Well folks, this blog is usually reserved for some fun projects but something has been nagging me for a few weeks now. This is going to be my review of how we now review movies. Essentially, we've lost that loving feeling, in a way.
Like many, I had been looking forward to seeing Batman V Superman. To make things even better, I was going to see it with my 11 year old son who is rapidly becoming a fan of all the genres I like. No need to think about who would like to see a particular movie or show with me, he's now my go-to guy for that. Seeing a new Star Wars movie earlier this year with him, well that was a special feeling. All those childhood fond memories of seeing certain movies for the first time are now happening again but now I can share the experience with my son, which is awesome.
So back to Batman V Superman, which never got a fair shake right from the start. Think about it, as soon as Ben Affleck was announced backseat directors and critics started bitching about it. Nobody could believe that Affleck would make a good Batman. There was also the stigma from Man of Steel to contend with. Certain people were disappointed with that movie so having the same actor reprise the role of Superman as well as same director didn't instill confidence in people, I guess. Jump to a few weeks before the film opens, we hear that Ben Affleck actually did a good job as Batman and that Gal Gadot also puts in a good performance, which I wholeheartedly agree. So the day the film opens, we get our first real reviews by so called experts, and they hate it! Aside from Gal Gadot, they can't seem to find anything redeeming with the film. And although a few critics note that Affleck puts forth a pretty decent Batman, mentioning it too much might be a little hypocritical as some of these same people blasted the choice of Affleck as Batman. We can't say he was good because last year we said he wouldn't be.
So reviews are bad, but people end up going to see it anyway. Which I guess miffed some critics as the following Monday morning, along with news that the movie has actually had a huge opening, these critics come out in full force to voice their utter disbelief that people didn't trust them enough to not go see this piece of shit. Really? Could they not just reconcile that their views on the movie were not automatically shared by one and all?! So for a full week following it's release, we were treated to the most negative marketing campaign they could muster together. Article after article, dissecting the movie every way possible and showing people all the negative aspects of this movie. Trying to convince people how wrong they were to go see this movie.
So second weekend comes around and surprise surprise, the ticket sales for Batman V Superman plummet. Critics rejoice as they have finally been vindicated. People have listened to them and not gone to see a movie on the big screen that they will end up renting or just downloading illegally anyways. But this is where I started to notice something. Although North American box office for Batman V Superman plummeted in it's second weekend, foreign box office didn't plummet at same %. Why is it that? Are moviegoers in North America more fickle than the rest of the world? Or are we just so critical of everything now, necessitating perfection and if we don't get it we throw a virtual tantrum on every form of social media we can find.
I'm sorry Zach Snyder ruined your life. I mean seriously, that he did not make the movie you had envisioned in your head, how dare he??? And I'm sorry you can't admit that Ben Affleck made a pretty good Batman. He probably didn't get your memo that he was supposed to suck. And you know what, I thought Henry Cavill, which I thought was good in Man of Steel, also upped his game for BvS. The only portrayal I had issues with was Lex Luthor. Have always enjoyed Eisenberg's performances but I felt he played it a little too crazy for this character. Did I enjoy the movie less, not really as I still go to the movies just for the pleasure of it. To sit for a few hours and be entertained by something I have never seen before. I don't feel swindled because the director chose to portray a character differently than in the comic book but I guess some people do.
So now the movie has crossed the 700 million dollar mark and the first article I see this morning is that even though the movie has crossed 700M in just a few weeks, that it's failure may very well cause Warner Brothers to scale back on number of movies it produces over next few years. Seven hundred million dollars in 2 weeks and change, a failure??? Wow, you just can't stomach that all your negative reviews have stopped this from being a profitable movie?
I guess since we live in an era where we can have 3 different Peter Parkers within the same decade, that we could reboot the justice league next summer. Why not?
Coming back to international box office. I remember another film that I enjoyed but was also torn to shreds by critics, Waterworld. Waterworld was deemed a flop in North America but it still ended up being a commercial success, despite it being way over budget. The reason? International box office was strong. Does that mean that other countries are stupid? easier to entertain? No, I think it comes down to the fact that they may appreciate more. That their expectations are not that a director will be 100% faithful to source material that will end up making a movie accessible to the small percentage of fans who are actually familiar with source material. I'm sorry Batman and Superman superfans but you are not as many as you would like to think. Studios need to make compromises to make a movie accessible to as many moviegoers as possible. Sometimes you stick to your material and put out an R rated Deadpool movie but when a movie,s budget is in the hundreds of millions, you kind of want to get more than just the hardcore fans into those seats. So at 700 million dollars and having already recouped it's production budget just in North America, can we stop calling this movie a failure? You don't have to like the movie but you can't say it isn't successful.
We are now a medieval king, sitting on a throne, chomping a turkey leg and screaming at the jester: "ENTERTAIN US!!!!" But we've seen a lot of jesters before and are no longer impressed.
And don't get me started on the season finale of The Walking Dead.
When I was a kid, going to the movies was a treat. We didn't care if it was a good or bad movie, as long as it was a fun experience.
Wednesday 6 April 2016
Friday 30 October 2015
So long my friend.
I know it's only been 2 days since you've been gone but I'm still looking for you when I get up in the morning. Still expecting you to come running up the driveway to meet me when I get home from work. The house seems so empty now without you, not to mention we now need to pick up any crumbs of food that make their way to the floor. Matt misses you, your "Mum" misses you, all the kids at the bus stop miss you, hell, even the cats miss you. Thanks for being the best dog a family could ever ask for. Rest in peace Doofer.
Thursday 15 October 2015
Tralali trala Trellis
Hi there,
hope you enjoyed the summer, we sure did. Our backyard projects did go on "pause" for August but we're back on them now. A little off topic but in August we usually hold a little shindig at our place with some family and friends. The evening always ends with a fireworks display that me and a buddy put together. This year was first year we had another friend take a bunch of pics and video of the event. I'll post video when I get it but here is a cool pic he took of us when we doing the fireworks.
So back to my current project, a trellis (or pergola??? what the hell do you call these things?) to replace our old rotted fence attempting to hold up our growing grape vines. As I mentioned in my last post, I've been manually digging the holes for the concrete pillars and although this structure is eventually going to require 16-20 posts, this year I'm aiming to finish up half the structure so 8 will do. I've got 6 done but I went ahead and started the framing.
As you can see, the ground isn't level but next year we will level it out. Now if you know anything about these brackets that i have in the concrete pillars, you know they are made for standard dimensional lumber, meaning a 6X6 is really 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches. Problem is that I'm building this with rough lumber so I had to dress down (with a hand planer) the end of the posts I was putting into the brackets.
So by taking close to 1/16 off at a time with my powered hand planer, a few passes on each side did the trick.
Now before I put these posts up, I needed to mill the other end to be able to cradle the horizontal beams. One day I may learn some fancier jointing techniques but this was simplest way I thought could give me the strength and a bit of a design aspect. Again, working with rough lumber does have some drawbacks as my skillsaw only has a cut depth of 2 1/4 inches so one cut on each side, a 2 inch cut across and then I finished with a reciprocating saw. Out of 8 posts that I did like this, I had a slight offset (one cut not aligning perfectly with the other) on just one post so I'm pretty happy with that.
Now it was time to start building this thing. I put some anchor stakes into the ground so I could temporarily brace the posts on 2 axis, so I could keep them level. This was a little tough to do by myself but I knew I'd be able to tweak the positioning of these posts once I had a few pieces of the structure in place.
Put up a few more of the posts then it was time to add some horizontal pieces. Again, no one else was home, the dog just wants to sit there and watch and don't get me started on how useless the goats are when it comes to building stuff. So thankfully, last year's big purchase has become the swiss army knife of the farm.
I know this picture screams "you need a bigger tractor", but some day, maybe, probably. In the meantime, even though the bucket couldn't lift as high as was needed, it still was really easy to get that piece up there when you only need to lift it up another foot or so. I was able to just lift one end and put it in it's place and then move ladder to other end and finish putting it in place. Having the right tools makes these projects so much more fun (and easier).
I did put in another full day on this last weekend but it was a rainy day so I wasn't pulling the camera out too much. I have to say, this is one project where I didn't really do any drawings and just had the rough deisgn in my head. Anyone who knows me will find it odd that I hadn't meticulously planned every aspect of this project but I figured it would be a simple one. The surprise for me during this project is that although I had a "vision" of what it would look like, the finished product is already starting to exceed my expectations. Once this is fully done next summer, it will be a central feature in our landscaping. I think we will end up building outwards from this feature. The positioning of it is pretty neat as well. From the pics in this post it might be hard to see but this structure will be flanked on both sides by two maple trees. The center of the structure will then extend towards the old barn we plan on refurbishing next summer. That "center" will then serve as the "gateway" to the back portion of the property.
So for now I've run out of lumber, but more is getting delivered tomorrow. By end of this weekend I should have some new pics for you, but in the meantime, thanks for stopping by.
André
hope you enjoyed the summer, we sure did. Our backyard projects did go on "pause" for August but we're back on them now. A little off topic but in August we usually hold a little shindig at our place with some family and friends. The evening always ends with a fireworks display that me and a buddy put together. This year was first year we had another friend take a bunch of pics and video of the event. I'll post video when I get it but here is a cool pic he took of us when we doing the fireworks.
So back to my current project, a trellis (or pergola??? what the hell do you call these things?) to replace our old rotted fence attempting to hold up our growing grape vines. As I mentioned in my last post, I've been manually digging the holes for the concrete pillars and although this structure is eventually going to require 16-20 posts, this year I'm aiming to finish up half the structure so 8 will do. I've got 6 done but I went ahead and started the framing.
As you can see, the ground isn't level but next year we will level it out. Now if you know anything about these brackets that i have in the concrete pillars, you know they are made for standard dimensional lumber, meaning a 6X6 is really 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches. Problem is that I'm building this with rough lumber so I had to dress down (with a hand planer) the end of the posts I was putting into the brackets.
So by taking close to 1/16 off at a time with my powered hand planer, a few passes on each side did the trick.
Now before I put these posts up, I needed to mill the other end to be able to cradle the horizontal beams. One day I may learn some fancier jointing techniques but this was simplest way I thought could give me the strength and a bit of a design aspect. Again, working with rough lumber does have some drawbacks as my skillsaw only has a cut depth of 2 1/4 inches so one cut on each side, a 2 inch cut across and then I finished with a reciprocating saw. Out of 8 posts that I did like this, I had a slight offset (one cut not aligning perfectly with the other) on just one post so I'm pretty happy with that.
Now it was time to start building this thing. I put some anchor stakes into the ground so I could temporarily brace the posts on 2 axis, so I could keep them level. This was a little tough to do by myself but I knew I'd be able to tweak the positioning of these posts once I had a few pieces of the structure in place.
Put up a few more of the posts then it was time to add some horizontal pieces. Again, no one else was home, the dog just wants to sit there and watch and don't get me started on how useless the goats are when it comes to building stuff. So thankfully, last year's big purchase has become the swiss army knife of the farm.
I know this picture screams "you need a bigger tractor", but some day, maybe, probably. In the meantime, even though the bucket couldn't lift as high as was needed, it still was really easy to get that piece up there when you only need to lift it up another foot or so. I was able to just lift one end and put it in it's place and then move ladder to other end and finish putting it in place. Having the right tools makes these projects so much more fun (and easier).
I did put in another full day on this last weekend but it was a rainy day so I wasn't pulling the camera out too much. I have to say, this is one project where I didn't really do any drawings and just had the rough deisgn in my head. Anyone who knows me will find it odd that I hadn't meticulously planned every aspect of this project but I figured it would be a simple one. The surprise for me during this project is that although I had a "vision" of what it would look like, the finished product is already starting to exceed my expectations. Once this is fully done next summer, it will be a central feature in our landscaping. I think we will end up building outwards from this feature. The positioning of it is pretty neat as well. From the pics in this post it might be hard to see but this structure will be flanked on both sides by two maple trees. The center of the structure will then extend towards the old barn we plan on refurbishing next summer. That "center" will then serve as the "gateway" to the back portion of the property.
So for now I've run out of lumber, but more is getting delivered tomorrow. By end of this weekend I should have some new pics for you, but in the meantime, thanks for stopping by.
André
Tuesday 14 July 2015
DIY Greenhouse and other projects
Well hello there. You thought I was gone didn't you?
Apologies for not posting in a while but now that I have several upcoming projects, thought I'd get back into documenting them. Not to mention after not doing much on it last year, I am planning on upgrading the main project, the pirate ship in a few weeks from now. I've got some neat ideas on how to finally complete this project but more on that in posts to come.
So what have been up to? Well, the wife wanted a greenhouse for this summer so late last fall we salvaged the frame from a temporary garage (10x20) and got to work. I should have taken some pics of just the frame but here you go.
I took the side braces and moved them up to the roof section to give the
plastic that would eventually cover it more support. I didn't know what kind of winter to expect but I sure as hell didn't want to do all this work and come spring have plastic all shredded so I built up some half walls. All the wood used was hemlock, which I find gives me excellent rot resistance and there is a small family mill 5 minutes from the house that saws it and leaves it in rough form, meaning a full 2 inches thick.
Now the pic below is once we had greenhouse sheathing draped over it. The Mrs. was afraid of too much air getting in so opted to have the plastic right down to the ground. I felt that with tongue and groove boards, there shouldn't be much air and that having plastic over the wood would keep too much moisture and be detrimental to the wood. Look at the picture and try to guess who won that discussion.
So the pics so far were right before winter. Below you can see we've accentuated the setup with some garden boxes and some screen doors on each end of the greenhouse to let air and pollen carrying critters through. Oh, you may also notice that my plan of leaving the wood uncovered by plastic has been revisited.
Honestly, this really turned out better than expected. The pic below is from a few weeks ago but yesterday my wife said he tomato plants in there are the best looking ones she has ever been able to grow. She added a few solar driveway lamps in there and at night it looks pretty cool.
Another pic below here shows behind, again a few boxes.
Now here are some pics of upcoming projects. First up is an old fence we have been using as support for some grape vines. As you can see this fence is dead. I'm currently (one per night), digging holes for concrete pillars (in the ground) that will support a trellis (or pergola, not sure which is which). Hoping to have this project done by end of next week.
Next up is going to be the pirate ship. It has endured a few rough winters and still held up and any time there Matt has one or more friends over, this still becomes make believe central. I'll be finishing up the rigging, replacing the cheap cargo net, finishing railings and a few other bells and whistles. Need to get this finished before our yearly fireworks shindig in mid-August.
Next pic are big logs I got from a neighbor. Have no idea what I'm going to do with them yet but I'm looking for ideas.
The bridge is still rock solid but severe flooding in the spring has eroded quite a bit of soil around the concrete piers so I need to fix this before winter. I'm hoping the creek will dry up enough this summer that I can pour more concrete to shore up the piers.
Now before I get to the bulk of these projects, I need to sort out the workshop. It is a DISASTER right now.
Following pic is of the other section which I have started to clean up.
So that's what I've been up to and what's coming up. I've got a few other smaller projects that I want to try and get to as well but I don't want to put them down here quite yet. If I write about them now, a certain someone will hold me to them. : )
I'll be back shortly, I promise. And as always, thanks for dropping by.
Apologies for not posting in a while but now that I have several upcoming projects, thought I'd get back into documenting them. Not to mention after not doing much on it last year, I am planning on upgrading the main project, the pirate ship in a few weeks from now. I've got some neat ideas on how to finally complete this project but more on that in posts to come.
So what have been up to? Well, the wife wanted a greenhouse for this summer so late last fall we salvaged the frame from a temporary garage (10x20) and got to work. I should have taken some pics of just the frame but here you go.
Now the pic below is once we had greenhouse sheathing draped over it. The Mrs. was afraid of too much air getting in so opted to have the plastic right down to the ground. I felt that with tongue and groove boards, there shouldn't be much air and that having plastic over the wood would keep too much moisture and be detrimental to the wood. Look at the picture and try to guess who won that discussion.
So the pics so far were right before winter. Below you can see we've accentuated the setup with some garden boxes and some screen doors on each end of the greenhouse to let air and pollen carrying critters through. Oh, you may also notice that my plan of leaving the wood uncovered by plastic has been revisited.
Honestly, this really turned out better than expected. The pic below is from a few weeks ago but yesterday my wife said he tomato plants in there are the best looking ones she has ever been able to grow. She added a few solar driveway lamps in there and at night it looks pretty cool.
Another pic below here shows behind, again a few boxes.
Now here are some pics of upcoming projects. First up is an old fence we have been using as support for some grape vines. As you can see this fence is dead. I'm currently (one per night), digging holes for concrete pillars (in the ground) that will support a trellis (or pergola, not sure which is which). Hoping to have this project done by end of next week.
Next up is going to be the pirate ship. It has endured a few rough winters and still held up and any time there Matt has one or more friends over, this still becomes make believe central. I'll be finishing up the rigging, replacing the cheap cargo net, finishing railings and a few other bells and whistles. Need to get this finished before our yearly fireworks shindig in mid-August.
Next pic are big logs I got from a neighbor. Have no idea what I'm going to do with them yet but I'm looking for ideas.
The bridge is still rock solid but severe flooding in the spring has eroded quite a bit of soil around the concrete piers so I need to fix this before winter. I'm hoping the creek will dry up enough this summer that I can pour more concrete to shore up the piers.
Now before I get to the bulk of these projects, I need to sort out the workshop. It is a DISASTER right now.
Following pic is of the other section which I have started to clean up.
So that's what I've been up to and what's coming up. I've got a few other smaller projects that I want to try and get to as well but I don't want to put them down here quite yet. If I write about them now, a certain someone will hold me to them. : )
I'll be back shortly, I promise. And as always, thanks for dropping by.
Monday 29 December 2014
Social Media
Addendum!
As I was closing off the last post, I thought about the other social media outlets I'm on and if you want to know when new posts come out, you can also follow me on Twitter at @Stratt38.
Fair warning, my posts there are not limited to home improvement issues but you might be amused from time to time while you await anxiously a tweet that says "new post on backyard kidz!"
Cheers!
André
As I was closing off the last post, I thought about the other social media outlets I'm on and if you want to know when new posts come out, you can also follow me on Twitter at @Stratt38.
Fair warning, my posts there are not limited to home improvement issues but you might be amused from time to time while you await anxiously a tweet that says "new post on backyard kidz!"
Cheers!
André
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