Armageddon (1998) – 10/10 Bruce Willis-saves-the-world-AWESOMELY disaster movie review

Cast / crew Bruce Willis: Harry S. Stamper Billy Bob Thornton: Dan Truman Liv Tyler: Grace Stamper Ben Affleck: A.J. Frost Will Patton: Chick Peter Stormare: Lev Andropov Keith David: General Kimsey Owen Wilson: Oscar William Fichtner: Colonel Willie Sharp Steve Buscemi: Rockhound Producer: Jerry Bruckheimer Producer: Gale Anne Hurd Producer: Michael Bay Writer (Adaptation): Tony Gilroy Writer (Adaptation): Shane Salerno Writer (Story): Robert Roy Pool Writer (Story): Jonathan Hensleigh Writer (Screenplay): Jonathan Hensleigh Writer (Screenplay): J.J. Abrams Director: Michael Bay Unit Production Manager: Barry Waldman

Armageddon (1998) An asteroid the size of Texas is on a collison course for Earth giving NASA 18 days to mount a do-or-die mission to land two shuttles on the rock and nuke it apart. They send for ace oil-driller Harry Stamper but he refuses to train the astronauts, and instead volunteers himself and his team to undergo the hazardous mission. 10/10 This is it. My guilty pleasure. I love this movie. Easy-to-criticise disaster movie which is, nevertheless, spectacular, incredibly good-looking, consistently awesome, surprisingly moving and extremely enjoyable; this is what you go to the cinema to see. Despite eye-rolling science and a legion of obvious flaws (two prototype spaceships just lying around; at least two of Harry’s drill crew wouldn’t fit through a barn door let alone the little porthole jobs fitted on spaceships; "probably the smartest person on the planet" does nothing except be baffled for the rest of the movie; astronauts are also expert nuclear bomb defusers; Michael Bay’s dog is hit directly by a meteorite and survives), this movie works and this fact outweighs all deficiencies. If movies were rated on their ability to suspend disbelief, this would be the greatest movie ever made. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Michael Bay counted the box office returns in the hundreds of millions of man-tears. Rival asteroid blockbuster Deep Impact looked on in po-faced bafflement. This movie contains mild swear words, a single sexual swear word, adult dialogue and unpleasant scenes, violence and sensual scenes, exotic dancing scenes. Classified 12A by BBFC. Persons under the age of 12 must be accompanied by an adult. Links www.badastronomy.com/bad/movies/armpitageddon.html

Using Steam as a front-end for individual games in emulators

This page has now moved to Steam and Emulators and is also accessible via the blog menu.

Brains struts his stuff

After my love for New Captain Scarlet thought I’d just highlight this brilliant commercial for, er, water (Britvic Drench) whereby classic Brains from Thunderbirds gets into his rhythm. Bit surprising they didn’t get Anthony Edwards to do this.

PlayStation 3 / Xbox 360 backwards compatibility update

My complete BC list.

 

 

Key

• The game is new to this list because I have purchased or borrowed it or it has been added to the Xbox 360 BC list.
• The game was already on my list but its status has changed.

 

 

 

Backwards Compatibility Lists

Xbox 360

 

Plays on Xbox 360 with some minor issues

Title	Widescreen	Tested
Terminator: Dawn of Date Game doesn’t run in widescreen and has the image squished into a 4:3 area in the middle of the display. Opening movie has occasional sound glitches. Frame-rate occasionally stutters. Heat-haze effects are incorrectly rendered on top of everything else including the HUD. I also wonder what the ugliest lead character in video-game history is; I vote for Kyle Reese.		August 2008

 

 

 

 

PlayStation 3 (PS3)

Note: this is a list of games tested by me and is not entirely in tune with the official list which tends to be more cautious and somewhat behind the latest software version.

No known issues

Title	Product Code	Widescreen	System
Burnout Dominator	SLES 54681		2.42
Ford vs Chevy	SLES 53698		2.42
GunGrave: Over Dose	SLES 52941		2.42
Haven: Call of the King	SLES 51209		2.42
James Bond in… Agent Under Fire	SLES 50539		2.42
World Super Police	SLES 54080		2.42

 

Should play on Playstation 3 with minor issues

Title	Product Code	Widescreen	System
Ford Street Racing Dolby ProLogic II audio option causes crackling in-game	SLES 53639		2.42
GunGrave Audio stuttering during pre-Start movie (no obvious damage to disc) but not during in-game movies. Slowdown in game but everything remains playable and looks great.	SLES 51236		2.42

Looks Aren’t Everything…

Looks aren’t everything but they’re not nothing, either. As someone who is fairly seriously challenged in the looks department (though former Dr. Who sidekick Billie Piper says she likes a man with a bit of gut, woohoo) I am sympathetic to this.

I saw this page on a one-off visit to the Zoo Weekly web site following an eye-catching ad on Empire Magazine’s web site. (Doth I protest too strongly?)

However, here is a before-and-after page with women pictured without any make-up and after their makeover was completed. Some of the transformations are quite astonishing.

At the risk of being completely horrible I would like to highlight the most impressive transformation for the lady on row 3, column 2. If you’d said that was a picture of a guy you would have believed it. After the make-over, she looks truly lovely and is sporting a generous classy smile as an agreeable bonus.

This begs the question: if make-up artists can perform such artistry why do they go overboard on models on cat-walks and red carpets and in magazines? It seems to me that, at this time, they are busy making ‘celebrities’ and models look less attractive by applying great swathes of unnecessary make-up which appears to have simply been thrown at the recipient’s face.

Slimm GB-PVR: Version 1.6.2621.23596

To install:

• Ensure you have installed .NET Framework 2.0. It can probably be installed by accessing your Windows Update or you can follow this download link: Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Redistributable

• Download and install SlimmGBPVR: Direct download link

For all details regarding current version, please see documentation which is installed alongside the utility and is available in the GBPVR start menu group.

This release:

Features

• Option to start GB-PVR whenever Slimm GB-PVR is loaded. Request: “Would it be possible to add another checkbox that makes GBPVR.EXE get launched every time SlimmGBPVR is launched? Sometimes I shutdown SlimmGBPVR, then when I rerun it would like it to launch GBPVR for me.”
• The auto-restart recording service now does not fire if the GB-PVR Config application has been run within the last minute. This stops it attempting to restart the recording service at the same time as the GB-PVR Config application.
• Slimm GB-PVR can now auto-kill any GBPVRTray processes while it is running.
• Maintenance Mode added to Tools menu. Request.
• Running recording service checked for on startup. If not running and auto-restart is disabled, a warning balloon is shown with information on how to restart it.
• Auto-restart recording service feature is checked on startup. If not enabled, a warning balloon is shown with information on how to enable it.
• Tools -> Restart Recording Service. If Maintenance Mode is enabled, this could leave the auto-restart recording service feature disabled so you are asked whether you would like to automatically turn off Maintenance Mode.

Bug Fixes

• The tooltip for the checkboxes under Tray Configuration -> Startup all had the wrong tooltips because I copied the section “Database disconnect during EPG update”.

Coding

• Sub-menu appearance changed slightly.

Support:

You can post support queries on the Slimm GB-PVR forum hosted at GB-PVR.com.