Robert Hampton

So I went to see Captain America tonight. Wow, Chris Evans has really changed, hasn’t he? Hard to believe that it’s the same person as the scrawny geeky guy who presented The Big Breakfast every morning. He’s done well for himself.

I won’t spoil the plot, but my favourite part of the whole film was the moment where half the people in the cinema pointed at the screen and whispered to the person next to them, “this is the part they filmed in Liverpool!” – seriously, it’s disguised really well, with New York skylines digitally inserted into the background, but as someone who travelled to school along the Dock Road on a daily basis for six years, the imposing outline of Stanley Dock Warehouse was instantly noticeable.

I’m not a fan of 3D films, but the effect here wasn’t appalling – and yes, there was one moment where I flinched because I thought something was flying at me. I’m probably slightly less anti-3D now than I was a few hours ago. I remain unconvinced that it’s anything more than a gimmick to sell tickets, without adding anything to the film.

So anyway, yeah, it’s a film that’s out now.

Last night I went to see The Social Network in the pleasant surroundings of FACT Picturehouse.

For the uninitiated, the film looks behind the scenes at the growth of Facebook, charting its progress from a minor web site covering Harvard University to the worldwide behemoth that it became. In particular, it focuses on the actions of founder Mark Zuckerberg and his colleagues. I’m not sure how accurate a depiction it is, but suspect a usual amount of dramatic licence was taken.

I don’t want to give too much away about the film, except to say that the performances of the lead actors are great (Jesse Eisenberg as Zuckerberg is particularly excellent, although it’s distracting that he looks a bit like Simon Amstell). The script keeps things moving along nicely, no easy task when quite a lot of the film is people typing code into a computer.

It’s nice to see Wget and Emacs get namechecked in a major Hollywood motion picture, too.

One thing I’ve learned from the film: never go into business with your friends — unless you’re prepared to lose one or two of them along the way as a price for success.

Was this year an exciting way to say goodbye to the decade? Here’s a reminder of what happened on planet Hampo this year (part 2, hopefully, follows tomorrow):-

January started out with one of my favourite shows being revived. Despite being up against EastEnders and being hosted by Ben Shepherd, the Krypton Factor did well enough to be recommissioned for a second series. We found out Who would replace David Tennant, and a year later we still haven’t actually seen him in the role. ITV’s latest attempt to ape the success of Doctor Who was Demons which failed spectacularly; the only creative thing about it being the number of different excuses the writers found for Christian Cooke to remove clothing.

In the wider world, various eras were drawing to a close, as Woolworths closed its doors, Tony Hart kicked the bucket and Dubya left office. Meanwhile, yours truly had an enjoyable night in London Theatreland.

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Halfway through the new Star Trek film, I started getting anxious. How do the events of the movie fit into established continuity? Did the people in charge of the film read the Star Trek Chronology and Encyclopedia to ensure that there could be no contradictions of established lore? What would Seven of Nine think of all this?

Then I realised that this film really wanted to get away from the fanwankery that plagued the franchise in its later years, and so I forgot all about that and enjoyed it. Yes, it’s good.

Milk is on my big list headed “Films I wanted to see but missed while they were on at my local cinema so now I need to wait for the DVD” (as you can imagine, the font size of the heading is quite small).

Here’s the Oscar acceptance speech made by Milk‘s writer Dustin Lance Black, 1 minute and 38 seconds of wonderful eloquence:

Kudos also to ITV Granada, who, managed to dedicate a significant section of Granada Reports to the Oscars, simply because Danny Boyle is from Radcliffe. Much better than covering any actual local news!

As I emerged from Odeon’s new 500-screen (approximately) multiplex at Liverpool One the other night, I pondered how small cinemas like the one in Allerton manage to survive.

Well, now I’ve got my answer: they don’t.

So I dial up the BBC News web site to see what’s happening, and there’s a headline on the front page that I have to read three or four times to make sure I have it right. Even then, there was still a part of me thinking, “surely not that Heath Ledger?”

A damn shame, in any case. Brokeback Mountain is one of a select few films to move me to tears, thanks in no small part to his performance.

Presenting the RHMeUK Review of the Year 2006! Just start here and keep clicking through to the next page until you get back here. It’s like The Big Fat Quiz of the Year, but without Jimmy Carr — so it’s actually much better than The Big Fat Quiz of the Year.

Anyway, my New Year’s resolution for 2007 is to write lots of interesting, compelling blog entries and not keep falling back on embedded YouTube videos. However, there’s a few hours of 2006 left, so here’s my current favourite song (Century Plant) from my current favourite film (Camp).