After today's Apple Keynote, a few thoughts struck me and I had to get them down in writing. Not just notes, but a script...

(pardon the rather traditional and totally politically-incorrect role models... it just seemed to fit with the picture...)

scene 1:

Enter the Husband, stage left...

Husband: "Honey, I'm home!"
Wife: "Darling! How was your day?"
Husband (falling, tired, into the soft leather of the sofa): "Tiring, but look: I saw some really cool shoes that I just know you'll love.."

He takes out his iPhone from his pocket and turns on the small and almost unnoticeable Apple TV, cleverly hung on it's "iTVHook" from the widescreen TV on the wall, with the "Remote™" App. Flipping effortlessly through his photo collection, he arrives at the video of the shoes taken only minutes ago...

Husband: "Well, what do you think".

Wife: "Ooooh, they're lovely! I just HAVE to have them."

She reaches excitedly for the iPad lying on the sofa next to her and, lo and behold, her doting Husband has already sent her the link to the shoe website in her email!

Two clicks and she's bought the shoes! (wow - they had "one-click"™ buying...)

Husband: "Now you've got those sexy new shoes, what's for dinner?"

Wife: "Well, I tried out a recipe from that fantastic new Jamie Oliver™ iPad™ recipe App you bought me - and that new kitchen iPad stand you bought is just great! "

He sits at the table... she disappears into the kitchen and emerges carrying a fabulous roast butternut squash and thyme bake (well, what did you expect?)

fade to black...

fade to next scene:

It's after dinner, the kids are in bed listening to their favourite stories being streamed to their AirPlay™ speakers from Daddy's iPhone™.

(OK, enough of the "™" already.. assume it's there form now on.... Ed)

Husband: "Darling, would you like to watch that movie you were talking about yesterday? I hear it's available for rent on iTunes."

Wife: "No, I don't really feel like it tonight... why don't we just get comfy on the sofa and surf a bit of YouTube?"

Husband: "Hm, ok (hoping she'll fall asleep so that he can try that new iPad multiplayer Project Sword game he's heard so much about)"

They settle down to zap their way through YouTube on the Apple TV, jumping from clip to clip with Remote on the iPad...

Wife: "Hey, are you asleep?"

Husband: "zzzzzzzzz"

Wife (smiling, satisfied with herself for winning some "me" time!): "Great! Now I can get some serious FaceTime™ (oops, there it is again) with that dishy guy I met in the cafe today. At least HIS life isn't ruled by geeky gadgets!"

...

Domestic bliss, made possible by Apple™ Come on - you know you want it...

OK, I am a big fan of Zombie films - can't get enough of them. It's all about the social commentary and the philosophical meaning (yeah, right).

"The Walking Dead" will start on AMC with six one-hour episodes on, wait for it, Halloween!

Well, I seriously hope that this new series either makes it over to UK TV or onto an iTunes Store that I have an account on. It'll be interesting to see how well it translates to a TV series. It'll also be interesting to see if it runs for a second season ...

Here's the trailer for your viewing pleasure - the soundtrack choice as the trailer progresses is just priceless!

(thanks to @danoliver for bringing this to my attention!)

No, I'm not in it (not as far as I can see!)... This video compilation of shots from Flash at the Lake this year by dobbelfeld is brilliant - respect!

Gives an idea of how cool this event was - and the music is well-chosen.

Enjoy

This little gem has been out for a while now but I only stumbled upon it today (thanks to @funniness).

Pretty well made and funny:

Enjoy!

So. I went to see Terminator Salvation last night. With nothing more than the three movie trailers and other information on terminatorsalvation.warnerbros.com to go by, I was looking forward to seeing how this movie manages to bring the Terminator franchise up to date with all of our, the viewers', expectations.

I watched both series of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" and found my expectations of this film to be pretty high after watching such a solid and well-cast series. This film had to deliver some real credible action and make sense in the overall scheme of things Terminator-related.

What Terminator:SCC did do was lift the expectations we have of the franchise. Time was spent on delving into the characters and building up the background of the whole Terminator story. We were introduced further to concepts and characters key to putting a lot of what we'd seen in films before into context, while also being bounced back and forth between the present and the future. After watching the series it's extremely interesting to go and watch a new feature film intended to further the franchise again - this time in the future.

First, a warning: If you haven't seen Terminator Salvation yet this review contains a couple of comments that may be considered "Spoilers".

Terminator Salvation - my thoughts:

The film is slick, with lots of handheld camera work to convey the sense of urgency, the need to fight and survive. The settings are bleak, post-apocalyptic and look like we'd expect. Deserted landscapes littered with mangled wreckage and shell-damaged buildings. Excellent, good start.

The film starts off in the present, with Marcus Wright's story. This bit puts things into context for later and you'll already have figured out a lot about Marcus by the time this initial sequence is over, especially if you've seen the trailers. Then we delve into battle and the battle doesn't seem to stop.

Christian Bale does a good job as John Connor, if not a little too much Christian Bale-like, but there you go. I don't know who I would have cast in the role and he carries it well.

The rest of the cast carry their roles well and, for me, the real star of the film is Marcus Wright, played by Sam Worthington - oh, closely followed by Blair Williams as a feisty Moon Bloodgood (sounds more like one of those cheesy Bond Girl names?). Helena Bonham Carter's appearance surprised me as I hadn't noticed her name on the titles!

The action is tense and fast-paced. There are no lows in the film and there was even a point where the woman next to me jumped so high out of her seat I thought she was about to join me!

Skynet central is bleak, dark and full of threatening machines - including a bunch of Terminators who appear to be wearing scarves around their heads so that all you see are there penetrating red eyes:

In also seemed to be always raining in Skynet central or maybe that's just the impression I got.

This is where I have to mention a few details that distracted me: Details I thought didn't make much sense:

• why would Terminators bother to wear head scarves - they don't care about getting wet or looking cool/menacing/nasty?
• when the Resistance fighters break into a Skynet facility at the beginning of the film they blast their way through a door, which has a DOOR HANDLE. Why does the door have a handle? This is a facility run by and full of machines?
• how could Marcus repair and start a car by hotwiring it when the batteries probably been dead for years in the middle of the desert?
• same inside Skynet central - why do doors have combination locks? This is 2018 and a future environment built by machines...
• why, oh why, did they have to have a naked Arnie-like Terminator appear to tackle John when he was inside Skynet? The computer-generated face made from a mask taken of Arnie during the making of the first film looked pretty realistic but I don't feel this added to the film. OK, that's supposed to show where the original Terminator came from... but it didn't really fit for me.

These details aside, the film was great. The different types of Terminator and other machines made sense - specialising in different functions. The atmosphere was great, raw and it worked for me.

Maybe I'll go and watch it again?