You’ll remember those old movies from the 40s and 50s where technology of the future is paraded on screen for the credulous to guffaw at while small children think that some of these developments might actually be possible. Well, we can make video calls on devices that are small enough to put in our pockets from just about anywhere in the world, we have regular space flight and George Orwell got it pretty much spot on in terms of our every move being monitored by The Authorities.

We were promised robots who would do our bidding, clean our houses while cooking meals and doing our 9-to-5 for us at the same time. What ever happened to them? Oh and those little self propelled vacuum cleaners don’t count!

With Facebook and Skype meaningful long distance relationships can be properly maintained, one or two letters a week have been supplanted with instant messaging and video calls and some guy in Japan developing an interactive kissbot so you can even smooch your loved ones over thousands of miles. How sweet, I think…

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Those who make movies for a living know that there are different motives behind their movies.

Of course they want to make lots of money, but some also make films that will get the audience to place themselves in a situation and question themselves how they would handle it.

So as I journeyed to the movie theater over the weekend to see the new Liam Neeson (plays the character John Ottway) offering The Grey, I was curious to think about how I would deal with such unforgiving circumstances should I ever be placed in them.

For those who are not aware of the film or are waiting to view it, the basic plot revolves around a plane crash in the Alaskan wilderness that claims the lives of a number of Ottway’s co-workers who are members of an oil crew.

Surviving the horrific plane crash for Ottway is all the more intriguing given the fact that he comes close to committing suicide early on in the movie, only to be deterred by hearing the howl of a nearby wolf. In the opening moments of the movie, Ottway is seen picking off a wolf with his rifle, given the fact the wolves have become a nuisance to his company’s oil producing efforts.

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Star Wars in 3D is the buzz racing around the internet at the moment, it was trending on Twitter only the other day and it also seems that lots and lots of people are getting excited about the release of The Phantom Menace on the 10th February, I’m getting excited myself

Ready for my Pod Race (Photo credit: Blazing Minds)

So the other day I popped in to @ApolloCinemas Rhyl and picked up my special Pod Racing 3D glasses, which @SlappyBear seams to have claimed for himself, cheeky little bear, I will probably have to fight him to get them back, now where did I leave my light sabre

Star Wars In 3D – Got My 3D Pod Racing Glasses And My Preview Tickets!

Today, I stopped in at Apollo Cinemas Rhyl to pick up my tickets for the preview showing of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace  which is on the 9th February at 8:30 pm, suffice to say I really can’t wait, there are so many scenes that I’m hoping will really look really good in 3D, the trailer showing the Pod Race in 3D looked pretty awesome, so fingers crossed for the rest of the movie.

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OK folks a little something special for you today, those that read the Blazing Minds blog will have seen me mention Point FM several times and particularly when I was interviewed by them at Apollo Cinemas Rhyl about my movie reviews. So I thought it would be great to turn the tables around and interview Dan Porter here on the Blazing Minds blog, now if only I could get one with Mark Pike as well

Dan kindly agreed to have an interview, with added mug shots, for the Blazing Minds blog and I’m so glad he agreed as you’ll see from the interview Dan is a scream and a really nice guy as it happens

So please enjoy the interview with Dan Porter.

Blazing Minds Interviews Dan Porter From Point FM And Teen FM

Karen:  Hi Dan, tell us a little about yourself.

Dan: Hi, I’m Dan… obviously. That’s not a very good way to start, I’ll  start again. I am 20 years old, born in Walsall and moved to Rhyl 7 -  8 years ago, and present on a local radio station for North Wales called Point FM also back in 2007 I founded an internet radio station  Teen FM. My passion has always lay within radio, I have worked in amusement arcades, cafes & shops and disliked every single one!

I am usually the one who gets bullied…. (aww), in the past year I  have been thrown in the deep end of a swimming pool live on radio, had  my legs waxed twice… live on radio and also shuffled in front of  a lot amount of people, youtube it, its amazing!.

Karen: Tell us about your Record Breaking achievement?

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If it weren’t for soapland’s usual season of doom and gloom, you’d be able to look at BBC Drama “Public Enemies” as the official end of the festivities. With the presents opened, the crackers pulled, and the tree taken to the dump, British people can get back to the business of feeling really bad about international relations, the financial state of the Europe Union and the ever increasing catalogue of ‘austerity measures’.

“Public Enemies” is a drama about a probation officer, Paula Radnor (played by Anna Friel), suspended from her job when an ex-murder kills again on her watch. Upon her return, she has to supervise Eddie Mottram (Daniel Mays), who has been released after serving ten years for the murder of his girlfriend. Even beyond this fact, Eddie is a difficult character who resents his old friends, the accommodation he is assigned and the public in general. Yet, he desperately wants a second chance and has passed his risk assessments: and should he do anything out of line, he’ll be back in prison.
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Ok I promise that this is going to be the last “Top List” post that I do for updates from last year, but as a lot of you who read Blazing Minds also know me for my love of music, I thought I would do a musical based “Top List” post using my personally scrobbles via Last.fm so this is my Top Artists, Albums And Track Scrobbles list.

Ever since I got my iPod Classic a couple of years ago, my music collection has been growing and though it’s not as big as some peoples music lists, so far I have around 6,320 tracks on my iPod, it is great for me and I get  to add some amazinging unsigned artists to it quite frequently and have even had the honour of working with a few on my Remergence project.

So as you can expect I do have a tendency to play a lot of music on my iPod and when it is plugged in to iTunes it syncs up with last.fm and records what I have been listening to, though sometimes last.fm has a bit of a fit and doesn’t “scrobble” the tracks, but besides from that it’s all automatically done for me
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Now just before I start the review of the movie, I would just like to mention several people with a big thank you, first to Tim from @EvoHosting for upgrading the hosting of Blazing Minds, secondly to @jodesmcgovern for letting me borrow @danmillerr to see the film with, both who work at the amazing @ApolloCinemas Rhyl.

Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol – Movie Review

I have been a big fan of the Mission Impossible movies ever since the Tom Cruise brought Ethan Hunt to the big screen back in 1996 and directed by Brian De Palma, good grief was it that long ago, then we had two sequels. M:I-2 directed by John Woo and M:I:III directed by J.J.Abrams.

Now it’s the turn of Brad Bird, yes the director of The Incredibles, to direct the fourth movie in the series and this is his fist work as a director of a live action movie also coming with him from The Incredibles is composer Michael Giacchino.

So here now on the fourth movie we find Ethan (Tom Cruise) and his new IMF team Jane (Paula Patton) and Benji (Simon Pegg) framed for blowing up the Kremlin after tracking down a terrorist named Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), at which point the President has no other choice that to issue Ghost Protocol which in turn disavowals the IMF. So this leaves the team in the cold with no help or backup in any form whatsoever.

You’re Mission If You Choose To Accept It!

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