Movie Review: Wanted

It’s been a while since I wrote one of these reviews - particularly one that I decided to “feature”. It’s also been a while since I watched something at the cinema and immediately decided I needed to see it again. In that sense, it seems fitting that Wanted marks my return.

Have you seen that Michael Bay advert? It’s the one where Bay proclaims that everything should be “Awesome“. That’s kind of how Wanted feels - everything needs to be Awesome. Yes, with a capital A.

There are huge parallels with the first Matrix movie here - just the first one, before they fell in love with their own mythology and the trilogy essentially disappeared up its own arse - in that it takes a very normal, insignificant guy, who works in a Dilbert-esque cubicle, and turns him into a superhero.

The difference here is, we care about that guy. OK, Neo was cool, but we didn’t spend enough time with him to really care. Wanted’s resident nobody Wesley Gibson basically has no life. His job sucks, his girlfriend and best mate both think he’s a joke, he’s broke, he lives in a shitty little apartment, and wonders why he bothers to get out of bed in the morning. Did Neo feel like this? No idea, we weren’t given time to find out.

And the fact that we get to see so much of Wesley’s life before his transformation, means that when he takes his life back - or perhaps more accurately gets a life - we’re cheering him along. There’s a moment with a Microsoft Natural Keyboard that I’m sure will put a large smile on the face of many a frustrated computer user. I’ve owned one of those things…they could do some damage.

And thanks to director Timur Bekmambetov - best known for Night Watch and Day Watch - when Wesley does turn into a superhero it feels, like I mentioned before, Awesome. Wesley is recruited into The Fraternity - a 1000 year old club of elite assassins, led by God himself Morgan Freeman. After which much plot twistyness ensues.

We don’t have to wait for the Awesomeness though; it begins early on with an introductory sequence featuring Doomsday’s stern-faced David O’Hara - is it just me, or does it seem like a real effort for that guy to talk? - which sets the tone for the rest of the film really.

The New Is There Food - Categories

What started as a redesign of the site - another theme change - has resulted in something a little more extensive: a full on restructuring.

The categories have changed again. They didn’t really fit with the things I want to do with the site so they’ve been jiggled around. Before, I had:

Reviews - too broad. TV, film, music, games; it all ends up in here.

Site Specific - Not used all that often, and sometimes ended up being tech posts about new Wordpress updates.

Distractions - hasn’t been used for ages.

Thoughts - I was finding that everything really ended up in here. After all, what’s a blog’s content made up of if it’s not thoughts?

So, after some careful thought, and a look at my archives, we now have:

Personal - I intend to write some more personal things for the site. These wouldn’t have fit in any of the other categories.

Health - My gym updates (which I’ll admit have slowed a little, of late) will go in here. Light-hearted posts about my current state of well-being will probably also go here.

Tech - I tried to start a second tech blog, but that failed miserably. It makes no sense to try to write two blogs when I’m neglecting my “primary” blog. So tech will stay on Is There Food, and I’ll try to keep up to date with all the Apple stuff I used to post about.

Entertainment - And this is where everything else lives. Films, TV, games, music: it’s all going to sit inside the entertainment category.

Beyond that, I’m going to make better use of tags. If I write a review of a game, I’ll try to make sure it’s got the right tags on (”review” and “game”).

Using this approach, the site should make a bit more sense, and I can compartmentalise my posts better.

Grand Queue Auto

This is my local Asda at midnight. Over 300 people queuing, according to staff. For 260 copies of GTA4.

I went hurtling off to Tesco only to find there was - relatively - nobody there. I grabbed two copies for the 360, made my way to the self service tills, scanned them, opened my wallet…

And realised that my wife still had my Switch card.

Swearing like a trooper, I hurtle back to my house, grab said card, leap back into the car, call Tesco on the way, establish they have three copies left, discover that no, they won’t save them, and yes, they’ve put them on the shelf now, but it’s ok, because there’s nobody here. I want to scream “THEY’RE COMING! DON’T YOU SEE?!?” but I don’t. I just drive. Quite fast.

I arrive at Tesco, sprint into the store, and manage to retrieve the very last copy from their shelves.

Hopefully Game will deliver mine tomorrow. At least I know Dad’s got his copy.

Dario Argento Season

I’m currently enjoying my own personal Dario Argento season.

So far I’ve watched Suspiria, Inferno, and Mother of Tears. I’ll post my thoughts on these individually when I get a minute.

Tonight’s viewing is Tenebrae, followed tomorrow by The Card Player, then Opera on Wednesday. Finally, on Thursday, I’ll finish with Two Evil Eyes (which comes with a side order of Romero).

I’ll be sure to devote a few paragraphs to each one, as befits the new Is There Food.

The New Is There Food - Theme

Is There Food is now powered by a customised version of Arun Kale’s great The Morning After theme.

I’ve chopped and changed things a bit, and implemented a number of tweaks, but without Arun’s great initial work I don’t think I’d have been anywhere near as pleased with the end result as I am.

New features include:

No more “blog” view - categories are now very much segmented on the front page. This makes sense to me: why include a post about my gym progress with a review of a horror film.

Better use of tags/categories - the front page includes links to the four key categories on the site, as well as quick links to the most commonly used tags.

Viewing Log page - The magnificent WP Movie Ratings plugin is being used to its fullest and is powering my Viewing Log page.

Two column post view - it’s now easier to read posts, and there’s less wasted space.

Amazon recommendations - I’ll try to keep this up to date. Buy stuff from this list is you like the site and it’ll contribute to its upkeep.

Category specific banners - Each section of the site is undifferentiated from the others by the use of a different banner image. The classic Is There Food banner is used in the Personal section. (coming soon)

There’s probably more, but I’ve spent so long tweaking and adjusting that I can’t remember.

I hope you like the new look, and I look forward to making the most of it in the future, and increasing the amount of content that appears on the site.

I’m still tweaking bits and pieces, but wanted to get the site launched otherwise I’d never do it!

Let’s Get Naked!

Brothers and sisters, April 9th is a day to get naked.

And tempted as I was to take a photo of myself like these fine looking specimens, I figured I’d just drop the stylesheet and post up a few lines. Aren’t you glad?

CSS Naked Day is intended to show your appreciation of the wonders of CSS. Without it, well, you can see how the site looks