Good idea for a product, bad idea for a price!

These aren't not a bad idea at all, especially for cyclists. I would NEVER (unlike other idiots I pass) cycle while wearing headphones. Something like this would be ideal, and I hardly think the volume would disturb anyone.

But $130 US for a teeny pair of amplified speakers? F no. Where's my soldering iron?

There are a million screenplays in the naked city...

Every time I go to my local coffee shop to write, I'm surrounded by a sea of laptops and netbooks, many with open Word or Final Draft documents containing those unmistakable text "shapes" known collectively as a screenplay: wide blocks of description, narrow blocks of dialogue. From a distance it looks like Tetris being played by someone who has no idea what the object of the game is.

Similarly, I'm fairly certain that these screenplays are being written by people who have no clue how to tell an original story. Here's my guess of how these hundreds of screenplays living on hard drives across the city break down:

• 30%: 30 Rock spec scripts (most, presumably, not even close to the show's high standard of comedy)
• 9%: rewrites of films that have already been made. Yes, believe it or not, there is a sub-genre of "writer" that insists on rewriting scripts of films they didn't like. I know of someone who, and I quote from his blog, "I spent a few years in geek hell compulsively re-writing this movie [Star Wars: The Phantom Menace], literally, and no good came of it.' (Well, duh!)
• 30%: sci-fi/superhero movies
• 20%: horror/slasher/supernatural movies
• 10%: teen sex comedy movies
• 1%: solid, original scripts

Being involved with a comedy troupe, I'm always running into Creative Types writing The Next Big Thing. Once they find out I'm a writer and that I have worked as an editor, they're relentless in their pursuit of feedback. Free, of course, because to them my time isn't worth anything.

Well, Creative Types, the answer is "No". No, I won't read your Zombie Batman vs. Vampire Spider-Man script! No, don't send me your pitch for the next Star Trek series... What? Cloverfield vs. Aliens?! You do realize that "Cloverfield" refers to an area of Central Park and isn't the name of the monster, don't you? And you? You're writing a movie about people who fall in love over Twitter?

Listen, just forget I said anything, and I'll try not make eye contact with you while you're out writing your Masterpiece. Deal?

Cinema Death Watch, part I

I realise a lot proposed remakes and reboots and sequels never get made, but there are still piles that do.

The latest? A remake of Fame, this update starring Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neurwith. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for seeing Bebe getting her dance on--she's an oustanding dancer--but still... this just has to go on the Cinema Death Watch list. It can't be good, can it? The original was a touchy-feely piece of dreck; the spin-off TV series even more so.

I'm reminded of the old Saturday Night Live parody of the Fame song, sung as "Same! I sing the same song forever..."

Blech.

Fascinating.... ?

http://www.jawsphobia.blogspot.com/

I [heart] Moleskine

Been investing a fair bit of time getting GTD up and running on a Moleskine. GTD isn't the most intuitive system but as I start to work with it I find it works a treat.

Anyone else out there managing their lives an a low-tech analogue format? I'd love to hear about your systems.

District 9

Caption: "If you just sign here, we'll be sure to over-render you in the sequel, just like we did for the Transformers."

District 9 is the first film with CGI characters interacting with real actors that didn't leave me thinking "nice CGI. What else you got?" There are no CGI fireants or gophers or Cyberkings kicking the shit out of Victorian London or confusing Trans-form-o-bots here. Instead we get Prawns, a race of human-like aliens rendered perfectly. They are even more enjoyable to watch because they're in there in service of a compelling story. Just try not get excited about the robot rig at end of the film, exquistely designed, and rendered by someone who obviously understands how machines work.

That this is a relatively low-budget film will surely make the Big Players take notice. I've always said if I had a $150 million dollars, I'd make seven or eight of these little films, not one big mess, a la Spider-Man 3. I doubt it, but perhaps the revolution has begun. Of course I'll eat my words when Neil Blomkamp is given $200 million to make District 10 or Halo.

Wow x2

Seen: The Godfather and The Godfather Part II on the big screen at the good old Bloor Cinema. Excellent films, with so many classic moments and lines. Easy to see where The Sopranos took their inspiration from.

Best line: "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."

Tuesday chuckle.

The circle of no life

Credit: http://gizmodo.com/5329594/the-circle-of-no-life

Seen: Not Good nor Bad

Caption: Johnny Depp sez... "Where's my backstory? Three lousy sentences? Guess I'll just shoot the gun some more, huh?"


Public Enemies directed by Michael Mann. It was great to look at, but the characters had no resonance. I needed more behind the characters of John Dillinger and F.B.I. agent Melvin Purvis. Though jam-packed with great actors, this long film felt slight.

And there was real, jolt-you-out-of-the-story moment... In a nightclub, singing (quite beautifully) is none other than Diana Krall. How can you not help but think "out of place?" If they wanted Krall on the soundtrack, they should have had another actress lip sync the nightclub singing. A very strange casting choice.

WTF?!

I'm going to withhold final judgement until I've seen all five parts, but so far, two episodes in, Torchwood: Children of Earth, is very enjoyable. And I mostly hated season 1 of Torchwood.

Aw, bugger!

http://torontoist.com/2009/07/last_page.php

Reivew: Wednesday Comics #1

Yesterday, I picked up DC’s Wednesday Comics. As with any anthology book, it’s hit-and-miss affair.

Good:

Each creative team gets 12 pages over the series, so Bang! they drop the readers into the middle of the action. With a couple of exceptions I’ll note below, the colours pop off the oversize pages and the large format serves the stories well. The paper stock and the newspaper format remind one that this isn’t high art but a quick, enjoyable read.

Batman by Azzarello and Risso. A fantastic opener. Lovely composition, slightly creepy story. Classic Batman.

Kamandi by Gibbons and Sook. Damn, that's some beautiful artwork by Sook. Imagine Kamandi drawn in the style of Prince Valliant without losing the Kirby influence and you've almost got it. Nothing happens story-wise, but it’s a nice opener.

Hawkman by Baker. Need proof that Kyle Baker is one of the pre-eminent comic artists working today? Here it is. This is the best page in the book. There's a real sense of impending dread in the writing and the artwork, and it leads up to a bona fide cliffhanger. Telling the story from the birds’ point of view lends the story a nice twist, too. After years of seeing Hawkman changed into this or that, plunged into this or that intergalactic civil war, it’s nice to see the simply- (yet not childishly-) delineated heroic version here.

Metamorpho by Gaiman and Allred reads like a 1970s Saturday morning cartoon show but that’s not meant as an insult. It has beautiful drawings and a perky story full of goofy charm and funny segues. C’mon, Metamorpho’s a goofy character. Gaiman and Allred have the good sense to embrace that. And, hey, kids! Thought balloons are unashamedly back!

Metal Men by Didio, Lopez, and Nowlan. Wow, this art shines, and there’s a nice little bank heist story too. We don't get to see the Metal Men in action, but this certainly is a well-executed intro to this strip. Q: Is this the first time we've seen that the Metal Men can disguise themselves as humans? The human analogues of the Metal Men are great; you instantly can tell who's who.

Sgt Rock by Kubert and Kubert. Does anyone in comics, except maybe John Severin, tell a story as clearly as Joe Kubert? No backgrounds in the panels, yet we get a sense of exactly where we are. Now in his 80s, this an artist still on top of his game. This makes me long to find a copy of the oversized DC Treasury Edition Tarzan comic he drew.

Flash by Kerschi and Fletcher. If you can ignore the obvious error of The Flash speaking about half a dozen sentences while the narration tells us he is outrunning a radio wave (he should have used thought balloons!), this is a nicely told half-page. The other half is given over to Iris, which is a cute soapy melodrama with a nice little mystery tossed in.

M’eh:

Since this is the first issue, most of the stories seem to be following the same formula. But with this talent, I'm confident that by the second or third issue the stories will differentiate themselves.

Deadman by Bullock and Heuck. M'eh. To be expected, as apart from his cameos in Swamp Thing and the Books of Magic original miniseries, Deadman is pretty much a m'eh character to me. Standard murder-mystery setup, but nice, noirish art.

Superman by Arcudi and Bermejo. Since All-Star Superman I only want to see Frank Quitely drawing the Man of Steel. No offence to Bermejo, whose highly rendered artwork is outstanding, but it just feels too "painterly" to me; Superman should be a four-colour fever dream. Nice little one-page teaser story, though.

Green Lantern by Busiek and Quinones. Trying way too hard to be Darwyn Cooke's DC The New Frontier and not even getting the surface elements right, let alone the heart of it.

Strange Adventures by Pope. Whatever this is... brilliant retro future… sprawling space opera... it ain't Adam Strange. What a s shame, after Pascal Ferry did such a fantastic redesign on Adam's costume. An odd take on what should be an instantly recognizable character. Still, as a little sci-fi story, it’s great fun.

Supergirl by Palmiotti and Conner. Uninspired. Supergirl chases her Super-pets who have gone off the rails for some reason. This one looks like it was put in for the kiddies. Along with Teen Titans, this one feels like it belongs in another book.

The Demon and the Cat by Simonson (which one, it doesn't specify, I'm assume Louise) and Stelfreeze. Nice work by everyone involved, but hard to judge as it’s such a teeny part of a story. Fantastic artwork, if a bit muted colour-wise.

WTF?!

Teen Titans by Berganza, Galloway. Awful. The art looks like subway graffiti. Where's Walt Simonson or George Perez when you need him? The pale, almost pastel, colour palette doesn’t help. And I’m not sure a team lends itself well to short-form stories.

Wonder Woman by Caldwell. Who snuck a unused page from Promethea in here? No, seriously. This one's too ambitious for a one-pager, and the character as drawn looks nothing like Wonder Woman. I'm not for a "house style" but there is such a thing as drawing a character properly. This is a missed opportunity. A Marston-inspired retro strip would have been most welcome, and given this book a sense of being tied to great works of the past.

Conclusion

I'd say this thing's a qualified success. I'd love to see at someone at least attempt a complete story in one page in this format. Apart from the few misfires and the one or two odd choices, it looks like we’re in for a good read this summer.

Sigh./Fie!

Fuckin' hell, that "Imagine Greater" tagline for SyFy annoys me. Imagine greater what?!

My suggestions:
1) Imagine Greater attention to spelling.
2) Imagine Greater shows can be found on other stations? You'd be right.

I know the purpose of slogans and brands is to get a person's attention, and damned if it hasn't worked. Doesn't mean I like it, though. I still think it's one focus group shy of wearing a hockey helmet for day-to-day activities. But let's not forget the target audience: folks who think Battlestar Galactica is the greatest bit of television ever.

Syentificly proven...

The SciFi Channel is now "SyFy". Whatever marketing asshole thought that up? Bet he thought it was kewl.

If you look at the programme offerings from the station, endless reruns of that Christ-awful Stargate: Atlantis, the near-franchise killer Enterprise, and other such crap, Sigh./Fie! might have been a more appropriate choice.

And don't even get me started about the tagline "Imagine Greater"...

How the Hell could I forget?!

Toronto Fringe Festival. On until June 12. Get out there and support your friends or the festival in general!

www.fringetoronto.com

Doctor When II?

Feels like we've been waiting an eternity since we heard that Tennent would be passing along the keys of the TARDIS to when it's actually going to happen, and apparently we have yet to sit through more Rose Tyler and every other related character, including the clone of Tennant's Doctor, until we get there. Davies' legacy: more is more. But didn't he do that at the end of season four with Rose et al, the clone, Sarah-Jane, K9, Martha, the Daleks, Davros, etc. etc. etc. etc.?

C'mon, David, give Matt your sonic screwdriver and your fancy starscape backdrop.

Your antidote to boring music and teeny commercial radio playlists...

http://www.thewire.co.uk/

Robert S. McNamara dead at 93

Not that you need an excuse to see the excellent documentary, The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, but I've just read that Mr. McNamara has died.

Here's the article from The Toronto Star on his passing: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/661449

For the six people who care...

...apparently the director's cut of Watchmen has been leaked. It's now doing the rounds on bittorrent sites. Warner Brothers expected to lose tens of dollars.

A Decade of Spongebob...

http://tvfeedsmyfamily.blogspot.com/2009/07/spongebob-turns-10.html

Haven't seen many of these cartoons, but what I have seen, I've liked. They're funny and manic. There isn't a "moral" at the end of each epsiode. The evil characters are irredeemably evil in a cartoony way. Zero character development, just crazily-plotted, surreal mayhem. What more do you want from a cartoon?

Walkman turns 30

30 years of SONY Walkman personal stereos (yes, that's the official plural of "Walkman" according to SONY). Wow.

I figure I had at least four SONY cassette players, one recorder/player, one cheapie Walkman knockoff (called, I think, a Rollyman or some such), and two Panasonic Sports tape players. The SONY ones were always the best, and got used and used and used until they died a natural death.

I always wanted the WM-W800 (double) Walkman. It was way beyond my first-year university student budget.

How many of these did you have?

Easin' the pain...

Just found this online. Down In Black Bottom: Barrelhouse Mamas. Fantastic stuff.

Cough, Sweat, & Sniffle

Nope, not a Canadian rock band from the 70s... it's my current state. Fuckin' hell. On Canada Day, a day off work, too. Grr.

Art vs draftsmanship

Interesting discussion here.

Say it ain't so, Jon

As the prospect of a longer director's cut of Watchmen looms, bloggers are again talking about this awful film.

A quick note to those who say it's faithful to the graphic novel: Learn to read.

Recession? Depression? Hyperbole?

I don't really believe we are in a recession, much less a depression. In neighbourhoods across Toronto, restaurants appear to be as busy as they usually are this time of year.

The late 80s early 90s recession made Toronto look like a ghost town. This one, apart from a few brokers bitching to each other on the Rosedale bus, feels like it either isn't going to hit, or hasn't really hit yet.

What a crock!

Today, beside an overflowing public garbage bin in my neighourhood (Rosedale), I saw a good-sized pile of discarded crockery. Think about that: crockery! Is this really what you need to be throwing out during a garbage strike?! "Well, Mavis, this crockery's gone right off. Starting to smell. We'd best chuck it now, garbage strike or no."

People are fucked. And selfish. And did I mention fucked?

Transformers... LESS than meets the eye

The movie I'd wanted to see wasn't playing when I'd got to the theatre last night. I must have misread the listings. So we decided to see something--anything!--since we were there and in the mood for a film. So in to Transformers 2 we went, thinking "fun summer blockbuster".

Well, the phrase "absolute shit" does not begin to describe this thing. I mean, I know it's a kiddie-flick so I didn't expect high art, but nor did I expect such a homophobic, borderline racist, ugly piece of cinema. Imagine if Jar-Jar Binks had been split into two characters that were transforming cars. Shades of Step 'n' Fetch!

The pacing is dreadful. This thing is on par with Nightwatch. I couldn't tell where one act ended and another began, and I think there were four acts. There was no build towards climax. It was all climax. The effects were overwrought and over-designed. How the Transformers transform is never simply shown... it's all closeups and fast edits to hide that fact that the modelers never figured out how Car A could plausibly turn into Robot A. Um... they did it for the toys. It actually was physically done.

Also, when the robots are robots or vehicles makes just as little sense. Case in point... Optimus Prime needs to talk to Sam on the hush-hush. So he shows up near Sam's college as... gigantic robot, Optimus Prime! WTF?! Why not drive up as the truck, have Sam get in, have a conversation with him? Robots in disguise, anyone? Throughout this film, fast and loud trumps plausible. Robots transform to vehicles mid-battle and back again microseconds later. In fact, every damn thing is constantly transforming. Toasters, blenders, R/C cars, motorcycles, dumptrucks, planes... it's too much. Even hundreds of ball bearings transform into needlessly complicated little machines, for gawdssake. It's too much of everything, and it ends up just being a long, noisy mess.

Oh, there are humans in this film but you wouldn't know it. Megan Fox dresses slutty for the boys. Shia LeBeouf does his best "it's my destiny" gaze, reminding us he's now ruining two franchises (not that you could really ruin Transformers). John Turturro looks like he's regretting his trip to the Pyramids, but does contribute the only decent voice-acting for one of the Robots, sounding sort of like an octegenarian Alan Moore. Ramon Rodriguez plays a tough talking college boy who turns into a shrieking coward everytime something blows up near him. Which is often. Think Chris Tucker in The Fifth Element and you're getting close to how annoying this gets.

Two final thoughts. (1) This is a film about robots for kids. I challenge any kid to draw the robots. (2) this is a film to sell toys. Why then do the robots in the film not resemble the toys? Talk about a poor marketing plan.

If this is what popular entertainment has become, the robots can have the planet.

I Love You, SONY... but...

Bought a Walkman MP3 player last evening. Like the Walkman products of old, the venerable cassette Walkmans (Walkmen?), the quality is outstanding. As far as mp3 players go, the sound quality on this little 2G player (the now-discontinued NWZ-B135) is far better than that of any other player I've owned so far (and I've had a few). Better than the iPod Shuffle? Check. Better than the RCA Lyra? Hell, yeah. I bought and returned a Lyra about a year ago because the sound quality was so flat and tinny. Not this little SONY baby, though.

But, SONY, oh SONY, why do you insist (why does anyone even make?) in-ear headphones where the cable to one of the earbuds is shorter? I guess the assumption is that you will put the longer cable around the back of your neck. But I don't wanna! I hate wearing headphones that way! What's wrong with the nice, symmetrical pairs you still make and sell separately? Why package sub-standard headphones (I'm talking design, not sound quality hear) with your players? A bit of creative splicing/soldering is in order.

Overall review: a great little machine for $59.99. Not bad at all when you consider I paid $212.99 in 1987 (or the about 1/4 of my university tution that year, or nearly $400.00 in today's dollars) for a compact cassette Walkman which I must have played for a couple of hours every day for nearly 2-1/2 years. Another nice feature is the rechargeable battery on this new device. I don't even want to contemplate how much I spent on AAs for the cassette Walkman, nor how much mercury I've put into the landfills and the water table.

The Lap of Luxury?

May I present the Petiole Hammock... only $35,000.

I dunno about you, but I think sleeping on a huge pile of money would be more comfortable.

NIGHT(not)WATCH(ed)

I tried watching NIGHTWATCH, the "Russian Matrix" as it's been called. Terrible. Twenty-five minutes in I ejected the disc and that was the end of that.

It looked like it was made by someone who'd never seen a film in their life, and was full of all sorts of stupid, stupid details. Example. A guy starts his truck. Zoom into CGI of the crankshaft and ignition and the drive train as the motor turns over. What the FUCK?! That's not cool. That's just bad filmmaking. And the fight scenes I saw were edited to the point of being incomprehensible. Whatever happened to a few well-composed shots and some solid fight choreography?! (That's what the new STAR TREK had going for it in spades. The story and the cinematography were clear and uncluttered. There wasn't a billion things onscreen at once or confusing closeups or cut-aways. This was real filmmaking.)

Needless to say I won't be watching the sequel, DAYWATCH. Thankfully they were loaners from a friend. I'm glad I didn't waste money on renting or buying these.

A Wolf Loves Pork

Awesome!

Seems I'm not the only one...

As blue-eyed Benjamin would say, "Make with the click, ya crum-bum!"

http://io9.com/5169627/

Question of the day

Why the hell doesn't the blogspot text editor work properly? I get extra spaces betwen paragraphs, or no spaces. Just like in Outlook.

It's not like text editors haven't been around since the early days of computing! Grrr.

Apparently, Doctor Manhattan Can't Keep it Up

As per Variety, Watchmen's drop from its opening weekend is looking to be 67%. This doesn't surprise me. Watchmen seems to be a film only a fan of the graphic novel could love (or, in my case, admire for its ambition if not its execution). Everyone else, it seems, could care less.

Hopefully, the studios will back off on their rush to make every superhero movie "dark". I've been reading how, in the wake of The Dark Knight's success, the studios want to make Superman (Superman!) and the Fantastic Four darker. This only works when the character can naturally bear that interpretation, such as Batman. That said, I wasn't overly impressed with The Dark Knight. I'm not saying there shouldn't be grim superhero films, or that superhero films need to be childish; but are any properties less dark than Superman or The Fantastic Four?! You want to make a dark superhero movie about an indestructible, flying man with x-ray and heat vision? Fine. Just don't call it Superman. The Thing shouts "It's Clobberin' Time!" not "It's dismemberin' time!" or "It's knifin' time!"

Each superhero film should be its own thing, with its own sensibilities. If you homogenize these things and apply current trends, it's going to be the law of diminishing returns. We've seen that countless times in Hollywood. Every time something hits, we get a dozen knock-offs until the trends sputters out. (Shark movies, anyone? Breakdancing movies, anyone? Matrix-style fighting movies, anyone?) For my money the best superhero films are Iron Man, Spider-Man 2 (except the ridiculous bit where he takes of his mask and a subway car full of citizens agrees to keep his identity secret), Superman 2 (dated effects, corny as hell, but still fun) and The Invincibles (why no sequel?!)

Fingers crossed that the relatively poor performance of Watchmen will put at least a couple of nails into the coffin of the dark superhero film.

Who Tweets the Watchmen?

I’m not on Twitter (and probably never will be), but thought I’d try my hand at the format (140-characters or less per entry) and write my initial impressions of Watchmen:

* Too short. Should have been a 12-part HBO mini-series.

* Opening sequence: awesome. Hi, Warhol, Bowie, and Jagger! Fun subversion of iconic sailor-kiss photo.

* So ordinary, non-powered folks can punch through granite countertops, can they?

* Jackie Earle Haley is very, very good.

* Nite Owl looks WAY too much like Chevy Chase, ca. 1979. Distracts.

* Holy F, Malin Akerman is a terrible actress.

* Holy F, Mathew Goode is a terrible actor.

* Thanks for explaining The Doomsday Clock to me like I’m a complete fucking idiot.

* Adrian can see poison capsules in people’s mouths from five feet away! Other characters strangely not at all suspicious.

* Person who did old-age makeup effects obviously doesn’t know his craft. Doesn’t help that actors don’t act old.

* Hey! Where’d Hollis Mason go?!

* Cartoon violence and realistic violence don’t mix if your film has no sense of irony.

* I would have had my name taken off this film, too, Alan. Dave Gibbons on crack if he thinks this mess is good.

* Bad use of back-catalogue music to set emotional tone. Hire better actors!

* Adrian says he’s not a cartoon villain. No one told Matthew Goode that.

* Sex scene: pointless. Unsexy.

* Destruction of a big chunk of New York strangely unmoving. Bodies conveniently disintegrated.

* Small-scale brutal violence okay with director; large-scale not so much.

* Silk Spectre and Nite Owl kill people. What the F?!

* Three hours of life lost to this mess.

* Critics say "faithful" to original. Haven't read original, obviously.

* No more Alan Moore stories will be turned into Hollywood pap. Hooray!

Being Mr Angry

Someone I know writes a blog. He's quite a thoughtful writer, but the tone of his posts are suffused with anger, especially when it comes to his open hatred of anyone who is even remotely critical of films he likes (which tend to be mainstream franchises such as Indiana Jones and Star Wars). This got me thinking about how much energy this person seems to fritter away worrying that others may not like what he likes, angry that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull just won a Razzie Award for "worst sequel, prequel or rip-off", and penning venomous letters to the editors of NOW Magazine upbraiding the film critic who (gasp!) dared to say that Zac and Miri Make a Porno wasn't a very good film.

My questions for this blogger (and the many others out there like him):

1. If you like something, does having someone not like it take away from your enjoyment of it? If so, how? More importantly, why? Is it some need to feel accepted or validated, to know that your choice of entertainments is shared by others? Perhaps it's the feeling that if something you love doesn't make oodles of box office loot there won't be more of the same in your future, but this can be disproven by history. Since Star Wars in 1977, has there been a dearth of popular (and almost popular, and unpopular) franchise films? Hardly.

2. Aren't critics paid to be critical, or ostensibly offer up their criticism of something they see as sub-standard? Isn't that what he or she is paid to do? Should we do away with criticism and allow the studios and the Marketing Boffins to help us decide what to see? Should all the reviews adopt the 680 News format, with a disinterested announcer merely reading a plot summary or a blurb from a press release?

I've often thought what the angry people of the world could do if they inverted that energy and turned it into creativity. If they spent even a small fraction of the time they spend being angry about critics and other public opinion on creating their own fictions, films, TV shows, there would be plenty of things to watch and read. Some of them might even be good.

Oh, and for the record, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Zac and Miri Make a Porno were both shitty films. Guess I'll be on someone's hate-list for saying so. Only thing is, I don't care.

More thoughts on fictional continuity

You know how you think about or write about something, and the very next day you read something related? That's what happened today, that weird synchronicity. Yesterday I blogged about continuity, and today, I came across these.

http://oneofthejonesboys.wordpress.com/2009/01/24/capturing-continuity/

http://oneofthejonesboys.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/capturing-continuity-ii-this-time-its-personal/

A wonderful set of postings, with more to come. Check 'em out.

To Freely Go Where No Geek Has Gone Before....

A friend blogged about JJ Abram's new Star Trek film, expressing the idea that exploring the original characters with new actors might just work.

Which got me thinking about continuity. This is a case where a prequel might actually work. Don't ask me to name another film where I think this is true. But doing it for Star Trek it frees JJ and makers from the albatross of continuity, which is something I think sci-fi and comics fans worry WAAAAAAAAAY too much about.

Imagined conversation after the screening:

GEEK 1: Was it a good story?

GEEK 2: Yes.

GEEK 1: Was it true to the essence of the characters?

GEEK 2: Yes.

GEEK 1: Was it respectful of the orginal intent or did it extrapolate on ideas of the original? [this is how we non-geeks imagine geeks talk amongst themsleves]

GEEK 2: Yes.

GEEK 1: Did you like it?

GEEK 2: Hell, No! Kirk's outfit was the wrong shade of yellow.

Incognito #2

It's always nice to see something that succesfully reworks tired cliches into something new and exciting. Such is the case with Incognito, the ICON/Marvel comic series from Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. It successfully grafts film noir and pulp sensibilities onto a modern superhero comic, and never once does it feel forced, or that the creative team is trying too hard. Reading this gave me the same buzz I got when I was 12 and reading the Bantam Doc Savage paperbacks for the first time, no small feat. Comic-wise, I haven't enjoyed comics this much since my first encounter with Moore and O'Neill's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

If you like superheroes, pulp fiction, film noir; or if you're just a fan of excellent storytelling, pick this one up. You won't be disappointed. Oh, and don't wait for the trade paperback! Like Criminal, Incognito has text articles that will only be in the monthlies. Brubaker has tapped Jess Nevins to write about pulp heroes of the past. Issue #1 had a text piece on The Shadow. I had no idea that the written character and the radio incarnation were two very different characters. Fascinating. Issue #2 has an bit on Doc Savage, with Philips doing a fantastic James Bama-inspired watercolour portrait of the Man of Bronze.

What are you waiting for? Stop reading this and get yourself Icognito ASAP.

[Geek mode off]

That's an "Albert"

Having recently decided to watch all of Hitchcock's films, it didn't take long to bump into a bad one. The Wrong Man. Slow, a plodding performance by Henry Fonda, and none of the thrills that are the hallmark of good Hitchcock films.

I have decided to attribute all the poor Hitchcock films to "Albert Hitchcock", Alfred's less-talented brother.

Can anyone suggest some Alberts I might want to pass on?

(Far) Stranger than Fiction

I had someone recently ask me if the posts about writers responding to my ad looking for a writing partner were real responses, or if I'd written them for a lark.

Yes, they are verbatim replies. From people who seriously consider themselves to be writers.

I'm going to repost the ad soon, as I haven't found a suitable collaborator. I'm sure there will be more insane replies to post here soon. Stay chooned.

Question of the Day

Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler, Pi, Requiem for a Dream) is set to direct a Robocop reboot.

http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1591705/story.jhtml

Why?

Of Time I Won't Get Back and the City

What crack are critics who recommend Of Time and the City, the documentary about Liverpool, England, smoking? It was nothing but shot after shot of mundane things (graffiti, ferries, broken windows, washer-women, women pushing prams, statues), thrown together without pace or rhythm. The narration (by director Terrance Davies, pictured above) did nothing to add to the proceedings. He told the start of a coming out story which went nowhere, there was an odd interlude that had something to do with the Korean War, and lots of trite nonsense about his falling out with the Church. Oh, and a few really clever quotes by Marx and Engels. Deep.

This documentary wasn't about anything as far as I could tell. It wasn't a town's history, it wasn't a personal history, it wasn't a history of social change or postindustrialism, it wasn't a history of the architecture of the place. I am not sure what it was, but I am sure it wasn't very good.

Save your $8.

You're (not) hired!

And yet another response from outside of Toronto to my request for a local writing partner. This one from (drum roll, please...) The Philippines! Here's his stellar script:

#2 Knights

Sir Bruno comes home victorious against the barbarian Horde and was having a good ol' time chatting about the fight.

When the crowd went home only he and the Bartender are left. Both still drinking they are actually childhood friends.

Barkeep: "Come on Bruno, you expect me to believe that You alone defeated that Barbarian tribe with your bare hands? I saw the guy and he looked liked he could rape an Elephant!"

Sir Bruno: "Actually when the duel began he choked from his long beard when he shouted a battlecry, I just run there and shoved whats left of his beard to his mouth and pretended to choke him while yelling to the top of my lungs."

Wha--?! And here's his "resumé" (his word):

Resumé: Im a 26 years old and currently works for the government as a clerk. I watched a lot of movies and animes. My humor is based on what happens around us and sometimes from movies. if you need scripts I got them in my head ^_^.

Fuckin' hell. That's impressive. Maybe I'll hook this lad up with the producers of 24.

To make up for my grumpiness...

I've been posting a fair bit about things I don't like. Well, here's a couple of things I do like. A lot. Have a listen.

Resonance FM:
http://resonancefm.com/

WFMU:
http://www.wfmu.org/

Bad TV: False Tension on 24

I was using my computer to author a DVD the other night, so it was out of commission for an hour and half… what’s a boy to do but turn to that most antiquated of entertainments? Yes, television. I found that Rogers on Demand had the new season of 24 up. I’m not a fan, and watching episodes one and two of the new season made me remember why. Is there a single show on television that relies more on false tension than 24? Rather than real tension that comes out of great writing and acting [1], false tension is the use of hoary cliches to ramp up the drama. And it just doesn’t work.

Examples from the first two hours of this season:

1. Jack is brought into FBI headquarters to help with a case. He says he’s not interested. The FBI agent says it involves someone Jack knows. Cut to computer screen where we see a low-res image of a face slowly enhanced to reveal the person Jack knows. Bullshit. The FBI has had this file for awhile. They know who the person is. Why is their computer set to slowly render the image for Jack? Why not just show Jack the hi-res enhancement right off? False tension in action.

2. Terrorists plug a box the size of a Playstation into a computer and take over all the air traffic controls in the U.S. Okay, maybe that’s possible, suspension of disbelief and all that. So as a warning that they have this technology, they put two planes on a collision course. The planes, shown filled with businessmen and families, zoom towards each other. But, at the last second, the pilot in one plane is instructed by the terrorists to “pull up”, averting the collision. Now you could say this is a subversion of the audiences’ expectation that the planes will crash, or, you could call “Bullshit: false tension!” on this. It felt manipulative to me, so I choose the latter. At least the terrorists in Die Hard 2 made good on their threat by actually crashing a plane.

3. A sniper is trapped in a building surrounded by FBI agents. One of the agents goes into the basement where the sniper has managed to hide. A typical cat-and-mouse walk around supporting columns ensues, ending with the sniper and FBI agent face to face, pointing their guns at each other. “I’m here to get you out,” says the agent. Bullshit. No one with an ounce of sense would plan an extraction this way. So many things could go wrong… the sniper has no idea who the agent is and could have easily shot him before he had a chance to reveal himself as help. One of the hundred other agents could have found the sniper first. Oh, wait. It’s that damned false tension again. And so it goes…

24 is a substandard actioner if ever there was. Characters waiting anxiously for files to download isn’t drama. Text on computer screens that give away plot points (“deleting secret files”) isn’t drama. It’s just… yep, false tension (and bad writing). I won’t be watching hours 3-24. Though, if anyone is willing to take my bet, I’ll put a c-note on Jack saving the world.

-----
[1] See the first season of The Shield for a perfect example of this, the episode where closeted homosexual police officer Julian confronts an armed suspect while not wearing his standard-issue bullet-proof vest. The suggestion here is that he is so conflicted about being gay that part of him feels he deserves to die. Knowing Julian’s backstory, his taunting of the armed man is incredibly powerful stuff. And the whole season goes on like this, ratcheting up the tension through character moments until you think it can't possibly get any more tense, then ratcheting it up some more.

Yeah, I figured out how to embed vids...

Tell me this ain't catchy. FANTASTIC video editing job, too.

Wonderwall by way of Songsmith

There are really no words for how wonderfully awful this is. Songsmith is a piece of Microsoft software that allows you to sing into it, then creates the backing music for you. Some brave souls dumped the vocal from Wonderwall into and this is the result. Would have been top-10 in 1983.

The Ten Commandments of Podcasting

I’ve been listening to lots of podcasts lately and for the most part it has been a very enjoyable experience. While I’m all for the do-it-yourself, non-commercial ethos of podcasting, there are some general areas where most enthusiast-produced podcasts fall short. To that end, I present my highly-subjective, perhaps slightly curmudgeonly, “ten commandments of podcasting”.

1. Thou shalt identify your podcast within its first 15 to 30 seconds. I cannot begin to tell you how frustrating it is to try to figure out what I’m listening to, especially if I’ve put the podcasts onto my Shuffle-type mp3 player. A simple identifying tag off the top, such as “My Podcast, episode 15”, would be very much appreciated. The exception for which thou shalt be forgiven: if you lead in with a song. But I’d still prefer the tag first.

2. Thou shalt keep podcasts to a reasonable length. Two-hour podcasts?! And you’re not playing music?! Pass, thanks! I have a fairly long attention span, but if a topic is worth discussing for two hours, why not break it up over several episodes? For me, the sweet spot is about 30 minutes. If you have an eclectic podcast covering many topics each episode, does it need so many segments in one show? If the Learning Company can give a pretty good overview of an incredibly complex topic like world religions in 20 one-hour lectures, surely to God you don’t need six hours to talk about the latest CSI episode. Less is more.

3. Thou shalt get to the point, for fuck’s sake. Do not blather on about what you ate for lunch or where you live, unless your podcast is about what you eat for lunch or where you live. I went to listen to a podcast this morning which was ostensibly about Aleister Crowley, and the hosts rambled on about their hometown and the dampness in the studio and their haircuts and fuck-knows what else for ages. There was no discussion of Crowley until about 14 minutes in! Edit, people!

4. If thou hast sponsors, thou shalt keep their ads to 30 seconds or fewer. So you got a sponsor or two to help cover your equipment or bandwidth costs. Fantastic. But the tags for those sponsors shouldn’t run more than half a minute each. Surely you’ve seen TV ads and heard radio ads? Brevity is key here. SomeComicShop.com has sponsored you? Okay. Tell me where they are and (briefly) what they sell. I don’t need to know that SomeComicShop.com has… “manga, monster manga, giant robot manga, oversize manga, manga collections, cosplay manga, Japanese schoolgirl manga, futuristic motorcycle manga, post-apocalyptic manga, octopus manga, manga-related toys including monsters, giant robots, futuristic motorcycles, octopi” etc. etc. SomeComicShop.com sells manga and related toys. Got it.

5. Though shalt check the audio quality before it gets to my ears. If it’s unintelligible to you, why are you subjecting me to it? You obviously want to communicate something. Why else would you be making a podcast? Learn to use your recording equipment. Set levels appropriately. Practice your microphone technique. These are all simple skills to master. If I download one of your podcasts and it is unlistenable due to some technical fault, I won’t be downloading subsequent episodes.

6. Thou shalt normalize. You recorded your podcast and, by whatever means you used, it ended up as a digital file. Now take an extra five minutes to normalize the volume. This is especially important if you’ve got multiple segments or used different recording sources in your podcasts. Audacity, the excellent audio editing freeware, makes this simple. If I find that I am constantly fiddling with my mp3 player’s volume control while listening to your podcast, I’m not coming back for more.

7. Thou shalt tell me the band name and the song titles on the podcast. Don’t make me refer to your website. I’m usually listening on the go. Having play lists on your website is a boon, especially for someone like me who loves lists, but don’t let that be only place I can get the info.

8. Thou shalt not talk over each other. Learn some simple interview techniques. It will make your show much more appealing. And do you really need half a dozen guys in the studio all vying to be the funniest or smartest guy on the podcast? As well, please don’t chatter or cough or unwrap biscuits during songs if you’ve got a music podcast. There’s no excuse for this. It doesn’t make the show sound hip or intimate. It makes it sound sloppy and amateurish.

9. Thou shalt remember thine medium. It’s audio. I can’t see what gestures you are making with your hands. I can’t see the latest [insert object here] if you hold it up to the mic. And, unless you’re a particularly logical and eloquent instructor, I don’t think I’m going to be downloading in your origami-making podcast. Use descriptions. Keep it simple.

And finally…

10. Thou shalt not make me go through iTunes. If that’s the only way I can get your podcast, I won’t hear it. I’m sure I’m not alone in this.

Cheers.

Not a vibrator (but still exciting)...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7851989.stm

And the Oscar had better go to...

Listen. Read.

The first issue of Incognito, the newest comic series by writer Ed Brubaker and the inimitable artist Sean Philips is out now. Here's how Ed describes it:

Incognito is a noir pulp story about a super villain hiding who he really is in a witness protection program, but he tires of trying to live a suppressed ‘ordinary life’... It's like when the film Goodfellas ended. I wanted to see what happens next, when the bad guy can't take his forced normal life anymore.

I've read issue #1. It is on par with anything from the Brubaker-Philips team, and that's high praise indeed, with Sleeper and the ongoing Criminal both being excellent series. How the hell Philips draws so fast and keeps the quality this high is beyond me. (If you're chained to a desk against your will, hooked into a coffee and cocaine IV drip, Sean, I'm sorry, but I'll have to side with the publishers and keep you there cranking the stuff out...)

Hear Ed talk about Incognito and his other projects on the Wordballoon podcast here:

http://media.libsyn.com/media/wordballoon/WBbruincognito.mp3

Great things about Toronto #1

Click on the graphic and get out there and support live theatre!

Makes you proud to live here, dunnit? And nice to know that there's more to the theatre scene than Happy Days: The Musical.

Grant's Advice

A riter's hard-sell

I reproduce here an entire Email from a would-be writing partner:

I could be someone to bounce ideas off. Although I really have nothing to bring to the table but my incredible copy-and-paste talent.

I'll just cut-and-paste this one into the recycle bin...

Dear Mr. Obama,

Do a good job.

Or I may just have to NiceCritic you.

How touchy-effing-feely of you

http://lifehacker.com/5134177/nicecritic-sends-awkward-messages-anonymously

Jesus H.! Are we becoming so deathly afraid of personal contact or offending someone that it has come to this?! God forbid we confront someone directly, or find a tactful way to say something about what may be a sensitive issue for someone else. God forbid we interact!

The creators of this service should be told that this is complete bullshit. I'd do it, if only it was one of the pre-chosen messages I could send anonymously through their service. I wouldn't want anyone to think that I, personally, had a problem with anything...