MakeUsOf.com have written an Internet Guide for the Movie Addict, which you can read online via Scribd. This covers all the usual aggregation sites and review sites, such as IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes, as well as details on watching stuff online, finding show times, finding movie trailers, torrents (uh oh!), and much more. There are also some notes on getting the best playback on your PC.

This is a great one stop shop for the movie buff, which I highly recommend. I daresay you’d already be familiar with some of the sites mentioned but there’s a few gems there you might not know.

One thing we should all do is rate and review everything we can… but who has time for that? Personally, I wish I did more, but thankfully others have.

You can also download the guide as a PDF by the filling in the quick e-mail form here.

PS. I found this guide via Stumbleupon, on this page of guides. Mostly from MakeUseOf.com, they detail everything from video and audio guides through to using iPhones, iTunes, Macs, Linux, Windows Mobile, Bittorrent, and much more. Well worth a visit.

Right from the start let me tell you I loved this book, but I can see it being a hit and miss afair with others. If I were to call it a mad mix of David Lynch and H P Lovecraft, mixed in with a dash of American teen comedies, would that interest you?

Comedy novels by their very nature can divide their audience. It’s nothing like my other two favourite SciFi/Fantasy comedy authors Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams, and not as clever. However the sheer absurdity and invention carries it along.

David, who works in a video rental store, is the teller of this first person tale as he regails us with his story of strange happenings in the small town of (Undisclosed).

Right from the start he, and his best friend John, are in the midst of the action, taking on a case of an unusual “haunting”. But as the story progresses we discover exactly how David and John got involved in this business.

It starts when a group of kids take a mysterious mind-blitzing new drug called Soy Sauce. This soon results in a race to Vegas as those who used the drug slowly begin to unravel with the exception of our two heroes. This drug opens them to a horrifying alternate universe, where they discover a being known  as Korrok is watching them, with his Shadow People as agents in our world.

Don’t despair, this is no carbon copy horror. The creatures that appear and the ways in which they are dealt with, as well as the alternate plane itself, and nothing you could imagine. If you did, you’d probably be locked up by now

The bulk of the book is John talking to a reporter – rather like Interview with a Vampire. The story catches up in “real time” near the climax of the story, but up until then we follow David’s adventures as he tells them, including lapses in memory or parts of the stories conveyed to him by John – often highly exaggerated.

For all it’s humorous stylings the story does sometimes give you the chills. The two main characters are well written, with bolshy John and semi-neurotic narrator David perfect foils for each other.  John doesn’t seem to have a nervous bone in his body taking on new dimensions and strange beings in passing, while David – at first a little scared – soon seems to be resigned to his fate and is willing to walk into impending death alongside him..

It’s a real page turner as the story hurtles along so you might find yourself finishing this in a sitting or two if it grabs you. It’s very imaginative and I haven’t read anything else like it – with nothing ever turning out quite as I expected and the creatures… well, I guess you’d have to read it to find out.

One thing I liked is the way the story drags in pop-culture references sometimes. Like when I was thinking about David Lynch a character is given Mulholland Drive to rent. Or the fact that I had just finished Dean Koontz’s “Odd Thomas” and the story mentions the fact that Koontz had written something similar!

Another point that did strike me is that book seems to jump from story to story within the overall plot. Once I read the authors footnote I discovered that this is based on the tales of John and David, written while he was a data input clerk, that had gained a following on the internet. This is a true success story similar to the way recording artists sometimes find a following on MySpace before hitting the big time!

I await further tales with these two characters – if there are any forthcoming – with anticipation.There’s also news that Don Coscarelli (he of Phantasm and other 80’s horror classics as well as Bubba Ho Tep) has optioned the book.

You can find out more on the Internet at www.JohnDiesAtTheEnd.com – including a new short story featuring John and Dave and other fun stuff, such as a video featuring John “ghost hunting”.

You might also like the humor at Cracked.com if you like this story. That is one of my favourite time wasters with a new Top 7 or 10 nearly every day.

Rating: 8.5 / 10 – Unusual, but excellent.

Here’s a “radio adaptation” of part of the novel on YouTube

It may be unfair to look on Geocities so badly. After all, pre-facebook and social networks in general this was one of the only ways to easily make a website, or even to show your photographs to the world. Geocities along with many others of its ilk soon fell into disuse as “proper” hosting became available, but it is still fun to look back on the wild earlier days of the web.

See this site as it would look on Geocities

Yes, I did have a Geocities site at one point. And I did go through the entire roster of hand-coded HTML 1.0 and free advertising-supported hosting.

To see any other site in Comic Sans with dancing babies, simply append any web address to the end of the URL when you click that link above.

Note: There is a Geocities archive, lovingly saved by crawling the entire Geocities site as it was closed down. You might find more at Archive.org and the Wayback machine.

I went in to watch this expecting a horror movie set in an asylum, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it was much more.

In order to keep this quick review spoiler free I will refrain from explaining the plot too much, since it twists and turns.

Set within the grounds of the Ashecliffe Mental Hospital on Shutter Island in the 1950’s Di Caprio plays Teddy Daniels, a US Marshall sent to investigate a missing prisoner. Since everyone on the island is a violent (and insane) criminal, finding her is priority.

The movie jumps from locked-room mystery to questioning the hidden motives of the doctors and staff, with Teddy himself also questioning his sanity. The pace moves from a slow burn to a frenzied final half hour, and although the ending can be seen coming from a mile off it is still genuinely moving with a great payoff.

The film is atmospheric, with the remote island lashed by storms, and creepy patients/prisoners locked in cells in a high security ward set within a civil war era fort. There are flashbacks to Teddy’s experiences liberating Dachau in WW2, and although this is more a thriller than a horror, there are some jump out of your seat moments. What you first think is a straight missing person / escaped convict hunt turns into a personal vendetta for Daniels, and then moves into more cerebral territory.

Although set some 50 years in the past, it is not a period piece, though there are nods to the medical practices of the time and mentions of the recent war. This is essentially a story wound around Daniels, who has much more of a part to play than he at first realises.

This is a film it’s best to go into blind. Thankfully the trailer doesn’t reveal any of the plot.

Di Caprio has worked before with Scorcese, and the partnership works well. Throw in Sir Ben Kingsley who for once doesn’t overract too much, mix in a little Max Von Sydow, and you have a recipe for a great film.

8.5 / 10 – I’m glad Scorcese did this and not M. Knight Shyamalan!

However – and this is the clever bit – look at this script extract of Pocahontas. Or even view the Youtube Video below that mashes up the Pocahontas voiceover with the Avatar trailer

Other suspicious Avatar – A – Likes include Poul Anderson’s “Call Me Joe” and the movie “The Battle For Terra”

Links:

Avatar (IMDB) | Pocahontas (IMDB) | Fern Gully (IMDB) | Dances With Wolves (IMDB)

Avatar (WIKI) | Pocahontas (WIKI) | Fern Gully (WIKI) | Dances With Wolves (WIKI)

Battle For Terra [TRAILER]

Call Me Joe

Try and see how many classic movies and TV shows you can spot!

This deserves extra kudos for the way the Audio syncs with the Videos with a thumping beat to drive the whole thing along. It even rhymes!

Alltogether now: We came, we saw, we kicked his ass!

The Wand

Basically this remote allows you to control almost anything, with nifty Harry Potter style wand waving!

Left and Right to select tracks, for example, and circular swishing movements to adjust volume. It can learn up to 13 infra red commands. It even comes in a nifty magical presentation box.

If you want to control your MP3s from your iPod Dock or your TV channels or your Sky + there’s no better way than this!

See the video and get it from Firebox.Com (The example video shows you how it can even learn to control your Macbook).

Gadgets don’t get better than this! Is it the ultimate geeky Christmas present?

From the amazing site “Information Is Beautiful” comes this visualisation of how billions of dollars are spent around the world, in relative terms.

You can instantly see, for example, that at first glance the cost of the Iraq War seems to dwarf all others, until you look further down and see the “worst case” total cost of the world financial meltdown.

$000,000,000 costs in relative terms

(The US 9-zero for billion costs seems to have become the norm, whereas in the UK it makes more sense to me be a “thousand million” with a million million being a billion, i.e. 12 zeros. Guess the US won out on that one!)

Other interesting info-graphics from Information Is Beautiful include:

• Chances Of Dying In A Plane Crash
• Fatal Infection
• Can Drugs Make You Happy?

There are other websites on the net with some very thought provoking visualisations and info-graphics including Mark Easton’s blog at BBC News, Infosthetics, The Guardian Datablog’s Flickr Group, Wall Stats, Cool Infographics and there’s more listed in this article at Smashing Magazine.

You could even make your own using widgets from the Google Visulisation project!

3.14 = Pie

Is it sad that I find this cool?

I was a big fan of Absolute Radio, formerly Virgin Radio, but unfortunately it only broadcasts on the AM band unless you have DAB Digital Radio or live in London.

Absolute is by far the more professional of the two, with more programs and top DJ’s such as Christian O’Connell and Geoff Lloyd (hilarious!). Absolute frequently runs promotions, sponsors live festivals and gigs, and has a professional community-based website. Nation on the other hand is a much more low key affair – but if you listen to the radio for the music it could suit your needs.

The music across both stations varies. Absolute focuses on classic Rock with some modern songs thrown in. Nation’s remit is “Rock, Metal and Alternative” which means lots of guitar-heavy bands – both new and old. I love it!

My musical tastes tend to vary between the two – such as David Bowie and other classic Rock artists (Absolute is best for this) and The Libertines and Arctic Monkeys for my indie/alternative fix (Nation wins here). So if you a fan of the likes of Green Day, White Stripes, Blink 182, Foo Fighters, Lost Prophets, Franz Ferdinand etc – with a nod to the classics from groups such as Blondie, Kiss, Bowie, The Sex Pistols, Motley Crue, Fun Loving Criminals, Manic Street Preachers and Oasis then Nation is your destination.

If, as is likely, you don’t live in South Wales you’ll find the mainly local ads bemusing but fun if you like to hear from around the world. Both these stations are  commercial but Absolute is nationwide and Nation is not.

You can hear the streaming radio feed from Nation here.

Absolute Radio has an extremely comprehensive selection of formats including Windows Media Player. Ogg Vorbis, Realplayer and iTunes – as well as a webpage based player and a “Miniamp” you can see below (doesn’t seem to work in Firefox). Absolute Radio also broadcast on DAB, AM, FM (in London) and on Sky and Virgin Media Cable. They also have sister stations including Absolute Classic Rock and Absolute Extreme. You can see all the formats here

PS. We have a fine musical tradition in Wales. From the classic singers such as the Male Voice Choirs, Charlotte Church and Aled Jones through to legends such as Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey, Badfinger, MAN, The Alarm, and Bonnie Tyler. Then it’s onto the modern chart toppers such as The Stereophonics, Manic Street Preachers, The Automatic, Super Furry Animals, Duffy and Lostprophets. Throw in some others such as Catatonia, Bullet For My Valentine, Feeder, Funeral For A Friend, and of course the biggest selling artist of the 80’s… one Shakin’ Stevens! Yes – Welsh Music is alive and well.