Mornington Crescent: Read any good books lately?

Game 26:

"Read any good books lately?"

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I Say, Porter!: [Simons/Gramit] Yes.
Wol: [Simons/Gramit/IS,P!] Or rather, no. Actually, I can't address the point head-on, because I am not familiar with this Worm Ouroboros of which you speak. But I didn't find FP at all hard work; It's an amusing, intelligent page-turner of the highest order.
I must also plug The Great Before by Ross Clark. Available in no good bookshops, although Amazon and the publisher (er, Ross Clark) can help. It's a satire in the good, old-fashioned sense (think Gulliver's Travels), being a narrative letter written to us in the present by an academic in a post-apocalyptic future: not a nuclear apocalypse, but an economic, population and social collapse coupled with a counter-industrial revolution. Clark is a journalist (of the humorist/polemicist variety), and a master of observation and lateral thinking; there's plenty of material for wry smiles, and more, as well as stark horror in the book, and despite its somewhat even pace (which readers of Gulliver's Travels, Pilgrim's Progress, etc may recognise), a rather touching ending gives the whole book an emotional depth which I did not expect as I embarked on it. Really - do search it out.
Bif: [Grammit] If she isn't having fun, why carry on? I'll bet she has got to the chapter entitled Koshtra Pivrarcha. This is where many people lose hope and either shoot themselves or the book. I found it very heavy going with an okay pay-off at the end that was telegraphed for about half the book. The others^* in the 'series' were equally hard going but a bit more rewarding. I read them when I was 17 and only re-read TWO once, just to see if I could, around 1984. I suggest she move on with a merry "Begonne from myne sight, vyle tome! Verily A hath tried m'patience and them some". Focault's Pendulum can be very tedious too, but doesn't have all that 'orrible 17th century writing style to get past.
*
- Mistress of Mistresses
- A Fish Dinner in Memison
- The Mezentian Gate (unfinished, much in note form interpolated into the narrative)
Newkid: Just dived back into His Dark Materials trilogy. Hoping its as good as it was first time round, though it does seem rather obviously more childish. Mind, the first time I read them I was on morphine for broken ribs...
Raak: I think The Worm Ouroboros and the other three (which form a trilogy in themselves, but are only loosely connected with Ouroboros) are wonderful, so of course everyone else should press on and read them right through. The language is like that all the way, though. This is how an Eddisonian hero admits to not being an early riser, and desires hair of the dog for a hangover:
"Truly I was seldom so uncivil as surprise Madam Aurora in her nightgown. And the thrice or four times I have been forced thereto, taught me it is an hour of crude airs and mists which breed cold dark humours in the body, an hour when the torch of life burns weakest. Within there! bring me my morning draught."
WO is online, btw, although why at sacred-texts.com I'm not sure.
Bif: It's also on litrix. Link in the limerick game.
Bif: And it has to be said that the names chosen for the six major powers in TWO were, when all is said and done, poor choices that distract at first. I lost some of the action in MoM because of the florid language the first time through, completely missing Fiorinda's (?) transformation in Lessingham's arms into something quite different than he expected because I read it as a metaphor instead of an actual occurence. Still, the work is intended to be read in the dialect it was presented in. It's not for everyone though, and I would suspect increasingly inaccessible to younger audiences despite the availability on the web.
ImNotJohn: An Inconvenient Truth What nfras said. Not great cinema (after all, it's really just a powerpoint presentation), and I found Gore to a bit obviously manipulative of the medium at times, but it's compelling viewing for the content. It's also not a counsel of despair - his major point is that there are things that can be done which are worth doing. He's also got a great first line . Go and see it.
Wol: Great first lines: a book I got for my little daughter had me howling with laughter at the first page, and I still haven't properly explained to her why it's funny. It goes:
"Zigby and his friend Bird were playing basketball. 'I'm bored of being the basket', Bird said. 'Can we do something else now?'"
Bif: [First lines] I've always been partial to Ray Bradbury's opener for The Silver Locusts (aka The Martian Chronicles) in the first short story 'Ylla'.
Bif: Although now I come to actually think about it, the book actually opens with a Vignette called 'Rocket Summer', so I suppose it doesn't work any more.
Darren: I've come to the conclusion that the least imaginative opening lines all take the form "X. Y X," where X and Y are any two words you like. "Cats. Everywhere cats." "Son. My son." "Pies. Space pies." "Crescent. Mornington Crescent." I'm surprised Gore's film didn't start "Truth. Inconvenient truth."
Breadmaster: I want to read a book that begins "Pies. Space pies."
Simons Mith: [Darren] Methinks the Bulwer-Lytton mob will be wanting words with you very soon.
Trog: [Breadmaster]We could write it here - Game 317?
Darren: Incidentally, it did occur to me that "Bond, James Bond" falls into that category, although that's not strictly an opening line.
Darren: Oh, and the "space pies" story should include at least one reference to Alexei Sayle's inspired, "Pies, pies! The sky is all pies!"
Darren: We could even do, "For pity's sake, child, tie down the moons of Jupiter!"
Breadmaster: [Pies] Could be fun - if we could do it justice!
Breadmaster: Come to think of it, maybe a story/game where every line has to take that form. Or perhaps that wouldn't be workable. Silly. Too silly.
Darren: I was starting to think it would make a good subject for this year's NaNoWriMo, although I already have two other ideas arguing in my head about this year's novel.
rab: Little Miss Sunshine is the funniest film that I've seen in ages, certainly the only one that I didn't want to end. I don't want to say too much about the plot, for risk of spoiling it already, so I'll just refer the curious to Philip French's review. I concur with him that it's very well acted, and that you eventually feel sympathy for all the characters, no matter how obnoxious, unpleasant or miserable they may have appeared to begin with. But most importantly, it had me, and everyone else in the cinema, in stitches throughout. Highly recommended although probably not, I should think, family viewing.
Hugo Rune: [Opening Lines] I refer the interested to Adam Cadre's Lyttle Lytton contest. A game based on this premise would be fun I think.
ImNotJohn: 2 films this weekend. Projoy has already said most of what needs saying about The Queen. I read the portrayals of both Blair and Prince Charles as slightly more positive than he did, but generally I agree with him. One false note (small spoiler) . Helen Mirren does a good job and her accent is nicely pitched somewhere between RP and ER's actual voice.
Saw Etre et Avoir on DVD as well. I don't know if it was reviewed when it came out, but it's a sheer delight from beginning to end. It's a fly on the wall documentary of half a year at a small (one class; ages 3 or 4 up to 11-12) rural school in the Auvergne in France. You feel you're getting a slice of a sort of life whose days must be numbered. There are about 400 of these schools left in France, my guess would be in the tens for the UK. There is a subtitled version, but if your French is good enough, you'll get more out of the VO - there's a real laugh out loud moment when the teacher is doing 'son ami' 'son amie', which I would guess is untranslateable.
Projoy: [INJ] I reviewed it, in similar terms to you. Great stuff. Conversely, I watched Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (the first one) on DVD, on the basis that I'd better catch up and see it before watching the sequel. Not going to bother watching the sequel now. No idea what all the fuss was about.
Darren: [Projoy] Well, I liked both the Pirates movies so far, but perhaps it helps if you know the various Disney Pirates rides (on which they were based) inside out first.
Bif: [Projoy] Well all I can say to that is 'Argh!' and possibly 'Scrivens', though that might be inappropriate.
N�a: [Darren] perhaps it helps if you know the various Disney Pirates rides (on which they were based) inside out first. -- really? That was new to me. So the movies are really only fully intelligible if you've been to Disneyland a lot? (I assume that's where the Pirates rides are.) That's.... singular. I liked the first movie, but now I find myself not liking it so much, in retrospect, knowing that. (And I hated the second one but have already written about that.)
Newkid: Channel 4 had Y Tu Mama Tambien on the other day. I'd always fancied watching it and so did. I was less than surprised that it turned out to be little more than some titillating flick which was light on content. Which didn't make it any the less enjoyable. Hoping soon to see Talladag Nights, and then I'll be spending a lot of evenings in with DVDs and wine as I try to curtail excess spending in pubs.
Raak: Movies based on funfair rides? I suppose that would account for them being nothing more than a string of images worn out by repeated recycling through the digestive system of popular culture, and the complete lack of anything resembling a plot.
Simons Mith: [Raak] Blimey! What do you expect from a funfair ride, for heaven's sake??
Breadmaster: I can't say I noticed much resemblance between the film and the ride, although it was a fair while ago that I went on the latter. I don't think much knowledge of the ride is really required... I enjoyed the first film greatly and haven't seen the second yet. But then I have pretty lowbrow taste.
Darren: [Bm] There's a lot of resemblance between them, especially the Florida version. (The Pirates rides vary considerably between the various Disney parks.)
[Raak] And what do you expect from a high-budget movie? If you want art, don't go to a cinema. It's just a place to turn off your brain for a couple of hours.
Darren: Also, I was a bit misleading. You don't really need to know the ride to follow the movie (as I said, it's mindless entertainment, like all films), but you can at least appreciate the effort that went in to making the experience match up. Part of the fun with other theme park devotees is recognising all the little references to the various rides in the movie. (And yes, I do call that entertaining.)
Darren: My rant against film as an art form is a bit overgeneralised. I do have problems with film as an industry, though, because it is so set on hard cash, which precludes their output being anything other than, as Raak says, "a string of images worn out by repeated recycling through the digestive system of popular culture." That's what's got me defensive over this: I think it's unfair to blame any single movie for the disease of an industry that produced it.
nfras: [Darren] I read a great article by John Boorman a year or so ago. It was around the time when everyone realised that "Hulk" was crap. His basic premise was that movies, especially Hollywood blockbusters, now involve a vast amount of money so that backers will not tolerate a flop. To this end, execs are very wary about what kind of film they produce and do extensive audience testing and research before they even look at scripts. He argued that using today's methods his Oscar nominated movie, Deliverance, would not be made. (He imagined them asking the question - Would you see a film about sodomy and kayaking?)
Creativity has been suppressed and cold, hard business logic has been applied in a big way so that Hollywood will not take any chances. Hulk was made because Spider-man and X-Men were big hits. The problem is, Hulk is an incredibly dull character. Superman Returns was made for the same reason but the whole thing was handled so badly as to lose any charm. Ah well. That's my rant for the day.
Newkid: Superman returns sucks, as did Batmam returns. But nothing will ever suck so much as the remake of King Kong, which in my eyes is the single biggest reason never to see a Hollywood film again. I'm going arthouse! Korean and Japanese! A film ain't a film without subtitles.
Newkid: I like the X-Men films, mind.
Breadmaster: I thought King Kong was pretty good. Not brilliant by any means (it didn't have the many flashes of greatness that The Lord of the Rings did), but I have nothing particularly against it apart from my general prejudice against remakes. Batman Returns was very good though (and surely the main criticism that people had of that one was that it was too arty...).
Projoy: [nfras] Yes, obviously money talks loudest in Hollywood, but was that ever not the case? Seems to me, in these days of the sudden groundswell blog-promoted low-budget hit, it's increasingly possible, and more so than before, to see stuff which is challenging, uncommercial and artistic. Admittedly this is only an impression I have. At the same time it certainly seems to be true that TV as a medium seems to have lost its highbrow pretensions when it comes to drama.
Bif: [Néa] I think what was intended there was to say that full appreciation of the "in" jokes (the dog with the keys and Cap'n Jack Sparrows comment that it would never give them up for example) can only really come with having seen those tableaux in the ride which have been around for 25+ years. If your enjoyment of the movie was lessened after the fact by saying this, it's a bit odd. You may someday ride the ride, and then see the movie in a new light, making an old pleasure new again.
Having said that, the ride (one of my faves) has been forever ruined for me by the movie, since now everyone on line for it talks like a pirate. Arr!
Bif: (getting movies made) I think probably the current fad for comic-book movies is driven by the standard publishing engine that says "Ooh, Harry Potter/X Men/Star Wars is doing well in the market/box office. We have one of those, don't we? Quick, the public wants this stuff! Make more!

I will never understand why Jackson firstly thought remaking King Kong was a good idea and secondly then went on to make it the way he did. When he announced the project I felt it was a mistake, a huge waste of time. When I finally saw the finished product (about a month ago) I was entirely underwhelmed. It seemed to me that a fairly straightforward story with little potential for expansion had been augmented by crappy made-for-console game sequences and ridiculous scenes that broke the suspension of bisbelief almost deliberately (machinegunning the giant centipedes off each other springs to mind here, as does the Irish Drinking Song moment when Kong swings his prize back and forth in a CGI loop that made me crease up with laughter at the time). At least 20 minutes of footage could have been lost with no detriment to the movie.

Let's hope "Dambusters" delivers more.
ImNotJohn: Quite impressed by Will Todd's Mass in Blue, which I heard last night. (I actually went to hear a Palestrina mass, but ended up liking the second half, with the composer on piano, even more.) You could argue that it's a bit derivative in places, but I'll probably go out and buy the CD.
Dan: What Projoy said. The state of mass-market, heavily-promoted film is deplorable, but not more so than in many other eras, and there's still no shortage of fine films being made. I have a rather simple response to the creative poverty of the pandering, simple-minded spectaculars: for the most part I don't go to see them, or if I do, I know why I'm doing it, and I'm doing it with appropriate expectations. One thing that makes me laugh is when people talk about how all three of the Star Wars prequels sucked. Good on them for their insight, but if you thought I and II sucked so terribly, you've no business complaining very loudly about III, have you. I watched the first in the cinema, didn't bother with the second until I stumbled on it in the video rental place. I haven't seen the third at all, and -- unless some optimal combination of utter boredom, effortless opportunity and a dearth of choices arises -- I may never see it.
Bif: [Dan] Frightening how alike we think on this. Some people cannot see a bad idea when it is staring them in the face though. I have friends who honestly thought the premise for Alien Vs Predator was a good one, and so went to see the movie and suffered rather obvious (to me) disappointment when it sucked as badly as it promised to.
Dan: [Bif] Shades of that old joke, "The food here is terrible. And such small portions!"
I Say, Porter!: [King Kong] What Bif said, with an hour added to the '20 minutes of footage could have been lost'. A gorilla doing a passable impression of a real turkey.
Botherer: I've just finished the latest Eoin Colfer book in the Artemis Fowl series. I can highly recommend them. Described by one critic as "Die Hard with fairies", they are ostensibly kids books (but so much more than that) about a genius teenager and hits battles against/(ultimately) with (and against greater rivals) the Faerie people. But these are kick arse fairies with gadgets to make James Bond jealous. All with a twinkle in the eye...
Phil: ["Bad" films] I think the majority of films are made for the majority. If the majority of the world were like Dan, Bif, Projoy, N�a, newkid, nfras, Raak and so on then mass-entertainment films would not be made. However, "hoi polloi" like these films, are entertained by them, buy the merchandise and look forward to the sequel(s). That's why they get made.
Dan: [Phil] I think the term 'lowest common denominator' fits better than 'the majority'. Mass market films are made to easily cross cultural, social and even language boundaries and stimulate the nerve endings of just about anyone; this is why they're mass-market. This doesn't guarantee a bad film -- The Gods Must Be Crazy is possibly among the most accessible, unexclusive films ever made, and it's superb. But that's doing it the hard way; it calls for the ability to tell a story. Plenty of screenwriters and would-be screenwriters have this ability, but storytelling is the first victim of the Hollywood system, in which a story is subject to the bewildering machinations of deeply flawed market research, pet theories of jumped-up studio execs, coke-addled directors with delusions of auteurhood... in short, a perfect storm of incompetence more than adequate to obliterate anything as subtle as storytelling. So Hollywood can't rely on story to achieve the breadth of market that it desires and for the most part has long since ceased to try. This leaves them only two things to work with: star power and spectacle. And the result is what you see.
Breadmaster: I'm not convinced by that, I'm afraid. A good Hollywood-style film depends upon story above all. You are right that bad Hollywood-style films overlook this and focus on spectacle alone - but such films aren't good. There are plenty of good Hollywood films, as long as we recognise that Hollywood-style films are a sort of sub-genre in their own right; and a good one does revolve around story. All scriptwriters know William Goldman's declaration that "story is structure", and the result is that "film is structure". Virtually all good Hollywood films (and a lot of bad ones) follow the structure that has been developed for their genre over the years. So, for example, there invariably comes a point about two-thirds of the way through any romantic film where the two main characters fall out. It always happens. Of course, done badly this just results in film-by-numbers. Done well, you don't realise it's being done at all. Not done at all, the film just doesn't work, no matter how brilliant it may be in other matters. This is what makes many arthouse films so difficult to watch. It's not that they're long, or in foreign languages, or whatever - it's that they don't follow the tight story structure that is mandatory for good Hollywood-style films. In effect, arthouse films are less story-based than Hollywood films. In my view, where Hollywood films lose out compared to other films is not in story but in characterisation. Where narrative structure reigns supreme, it's easy for characters to become little more than props in the story. More ofen than not they are two-dimensional since nothing more than this is required for the narrative structure to work. This is one reason why arthouse films can be so very powerful, because often they abandon story (at least, strong or tightly plotted story) for the sake of strong characterisation.
Raak: As told to me by a film director, after a showing of Zorba the Greek: A film script is 120 pages long. One page of script represents one minute of screen time. The most important events of the film are on pages 30 and 90. At the beginning of the film is the inciting incident, the event that sets the whole plot in motion. There are two main characters, the protagonist and the antagonist. The protagonist learns from his experiences and grows over the course of the film; the antagonist does not, and remains at the end the same person he was at the beginning. And so on. I may have forgotten more than I've remembered. This is the basic knowledge of the craft that every scriptwriter and director learns, but if you're hired to make a film based on a funfair ride or a video game, there's not much you can do. Those media don't have that structure, so if the hired help try to put it in, the money people will complain that they're not doing what they were asked to do.
Phil: I should add that I thoroughly enjoyed both Pirates films, and I've never seen, let alone ridden, either of the rides (and have no intention of doing so either). My driving force is that I like to have fun, and those films to me were fun. On occasion I do like to watch more, shall we say, stimulating films (e.g. Unbearable Lightness of Being, La Vita e Bella, Eraserhead, D�licatessen), but I'm not an analytical or critical film-watcher; I just sit back and enjoy. I have to say that the most disappointing film I've seen in the last couple of years was The Incredibles. Compared with Monsters Inc. and Shrek, it's tat.
Newkid: I honestly don't mind the odd hollywood film, like I said, I enjoy the X-Men films. What I do mind is being sucked in by all the marketing hocum and going to see a film I know to be crap before I even see it. King Kong was the turning point. Great trailer, and that could have been the film. Even thinking about it now makes me shudder. I wonder if Jackson ever had a Dr. Frankenstein moment, but realised he'd made a turkey rather than a monster. With books and CDs I'm quite happy to browse shops and take a punt on something that looks interesting. More often than not I'm pleasantly surprised, and if I do pick something crap its pretty much expected. I don't seem to be able to do that with films, but I'm going to have to start trying.
Newkid: and Phil's wrong about The Incredibles.
Simons Mith: [Newkid] Yes, he is.
N�a: [Bif] Just a brief response since the conversation has veered in another direction: To me, basing a movie on a phenomenon that I and pretty much everybody around me would have no chance of knowing (even if you had been to an amusement park on another continent, what are the chances you'd have gone on one particular ride and would still remember it in detail?) and still expecting us to pay a LOT of money to watch it is arrogant beyond belief -- and yes, that does detract from my opinion of it in retrospect. If it was only in-jokes that had nothing to do with the plot (such as it was), then it's not a problem. I can enjoy a movie without getting all the references. And to respond to the obvious follow-up: Of course I don't mind movies being based on local phenomena that only a limited set of people will understand. But it would have been more honest if it had been mentioned somewhere; as I say, this was the first I'd heard of it (as well as of the Pirates ride.) Oh, and maybe if Disneyland wasn't a place I've dreamt of visiting since I was 5 years old or so, I wouldn't take it so hard :-)
Pirates 2 and Delicatessen are two of the movies I've liked least in my life.
Raak: Johnny Depp in black eyeliner. That's the reason to see it. I might get around to it if I see the DVD remaindered at £5.
How about a movie based on Lego? There's already a theme park, a videogame, the Lego Bionicle kits with backstories, and all their robot kits. What more do you need to cobble a film together?
Newkid: Been done I believe. Quite a few movies I think.
Bif: [Néa] Well if you are determined to feel insulted I cannot say much. However, let me illuminate the issue with a key-light for a second. Isn't this 'in-joke for those in the know technique' more along the lines of the computer game 'easter egg'? Value added for those that are able to access it rather than some elitist thing payed for by the unclued-in?
Bif: [Raak] The original PotC movie was extremely cleverly constructed from the opening scene onwards. The funny thing about this movie is that I know several people who were forced to go to it by someone else and ended up having a jolly (roger) good time.
Darren: [Néa] Yeah, I didn't say you had to have gone on the ride to understand it. I just said you might get more from it if you already knew the ride upon which it was based. If nothing else, you'd know what to expect, and be prepared for the overall tone. I'm curious about how much cinema tickets are in your country by the way; I wouldn't call the prices here "a LOT of money" by any scale.
Dan: [Breadmaster] Then we're essentially in agreement, because we weren't talking about good Hollywood films, we were talking about why so many huge, expensive blockbusters are so bad. I absolutely agree that a good film relies on story; but when the stakes run to hundreds of millions, they almost invariably create a vehicle for effects, stunts and a couple of stars who are believed to be reliably bankable and the story, if it started with one, is generally ground up in their machinations.
Bif: [Dan, BM] I think Pratchett put his finger on it in 'Moving Pictures' when he had Dibbler use 'Hollywood Movie Mogul' thinking when making his 'improvement' to the subliminal cut. They see something like 'Mission Impossible' which does tolerably well, and think that a sequel will do better if it has more of everything in it, which is when you get the awful over-the-topness of MI2 with it's ballerina motorbiking and wire-foo w@nking.
matt: Hmm. I find myself inappropriately disappointed that Néa didn't like Delicatessen, which I consider a minor triumph of the filmmaker's art. Like Breadmaster I have no objections to King Kong either, other than it being rather over-extended. And The Incredibles was marvellous, despite being to all intents and purposes Miracleman Lite.
I'm dubious about Bm's argument pitting Hollywood against arthouse, however. I'd cite (from any number of possibilities) Volver as an obvious counter-example: a film that both (a) is in a foreign (to English-speaking audiences) language, and (b) tramples all over the narrative rules of (say) The Hero with 1000 Faces, yet remains immediately accessible to all but the most truculent viewer and, whether despite or because of its typically Almodóvarian melodrama, immensely appealing to a common humanity that transcends the coarser brand of Hollywood monoculture.
Then again, I'm drunk, so my opinion counts for nothing.
N�a: Oh dear. I'm sorry -- I was just revolted by the whole concept of cannibalism as entertainment. Can I use my tender age as an excuse?
Dan: [N�a] Don't say 'tender', you're making me hungry.
[omnes] I haven't seen Delicatessen; in my mind the question of whether it would be objectionable to treat cannibalism as a suitable topic for entertainment would depend on whether it did it to any good narrative or thematic purpose. Sometimes you have to get a little subversive if you're going to say something new. To do it merely to be 'edgy' or for shock value would be gratuitious. If that's not a simple tautology.
Phil: [D�li] The cannibalism did not provide the entertainment in this film, it was the backdrop to a plot that could have worked without the cannibalism to a certain extent, IMHO.
[Incredibles] OK, I should have added that my comments were meant to represent my subjective opinion, rather than an objective criticism. Looking back at Raak's "script-formula", I can see why I enjoyed Shrek and Monsters Inc.. But the big problem for me with the Incredibles was that the protagonists had no great obstacle to overcome; all they had to do was use their super-powers (albeit that doing so was against the "rules" placed on them by society). They are superheroes, so why should I empathise with them in any way. They can all do stuff I'd love to be able to do, and yet they whinge and moan and piss and bitch. I simply didn't like any of the characters. Oh, and the baddie was a pathetic tw*t. Given the build-up, I still consider it one of the most disappointing films I've seen in yonks (in terms of actual enjoyment against expected enjoyment). Incidentally, in that time I've seen King King, The Fabulous Four, both Pirates films, Cars and a load of other family films (as that's all I get to see at the flicks these days).
nfras: I find that I am drawn to non-Hollywood movies (as a frustrated academic who gave it all up for love, and money) but I find that I need to be in the right frame of mind for it. I really wanted to watch Syriana when it came out but so far haven't yet, even though I have several good local videa stores, a local independent cinema which actually shows art-house and foreign language movies (only 1 night a week, but hey, it's better than most) and possibly the biggest piracy network known to man (IT company). But when someone said "I have a copy of Superman Sucks" I was watching it during my lunch break. Does it make me a bad person?
flerdle: Local "documentary" which you lot may never see, but it's worth putting here, just for the record: Kenny (site needs flash, I think), with a few more quotes here. Cost only around half a million dollars to make, and is about a gentle, honest bloke who deals in "corporate bathroom rentals" -- ie portaloos. It may not ever be released outside Australia, which is a shame. I found it hillarious. And touching. A real gem.
Newkid: and Phil is still wrong about The Incredibles.
Botherer: I watched Y Tu Mama Tambien last night and enjoyed it very much. Put me in the right frame of mind to go and watch Cuaron's latest, Children of Men. Also picked up the magnificent The Machinist starring Christian Bale for a fiver. Highly Recommended.
Bif: How did The Queen play in "Thee Olde Countree"? It's just opening here. Worth seeing, or a dog?
Darren: [Bif] Projoy covered that a while back, a little way above the top of this page.
Chalky: [Bif : The Queen] I would recommend it.
Bif: [Darren] Thanks, and I read it when he posted. One review doth not a consensus make though. I'm suspicious because Jack Mathews or the NY Daily News gave it 3.5 stars. I took this to be an expression of the American Fascination With All Things Diana, since he is usually more conservative with his stars. 2.5 is his usual standard for a good movie.
Chalky: [Bif] Chris [my partner] and I agreed with what Projoy said about the film when re-reading his review after seeing the film. If anything, the 'Diana factor' is rather underplayed, in that, most references to her are relatively neutral. I found it an absorbing, even fascinating, study of a slice of offly British manners and mores and I came away with a sense that the whole episode including the dialogue just might, only might mind, be right on the nail. And yes, the acting is superb.
Phil: [newkid] I'm not wrong, I was disappointed. Everyone else is welcome to think it's brilliant, which doesn't make me wrong.
Simons Mith: [Phil] You're allowed to say you found it disappointing. But you've also called it 'tat', and in a forum like this, with a fair few film buffs and generally high standards, you ought to do a bit more to try to make that description stick. Particularly given how much many of the rest of us liked it. For us to let 'tat' stand is a bit insulting to our tastes, you see, which is why you're being called on it. I think you've made two distinct judgments on the film - one personal one - 'disappointing' - and one 'absolute' one - 'tat' - but are now trying to sneak both views past under cover of them being personal opinion.
Dan: I can't say enough about The Incredibles. Without trying to be comprehensive about the things I love about it, a few that spring to mind are the remarkable characterization of Edna Mode (voiced by director Brad Bird), who quite clearly thinks of the supers as being like gods, judging by the bas-reliefs in her home; the references to You Only Live Twice and On Her Majesty's Secret Service; the fantastic mid-century design sense. I'm fortunate enough to have seen a tremendous amount of concept art (the originals themselves, not reproduced) done in a bewildering variety of media and styles; much of it I think done simply for the love of it as much as for any planning or preproduction purpose. It left me almost dizzy from the sheer talent and passion that went into it. (And the Mr Incredible and Friends extra on the DVD had me almost choking with laughter.)
Simons Mith: Incredible whinging - it's a family with a couple of adolescent kids. Some whinging is to be expected. Phil's comment about 'all they have to do is use their powers' overlooks some really fundamental parts of the setting at the start of the film. They're law-abiding supers in a world that has said 'We don't want supers anymore.' If, at the start of the film, they'd said, 'Hell with it, we're using our powers for you whether you want it or not', they'd not be law-abiding heroes. They'd be mavericks, and The Incredibles would be a completely different film. But because they're Good Guys, and law-abiding, they feel they have to respect the law, otherwise they would be betraying their own ethos. So for them, this is quite big enough an obstacle to keep them in-line. What's more, it's one that forces them to fit into the same grey world that the rest of us inhabit, one they are not very well-suited to cope with. Worse, the kids don't have the discipline not to use their powers, and even the slightly-more responsible head of the family finds increasing difficulty keeping himself under control, given the provocation he gets at work.
But the family has been through this turmoil before - they've been relocated at least once already, they've lost friends and/or jobs and had to make/find new ones, and they don't want to have to keep doing it. So at the start of the film they're quite effectively trapped, and I find their unhappiness entirely understandable. They have the same problems as people in witness protection programs have, and that's not a pleasant life to have to lead. In addition, they're not just basically good people, they're that subset of good people with a strong urge to help out. That's the other part of the adverse environment that is set up - here we have a family where the parents share this almost unbearably strong desire to do whatever they can to help others, and yet the rules forbid them from doing so. Obviously, something's bound to give eventually, and the rest of the blooming film is the story of what happens when irresistible temptation finally comes Mr Incredible's way, and he succumbs.
I do like the 'interview' where Mr Incredible is complaining about how he wishes the world would stay saved, just for five minutes. It's revealing because it shows he cares little if anything for the fame, he cares far more about helping. [OK, he hasn't realised that it's almost always other supers that keep putting the world in jeopardy in the first place, but that's another matter.]
Dan: If I might take the liberty of trying to paraphrase Simons a bit, to be prevented from being what you are is a very reliable source of misery.
Phil: [Simons Mith] OK, firstly I'm in no way angry and consider this as a discussion, not an argument. Also, I'm finding this quite an entertaining and informative discussion. But if you're going to throw my words back at me, quote me correctly (although I'd forgotten I ever used the "tat" word). My "tat" comment was not absolute, it was comparative. I said that in comparison with Monsters Inc. and Shrek, it is tat, and I will stand by that statement, because I hold the other two films in the very highest esteem. Anyway, I can't make absolute statements in a posting can I? I can surely only proffer my opinion, unless I turn into an advertising copywriter and put words into others' mouths along the lines of "Everyone knows it's tat". Anyway, I enjoyed it, but nowhere near as much as I expected to, and also nowhere near as much as everyone else seems to. Ho hum, funny old world :-)
Alright, so maybe my statement was rather forthright, but I've been through my anti-Incredibles thing before, so I didn't bother to justify myself due to laziness and fear of "banging-on". On reflection, perhaps I should somehow make time to watch it again, but I don't think that can happen for a few weeks.

October 2006

Newkid: [phil] apologies from me on this one. My original 'and Phil is wrong' posting was meant to be funny. The second one obviously pushed the joke too far. Not something I'm ever accused of at all, no. You're more than welcome to your opinion, and I wouldn't want my comments to drag you into a discussion you didn't want. Sorry.
Phil: [newkid] Gosh, heavens to Murgatroyd, no need to apologise. I didn't take your "Phil is wrong" as anything more than was intended. I was just arguing the toss, as it were, for alck of anything better to do :-)
Bif: Well, I liked The Incredibles if only because I got to watch a superhero going through mid-life crisis instead of the interminable teen-angst that usually suffices. If you have the DVD there is also the benefit of being able to rewind and really appreciate the cleverness of some of the built-in jokes and references to other genre set pieces, as Dan has evidently done. Unless...Dan has super-scan eyeballs. Are you, Dan, in fact a Super?
Dan: More of a Hyper really. After a few coffees anyway.
Phil: I've revised my opinion: The Incredibles is a good film, it's just not as much fun as I expected.
Simons Mith: Hey, and I thought I might be wasting my money on that session with the orbital mind control laser. Who knew, it really does work!
Bif: Odd. I now dislike The Incredibles but have the desire to open a public house.
Phil: [Bif] :-)
newkid: i'm re-reading His Dark Materials again. not only are the still superb, but the anti-church thing is so obvious I can't beleive I missed it first time round. Now, can I be the most recent post in all the games, and will i get a biscuit if I do?
Phil: [newkid] I did that on wednesday night, and had one of my advice lines displayed at the same time - three screenshots later and I had the proof :-)
Breadmaster: I'm reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell at the moment. It's great fun!
Wol: Just finished Louis de Bernieres' Birds Without Wings. It's in the mold of Captain Corelli, rather than the earlier, magical realism stuff (which I rather preferred). He handles the array of characters very well, although the overall effect is of a certain distance between the reader and the characters (not helped by the, generally, very short chapters, which tempt one to use this as a loo book). The location in time and place is one with which I was unfamiliar - the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of Turkey from, say, 1900 to 1930, seen in microcosm through the eyes of the inhabitants of a small village on the west coast of Anatolia. I must confess that I have, for a long time, harboured a prejudice against Turkey and all things Turkish. If this book is accurate in its portrayal of the wars and forced migrations between Greece and Turkey (much like that which happened between Pakistan and India on partition), then the Greeks were as appalling in their treatment of the Turks as vice versa; and the British, in particular, must bear a large chunk of blame for the ongoing tensions in that part of the world. This may all be familiar territory for you; that will not spoil your enjoyment of this rather wonderful book.
ImNotJohn: [Wol] Agreed about Birds Without Wings.
I've just finished Dervla Murphy's Through the Embers of Chaos - a travelogue of her journeys through the Balkans in 1999/2000. Those familiar with her (and if you aren't, you should be - she is arguably one of the greatest living travel writers) will know that she walks or cycles everywhere and tries to get the view of the local people. This is in that same vein and no-one comes out of it very well, although NATO possibly fares worst. I was in some of the same areas this summer and the superficial picture is very different now. Is this becausde things have really improved, because the worst bits are hidden from the tourists or because she deliberately set out to find those areas where the scars of the conflict and the ongoing tensions were worst? I suspect a bit of all of these. Whatever your view on the events in the Balkans you'll find it fascinating and challenging.
Simons Mith: Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat kept me occupied (and chortling) for an hour and half or so. It's available for free from the Gutenberg project, and that's the version I read, having stumbled on it from a webpage collating links to a large number of free e-texts. Rattle my cage if you want the URL, but I think most of the avid readers here are all aware of, for example, the free sci-fi avaialble from Baen. BTW Jim Baen died recently, so I gather. Shame :-(
Projoy: Death of a President, the much-hyped TV counterfactual, presented as a future-history documentary, which depicts the assassination of George W. Bush. Very disappointing, spending nearly all of its time on the contrived fictional circumstances around different suspects, and totally fails to offer any interesting speculation about the effects such an act might have on international politics, or the politics of the US. Considering a President has been assassinated in living memory - and considering how well documented that assassination was at the time and since - why spend time on the details of a fictional assassination unless you're going to use the concept to explore some other issues?
Si: Prompted by the new BBC adaptation of Jane Eyre, I decided to take a look at the backstory of the madwoman in the attic and bought Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea. I found it tough. Only on reflections made after I had finished did I find that it is actually a particularly potent work, (and personally, I thought, heartbreaking). In the first instance the story has credibility as to how Bertha ended up in the garrick - it fitted very well with Rochester's slant on events in Jane Eyre itself, but casts him in a much darker light. I thought it also was very cleverhow the author ties her story in historically, and this only adds to the feeling that this is really what happened to Mr. Rochester's first wife. Not bad for an old soak of questionable sanity herself, I'd say. I would definitely recommend the book, although it's a tough read not least because of the changing perspectives, and the confused nature of the feelings expressed, and the people expressing them. If anyone's the type to feel like watching the recent TV adaptation first (which I believe is showing on Sunday night) I would say don't. It doesn't translate well to the screen.
Tolken: I finished A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines. Although a little clumsy at times, it turns out as quite an affectionate look at a couple of genii... Toes the fashionable line that madness and genius are not so much separated by a narrow divide as mutually dependent.

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