Thursday 31 December 2009

The End of Time (Part One)

Back in the dim and distant past I was running a never entirely successful roleplaying game in which the characters were acting as caravan guards during a long journey. Sensing, perhaps erroneously, that they were a bit bored with lots of description and no choices I threw in an entirely random troll attack. I was a bit surprised some weeks later to discover that the players were still trying to work out why the trolls appeared.
I say this because I can't shake the feeling that Russel T. Davis writes Doctor Who in my the same way that I once wrote bad roleplaying games.
The End of Time is a perfectly servicable Doctor Who story, complete with a pointless and incomprehensible action scene in the middle. It features The Master, who was quite comprehensibly Dead with no hope of regeneration at the end of his previous appearance, and so the first job is to ressurect him. This done he falls into the clutches of a somewhat mad chap who hopes to rule the world via a price of dubiously explained alien tech, but horror of horrors, The Master turns the tables on his captor and conquors the world on his own behalf!
That being the classic Master storyline I have no real complaints. In the middle of this though there is the random troll attack. Or rather the classic bit of RTD throw something in that makes little sense. A fight scene in which The Doctor confronts The Master, and it transpires that The Master has developed super powers, including flight and the ability to fire lightning bolts. Does this add to the story? Does the subverting the alien tech in some way relate to these new abilities? Does it heck.
Does it fit neatly into the middle of an episode, in which the writer thought 'this has too much narrative, we need an action sequence to spice things up?' Probably.
While I'm not a subscriber to the 'everything RTD does damages Who' thesis, it can't be denied that he throws in random trolls, and they generally help his stories about as much as they helped my game all those years ago.
Still. One more of his stories and he's gone.

Tuesday 1 December 2009

Dadaist Burglers Strike York

Got out this morning to discover that someone had opened the garden gates and abandoned two boxes of vegetables and a pair of size nine stilhetto shoes. Strange times.

Now, what to do with leeks?

Saturday 28 November 2009

Why do people hate Roland Emerlich movies?

There are people out there who hate Independence Day with a passion. Not the American holiday, though I imagine there are some who hate that, but the film. You know the one, Will Smith as heroic pilot, Jeff Goldblum as the scientist that people ignore until it's (almost) too late and so on. These people claim that the film is just a string of cliches held together by special effects, that it's completely impossible that Smith could fly the flying saucer, or that Goldblum could get his mac to interface with the aliens network, and so save the day.
These people are simultaneously both right in every detail, and utterly wrong in their conclusions. Independence Day is a mass of glorious cliche, the biggest and most spectacular B-movie you could ever hope to see. It makes no attempts to be anything more, and succeeds admirably in all that it attempts.
So it turns out that my regular film companion is a Disaster Movie fan. Generally something I can take or leave myself, but why should I pick all the flicks? 2012 is directed by the same guy as was Independence Day, and boy, does it show. Starting with some highly dubious science (a planetary alignment causes the sun to emit neutrinos capable of microwaving the Earth's core) it rapidly becomes a mad case as a family man tries to save his kids, estranged wife and her whiny boyfriend, Russian oligarch tries to buy his way out of trouble, conscience stricken scientist gets increasingly upset that the government is saving itself and so on. Earth is quaked, volcanoes erupt, tsunamis inundate, planes crash. All happening just slowly enough that the heroes can out drive, out fly, or occassionally out run them.
There are nods left right and centre. The scientist's dad works on a cruise ship, mainly so a couple of Posidon Adventure riffs can be thrown in, there's a lot of This Island Earth in the final half hour. But bigger. And sillier.
2012 is a mad romp, the maddest of mad romps. It never tries to be anything else, and it hits every target it aims at. If you expect anything else you will have missed the point entirely and will likely be sorely disapointed.

Saturday 3 October 2009

District 9

So she says to me, "no, don't think it's my kind of movie, but I look forwards to reading about it on your blog." Oh God that means I'll have to write something. Much easier to keep writing when there's actually a project on, or your stuck in the back of beyond with nothing much to do do but read write or drink.
So. District 9. South African movie about a repressive state and it's treatment of an 'inferior' culture. With ray guns.
Plot, if you don't know is that a huge spaceship full of vaguely insectoid aliens arrives over Johannesburg, for no very obvious reason. The aliens are released from the spaceship and form a discriminated against, sub-human population living in a ghetto rather too close to the human population for comfort. The hero is a minor, Office style bureaucrat given the job of serving eviction notices on the aliens so that they can be moved to a rural homeland. There's just a touch of apartheid metaphor going on here. A MucGuffin starts to transform the hero into an alien, resulting in everyone wanting to catch and use him.
That could be a fairly standard plot for a fairly standard film, especially given the way towards the end of the film it does devolve into a bit of a demo for a Half-Life style shoot 'em up. Could be quite a good shoot 'em up mind you. But two things lift the film from the mundane into the remarkable.
The whole thing is shot in an eye catching documentary fashion. Hardly the first film done in this way, but done here very well, intercutting scenes apparently shot on a camcorder, TV reports from the local and global television and after the fact interviews with the protagonists. It works remarkably well, giving the whole thing a distinctive and captivating style.
As importantly, the central performance, by Sharlto Copley, is astounding. Starting off as a comic idiot and frontman for an inhuman corporation, he both looses physical humanity over the course of the film and gains the compassion that makes us more genuinely human. Magnificent piece of work from someone who apparently had never acted in a feature film before.
Probably not one of the great movies of our time, not that it's trying to be, but a damn fine B-movie.

Wednesday 5 August 2009

First Dylan now this. Am I turning into a folkie?

The hundred man orchestra is actually only three strong and while over amplified (or perhaps I am sitting too close to a speaker) but they're rather good. Banjo, bass guitar and flute, played by young men sporting only one beard and two ponytails. The flautist is animated, the bassist sways from side to side a bit and the bajoist (banjoer?) largely immobile. At least at first, he gets into it a bit more as the set goes on.
Between songs I move and seated midway between the speaker stacks the sound balance is, as you'd expect, much better. The whole thing is in a tented amphitheater on a surprisingly chilly July night and they're warming up for Richard Thompson.
After years of more or less going to one concert a year I seem to have gone a bit berserk. Four significant shows this year, and it's only half way through.
Next up is Dave Sawbrick, who I should know lots about and actually know little. He fiddles away merrily, though I can't help thinking that all folk fiddle tunes sound more or less the same. Entirely pleasant though he is a bit snuffly.
Then at nine the man himself arrives to play three older songs with Dave Sawbrick before going into his more modern repertoire. The fiddler and guitarist meld beautifully, old friends playing to each other's strengths, much more interesting than the fiddling alone was.
Once into the newer material Richard Thompson is magnificent. His is a great voice and his relationship with his audience free and open. Throughout the performance he was chatting away and taking requests, only once admitting that he couldn't remember the words - and still managing to play half the song. He finishes with an Abba cover of all things, after two hours of intense music. If you possibly can, go see his show.

Saturday 7 March 2009

Having Watched the Watchmen

Warning. Spoilers follow, for both the film and the graphic novel.

On the off chance that anyone's actually reading this, is thinking of watching the film and doesn't want any spoilers, here's a short presentation before the main feature.



There. That should have forced the guts of this piece off the front page.

One theory about the recent rise of comic derived movies is that movie people look at a comic and see a whole load of storyboards. This could certainly be true of Zack Synder who seems to have gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that all the significant scenes from the comic actually appear in the film. The murder of Edward Blake comes first as a scene in it's own right, but then we cut to a rather remarkable realisation of the first page of the comic - the Comedian's button lying in a pool of blood, zooming out to show the 'End of the World is Nigh' signboard walking down the street and even the Pyramid Transcontinental van heading away. When the funeral opened with a close up on a carved angel's head (the less famous opening of issue two) I did wonder if the film was going to contain every issue cover. Which might have been an interesting easter egg for sad gonks like me, but probably wouldn't have help the rest of the world appreciate the film.

Though saying that, this is not a film aimed at the rest of the world. It's a slavish hymn of praise to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's original, aimed squarely at those of us who know the original backwards. Sure, there are differences, but the only one that actually counts is swapping out the giant space squid, that didn't really make much sense, for an ending that hangs together a bit better, and various characters make a point of using the word watchmen to describe themselves, but it's all straight from the books.

The major cut from the book is the Black Freighter, which wouldn't have added to the narrative, so no great less. There are a few other minor cuts, but what's less appealing is what Synder felt the need to put in. Violence. Lots of violence.

It's not like there's no violence within the Watchmen comic, but with the exception of Rorschach, the violence is generally implied, and let's be honest incompetent. Nite Owl is a plump kid with the coolest toys on the block. Here's he's a kick ass martial artist who's not only capable of breaking a mugger's am, he's able to shatter that arm in a spray of blood. In the same fight we see Laurie kill two of the muggers and laugh about it later. It's wrong. Laurie shouldn't be a casual killer. It's just not her. In the flashback of Jon's brief crimefighting career, OK he can blow up mobsters with a glance, but do we really need to see their entrails hanging from the ceiling? In the prison riot a man is killed because Rorschach has tied him up to deny access to a door. In the comic there is a sput of blood from off panel. The brutality is implied and because of that more powerful. Synder thinks we need to see both his arms cut off with an angle grinder. In slow motion.

Essentially what we have here is a very accurate use of the comics as storyboards, by a director who's instincts are for horror movies. He adds very little to the story, and little of that is an improvement. It looks wonderful though, I expect he's a lot happier with it than I'm ever likely to be. I have no idea whether someone who hasn't read and reread the story over the last 25 years is actually going to get all the clever stuff, since most of that's about splendidly recreating individual comic panels on film. Then again, they're less likely to be annoyed by the silly little things that bug me. Dan witnessing Rorschach and Manhattan's final confrontation? Why?

Still, as a (still) plump (former) kid without all the best toys, I've wanted an Owlship of my own for a very long time. This film just makes me want one more.

Who wants to watch the Watchmen?

It was the summer of 1986, and I'd come back from the late lamented Rainbow's End, the best comic shop in Oxford, to sulk upstairs and read what, within half an issue, was obviously the greatest comic ever published.

After finishing The Dark Knight Returns I started on the first issue of Watchmen. It was perhaps the shortest ever reign as greatest comic ever. Watchmen was like nothing else at all. Sure, Dark Knight was wonderful, even if the bad guy was someone I'd never heard of, Two Face never having appeared on the Adam West TV show, but Watchmen was more. One was nothing but style, the other had both style and substance.
So then there was the increasingly painful slow trickle of Watchmen issues coming out, leading up to the frankly anti-climatic ending. It changed people's expectations of comics, with the rapid collected edition it changed the medium forever.

About fifteen minutes after the TPB came out the word began to get round that Terry Gilliam, former python, was to make Watchmen the movie. And so the story went for at least a decade without ever showing the slightest sign of becoming reality. The story kept bubbling along, a script would apparently be written, some funding would be secured, or lost, but in the end it seemed that the idea of a Gilliam directed Watchmen was something hard core fans of both wanted rather more that Hollywood, Moore, or the general public would want. And I was certainly with the general public on that one.

Why after all would you really want to make a film of Watchmen? It's too big, too sprawling to be crammed down into two and a half hours without stripping everything away. The whole thing demolishes the idea of superheroes, but without ever straying away from the iconography of the four colour comic. Film goers don't have that kind of vocabulary, the whole thing would surely need to be dumbed down. You could make a very bad film and call it Watchmen if you really wanted to, but would be be possible to make a good film?

Things have changed a bit over the years of course. It's no longer surprising to want to make a comic from a film, and some of them have even been quite good. It used to be that a superhero movie would have to be nothing but origin story, sixty minutes of introducing you to Peter Parker, his friends and family, and only showing a costume in the last half. Though it should be remembered that Watchmen is little but an extended origin story, even if it is one told entirely in flashback. It's no longer a mad idea to do a watchmen movie, but it still seems a touch meh.

Is it the case that a book has only really 'arrived' when there's a film made of it? I don't think I've every heard of anyone making a film of Paradise Lost, nor the Night's Dawn trilogy. Works of literature can be great works of literature without needing to be translated into other media.

Sunday 22 February 2009

And the award for most ridiculous box goes to...



Amazon.co.uk






who think a box this size is appropriate for...



a very tiny pair of gloves

Saturday 21 February 2009

Culture

I've been meaning to write for some time about the various cultural things I've been doing, but alas, the lure of playing games has been stronger. Perhaps this is why so many blogs get started and then abandoned. It's certainly true that I find it easier to write on my PDA in the middle of New Zealand than at home, not because the PDA is a good writing platform (though there are worse) but because there are fewer distractions. So to blitz things.

The Reader
Saw this one in January. It is without doubt a tremendously accomplished film. The quick summary is that it's about a German man, now in his fifties, still haunted by his first love, who turns out to have been a member of the SS. Kate Winslet, as Hanna, the former guard is splendid and entirely human. Life has overwhelmed her, forcing her do do things he knows are wrong, but she's lost, confused. It was wrong, but she doesn't know what she could of done better. Rafe Fiennes is also baffled and confused for most of the film, unable to make a proper relationship with anyone else.
It is a very accomplished film, but did I actually enjoy it? Neither central character is entirely sympathetic, by the end of the film you feel profoundly sorry for them, but wouldn't really want either of them as a friend. The whole film is somewhat painful, but so is life. It's a good film. Real. I'm glad I saw it. But not quite a film to love. All the characters are too damaged to feel love, and I can't quite love the film back as a result.
Does Winslet deserve the Oscar? Not that I've seen any of the other films nominated in her category. It is a stunning performance, and without her the whole film would have been a nothing. The bizarre thing is the number of awards Winslet has won as Best Supporting Actress, which she is not by any stretch of the imagination. I suppose that's a polite fiction to prevent her from competing with herself on Revolutionary Road.

Slumdog Millionaire
Saw this one in February. Why is it that there was absolutely nothing you'd even consider paying £7.20 to go see in November-December, and then an overload in the New Year. Surely films can compete for Oscars if they've been out for more than six weeks?
Still: Street kid goes on 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire,' every question is a reflection on his life. Is he a cheat, lucky or destined to win?
It's a gobsmacking film. Astoundingly beautiful. If it doesn't pick up all the editing & cinematography Oscars tomorrow night then there's either something very wrong or it will have been beaten by something transcendental, and I've heard nothing to suggest that. It sounds splendid as well. All in all a very effective advert for the Indian Tourist board. Apart from the bit with the slum toilet.
While again the central character spends a lot of the film baffled, Dev Patel is engaging, funny, wry. Anil Kapoor makes a splendid Chris Tarrent.
A wonderful film. Should win Best Director as well as all the technical stuff. Perhaps Best Film, perhaps not. If you've not already, go see it.

Can You Forgive Her?
Book rather than a film, but still undoubtedly culture. And rather disturbingly the first book finished this year, though to be fair it is a rather long one. First without pictures anyhow.
A few years back I kept a reading diary, recording all the books I read and what I thought of them. Even had the idea of putting them up in some form of blog, though I never got round to doing so. Might try again and stick things up here.
The second Anthony Trollope I've read, last year it was 'The Way We Live Now'. Obviously a man that liked long titles. TWWLN is splendid, and strangely appropriate for modern times, being mainly about the rise and fall of a crooked banker and the damage done to the people around him.
CYFH rather lacks that modern echo, being mainly about a young lady dithering about whether to marry her noble but boring fiancee or her charismatic if amoral cousin. Meanwhile her widowed aunt strings along two suitors, monied and boring or penniless and charming, and her best friend dithers about whether to abandon her husband in favour of the lover she put aside to marry him. It's well written, though at times you really do feel that some of them need a slap.
848 pages apparently in dead tree edition, and to be honest could have been trimmed a bit. There are five or six chapters after everyone's come to a conclusion that don't really add very much, save for a need to (almost) every character some form of resolution. The basic flaw of the book is that Alice, the first of the ditherers, spends most of book deeply unhappy with the choices she has made and yet quite unwilling to change them, and she becomes rather hard to sympathise with. Thinks: could one write a dull thesis on whether she is in fact bipolar?
Still, there's enough in there to bring me back at some point for another. But not for a few months.
But if you're looking for a Trollope, The Way We Live Now is very much better.