little bits of everything

Last Saturday I went to Comicon . It was held in the same place as Worldcon , Excel in London, so it was interesting to compare the two. It was far, far busier (over an hour queue to get in), less well organised, the average age was a lot lower and mainly all about the companies selling stuff. I wouldn't say the latter is necessarily a bad thing, as it's a good way of small businesses selling their stuff, but if you're thinking of going it's worth knowing that. It mainly consists of two of the big halls full of stands.  Costumes  Even if you don't know much about it you may have heard about the costumes. I found that the most interesting thing about it. It started on the train at Amersham. There was someone with a purple jacket and bow tie. It could have just been his normal way of dressing, but the cyberman head fastened to his suitcase was a bit of a giveaway.  The photo at the top shows one I was extremely impressed with. Not only had this person m...

We watched Back to the Future as a family at the weekend. It's one of my top ten films, so I was curious to see what the boys thought. They enjoyed it, and I enjoyed too another time, even though I know the plot well. Three things struck me: The mention of Libyan terrorists was strangely topical. George McFly - Marty's Dad - is a bit like the current Doctor Who. I don't know if Matt Smith has consciously acted like him. Doc Brown travelled 30 years into the future at the end of the film, that's 2015 - so not so far away.

We went to see this last Saturday. It was digital projection, which really does make a difference. You could tell when the BBFC classification came up. Usually its all dusty and fuzzy and shakes. It was pin sharp. So was the rest of the film. I've read reviews since which said it wasn't as good as the others. It kept me interested though. It was great to hear a Brit (Eric Idle) in it. Sometimes I'd get distracted with things like "they've rendered all the grass" as it waved in the breeze. I guess there's so much computing power these days they can really let themselves go with rendering detail.

I went to see Amazing Grace at the weekend. It's a good film. It seems to start in the middle, but then there's a lot to cover. As well as being true, and worth knowing, it was also a good story. I wonder in 200 years time what thing we'll look back on now and wonder why we ever tolerated it.