My Blog

Predator: Badlands

The latest addition to the franchise, Predator: Badlands, is a very enjoyable movie. This one diverges from the usual format, by having the Predator be the protagonist. He is a young Yautja (they have a species name now?!?) whose clan considers him a runt, worthy only of death. So he runs off on his first hunt to prove himself, by taking on the hardest prey on the most dangerous planet. Decent amount of action, sprinkled with some comedy and some very decent SFX. The ending was a bit weak though - it had the appearance of trying to set up a sequel, but I really couldn't see where it would go with it.

Recent movies I've seen

One of the key themes of the Tron universe is that you can tell who the good guys are vs the bad guys cos the former are a pale blue and the latter are a dark red. So I find it very telling that Disney rendered their logo in a dark red colour. Tron Ares is not a sequel or a reboot - it's an enjoyable cashgrab by the studio execs.

Bugonia is very much a Yorgos Lanthimos movie. An utterly bonkers dark comedy about a conspiracy nut, kidnapping and torturing the CEO of the company he works for as he thinks she's an alien. It isn't long before the plot starts going sideways and then just keeps on going.

The new version of The Running Man is actually pretty good. I believe it follows much more closely the original book than the 80s movie did and is probably better for it, cos the plot is a lot more grounded.

Wurm Food Science update

I recently went back to looking at the code for my Wurm affinity food calculator and decided to rewrite it, cos there were bits that were messy and bugging me. But more importantly, I wanted to see if I could work out why the sums weren't working sometimes. It turns out I had the "magic" number wrong for cornflour, which was because I had the wrong "magic" number for the "hand" tool. The latter is used in so few recipes it took me far too long to realise that was the problem. Now to work my way through all the other recipes that weren't working...

thoughts on The Roses (2025)

The Roses is loosely based off of the book The War of the Roses (itself made into a movie back in 80s) and is a dark comedy about a couple whose marriage is going off the rails. I don't remember much about the version from the 80s, but I feel this is a fresh re-imagining of the story. I enjoyed it a lot, it's hilariously funny and the leads, Colman and Cumberbatch, put on a stellar performance as the unhappy couple.

Superman musings

I watched Superman and it was surprisingly good, even by recent DC/WB standards. And I think they did a good job for a Superman movie too. He is cares about the people and the world he's trying to save and tries to avoid getting innocent civilians involved in the fights he is having. It was funny without being too silly. Violent without being dark and gritty. And Hoult did a stand up job playing Lex too.

Overall, I think they have solid footing to attempt to make an another extended universe. I guess we'll have to wait and see if this was a lucky fluke or if they've actually learnt their lesson to not run before they can even stand.