Man, I hate Paul WS Anderson. I really.. okay, let’s just get this over with quickly..

Resident Evil: Apocalypse

(mild spoilers for those who are doomed to see it..)



Okay, so. Wow. I’m genuinely impressed. This actually mananges to suck harder than the desperately bad original.

Now it’s no secret that I <3 the games, and this is something I share with Paul Anderson. Only my love is something which brings me back to the games to play them over again. His is a love which makes him write suck-ass scripts which attempt to destroy any legacy they might have had. Take, for example, the use of the city. Raccoon City is a well-established place now, through the games we’ve come to know and, well, maybe loathe its twisty, gothic, zombie-crammed streets. Anderson, operating through Directorial Channel Alexander Witt, re-creates them as they are just prior to most of the games – full of zombies, with the remnants of the police force fighting a desperate, futile battle to stay alive. It should be thrilling, to see played out what we’ve only had blood-spattered clues to before. But it isn’t. It’s turgid and predictable. It doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t need to be said. It makes you realise that what was great about the games was the brooding aftershock of the zombie attack. The shambling remains of the undead hordes could be lurking anywhere. The music was subtle, low-key, unsettling. Here, the score is brassy and in-your-face. Thankfully, there’s little of the fuzzy metal which marred the previous outing, but it nonetheless gives proceedings a slightly hysterical, overblown feel which does them no credit. I’d say that’s enough about the games, but the movie is obsessed with them. There are touches, references and entire sequences torn straight out of the PlayStation. The design of the church will be familiar to anyone who has even watched a game being played over someone’s shoulder (though it’s not explicitly a location from the games, it could be anywhere), and the designs of the Umbrella staff vehicles will cause a smile of recognition amongst the devout. But it also blows it by having City Hall as a towering modern skycraper. What’s that about? The Nemesis, with its megaton-stomp and trademark growl of “STARS..” is beautifully realised on the screen (though the purist in me would have like the rocket-launcher built-in), but woefully played out. By the end, it’s warped to become a protector, and I honestly half expected it to hug a child and/or pet a kitten. A disastrous result for the single-minded killing-machine fans in the audience. It’s like the Terminator giving the.. thumbs up… oh, never mind. Plot-wise, Anderson really doesn’t know what’s going on, giving Witt a whole load of balls to keep in the air without actually letting anyone know how it’s all going to pan out. The characters (some directly from the game, some just thrown in for the hell of it, like the comedy pimp. He drives a cadillac! He has custom guns! He says mothefucker! Hilarious. In 1974) meet up in a church for some reason, then head out to help some guy in a wheelchair find his daughter. A trip to a junior school (right out of Silent Hill, survival horror trainspotters!) results in a couple of depressingly obvious deaths.. and the return of the jam-loving zombie dogs! Mmm… they love their Robertsons! Then it’s all back to City Hall, where Anderson decides that plot is for wimps and simply writes a scene in which the main baddie asks Milla to fight the Nemesis, to see who’s tougher. Seriously. There’s none of that inconvenient “motive” or “plot mechanics”. He just asks them to fight it out. And they do! It’s staggeringly bad. Just amazing. I’m going for Paul Anderson here, and I should really be heading at Alexander Witt. As director, he should know what he’s doing, and it’s clear he doesn’t. It’s all shuffling from one encounter to the next without ever giving anyone a proper reason to do so or bothering to fill in what might have happened in-between times. Also, he really ought to have a sense of where the movie ends. You think Spielberg is bad at the multiple endings thing? I started to think that perhaps I had another couple of hours of this when even more shenanigans started up after you think it’s all over. And not surprise, Friday the 13th style “you think they’re dead but they’re not!” shenanigans, no. Just regular set-up for more running around. For the sake of my sanity at that moment, it was just a laboured set-up for a second sequel. But long-term that may be more damaging..

X-ray vision and telekinesis!

Ho ho, a ribald answer for any job interview. But not one which gets you a job. Happily, I didn’t give this answer (because I did not get asked the question). I gave lots of answers which a certain girlfriend had been coaching me on over the weekend and – I did tell you I was going for an interview, didn’t I? For my old job? No? Okay, well, I did. I was. I did. Yes, I had the interview yesterday.

For once, I pretty much aced it. I start on the 20th. I think you’ll agree, that’s something of a result. It’s like my old job, only for a proper salary. And known holiday allowances. And paid Bank Holidays. And sick pay. And a pension. And flexitime. And security. And it is permanent.

Yay!

So I just painted the ceiling of the little bedroom, in about an hour or so. Now, I’ve never seen the Sistine Chapel, but chapels are generally pretty small. Even if it was only, say about twice the size of our room (a fairly generous chapel!), I still think he was being pretty slack taking four years. I’d sympathise with him on the bit where the walls meet the ceiling, that’s a tough part, but you know, beyond that… A roller on the end of a broomstick, that’s the trick, Michael.

Mind you, I suppose he had to leave work to go and fight crime with his Turtle buddies a lot. Still, he should’ve had a subcontractor of some sort to take up the slack. He was lucky the Pope didn’t call Watchdog. “This shady decorator has taken four years to paint one ceiling..!”

I’ve had my first Sims anxiety dream. The Grim Reaper sort of glided up to Bonnie – this is my Sim couple I was talking about the other day, the ones I was remaking in Body Shop – and obviously it was her time (somehow, it’s not like she was doing anything dangerous..). Malcolm* was sitting at the table eating a toaster pasty; he was in the foreground, Bonnie and the Reaper were in the background. Immediately I realised he had to plead for her life, but it took so long to get him to stop eating and get his arse in gear that the Reaper took Bonnie and I was most put out.

After a few days with Sims 2 now, I’ve been creating lovely (and some not-so-lovely) Sims in the in-game Create mode. I’d kind of overlooked Body Shop, because, well, it was released before the game and surely it’s less advanced..?

Nuh-uh. IT ALL KINDS OF ROCKS! The tweaks available in there are mind-boggling compared to Create-A-Sim. I’m currently recreating my favoured Sim couple from the first game and oh god, they’re just gorgeous.

…flapjack bought sims 2 on Friday…

..send food..

Here’s the chocolates.

The gold flecks you see at the bottom there? Gold leaf. Yeah. There’s silver leaf, too. And on the right, that’s a cinnamon chocolate, and the one in the middle is jasmine and it’s all a bit weird and yum.

but the oven is beeping, meaning my potato is ready. so i guess it’ll have to wait.

Things I should cover – bread, chocolate, Prince Harry, Metroid Prime.. and stuff.

So I just had a little wander over to the park we thought was on fire last night. And what did I find? Dogs, tiny children being taken for walks, trees.. nothing charred at all. So I walked on further, and there..

Hey! That’s rural idyll! Not a fire-scarred wasteland! Very disappointing, though quite nice to just discover round the back of the houses opposite. Still, not exactly what I was looking for. I continued my search and found..

It was a shed, in the allotments. A small tree was taken with it. So much smoke, but really very little fire. A nice little walk, nonetheless.

Last night I walked into the bedroom and Flapjack told me to stop moving. I assumed I was making too much noise, galumphing over the floorboards. And I was, for there was to be heard a cracking, popping noise from outside. I stood by the window and listened, but couldn’t place the source, looked up and down the street, because it seemed to be coming from everywhere…

Then I looked up at the houses opposite, and behind them there was a huge orange glow, smoke, glowing cinders flying into the air.. Yup, Walthamstow was on fire again (this is after the shopping centre in town, and Momart? That was just down the road, saw that from the bedroom window). I tried to get a piccie, while Flppy called the fire brigade. Hmm. My priorities seem a bit off there.