The Well-Modulated Voice

Normally -
 - a word we hate here at the blog and try to avoid wherever possible in deed and thought - normally you'd expect that phrase above to refer to someone speaking Received English as what the Queen speaks, innit.

HM The Queen.
(You may now sit down)

          In fact, pretty much English as what Conrad speaks, especially if he's speaking to a foreigner, when he ladles on the accent in order to appear as British as a bicycling badger bearing a bowler hat and biting a brown bread bacon butty.*
     However!  Let us abruptly change course and instead wheel on The Chemical Brothers, those doyens of the dancefloor.  In an effort to attain and retain impeccable street credit, Conrad has all their albums and considers "Surrender" to be the best of them all.  Really, all the tracks are good, and they avoid the temptation to add in one of those rubbish ones like "Salmon Dance".  Art?

A Salmond.  Close enough

       Anyway, here we have TCB (a far better title than "The Dust Brothers" which they were going to choose), pretty much bursting with positiveness and joy, until we come to those tracks "Wonders of the Deep" (from 'Further') and "Radiate" (from 'Born in the Echoes)'.  The lyrics are all warm and fuzzy (touchy-feely, if you will), to the point of being schmaltzy.
     BUT THE VOICE!  EGAD THE VOICE!
     Conrad suspects that in each case it has been processed via a ring modulator, which see:  Art?

Thus

     "What is causing the old fool to jib about an innocent piece of electronics kit?" I hear you jeer.  "Did one fall on his head when a child?"
     No, the Cybermen did.  If you recall these horrid cyborgs, they spoke in an uninflected robotic drawl, via a RING MODULATOR! that made the listener's skin crawl.  Well, this listener, anyway.  Art?

Definitely in the Uncanny Valley

     I suppose TCB are too young to remember these things the first time round, or they'd jolly well avoid having any voices processed via RING MODULATORS!
     Look!  A flying saucer! <ducks and hides>

BOOJUM! Reviews Films
You ought to know the drill here by now: I am going to take over the world when my invasion fleet of interstellar starships arrive (they are being a bit tardy, the pikers), and the only people who will escape slavery or the organ banks -
     - OH!  Film reviews!  Sorry, a bit off-topic there.  The drill is that I make the rules up as I go along, as with most stuff on here.  Usually this involves becoming very cross with a film for no good reason, except that it amuses me.**

Conrad, amused

"Pacific Rim 2: Uprising":  Well, I guess the end of the first one kind of telegraphed that there'd be a sequel.  Incidentally, I have seen the first one, and jolly entertaining popcorn-shovelling nonsense it was, too.  How can you not like a film where a gigantic alien monster gets the tar beaten out of it by an equally enormous robot wielding a oil-tanker as a club?  Art?

This is what we want!

     Here an aside.  One of the silliest questions ever asked cropped up in connection with this battle: "What kind of ship is the ship-bat in 'Pacific Rim'?"  A GREAT BIG ONE! is the only answer needed there.  Really, some humans.
     I think there is a bit of a plot hole here, because - Tactical Nuclear Weapons Are Your Friend! when confronting kaiju.  Seriously, a single nuclear artillery round would see off any of those monsters, except that would make for a short film.  You can imagine it:

Opening shot: a vast, evil-looking monster rises from the ocean depths, then wades towards land.
NAVAL COMMANDER: Fire!
The monster is obliterated in a nuclear fireball.

THE END

     Doesn't really work, does it?  Well, bring on PR2 and let battle commence.
"Unsane": Guessing from the colour palette of this one, it's going to be a <shudder> psychological horror tale, which means they blew the budget on the stars and didn't have any left for special effects.  And of course they just had to be different with that title, didn't they?
     "Ooh, ooh, look at us, we're all edgy and different and dangerous!" they probably bleated, before making a cup of tea and having a biscuit.  Dangerous?  Dangerous?  Dangerous as ditchwater!  Get out of here!
     Bah!

Yeah, yeah.
Next!

"Ready Player One":  I think there can be little in life more boring than watching a computer game being played, because even with Test Card F you could make up a story about the girl and the rag doll.

Go on, I challenge you

     I take it this is directed at pale-faced nerds who live in their parents basement and who go to bed at seven in the morning after playing games all night long.  It's a small demographic, so hopefully this frightful bore will tank and we'll never hear about it again, until the executives who gave it the green light are court-martialled and shot for offences against culture.


*  These are all frightfully British, right?
**  Yeah, yeah, I'm peculiar, so what.