Chindie

The new PC is gently humming and looking beautiful . Far cry 3 was free with the new graphics card so Ill be following up your suggestion Si . Very much looking forward to it.

I'm rereading the Hobbit currently as well. It's been so long since i read it I'd forgotten a lot of the prose and how it is very much a storytellers tale, the narrator clearly talking to the audience. The film can't capture that, without being worse for it i think. The film is a family fun modern action-y take on the story and I'd fine for what it is, a few indulgent flaws aside. I do think the coming films will be better, they're much more inherently action focused and shouldn't require much to be added to pad out the action.

I loved Arkham City so much Im actually looking forward to replaying it on pc once I've got my new rig working (fingers crossed, by the weekend).

Looked busy when I walked past on my lunch. Is that season ticket holders only?

I don't think worrying about relegation is (or should be) over for us.

I'm genuinely quite appalled TV channels interviewed children afterwards.

Don't talk about such things. Do not publish the name, the dead, extent.

Sony are not in a particularly good way, financially. They really would rather not be having to develop a new console which they will lose money hand over fist on. Sure, they'd **** love to get a console out before or with Microsoft, but they won't. They will release after Microsoft, and they only reason they'll release it at all this 'soon' is because Microsoft pulled the trigger on the next gen and they had to react.

So, the Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey... in controversial HFR and 3d. I'll get the 48fps thing out of the way first. Your mileage may vary. That has to underpin anything said about it, ultimately you've got to see for yourself. Personally... I'm not a fan. The thing that immediately struck me is that it made a lot of things look... well, either weird, or cheap. Actors on screen look tangibly like actors, costumes look noticeably costume-y... and so on. The effect is quite odd - it's been compared to looking through a window rather than at a screen and that... doesn't quite match up with my experience. It's almost, but not quite, like watching someone on stage. There's a veracity of movement in everything but it's always slightly wrong somehow. It's particularly noticeable with the actors movement, it looks almost bizarrely exaggerated. It's an intensely odd thing to watch and I never quite settled with it. It also makes small, and also fast moving, CGI entities look awful. There is a scene where the One Ring shows up, it flies out of Gollums... loin cloth (it doesn't look like it has pockets so er)... and tumbles in the air. It looked like something out of Knightmare, as do the plates chucked around when the Dwarves arrive at Bag End. Another example, the film opens with a bit of backstory explaining why the Dwarves want to get back to the Lonely Mountain, Erebor. This theoretically is a big, CGI show starter and scene setter, and it should be so too. Something Bad happens. And the Bad Event looks awful, when it should look absolutely incredible. The Bad Thing, again, looks like Knightmare should consider suing Peter Jackson. The movement, weight, presence of the Bad Thing is simply not there. Besides the CGI, the effect really does look like you're watching a particularly interesting edition of This Morning. It's very stark. But it also makes some things look incredible. Shots of scenery (real scenery, mind) are breathtaking. 3d is also helped out by the frame rate. It still suffers from the usual problems - things moving quickly break the effect, things moving to the very forefront of the scene also tend to cause issues, for instance - but it does make the effect smoother, more consistent. And large, slow CGI creations are made even more impressive by the frame rate - the trio of trolls, Gollum, and Another Character are up there as some of the best CG around the great clarity offered by the frame rate only enhances them. There is an unparalleled clarity to everything, to the extent that where you to pull a single frame of film from the reel (not that there is a reel) it would be jaw dropping. In motion, the fidelity of the look of actual characters (Bilbo and Gandalf notably, especially if they are moving slowly and there is a close up) is incredible but also looks kinda crap. It's an oxymoron but if you go see it and don't buy into Jackson's idea, you'll see what I mean. It also, and this will drive someone in favour of the tech mad, doesn't look cinematic. We've become accustomed to way films look, we like the... sheen, the lustre, brought about by the low frame rate, it has a luxurious and dramatic quality somehow. The Hobbit: an Unexpected Journey, in 48fps, simply doesn't have that and I think it really takes something away from the film. I recently rewatched the Extended Editions of LOTR to prep for this film and while this film never quite hits the grandure of the spectacle in say, ROTK, it's also missing the presence those scenes have and I really think it's down to frame rate. Ultimately, I never settled with it. I never escaped the feeling of 'This looks odd', 'that CGI looks crap there but Weta are some of the best... so why?!'. But you really need to see it yourself. Anyway, the film itself. It's important to go in knowing that it is, and always was intended to be, a bit of a compromise between the slightly grim seriousness of LOTR and the lighthearted, childs bedtime story that is the Hobbit novel. So you do get a film where limbs and heads are hacked off and theres genuine peril (as well as the stilted self serious mythology), coupled to knowing gags and slapstick. This never bothered me but I can see some people not getting on with it. The film is baggy, you can pick up the feeling that it's been padded out. Strangely, despite that, I never felt it dragged. It does take it's time getting going (we get 2 prologues, and one could easily have been chopped to be frank, shortened if not binned entirely. Radagast's scenes seem to exist solely to set up the Necromancer plot (and provide some comic relief) and given that that isn't vital to the plot of the Hobbit you feel like it's time wasted that could go to the plot you're actually there for (I say that as someone who really wants to see the Necromancer's plot on screen). There are also some action scenes chucked in that don't really do anything for the film and exist only to stop the audience nodding off in a film where not a whole lot happens spectacle wise if you follow the novel word for word. That scene in the mountains is a particularly poor example - spectacle for the sake of it and rather daft. Which is saying something in a film about 13 midgets and an old man walking off to get some gold. It's basically this films 'Dinosaur Valley from King Kong', and pulls you out of the film for how stupid it is. Another plot about Thorin's past seems to have been thrown in to give the film an antagonist. Performances are decent, McKellen is his usual reliable self, Freeman doesn't set the earth on fire as Bilbo but the role suits him, and the few dwarves that get any real screentime do well - sadly having so many characters that are so alike means a number get maybe a line or 2 and little to do with it. Despite his character feeling a little tacked on, I quite like Sylvester McCoy's Radagast as well, he's quite an endearing if a completely over the top character.The other cameos feel a little phoned in. Richard Armitages Thorin never really convinced me either, which is a shame. He should really be this films Aragorn (not quite the same, he's less of a central presence than Aragorn and more aloof), but he never comes close, he's a surprisingly distant character and quite unlikable somehow, when in the novel he's a character I love. Theres some good action to be had in the film, and while I dislike some of Jackson's additions I'm not going to say the action is bad, it's decent fun. And there is spectacle, there are some great moments and some great scenes. It ends a little abruptly, as you might expect. It's a decent watch and you'll enjoy it, especially if you love the LOTR. If you don't, don't go anywhere near it. And if you love the work of Tolkein to the point of being pained at anything not specifically adapted from the text and nothing added - save yourself the heartache. There are numerous little changes, some of them with no basis in the text(s) at all, and many of them will enrage purists. But otherwise, a decent, flawed watch. No masterpiece, not better than any of Jackson's previous Tolkein forays. You get the feeling, especially if you know the novel, that the coming films will be better from a pure entertainment standpoint. The worst could be behind us, so to speak.

Indeed. In some cases I can understand the changes, the troll scene had been completely altered to make it more of an action scene and also to drag it out. Had that remained faithful to the book entirely it would be fairly anticlimactic and finished inside a couple of minutes, which wouldn't play for a family fantasy film with a huge amount spent on the cgi in that scene. And then there's other bits just added in - pretty much everything with Radagast for instance.

It isn't a word for word transition. Jackson has added a lot to the book. A word for word transition wouldn't take over 2 and half hours to get to the end of chapter 6

Just come out of the Hobbit. Proper reactions tomorrow, work in the morning, but one immediate reaction... CVByrne will have a coronary if he sees this movie.

Incidentally, the Pacific Rim trailer left me a bit cold. Which is surprising as I used to adore Godzilla films as a child and I love del Toro. Still, only a trailer.

I'm seeing it in about an hour. If anyone sees a haggard **** off looking bloke in a suit in Broadway Plaza Odeon at the 7 showing, say hello.

I'm gonna try to catch the Hobbit in 48fps tomorrow after work as well, though I suspect I may regret it, probably should have booked... Looking forward to it but tempering expectations markedly.

Possibly behind on this one, but THQ are a good bet for dead soon. They will need to be very lucky to see another Christmas, and even then it will be a fundamentally different (not least smaller) company.

Assuming the Justice League film happens they may have to cast Aquaman so you may be in luck.

They're supposed to give a more premium feel to the item and allow a bit more flexibility in the design. People collect slipcover blurays, actually, specifically going out of their way to buy slipcover editions.

I'm quietly hopeful about Man of Steel. It looks fantastic and it's had 2 good trailers now (the first is better, I think, genuinely has everything). My worry is it's Snyder, and he has always thrown together great trailers and he's always done the look of things of well. All superheroes are daft concepts. The mark of a good superhero movie and a good story is that you forget how daft it is, or you stop caring how daft it is and jump on for the ride (something Marvel, besides the Iron Man films (which aren't as daft in concept - it's a bloke in an armoured suit, done), has been quite good at. The Avengers is so absurdly dumb it shouldn't be enjoyable at all... but it really, really is). Superman I've never been a great fan, because he's quite terribly dull thanks to all the powers he's given (and also thanks to a certain amount of his mythology - for example the S on the chest having meaning on his home world - sorry guys, **** off) but the fact I actually am interested in this suggests they're doing something right. The first Star Trek Into Darkness teaser dropped the other day as well. It's very JJ Abrams. Benedict Cumberbatch, being British and having the most posh British name on the planet, is playing 'the Villain' of course. No confirmation on who that is but fan boys the world over are convinced it's either Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!!!! or some other baddie form the original Star Trek series who's name escapes me. Either way, it's left me somewhat cold.

Given is another in the list of 'Just isn't that good' players. He's a decent keeper, little more. Silent and useless at anything coming into the box from a cross. He's gotten lobbed an obscene amount in his career as well. The talk of him as a great was always nonsense.

Sony almost certainly won't go to market with a PS4 at the same time as Microsoft go in with the next Xbox, all the talk has been of Sony really not being in a particularly strong position to release a console and ideally want to hold it off as long as possible. It's also been rumoured that they hadn't even begun seriously looking at final specs and hardware long after it was pretty much confirmed that Microsoft was settled on (and beginning development of) the hardware (particularly the processor - there was an open secret about a year ago that Microsoft had hired a designer for the processor). Sony will not release along side an Xbox. The codename I last heard for it was Orbis incidentally.

Quite possibly, but still I'd rather not have to commute to doss around all day

I have no idea what my Christmas time off constitutes. I started too late to really book any holiday and at the mo I can't access the system for checking and booking holiday. Even better, the main client base I'm dealing with will all go off for a Christmas break soon meaning I'll have very little to do... And I already know most of the office has taken holiday for over Christmas.

The Heat soundtrack is indeed superb. I really like the Withnail and I soundtrack, great music matching a great film.

LA Noire's central gameplay mechanic is fundamentally broken, making the game immediately pointless. The interrogation game simply does not work.