Four surprises in 24 hours
I have been subject to four things that took me by surprise in the last 24 hrous. Here they are in no particular order:
- Saw V – What surprised me more than this actually being the fifth Saw film in the horror series franchise was that the advertisement I saw on the back of a bus revealed that it is actually getting a cinema release on October 23, i.e. it’s not going straight-to-video (or DVD). Saw, directed by James Wan, at least held my attention, Saw II was terrible, and that’s pretty much where I gave up.
- Norwegian Wood – The book written by one of my favourite authors, Haruki Murakami, is being made into a film. I’m not sure how they are going to achieve that, but it appears the film is going to be in good hands; it will be directed by Anh Hung Tran who also directed The Scent of the Green Papaya and Cyclo.
- Words – I received a chain email and although I don’t normally read them, I thought this was amazing:
Typoglycemia
Don’t delete this because it looks weird. Believe it or not you can read it. I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.
- Phone call - I received a phone call tonight. After picking up the phone and saying ‘Hello’ as is normally the case, I received the following automatic pre-recorded message: “Congratulations! You have won a trip to the Caribbean. To claim your prize, simply press the number 9 on your phone. This is the button above the hash key.” I didn’t press 9. I hung up.
Reflection
I decided it’s time for a bit of reflection about this blog; what I learnt and what I thought I knew.
I had never written a proper blog before this one. I had made attempts at it: a couple of times during my undergraduate degree and once when I was living overseas in order for friends and family to keep up with what I was doing, or for me to pontificate about what I thought annoying. But it didn’t eventuate into anything because I found myself saying everything I need to say in emails to individuals, talking on MSN messenger and speaking on the phone.
But this blog was different. It was a chance for me to write about the things I enjoy. I found myself thinking as I was watching a film or a gig that it would be good to write about it, to get my thoughts out there.
When I started the course, 800 words a week did sound like a lot, but writing about things that interest me became easier and easier as the weeks went by (except, of course, for one week where my brain wasn’t functioning properly, resulting in writer’s block; although I overcame that by writing about the annoyance!)
I also made a Twitter account this semester; I had only heard of it before but never delved. I really should update it more often.
And in regard to Internet, to tell the truth, before beginning this class my Internet usage consisted of about a half an hour to an hour a night usually following this routine (unless I was researching something specific):
1. smh.com.au
2. imdb.com
3. youtube.com
4. Reply to emails
5. Log off
Now I have broken this routine, and while I still go to these sites, I seem to find myself bookmarking more and more websites that interest me and following links to other websites and blogs. Digg.com has become one of the regulars as well.
So I shall continue writing this blog after the course is over; hopefully I have the discipline to post two entries twice a week.
The element of surprise
It’s time to face my fear. I have come to despise this time of year; the first half of Spring. It’s not because of hay fever, Spring bringing on a yearly spending spree at the chemist stocking up on antihistamines to curb the frustration of uncontrollable sneezing and itchy eyes. And it’s not the indecisive Spring weather, brain-frying one day and icy the next. No, this is much more psychological; the element of surprise is crucial to it. It lurks in the trees or in the shadows, watching you with one eye, waiting for the moment when it can do the most damage to even the most hardened of people. Why can’t magpies leave people alone?
The first time I was subject to an attack was one Spring morning innocently making my way to class at the University of New England in Armidale in the year 2000. I was walking across an open area of grass surrounded by trees and university buildings when out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a dark object, very small and low to the ground making its way towards me like a steam train gaining momentum. It suddenly took flight and came within a hair’s breadth of my head, it’s wings cutting through the air making a swooshing sound, its beak snapping in anger for daring to come within 50 metres of it. It landed, turned around and prepared for the second attack. I bolted the rest of the way, trying to work out how I would get back to the college without crossing that ill-fated stretch of grass.
I was not attacked again until 2006 when I was innocently walking to my car. The bird suddenly swooped from behind, and came back for two more attacks until I finally scrambled into the front seat. Following this, the bird sat there staring at me, daring me to come out, before flying away. Then recently as I sat in Centennial Park eating lunch, I received a warning swoop from a magpie, prompting me to move away from the area. Since the attacks, I have become very wary of magpies. As Spring rolls around each year, I begin to hope trees in the vicinity of my route to the bus stop have not been used for a nest.
A 1997 study by the Research Centre for Injury Studies at Flinders University in Adelaide shows that of the 59 people in their research who were attacked by magpies, 37 or 62.7% were male. Of the total number of people, most were between the ages 15-29 years (16 people, or 27.1%). But what scares me most is that the most number of attacks were in the eye.
But according to a fact sheet by the NSW Government Department of Environment and Climate Change, the birds usually don’t make contact. They are just sending a warning. The department suggests a few ways of preventing an attack; according to the website, “Magpies are less likely to swoop if you look at them”. They suggest, among other things, that sewing a pair of eyes into the back of a hat is enough to deceive them.
They also suggest wearing a bicycle helmet, or even an ice cream container or cardboard box on your head, but I don’t think I will go to that extreme quite yet.
Image: Mick Richards, Source: abc.net.au
There most certainly Will Be Blood
Poster from Paramountvintage.com
Having missed out on catching There Will Be Blood at the cinema earlier this year, I was looking forward to it being released on DVD. I found it had already been moved to three night new release by the time I got around to visiting the video shop; I grabbed it, drove home and watched it.
It is not difficult to see why Daniel Day-Lewis (In the Name of the Father, Gangs of New York) won the Best Actor Academy Award. His performance as Daniel Plainview was startling. The film, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Punch Drunk Love) was very well received by many critics when it first hit the cinemas.
There Will Be Blood was inspired by the book Oil! by Upton Sinclair and is set during the 1890s to early 1900s America. Plainview is an oil prospector who is tipped off that an earthquake in Little Boston, California has revealed the area is rich in oil. Plainview and his adopted son H.W. (Dillon Freasier) travel to the area, find that there are plentiful amounts of the liquid, start buying up leases and bring in the workers to start drilling to extract the oil. Plainview uses H.W. to get sympathy from the townspeople to ensure he can go about his business without too much resistance, giving a long speech stating that he is a “family man” in a family business. After a series of events, Plainview’s true nature is revealed.
Paul Dano (Little Miss Sunshine) is also wonderful as Eli Sunday, a priest at the Church of the Third Revelation who claims he can remove demons and sin from souls. Sunday’s role is important, but I won’t give the story away. Incidentally, the person who informed Plainview that there is oil in Little Boston is also played by Dano, playing Eli Sunday’s twin brother.
The original music in the film was composed by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood. Music and sound effects are integral to the films mood, and sets the scene for the dry, dusty, bleak landscape of this area of America that made people rich. The DVD extra presents a short collection of photographs and silent films from the era and compares them to scenes from the film. And that is one of the most interesting aspects of the film; it’s obvious that the film makers tried to be as authentic as possible down to the smallest detail.
I wasn’t a particularly big fan of Anderson’s other films, but There Will Be Blood will most certainly be a classic.
Opeth's Sydney concert at Big Top
Keeping metal fresh can be quite a task, but as reviews of their albums (at sites such as allmusic or PopMatters) reveal, one band that keeps the bar high and expands upon previous efforts is Opeth. Metal is certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, but the unique part about this band is that despite heavy distortion and metal growls, Opeth also have something to offer those who would not normally delve into this type of music.
The Swedish progressive metal band played a sold out show at Big Top at Luna Park last Saturday 6 September. This was their fourth outing in Australia and the second time at Big Top.
This was Opeth’s first concert in Australia with new guitarist Frederick Akesson. Guitarist Peter Lindgren left the band in May last year because of a loss of enthusiasm as the band grew. Drummer Martin Lopez left the band in May 2006 due to personal issues and was replaced by Martin Axenrot. It is great that the band has continued despite changes to their line-up.
Opeth began their set last Saturday with ‘Heir Apparent’ off their ninth and newest album Watershed. The track set the mood for the night with a heavy bang of distorted guitars. The band played some more tracks off that album, performed a few of their older songs, then finished the show with ‘Demon of the Fall’, one of the heaviest Opeth songs off their third album My Arms, Your Hearse. They then came back on for the encore with ‘The Drapery Falls’ from their fifth album Blackwater Park.
But don’t let this talk of heaviness put you off. Lead singer Mikael Arkerfedlt’s ability to swap between guttural metal growls and melodious clean vocals is nothing short of amazing. Take the song ‘The Drapery Falls’ from Blackwater Park for example. The song incorporates heavy, clean and acoustic guitars as well as metal vocals and clean vocals. (See video below. Note: this is the band’s old line-up). Many of Opeth’s songs also clock in at around the 10 minute mark.
Opeth’s diverse mix of metal and acoustic, sometimes incorporated into one song as above, is part of what makes them so unique. Both heavy and clean are important to Opeth’s sound. An example of this is the two albums Deliverance and Damnation. The two albums, which were meant to be released together but were instead serparated, show both sides of the band. Deliverance is heavy while the whole of Damnation, which was released shortly after, has clean vocals and very little distortion.
The band performed well and were as strong as the previous two times I had seen them at the Metro and Enmore Theatre in the early 2000s. It was a most enjoyable gig.
A guide to all media
Before the rise of Web 2.0 brought us sites like Wikipedia and Youtube, finding readily availble information was a lot more difficult. And on my first outings on the Internet back in the late ’90s, the 28 kbps and later 56 kpbs dial-up modems wouldn’t have really cut it for large downloads or watching videos. The sound of my modem dialling the server (then with a company called OzEmail) used to be the bane of my existence in a time when phone line dropouts were aplenty.
But one site I was able to visit that had a readily available large database of music information was allmusic.com. The site wasn’t pretty when I first visited it, but once you found the page you were looking for, the information was gold. It recommended CDs that were unavailable; nowhere else on the Internet could I find definitive information about what albums had been released by the more underground bands. Not even the most diverse CD shops had these CDs available and because allmusic gives reviews of 1 star to 5 stars, I knew which CDs to order and which to avoid.
AMG began in 1991. It originated as a database called All Music Guide set up by Michael Erlewine, internet entrepreneur and astrologer. The information on this database was used by AMG to publish books about the “best” music available. The movie database was added in 1994. Then in 1995, allmusic and allmovie (but called All Music Guide and All Movie Guide) were moved online, not only as a comprehensive database for these two kinds of entertainment, but also so that AMG could find more customers for the licensing side of the business (and this continues to today with the licencees including Microsoft, Yahoo! and Amazon). The music, film and game site now all fall under the one brand, All Media Group (AMG).
The websites today still aren’t that pretty, but it is an improvement on the past. A company called Macrovision acquired the AMG in November last year . The ads on the ‘all’ sites are sparse; one banner ad, a box ad and an advertisement for a featured album where you can scroll over and click to listen to the band’s music or buy the album.
Reviews and information are the order of the day on allmusic.com. Looking up a band such as Radiohead will take you to a full description of them. Read a bio; check out who the band members are and what other projects they have undertaken; click on the similar artists to expand your music knowledge and library; find out who they were influenced by and then see who they’ve influenced. Then watch their music videos and see who else has performed in the band. And all this before checking out their discography, reading album reviews and individual reviews of songs where available. While the videos are obviously a more recent addition (because of our faster internet connections), the ability to connect to other artists has always been a useful tool.
The site isn’t just limited to one genre of music either. They try to be as comprehensive as possible, even including bands from countries where English is not the native language. See X-Japan, the extreme metal (ballads included) big hair-do 80s band of Japan, for an example.
Reviews are provided by either the Editors of the site, or “expert contributors” and they state in the about us section that “editorial independence has always been an AMG hallmark.” Music ratings from this website are often published along with those from other music websites such as metacritic (a site that averages scores from professional newspapers and online reviews) and Pitchfork Media on information pages for bands on Wikipedia.
The music blog began in 2006. One of the major features of the blog is the way they organise entries by dividing them into different catagories. One particularly interesting one is the “Judged by their Covers” category which shows all sorts of weird and wacky album covers from around the world.This doesn’t mean that each catagory is updated all the time. Rather, each post on the main blog is then catagorised for easy location.
Allmovie has similar in set up to allmusic. It is also primarily a reviews site. Check Star Wars, and we get a plot synopsis and other important information including themes, box office, length and so on. The most interesting part of the reviews of films though are the similar movies section, the links to movies with the same Personnel, other related movies (for example, followed by, related to, is part of the series, influenced and is spoofed in (the obvious one for Star Wars is of course Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs).
Over to the movie blog. Like the allmusic blog, entries are divided into catagories. One of the most entertaining here is “The Hype Machine” where bloggers talk about rumours of upcoming films as well as ‘hype’ surrounding upcoming films (a good example is a post where the author, Camilla Albertson, critiques the trailer for the film Valkyrie).
Allgame is just a games reviews site.
Allmusic and allmovie are great sites with bucketloads of information. It is interesting to see how they have changed with the times as competitors have shown up. But the reviews remain interesting and the information up-to-date, and this is what sets them apart.
Writer's block?
I’m probably not the first and I probably won’t be the last. What does one write about when they have writer’s block? How about writer’s block!?
I haven’t been to see any films after Hellboy II:The Golden Army and I haven’t been to any gigs recently (although this will change on Saturday night…wait for the update!). I checked digg.com, and probably the most interesting article was about the new Google browser called Google Chrome which is being released tomorrow. Should be interesting!
Today was a long day for various reasons, so my brain was not concentrating as it should. I tried to come up with a few topics, but none of them stuck. I lost all interest after writing the first couple of sentences and that’s when I realised I have a mild case of writer’s block (I won’t be writing The Shining inspired “All work and no play makes Andrew a dull boy” over and over again just yet).
I spoke of Trent Reznor in a previous post and how he is trying to interact with his fans by creating a film festival. Reznor suffered a serious case of writer’s block at one point in his career when he was not sure which direction he wanted to take his music following his second album, The Downward Spiral.
I googled writer’s block for some inspiration. What I wanted were some quotes about the phenomenon and about.com looked like a good place to start. About.com is an interesting website because it seems to have instructions on just about anything and everything. This particular page provided some ideas for overcoming this annoying state of affairs. It also claims that the scariest thing for Ernest Hemmingway was “A blank sheet of paper.”
I also found a blog called “How to write for the web” which had a collection of quotes that were also encouraging. My favourites were:
“The hardest part is getting to the top of page 1.” – Tom Stoppard
“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” — Thomas Mann
“I believe in the scissors more than I do in the pencil.” – Truman Capote
So it appears that writing about writer’s block is a good way to overcome writer’s block. I can only write on this topic once, but out of this exercise I have produced some ideas that I will most certainly write about in the future.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army - special effects only
Hell Boy II: The Golden Army is an intriguing movie. But this does not mean it is a good movie.
Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, which won three Oscars and was nominated for a further three was hailed by critics as a masterpiece. The grisly and grim reality of life under Franco’s fascist Spain was shown in contrast to a fantasy world created by a young girl. While the spectacular special effects were integral in portraying this fantasy world, they didn’t divert attention. Rather, they played a role in furthering the story.
Hellboy II is the opposite.
A truce between the human and mythical world is under threat when Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) decides it’s time to take the Earth back into the power of his people. He kills his father, who doesn’t agree with his plot, and goes in search for his sister, Prince Nuala (Anna Walton), who has the missing piece of a crown that will allow her brother to rule the Golden Army. The Golden Army has the power to wipe out the humans if they fall under the control of the elf prince.
In the meantime, Hellboy (Ron Perlman), also a mythical creature but on the human’s side, is living in a secret location, ready to protect the world when required. He is having relationship problems with his girlfriend (Selma Blair), Liz, who literally gets fired up when she’s angry. The couple, and their buddy Abe Sapien (Doug Jones, who also plays The Chamberlain and The Angel of Death) are made aware of Prince Nuada’s plans. Under the instruction of Johann Krauss (John Alexander), they go on a mission to stop the world from being destroyed.
There is also a sub-plot about Hellboy and co. being hated by humans and society (which is quite baffling, considering the arrogant humans had just been saved from a painful end), but it’s quickly washed over in favour of the special effects.
This may sound simple enough, but that’s where the problem lies. The above is the general overriding story, but every plot point and sub-plot that brings the film to the inevitable finale feels disjointed. The characters are placed in these highly impressive fantasy sets, filled with very believable and inventive CG and some impressive puppetry. While not as convoluted as, say, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, one is often left to ponder how the characters actually arrived at particular situations and locations.
For special effects and mindless entertainment, the film is well worth it. Some of the dialogue is slightly corny, but Hellboy himself does deliver some amusing one-liners in the face of danger.
Currently in the works for Guillermo is The Hobbit which is due in 2011. Let’s hope he retains Tolkien’s original story, while adding his own unique flair for amazing visuals.
Video from Universal
Nostalgia
One of the top videos at digg.com at the moment with 2821 diggs (at the time of writing) is the song Happy Happy Joy Joy from the surreal early 90s cartoon Ren and Stimpy. The show was over the top in almost every way and looking back on it, none of its potency has been lost. Probably the main reason this video has so many diggs is due to its nostalgic value (and also that it remains extremely entertaining.)
Hollywood, of course, has tapped into this nostalgia, by attempting to bring the cartoons of the 80s to life (or CG life). The recent Transformers movie, which is based on the 80s cartoon about a warring alien race, had expensive production values and big names behind it including Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay. The film made a lot of money, and the sequel is currently in production.
Interestingly, the film makers did not try to tap into a new children/family market. They instead made it an all out action movie (why else get Michael Bay to direct?) and retained some of the themes of the cartoon as well as leaving the characters pretty much as they originally appeared, and then brought that to the year 2007.
Another film that tried to cash in on nostalgia value was Inspector Gadget. Unfortunately this film missed the mark. The problem here was that it was updated too much. The technology shown in the film was the type that looks dated a couple of years later and some of the characters had been changed completely. The original cartoon series also had Get Smart’s (yet another series that has recently been made into a film for its nostalgia value) Don Adams as the voice of the bumbling inspector. The film had Matthew Broderick and it fell flat.
Astroboy is currently being made into a CG animated film due to be released next year. It stars the voices of Nicholas Cage, Bill Nighy, Donald Sutherland, Freddie Highmore and Kristen Bell. Astroboy originally appeared in Japan in a manga by Osamu Tezuka in the 1950s. It was made into a black and white animated television series in the 1960s, followed by a colour series in the 1980s (image on right from astroboy.co.uk). It tells the story of a boy-robot who was created by a scientist after the death of his son. The story has a strong message of tolerance throughout. It will be interesting to see if they follow the same path as Transformers and retain the themes and visuals of the original, or cash in by updating the story too much.
There are quite a few other 1980s cartoons that will probably be made into films. This includes He-Man, a cartoon about a rather buff warrior (with a really original name) living in Eternia. He and his friends are in constant battle with the evil Skeletor. This was actually made into a movie in 1987. Before Courtney Cox was your Friend, she starred in Masters of the Universe with Dolph Lundgren and Frank Langella. The film is quite funny to watch now, and proves that it does not need to be remade 20 years later.
Time to change
Explore the consequences of climate change and what’s being done about it at Shireen’s blog.
