Chindie

Deadpool has taken the record for the biggest opening weekend for an 'R' rated movie in the US, and also the biggest Presidents Day weekend as well. It's possibly Fox's biggest ever opening weekend which I find hard to believe but who knows... It's probably gonna do alright and outdone expectations by a distance it seems.

He's certainly not all many would have you believe, I'd agree. Memento is a clever idea done exceptionally well in a small tight movie. Insomnia is a nice adaptation for a US audience of a small town crime drama, the Prestige is a genuinely good movie whose flaws are derived from the source material. His Batman trilogy is universally good, and reached great with Dark Knight, but even that has its flaws with confused cinematography and not really getting a grip on its very final moments, whilst Rises is bloated and feels a little half arsed but again has great imagery and set pieces, even if he managed to botch some of the climatic moments. And then Interstellar is just a combination of all his flaws with all his usual strengths. He knows how to make a film look great whilst not being overly flashy, and he has a talent for spotting smart but tangible ideas and managing to portray them on film. Unfortunately he also has a thing for schmaltz, he sometimes loses his story interest in favour of the ideas, he often can't shoot action in an understandable way, and his movies can feel bland. He's a decent Hollywood director who makes very professional and 'clean' movies, and actually tries to do something with some brain even when he wants to make an action blockbuster.

Inception is most remarkable as a blockbuster that has something approaching a brain, and has some clever action and spectacular imagery. It's not as clever as it thinks it is though. The entirety of the dialogue is exposition, the whole movie works as a tutorial for a game really, explaining the rules of the world right to the end of the run time. A lot was made when it came out of it being complex, but it isn't, provided your playing attention the film handholds you through the whole thing and constantly reassures you throughout. But, for all that, it's an interesting action blockbuster with some cool action and well developed set pieces.

The film itself makes numerous references to 'that Wolverine film', all of them sarcastic and disparaging.

I'd go along with that. It's chucking gags at the audience non stop to the extent you miss some, and some just don't play (the running IKEA gag), but it's really good fun that's absolutely carried by Ryan Reynolds. A Deadpool movie had no right to be as decent as this is.

The smart money was on Bully being next a couple of years back. I'm hoping for an RDR sequel, even if it's got mighty big shoes to fill, but I'm not expecting it.

Superbowl means trailers and teasers for this years blockbusters, Marvel up first with a pre-game teaser for Civil War...

The Watch books are the best, as they feature the strongest set of characters Pratchett developed and the best character full stop in Vimes, but they do tail off post Night Watch massively, even accounting for Night Watch being the best in the series. The Witches have a couple of stand out stories in Lords and Ladies, Masquerade and Carpe Jugullum so don't give up on them entirely. Even Rincewind gets a decent story in the Last Continent.

DOOM!

Both Quiet and D-Dog break the game in their own ways, but they're both exceptionally useful. Although Quiet does make some missions nearly auto-play if you approach it correctly.

I also don't think that there'd be any validity in the assumption they would bring a bloke in as a director to create a 'Villa fan' shaped shield. It wouldn't achieve anything. All the other board members have the narrative of being out of touch clowns already so Mervyn King isn't deflecting anything from them as things stand. It might make him himself slightly more Teflon but I'd wager we never hear from him and we never have a clue what his input is. Like most directors of most businesses.

It appears that Hollis was brought in, along with Fox before him, to fix the business side of things which, it appears, we'd **** up for years. I don't think you turn that around fast. I also don't think we're that aware of a lot of the things that have gone on off the pitch with a view to making the club make more money or just run better as a business. There's some stuff that we are aware of that sounds like decent work, from Fox anyway. The shirt deal for instance. There's certainly been problems as well but I think that's expected. I'd be very surprised of any business having some upheaval and major personnel change didn't have a rocky moment or 2. And you can criticise some of that too. I don't think they're clowns, just yet, contrary to popular opinion.

Because the person that owns the club, rightly or wrongly, has decided that first and foremost, the club requires business minded people to shore it up on that front. Graham Taylor, for all his attributes, isn't a businessman and therefore was never, ever going to be in the conversation.

The Fifth Wave. Frankenstein's YA movie.

It does get it's claws into you... The oils on my playthrough were largely assists for more difficult fights, I never really came to rely on them at any point I can recall off the top of my head. With patience, you can beat pretty much anything with basic sword hits. I did a monster contract that I was massively under levelled and under prepared for fairly early on that I got through by basically constantly dodging and chipping away at the creature.

American Gods is fantastic, and Gaiman is brilliant. The concept is excellent and it's exceptionally well written, and swerves from the grotesque to the poignant with ease and grace. Read Good Omens as well. He co-wrote it with Pratchett and in the end they couldn't tell who'd written what, and it's incredible for a short satire of the Omen and other Apocalypse fiction like the Bible. Far lighter than American Gods it's still a superb read, hence my having read it every year since I was 13 and it becoming my favourite book with good reason.

I usually find the whinging about refs a bit sour grapes, but tonight this ref is either so bad as be incompetent, in which case he should sacked shortly, or he's bent, because this is one of the worst cases of refereeing I've seen.

How the **** wasn't Gabby being fouled there?! He got pulled over!

I haven't seen a Villa side this defensively drilled and solid in quite literally years. In before we thump one past Bunn.

He tried some flashy hook kick, completely **** up, and Barberena took him down and then somehow made him submit with an arm triangle that wasn't really an arm triangle, or anything really. Bizarre tap, he really did just give up.

If he is he may want to take a book and a chair, he's unlikely to find much of interest going on.

Were ghosts to be real, the sheer numbers would be ridiculous. Presumably everything could become a ghost (you hear about people setting ghost cats and dogs so presumably there's not a hierarchy at all), you'd spend all day wading through the ghostly mist of trillions of bacteria, you'd have to watch out for Iron Age foragers as you did a shit in the morning, phantom cows would wander in front of the telly all evening. Even if you assumed only humans were somehow special enough to ascend to ghosthood, and that somehow only a few that matched the correct criteria managed it, there have been so many humans at this point they'd be every where, constantly. And ghosts would be a boom industry as well, as more and more humans are about and more and more keep dying. Hospitals would be absolutely full of them.

In both cases I'd be surprised if not having read the source material is a barrier to entry on it. As said Lucifer is supposedly nothing like the comic, which it's used for inspiration more than anything apparently, and I believe it's already been said Preacher won't be a straight adaptation either. Which isn't a shocker as Preacher has some particularly dark stuff in it. Lucifer in the comic is all about freedoms and will, contradicting god and all that sort of thing. The series seems to be rather more a gimmicky police procedural, which some people seem to quite line while others think it's just glossy meh TV...

Lucifer is a fantastic comic, a spin off from the Sandman. Unfortunately the series is supposedly nothing like it

I honestly couldn't give a rats arse what Peter Grant (who?!) thinks about anything.