I've been hitting a few new releases over the past week or so - I've finished Terry Pratchett's latest and am onto the new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy novel. But first about the Pratchett.
Unseen Academicals is the latest Discworld novel and, like Making Money, The Truth and Going Postal other recent entries in the series, it focuses on the idea of taking a modern concept - in this case, football - into the Discworld setting.
The trouble is that it becomes clear very early on that the book doesn't really know what it wants to do. Is it an intelligent comment on individuality vs tribalism? Is it a funny book about the wizards attempting to learn football? Is it a romance story? Is it an introspective on being the best you can be, no matter where you came from? The answer is: probably.
And the trouble with trying to be so many things is that it ends up not being anything much. Oh, it's funny enough, but with too many characters and plotlines fighting for attention - it starts off being about the wizards and they soon end up being more like cameos by the end of the book with their plotline forgotten as the new (and, frankly, blander) characters take over. The new characters, Glenda, Juliet and Mr Nutt and so forth are from the same stable that brought forth Moist, Christine and Pteppic and a number of other characters that strike me as being equally unmemorable. There's loose ends that never get resolved, details that don't quite ring true to characters/scenarios from previous books, and stray bits of story that just don't fit in anywhere.
Then there are the cameos, be they the Librarian, Rincewind, Sam Vimes or whoever, who circle into the story's orbit without contributing much, often act vaguely out of character and don't appear to be there for any reason other than being there. Vetinari's appearance is worth the price of admission for the scene where he gets drunk but I'm not sure when he got to be so chatty and gregarious.
Although the book is enjoyable, Pratchett doesn't really seek to break the mold or take things to the next level, like he did with Nation. It was a book I found all too easy to put down - while usually I'd finish a Pratchett novel in a couple of days, this took almost a week to get through. It's not bad, it's just not that great either - sadly, part of the course for recent Pratchett.
- Mood:
crappy
So, I've just finished reading the fourth book in the Harry Potter series. And the longest. My conclusion when I saw the movie was that it was a rather slight story with lots of filler. My conclusion when I read the book was that the movie did a good job slimming down the story, because the book is filled with so much padding and filler material. It might be the longest book in the series so far, but it's certainly not the most accomplished.Where the movie succeeded was streamlining the action sequences into a rapidly moving plotline. In the novel, the action sequences are less fully realized and thrilling and also interspersed with, I felt, unnecessary subplots and diversions. At least a third of the book, all the distractions of Hermione's interest in House Elves that went nowhere, for example, and the Rita Skeeter stuff, could have been cut entirely and the book would lose nothing. In fact it would be improved since these, and the subplot with Ron sulking at Harry for far too long or Hermione and Ron's bitching were irritations more than thrilling. I find Dobby to be an annoying character anyway and an entire subplot of the book focused on the House Elves which then just meanders off into nothing both feels like filler and saddles the readers with more bloody Dobby.
In fact, it's only the last 50 or so pages which are pivotal and even then, they're pretty much pure exposition to explain the previous 600 or so pages and stuff that's happened to Voldemort since killing Harry's parents. At which point it starts reading more like a text book than a novel. Lord Voldemort doesn't really come across as a compelling or interesting villain because he spends about five sold pages barely pausing for breath in his Bond-villainesque explanation of his past and future plans. And then when he does fight Harry, once again a random magical incident (IE a fluke with no build up and minimal explanation) is what allows Harry to escape, smacking of those magical swords in hats and phoenix tears that acted as deus ex machina in previous volumes. While the mysteries wrought throughout the book are nicely tied up, these instant fixes are an irritation.
It's funny that so much of the book is filler when the one character who deserved to get some fleshing out, namely Cedric, never was. It made the emotional impact of the climax weaker when instead we'd had graphic descriptions of Ron sulking for 50 pages or a blow by blow account of the Quidditch world cup.
Other than that, the character work does, at least, ring true this time around. The main three are childish, irritating to the point of wanting to bang their heads together when they've had yet another falling out over nothing and mostly immature with occasional flashes of acting like adults - in other words, more like the 14 year olds they're supposed to be. Unlike when the characters were supposed to be 11 and acting far older. The only flaw in making the characters act their ages is that, frankly, teenage kids are as irritating all all get out and there's limited appeal in reading about yet another sulk one of them's got into.
However, the formula's starting to get a bit tired now and it seems like this is the book where Rowling started to believe her own hype and was left freedom to roam without an editor's pruning shears cutting away the dead wood. As another review puts it nicely: "It's as if one were making chocolate chip cookies and doubled the recipe for dough but put in the same amount of chips as for one batch".
- Mood:
awake
By far my favourite book of the series so far (and likely to remain so, if the movies are representative of the novels), the third book in the Harry Potter series definitely sets the novels going in a direction that I can enjoy. More mature than the previous two books, with a decent plot and twists along the way, there was plenty to enjoy here.The enriching of the Potter universe was certainly welcomed. Adding layers to the framework established in the first two books and dealing with the story of Harry's parents deaths, the story dealing with betrayal and murder felt a lot more epic than the rather lightweight plots of the previous outings. The addition of macabre elements such as the Dementors and the concept that good guys aren't always that good (in the case of Black, the Dementors, Harry's father, even Harry himself) helped with the maturing tone.
After the ridiculousness of Lockhart in the last book, the calm pleasantness of Lupin and the rage of Sirius Black were far more believable, although the divination teacher Professor Trelawney veered towards being another over-the-top and unsympathetic addition to the book. (Again, it's another of those characters who I felt came across better on-screen than in the novel.) Snape gets some layers too, which is welcome after the cardboard cutout version in the first two books which never seemed to justify his importance in the series.
I'm still not particularly enamored with the character of Harry himself - although he wasn't given everything on a plate in this book and had to actually work at being heroic and making the right decisions. He came off a lot better although, frankly, his and Ron's attitude towards Hermione for most of the book made them look like enormous arseholes to the point where I was hoping that Black would get the little buggers.
The plot's the strong thing here, though. A real page turner and, though once again a deus ex machina pops up at the end to help resolve things, it's not quite as neat or happy as the previous books. The numerous plot threads do weave together nicely, however, and reach a satisfying, if sad, conclusion. Better in plot, better in characterisation, better in twists and worldbuilding, it's certainly a step up from the previous books.
Good stuff.
- Mood:
complacent
Finished Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Started on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Quite a high turn around at the moment - the books are and easy read and I'm romping through them in four or five sittings. A mixed bag in Chamber of Secrets. I think it helped that I'd seen the film before, which I felt was better in some regards. Kenneth Branagh's overdone hamminess was so over-the-top in the movie it became silly enough to be entertaining - in the book the character of Gilderoy Lockhart was so obviously incompetent, it's hard to believe Dumbledore wasn't being given his marching orders for hiring him and without the visuals of Branagh's performance to add some fun, the character seemed pointless. Lockhart, in the end, contributed nothing, not even accidentally, to the climax of the story. It almost felt like the book was written with the intent of having some pay off with the character at the end - perhaps his memory spells holding the key to defeating the villain - but that never came. In the end, I was left wondering quite what the character added to the book.
It felt particularly jarring given all the work to get Lockhart on scene in the climax and then to pluck a bunch of magical fixes from nowhere to help defeating the villain. Be it phoenixes springing from nowhere, magic swords appearing literally at the drop of a hat, magically healing tears, poison teeth - it felt like Rowling couldn't settle on one way to defeat the villain and so just threw everything in. Which could have made for an impressive climax, but just means, instead, everything's tossed into the two or three pages it takes to defeat the villain. It's all deeply unsatisfying when the revealed villain is a great twist - too much focus on that, perhaps, and not enough thought given on how to defeat the monster from the Chamber of Secrets.
Then there's the issue of Harry and friends refusing to trust anyone who previously they had been given reason to trust. The logic behind lying to Dumbledore, for example, is lost on me and the sudden distrust of Harry's friends and classmates on the flimsiest of pretexts gets very old very quickly. In fact, with all the lying and stealing done throughout the book, I'm
And then there was Dobby the bloody House bloody Elf who was just as annoying in the book as onscreen. Can't stand the little bugger.
So that's the bad. The good? Harry certainly came across as more sympathetic this time around and less of a jock. That was a definite improvement and likewise the supporting cast, Lockhart aside, are nicely handled. My one issue was with the character of Ginny, who's barely sketched out and when she becomes the focus of the villain's plot, the concern's there more from her association from the central characters than any sympathy for her as a character. That aside, Dumbledore does get some good moments and some decent cod philosophy and the trio of central characters are more likable as well as Hagrid getting his back story.
The reveal of the villain is a great twist and nicely handled and ties into the history of Hogwarts, which starts to feel more unique this time around. The school and history start to get fleshed out more, less reliant on recycled ideas this time around and that creates a richer world. The decent set pieces help too - the scene with Aragog and family for example - standing out nicely against a mystery plot that bubbles along.
In all, a decent enough read. I'm still hard pressed to see why these books captured the imaginations of kids and adults quite as much as they have, but this book with its richer language, does go a step towards explaining it.
- Mood:
dorky
Speaking of recent television, I've got myself hooked on Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares after discovering that Channel 4 has every episode available for viewing on their 4oD online service. Unlike the BBC iPlayer, this has a lot of old series, not just recent programming. And it's been an opportunity to get hooked on Ramsay's expose of failing restaurants.
Of course, colonials in the audience may be familiar with the US version, but I've been watching the true Brit version, where restaurant owners don't collapse into floods of emotional tears at the end of every episode and where there's even more unbleeped obscenity. Despite Ramsay's foul mouth and tendency to rile people up just to get a reaction, I like the guy and I always found the show fascinating. However, I missed a bunch first time around, so in the space of about four days I've managed to get addicted and watch a dozen episodes or more.
The formula, for those that don't know it, is pretty simple. Grumbling Ramsay is invited to a failing restaurant to offer advice to turn the business around. Now, the advice that is given on Kitchen Nightmares is usually pretty uniform. Clean kitchen. Motivate staff. Redecorate. Local produce. Reasonable prices. Work hard. Make money.
Of course, it's getting the restaurant owners and staff to realise that which is the entertaining part. Usually that involves Gordon swearing, shouting, getting exasperated and throwing out something beloved of the owners, then pushing his own menu. And it's the variations on this that make the interesting part. Take, for example, the episode featuring The Fish and Anchor in Wales, where the bright blue eaterie was inhabited by ex-Boxer Mike, who copied all his recipes from Ramsay's home cook books and writes his reviews himself, and his wife Caron, with an an explosive temper and memorably described as "like f**king Shrek in a frock". The arguments there were biblical. With each other, with Ramsay, with the customers. For once Ramsay played it softly, clearly recognising that if he spoke to Mike like he did some of the milder landlords he'd be looking in the tinned curry for his teeth.
But what's lovely is that Ramsay does manage to turn things around in many cases and when he returns, the places he's visited and the people he's touched usually are better for it. In the case of Mike and Caron, not just a saved business, but a saved marriage, seemingly, as well. But getting there is a rocky, including near fist-fights and a distressing accident that nearly ends the relaunch for good.
However, just occasionally there's one episode where Gordon just can't make it work. Take the case of Rachel, originally from Scotland, but now trying to run a vegetarian restaurant in Paris which was losing 5000 euros a month. Bailed out by daddy's money, and despite his and Gordon's help and the appearance of talented new chef India (after Ramsay had to physically carry a crazed Brazilian off the premises), Rachel managed to blow the chance within four days, deciding she just couldn't be bothered. The laziness and bad attitude was staggering ("Since I closed it's like a weight's been lifted from my shoulders!" But not daddy's, who had to pay off her massive loans and debts) and it was clear the prospect of having to actually work for a living was too much. Most people come out of the experience better. Rachel, by the end of the show, was demonstrated to be even more selfish, lazy and repulsive than previously imagined. Good news for India, however, who made such a strong impression she was given a placement at one of Ramsay's own London restaurants.
It's great TV, anyway, and the stark reminder that two thirds of restaurants close within their first year is brought home by show after show of people clearly out of their depths who had no clue what they were getting into. Running a restaurant or pub might seem an idyllic fantasy, but this show demonstrates how much bloody hard work it has to be to succeed.
- Mood:
cranky
Last night I ended up watching "102 Minutes That Changed America", History's documentary on 9/11 which was shown for the first time on Channel 4 here in the UK. For those who aren't aware of it, it's less a documentary and more a real time compilation of raw video footage, mostly from amateurs, taken in New York during the events along with recordings of emergency calls taken and radio communications between the emergency services.
And it was hard watching. It brought it all home to me that I was there less than a year before and recognizing specific places from my visit from footage taken during the attack... well, it provoked a pretty strong emotional response, let's say.
All of it, of course, is hard to watch: the people leaping from the upper floors; the firefighters, some presumably doomed, headed toward the buildings while everyone else is running away. But one of the things that set this apart from the other films that cover the events was the uniqueness of the footage. It’s not all familiar: just where you’re expecting one of the well-known long shots of the second plane flying into the south tower, you get a startling close-up image taken by two New York University students from their dorm window. The point where the conversation between the two off-camera students turns to screams of horror is one of the most chilling and heartwrenching things I've ever heard. Or the recurring view of the burning buildings, from an apartment a mile north of the site, that seems unremarkable until you listen to the accompanying audio: a child’s voice keeps asking what’s going on, and the parents are heard shooing the youngster away, trying to shield the child from the reality they can hardly comprehend themselves.
Elsewhere, firemen are heard reaching survivors on the 70th floor of the Tower as colleagues attempt to reach them for support; a dispatch controller is heard to tell WTC workers to stay put as rescuers attempt to reach them; crowds convene in Times Square to watch the events on big screens and vent their anger at those who could have perpetrated the atrocities. And then the moments as the towers come down, where a lot of the footage is unique and all of it personal.
I'm choking up now just thinking about it and, needless to say, I spent most of the 102 minutes of the programme sat there feeling sick and trying not to cry. But as a historical document, I don't think any better has been produced. This is powerful and harrowing stuff, made all the more so by the fact that it was all recorded as it happened, by the people who witnessed it, without editorial comments. It should not be missed by anyone who cares, or is interested, about one of the moments that shaped the world in which we live today and probably, hopefully, the most horrifying of our lifetimes.
- Mood:
indescribable
As mentioned, I finished reading the first Harry Potter book - Harry Potter and the PhilosohthatsabigwordletscallitsourcererPresumably I found it enjoyable enough, as I've now started on the second. So, thoughts.
In all honesty, it probably fitted my expectations, which weren't that high for the first book - I was expecting a kid friendly, entertaining book and got it. What I don't get is why the book set the world alight. I mean, it's certainly okay, but it's not startling to the level that I could get uber excited about it.
The Roald Dahlisms started to fade after the first chapter or so, but there was still plenty that smacked of his style of prose, but Harry Potter himself certainly isn't a Roald Dahl type hero. Compare Harry to James or Charlie - surrounded by monstrous characters but they wouldn't wish harm on them. In fact, Charlie was the kind of lad who expressed concern even for the monstrous brats he was having adventures with. Not so Harry Potter, who seems to spend most of the book wishing harm on people - be it Malfoy, Snape or Dudley, he always seems to be looking for a fight. While Charlie might have seemed too saintly, Harry comes across as rather aggressive and with a mean streak - literally his first line on being told he'll be able to do magic is not to express the desire to do something wonderful, but to curse his cousin.
Harry in the movie was a much more sympathetic character than he came across in the book for me. In the movies he comes across as shy and self doubting. In this first book, more obnoxious and jock-like than anything, good at sport, quick with a smart-ass remark, ready to pick fights, nursing grudges. It's funny because his in-book personality comes across slightly at odds with how twee and sickly sweet a lot of the rest of the book is. It's all very jolly hockeysticks, Enid Blyton (and at best a wannabe Tom Brown's Schooldays) in a way that's too sympathetic to be properly spoofing the public school genre. And I'd have given my right arm for there to be a decent Flashman type character instead of just Malfoy, who's fairly obnoxious, but hardly enough to justify the worst enemy *fistshakes* attitude from the central character. He's just a git and a fairly limp one at that.
Of course, the plot's fairly slight and it's mostly just a set up novel to introduce readers to the fantasy world of the character and in that it succeeds well. There's not really a whole lot that's original in the setting though - it seems more a lumping of cliches together, be they magical or public-school based, along with a generic big bad looming over everything. It all seemed rather derivative, but at least Rowling
And that's a little where the book falls down - it's brief for the benefit of children, but rather relies on the readers knowing about dragons and ghosts and what mystical castles look like without much descriptive prose. I rather like a wordy description to aid the imagination myself, but so I would have rather liked a better idea of what something like Diagon Alley looked like, but on the other hand, encouraging a healthy imagination is to be encouraged too.
It's interesting to see how the book compares to the movies, though. It's clear certain casting was inspired, other roles an improvement on how they're written in the book (despite Rowling's claim that she "always had Maggie Smith in mind" for McGonagall, that doesn't tie in with the physical description of her in the book at all, but the movie version is an improvement) and it's clearly that Michael Gambon's boisterous take on Dumbledore is a lot closer to how I read him in this book that Richard Harris' subdued version.
I'm still bemused by the decision to rename the book in the US though. The Philosopher's Stone is an actual alchemic concept, the US title's just generic.
Anyway, a harmless enough read, but I'm hoping for more from later books in the series. At the moment I'm hard pressed to see what the fuss is about.
- Mood:
thoughtful
So, now, I suppose, I shall have to get around to reading the books.
On the movies - I found them entertaining enough, nicely performed on the whole (although Emma Watson was singled out as being strong in the first couple of movies, I found her wooden and painful, but then child actors generally are), with brilliant supporting casts.
I do have a few questions about Harry Potter as a whole as well as some observations about the movies under the cut. Bear in mind that I've only seen the movies, I haven't read the final book (books?) so I don't know what happens in the end.
( Questions and reviews of all the movies under the cut. )
- Mood: dorky
Reviewed this time:
Incredible Hercules #131/#132
Ultimate Comics Spider-man #1
X-men Forever #5
Marvel Zombies 4 #4
Uncanny X-men: First Class #2
( Read more... )
- Mood:
geeky
Apparently Warner Brothers have optioned the series for the US and it's looking like it may be rebooted and remade with an American cast, so presumably that kills any chance of the production company producing any one shots to wind the stories up. In addition, apparently a feature film is being planned that the series will spin out of, from Akiva Goldman, who scripted Angels & Demons, and Kerry Foster who will produce the film.
For those not in the know, Primeval was billed as ITV's answer to the rival BBC's Doctor Who, where a team of scientists investigate the appearance of temporal anomalies across Great Britain which bring prehistoric and futuristic creatures which enter the present.
Unfortunately, by attempting to hang onto Doctor Who's shirttails, the show never attained anything above that level - coming across as a cheap answer to the BBC, with less originality, a less charming cast, weaker special effects and weaker writing.
In actual fact, while all that's undoubtedly true, there's a fair bit to enjoy. Some of the characters grow on you like a rash, the fanservice is so blatant it's charming (there's a whole plotline just to ensure that cute zoologist Hannah Spearritt ends up in her panties as often as possible, when the villainess returns in the second series, you can tell she's evil because she bought herself a push up bra) and some of the performances are actually quite fun when you look a little closer (Hannah Spearritt, Ben Miller and Andrew-Lee Potts mostly and Jason Flemyng come the third series).
( Read more... )
- Mood:
relaxed
I think I might stick to reviewing the collected volumes I pick up or complete story arcs, over individual issues. What do people think? Is there more appeal in that?
Time for a poll!
Poll #1440932
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 5
How should I do my comic reviews?
Individual issues.
2 (40.0%)
Arcs/collected volumes. 3 (60.0%)
I don't read comic reviews. 1 (20.0%)
Look, stop seeking constant approval and do whatever you feel like, bitch. 0 (0.0%)
Under the cut: Reviews for UNCANNY X-MEN: FIRST CLASS GIANT SIZED SPECIAL and #1, TRANSFORMERS SPOTLIGHTS: CLIFFJUMPER AND METROPLEX and RUNAWAYS #12.
( Read more... )
- Mood:
nerdy
Comics covered this time around:
ULTIMATE INVINCIBLE HARDCOVER VOL. 4
EMPOWERED VOL. 5
CAPTAIN BRITAIN AND MI 13 #15
TRANSFORMERS: ALL HAIL MEGATRON #13
X-MEN FOREVER #3/#4
NEW MUTANTS #3
Reviews are kept (relatively) spoiler free.
( Read more... )
- Mood:
creative
Also watched the entire first series of Life on Mars. I get why people raved about this series now. Clever, intiguing, funny, different, satirical and gripping, it's cracking entertainment and although the premise emerged from a group of writers who initially intended it as a remake of The Sweeney, it morphed into a far more interesting beast when they decided to add the time travel element into the mix. The double mystery of whether Sam's actually just in a fantasy world prompted by his coma or actually transported into the past, somehow, and the crime stories in the episodes themselves, as well as some memorable characterizations, ensure that it's a cut above the average TV cop show.
I'm interested to see how the US version played out now. Has anyone seen it? I've heard it's very different, more Starsky and Hutch than The Sweeney.
Sad to hear that one of comedy's most overlooked actors - Colin Bean, who played Private Sponge in all but four of the 80 episodes of Dad's Army - has died aged 83.
I need more sleep.
- Mood:
apathetic
So it's now all over. Five days of hour long specials culminating in this.
Many's the time RTD has written great stories and then blown everything in the final act. For me, at least, that didn't happen here. There were a few glimpses of deus ex machinas being plucked from nowhere, but for the most part he avoided the excesses of his Doctor Who work. This was dark stuff.
Torchwood has finally become what it first claimed to be - sci-fi for adults. In the first series it was a fifteen year old boy's idea of what adult is - swearing, nudity, sex, graphic violence. In Children of the Earth it built on the sudden maturity of Series Two and went even further. After last episode's chilling moments, this went even further with scenes that were truly adult.
Hard to single out any member of the cast (although, frankly, John Barrowman was the weakest link) but the scenes with Peter Capaldi and Susan Brown as Frobisher and ever loyal assistant Bridget Spears were incredibly well performed and well judged.
It's impossible to say any more without spoilers. I'll just sit here thinking about the episode and think "Wow, Russell T. Davis finally pulled it off."
Powerful TV.
And from the first series of the show, almost unrecognizable. How do you go from metal bikinied Cyberwomen in high heels to this? Although they did keep tradition alive by including at least one moment to make us all want to slap Gwen.
- Mood:
satisfied
I've been thinking about how to talk about this episode without giving spoilers away all day (I've already put my foot in it once) and concluded it's nigh on impossible.
I will say that plotwise, it dragged a little, apart from the dramatic climax, as it was mostly an episode where all the loose ends and reveals from earlier episodes were gathered together.
I will also say that it delivered some of the strongest and most chilling character pieces on television, demonstrating the true banality of evil. Not since Conspiracy has there been a piece of television as compelling and harrowing. Deborah Findlay and Nicholas Briggs (normally the voice of the Daleks), joined Nicholas Farrell, Peter Capaldi and Susan Brown in a set piece that was truly horrifying but also frighteningly logical. Never has the phrase "That's what school league tables are for" been more shocking.
In fact the episode was clearly focused on giving chills rather than thrills and the sudden change in pace was strength as well as weakness. Effectively an episode about government, it could never expect to be action packed. But this was writing of a maturity that almost seemed at odds with what had gone before (although not entirely with Torchwood as a series, after it's far more mature second series).
And the ending... Oh boy. Even if you saw it coming, it still got you right in the gut.
- Mood:
worried
I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of fangirls suddenly cried out in joy and were suddenly silenced. By Rhys' beans.
- Mood:
giddy
I'm not going to do full reviews on each episode, rather a few (generally non-spoilery) thoughts on each episode as they appear and then a full review at the end of the week.
So, for now, just some brief thoughts on Day Two:
A cracking episode which took the tension from the climax of Day One and ran with it. Okay, a few slight flaws in that it was tough to keep the tension so high across an hour long episode. Again, like last night's episode, I think it's something which will play out far better when viewed as a continuous five hours of television, but as a stand alone episode, the new hourly format felt slightly unwieldy.
( Read more... )
- Mood: satisfied
Last night saw the return of Captain Reacharound™* and the rest of the Torchwood crew, promoted from BBC2 to mainstream BBC1 and chopped from an entire season to a short "five nights in one week" format. So, I guess it's Torchwood week this week. I shall celebrate by standing on a rooftop in a long coat and/or indulging in some ill-advised sodomy with work colleagues maybe.
So, Day One. Actually, this is the second episode of Torchwood called Day One. Does that make this Day Two? And if so, what will tonight's episode be called? Oh my goodness, confusion.
( Read more... )
- Mood:
rushed
Just three to start with, which is all I've managed to read since picking up my pull list yesterday.
Reviews under the cut for:
Captain Britain and MI13 #14
All Hail Megatron #12
Young Avengers: Dark Reign #2
( Read more... )
More to follow tomorrow, most likely.
- Mood:
productive
Post-deadline and that's usually my cue to get the hell away from my computer for a couple of days, spend time with real human beings and just chill out in general. Watched a couple of movies I've had in the stack for some time over the weekend, so i figured I'd share my thoughts.
Firstly, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People is a bit of a strange beast. It clearly wants to be bitingly satirical. It also clearly wants to be a romantic comedy. What it does is fall clumsily between both stools. The romance is too abrupt and contrived, the satire limp and toothless. In fact, for what could have been a biting commentary on celebrity and a sort of testosterone fuelled Devil Wears Prada, it pretty much fails to ever hit a satirical note, instead relying on pratfalls and physical comedy for its humour.
Based on Toby Young's memoir of his inglorious time at Vanity Fair magazine, where he infamously managed to upset the rich and famous, including hiring a stripper on Bring Your Daughters To Work Day. In the movie, the names have been changed to protect the innocent and a few of the incidents from the book are kept, but tagged onto a light romantic comedy of errors where Simon Pegg plays the British journalist who makes it into the "first room" of celebrity journalism, then proceeds to scupper his career with bad judgment and outrageous gaffes. The character starts the movie as a charmless jerk and it's only later we discover he's not entirely hapless, but Pegg's performance is, as always, packed full of charm. And, frankly, the main thing that keeps the movie afloat.
Apart from him it's all limp, although not entirely without merit. Miriam Margoyles is always entertaining and the quiet moments with Bill Patterson as Pegg's father are nicely handled. There's a few subtle jokes, but all too often it's the dead dogs and comic slapstick that gets pushed to centre stage and it's hard to understand why magazine boss Jeff Bridges (underused) would hire such a dick head in the first place, even when the reasons are explained. The trouble I found is simply that it just tries to be a humorous romantic comedy with a tiny touch of bite instead of having any real teeth. For what it tries to be it, like Pegg's other US movie Run, Fatboy, Run it's entertaining enough. It's just disappointing when the set up and cast leads you to expect a little more.
Likewise, Be Kind Rewind fails to live up to expectations. The basic story, based on real life events, of some video store workers who start making their own versions of movies after the tapes get accidentally erased, has enough comic potential. It's just unfortunate that, a few moderately funny spoofs of existing movies aside, the movie tries so hard to be charming it just comes across as sickly sweet and too farcical where it should be plainly funny. The script deploys whimsy like a blunt instrument, something that's at odds with Jack Black's performance where, presumably he's supposed to be like Pegg, a jerk, but a likable one. In actual fact, Black simply comes across as a jerk, like his character in High Fidelity, but perhaps even more charmless. A sulky man-child in the company of an equally dense, but less offensive, man child in the shape of Mos Def. Two characters who make the cast of Dumb and Dumber seem like intellectuals. The stupidity is no doubt meant to be charming but comes across rather as grating,
We're meant to pull for the characters as their own brand videos start to take off and become lauded in their community and further, creating a real community spirit as everyone pitches in to sav... oh, stop. And more sweetness like that and my teeth will rot. As it is, I found the characters too irritating to pull for and found the popularity of their idea inexplicable - the idea of people queuing around the block to get the tapes, the whole community gathering to help them save the store for aging Danny Glover would probably have been rejected from It's A Wonderful Life for being too schmaltzy. I mean it's funny to start with. When they're doing Ghostbusters or Rush Hour 2, it's moderately amusing. But then they go on and on and on and gets tiresome as it reaches the climax, where they're involved in a big production, and I didn't believe any of it. I didn't believe anyone would want to watch their movies. I didn't believe street thugs would suddenly turn straight to help them out. I didn't believe anyone would find them charismatc enough to give a damn about. And that's the trouble.
A lot of people seem to find the movie charming, though. I'm a cynical bastard, though, so for me it was simply grating.
- Mood:
determined
Sometimes I'm an evil man. I mean, I know Transformers: ROTFL has had epically bad reviews, being described variously as "like being hit over the head repeatedly with a very expensive, very loud train set", "simply despicable", "repugnant", "tedious, crass and despicable", "The Worst Movie of the Decade", "a horrible experience of unbearable length", "a fundamentally shitty movie", "like watching paint dry while getting hit over the head with a frying pan", "a lumbering idiot of a movie", and "a dishwasher loudly shitting in your face for 2 hrs."
Then there's been the incredible video rants. Like this (so many good points there between the rage), this or this.
But it was this review in that last link which has me in stitches. If coarse language offends, I'd suggest you don't read on:
"This movie….
…..was a worthless, mindfucking, pathetic, absolutely unredeemable, assrapingly godawful waste of time film filled with NOTHING but scenes of dogs fucking each other, horribly offensive racist caricature that was mindbogglingly horrendous, padded with NOTHING but constant, rambling absurd, shoot-your-self embarrassing and nonsensical dick jokes, obnoxious, grating, boring, ridiculous garbage on an unmessurable scale, and a HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE excuse of a film.
This film…. was so fucking incoherent, so pathetic, so absolutely desperate, and such a miserable, half-assed, failed, fucking piss-poor excuse for anything that could even reasonably called a “movie”, that even calling it a “movie” is an insult to ALL movies.
Calling this a “film”, or a “movie” does nothing but cheapen the term itself, and makes the art of cinema as a combined whole seem inconceivably worse because of it.
There is absolutely not one single, solitary second or conceivable moment, anywhere to be found in this film that isn’t an embarassing, shitsucking, piece of absolute gutter trash that has EVER… and I mean EVER been so fantastically puked onto a theater screen before, and most probably, since.
You cannot MAKE a movie this bad. One simply cannot MAKE something on this order of useless tripe if one TRIED to do so.
Rather, there is not ANYONE that exists in the nearest or farthest corner of god’s green and fertile earth today who can make a movie as bad as Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen if they had actually made the SPECIFIC effort to make a film this atrocious.
Even by ACCIDENT, the idea that garbage like this could be assembled in such an impossibly asinine and utterly abysmal fashion is incredibly remote and almost goddamn impossible to conceive or imagine.
Even for the incredibly, utterly, low, rock bottom standard of what could presumed typical of a Michael Bay SHITFEST can be, it is almost infinitely difficult to imagine, as to how, why or in what galaxy or entire dimension of suck that something this indescribably awful on every conceivable level as Transformers 2 is, could ever remotely come into being.
This movie is honestly, and undeniably, a goddamn, mother fucking plague of dark ages proportions.
And do you know what? Saying what you’ve said, and me saying what I’ve said as well, is actually being POLITE towards this movie. Much more so than it deserves.
This movie cannot be rated on a scale determinable by any possible number that we know of to exist, including reaching into negative numbers or even extending back to an infinite horizon of negative numbers."
So, what do you reckon, did he like the movie or not?
Sometimes I just find the outpouring of vitriol in hilariously awful reviews therapeutic.
Of course, I didn't hate the movie, but I'm finding the sheer, unrepenting hatred in the majority of the reviews to be as entertaining as the movie itself. If not more.
- Mood:
refreshed
Probably the greatest review of our time. And I thought his review of the first one was good.
- Mood:
giggly
Sadly, I didn't make the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen UK premiere in the end. I'll do a full update on what I was up to instead tomorrow, but I did go up to London to see the movie at the IMAX with friends and so I'll write this review while it's still fresh in my mind.
So here goes:
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is the first movie amplified. Everything is bigger. Everything is magnified. But sadly that also means the flaws as well as the strengths.
Simply put, if you loved the first movie, you will love the second - as a big dumb action movie (and boy, is it dumb) it delivers, with more robot-on-robot carnage, bigger explosions (including, supposedly, the biggest committed to celluloid), bigger characters, more gimmicks, more Transformer character moments, set piece after set piece.
Sadly it also suffers from sequelitis - like the Pirates sequels, they've attempted to simply cram too much into the movie and the flaws are also amplified - the humor's coarser and dumber, the plot's even slighter and even more fragmented and directionless, the Transformers feel even more like extras than the focus of the movie (this time it's the Autobots who barely get any screen-time other than to pop up to blow stuff up) and the Transformers are even more gimmicky and messy in their designs.
The movie's particular flaw is that it's simply 30-40 minutes too long. There's a lot of fat in the film that exists purely to serve Bay's particular tastes and it would have been served better by allowing a ruthless script editor to chop several sequences (the Egyptian chase scene, the Pretender, several other sequences that just drag way too long) and after building nicely for the first half hour, it suddenly flags.
There's things to be proud of, though. The action sequences suffer less from shakey cam this time around and, in particular, Optimus has some epic battles which get the adrenaline pumping, the Megatron/Starscream dynamic is pure G1 and some of the new characters are fun and fully realized (I was entertained way more than I should have been by the foul mouthed Wall-E parody and the cranky old Brit Jetfire, shaking his cane and shouting "bollocks!" every few minutes). Kevin Dunn and Julie White as Sam's parents are even funnier this time around in expanded roles and also show the real acting chops, while John Turturro reins in the excess in his characterisation in the first movie to deliver.
But sadly, Bay also brings on board characters that rival Jar Jar Binks for "comic" ethnic stereotyping, lowbrow sexual humour (did we really need humping dog sequences? Not just once, but pulling the same trick twice?) and occasionally falls into the trap that no action movie should, but the Pirates sequels particularly were equally guilty of - the film gets boring. As another reviewer has put it: "It feels a bit like watching someone else play a video game for two and a half hours." I'm sure Bay had fun blowing things up for the movie but when that's the sole trick, it soon gets tired.
But by turns Revenge Of The Fallen is spectacular, funny, incredibly cringe-worthy, exciting, tedious, incomprehensible, dumb and very occasionally smart and well performed sometimes all at the same time.
If you liked that experience first time around, you're almost guaranteed to like it the second. If you hated the first movie, I'd suggest that a three hour root canal might be the quieter and less painful option.
- Mood: geeky
So, yeah, I've been quiet most of the weekend. In combination between deadline snowballing into Saturday (and then Saturday night) and... other stuff I've been in a BAD PLACE™. There were highs (yesterday I had a nice day with the folks and spent most of the day sunning myself on the beach) and lows (please do not ask about last night as emo Matt often offends).
Thankfully I'm feeling better today, looking at things afresh and wondering where to go from here. Yes, I'm being cryptic AND ranting. Gotta love it, haven't you?
So, random distractions:
Rich Johnson's new comic site's launched - www.bleedingcool.com I like Rich, have enjoyed butting heads with him on the occasions we have and wish him luck with his new site. He's rarely anything less than an entertaining read, even when he's completely and utterly wrong.
I managed to miss the actual announcement of the winner of Britain's Got Talent as I was on the phone to our printers, sorting out a major crisis, but walked in to see Susan Boyle's face as the Diversity boys celebrated. I have a few things to say on this - frankly I wouldn't have been disappointed if any of the final ten acts had won it - everyone was very good at what they did, but that said, i thought that Diversity were worthy winners, who upped their game for every performance and created a completely original routine each time. And the final performance was mindblowing. A lot of the other performers came out and repeated the routines that had got them through the auditions (with the exception of Stavros Flatley, god bless 'em), but for delivering something new each time, Diversity deserved the win.
Which leads us to Susan Boyle who, this morning, has been sectioned under the mental health act and booked into The Priory after an incident with the police after her running wild in a hotel. Now, I do feel sympathy for her, as she clearly believed everyone telling her there was no way she couldn't win. And then didn't. Clearly she's ill equipped emotionally to cope with the pressure that has been put on her. I'm not entirely sure whether she's disgruntled over losing or blown away by the multi-million pound contract she's just signed, but either way, I can understand her struggling to deal with it.
But at the end of the day, as she said herself, the better act won.
In other geek news, Tom Hiddleston talks Thor’s Loki. "Ken wants Loki to have a lean and hungry look, like Cassius in Julius Caesar." Sounds good to me.
And, of course, Doctor Who has his new companion. And, much like the new Doctor himself, I don't really have a clue who she is. Chalk this up as a good thing, in my mind. General opinion appears to be OMG SHE'S SO YOUNG!, which I don't really see myself. She's 21 and looks it.
Looks like Wolverine's still ahead of Star Trek in the worldwide box office. I'm not sure what this tells us, but it's probably not great.
Meanwhile, The Daily Mash tells it how it is. "SEVEN million people in the UK are illegally downloading the sort of music and films you wouldn't pay for even as you heard the ominous click of a gun being cocked."
Oh, and FilmDrunk can always be relied upon to deliver the best summaries of Twilight sequel news. Vampires are so dreamy!
Was that really a No Country For Old Men spoof in Benidorm last night? Fair play for them for including an extended joke only about 2% of the audience actually got. The Die Hard gag? Probably more obvious.
And Michael Caine is epic.
- Mood: worried
Finally got around to watching the final episodes of Wolverine and the X-men. Thoughts on the episodes specifically below the cut, but in general terms, a few comments:
Frankly, this series was excellent from start to finish. For what is effectively a Wolverine-centric show, they managed to balance most of the other characters with his screentime (Storm being the one character who was severely underused) as well as avoiding the pratfall of inexplicably and suddenly making Logan team leader material. One of the highlights of the show is that he's not a good team leader and has constantly messed up along the way. The series has served certain other characters well too - Kitty and Bobby didn't get a lot of face time, but what they did was great, Beast was handled excellently, the new take on Forge was a lot of fun, but most particularly Nightcrawler and Scarlet Witch got a great dynamic and individual characterisation and plenty to do.
The continuity made good use of the rich X-men mythos by bringing in elements from the comics, cartoons and movies and mixing it all up to create something fresh, whilst also hitting enough notes to be accessible to anyone who was only familiar with one of those sources. The grand over-arching story meant a mild suspension of disbelief, but nothing that those familiar with the X-men wouldn't be familiar with and it was refreshing to see something that balanced both the new and familiar.
One of the highlights, as I've said before, was seeing the X-men who were clearly familiar with each other's abilities working together as a team from the first. It's been rare that any series has really made the most of each member's abilities, but the cartoon certainly managed to do so.
Solid animation, solid character designs and voice acting that was rarely less than excellent all contributed to its success.
I'm pleased to note that the series has been officially renewed after it proved to be a strong ratings winner.
( And now onto the individual reviews of the last few episodes. )
- Mood: geeky
Profile
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
angelophile- Love, Blood and Rhetoric
- Love, Blood & Rhetoric - The Homepage
Syndicate
chasethestars