So I just got back from seeing Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, and having read various reviews from serious film-lovers and SF fans, I really didn't know what to expect. After all the anti-hype, I hoped it wasn't as bad as all the reviews made it out to be.

But do you know what? I really enjoyed it. Yes, sure, it was absolutely ridiculous. The storyline was present, sort of, and there was a lot of very silly slapstick moments throughout the film, but none of that is really a criticism. If you were hoping that the Transformers franchise would be turned into a serious, epic SF story arc with poignancy and emotion, then you will definitely be disappointed. If you were hoping that it would be a comedy action flick with lots of things blowing up and big robots fighting a lot, then you are most certainly in for a treat!

There's not a lot else I can say about it really. It was a good film insofar as it was very entertaining. If that's not the point of such things, then I await to be enlightened.

Being the Luddite I am, I have thus far shunned the idea of having a television in my flat. I really couldn't see the point, given that I have plenty of other things to entertain me, and the fact that there is seldom anything on. Anything I do watch I do so on DVD, iPlayer, or *ahem* handy, handy torrents.

However, I do have two children who like to watch the these things, and it is much nicer to watch DVDs on a decent sized screen than on my 13.3" MacBook. I have previously used a projector for such purposes, but it's a faff to set up (don't have anywhere permanent to mount it) and in recent months the picture has turned increasingly yellow.

So, I had a plan. Don't get a telly. Get a decent monitor instead. A nice TFT monitor would let me do all the things I currently do on a much better display. Genius. And that's exactly what I was going to do, until I saw a UMC 21.6" TV in Tesco for very little cash.

I went over to my local Tesco (all of half a mile from the flat) and picked one up last night, and was immediately impressed. Everything just worked out of the box, and it has an impressive array of connectors. There's the usual SCART and component inputs, as well as HDMI for HD content and a VGA connector. This last addition is what swayed me. For £170, I got a 1080p HD television that doubles up as a 1920x1080 monitor for plugging the laptop into.

It's quite an impressive little thing, for the money. The interface is clean, easy to use, easy to read and responds quickly to user inputs. It does everything you could want of a TV, and the built in Freeview tuner picks up a suitable amount of channels. The 1000:1 contrast ratio is very nice, producing a clean, crisp and vivid picture even when using my grotty low-bitrate AVIs I have acquired from the internet.

The only problem, really, is that there's still nothing on!

So I was passed a URL today. This one:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7240234.stm

Have a look, then come back. Done? OK. Are you laughing? I know I am.

So they think that accessing illegal content is worthy of a complete internet ban. Well, let's face it, the punishment must fit the crime. Knocking off an 11 quid CD is surely worth a lifetime being left out of the digital revolution, yes? I thought so.

So hyperbole aside, how many of those people who would be kicked off do they think are current or future IT professionals? I'd wager "a lot", or a figure thereabouts. So when the nation's IT workforce isn't allowed to use the internet any more, and the digital dark age upon us, surely we can reflect on that and say "verily and thus, we may be in the digital equivalent of skid row, but at least we have properly recompensed record label execs ... I mean ... artists."

And aside from the ludicrous idea behind it, let's not forget the lack of any method of enforcing such a thing. If a residence gets cut off, can they sign up for another? Does it somehow stick to the individual and follow them around? What about mobile data plans, public WiFi, pay-for WiFi, hotels and the like? Libraries? Companies?

OK, maybe it wasn't worth a whole blog post to rant about this thing because, realistically, there's no way it could ever be enforced. It did give me the best laugh I've had all day, though.

Some of you may remember that I bought an Onn SW2411A-DivX 3 months ago from Asda. At the time I was very impressed with the machine for the price, and have used it for watching both DVD and DivX content throughout Christmas. Well, it seems that these cheap gadgets come at a price; a 3 month lifespan. Last week I found that it had stopped reading disks properly. It could take 4 or 5 attempts before it would even spin a disk up, never mind read the content.

Back to Asda we go, then, and get a credit note to the tune of the 30 quid we paid for it. Using this and a little cash injection, it has now been replaced with a Phillips DVP5960 unit. This has basically the same feature set as the Onn with an extra 20 quid on top. However, for that 20 quid you're getting a named brand and a far more polished product. The strange hanging that plagues the Onn from day 1, the intermittent USB connectivity and other little glitches are absent. Indeed, the DVP5960 and its predecessors have had excellent reviews on many technology sites.

Now, I do know that many people come here looking for region hacks for the Onn machine. The funny part is that it doesn't need any. However, if that's why you're here, I would recommend you go with the Phillips machine. It costs a bit more, but I'm already impressed enough to recommend it over the Onn model. If something goes bad down the line I'll be sure to blog about it.

I was in desperate need for a new DVD player after my existing little Cyberhome decided to start throwing up completely blue screens if the action got a little too bright for it. Very irritating. I headed out to Asda because cheap is good, and picked up what I consider a bargain. For 30 notes, I acquired a DVD player, an Onn SW2411A-DivX, that can also play DivX files on disk or, get this, on a USB connected drive. Yes, you read right. There is a USB (1.1 only, sadly) port on the front and you can plug in any FAT32 formatted drive.

At this moment, I have my 60GB portable maxtor drive plugged into it. I have watched my Dr Who AVIs and am now listening to MP3s via the on-screen file browser. It even scrolls the ID3 tags across the bottom. How good is that, for the money!?

update I finally got round to trying a region 1 disk in it. I didn't know what would happen, but I failed to find any region-free hacks for the player. Turns out I should have just tried it; it's region free out of the box.

July 2007 is a major milestone month in film history. It is the month in which the new Transformers movie has been released. At last, the wait is over!

My review is very simple. It rocks. The robots were brilliant, the humans were actually good and didn't irritate me, and the storyline was simple enough that they couldn't stray too far from it thus maximising potential for robot related antics. The comedy was funny in a mindless sort of way, and the action sequences were full of, well, action. I think I've about exhausted what needs to be said. In summary, go see this movie.

I have noticed an interesting thing, though. Most reviews say this film is great, due to either the robots themselves, the intense action, the corny humour. Whatever the reviewer likes, it's all good. That's fine. There are a number of negative reviews, though, that seem to be less based on the movie and based more on the reviewer's dislike of Michael Bay.

I have read several reviews that read as a list of "things I don't like about Michael Bay films", dragging in references to Bad Boys and Armaggedon on the way. You get the feeling that the reviewers didn't actually go to watch the film, but to play Bay Bingo. Tick, there's an action sequence with fast cutting. Tick, there's a corny line about "humanity". Tick, there's a shallow bit of plot development.

To these reviewers I can only say one thing; why did you go see it? If you detest Michael Bay so much, why bother going to see yet another of his films. I will happily admit to having enjoyed Armaggedon, not as a piece of classic theatre but as an entertaining piece of media. I enjoyed Transformers because it had humour and action and sufficient cheese to carry both off. And big transforming robots. Those are key.

I guess what I'm saying is that it's OK to like a film just because you enjoyed watching it. It sounds painfully obvious, but if you go to see a film filled with preconceptions and pre-pent bile about what you expect the director to have screwed up, then why bother? Either get over it and just enjoy it, or just don't look. Either is good.