The List

Al, who does occasionally like to refer to himself in the third person, has a list. A list of seven natural enemies. Now, this list has been the source of many anecdotes and musings amongst myself and my friends, and I thought that I'd share it with the internet for now. However, the list is due for a change, I feel that the list is just a tad outdated, so therefore I shall upgrade it here, in the public forum of the world-wide-web.

The former list:
7 - Estate Agents
6 - World of Warcraft
5 - Stairs
4 - Facebook
3 - Vegetarians
2 - Sunlight
1 - Women

Now, Estate Agents are not, as most people assume, human. They are akin to a vermin species that exist on the fringes of actual humanity, feeding off the desperation to get on the housing ladder and taking a perverse pleasure in ruining people's hopes and dreams. World of Warcraft, naturally, sucks the souls from people and has contributed in destroying my second favourite Real Time Strategy series, Warcraft.

In a similiar vein, Facebook is the ENEMY OF MANKIND, absorbing people and controlling their lives. People no longer have any kind of social lives, they exist entirely through Facebook. As for Stairs, well, I'm not a fit man, so they have often stood in my way. I feel that this isn't as justified an entry as some of the others, but I'll get onto making changes in a paragraph or two, when I talk about the others.

Sunlight. I am a creature of the night, I exist in the shadows of my ever-curtained room, I live by the halogen glow of bulbs, I am cloaked in the blackest of clothes and coats. The Day-Star is my nemesis. And as for vegetarians... let me simply say that is the Good Lord didn't want us to eat animals... he wouldn't have made them so very, very tasty... mmmmm... steak... Sorry, getting carried away there, aren't I?

So, the new list.

Estate Agents haven't crossed my path for a good year and a half, so I'm not sure if I'll keep them on the list. Stairs... well, I defeat them on a regular basis, I'm not sure they're worthy anymore, so perhaps they should go?

Pretty sure that vegetarians and sunlight are fixed entries, but they may slide down the list a little. What about the electronic ones, eh? WoW and Facebook? Well, I do frickin' dislike them, but they rarely affect me...

My new list, then:
7 - MMORPG's
6 - Facebook
5 - Sweden
4 - Vegetarians
3 - Sunlight
2 - Orci + Kurtzman
1 - Women

If I amalgamate WoW into MMO's, then I get to neatly cover The Old Republic, Warhammer Online and a host of others that ruin my favourite sci-fi/fantasy worlds in the form of MMO's (the worst way to represent a world). The Swede's have wronged me, that's pretty clear, the rest slip down a bit... Orci + Kurtzman are the villians who ruined Star Trek and the Transformers movies, I can't quite believe they haven't been up there before. And as for Women... well, that's a whole different blog post, eh?!

UNSTOPPABLE.

Well, spurned on by a mild tirade launched by our head of course the other day, I decided that I really wanted to see Unstoppable. It's supposed to be 'Speed 4'. Was there a Speed 3? I can't remember, so never mind. Mike was basically saying that as one of the most influential black actors in Hollywood, Mr. Denzel Washington has a responsibility to work with, say, up and coming black directors to further the cause of black film-making, as oppose to making the same old action film with Tony Scott.

But I love me some Tony Scott and I love me some Denzel Washington, so there's no way I'm avoiding that film (although I saw it a month after I thought I was going to, grumble grumble Coates...) just because 'it's the same old action film'. Yes, Denzel's done a good five movies with Tony now, but since most of them were pretty enjoyable and pretty damn tense, there's no reason to think that this one will be an exception. And you know what, it really, really wasn't. Even with Chris Pine in it.

Unstoppable is the story of a 'coaster' that got away from all the efforts to get it under control, a train that was left to operate under power and then went runaway, threatening to level most of southern Pennsylvania.

Only a mismatched train driver veteran and his newbie partner (Washington and Pine) stand a chance of being able to do something about it and they embark on an utterly daring plan that... well, no spoilers from me, eh?

Basically, this film sets out to be a disaster/action movie with a fast pace, likeable characters, solid plot and a massive sense of tension. There are some fictional discrepancies (why does the media have a handy photo and name tag of everyone who works for the train company?) and you can tell that the actual event, the CSX 8888 Incident in 2001, has been tributed but also exaggerated, but this is the movies, exaggeration comes with the premise. So is this just the same old action film?

Yes. That's why it's good.

Next up: Monsters.