early night last night

= getting up this morning 3 hours earlier than yesterday :)

X Men: First Class

Its an epic film, staring with a recap of little Eric arriving at the death camp and doing the gate thing, through to meeting Sebastian Shaw (aka Klaus Schmidt) then to Xavier Manor where a young Charles meets Raven (later to become Mystique).  It's an interesting story which at times contradicts the three parent movies of this prequel but it does its own thing with style and aplomb as we see how many of the future heroes and villains start out on their paths to their various destinies, plus a couple of surprises along the way, the film's only real expletive being uttered by the coolest cameo of all time.  Beast and Banshee work really well together and Havok is pretty cool too, it'll be interesting to see if there's a follow up movie that covers the lte 60's and early 1970's, as Origins: Wolverine has the late 70's covered and its follow up will most likely cover the 1980's

equator to pole

watched the 2nd part of Pole to Pole last night, it's been an interesting series, more relaxed and secure with itself, it spends time looking at the places Michael visits and there's a strong sense of hope in many of the nations he visits, even though his own seems to flag in the last couple of episodes.  The series covers half the distance of ATWI80D but takes nearly twice as long getting there, so there's more time spent finding good shots, interesting people, to make each episode the best it can be and it works too, its a very rich and varied series with a little twist at the start of the final episode.

Pole to Equator

Watched the first 4 episodes of Pole to Pole last night :)  It's a somewhat different beast to ATWI80D, in that its a much more leisurely amble, there's less sense of urgency and more time is spent learning more about the countries passed through.

The Incredible Hulk

A reboot, reimagining, remake, remount, rebranding of the Hulk, its a much smaller production in a way even though there seems to be just as much fighting and stuff, now though it's Hulk vs humans much more than Hulk vs machines and the big wide shots of desert and wasteland are now tighter inner city shots and much more close ups on individual characters.  Still all in all its a good film and there's some nice little homages to the tv series of the 1970's.

20 Years and 80 Days Around The World

Just finished watching the 80 Days Around The World: 20 Years On boxset, it's a very good series, I loved the series when it was first broadcast (I was 16 at the time and the final year of Sylvester McCoy's reign as the Doctor was on the telly too, to give you some added historical value) and I watched it again a couple of years later on VHS tape but since then I didn't watch it until last night and tonight.  It's very human series, its about people, the way we relate to friends and perfect strangers and every episode is different, each has its own identity and pace which makes it a very interesting series as its fresh viewing each time, there's no sense of repetition even though it could easily have been train, boat, train, boat all the way through.  I recommend it to anyone who's never seen it before and I doubly recommend it to anyone who has seen it before, its time well spent getting reacquainted with it.  Of added value is the 20 years later documentary where Michael goes in search of the crew or the Al Sharma, the dhow he spent a week onboard as he crossed from Dubai to Bombay (as it was called then) and he recreates in part this voyage on an Iranian crewed dhow and once in Mumbai he traces the grew and has a reunion with them and a good laugh together as they watch episode 3 together and they relive that week 20 years ago.

generally achey all over

this morning but I guess I'll be fine once I get going and into the day.