Sunday 26 December 2010

2010

So 2010 draws to a close, I sit, still trying to figure out the randomness that was the Doctor Who Special and I am covered in small white dog hair. I should probably stop picking up the poor wee pup, but he's just so darn pick-up-able. It's been a decent Christmas, I think the moment that will mark it for me is when my mother teared up at the gift I'd arranged for her. Probably the first time I've inspired tears in a good way.

I look back over the year and I wonder if it was one well-spent. I've transitioned from second to third and final year at university, I turned 26, I was in a play again, I've done so much writing, I've considered the plans of the future and I've tried to change the way I live my life. Now, traditionally, as New Year looms, we consider what we want to change. This takes the form of resolutions for the coming year. Shall I make some?

1) Try to go back to the New Order laid down in October.
2) Try to run November's Children in Newbury once a month.
3) Try to stop trying and start doing.
4) Keep Writing, you're doing good, get Imperia published!
5) Blog more.

I figure I should start doing book reviews as well as films, or possibly instead of them, depending on how it all goes. I am trying to read more as well. Seems like I'm all change, but I'm not really, I just think it's time to do some tweaking. Hell, it's always time to do some tweaking.

Enough of this, to Narnia!

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA:
THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER.
(and Narnia in it's entirity)

It was only a matter of time after the massive awesomeness and success of Lord Of The Rings before other Fantastical Classics would be mined for their movie potential. As with most follow ons after immensely popular franchies, what follows would normally be crap. I don't think this was so with Narnia. For a start, the grounding in the reality of World War 2, with the blitz, relocation, enlisting and rationing all present, makes for an even greater sense of escapism.

The story of four kids being transported to a magical land where animals talk and mythical creatures hold sway, is a true classic, depsite its overly religeous connotations. When I first saw The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, I thought that it was one of the best films I'd ever seen. I think I've toned down that opinion since then, but it still holds a special place. It still does everything right, in my opinion. I didn't see Prince Caspian at the cinema, which annoyed me somewhat.

The problem with Narnia, I think, is that it's too much of a kid's story for all that religious suggestion. At the end of the Dawn Treader I visibly cringed when Aslan went into the part about having another name in our world, which I think is overly doctrinating for a young audiance, but I can kind of understand, if not fully appreciate.

Also, kids irritate me. Just because this is a fantasy story about dwarves, witches, talking lions and kids growing up, doesn't mean that this is a true kids story. Or it shouldn't be, anyway. Things like this are too good for them, if you ask me, they won't quite understand what it's trying to tell them, which is somethnig of a risk, if you ask me.

But my conclusions so far:
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - Awesome
Prince Caspian - Okay
Voyage of the Dawn Treader - Very Good

The creatures are great, the narratives are simple but powerful and the acting (for a bunch of kids) is actually okay. The voice acting for all the various animals is what it's all about, of course. With Liam Neeson, Eddie Izzard, Simon Pegg, Ray Winstone, Dawn French and Rupert Everret all lending their voices at some point or another, as well as the storming performances by Tilda Swinton (she was born to be that Witch) and Jim Broadbent, as well as a moderately acceptable show from Ben Barnes.

All in all, Narnia may not be the best of franchies, with its ups and its downs, its various troubles with Disney and Andrew Adamson pulling out, but I think that the series is holding well together and it's still got four more books to go. It'll never be the rival of Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, but I think that there's a good chance that it'll be a decent series after all. Besides, we all need a little more epic fantasy, don't we?

It was a good way to end the year.

AND SO...

What now? What for 2011? Well, I'll see how I feel. See you all next year and, well, for those that did, thanks for reading.

Wednesday 22 December 2010

Humbug!!

It should come to no great surprise to those who know me to find that I'm not a great fan of Christmas, I mentioned as much last year in my New Decade post. I don't like the hype, I don't like the music, I don't like the decorations, I don't like the commercialisation of it all. As I once said in a Werewolf Cam game 'As you enter the Spirit World, you can see the Spirit of Money and the Spirit of Greed beating the shit out of the Spirit of Christmas in the background'.

I know that doesn't mean much to you, but if you're a Werewolf: The Forsaken player, then that was pretty hilarious.

Well, I liked it.

Christmas is supposed to be about family, about charity and about the spirity of generosity and companionship. To me, personally, Christmas is the only day of the year where you say 'Merry Christmas' to everyone you pass on the street. It should be the one day where you acknowledge your neighbours and your friends and all that. It should be the time of year where you find a little extra to give to charity somewhere. No, it's about money, greed, fuckin' irritating songs and X-Factor.

So a very merry Bah Humbug, Let It Snow, because that's the best thing about this time of year nowadays.

I'll stop my rant now.

In other news, DecemBEARD is progressing well, the majestic ginger monstrosity is taking over my face.

Also, I'm in Scotland with my family. I'll talk about that some other time, I feel. On with the review:

MONSTERS.

Now this is a film of which I have mixed opinions. I am definately in support of movies such as this one. I like the idea of odd, quirky, off-beat science fiction that's produced on a tight budget and actually tries to talk about things, the various issues faced by our world today. The best way to do this, when working on a tight budget, is of course to focus on character and make the most of your actors.

But perhaps not when your actors are Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able. Oh yes, you read that right. Someone chose their screen name to be 'Scoot'. 'Scoot'.

Really? Scoot?!

So Scoot is a photographer and Able is his publisher's daughter and she's in Mexico (for undisclosed reasons) and he's trying to get some photos...

Oh yeah, there are giant space ocotopi. Well, okay celaphodi. Or whatever the latin term is. They landed in Mexico and it's now going funky...

Basically it boils down to our two plucky leads scampering across what is known as the 'Infected Zone' between the States and Mexico (guess what, the US built a massive wall! Hmmm, subtle!), trying to get home. There's a fair amount of talk about the history of this 'Infected Zone' and there's a fair amount of bonding between said plucky leads as they make their journey amidst various dangers and cool visual sequences.

I'd just like to say that the visuals of this movie are what it's all about. The shots of broken military equipment in the jungle, the overgrown ships, the ruins...

Well, I love a good broken thing, so it appears very beautiful to me, although not as hauntingly powerful as The Road. Even so, it gets the job done in that regard.

The only problem is Scoot. And Able. They suck. They're very, very poor actors and it really shows. The film relies on their (apparantly) improvised performances and I think that the director (who did a massive amount of work visually for this movie) could have done a lot better than these two. They had the worst onscreen chemistry I'd seen in a while, which is odd, since they ended up getting married not long after.

The film relies on them and they are found wanting, I'm afraid. Visually, it's great. In reality, you can't rely on visuals to carry it. It's a swing and a miss.

Which is a shame, really it is. I like this kind of movie, this is the kind of movie I want to be seeing in the future, following in the red-hot footsteps of District 9. But not every unknown can be Sharlto Copely and not every visual guy with a camera can be Neil Blomkamp. Better luck next time, hope you keep on truckin' Gareth Edwards, because they won't all be as bad as this one. Will look forwards to your next film.

Next up: The Chronicles of Naria;
The Voyage of the Dawn
Treader (and Narnia in
general, I guess).

Monday 6 December 2010

The List

Al, who does occasionally like to refer to himself in the third person, has a list. A list of seven natural enemies. Now, this list has been the source of many anecdotes and musings amongst myself and my friends, and I thought that I'd share it with the internet for now. However, the list is due for a change, I feel that the list is just a tad outdated, so therefore I shall upgrade it here, in the public forum of the world-wide-web.

The former list:
7 - Estate Agents
6 - World of Warcraft
5 - Stairs
4 - Facebook
3 - Vegetarians
2 - Sunlight
1 - Women

Now, Estate Agents are not, as most people assume, human. They are akin to a vermin species that exist on the fringes of actual humanity, feeding off the desperation to get on the housing ladder and taking a perverse pleasure in ruining people's hopes and dreams. World of Warcraft, naturally, sucks the souls from people and has contributed in destroying my second favourite Real Time Strategy series, Warcraft.

In a similiar vein, Facebook is the ENEMY OF MANKIND, absorbing people and controlling their lives. People no longer have any kind of social lives, they exist entirely through Facebook. As for Stairs, well, I'm not a fit man, so they have often stood in my way. I feel that this isn't as justified an entry as some of the others, but I'll get onto making changes in a paragraph or two, when I talk about the others.

Sunlight. I am a creature of the night, I exist in the shadows of my ever-curtained room, I live by the halogen glow of bulbs, I am cloaked in the blackest of clothes and coats. The Day-Star is my nemesis. And as for vegetarians... let me simply say that is the Good Lord didn't want us to eat animals... he wouldn't have made them so very, very tasty... mmmmm... steak... Sorry, getting carried away there, aren't I?

So, the new list.

Estate Agents haven't crossed my path for a good year and a half, so I'm not sure if I'll keep them on the list. Stairs... well, I defeat them on a regular basis, I'm not sure they're worthy anymore, so perhaps they should go?

Pretty sure that vegetarians and sunlight are fixed entries, but they may slide down the list a little. What about the electronic ones, eh? WoW and Facebook? Well, I do frickin' dislike them, but they rarely affect me...

My new list, then:
7 - MMORPG's
6 - Facebook
5 - Sweden
4 - Vegetarians
3 - Sunlight
2 - Orci + Kurtzman
1 - Women

If I amalgamate WoW into MMO's, then I get to neatly cover The Old Republic, Warhammer Online and a host of others that ruin my favourite sci-fi/fantasy worlds in the form of MMO's (the worst way to represent a world). The Swede's have wronged me, that's pretty clear, the rest slip down a bit... Orci + Kurtzman are the villians who ruined Star Trek and the Transformers movies, I can't quite believe they haven't been up there before. And as for Women... well, that's a whole different blog post, eh?!

UNSTOPPABLE.

Well, spurned on by a mild tirade launched by our head of course the other day, I decided that I really wanted to see Unstoppable. It's supposed to be 'Speed 4'. Was there a Speed 3? I can't remember, so never mind. Mike was basically saying that as one of the most influential black actors in Hollywood, Mr. Denzel Washington has a responsibility to work with, say, up and coming black directors to further the cause of black film-making, as oppose to making the same old action film with Tony Scott.

But I love me some Tony Scott and I love me some Denzel Washington, so there's no way I'm avoiding that film (although I saw it a month after I thought I was going to, grumble grumble Coates...) just because 'it's the same old action film'. Yes, Denzel's done a good five movies with Tony now, but since most of them were pretty enjoyable and pretty damn tense, there's no reason to think that this one will be an exception. And you know what, it really, really wasn't. Even with Chris Pine in it.

Unstoppable is the story of a 'coaster' that got away from all the efforts to get it under control, a train that was left to operate under power and then went runaway, threatening to level most of southern Pennsylvania.

Only a mismatched train driver veteran and his newbie partner (Washington and Pine) stand a chance of being able to do something about it and they embark on an utterly daring plan that... well, no spoilers from me, eh?

Basically, this film sets out to be a disaster/action movie with a fast pace, likeable characters, solid plot and a massive sense of tension. There are some fictional discrepancies (why does the media have a handy photo and name tag of everyone who works for the train company?) and you can tell that the actual event, the CSX 8888 Incident in 2001, has been tributed but also exaggerated, but this is the movies, exaggeration comes with the premise. So is this just the same old action film?

Yes. That's why it's good.

Next up: Monsters.

Saturday 4 December 2010

DecemBEARD

Well, with my faith fully restored in the democratic process, I set out into December with a face covered in ginger fuzz. I shall explain what I mean by that. Since last month was the month of NovemBEARD, I decided that perhaps I should make a go of this facial hair malarky and keep on going. So I sent out a text and a couple of MSN windows asking for my friends to vote on whether or not I should keep the monstrosity.

The results were:
In favour - 14
Against - 6
Abstain - 6

So, of the 26 people that were invited to vote, 6 didn't bother answering and the majority of the rest wish to see my face continue its covering. Not that it's a very impressive covering, a lot of guys I know could twice the beard I could in half the time, but this isn't something my face is used too, so maybe it'll pick up as I go along. Grasby also suggested that I carry on into MANuary, but I think I shall have another vote.

Might be sick of it by then.

What else I am sick of is my inability to get some sleep when I think it's a good idea and it's been an appropriate amount of time since I last got up. One day I'm gonna scribble down my sleeping and waking times in order to show people just what I'm like, and I bet they won't believe it.

So here I am at 4am sitting cross-legged in my dressing gown on my bed without any lights on, staring at this bright white screen in order to tap these pointless little words. Figure I'm running out of things to say, although I know there are things I want to talk about in my blog. Maybe.

Maybe, from next year, I'll try and talk about my life a bit more, that sounds like a resolution sort of thing. Not sure if I could pad it out to one-issue-per-blog... I probably have too many issues for that, but I could give it a go. Maybe. Then at least you'll be relieved to get to the film review.

Speaking of:

MACHETE.

Now, I am against downloading. Even through legal channels, even if I were paying for it, I'm against downloading. Mainly because it has such piratical connotations (and not the swashbuckling kind) and also because I have no idea how it works. That level of technology is alien to me. So, it should come as a surprise when I say that I watched a downloaded copy of this movie. But I shall tell you why I did this.

NOWHERE in Southampton was showing it. Not Cineworld, not Harbour Lights, not Odeon... just Tom's front room late on a friday evening. Now, that would normally disqualify this film for review in my own little rules because I wish to only review films I'd seen in the cinema but damnit, I wanted to talk about this movie because I'd been looking forwards to it for quite some time. So, downloaded copy it is.

Pretty much everything about this film is bad.

But then, that was the whole idea, wasn't it?

The characters are pretty shallow and predictable, the action is cheesy and over-the-top and the plot is twisted around and back again to the point of ridiculousness. But that was the point of this movie in the first place! Machete is a tribute to the exploitation movies of the seventies, specifically calling itself Mexploitation due to its Latin flavour and leading cast (the indomitable Danny Trejo, the fiesty Michelle Rodriguez and the undeniable Cheech Marin, hells yeah!) and it does everything in its power not to disappoint those flicks.

This is a fast moving, hugely violent, slick, sexy movie with a hell of a lot of underlaying message concerning immigration and cultural differences between the States and Mexico, with an all star cast (as well as the names above count in Jessica Alba, Jeff Fahey, Tom Savini, Steven Seagal and mo-fo'in' ROBERT DENIRO) and enough outrageous fight scenes to satisfy anyone. This is a movie that takes no prisoners and makes you laugh the whole way through, but it isn't perfect, it's cheap and nasty too.

The only real downside I had with this movie is the same one I had back with Black Dynamite and the actual Grindhouse movies of Planet Terror and Deathproof, the plots are really, really convoluted in places and they can be really difficult to follow. Black Dynamite was probably the worst for it, but this up there as well with being damn difficult to keep up with sometimes. Other than that, this is a highly enjoyable movie. Check it out and don't under any circumstances, take it seriously!!

Next one is: UNSTOPPABLE