Dodgeball A true underdog story

Dodgeball has got to be one of the funniest movies that Ben Stiller has acted in. A true story of an underdog, dodgeball really needs no introduction. I have to admit to having a sweet spot for the training montage with Patches O Houlihan (played by Rip Torn) because of the strange parody of old chop sokky movies….you know, when the teacher has some wise and witty saying about how the training will prepare them for battle when the training seems extreme or unrelated…..you know the bit where the wizzened master will say something enigmatic and zen like such as “man who can swim in vat of peanut butter will never have to sink in the waters of battle”. In a dodgeball, the brilliance is perfectly smacked home when Patches starts training the Average Joes with a bag of wrenches……”If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball”. This bit had me laughing until I cried. I love that scene.

Remember the five ds of dodgeball: dogde, dip, duck, dive and dodge. And remember too that dodgeball was invented in China in the 15th century, in an opium den whith severed heads instead of AADA approved dodgeballs.

Anyway, this little gem was on TV last night.

Here’s a little Dodgeball trivia for you:

The words “Deus Ex Machina” are printed on the side of the treasure chest at the end of the movie. “Deus Ex Machina” is a Latin phrase meaning “god from the machine,” and is derived from a plot device in ancient Greek drama by which a “god” was lowered to the stage by a crane (“machine”) to solve a problem which the human characters could not. It’s used to describe an improbable event bringing a solution to a seemingly impossible problem. The “deus ex machina” in this film takes place when Peter bets on Average Joe’s to win the final tournament by using the bribe money White paid him, then using the tournament prize money to buy the majority stocks of Globo-Gym, thereby becoming the owner of both Average Joe’s and Globo-Gym.

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House MD

So, I’m enjoying watching reruns of House MD on my new Hitachi UT32MH70. It’s a funny old program House, not least because Hugh Laurie actually manages to pull off an American accent, but really it’s a strange show because you House is the kind of doctor you would hate to have. So you feel kind of dirty when you are watching it, because you shouldn’t really be all schadenfreud and stuff should you?

But you know what I find most amusing? The opening sequence – seriously, watch it. It’s like, picture of internal organs, picture of skeleton, picture of neurons firing…..picture of a RIVER….picture of spinal cord. River? WTF? Why the heck is that there?

That’s what makes absolutely no sense

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Movie Review Vicky Cristina Barcelona

So, my shiny LCD TV is on the blink, and in between searching online for do it yourself LCD TV repair and looking into upgrading to a brand new Ultra Thin LCD TV, I decided I would take in a movie. Woody Allen – you know the guy, director extrodinaire, and the man behind so many good films. I mean Manhattan? Brilliant. And Bullets over Broadway – another excellent film. But this one? Really, I can’t see the appeal. The terrible narration sounds like something a six year old might write in a school paper about what they did over the summer. It all kind of feels like Woody Allen just wanted to make a movie with Scarlett Johansen in it. Maybe he just fancies her. Maybe? Well definitely. I mean who wouldn’t. Maybe she’ll be his next wife. Who knows. What I do know is that Vicky Cristina Barcelona felt like an insult to my intelligence. Every step of the way, we are told what to think, how to interpret what is happening…..we are never given space to make our own decisions about the characters because the narrator spoils it all for us. Character development is really pretty minimal at best and it all just sort of plods along.

I really didn’t get on with this film. Which is a pity, because Woody Allen has such an illustrious career and I really did want to enjoy the film. Also, I expected a little more from Javier Bardem. In No Country for Old Men, he was given a reasonably complex character to play. And he did it well. But in VCB, he is just a playboy. Such a waste of his acting ability in my opinion. Of course, you can’t really blame the actors, after all, who is going to say no to Woody Allen?

Well, some films you just get, others you don’t. This was one I didn’t.


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Grow your own drugs

Grow your own drugs on BBC 1 on Monday nights just before Heroes is great. The show is only 30 minutes in length, but it’s great television (and looks even better on a HD set like the Hitachi UT32). A good presenter who knows his stuff and presents with a passion, Grow your own drugs offers alternative methods of creating simple medicines so you don’t have to rely on over the counter drugs for things like cold relief or varicose veins. Of course it isn’t a replacement for a proper medical diagnosis, but watching the show makes you realise how easy it is to use plants to create your own tinctures, teas and balms.

It really is compelling watching because, as we all know, much of western medication is made up of plant extracts originally. So grow your own drugs on BBC 1 gives you a nice insight into the most popular plants and their uses. Plus, there really isn’t much else on television these days that is similar at all. I know we have all the usual medical dramas and such, but how often do you watch something that you can actually take away and make your own?

Grow your own drugs is that kind of program. I suppose it could be thought of as a sort of cookery program because that’s basically what you do – cook up various plants to make all sorts of useful things to keep in your bathroom cabinet. With a growing interest in alternative and complementary medicine, and a distaste for the high cost of OTC medication, grow your own drugs is really set to be a great continuing series in my opinion. Viable, cheap alternatives to western drugs is just what the doctor ordered!

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Will 3D TV be a reality?

I’m taking a break from my hectic review schedule to talk about 3d telly.  3d TV is going to be huge! After HD and BluRay, after free satellite television, the next step is going to be 3d TV. 3d TV is already here, with Philips leading the pack with their lenticular lens technology.  This is going to be great because unlike traditional 3d, you won’t need glasses to watch in 3D, it will all be handled by the television itself.

I’m looking forward to test driving one of these 3d Televisions as soon as possible!  True 3D Television is probably still 3 years away, because aside from creating the actual devices, programmers will have to encode their television shows correctly to allow for the 3d effects.

3D TV works by angling different images to each eye. Early testing revealed people getting nausea and dizziness so that is a small obstacle which will be overcome by throwing more images. Before you know it, 3D TV will be a reality!

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Heroes Season 3 Dying of the Light

Last night’s Heros on BBC2 was back to form.  So far, I’ve been completely disappointed with series 3.  It just isn’t up to scratch if you ask me, though being able to watch it on freesat in HD is a bonus.  But at last, things seem to be hotting up.  A proper cliffhanger as well.  In this episode, Claire and her foster mom try to save Claire’s real mother from Doyle who has Meridith controlled completely by the power of his mind alone.  Of course Claire and her mom get caught by Doyle, who then uses the three woman for his own human puppet show, having them play russian roulette with each other.  Claire is obviously not worried about being shot, but will she be able to get out of Doyle’s mind grip soon enough to help the other two?

Hiro in the meantime has gone to Africa to meet the amazing Usutu – another future painter.  Ordered there by Pinehurst, Hiro is meant to bring Usutu back, but runs into a little trouble attempting to outsmart a man who can see the future.

Parkman in the meantime finds his way back from Africa and meets Daphne at the airport.  He tries to woo her, but she doesn’t really respond well, and hints that Pinehurst has a very strong hold on her.

Nicki and Nathan end up at Mohinder’s place and find his dark secret….uncovering the monster he has become.

Peter is woken up by Sylar and immediately rushes off to Pinehurst, only to meet his father and have his powers removed.

All in all, this episode is full of tension and excitement, really true to heroes form and something that’s been lacking from this show for quite some time.

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Last Man Standing

Brutal reality show Last Man Standing is all about competing in the roughest, toughest physical challenges around the world.  Competitors travel the world and compete against some of the world’s most remote tribe’s at their own brutal sports.  Last night the team went to Ethiopia to take part in the vicious art of Suri stick fighting.  Bruce Perry from the Lonely Planet learned this deadly art in southwest Ethiopia when he recorded his series Tribe in 2005.  Suri stick fighting is practiced without protection, and often results in serious injury and even fatalities.  But the men of the tribe still practice this ancient art, using it as a way to prove their virility.  The area of Etheopia is close to the Sudan border and rife with fighting between the various local tribes.  Undoubtedly, the Suri stick fighting practice was once an essential training ground for their young warriors.  The introduction of firearms into the region, however has made stick fighting against other tribes somewhat redundant.  The tribe also practices ritual scarification, with the men scarring their bodies with specific symbols depending on the meaning.  For example if they have killed a man from another tribe, they would carve a horseshoe shape on their right arm.

So, having had the stage set a few years earlier, the Last Man Standing crew venture into Etheopia with 6 intrepid westerners ready to live as the tribe do, train as they do and eventually, fight as they do.  Risking serious personal injury.  Their first day is frightening as they watch 2 Suri tribes stick fighting as a small appetiser to their week of training and eventual contest at the end of the week.  The stick fighting actually uses a 6 to 7 foot pole to take out their opponents, with very few rules.  If you hit the legs and make them bleed, you win, if you hit the head and make it bleed or knock your opponent down, you win.

The show is pretty touching – mostly because of the fantastic hosts who take the participants into their homes and treat them like their children.  The injuries are real, but at the end of the day, the final competition uses some minor headgear, no doubt to keep the contestants pretty. :)   The actual fighting though is still brutal, and the contestants take some serious pain in the episode.  Ultimately great television - who wouldn’t want to watch 6 guys slugging it out with large sticks?  A cracking start to this season.

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That thing you do – Channel 4

Last night’s movie of the day was That thing you do. A lovely little bit of feel good movie with Tom Hanks and Tom Everett Scott and Liv Tyler. I mean who wouldn’t want to watch a movie with Liv Tyler in it! Yeah! So this is a little script about the rapid rise of a teen band that manage to pen a hit tune in the 60s. Guy (our lead protagonist) is a drummer, and loves his Jazz, particularly Del Paxton (a fictional jazz pianist). So Guy sits in with the The Wonders because there usuall drummer breaks his arm and brings their tune into hit territory by speeding the tune up turning it from a soppy ballad into an upbeat hit! With definite references to the Dave Clark Five, the Wonders career takes off and they soon hit the road with Tom Hanks managing them on the fictitious Play-Tone records.
The band is destined to crash and burn – and the movie would be poignant if you were like 16 and had dreams of making it big, but for the rest of the world, it’s just a nice little romp that doesn’t require a lot of attention. Indeed, having on in the background took the tedium out of changing my daughter’s nappy last night, and gave me an excuse to put off doing some exercise for at least 40 minutes while I watched the inevitable unfold on my screen. Still, entertainment is sometimes best when its harmless. Sometimes you don’t want to think deep thoughts, you just want to see pretty people wondering on screen, doing a little acting, and know that eventually Guy will win Liv Tyler (even though she is currently the girlfriend of one of the other guys in the band). And will Guy eventually meet his hero Del Paxton? and will Skitch end up jamming with his hero? Of course he will! The bassist in the movie is never given a name as a homage to the fact that bassists are often the most overlooked members of the band and easily forgotten. Charlize Theron also makes an appearance early in the film.

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