F-ZeroOne

The shoulder swap is a very nice touch - no more "but if I apply these stickers, the head won't match the body!".

I've been sitting on the fence on this one. Its not exactly cheap, but Patlabor is one of those series where I have absolutely no willpower. Drifands pictures just sold it to me. Think he'd better apply for a percentage off CM Corps... Incidentally, there a set of Patlabor trading figures coming out in March from the same company. The line-up includes a command car.

Jack Thompson wailing.

Don't tell anyone, but we've got a couple of Spitfires waiting in the wings for the F-22 boys.

Thats because union rules dictate certain phases of the Moon allow the workers to have an additional tea break per day, except on the first Sunday after Lent, unless Lent falls on St. Swithins day, in which case the tea break may be taken on the first Friday afternoon following a Bank Holiday (unless Boxing Day falls on a Friday)...

Well, at least you read some of it!

Hopefully non-spoilerific review: Saw Hot Fuzz today. When you're eight and British, you want nothing more than to be a policeman. You cannot imagine anything cooler than wailing down British high streets in a jam sandwich [1], in hot prusuit of a criminal in a stripey jumper carrying a bag marked "SWAG". Then you grow up a bit, and start watching US action movies. And then you want to be an American ex-cop, gunning down suspects with European accents in high-rise buildings whilst uttering an unending stream of witty and suitably ironic one-liners. Then you grow up a bit more, and discover John Woo. And then you want to be SuperAsianCop, jumping sideways along church pews, firing twin Desert Eagles at rates of fire far exceeding their ammunition capacity, and following each individual bullet all the way through Mr. Generic American Villains eyeballs. You no longer dream of playing cops and robbers. Hot Fuzz, however, may just make you want to run down your road yelling "NeeNAHNeeNAHNeeNAH!" again. The first half of the film is pretty much what the team behind Spaced do best - fast cuts, seeding fuses for punchlines that will go off later, side-swipes at being British, and some quite amazing outbreaks of gore. Then things take a swerve at an impossible angle. Its difficult to state more without spoiling things, but lets just say that the casting of Edward Woodward was probably no accident. At this point, it has to be said, the film throws all attempts at believability right out the window. But thats all right, because you'll be grinning too much to care. Plenty of star turns here - Pegg makes a suitably intense all-action copper, Nick Frost is, well Nick Frost and gets most of the best lines, Bill Bailey does nothing at all yet steals every scene hes in, and Timothy Dalton puts in a performance of such wonderfully pantomine proportions that one can almost forgive him for Flash Gordon. And whoever plays the Village Country Doctor - I think that must be his name; he doesn't just look the part, he *is* the part. And best supporting actor goes to a Somerfield supermarket. Hot Fuzz. Watch it. Its the Law. [1] Reference to a colour scheme for UK Police cars used a few years back; basically an orange stripe running down the length of a white background - the "jam" in the "sandwich".

Consider it mild revenge for all those British villains in big-budget action movies. Couple of corrections: Big F, Meh CD was quoting a comparison I tried to make between Lethal Weapon and the Waltons. Also, the film is actually set in Gloucestershire, not Somerset. I think I heard "Somerset" mentioned in an interview with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, and took that as where the film was set. Still, they are all part of the UK known darkly as the "Westcountry"...

Thread back from the dead - just thought that those of you who liked Shaun of the Dead would want to know that Simon Peggs/Edgar Wrights/Nick Frosts new film, Hot Fuzz hit British cinemas this week. You can see trailers on YouTube; its basically a parody of Hollywood buddy cop/action movies but set in the UK county of Somerset. I'm not really sure I can convey just why this idea is funny on the celluar level to us UK residents, but the closest I think I can get is to imagine Lethal Weapon set in the home town of The Waltons...

Not in one go, though - over about 6 years of increasingly difficult-to-survive warfare. 75% was the overall casualty rate for the conflict as a whole.

I might be misunderstanding your reply here, but in the long term it was unsustainable. Theres a reason we don't fight wars that way anymore (or at least, try very hard not to... ). All the combatant nations were pretty much exhausted by the end of the war, and the UK was trying to get the US involved much of the way through the war.

<pedant> Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country <pedant>

Yep, thats the one - thanks Graham. I remembered it a few hours after posting! The ships computer was called something else though...

Of course, "High" and "rairity" are such relative terms. After all, 30% of a million is still about 300,000 men...

Gunbuster features realtivistic effects and various "hard" SF concepts, but is perhaps not exactly "realistic" overall... If you like reading, Peter F. Hamilitons "Nights Dawn" trilogy (series starts with the "Reality Dysfunction") manages to mix Star Wars style wild space dogfights with "realistic" technology.

Uwe Boll to direct!

Okay, thank you!

Wait until you hear about the forthcoming Vicar of Dibley remake, and to explain that one I'm going to need a comfortable chair, a pot of tea, several bars of chocolate and about three whole days.

I believe he did some of the concept work for the large spacecraft in the show - I forget the ships name just at the moment. I don't know if the actual design used was close to Kawamoris original, though.

Okay, yes, but what a three minutes.

One question: whats the music you used in that clip?

In the UK, the Hunter is usually regarded as one of the prettiest jet aircraft of all time. And she sings, too!

Doesn't matter - it was so bloody fast all you'd see would be a pretty streak of silver anyway.

While we're on the subject of "Life on Mars": http://bigdumbobject.co.uk/archives/001758.html (er, note the series doesn't actually look like this - this is a teaser trailer done in the style of a popular UK 70s childrens show. I hope thats obvious... )

"Life on Mars" was first broadcast in the UK last year. It is excellent, although it relies quite heavily on UK cop show culture from the 70s ("Get your trousers on, son. You're nicked!"). The US version might be in trouble if they take the "hey, wasn't Starsky & Hutch fun back then? Lets do that!" route. A new series of Life on Mars, UK version, starts broadcasting next week in the UK.