RIP Stan Winston - Effects God

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Film special effects pioneer dies: "Oscar-winning special effects expert Stan Winston, who created the creatures in films including Aliens and Jurassic Park, has died at the age of 62.
Winston, who also made the robots in Terminator, died at home in California surrounded by family on Sunday.
The film veteran had been battling multiple myeloma, a plasma cell cancer, for seven years, a representative of the Stan Winston Studio said.
He had worked with Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and Tim Burton.
During his 40-year career, he became a pioneer of merging real-world effects with computer imaging.
California governor and former Terminator star Arnold Schwarzenegger said: 'The entertainment industry has lost a genius, and I lost one of my best friends.
'Stan's work and four Oscars speak for themselves and will live on forever.
'What will live forever in my heart is the way that Stan loved everyone and treated each of his friends like they were family.'
Winston won Oscars for his work on Aliens, Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Jurassic Park.
He also received Oscar nominations for Batman Returns, Edward Scissorhands, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, AI, Predator and Heartbeeps."

Rest in Peace, Stan, you were a legend, and I thank you for bringing so much wonder into my life.

Oh Brother...

Yep, summer's here, and that means the return of Channel 4's Big Brother. This year there are 16, yes 16, wannabees, I mean, contestants, and to be honest with you, I got fed up with watching them all traipse in after we'd had about half of them.

The surprise thing is how "normal" most of them appear to be, as if the producers have finally given up trying to shoehorn as many "diverse" (ie. irritating) people in there as they can, but it's still early days.

The first four housemates have already been given their first secret mission - the two people that are a couple (Mario and Lisa) have got to pretend they're not a couple, and Mario has to pretend he's having a relationship with Stephanie, a 19 year-old student. If they succeed, they all are saved from the public vote, but if they fail, they face the vote along with their co-conspirator, Luke.... Thyey're bound to screw it up.

Here we go again...!

BBC NEWS | In Pictures | In pictures: BB9 housemates arrive

Indiana Jones and The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull

Yes, I finally went to the cinema again! I think the last time I went was probably to see Casino Royale, so it's been a while...

Went to see the new Indiana Jones movie - can't be arsed to type all that again - and it was... okay. I thought some of the fight and, ahem, tomb raiding sections were fun, but I did think that the whole crystal skull malarkey was a bit ridiculous. Was it me, or did the Russian bad-lady (played just this side of evil Bond-villain by Cate Blanchett) already have an alien skull, and said there were two more in Russia already? In that case, why were there already twelve skulls in the temple/spaceship at the end? (Probably should have put a spoiler warning on this..) And what the hell actually happened at the end? (Well, I know, but, what the hell?)

Still, Harrison Ford was back on form as Indy (although he's aged gracefully, he can't quite manage as much action as he used to...) and the scenes he had with Shia La Beouf (silly name...) and Karen Allen (back as Marion Ravenwood) were fantastic. It was quite obvious that they're setting it all up so that Mutt (Shia) can take over his father's mantle (oops...)

It was nice to have Indy back, but it would have been nicer to have given him a better story. (Do things stop being magnetic just because they're in a sack?)