Currently Listening to...

...The Social Network soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. It's a terrific disc of dense music, packed with lots of slippery electronics and surges. It's one the best things Reznor has done. Like all good soundtracks it enhances the film without distracting. Yet this soundtrack is not uninspired background music. On the headphones, devoid of image, it's a terrifically engaging work.

Filmmakers often use songs to put viewers into the emotional headspace of characters or convey specific emotions. It's a cheap shortcut, one I call "soundtrack over substance". Watchmen is a film loaded with examples of this. The director and producers didn't even have the good sense to license much of music which was directly quoted in the comic, or they changed the scenes so much that when they did use music quoted in the comic, it made no sense in the context of the film. The comic shows two characters approaching an Antarctic fortress on hover bikes. Author Alan Moore imaginatively quotes "All Along the Watchtower": "...two riders were approaching/ And the wind began to howl." The film uses the same music, but the characters are walking towards the fortress, so the lyrics now don't mirror the action, and it becomes an "I wonder why they used Jimi Hendrix here?" moment. The use of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" over an overly-long sex scene was just schmaltz.

Doctor Who broke with tradition last season and used a song under a scene wherein Vincent Van Gogh is transplanted temporarily to the 21st century to see a retrospective of his own work. While the perfectly serviceable song by Athlete didn't ruin the scene, I'm not convinced the scene needed such an obvious musical punch, not with Matt Smith, Bill Nighy, Tony Curran, terrific actors all, and the luminous Karen Gillen onscreen.

Some films make great use of songs. Magnolia manages to nicely avoid sentimentality by having the characters lip-sync one of the wonderful Aimee Mann tunes. Basquiat uses period songs evocatively, not literally. Trainspotting busts out "Lust for Life" as an ironic anthem for the "upside" of herion use.

Quentin Tarantino, Oliver Stone, Guy Ritchie, and David Lynch all use songs to complement or contrast action and dialogue. Using "Bang Bang" by Nancy Sinatra to Open Kill Bill Volume 1 was inspired, as was re-purposing "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" by David Bowie for Inglorious Basterds. Julee Cruise's vocals added more layers of dread and loss to Twin Peaks.

I'm happy David Fincher and the producers commissioned a proper score for The Social Network, and didn't just fill the film with assorted songs from the years covered in the film. With dialogue like Sorkin's why would you let song lyrics speak for the characters?

The Social Network soundtrack is up there with the soundtracks for Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters and The Hours, both by Phillip Glass; and Mike Oldfield's score for The Killing Fields. What are your favourites?

RIP Dexter

That's it. I'm out. Dexter season five has far too many plot holes and "what the hell--?" moments. To watch any further will just annoy me.

It's been an up and down ride. We went from the brilliant expansion of the slight novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter in season one, through the overlapping but opposite obsessions of Doakes and Lila in season two, then down into a sludgy season three nearly derailed by the bombast of Miguel and a completely lacklustre foe called, I think, the Skinner, who was never explained or explored. Season four saw a return to form thanks to a cohesive story, a grotesquely dark turn from John Lithgow as Trinity, and an unexpected final scene.

Which brings me to the end, my arbitrary end, one-third of the way through season five. This is not the Dexter I've come to enjoy and expect. It's horribly unfocused yet everything is telegraphed. Most the characters are chasing their own tails because the writers can't think of anything new to do with them, or can't be arsed to expand on established traits or plot points from previous seasons. And, just in case you're too slow to follow the meandering story or Dexter's internal monologue, don't worry: Harry, aka The Ghost of Plot Present, will pop up to keep you on track.

Even this episode's "huge reveal" at the end won't bring me back. I've taken my blood slide, already chopped up the body, and taken down the plastic...

Fringe: Not to be Negative, Man...

In early issues of the Doom Patrol (DC Comics), The Chief recounts how Larry Trainor became the Negative Man.

CHIEF: I know how and why you became an outsider--a strange one! Disaster struck as you tested the K2-F, the experimental rocket plane that flew higher than any manned aircraft had ever gone... You lost ground contact... blacked out! For hours your jet skimmed through the still uncharted wave belts of inner space until it suddenly began to nose downward..."

Larry crash-lands the plane, only to find that a "negative energy being" has merged with his own body.

The Negative Man looks like this...

In Fringe, season 2, episode 6, "Earthling", A man sent to space came back with a dark entity in him. Walter learns that the man and the entity are connected and cannot be separated. The entity looks like this:

Swipe or homage? Discuss.

Fringe - another "homage"

Challengers of the Unknown No. 1 (April-May, 1958), DC Comics:

This is how the thieves get in... beamed through the walls...

Fringe, season 1, episode 10: Thieves steal scientific equipment. They enter and leave undetected. How? Beamed through the walls, of course!

I'm digging all these swipes. More as I find them.

Even with the cars, it's beautiful.

Photgrapher: Jason Allies. Source: BlogTO

Infantilization #3

I like Lifehacker (lifehacker.com), but sometimes the articles are ridiculous. One recent article was entitled, "How to Safely Disinfect and Clean Your Gadgets". One commenter, too stupid to realize we have products like dish soap asks,

Any DIY receipe for the iKlenz rather than paying $20 for water and a bit of some secret ingredients? [grammar and spelling uncorrected]

Really?!

If your readers really are this dim, Lifehacker, I would like to propose the following articles:

• Top Ten Tools to Help You Replace a Light Bulb (and how you can purchase them from me)
  
• Sneezing 101
• How to Hold Things
• Using Bar Soap
• Use Electrical Tape to Mark Your Toilet Brush and Ensure You Don't Use it to Wash Your Car, Scrub Your Back, or Brush Your Teeth
• Use a Proper Stance to Increase Your Unplugging Force
• Get Up: What to Do After You Fall Down
• What Could the Phone Ringing Mean? (a ten-part series)
• Using a Keyboard to Type
• Pencils and Eyes: Natural Enemies?
• How to Baby-Proof Blankets
  

Fringe, s03e04: Fringe Lite

This episode felt like filler. I was jolted from my torpor only by the few false starts, wherein Peter says something that could be interpreted as him having figured out that Fauxlivia has replaced Olivia, but then those comments turn out to be about some other things, and Fauxlivia heaves a sigh of relief.

I'm still not sure why Fauxlivia was put in charge of the other-dimension's forces on this side when it has been shown time and time again that Newton was doing a pretty decent job and was extremely capable and single-minded (in this episode he kills agents who deviate from the mission). Now he's just a pile of goo/mercury and Fauxlivia has upped her resolve, giving herself to Peter physically in an attempt to keep him distracted. M'eh.

Despite a few comedic moments with Walter and Astrid, and a couple of tiny revelations about the Shape-Shifters, this episode didn't do much for me. The idea that "Shape Shifters could be impersonating people in power and could have been doing so for years" is a such tired sci-fi cliche, it no longer instills the intended dread in viewers. Well, at least not in this viewer.

Knob-ends Add Homemmade Sharrows to McDonnell Ave

So... someone, or a group, painted two way-sharrows on McDonnell Avenue, a one-way street in the west end of the city.

Read the full article on Blog T.O.

Fuckin' Hell. I cannot believe people would act so irresponsibly! I hope the cops find the idiots who did this and give them the maximum penalty.

Guerrilla road-markings have no place in our city. Apart from the obvious--potentially causing serious accidents--they don't foster good relations between cyclists and drivers, many of whom already believe cyclists are taking up more than their share of the road.

Just because you, part-time Guerrilla Painter and full-time Selfish Prick, may want to ride against the traffic on a one-way street because it's a convenient way for you to get to work or wherever, doesn't mean you should be allowed paint a directional arrow and then do it! It's... What's the word I'm looking for? Oh, yes: illegal! Also, for nearly each one-way street in this city there are others nearby, parallel to it, usually going in the opposite direction. You're on a bike; those streets are often under a minute away.

Hey, Perpetrators, what if drivers decided to follow your example, painting over legit sharrows, or removing stop signs to expedite their travel? Sharrows have improved every road they've been put on. Don't diminish their effectiveness by painting your own! Don't make drivers guess which ones are legit and which ones aren't! Roads, whether you're driving a car or riding a bike, are no place for guesswork.

Two Alan Moore items

1. A TV project.

Yay! and

2. A comics store in Florida refuses to sell Neonomicon.

Boo! I mean, it's a free country, sell what you like, but why the need to label Moore's sexual philophies as "bizarre"? Neonomicon is fiction; perhaps the sexual philosophies being espoused belong to the characters, not the author?

More troubling is the blog posting's title, "Secret Headquarters Censors Alan Moore And Jacen Burrows’ Neonomicon". Someone might want to look up the meaning of the "censor".

The Event Canceled

After one episode. By me.