John Connor & the Time Travelling Throat Lozenge

We finally managed to put up our free Tree of Life poster from the Open University! It's a glorious map of every species (more or less), and we ordered it when the first episode of BBC's Life series appeared. 8 short weeks later, woo!

Just watched Terminator Salvation too. The actual terminators themselves looked amazing, far better than I was led to believe. Of course, anything Stan Winston (RIP) is instantly frightening and lifelike (yeah, even Pumpkinhead and Small Soldiers). The Arnie T-100 was way more believable than the interweb told me too, although he looked far too normal. 80s Arnie was Bulbous, misshapen and Conan like, but this guy (Roland Kickinger) was wax like.

However, the story lacked any sort of dramatic tension, John Connor wasn't given anything to do apart from sounding gruff, and I would definitely have preferred the horrendous original ending, where both Marcus and Connor died, and Connor's skin was put over Marcus' Endoskeleton to keep the myth alive. Yeah, it would have been sacrilege, but it would've given the franchise a fresh twist. And the music! Why get the rights for the Brad Fiedel score from the first two movies, then hire Danny Elfman to f**k it up?! It resulted in a bad mash-up that made think that maybe a jaunty pure Elfman score would've been just the ticket.

Of course, if they hadn't cancelled the TV series, we would've had an intelligent and thought-provoking Terminator for once. If you took out the explosions in the film, then the final episode of the TV series had twice as much plot and intrigue. And it didn't rely on Christian Bale gruffing it up. I swear to God, Bale hasn't had a decent role in ages. He does kinda play the same character over and over though, right? In the Machinist he was paranoid and huskily whispered a lot. He was practically non-existent in The Dark Knight (not a bad thing, but I do like a Batman centric story every so often), and huskily whispered a lot... 3:10 to Yuma was great, but I'm fairly sure he was doing the same thing again: A righteous man who huskily whispers and fires weapons.

Now, District 9! That was a pleasant surprise. Matched Avatar for Mobile Armoured Battlesuits (although his had an unsightly bulge), matched Half-Life and Portal for weapons, and had a lead who was, while admittedly a dick, still likeable. What an achievement. Can't wait for the next one, but I'd rather not encourage it. It ended too perfectly.

Here's some happy

Vampire Weekend - Taxi Cab

Clue To Kalo - Empty Save the Oxygen

Juana Molina - Quien