The Patent Dragon's Zone of Soul Retraction

A cold day, but the excursion had a nice cosy motorised chair at the end of it - a chair, a complimentary drink and a movie, namely Tron Legacy!

Film Review: Tron Legacy

( ...with DEFINITE spoilers, after the break! )

The Final Lowdown... Thoroughly entertaining, but not as revolutionary as the original. Some interesting new ideas that could spawn a third movie? 8/10

And so the curtain falls on another movie year, unless I somehow get a chance to squeeze in Monsters before New Year. In any case, it's academic that Scott Pilgrim gets the "gong" for Movie Of The Year...

I have shopping still to do. I want to go see Tron Legacy tomorrow. I'm mildly pissed off that an Amazon delivery, ordered on the 3rd, and with an estimated delivery date of the 10th STILL HASN'T ARRIVED, long after the snow has melted - will it actually show up before the NEXT lot melts?

Oh gods - please... don't say I just encouraged it to snow tonight. Can't it wait until tomorrow night, please...?

Meanwhile... Yay! See, the postal system DOES work, and I can now declare a start on another Mission 101 Task: namely...

33 - Buy at least three pages of original comic art (1/3)

*SCORE!*

Yep, I took the chance... and actually, things weren't so bad. It was cold, that much is entirely not up for debate, but it was an honest cold - next to no wind, no rain or snow, some decent morning sun. All was well with the world...

...and *gasp* remained that way! It could actually *double gasp* get warmer as the week progresses - hopefully Saturday will be comfortable enough for ANOTHER possible cinema double-header. I'm thinking Narnia - ...Dawn Treader and Monsters *checks cinema website*...

...hmph, no Monsters. An afternoon showing of VOTDT certainly sounds like a goer, though.

Development News... Left the netbook at home, and did writing straight to flash-drive - and that means some good progress on Chapter 10 of Flight 102 Is Overdue. I'm happy with that, but I really need to get back into a "writing at home" groove. I miss my "Groove", which had me posting daily back in the day (and I blame The Fucking System and "Fox River" for killing that).

But Why? Tomorrow's a big day, apparently - we're due to get the first proper trailer for the Green Lantern movie! Early glimpses look very positive, but 1) I'd really need to see the whole thing on the big screen, and 2) ideally the trailer will feature an healthy dose of a) ring-energy constructs, b) alien Lantern cameos (we're already getting a very satisfactory Corps Drill Instructor Kilowog), and c) "Whoa!" moments. This one absolutely has to kick all shades of ass, people, and YOU KNOW IT. Do not let us down.

It's going to have serious competition in the superhero stakes - Thor and Captain America, anybody? Both of those Marvel movies also have a strong buzz... ah hell, it's going to be an insanely strong year for blockbusters. The best ever? You will most definitely hear it all here...

Meanwhile... Talking of movies, is it perhaps time to subtly shift to Blu-Ray? There seem to be an increasing number of new releases in "triple play" format - the Blu-Ray "main event", with an added DVD copy, AND a digital copy! Could this be the closest thing you'll ever get to "future-proofing" your movie collection? It might be worth investigating - already, I've seen this treatement for Iron Man 2, Toy Story 3 (okay, that might not have the digital copy, but you do get the incredible short "Night and Day", worthy of an Oscar on its own, IMHO), Inception... you see the pattern forming? Paying a little more so you don't have to buy another copy in a year's time doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

Okay, where did I get... bus ride, bus ride - check. Rain, taxi - check. Complications at the B&B - check...

Right; dinner; Pizza Hut, where I was greeted by a charming young lady of Indian sub-continental descent - "Lucky me", I'm thinking, and the establishment probably got several more pounds worth of business as a result. Nice!

With a couple of hours left to show-time, I had the opportunity to scope out the local shopping opportunities, which we rather few, given it was rainy, late afternoon and Sunday. I then went and tracked down the venue for certain, and finding the doors open, and the foyer starting to get a little busy, I went in, sat down - DID A LITTLE WRITING *gasp* - then "freshened up" in time to catch the set-up of the t-shirt stand, grab the customary souvenir, and catch the "doors opened" call.

YES. Right up at the stage. Perfect!

Showtime.

Supporting artiste Elizabeth Cook got a full hour to warm up the apparent sell-out 1600 crowd, and she did just fine. I'm not the biggest country fan, although I am partial to some Johnny Cash now and again, but the lady did fine - and that is the very first tap-dance solo I've ever witnessed! A nice bit of friendly banter, all very professional - I liked it.

Everyone was, of course, waiting for "The Ol' Dog Hisself", Seasick Steve. The man didn't keep us waiting too long, kicking off with the excellent drinking song Thunderbird. Most of the set was from the most recent albums - the ones I have! - and there was anthem after anthem: a roaring That's All; St Louis Slim; love song Walking Man - featuring a charming seranade for Elizabeth Cook, who Steve dragged out on stage to great applause; cautionary tale Never Go West, with a great recited intro; the quite awesome Cut My Wings; one of my BIG favourites Diddley Bow; latest album song Dark to bring the pace down a little; new song Burnin' Up, which had the whole theatre singing back, as did It's A Long Way But I Been Here Before. Finally, we we treated to a fiery Chiggers, and a blistering encore of Dog House Boogie...

...but that wasn't all. Elizabeth Cook had already said she's meet folks and sign stuff after the show, and Steve treated us to the same. The queue went most of the way round the foyer, but I was in the first third, and I didn't have to wait long. I had had a line prepared: "you start a good fire in the heart, and put out a whole bunch of bad ones", but it never came out right - this was the VERY FIRST TIME I've ever had the chance to shake the hand of anyone I admire. I did get to thank him, and say he was an inspiration - all true - and that gave me a memorable SCORE for my Task 31 "Thank three influences in person".

Yeah, Steve, I hear you. "It's all good." Score: 9/10 - Never have just two men ever made such a great sound. No Prospect Lane, though - love that song.

Back to the B&B, shower, sleep. I beat my alarm clock "to the beep" by about an hour, so I was up, semi-packed, and ready for breakfast with time to spare... and another surprise. Guess who was helping out with the breakfast orders...?

The girl from Pizza Hut! How sweet...

So, it was back to the pick-up point for the first leg of my trip home. I made it there with plenty of time to spare, and as a result, an earlier bus than I'd booked was prepared to take me back to Dundee a whole half hour early! That gave me a few more options, especially when you consider I had worked a trip to the cinema into my return journey. Thank you Megabus!

A quick shopping sweep for craft equipment and materials got me to the city centre bus stop in time to catch a ride to the cinema for a 1300 showing of Inception... and that was well worth the effort.

The Short And Sweet, Spoiler-Free Review... Some will surely say "Matrix rip-off", but that's just being lazy - yes, comparisons could be made, but if you watch this waiting for the next "Matrix-a-like" moment, you'll miss some of Christopher Nolan's finest work to date, including The Dark Knight. It's not a case of "don't think you're fast enough, know you're fast enough" - the dream-world makes those entering it WORK to get what they want, however twisted the world around them gets. I'd say this is more like Mission Impossible meets The Matrix, and it comes away from that head-on collision having acquitted itself well. DeCaprio is excellent. Definitely worth a viewing! Score: 8.5/10

Finally... home at last, by way of the front of the school (just missed my intended stop) - and the four CLAN tents set up there. Yup, they're still taking all that sh8 down...

And today...? Got some good work done. Stabbed the inside of my mouth with a crisp (ouch). Typed up the stuff I wrote on Sunday. Tomorrow morning, I may just be back up to speed again.

Oh, and comics. No additional goodies, just comics. As The Man says, "It's all good."

Yay! It's Blockbuster Season...!

Pity there's a pretty thin crop this year. However, the fight for top movie could already have been won...

( Spoilers at six o'clock, Tony! )

The Low-Down: Enjoyed the first one? Here comes more of the same, and a bit more thrown in. STAY TO THE VERY, VERY END. The Road To "Avengers" really begins here! 8.5/10

*Reaches for the Mission 101 List...*

98 - See the each "Avengers" cycle of movies on opening day! (Iron Man 2 (2010), Thor (2011), Captain America - The First Avenger (2011), Avengers (2012)) (1/4)