TL;DR – So how well does Civilization 6 capture Ethiopia with its new entry? It’s raining faith Halleluiah, its rain faith, amen
Review –
With the drip-feed of content coming out of Civilization VI’s New Frontier pack we have already gotten a look at the Maya, Gran Colombia, and now Ethiopia. Given that Ethiopia is the first of these civilizations that has grabbed me, I thought it best to sit down and have a look at just how well they have implemented it in-game. After that, we will also spend a little bit of time looking at the other additions to the game. But to refresh ourselves, let’s take a look at Ethiopia’s bonuses.
TL;DR – A exploration of tension when one wrong step can be fatal.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene
Review –
One of the things I like the most about cinema is when they let me know of stories that I have previously been unaware of. As well as this, I have seen a lot of prison break films in my time, some fictional, some real, some ‘we think this is how they did it’, and I have always found them fascinating. Well, today we get to explore both of these with Escape From Pretoria.
So to set the scene, we open in the heart of apartheid South Africa with accrual footage of the time. It is here where we are introduced to Tim Jenkin (Daniel Radcliffe) and Stephen Lee (Daniel Webber) who work setting up leaflet bombs for the African National Congress or ANC. One day after a successful campaign, they are captured by the police and sentenced to twelve and eight years in the all-white political prisoner’s prison in Pretoria. While in Pretoria jail they meet Denis Goldberg (Ian Hart) who was put on trial with Nelson Mandela and fellow prisoner Leonard Fontaine (Mark Leonard Winter). They dream of escaping, but how do you do that when you are locked behind several feet of steel?
There are those moments in life where we get to see the full depths of human cruelty and few moments have exemplified it more than the Holocaust. It was a moment where human depravity was industrialised and weaponised in the endeavour to exterminate an entire race. Today we explore a film that deals with the aftermath and trauma through the eyes of the children that survived it.
So to set the scene, we open in on a bus full of children as they make their way through the British countryside at night. The bus is full of children refugees rescued from Holocaust camps. One thousand children brought from the camps to Brittan and 300 of them came to Calgarth Estate on the shores of Lake Windermere. As they arrive, there is a real fear that they have swapped one camp of despair for another. Their families are likely all dead, and all of them have suffered travesties that make every dog a threat and food something you hide when you can. They only have funding for four months to help them with their trauma, which is not enough time given everything they had gone through.
TL;DR – This is sort of the cinematic equivalent of sitting down under a doona in your PJs eating ice cream while vegging out on some TV. Perfectly pleasant and even enjoyable in places, but with not really any substance with it.
Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars
Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene
Review –
Well, I am going to get something out of the way right from the start, I have
not watched a single episode of Downton
Abbey before today. I, of course, know what it is and also thanks to the
internet and the enormous fan following it has, I know most of the main plot
points but it never interested me to hunt down the DVDs. I say this so if you
are a fan of the show you can put my critiques in context, however, I am mostly
writing this for those like me who have never seen it before and may get
brought along for what is billed as the cinematic event of the year.
So to set the scene, it has been two years since the series finished off and
life at Downton is moving on at its usual pace, but no one could be prepared
for the letter that is making its way through the Royal Mail system all the way
from London. For you see King George V (Simon Jones) and Queen Mary (Geraldine
James) will be spending the night at Downton as part of their Yorkshire tour.
Suddenly everything is thrown into chaos as Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville) and
Cora Crawley (Elizabeth McGovern) rush to get the house ready, but there are
more problems on the horizon and I am not just talking about the boiler kicking
it in.
TL;DR – At times funny, at times perplexing, and at times very dark, it explores the world of immense power and those who want to obtain it, and the damage that can do.
Score – 4 out of 5 stars
Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene
Review –
We live in a world where thanks to technology we can explore galaxies far away,
to fantasies imagined in every which way, but sometimes reality can be stranger
than anything we can muster. Today we are exploring a film that is set around
the power politics of last years of the House of Stuart as different people
position themselves in an ever-shifting
world. This would be interesting enough in itself, but in both a less and in
some cases more dramatic way this is what really happened (or at least what was
alleged to have happened) in real life. It is a snapshot of absolute power, but also of sadness, and
regret.
TL;DR – At the heart is the powerful story of Freddie Mercury, but you can see the difficulties of adapting a life as grand as his into a standard film runtime.
Score – 3 out of 5 stars
Post-Credit Scene – There footage during the credits that you want to stay back for.
Review –
There have been a lot of productions that have been stuck in ‘production hell’
for years before they get made (and some never exit it) and one of the big
casualties of this was the Queen/Freddie Mercury biopic. It had gone through
multiple directors and leading cast before finally going into production, only
to find out that the difficulties were not done there. With clashes on set and
the inevitable replacement of the director befalling production. When this has
happened in the past, it has led to at best an uneven film, but often times the
final product is a complete mess. Thankfully, Bohemian Rhapsody avoids the latter but you can still see the
problems under the hood.
TL;DR – It is a film that is completely serviceable, with some amazing action, but just comes off feeling lacking in many ways
Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars
Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene
Review –
This is a real odd duck of a film, even before it came out there were questions about its runtime and how it was edited together, with reports that over 20 minutes got cut for its final release. Add to this the only other thing it was noticeable for was a certain alleged scene involving Chris Pine and well, that was not a strong platform to release a film on. So, my real concern was – did taking a hatchet to the film trim it down to only its best parts, or did it turn it into a hacked up mess – and the answer is a bit of both. Now just a quick thing, I will let others more versed in Scottish history to comment on whether or not the film is accurate with history or not.
TL;DR – While on the technical side of things this was not the best episode of Doctor Who, the story is leaps and bounds above the norm, and it shows the power this show can have if they apply themselves.
Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars
Review –
When you can travel through all of time and space, you can visit wondrous alien worlds, go back and visit key moments in history like the construction of the pyramids, or even explore what looks an awful lot like a quarry on the outskirts of Cardiff a couple of times. However, would you go back in time a visit the less fun parts of our history, those parts that we politely pretend do not exist, even though the ripple of those events still dominate our world today. Well in a world that needs to visit this part of its past Doctor Who has decided to do so for them as we delve into the world of the 1950s segregated America.
TL;DR – This is a film that is filled with joy from start to finish, a truly beautiful film
Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars
Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene
Review –
There are times when you need to delve into the complex machinations of a
political intrigue or see two superheroes
brawl in the ruins of a fallen civilization
or explosions in space as ships rocket past. However, there are times when you
need to take a step back and just immerse yourself in the world of other people
living extraordinary lives filled with glamour
and beauty.
TL;DR – Today I explore the moving of historic St. Philips Anglican Church
Article –
Today I drove south of Brisbane to the suburbs because for some people in Rochedale a big move was happening and I was asked to record it for history’s sake. For most people in the area it was the little brown church on the corner, but it is a building with a lot of history. As the older parishioners will tell you, the church was made out of wood salvaged from an American World War Two barracks. During WW2 Brisbane was the headquarters for the South West Pacific campaign, with places like the University of Queensland being converted into the advanced headquarters for the Allied Land Forces. The legacy of WW2 and the American presence still exists across Brisbane and St. Philips Anglican Church is but one reminder of it. But like all things, the march of progress is upon the area as Rochdale is transformed from a rural enclave into a new residential/commercial suburb, and the time for the little brown church on the corner has come to an end, of sorts. For the land it is on will soon to be turned into a traffic intersection so the choice was to move it or destroy it and Coles Supermarkets the new owners decided to give it a new lease of life as a community centre. However, it is an old building, and an old building that needed to be moved, and that precarious endeavour is what we are looking at today. Just a warning that there are a lot of images after the fold, so if you are on mobile you might want to check that you are on wifi.
