2013-05-25T10:00:06-04:00 Tim Manton http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=tim-manton Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Tim Manton Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2994099 2013-04-01T15:33:58-04:00 2013-04-01T15:48:37-04:00

Tim Manton http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-manton/ It's the day everyone tries to be funny, or smart, or both. As it's the day after Easter, this leads to some inner turmoil among those of us who attempt this state all year round. You've spent the last 24 hours eating far more chocolate egg than you probably meant to, because it'd be wrong otherwise, and now people are deliberately lying to you.
Some of them fall harder than a brick lemming. I'm not entirely sure the White House understands the basis of April Fools, because it gave us a straight-up joke; an American take on the old toilet-roll advert involving a baby in a suit. The only people who may have been deceived by that write pamphlets for the Tea Party.
Others are disturbingly believable. Dave Mustaine re-uniting with Metallica was one, which seems inevitable once they hit a wall individually, and Twitter charging users to use vowels- but not "y"- could have been the result of a Welsh takeover.
I wouldn't mind, really, if there was some sort of filter you could apply to emails. One example- I received a load of mail from various shopping outlets advertising deals, such as 70% off clothes on Amazon. How do I know these aren't April Fools' jokes in disguise?
It's like Nick Cleggs' gaff from the last general election, about not raising tuition fees. He forgot to shout "April Fools!", and it was a pretty late one, but the point remains. How do you know the real joke's not on you?
I may be speaking for a minority here, but I've just spent the last day gorging on chocolate, surrounded by rabbits, baby chickens and shiny paper. I'm not ready for anything more surreal than that.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2980682 2013-03-29T14:48:28-04:00 2013-03-31T04:26:45-04:00

Tim Manton http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-manton/
Dwayne Johnson is good, as the rock-solid (pun acknowledged but not intended) hero of the film, who dutifully fires all the big guns and looks suitably unimpressed by other characters' shenanigans. I believed him, because that's what Johnson's been doing 1996, and he has the charisma to pull it off. He's like a concrete puppy.

Adrianne Palicki and DJ Cotrona are okay as his commando sidekicks. Like most of the characters in this film, they lack any real personality to connect with. Palicki's character has daddy issues, which I would sympathize with had it not been done to death in every possible medium of entertainment already, which affect her for all of one scene.

Cotrona's jumps on people from behind and looks uncertain occasionally, possibly wondering why he isn't dressed as a ninja.

I can't think of much to say about the rest. Bruce Willis doesn't actually do anything, besides showing people around a house and looking smug, and the villains are instantly forgettable. Firefly could have been interesting, given a bigger role. Storm Shadow goes through the motions.

And as for Cobra Commander...well, the person behind that helmet could be anyone. I forget why anyone bothered defrosting him in the first place. The biggest moment of villainy he gets is spoiled by the fact that no one really cares. Apparently.

The most villainous man in the movie, by the way, doesn't even get a name. I won't spoil him for you, but the fact I remember him is a bit of a sticking point. GI Joe: Retaliation is, unfortunately, just what you expect it to be- yet another action movie. With ninjas.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2761359 2013-02-25T17:14:25-05:00 2013-04-27T05:12:01-04:00

Tim Manton http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-manton/
The best thing about the Oscars is, in my opinion, the aftermath of the Oscars. I say this, because I don't have a lot of time for the actual ceremony unless it's in small chunks online. That's where it makes sense.

Watching famous people collect awards is, in my opinion, fairly dull. Usually you'll know who most of them are, why they're there, and who might win. It's nothing new. They'll look nice, deliver speeches about being a small kid making an amazing journey from ignominy to this one amazing moment, thank everyone involved in the film, and occasionally cry a lot. Perhaps someone will do or say something funny. And that's it.

I'm being a tad cynical here, maybe more, but that sort of routine is not worth spending a good three hours or so of your life on. If I want to see the actors and actresses looking nice, I'll look at them on a slideshow that takes less than a minute to breeze through. If I want to hear the best gags of the night, I'll search for them. Likewise with the best speeches.

It isn't the ideal approach if you enjoy an element of surprise, but I can live with it. Films in general are about telling a story. They provide you with a slice of escapism, a moment in which to marvel at something beyond your own imagination. I don't watch a film because of what the actors involved have done previously. I want to see what they do this time.

I'm not saying award ceremonies like the Oscars shouldn't exist. Far from it. It's thanks to the people they honor, after all, that we get great films to enjoy in the first place. We should respect what they do, and give them recognition.

From my perspective, however, the ceremonies are best enjoyed by their participants. What I enjoy more is the stir they cause, the voicing of opinions from distant commentators, the drama created by our fascination with the Hollywood elite. It's one thing to watch someone collect an award; it's another to watch how the world reacts.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2641441 2013-02-07T19:10:38-05:00 2013-04-09T05:12:01-04:00

Tim Manton http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-manton/ A lot of blogs tend to deal with something serious, or intellectual. So just to be funny, this one's about blogging. You can tell I'm low on ideas. It's either that or describing how much I enjoyed reading Hyrule Historia, which makes me sound like a complete nerd and has no relevance to anyone really.
So, here goes. Blogging...it's pretty common now. At a time where social networking has become the average person's usual method of interaction with at least 80% of their "friends", blogging has become a sort of box from which people announce their views on the world. Even dogs do it now, apparently.
A blog can be on anything, by anyone, so long as it's bigger than an extended rant but short enough to fit onto one web-page. Usually they focus on one particular topic, too, such as travel or pictures of Nick Clegg looking sad.
Some of them are thought-provoking pieces of work, with a genuine message about contemporary society. These tend to feature heavily on sites such as The Guardian, often as much as actual news, and their writers can become minor celebrities in their own right. A recent trend on such websites is to feature weekly articles from celebrity bloggers, such as Charlie Brooker and David Mitchell, who can then use it as a platform to secure interest in their other independent work from a wider audience.
You also have blogs with no real purpose other than to make you stop, laugh, and then carry on with life; the online equivalent of cartoons in a newspaper. These occasionally become a business, as with LOLCats, which then promotes its website through merchandise and social networking. It's got to the point when you can even buy books on them.
Other blogs combine elements of the two listed above. Extra Punctuation, for example, is a blog about gaming by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw. It specializes in ripping the heck out of the latest releases in the gaming industry, with no real basis other than the author's own extreme tastes and more bad language than the wall of a public toilet. It's funny, slightly mental, but has more content than, say, a photo-shopped kitten with the line "I can haz CheezBuRgrz" pasted along the bottom. The medium-rare of blogs, say.
This, by the way, is barely a glimpse into the multitude of blogs out there. As social identities are increasingly being constructed online, blogs are becoming more and more common as views are developed and expressed by the individual, another way of telling an interesting story or a good joke.
The box I mentioned before has become a stage, and it can be heard and/or seen by everyone. Thank-you for watching.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2517020 2013-01-20T16:21:02-05:00 2013-03-22T05:12:01-04:00

Tim Manton http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-manton/
2. Wear boots. It's dull, I guess, but they help you in avoiding those awkward moments of fleeting terror whilst walking on the ice, and they don't absorb the snow as fast. Boots mean more secure footing, and more time making snowmen/building snow-forts/getting into snowball fights before your feet start going numb.

3. Avoid public transport, if possible. Sure, it's one way of warming up, but a lot of services close down in Britain anyway, due to roads being inaccessible and traffic accidents. Unless it's important, stick to places you can walk to and save it for another day.

4. Write a comment about it on Facebook/tweet about it. For some reason this feels right. Don't question the logic. Just make it cheerful and take a load of photos featuring you looking cheerful in the snow. Make an album of it, celebrating your adventures in this strange new world. Social networking is craving your input into the expressing of life with snow.

5. Check your university email. This way, you won't be unpleasantly surprised when the lecturer asks if you did the work they set you over email on the day they couldn't come in. It's also useful to do so on non-snowy days, but more so when you have the possibility of building a snow fort instead.

5.5 Buy a PS2/Gamecube, as my housemates did, and indulge in some retro action on the telly...to be honest, I'm not sure why they decided that now was the time to do this, but it's sort of relevant if you play games on snowy levels/SSX.
You could just use a current gen console, of course, and save around £20; decent games for this kind of thing include Uncharted 2 (for PS3), Skyrim (for Xbox 360) and Monster Hunter Tri (Wii).

So, there you have it. Best of luck!]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2323597 2012-12-18T13:00:29-05:00 2013-02-17T05:12:01-05:00

Tim Manton http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-manton/ Lord of the Rings trilogy, it was to my eight year-old self what Irish boy bands are to Louis Walsh; pure brilliance. It could have been terrible, but thankfully wasn't, which meant I'd always sort of assumed he'd go on and make a film for The Hobbit too, once the hype had died down a bit.

The Hobbit, it must be noted, reads rather differently to the other Tolkien books. It's much easier to read, shorter in length, and comes across as more of a fairy tale than a saga. Everything is less epic and more intimate - it's not so much a great war as a colossal treasure hunt.

The film more or less suits this notion, as most of the action revolves around the thirteen dwarves led by Thorin Oakenshield and their burglar, Bilbo Baggins. The latter is played superbly by Martin Freeman, who reinforces Bilbo as a fish-out-of-water-type hero with nothing but his own wits to keep himself steady.

Other acting highlights include Andy Serkis as Gollum- who manages to cram all of the humor and lingering menace we'd seen in LOTR into one scene of delightful madness -and Ian McKellen's touching portrayal of Gandalf, who provides the feel-good line of the year. Each of the dwarves has something new to offer, whether it's James Nesbitt as the everyman Bofur or Ken Stott as the paternal Balin, and it's a welcome reprieve from the usual sort of modern hero who tends to have the personality of a bored greyhound.

In terms of plot, there will inevitably be certain flaws only bookworms will care about, because films never stick completely to the books they're based on.This one certainly doesn't. The book is smaller than the Fellowship of The Ring alone, and the latter wasn't divided into three parts - as a result, Jackson has had to flesh the film out with a few of his own ideas. Most of these work pretty well, in fairness to him, although it does take away some of the book's original charm when you've got so many dramatic set pieces on show.

These undoubtedly make the film's controversial 48 frame-rate shine, however, providing the sort of moments you replay in your head over and over again. My personal favorite comes right near the start, when we are introduced to the dragon Smaug, the dwarves of Erebor, a small boy holding a bow and a suitably amazing dwavern city.

Other additions include certain characters having bigger roles than they do in the book, much as Haldir did in The Two Towers. Again, these are well-judged; the book, for instance, features few major female characters, so it was perfectly apt for Galadriel to appear in a role that suited both her character and the timeline of the novel. Radagast the Brown is another welcome addition, after failing to get even a mention in Jackson's previous trilogy.

It's also worth saying how nice panoramic shots of the countryside look through the new cameras. I'm not talking about forlorn English meadows here; I'm talking vast swathes of lonely mountainside, the sort of terrain that was seemingly designed by a bunch of omnipotent nerds as somewhere to relax and think about dragons for all eternity.

As it stands, then, The Hobbit is something of a wonder. On one hand, it's an endearingly unique fantasy romp that will impress fans with it's choice of casting and win over the rest with a mix of charm and stunning visual pieces.

On the other, not only is it around 170 minutes long, it's also a bit of a nightmare thinking how Jackson will top this with the next two installments.

Unexpected sounds about right.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2279248 2012-12-11T15:17:02-05:00 2013-02-10T05:12:02-05:00

Tim Manton http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-manton/
Okay, so various things still smell, there are still things curled up in bed at 2 in the afternoon, and by 11 there will be at least one creature who seems eternally willing to greet anyone who steps into the room. That feeling's still there. It's slightly depressing, really.

The truth is that few things will ever replace a good pet, and that's one more reason to go home for Christmas; aside from the free rent, food, washing and loot from this year's season of goodwill.

Whether it's the fuzz, the entertainment, or some other more personal reason, pets are awesome. It's why so many of us have them. And you never really notice how much space they use up until you live somewhere they don't physically exist. Things seem quieter, less busy. Even those absolute morons of the animal kingdom take on a certain value when you no longer see them every day- whether you like them or not.

At this point, understandably, you might get the impression I'm a one of those people who loves pets a bit too much. The sort that buys their dog an advent calendar each year, or takes their cat to beauty therapy classes.

Trust me: I'm not. I view animals the way I imagine they view us; a commodity that just so happens to fit into my life. They are ultimately expendable, which is why I don't ask my family to read out personalised texts to the cat and wait for a response.

Some people can afford to have pets at uni. One guy I know from college posted a shot of his resident guinea pig/"skinny pig" (he shaved it) Reggie online, so it seems some landlords do allow them. The majority I've met don't, but there's always the possibility.

Personally, however, I'd avoid it. There's some fairly obvious reasoning behind why we're not usually allowed them. It's one more living creature in your already hectic lifestyle- one that can't survive without a level of care and attention you will struggle to provide for it.

Granted, a Labrador will eat seemingly anything that even suggests edibility, but I imagine you will too if you can't afford to buy actual food for a week. It won't love you for it either.

As much as I miss the fuzz, I simply can't afford to have it at uni. I can barely afford bread. And to be honest, it's yet another distraction from why I'm here in the first place. I have enough of those already, and none of them give me Bambi eyes every time I go to the fridge.

Best to leave the fuzz at home, where it makes sense.]]>