Future shock The story of 2000AD

I am uncool, I know that. I know I should have read the 2000AD comic, but apart from picking up the odd copy, I never did. I do now own some novels of Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog. Obviously I like the extreme violence.

Today I watched a film called "Future shock. The story of 2000AD". Thjs was an interesting film aout the history of 2000AD comic. It was a bit bitchy at times, but that is what creative types do, when the money is a lot shorter than the ideas.

47 ronin

Last  night I finally watched the DVD of the film of 47 Ronin . It was an OK film. They tried to add additional elements to the story with the use of magic and shape shifting, but they never really integrated the elements back into the story. They get magical swords, which they use to fight with, but they don't use the magical parts.

Still I enjoyed watching the film, but it was not as good as an eastern film.

Revenant

While my brain is rotted with flu there is not much I can do but watch films. Last night I watched The Revenant, a really great zombie movie. A soldier gets killed in Iraq. He is buried in the US, but comes back as a Zombie. To keep his shit together he needs blood, but he has a conscience. Luckily his stoner friend is there to help him. It made me laugh anyway.

I felt sorry for the zombies in this film. There didn't seem to be a way for zombies to get their arm back if they lost it.

Of course the funnist line I have ever heard in a zombie movie was "if you really loved me you would let me eat your brains". Perhaps it was this one.

Last night I watched Detective Dee - Mystery Of The Phantom Flame
via Itunes. This was a great martial arts film set in
ancient china -- with great wire and CGI stunts. Somehow
the acting in Asian films are better than in western films,
which somehow mix ultra-violence with cheesy emotion.



The amusing things is that there is some
propaganda message in the film. At the end
of the film -- the detective swears allegiance
to the Empress -- even though he had been a
rebel in the past.

Why Keanu Reeves must die

Rather depressingly I feel that the highlight of 2008 for me is getting into graphic novels and comics. There is a big section for graphic novels in Hillhead library, so at least I am not losing any money by reading these books. Although I need to get a guide to graphic novels, as well as a seminal batman graphics novel, so Amazon will get some more of my money. One of the graphics novels I realy like is about a magician called Constantine. Constantine was born in Liverpool, so a lot of the stories are based around the UK. So when they made the Constantine film they set it in the US and got Keanu Reeves to do his robot acting thing. I sort of liked the Constantine film when it came out, but after reading the comic, I feel reverse betrayed.

Market Forces

While travelling somewhere I read Market Forces by Richard Morgan. This novel was set in the not too distant future. Wars and rebellions are traded as we trade stocks and shares. When executives have big arguments they fight duels in their cars on the highway. The story was based on a new junior executive joining a company. He became more aggressive and wild as the corporate culture sucked him in. There was a bit too much action for a good novel with a strong philosophical core, if I may make such a pompous statement. On a similar theme. I watched a documentary over the weekend about corporations. Everything went crooked, when corporations got the same rights as human beings under antislavery laws. The documentary had commentary by left figures such as Noam Chomsky. I liked the part where some anarchist had a demo at the house of the CEO of shell. His wife told them off, and later served them tea and biscuits.

tales From Earthsea

Many weeks ago I rented the DVD "tales From Earthsea" from blockbuster. I had another incoherent conversation with the clerk at the Blockbuster about anime, mostly because I was full of after work Friday night beer. The same people who were involved in the wonderful (my parents are greedy pigs) "spirited away" did this film as well. I had read The Earthsea Quartet by Ursula K. Le Guin and this is what attracted me to the film. I read the book some time ago, so I couldn't remember exactly what happened. However, this film seemed very different to that book. Looks like it was based on a book she wrote much later. Some of the film was about the "balance", which is some hippy sh*t for loving nature. The boy hero of the book murders his father for some unspecified reason, perhaps he was possessed, or perhaps his father was evil as many are. The history of these earthsea novels looks interesting, at least from the amazon reviews. Le Guin seemed to have a problem with the world she created. Ummm.

The lost room

A couple of weeks ago I watched a DVD called "the lost room". This was a box set for a TV series. The lost room refers to a motel room that no longer exists. There were a series of objects in the room that have special powers, such as a key that could open any door, or a pair of scissors that could rotate things. There were groups of people, known as collectors, trying to get the objects. Some people thing the room and objects were part of God. Now that I look at the synopsis above it all looks a bit nerdy, ok it looks very nerdy. But I think I would enjoy life a lot more if I was searching for every day objects that had magical powers. If you see me wistfully clicking a new pen, then I am actually testing its magical properties, so I suggest you step back. There were very few episode (approx 6), so I was disappointed when it ended. I was talking to some people about DVDs in the pub. I noted that box sets were worse than cocaine, because they soak up so much time. (I would like to point out that I have never taken cocaine, just in case some nasty human resource person is reading this).

six the mark unleashed

I watched a fairly strange DVD called "six the mark unleashed". I thought that this was an action movie. There was a resistance movement who were fighting a supreme leader (by stealing cars). Normally action movies such as this one, end with the leader being overthrown, and everyone going off into the sunset. This film was different. It seemed to involve a lot of Christians, who were rebelling against the system by happily geting their heads chopped off. Looking at the reviews I think I would have got more out of the film, if I knew more about the bible, than that Jesus turned water into wine. Anyway this is what happens when you rent DVDs from the local library at Hillhead. There was an offer on, that if you checked out 6 books, you could rent a DVD for free. Given that I hardly read at the moment, this didn't seem like a good idea. (The cute librarian didn't look pleased).

2 Miike Takashi DVDs

I rented two DVDs directed by Miike Takashi from the library. Takashi is famous for films such as "audition" and "ichi the killer", that are the most violent thing I have ever seen. The first film I watched was Ley Lines. This was a film about three Chinese youths who move to Tokoyo and get involved with gangs. These are clealy Takashi films, but everything is more grimy and real. But you can the beginnings of the weirdness and violence. I liked the start, where one of the youths is trying to get a work permir or something, he gets rejected, so he throws a big potted plant over the counter. The second DVD was called "Rainy Dog". THis was about a hitman, who has a son dropped off with him. The action was set in Taiwan, where it rains a lot. This was probably one of the best action films I have ever seen, even though it was very bleak and cheap. It also contains a scene where a father is shot in front of his child. The killer then says, "if you want you can come after me, when you get older.". Umm, that is strange that is very similar to a scene in Kill Bill volume I. I am sure that Tarrintino meant it as a homage and not a rip off in any way.

Scott Walker 30 century man

I watched the DVD "Scott Walker 30 century man". This is a documentary about the singer/artist Scott Walker. He started out in a boy band, but ended up as an experimental artist. I love Scott's rich voice and the way he always used to wear sun glasses. Julian Cope released a compilation record of his work during the 80s. So he invited on the film, but Julian doesn't appear in font of the camera, so they showed his email instead. Julian is always so cool. Perhaps I will check out some of Walker's later experimental work.

not a review of death proof

I have been feeling realy burnt out recently. One of the ways I like to relax is to go and watch some a film. There is a new Tarantino film out called Death proof. This is a film about a stunt man who kills women, and then maybe gets killed by women in some way. I am not a high brow kind of person. Trash is my middle name. I felt better after watching "shoot em up" last week, but I really couldn't face going to see this film. Somehow I get annoyed that a big hollywood company would make an exploitation film. Instead I went home and watched a DVD called "Blade house of Chthon". This was a straight to DVD film about the blade vampire killer. It was actually better than blade III. THis looked like a TV series film, because it ended in a strange way. Thanks to google I found it was a pilot for a TV show that got cancelled. Never let it be said that I am not a man of principle.

The U.S. Vs John Lennon

A couple of weeks ago, I watched the DVD about John Lennons problems with the US government during the late 60s and early 70s. Let me start out by saying that I hate the Beatles. I particularly hate Paul McCartney. And Paul, it is not cool to put out a record with Starbucks. I am addicted to coffee, but putting one of your CDs near the latte machine is not likely to make me want to buy it, or like you. There was some early footage of the Beatles, and even then Paul looked like a total twat. I am being a bit harsh about the Beatles. I do like George Harrison, because he funded a lot of good films (Monty Python and Withnail And I). Also he was a good hippy singer. John always struck me as a phony, but that is no reason to shoot him of course. As part of the documentary they showed some footage with Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Reuben. Both Abbie and Jerry were anti-war protestors and were both very good speakers. Abbie Hoffman wrote "steal this book", that I read when I was in Salt Lake City

Shadow Boxer

I was bored on Thursday so I rented the DVD "Shadow Boxer" from Blockbuster. This film is about two assassins, who pick up a woman and her new born child, when a job goes wrong. Yep standard stuff. Helen Mirren of, the Queen, fame was in the film, but somehow this didn't really help. Somehow all the ingredients in the film didn't gell for me. Also, when I was in Blockbuster I noted that have the box sets for the first thee series of "24" in. Somehow, I doubted that work would view needing to take two weeks off to watch them, as a legitimate reason for not coming in

Life on Mars

I watched the final episode of the box set for series 1 of Life on Mars last night. What a great TV series! A policeman gets knocked down in 2006, and then wakes up in 1973. It is pretty clear that he is coma, but he doesn't know how to wake up. There is a lot of cultural problems with his 2006 views clashing with those from the people who really live in "1973". I particularly liked some of his dilemmas where he felt he was the only person who was really real. (Although some people felt that this made him a bit crazy).

London to Brighton

I watched the DVD for the film "London to Brighton" on Monday. This was a recent British film. The one sentence plot is a prostitute and young girl go on the run from a London gangster and pimp. The film is very real and gritty. The actor who plays the prostitute was particularly good. I was sad to read that she is working in a shop, because she couldn't get any new acting roles. I felt I should have gone out to watch "This is England", as the critics says this is another good British film. It is a sad testament to Thatcher and Blair that are not many British films about politics. Most of our films are about gangsters or fluff ("love actually"). On TV there was a program about some film about a person working in the council. I am not sure that type of film would be made now, mostly because a large fraction of us having given up on this voting business. On reflection there is a lot of drama on TV about modern politics, so perhaps I just need to watch more things on the smaller screen.

Why I don't like 24

Ok, here are some reasons that I don't like the 24 series. The Counter Terrorist Unit CTU, does spend a large amount of time torturing people. In the episode I just watched, somebody from Amnesty global came to stop someone being tortured. The cunning people at CTU managed to torture him anyway. My guess is that if you added up the number of people who are tortured but who are innocent, then that would be virtually everyone. Anyway if you do get tortured and you are innocent, then you just get back to work. If you complain about it, then you get fired (told to leave work), as just happened in series 4 of 24. It is kind of weird, that that the US TV and films is trying to make the public, believe that it is acceptable to torture people and also that the government is corrupt. Still it is fun to watch. The program seems to have been made by Fox and Sky, so I wasn't really expecting objectivity.

Why I like 24

This Chinese flu virus has me in its grips. My new cure for flu and colds is to watch DVD boxed sets and wait for the poison to leave my system. I am now watching "24" series 4. This is a lot of episodes to get through. I think one of reasons I like "24" is that the hacker programmers are important to the plot. I don't see my self in a gun battle. Although I could probably shoot someone in the back like the SAS do, because it wouldn't be too dangerous. I like the idea of hacking code and using google to look stuff up. I could write some code. I also wouldn't mind be tortured for a bit as well. The hackers are cool for that. They get tortured and then they go back to work. I don't think I want to do this for some weird sexual reason, I just like the idea of being a hero. Of course what would actually happen is that as soon as they get the torture tools out, I would burst into tears and wet my paints. Still it is fun to dream. I am going to sign off now, I have another 10 hours of episodes left.

The host

Last night I watched a great DVD from Korea, called "The Host." This is a modern version of a Godzilla like story. A family battles a monster around a river, when it takes one of their children. The monster was believable, but there was a lot of slapstick humor too. This is a recent DVD release. One of the few Korean things I know about is Wonhyo the monk, so I was pleased that the film included the Wonhyo bridge.

24

This is going to have to a be a short post. I rented the box set for "24" series 5 on Friday. I managed to watch the first 6 hours of the show yesterday, but frankly there is a limit too how long I can stare at the screen. (OK, I should have started watching it on Friday and as soon as I got out of bed on Saturday). Perhaps I have an addictive personality, but if there are 24 episodes, then frankly I must watch them as soon as possible. When something exciting happens there is a some drum beat and my heart rate goes up. I may as well call in sick tomorrow and watch the entire show. IT HAS TO BE DONE.