Five things on Friday #50

Things of note for the week ending December 14th, 2012

MONKEY!

1. The Atlantic’s photographic review of 2012 (Part 1)
Heart-wrenching and beautiful; some made me laugh out loud, others caught my breath and made me cry – take some time of your day, and scroll your way through. I honestly can’t recommend this enough.
(Parts 2 and 3 ain’t bad either – there, that’s your lunchtime sorted)

2. Catfish now eat pigeons. PIGEONS.

In Southwestern France, a group of fish have learned how to kill birds. As the River Tarn winds through the city of Albi, it contains a small gravel island where pigeons gather to clean and bathe. And patrolling the island are European catfish—1 to 1.5 metres long, and the largest freshwater fish on the continent. These particular catfish have taken to lunging out of the water, grabbing a pigeon, and then wriggling back into the water to swallow their prey. In the process, they temporarily strand themselves on land for a few seconds.

More

3. A New York Love Story

4. How to fix your soul
I’ve been stuck on something of late. A thought. A bugbear. An itch in my brain telling me that something is wrong. Something that sits between the impact of technology on our social interactions and the blind dependence/obsession we have developed with screens, big and small.

This past week, a dear friend (whom I shall miss) highlighted to me the above titled piece on Harvard Business Review. I read it. I read it again. It spoke to me. And so I read it once more.  In short: I’m going to try and read it every single day for the rest of my life.

Perhaps you should read it too.

5. A whole bunch of bad-ass trailers

I would’ve done separate posts for each of them but in a week where we’ve already seen Star Trek Into Darkness and OBLIVION both make their respective trailer debuts, I really didn’t want to drown you all in two minute videos (or more moaning about the over-use of HOOOONK as a large scale drama trailer device).

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Bonuses this week – Facebook really should do something about its Zombie problem. Joking aside, dead people are genuinely liking things on Facebook and it’s actually quite upsetting and offensive; next, ‘Hey Hetero, when did you realise you weren’t gay?’ – is quite the moving/hilarious Reddit thread; and finally, this City/United video from ESPN is a lot better than it should be.

OBLIVION

WALL-E with guns, innit –

I’m actually well up for this.

  1. Tom Cruise does good sci-fi*
  2. As much as ‘WALL-E, with guns’ is a joke on my part, it’s actually quite a good premise
  3. It’s directed by Joseph Kosinski, the last sci-fi flick he pulled together was the (criminally underrated) Tron: Legacy
  4. Sci-fi films that imagine future worldsproperly always get a vote of confidence from me (and for some reason, I get that vibe from this)
  5. I AM A GEEK AND I LIKE THIS STUFF

I mean come on, even the poster is pretty ace –

Well, it’s better looking than Star Trek anyway.

What do you think? Up for Oblivion?

 

 

 

*Not only sci-fi, but also a whole bunch of other genres too. Yes. That’s right. I am a [closet] Tom Cruise fan. I think he’s ace. I couldn’t give a monkey’s about his apparent oddball personal life, he makes great films and should be celebrated as one of the best actors of our time. Go on, I dare you to argue with me.

NEW TRAILER: Star Trek Into Darkness

Watch this –

A few things…

  • BOOM. BOOOM. BOOOOOOM. INCEPTION button ahoy!
  • Ah yes, but if you take Inception-boom and add sci-fi-with-a-bit-of-screaming? That’s PROMETHEUS.
  • Villainy voice-over with destruction of cites and innocents though, that’s new right? OK, so AVENGERS may have got there first too.

I dunno.

Look, I’m fairly sure STID will be fairly awesome; JJ Abrams is a more than competent director (whose last STAR TREK couldn’t have been any better*) but in a world where fans drool over mere FRAMES of their favourite franchise, I think the trailer could’ve been a lot stronger.

And while some of you might already be cowing about the complete lack of originality in Hollywood today full stop, ‘how can anything be classed as ‘original’ these days’? I have two answers for you.

  1. Fair enough, but these films I’m talking about are super recent (and you expect more from Abrams).
  2. Try. Harder.

All of the above aside, there’s still Benedict Cumberbatch – who, to be frank, will be amazing. In closing:

Bring it on…

but please make the next trailer a little more original, yeah? Please?! And show me something new, too. I mean, even the new poster (above) looks like it was borrowed from elsewhere.

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*Aside from one teeny tiny issue with evolution, obviously.

New. Bond. Trailer.

Bond. James Bond.

I’ve already waxed lyrical about why Skyfall looks set to be bloody fantastic and now Bats is over, it’s all about Bond.

The latest trailer just dropped and, well, watch it for yourself –

Warning: trailer contains plot points you may not want to know

Alright, it gives a bit of the plot away…
…but holy hell, at last we might have a proper villain.

Immense.

Via

 

Dark Knight Rises: Exclusive Nokia Trailer

“Mr Wayne…” 

I am so up for this. Tickets have been bought, opening weekend is in (IMAX style, natch) and, of course, the Nokia campaign is kicking off very shortly in full swing

Check. It. Out.

^Bonus Dark Knight Rises Wallpaper

There might be a few more tricks up their sleeves between now and launch.
Watch closely…