Before going to Norway again for work, Siggy and I watched The Cloverfield Paradox third film in the Cloverfield ‘sequence’ and the first to be an exclusive Netflix release. We wondered why and having enjoyed the original monster movie and then the intriguing and unusual 10 Cloverfield Lane settled in for some Bad Robot action. Christ what an absolute mess the third film was and it’s no wonder it didn’t get a cinematic release. Utter tosh. Here’s the trailer that somehow gives you the impression it is worth watching the film (it isn’t).
I can’t begin to describe quite how bad this film was but if I tell you that someone’s disembodied arm and hand writes out a note telling the stranded space station personnel to look for something inside a dead body (which has already had a bunch of worms burst out of it in a Alien referencing scene – in space no-one can hear you squirm) then you get the idea. It’s like a shit Final Destination instalment in space. It’s a shame because the cast was quite strong.
The association with the original Cloverfield story seemed shamelessly bolted on but did in fact serve to explain how it was that the creature in the original film came to appear on Earth. That was really the film’s only redeeming feature.
In Norway we got the opportunity to visit a couple of restaurants we hadn’t been to before. It was -18C at points during the week with ‘The Beast from the East’ causing snowy havoc across Europe and the last thing on my mind was really taking photos of food so you’ll have to cope without the usual over-saturated plate shots this time around and instead make do with an obligatory shot of the frozen Oslofjord.
One night we went to a place called AHAAN which is next door to their posher place called PLAH and had a very nice set menu. The menu at AHAAN is inspired by the street food of Thailand and southeast Asia, so the dishes are made to be shared. The restaurant has a laid back vibe and friendly serving staff. They, of course, have a good selection of wine and the beer was good too.
The next night we went to a Peruvian Asian fusion place called Aymara. Only in Oslo could they come up with such a weird combination! I was disappointed that it wasn’t just a Peruvian restaurant and the dishes were all very tasty but typically Asian inspired with only a passing nod to Peru. I’ve never had giant sweetcorn before and that was pretty cool, as was the kimchi powder coated popcorn. Would I go back? Probably not.
Back in Blighty after a truly crap travel experience at Oslo airport courtesy of BA, I caught up on some much needed sleep and then braved the ice and snow to go out to Nottingham for the day with Siggy. We had a very nice lunch at a new restaurant near the town hall called The Alchemist.
The next day we went with a couple of friends to an escape room in Loughborough called Break Escape. I won’t say too much about it apart from saying that the experience was panic inducing but very enjoyable. We were pretty lame and didn’t get out in the allotted time. It wasn’t helped by my night vision being terrible, not being able to see anything in great detail up close with my contact lenses in and having necked a pint of Amstell before we started! Here’s their website: http://www.breakescape.co.uk/
We did ‘The Sands of Time’ escape room which was very much in the style of Indiana Jones, a Pharaoh’s tomb and Channel Four’s recently relaunched game show The Crystal Maze. Having spent many hours on Assassins Creed: Origins I was well up for it. It was a pity my eyeballs and brain let me down. If we weren’t being fed constant clues via a walkie talkie from ‘base camp’ we would still be in there now.
Yesterday we snuggled down with the central heating on and watched the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean film – Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge. I really wasn’t expecting it to be particularly good, but in actual fact it was very entertaining and fun. Certainly a whole heap better than that tripe Cloverfield film on Netflix.
The effects were generally very good, apart from a bit of a problem with lip sync animation on the young version of Captain Jack Sparrow. The two new young actors – Brenton Thwaites (Maleficent) and Kaya Scodelario (The Maze Runner) – look like they’ve been grown from genetically modified magic beans by Disney, and to my mind didn’t have the on screen presence that Orlando and Keira brought to the party. Depp on the otherhand gives another good performance as piss artist and quick quipster Sparrow and Javier Bardem was also pretty good as the titular bad guy.
couchmagpie 