me to work and back.

Update: As usual, the group has videoed the event and posted it on Youtube.

On the way back home, the train passed by a large solar farm on the outskirts of West Horndon, but, as I looked up, I saw about a dozen contrails criss-crossing the sky.

Movie Catchup: I'm As Mad As Hell, And I'm Not Going To Take This Anymore!

I've been blasting through movies at a fair clip over the past few weeks, so here's the highlights.

Network
A 70's movie, a last great golden age in my view before everything went all blockbuster and sentimental, and also Peter Finch's last. Howard Beale, a veteran news anchor, has a breakdown on live television, but it doesn't have quite the effect anticipated.

Perhaps it's not as shocking now as it was then, what with Celebrity Big Bother and Judge Judy, it does show it's deficiencies in plot and styling, but the acting is still great and not surprisingly won umpteen Oscars the following year.

Out of the Past
A classic film noire from 1946, starring Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer. Jeff Bailey (Mitchum) is running a garage in a backwater town in the California hills when a he's contacted by a past acquaintance with a job offer he can't refuse.

Although the plot is good, it's let down by Mitchum, who hadn't quite got the hang of acting at that time, and Greer who's more neurotic than fatal (she was no Ava Gardner). The highlight is Kirk Douglas, as the menacing Whit Sterling, who could act, and proceeds to do so, stealing the scene from Mitchum every time.

Need for Speed
A vehicle, if you forgive the pun. for Aaron Paul after his success in Breaking Bad. Having been framed for the death of his friend, Tobey Marshall (Paul) drives across America to compete in an unlicensed road race and revenge himself on the man (Dominic Cooper) who set him up.

Not a bad little pizza movie, if undemanding. There's almost no plot and the script sounds like it was written in an afternoon, but this is more than made up for by the car chases, which are breathtaking.

Snitch
Dwayne Johnson plays John Matthews, a construction and transportation owner whose estranged son is arrested in a DEA sting operation and makes a deal.

Dwayne continues his acting lessons, this time with the help of Susan Sarandon as an ambitious D.A., Jon Bernthal as an ex-con who gets unwittingly involved, and Barry Pepper as Matthews D.E.A. handler. Dwayne doesn't do too bad, and it's a good role for him, with a bit of action as well as acting. Give the guy a break: he's really trying!

I, Frankenstein
Dr. Frankensteins creation (Aaron Eckhart) is saved by the Gargoyle army to help save humanity from the demon horde.

Yeah, whatever. I couldn't really summon up the enthusiasm for this. It just seems like a group of media types got in a room and randomly threw Gothic stories around until something stuck. Watch only if you're bored.

Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid
And finally, one of the best comedy films ever made, and certainly one of the most original. Rigby Reardon (Steve Martin) is asked by Juliette Forrest (Rachel Ward), daughter of a noted cheese scientist, to solve the mystery of her father's death.

Funnier than a pack of hyenas in a laughing gas factory, Martin and Ward spark off each other wonderfully, but it's the "bit" players and the fantastic editing of all the 40's and 50's film clips that make it such a treat. Watch again and again.

Better Call Saul
Ooooo, speaking of Breaking Bad, a new series has started in the 'States about one of the characters. Jimmy McGill a.k.a. Saul Goodman, one-time hustler and con-artist, now tries to keep his head above water as a public defender.

Although I was a little disappointed with the ending of the parent series, this looks a little more promising.

Bosch and FBP: Federal Bureau of Physics

Last night, or rather this morning, I was up watching a series whose pilot I'd watched a few months ago on Amazon, based on the crime novels by Michael Connelly. L.A.P.D. Detective Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch (Titus Welliver) is called in to investigate some bones found by a dog in the Hollywood Hills.

Ably supported by an excellent cast (including Jamie Hector as his partner and Lance Reddick as his ambitious and more political boss, both actors from The Wire), Welliver looks very suited to the role and the story is excellent, as you would expect from the author of The Lincoln Lawyer. The only complaint is that when there's a deviation from the main character, it does feel somewhat artificial and contrived. Overall, though, it's an enjoyable, if conventional, series. I even like theme tune.

I'm also reading a Trade Paperback from Vertigo about an agency that fixes breakdowns in the fabric of reality. Trying to determine what happened to his father in a "quantum tornado", Adam Hardy joins the Federal Bureau of Physics and, with his partner Jay Kelly, gets caught in a bubble universe trying to rescue a financial fraudster.

I'm always looking for comics that break out of the conventions of the genre and this is no exception. Written by Simon Oliver (Story), Robbi Rodriguez and Rico Renzi (Artwork), it's just one roller-coaster of weirdness, but intriguing and entertaining in equal measure. And not a super-hero or zombie in sight.

Blue Skies – The Future of Regenerative Medicine, with Stephen Minger

Last Saturday, I attended a presentation hosted by the London Futurists in the basement at Birkeck College on the subject of stem cell-based regenerative medicine by Dr. Stephen Minger, Chief Scientist at GE Healthcare.

Stephen gave us an overview of what GE Healthcare did (they have a $1 billion budget for research) and a potted history of stem-cell research. He seemed somewhat hesitant to speculate on what the future might be for (stem) cell therapy, although he did highlight both the successes, in particular with leukaemia, and difficulties with the treatment.

The group has been posting the presentation on Youtube, and this one is no exception:

Overall I found the presentation both engaging and informative.

A Man Who Wants Nothing Cannot be Bought - Hercules and Godzilla

A few more films from my Amazon subscription, both based on legends old and new.

The first is based on one of the oldest Greek legends. After completing his twelve labours, a war-weary and haunted Hercules (Dwayne Johnson) and his companions Amphiaraus (Ian McShane), Autolycus (Rufus Sewell), Tydeus (Aksel Hennie), Atalanta (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal) and his nephew Iolaus (Reece Ritchie), are hired by King Cotys of Thrace (John Hurt) to defend his kingdom from ruthless bandits.

Despite a slightly shaky start, this turns out to be quite a good film. It's a good story and deceptive enough to keep you second guessing almost until the end; the special effects aren't too bad; and the acting is more than adequate, the effect of all the class British thesps in supporting roles encouraging Dwayne to raise his game above previous attempts. Recommended as an above average pizza movie.

In contrast we have as my second film, Godzilla: a remake of a remake of a modern Japanese legend. Fifteen years after his wife dies in a mysterious accident at a Japanese nuclear power plant, engineer Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) breaks into the quarantined area with his estranged son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) to get answers.

I suppose that if you like the original Japanese movies, this will be quite a good experience, even nostalgic. For me, however, it was a little tedious. Most of the "A" listers had gone by the time the movie got going and all that was left was three huge monsters slugging it out in San Fransisco. In the dark.

3 Movies - Edge of Tomorrow, Guardians of the Galaxy and Three Days to Kill

The movies I get from Amazon are in threes and I managed to get them all replaced this time around and watched one after the other.

First, Three Days to Kill, a (perhaps unintentional) comedy thriller staring Kevin Costner as an ageing CIA agent trying to reconnect with his estranged family and offered treatment for his terminal illness in return for one last job.

An inferior competitor to the Taken series, even the occasional stabs at comedy don't really work and the whole thing, although workman-like, is a damp squib. Only the action scene's redeem it a little, but even those are run-of-the-mill. Ignore.

Next up, Guardians of the Galaxy, based on the Marvel comics, one of whose authors is one of my favourites, Dan Abnett of the Eisenhorn\Ravenor series. Having been kidnapped by extra-terrestrials as a child, adventurer and thief Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) manages to acquire a metal orb that attracts the attention of villain Ronan (Lee Pace).

Not bad. The plot's pretty good, if relentless; the action well paced and the special effects gob-smacking and original. The characters are a little too cardboard for my taste: Vin Diesel plays Groot who only says the same thing over and over again, "I am Groot", so everyone got their money's worth there. Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer is better value, but Bradley Cooper adds little as Rocket. The 70's sound track and Quill's use of it to connect with his past, especially his mother, does add a human touch and stops it all being too alien. A good all-round pizza movie.

By the way, without looking at the credits, see if you can spot Karen Gillan from Doctor Who.

Last, but far from least, there's Edge of Tomorrow, the latest Tom Cruise vehicle. After an alien invasion of near-future Europe, U.S. Army spokesman William Cage (Cruise) gets accidentally caught up in the human counter-attack.

It's like an over-the-top mash-up of Independence Day, Groundhog Day and The Longest Day. The technology (me being geeky) is incredibly well realised with lots of vertical take-off aircraft (similar to the V-22 Osprey currently in service) and hovercraft, as well as the exo-skeletons. The plot's a bit convoluted but its origins as a Japanese short-story might be responsible for that. Cruise and Emily Blunt, as the soldier who's experienced the same time-looping before, do well enough, but there is a sort of forgettable quality about the story (in a similar way to a previous Cruise film, Oblivion). A good enough pizza movie if you ignore all the resurrection undertones.

Here's a thing. There's a school of thought that says that recent movies have a preoccupation with ageing, death, longevity or immortality. The reason for this is that the people who make the movies (star in them, produce or direct them) are the so-called post war baby-boomer generation and mortality is catching up with them. This is expressing itself in the films (Cruise is 52 and Costner 60) so the idea has some merit.

Update: R.I.P. Oliver, Lazarus and 12 Monkeys

Just thought I'd do an update as it's been a few weeks and I've been a little preoccupied with work and whatnot.

R.I.P. Oliver.

A sad departure was my budgie Oliver who had been in declining health all last year, but worse in the run up to Christmas. Budgies are social creatures by nature and the loss of the female, Snowflake, the year before had hit him hard, plus he was around ten years old, which is about their lifespan.

He was a great budgie and he's missed already. Chez Lemon is very quiet.

Lazarus

On a different tack, I've been reading a copy of Greg Rucka's latest story, Lazarus, from Image comics:

It takes place in a dystopian future where society has descended into technically advanced fiefdoms run by families, each of which has a super soldier, or Lazarus of the title. The stories focus on the Lazarus of the Carlyle family, Forever, but in the second book, a story of a "waste" (a disenfranchised social class) family runs parallel to hers.

So far, there's little in the story which is positive or uplifting, but this is in keeping with Rucka's style (Queen and Country was a little bit like that, with no real winners, just survivors). The art work is also good, so it's all promising, if a bit grim.

12 Monkeys

Continuing on with the dystopian theme, the TV version of the Terry Gilliam film has been made over in the 'States and it looks good.

True(ish) Stories: American Hustle and Dallas Buyers Club

On the upside of a disruptive and chaotic Christmas/New Year (welcome to 2015, everybody), I watched a few films from my Amazon subscription. First up, two con artists (Christian Bale and Amy Adams) are blackmailed into an FBI sting operation:

On paper, this looks like it could be a really great movie, with a top notch cast and a true(ish) story, but the direction is poor and the casting laughable. Bale couldn't sell a lifebelt to a drowning man and generates no sympathy or empathy as the lead. Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams, as his wife and girlfriend respectively, do better, but, like Bale, are too young for the roles. Jeremy Renner is also good, but Bradley Cooper is just embarrassing. It's just simply not their kind of film. However, you do get a glimpse of what might have been when Robert De Niro turns up for 5 minutes and steals not just the scene but the movie.

Next is the Dallas Buyers Club. Ron Woodruff (Matthew McConaughey), after contracting HIV and developing AIDS, decides to treat himself and others using non-FDA approved drugs after the approved treatment fails.

The acting in the film is top notch, as you'd expect, with McConaughey ably supported by Jennifer Garner as his doctor and Jared Leto as his business partner, and the story is handled well. However, as with the previous film, I've always felt that true stories don't fit particularly well into film because a life cannot be told in 90-120 minutes. I always have a feeling that the truth is more complex and you're just getting half the story. Still, it's not a bad film and worth the watch.