What Goes Up (2009)

A moody little bitch of a film, but you wouldn't want it any other way. At first I didn't know what to make of it, I suppose that's what happens when you are spoon fed the mainstream Hollywood blockbusters and rom-coms your whole life. Once I settled into the story and got a feel for the plot, I realised that I actually liked the characters, I was engaging with the story and I was enjoying the movie a lot more than I expected. I found myself wondering "where can I find more of this sort of thing". Steve Coogan gave a thoroughly convincing performance and was a joy to watch. Child stars were plentiful, with Hillary Duff and Josh Peck standing out. The side story's were pleasantly interesting and stopped the whole thing from becoming a twisted and muddled pool of curdled emotions, which it easily could have been.

Overall 8/10

What can I say, Will Ferrell as a scientist (quantum palaeontologist to be exact). A movie set largely in a parallel dimension where the past present and future of our world are smashed together and distorted. It was never going to win any Oscars but it was quite entertaining and could have been a lot worse. The monkey/man really annoyed me though. Overall 6.8/10

Movie Review - Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Well, I've been looking forward to seeing this for a while now. I'm a big fan of the books and to a lesser extent the movies. I was really pissed with all the crap about delaying release dates etc. When it was finally released, I didn't bother going to see it in the cinema.
Anyway, enough of the rant, back to the movie. I thought it was very rushed, alot of the important parts from the book were either glossed over or ignored completely. The story focused on the main characters respective love lives and the whole voldemort thing took a back seat to the raging hormones. There were some death eaters and stuff got burned and they squeezed in Dumbledore's murder (just about, the whole big battle was cut out). They took an amazing and emotional book that took the tie between reader and character to a new level and turned it in to a (crappy) teen drama in an unusual setting. And last but not least, where the hell did the scene with the Burrow being burned down come from, I certainly don't remember it in the book and it had no bearing on the story other than to reinforce how much Ginny and Harry care about each other (vomit in my throat)On the plus side, it retained some of the humour of the previous movies and the few quidditch matches shown were by far the best representation of the sport in the movies to date. Overall I was very disappointed, 4.5/10

Movie Review - The Damned United

A good movie for anyone remotely interested in english soccer during the 70's. Even if your not, still worth a watch, plenty of familiar faces. Could've dealt with the later half of Clough's career a bit more though, seemed like it ended very abrubptly after he was sacked from leeds. Nottingham forest only gets a brief mention at the end.
Overall 7.8/10.

Soft-Modding My Wii

For anyone who doesn't already know, softmodding your wii can add a huge number of functions. After softmodding my wii (no modchip), I can now:

• Watch DVD movies
  
• Play backup wii games (from DVD-R and specially formatted HDD partition).
  
• Play video files (DivX, Xvid, mp4 etc.) from my NTFS hard-drive on my TV
• Play ROMS from any video game console of the past on my wii
  

There are hundreds of guides and tutorials available online to help anyone unlock the potential of the wii. Be warned, there are risks involved in the process. Different methods need to be followed depending on your wii system menu version and whether you have your wii connected to the internet.

Useful resources
http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://gizmodo.com/5071573/the-only-wii-homebrew-guide-you-will-ever-need
http://gizmodo.com/5019351/an-easy-guide-to-wii-homebrew
http://randomualrstudent.wordpress.com/2009/07/18/wii-softmodding-guide-part-1-an-introduction/

Chances are, you will have to take bits of each of these guides to make hombrew qork for you, and even then, expect regular crashes and restarts. Its worth it though, honestly.

Movie Review - 17 Again

This movie was a bit of a surprise for me. As a rule I hate high school musical and everyone associated with it, however I like Matthew Perry especially in Numb and Birds of America (if you haven't seen them, check 'em out). The storyline was less predictable than expected and pushed the boundaries of acceptability in some of the side stories. A good, easy to watch comedy to make you feel ............something. 7/10. Rent it if you have an evening with nothing else planned.

Movie Review - Year One

I wasn't too sure about this movie before watching it, I do generally like jack black and find him humourous. I liked the overall plot and laughed sporadically throughout the movie. The main characters are likeable and some high profile cameos playing historical figures doesn't hurt. Definitely worth a watch 7/10