Oh yeah, Mirrormask

Not necessarily a great fantasy film, but up there with Labyrinth (the structure of which it most resembles, and it is also a Henson production, albeit post-Jim).

Dave McKean should again be given just less than enough money to make a real film because he can perform wonders with it.

Neil Gaiman should have a literary restraining order against him, keeping him at least five chapters away from gothy teenage girls.

I was lucky enough to see this in a cinema, and Mirrormask is literally like nothing I've seen before in the movies. The stills and the trailer don't do it justice. I can see that it's going to be a hit on DVD (albeit something of a creeper, as word of mouth spreads from those who'll buy it anyway - Sandman fans - to fans of fantastique cinema in general.)

Spiny Norman from the Monty Python "Piranha Brothers" sketch makes a guest appearance (and is credited!)

Speaking of credits - each CGI sequence receives its own set of credits at the end, as if they were band performances, which in a way, they are.

If you blinked and missed this at the cinema - get it out on DVD. Your imagination will thank you.

Dr Who - The Christmas Invasion

Somehow this wound up on my hard drive, so with another Who fan (in fact a bigger Who fan than murasaki_1966 and I) over, we watched it together.

I don't want to spoil it but it's clearly setting things up for next season. David Tennant makes a great Doctor, much more energetic than Eccleston and more prone to make popular culture references (I'm not sure that works for a Time Lord.) Whilst it's (ultimately) a fairly conventional alien invasion story, it is a good Christmas story and a good introduction to the new Doctor. And probably my favourite of Russell Davies' scripts. The political/satirical element is not as clumsy and obvious as it has been in his previous episodes. All in all, it bodes well for the next season. It wasn't perfect (but the stuff I didn't like goes in to spoiler territory) but it was very good Dr Who.

And (mild spoiler) we find out a bit about Torchwood.

Holiday Games

Here are some flash games and other things I've accumulated over the year:

Grow Cube - a game of assembling the components in the right order. Otherwise undescribable. The other games on the website are equally bizarre.

Grid Game - a simple yet compulsive network game, reminiscent of Life

Mansion Impossible - high speed real estate development - Perfect for Sydney

Morning Sunshine - an whole collection of beautiful and simple flash games

Yeti / Penguin game - the infamous work time waster - club a penguin and see how far he goes!

And for those of you on Windows computers:

Cloud - requires download and installation but a beautiful and relaxing game of cloud sculpting - like a cross between Miyazaki and JG Ballard

and finally:

I've Found Her - For Babylon 5 fans - a completely unauthorised Starfury simulator, complete with Newtonian motion and hyperjumps. Big file and probably requires fairly high spec machines (it runs on a P3 800mhz though) but worth it.

There you go, and you thought you were going to get some work done these holidays.