A Quick Catch Up

Right, it's been a little while since I've been on this here blog type thing (18th October, 2011 if the Internet is to be believed). What started my absence was a changeover in Internet providers which left me without the joys of the 'net for about a month or so. In this time I typed a blog about the reformation of the Stone Roses and how giddy that had left me. I thought I'd upload this once my 'net came back on. One thing led to another and I've just not managed to get round to another blog since my 'net came back - I think I just got out of the habit of popping up little bits and bobs on here. Anyways, I went to (finally) upload said Roses blog yesterday when stupid, stupid, stoooooooooooooopid me deleted the whole of the My Documents folder. That meant that loads of stuff got deleted - not even to my Recycle Bin, just straight to data heaven - mainly my CV, various reports, most of my pictures and a few random things, such as some half baked ideas for films/TV shows and the aforementioned Roses blog. Pah!

So I'm starting from scratch with the hope of, once again, getting back into the habit of typing about random things to an ever small audience. The Roses blog was a huge piece, so no way am I going back on re-doing that. Let's just say that you'll have to take my word on the fact that I am ridiculously excited about the reformation of my favourite band of all time and the fact that I will be seeing them live in a matter of months. That is a day I honestly never thought would come.

One major problem I DO currently have though is a lack of hearing. My right ear is completely blocked up with all sorts of ear type crap. This has stopped me in my cinema going tracks for the last few weeks. It's put the shitter on me going to watch Star Wars: Episode 1 in 3D, The Woman in Black and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. I'm hoping I'll be able to catch them before their respective cinema runs come to an end.

Before I got all partially deaf, I managed to watch a fair few pieces of shit. The worst being a little known bad boy by the name of Sand Sharks. If you have the ability to read the title of the film then you can pretty much guess what it's about. Yep, you guessed it - it's about sharks in the sand. Leading the charge against these beasties is Brooke Hogan and a crop of similar level nobodies.

The FX budget went towards Brooke's chest

The film starts off with a couple of guys racing their dirt bikes across sand dunes. One of them goes missing, then the other one similarly disappears - getting taken by something from the sand. The FX in this one are horrible. I'm not talking low rent gore or poor quality CGI, I'm talking lazy CGI. You have to work within the boundaries of what you've got but there's no excuse for being lazy with it. When somebody is attacked then they literally just vanish into thin air, sometimes with a drop of blood left behind. It's literally now you see them, there's the sand shark, now you don't. I've tried to find examples online and this is one of the better ones. I especially like that the guy moves his head around like he's a cross between something from The Muppets and the classic riled up 1980's Nature Boy Ric Flair.

Now you see them, now you don't. I suppose you could say in a way it's playing to the film's strengths as they obviously have a small budget. It just looks so half assed to me though. Give me something more practical any day, or at least some bones and a bit of intestines left behind.

Something else that is off putting is the presence of Brooke Hogan as one of the leads. It's not so much the fact that she can't act (which she most definitely can't), it's more the fact that I can't help thinking that if you stuck a moustache on her then you'd have a mini-Hulkster. She must definitely have 3 Weetabix a day to be the size she is. It'd be wrong to call her ugly, but I wouldn't quite say she was pretty. I guess the phrase would be an intimidating physical presence. In Sand Sharks she's portrayed as a very girly girl though, which messes up the thought process even more so. Unfortunately for me, there's another shark film on my agenda called 2 Headed Shark Attack. The title of the film isn't the unfortunate bit. The unfortunate bit is that this also has Brooke-a-mania running wild all over it.

What'cha Gonna Do, Brother?!?!

On that note, I'm going to bring this little catch up to a close. My film watching is a bit restricted due to this stupid ear problem, but hopefully that rectifies itself in the next few days and I can plow on through the cinematic galaxy. Hopefully the next few turns of this galaxy don't involve Brooke Hogan, her guns and her surgically enhanced chest.