A place to share my love of music, film, books, and comics, and photography (mainly of motorsport)It all sites alongside my main blog on marketing, social media and seo at http://www.thewayoftheweb.net and my videogame blogs at www.hotmodmedia.com
I'm on Twitter at @badgergravling
Goosebumps every time, especially as I was there for this one…
Surprise! @LizJonesSomalia is a fake! Oh wow. No-way! Pah! Who knew?
About two thirds of you, actually - which is great, because if I’d got 50 negative replies a minute I’d have stopped a long time ago. I’m genuinely delighted that so many people get the joke and totally appreciative of the…
Spent much of the day ripping CDs and putting them back away in boxes… For some reason, Closing Time by Semisonic stood out amongst the random assortment which ranged from the Smashing Pumpkins to the Prodigy.
Just waiting to get a new 1TB hard drive to finish the job before I use up all my laptop space, and looking at online space as a backup…
I absolutely loathe remakes of films and movies
I’ve recently been reminded of why I utterly loathe the habit of remaking a good TV series or film either becuase the original is old, and noone wants to watch something filmed with classic actors in just 2D anymore, or because audiences are too stupid to bother with subtitles.
Some cases in point:
- Shameless: Not only is it wasting what could have been productive time for an actor as talented as William H Macy, but More4 are reimporting back to English views. FFS - not only is Shameless original English, and incredibly popular, but it was even on Channel 4!
- Wallander: A great Swedish detective series rooted in Scandinavian society and values. So because you couldn’t really transplant it to the UK, instead the BBC shipped out Kenneth Branagh and co to act as the world’s most expensive and confusing subtitle replacements, speaking English whilst watching Swedish TV and holding Swedish newspapers.
- The Killing: See Wallander. It was great because of the ways Danish society affected the storyline, you muppets.
- Taxi: It was a fun French car film, which grew into more absurdity in it’s sequels. But nothing quite absurd as Queen Latifah as a high-speed taxi driver chasing supermodels with blue screen techniques from the 1950s behind her. Just check out the original and the scooter chase for the difference.
- Get Carter: Because obviously Michael Caine and Newcastle could be replaced by Sly Stallone.
- Alfie: Replace Sly Stallone with Jude Law and you get the idea.
And there are so, so many more. And yet apparently Hollywood has something like 50 or 75 remakes currently underway…
It’s actually much harder to think of some good ones…
I don’t just do rock music you know… And given the current heatwave in the UK, it seemed appropriate to revist one of the cheeriest tunes I’ve owned. Somehow it led to being a teenage heavy metal fan who also spent time hanging out with a couple of happy hardcore fans and listening to the likes of Slipmatt and Dougal.
Even stranger, about 10 years later I ended up working on a website with a guy called Matt who turned out to have a bit of a history as a DJ. And by a ‘a bit of a history’, it turned out that I actually owned some of his records!
Watched ‘Up In The Air’ last night, and though it was pretty good, although not brilliant. George Clooney always seems to fall into the ‘suave mature business executive’ role, and he did a reasonable job of it, but he didn’t necessarily give much impression of anything going on behind his charming smile. Anna Hendricks was great as the young starter at the company, and Vera Farmiga was also a good female lead…
The film itself centres around Clooney as Ryan Bingham, an exec sent to companies to do the firing of employees. He’s in the air almost every day, hence the title, and comes under threat from Hendrick’s character suggesting teleconferencing as a cost-saving alternative. Meanwhile he falls for Vera Farmiga as a fellow exec constantly on planes…
And that’s about it. It’s got some nice amusing moments, Farmiga and Hendricks are certainly not unpleasant to watch, and it’s funny seeing a film (Originally based on a Walter Kirn) which espouses living out of a backpack, when so many techy people are now selling their possessions and doing exactly that!
It’s a good film, nicely shot, and making the most of the actors and their locations, but I don’t quite get the reviews which have said it’s full of emotion - hidden emotion, maybe, but neither Clooney or Farmiga go beyond the consumate professionalism of the executive class….
A great covering of Kate Bush’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ by China Drum….
It’s quite funny that I came to science fiction properly as a fan in my 20s, mainly spurred by my interest in the internet. I’d actually spent most of my early teens reading fantasy novels, following the traditional route of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, and moving onto the Dungeons and Dragons related series, which were a bit like the Mills & Boon of the fantasy world.
At some point I’d encountered a William Gibson book or two and quite liked them, but re-reading them after I’d encountered the internet was a revelation which has led to going through the Gibson catalogue, and at the same time, I’d started reading Cory Doctorow.
Through Doctorow I’d heard the name Charles Stross, and browsing a local charity shop I stumbled on The Hidden Family, so took a chance.
And it’s pretty good. Ironically it turns out Stross started writing articles for roleplaying magazine White Dwarf, so I’d probably actually read his stuff when I was dabbling in painting figurines. The Hidden Family is actually the second in the Merchant Princes series, about clans which can transport themselves between parallel worlds, which have diverged over time to offer alternate levels of technology and progress. The heroine, Miriam, has grown up in our world, only to discover her lineage in an alternate world which is more feudal than ours, but which has access to our reality sufficient enough to set up businesses and merchant routes, hence the title.
It’s interesting in that rather than revelling in the immense detail Gibson puts into clothes, vehicles and gadgets, Stross puts the same effort into the business models for inter-reality trading. But it’s not an economics story, as there’s plenty of action, and also some light relief and comedy in the portrayal of the various worlds.
It’s definitely good enough for me to search out the rest of the series, even if it means paying full price rather than hoping they’ll appear in the local charity shop!
Great example of one genre I always love - noisy punky songs with great lyrics. In this case it’s ‘You’re Wrong’ by NOFX, which is perfect to send to people or organisations you disagree with. Or just blasting loudly from the car
