Recent posts in Thus Spoketh Terje

Gone in 60 Seconds

May 12. 2008

Gone in 60 Seconds is a silly movie. All my car-crazy (more or less former) friends love it, and I can understand why, but it is none the less silly. Flashy, showy, and to a certain extent even a little cool, but oh-so shallow and plump. The paper-thin plot of a bunch of car thieves who have to steal 50 cars in one night to keep a crazy mobster from killing Nicholas Cage’s brother is nothing but an excuse to show off some really rather nice cars, and I have absolutely no idea why this many more or less good actors agree to play in something like this, as there’s not really much acting. But I guess one can never have much money, and considering the $100,000,000 budget, one can only imagine how much of that went to actors’ salaries. (In comparison, the 1973 original — which I’m dying to see, by the way, as it sounds a Hell of a lot more interesting — cost $1,000,000, and there hasn’t been that much inflation in the last 35 years.)

So, fun to watch with buddies, but not something one’d want to spend much money on. 4.0/10.

Filed in Movies, Review, meh. · No responses · Post comment

Amadeus

May 12. 2008

Had quite the movie-athon yesterday. Here’s part two, Amadeus, with three and four coming as soon as I can find the time to read them.

Amadeus is often portrayed as the lifestory of one of if not the best musical composer in the history of mankind. (Disagree? Go listen to his Requiem while you wait for me to save up for a hitman to snuff out your worthless life.) Which is part of the truth, yeah, but more importantly — it’s Salieri’s tale. The fact that the portrayals of both composers and their lives are quite historically inaccurate is something I choose to disregard, as history is of little interest in this movie. What is interesting is the portrayal of the characters Mozart and Salieri, and especially the latter. The former is there mostly as a foil for the latter — Salieri devoted himself and sacrificed much to God, in what he perceived as an exchenge of devotion for the ability to express the greatness of God through music. Then, along comes Mozart, a “vulgar child”, to quote Salieri, composing music no one but Salieri seems to understand the brilliance of. Salieri comes to see his own work — which he’d, in his own eyes, sacrificed so much for — as nothing but mediocre drivel, and he grows madder and madder in his incomprehension of God’s ways. He sees Mozart’s music as a pinnacle, of God embodied through music, and he prays to his Lord for the talent to compose just one single work of the same sublime quality. Not surprisingly, no such miracle occurs, and Saileri renounces God, becomes even more obsessed with Mozart than he already was, and vows to destroy God’s instrument on Earth.

Add to all this brilliant stuff the fantastic script, acting, costumes, and what have you, and you get a movie that has to be one of the best ones ever made.

10/10.

(Also, a reminder to myself that I need to adjust Lord of War down a notch.)

Filed in A Moistening of the Eyes, A Praise Chorus, Art, Awe, Bliss, Goosebumps!, Love, Megalomania, Misery, Movies, Music, Opinions, Recommendations, Revelations, Review · 1 Response · Post comment

Assault on Precinct 13

May 12. 2008

I watched the 2005 remake of John Carpenter’s 1976 cult classic Assault on Precinct 13 yesterday, but I’m not really sure why I bothered. I’d probably be much better off watching the original.

It’s New Year’s Eve, and the 13th precinct in some American city or other (I never really got which one, but it seemed like Boston or something like that) is about to be shut down. Most of its equipment has been moved to its new location, and there’s only a skeleton crew on duty — an alcoholised, former undercover cop (Ethan Hawke), an old timer ready for retirement, and a secretary. It’s snowing heavily, and a prisoner transport on its way to a prison with four suspected criminals on board is forced to seek refuge at precinct 13. One of the suspected criminals is the gang leader Bishop (Laurence Fishbourne), arrested for drug dealing and the murder of a police officer, and not long after his arrival the electricity and the phones go dead, and armed, masker men start arriving outside, demanding the release of Bishop.

Assault on Precinct 13 is for the most part a well-made movie. Its actors are skilled and seemingly motivated (although it’s kinda hard to tell in the case of Laurence Fishbourne), the action sequences are tight and often even cool, the effects good, and the mood tense and dark. I wasn’t too fond of the hand-held, zoomed-in camera work, though, but I never am, even when I recognise that it might be perceived by some to fit the story. However, while most of the movie was well made, the most important part wasn’t: the writing.

While I’ll give them credit for the plot twists, it was all very predictable. The besiegers weren’t what they first appeared to be, and neither were the besieged. Surprise, surprise. There were a couple of surprising character deaths, but seeing as none of the characters were especially sympathetic, this meant little in the big scheme of things. There might have been a semi-interesting theme going on, about the importance of taking responsibility or something like that, but it kinda drowned in all the gun shots and the gut wounds. And speaking of gut wounds, what is it with Hollywood writiers and a belief that being shot in the gut is something you just shrug off? Granted, a couple of characters bled out and died relatively quickly from this kind of wound, but others hardly seemed to be injured at all, a not very enthralling inconsistency.

More or less a waste of time, unless you’re after a braindead yet at least halfway decent action movie. 4.0/10.

Filed in Movies, Review, meh. · 3 Responses · Post comment

Iron Man

May 11. 2008

So. The second most anticipated movie of the year or something, Iron Man. I was a skeptic, I have to admit as much. Sure, I’d heard from both Loki and Kalle that it was a phenomenal movie, but they’re both something resembling Marvel fanboys. And me? I’d encountered Iron Man in some minor spots in Ultimate X-Men, and of course in The Ultimates, and while both helped me strike the sparks of a faint hope that this might be good, it wasn’t quite enough. After, all, if you take good comic book adaptions and weight them against the bad, or the mediocre, the good ones lose by a large margin. Also, the last Marvel adaption I watched was the oh-so mediocre Spider-Man 3, a tour de force of everything wrong with the genre if ever I saw one. Finally, Iron Man is directed by Jon Favreau, the guy who did Elf (a review of which will appear as soon as I can force myself to finish the damn thing).

Luckily, my relative pessimism was brought to shame. The story of billionaire genius Tony Stark’s unearthing of a purpose, and his subsequent invention of Iron Man, was perhaps the fourth of fifth best comic book adaption I’ve seen. Robert Downey, Jr. should get a medal for his effort, and this very crew should get the task of making the sequel. There’s really only one or two things I thought they could have done better, such as making it a bit clearer how the only thing that had changed in Stark was that he’d found a purpose (that is, they could have throuwn in an additional asshole scene or two), and casting someone other than Samuel L. Jackson to play Nick Fury.

Apart from that it was all good in my book, with a nice soundtrack (I was a bit bummed that they didn’t include Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man”, but then the endig credits started and I was a happy man again), movie-carrying and witty dialogue, and the best Stan Lee cameo ever. Granted, the plot was a bit straightforward and simple, but the reduced dependence on “clever” plot-twists probably entails that it will be great fun to watch again.

Not since Batman Begins have I left a movie theatre praying so desperately for a sequel. 9.0/10.

Filed in Comics, Links, Loki, Movies, Music, Pleasant surprises, Review, Scepticism · 6 Responses · Post comment

Wayne’s World

May 11. 2008

Earlier this week it struck me that it’s been almost two years since I watched Waynes World, and so, naturally, I sought to rectify this.

Amazingly, I still laugh out loud when I watch this movie. Which is incredible, really, when you tale into account that this is a spoof movie, an SNL movie, where a thin plot exists pretty much just as an excuse for a ton of jokes, skitzes, and one-liners. And not to mention that this has got to be the tenth time I watch this.

So, if you’re after 90 minutes of unpretentious fun, and want to see one of the first SNL-based spoof movies, if only to find out from whence this plague came to haunt us, then watch Wayne’s World. It’s not art, exactly, but it’s adequate. 6.0/10.

Filed in Awe, Movies, Review · 1 Response · Post comment

Lord of War

May 11. 2008

It’s been nearly two weeks since I watched Lord of War, so this’ll be a brief review, but better late than never, eh?

First off, what struck me during this second watching of Lord of War was how similar, in many ways, it was to Charlie Wilson’s War. They both dealt with serious subjects, and they both put more or less humorous spins on their angles of approach. Or perhaps more precisely, tragi-comic, as they both painted happy faces on what is essentially great tragedies: Charlie Wilson’s effort for the Afghans ended more or less with a kinda Pyrrhic victory, and the story Yuri Orlov told in so amusing a way is the story of how it is possible for peasants in developing countries to murder each other with the stuff resting at the pinnacle of human arms technology development.

That much for the subject matter of the movie. The technical aspects were no less brilliant. The bullet’s story told during the opening credits is a magnificent little creation, and a splendid example of the brilliant way in which this movie was filmed. Furthermore, this is Nicholas Cage in the kind of role he’s meant to play: a quiet, cold and brainy fellow. Unfortunately, he seems to labour under the misapprehension that he’s some kind of action hero, instead of just sticking to the parts he does better than just about anything. The rest of the cast is top-notch too, as is everything else. Heck, even flamin’ Jared Leto works perfectly!

A most highly recommended movie. If you haven’t watched it yet, go rectify, and if you have, go re-watch. Absolutely fantastic stuff. Even the didactic parts work well and are almost a seemless part of the rest of the movie. 10/10.

Be careful what mood you’re in when you watch it, though, because I watched it at a somewhat dark point, and it pushed me over the edge out into something resembling a depression, that took me three days in the sun with Lamb and The Shins to get rid of.

Filed in A Moistening of the Eyes, A Praise Chorus, Art, Awe, Conflicting emotions, Discomfort, Education, Goosebumps!, Literature, Love, Misery, Movies, Music, Pain, Panic, Paranoia, Pessimism, Pimping, Recommendations, Review, Wistfulness · 10 Responses · Post comment

Lamb, the Gospels According to Biff, Christs’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore

May 11. 2008

I’d originally spent three hours or so writing a two pages long review of this novel, but the more I wrote, the more clear it was to me that it was crap. The review, I mean, not the novel itself. Because the novel was okay. A bit too adolescent humor at times, and a kinda flaccid omni-religious theme, but still fun. Touching, even, at times, especially when Joshua was at his most vulnerable. But not something I really have to — or can — write several pages about, without turing the subject matter into incomprehensible mush.

So I’ll just limit myself to saying that this was a slightly more than okay read, and that I recommend it to any looking for some biblically grounded jokes and a kind of a Late Antiquity, Middle Eastern road trip novel. 6.0/10.

Filed in My microcosmos · 3 Responses · Post comment

The definition of preaching to the choir

May 7. 2008

You need to have flashplayer enabled to view this YouTube video

Seriously, I don’t know why these people bother. I mean, I agree with much of what the guy said, but jeez, does he honestly believe he is going to win many religious people over by antagonising them? Is this rational behaviour?

And what’s up with the islamophobia of these prominent atheists?

(On a concluding note, I’d like to apologise to those of my readers who actually watched that clip, and assure you that while I agree it might seem like I do, I don’t hate you; I just had to share my frustration with someone.)

Filed in Ambiguity, Annoyance, Disappointment, Discomfort, Impressions, Irony, Language, Misery, My microcosmos, Pain, Rant, Regret, Religiousity, Scepticism, Videos, meh. · 5 Responses · Post comment

Hero

April 27. 2008

After the awkwardness of The Sword and the Sorcerer, it felt good to watch one of my favourite fantasy movies, namely Hero. (Granted, it’s more of a historically based wu xia movie, really, but seeing as its pretty much based on a myth and not on what the historian in me would call history, and wu xia is in no way realistic (not that fantsy can’t be realistic; “realism” is such an ambiguous term, it should rarely be taken at face value), so I feel justified in refering to this as fantasy. Also, it’s a great movie, and there are way too few great fantasy movies, so if I categorise Hero as fantasy, it’s one more for the good guys. :P )

Anyhoo, I just spent about half an hour digging up my last review of Hero in order to direct you there for a plot synopsis, and it turned out I agree with every single word I wrote one and an half year ago — which was nice, as I remebered the Hero review as one of my best ones to date — and that I could just repost the rating — 9.0/10 — as well as a link.

Yay.

Filed in Links, Movies, My microcosmos, Pleasant surprises, Review, Speculative fiction · No responses · Post comment

The Sword and the Sorcerer

April 27. 2008

The Sword and the Sorcerer is one of the many fantasy movies produced in the early 1980s, most of which have in common that they are so full of cheese and plot-holes you might think they’re Swiss.

In this particular case, the plot revolves around the kingdom of Eh Dan (Edain, anyone? Or Eng Land?), peaceably and prosperously ruled by the magnanimous King Richard (whose fake beard, I might add, is also rather magnificent), until it is conquered by the evil, scheming Titus Cromwell, who also rules such countries as for instance Iberia and Goth. In preparation for his campaign Cromwell awakened the ancient and demonic sorcerer Xusia, who helped him with the initial, deceicive part of the invasion. But when Cromwell estimated that he would be able to conquer the rest of Eh Dan on his own, he stabbed Xusia in the chest and threw him off a cliff. He then continued to thrash the armies of Eh Dan, and execute King Richard, as well as the rest of the royal family. That is to say, all the members of the royal family but one. Talon, the second eldest prince or some such, managed to escape, along with his father’s magical, three-bladed sword, but not before he had witnessed Cromwell personally executing his mother.

11 years later, Talon, now a successful mercenary general (Conan, much?), returns to a Eh Dan where Cromwell, still paranoid about an imagined revenge of Xusia, is about to consolidate his hold of the country through marriage to the only remaining (not to mention eligible and hot) member of the ruling class, as well as the final defeat of the resistance.

The result of all this mess is a ridiculously predictable and hopelessly produced fantasy movie, which seems to be a pastiché of the worst Sword & Sorcery pulp novels and short stories of the 30s, 40s or 50s. (Although my flatmate Kalle claimed he had figured out which RPG system it was based on…) You’ve got all the tropes of the genre here, from the manliest of manly heroes; the wilful yet beautiful “princess”; the egomaniacal, brutal tyrant; the utopian kingdom destroyed by an evil neighbour; a pathetically generic, stereotypical Medieval Europe setting; and a naming paradigm so laughable it hurts.

None of which would have mattered, if the movie had at least been well-produced. Unfortunately, the producers seems to have recognized that what they were making was absolute crap, and so the plot, as already mentioned, is utterly filled with holes (for example, why would anyone allow three dozen hostile soldiers who tried to storm his or her castle to keep their armour on in the dungeon?). The dialogue is often as not completely devoid of anything even resembling attempts at communication, and what cases there is of conscious attempts of humour mostly limit themselves to embarrasing double entendres about swords.

Furthermore, the impression one gets that this movie doesn’t even try to take the fantasy genre seriously is hamfistedly emphasised by the score. For instance, during what could have been a thrilling chase scene through a Medieval castle, the background music resembles nothing as much as it does the Benny Hill theme, and when young Talon rides desperately through the woods to get to his mother and siblings before Cromwell, the accompanying music for some reason is something which sounds a lot like the Indiana Jones theme.

The movie does, however, got one thing going for it, and that is that there are three sides in the vengeance scheme, not only two. They even have some attempts at constructing a Machiavellian character. But both of them falters and dies, as neither is allowed the time to develop, and what the viewer is left with is a bitter feeling of disappointment. Additionally, as many makers of fantasy movies (yes, I am looking at you, Wolverine-crew), the producers seem incapable of deciding what their target audience is. Or, alternatively, to take their audience seriously. The movie deals with some half-way adult themes, really, but in spite of a R rating in the US, some blood and a harem-ful of boobs, there’s little here to really appeal to the mature viewer, so to say. Which probably isn’t the idea, but there it is; it still annoys me.

(I guess my annoyance with this stems from my craving for a Sword & Sorcery movie I could give a 9/10 rating to, one that is brutally violent, more or less sexually explicit, and politically cynical, but at the same time reflexive, esthetically pleasing, and has Whedon-style dialogue. A daydream I don’t see realised any time soon, though.)

(Fun fact, by the way: The Sword and the Sorcerer was apparently banned in Norway from 1982 to 1983.)

All in all, I think I’ll give The Sword and the Sorcerer a nice 2.5/10 rating, because it does after all provide the viewer with some laughs, and because it could have been so infinitely worse.

Filed in Annoyance, Collections, Disappointment, Misery, Movies, Music, My microcosmos, Pain, Pessimism, Rant, Regret, Review, Speculative fiction, meh. · 1 Response · Post comment

Comforting

April 24. 2008

“The Rock is attached to play the villain, a likable enough actor who was seems genetically designed specifically to be in comic book movies. It’s not a bad role, either. If you take away almost everything ridiculous that doesn’t work about Captain Marvel, you have his antithesis and mortal enemy, Black Adam. Not to worry, though, sensitive readers, Black Adam is not a racist caricature of a black man that embodies everything evil. The “Black” only refers to his dark soul and corrupted nature. He’s actually an Arab.”

– Cracked.com, on the potentially upcoming Shazam! movie.

Filed in Comics, Movies, Quote of the day · 10 Responses · Post comment

Some things I suspect I believe to be true

April 22. 2008

About eighteen months ago now, I realised I’m a materialist; I believe that everything in this world is matter, that there is no such thing as spirit, that what others might perceive as “spirit” can be explained materially. And for some thirteen, fourteen months, my Christian flatmate Håvard has challenged me on this.

To him there obviously is something spiritual, something that makes us qualitatively different from other entities, and this something, this value, is ascribed to us by some external source (i.e. God). He has further claimed that one of the consequences of my view is that there isn’t really any difference between people and objects, that we’re nothing but really advanced computers, that metaphysically speaking, there’s no difference between throwing a computer out off a thirty-story building and doing the same to a child.

Until tonight, I’ve been trying to argue against this, mostly through rather desperate and improvised (and, frankly, spurious) arguments. But during a walk we took tonight, we had one of the most fertile conversations I’ve ever had the honour in participating in, and I was able to work out a kind of solution to this part of my world-view’s issues. A solution, I might add, that even Håvard, one of the most brilliantly pedantic people I’ve ever met, was kinda content with, no matter how much he disagreed with it. (And no matter how much he tried to invoke Gödel’s theorem on me.)

Tonight, then, this changed. I started out by accepting that yeah, if you just look at humans and other objects as from an external point of view, there’s little difference between, say, a man and a tree. Men consist primarily of carbon, some oxygen and hydrogen, and some other basic elements in various combinations, and they have certain functions. Likewise, trees consist of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen, and some other basic elements in various combinations, and they have certain functions. Pretty much the same thing, right?

However, one of the functions of humans is one whose causes are currently mostly unknown (at least as far as I know, which, granted, isn’t really far at all), and we call it self-awareness. This function allows us to recognise ourselves, our existence, and that there are things that separate us from e.g. trees, dogs, rocks, suns, books, and what have you. (I won’t even try to say anything about what the criteria for this distinction is, but I’m relatively certain the process of distinguishing between these things isn’t necessarily a conscious one.) In other words, we are able to divide the Universe (“universe” means “everything” or something along those lines, remember?) into categories based on properties, and even though these categories aren’t necessarily accurate, it’s one of our most basic modus operandi.

So far so good. This, however, is where tonight’s second big step came. The first one was to stop arguing against one of the consequences of this view of mine. The second one, which can be said to have been pretty much a result of the first one, was to learn a lesson from phenomenology, and heavily emphasise the importance of human perception. This is pretty much a rather banal step in the general process of anthropocentrism, though, and it is simply to say that people have value because people ascribe value to other people.

Now, here is something of a moral crux, at least for those who want the world to make sense, in a nice, ordered and preferably good way. Because obviously, in a world where an omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent entity has ascribed this value to the life of Man, there’s some authority behind the decision, and probably also repercussions for those who choose to disregard “God”’s imperative. In the (let’s face it, this is what I’m talking about) atheist view, however, there’s no authority that forces us to recognise the value of human life, only utilitarianism. But utilitarianism is flexible, and at times, it won’t be optimal for humans to ascribe value to other humans. Other times, they might just choose not to.

This, then, is where evil comes into play. At the point when you no longer believe that someone or something has any value, you stop caring what happens to him, her or it. Case in point, the Jews in e.g. Nazi Germany, and the dehumanisation process which initiated the genocide against them. Or, from the perspective of Peter Singer and his acolytes, animals in the food industry. Worthless commodities can be disposed of without second thought, and so can humans, if they’re not perceived as having value.

Which is pretty much what Nietzsche said: a world without God is a world where the will to power and the will of the powerful are the only laws. Which really sucks (luckily, though, there are multiple mitigating effects; after all, we do not live in a Hobbesian natural state), and is one of the most significant sources of the Weltschmertz that at times strikes me like a kick in the gut. But there it is.

And that’s about as far I got tonight. I see here that I’ve brought myself to a whole set of new problems, where I believe counter-power would be just about the only solution to the injustices committed by the powerful, but for now, I think I’ll be contented with solving the main hole in my materialistic world-view, and that I kinda managed to explain “the problem of evil” in the same go. Yay me, eh?

Filed in Ambiguity, Conflicting emotions, Discomfort, Evilness, Gratitude, Grief, Help!, Hodge-podge rambling, Misery, My microcosmos, Oh noes!, Opinions, Pain, Panic, Paranoia, Pessimism, Pride, Rant, Regret, Religiousity, Revelations, Scepticism, Speculations, Why do I think anyone cares?, Wistfulness · 34 Responses · Post comment

Almost Famous

April 20. 2008

Almost Famous has been described as doing for the 70s what Rock Star did for the 80s. Do I believe this description is an accurate one? Perhaps. What I do believe is that it’s a great movie.

Supposedly, Almost Famous is based on writer/director Cameron Crowe’s own experiences as a Rolling Stones journalist. In it he takes on the form so to say of the 15-years-old William Miller, who manages to be assigned the task of following the band Stillwater on their 1973 tour, by said publication. During this tour, we’re shown the underbelly of the music industry, all kinda filtered through the views imposed on William by his mentor Lester (the best act of the movie, brilliantly portrayed by the magnificent Philip Seymour Hoffman (by the way, check out Charlie Wilson’s War!), a kinda bitter music journalist whose main idea is that rock is dead, and that it’s all just business now. Observe:

Lester Bangs: Aw, man. You made friends with them. See, friendship is the booze they feed you. They want you to get drunk on feeling like you belong.
William Miller: Well, it was fun.
Lester Bangs: They make you feel cool. And hey. I met you. You are not cool.
William Miller: I know. Even when I thought I was, I knew I wasn’t.
Lester Bangs: That’s because we’re uncool. And while women will always be a problem for us, most of the great art in the world is about that very same problem. Good-looking people don’t have any spine. Their art never lasts. They get the girls, but we’re smarter.
William Miller: I can really see that now.
Lester Bangs: Yeah, great art is about conflict and pain and guilt and longing and love disguised as sex, and sex disguised as love… and let’s face it, you got a big head start.
William Miller: I’m glad you were home.
Lester Bangs: I’m always home. I’m uncool.
William Miller: Me too!
Lester Bangs: The only true currency in this bankrupt world if what we share with someone else when we’re uncool.
William Miller: I feel better.
Lester Bangs: My advice to you. I know you think those guys are your friends. You wanna be a true friend to them? Be honest, and unmerciful.

As for the question I asked in the opening paragraph — whether or not this one does for the 70s what Rock Star did for the 80s… Well, where Rock Star showed us a world where the commercial forces, the money artists, for a while were coming to be displaced by the music artists (towards the end that’s kinda what happened, anyway), Almost Famous jumped back to the era where those commercial forces took over for real, where the more feral spirit of the years around 1970 were being transformed into the utterly disgusting (in my humblest of humble opinions) trappings of Glam Rock and all that shit.

What Almost Famous did differently, though — and this is what ultimately makes it the better movie –, was that it took its time. It went a bit deeper, than Rock Star, in that it didn’t focus as much on the genre or the subculture or one single character. It looked at a journalist, a musician and his band, and a “groupie” who preferred the label “band-aid” (which is basically a girl who’s there because she loves the music, not because she wants to fuck a famous guy), and through the portrayal of these three characters (I was about to say “destinies”, but that sounds so bloody pretentious) it came out as a much more human, tender movie than did Rock Star.

But hey, it was still fun as Hell (okay, now there’s a weird metaphor…), and it entertained the crap out of me with its 70s atmosphere, its characterizations, and its human problems. Awesome movie.

9.0/10.

Also, brilliant soundtrack.

Filed in Goosebumps!, History, Movies, Music, Quotes, Recommendations, Review · No responses · Post comment

Rock Star

April 20. 2008

Rock Star is the movie about the young Chris (Mark Wahlberg), who idolates the Heavy Metal band Steel Dragon and sings in a Steel Dragon tribute band (from whence the immortal comment “We’re not a cover band, we’re a tribute band!” arises). The first half or so of the movie portrays Chris’ day to day life in his home town, where he lives with his parents, fixes copiers for a living, and rehearses with his band.

But there’s a serpent in Eden. The rest of the band is getting tired of only playing Steel Dragon songs note by note, and want to experiment more and also write their own material. This does not sit well with Chris; he’s thrown out of the band, but Fortune is fickle, and through some rather outragously lucky circumstances he soon finds himself replacing the lead singer of Steel Dragon.

Where the first half of the movie was a relatively fond (but far from servile) portrayal of certain kinds of youth culture, the second half does pretty much the same for the music scene of the 1980s. It takes us on a ride through the deepest abyss of decadence and lack of so-called artistic integrity, and while the movie never goes to any depths in its examinations, it displays an impressive broadness of theme, and manages to stay away from the worst simplifications. The seemingly mindless party animal that plays the bass in Steel Dragon, for example, has a line where he (sort of) eloquently formulates the credo and the spirit of 80s Heavy:

“Look, you start out with the best intentions but theres just so much pussy coming at you every single day that finally it wears you down. You see you’ve got all these birds out there dreaming about having it off with you and that makes the guys wanna be you, and its the guys who buy the records. So if the chicks dont want you the guys are gone. You live the fantasy other people only dream about, so my advice to you is dream big and live the life.”

On the other side, you’ve got the guitarist in Chris’ tribute band, who asks Chris if he wouldn’t rather live and fail as himself than being a copy of someone else. The whole movie’s permeated with these nice threads of identity and integrity, and when this finally concludes with Chris and his old tribute band guitarist mate forming a grunge band, it all feels very full circle’y.

All in all, Rock Star is a great little portrayal of a facet of a decade, as well as a sociological study of this rather peculiar subculture. Add to all this thematic stuff that it’s both well written and well acted (Mark Wahlberg does a great job, as mentioned, as does Jennifer Aniston, Jason Flemyng, Dominic West and last but not least Timothy Spall), and it’s a movie I can recommend highly to just about anyone, although people with a certain fascination with musical subcultures probably will get the most enjoyment out of it.

8.5/10.

Filed in Education, History, Movies, Music, Quote of the day, Quotes, Recommendations, Review · 7 Responses · Post comment

Superhero Movie

April 20. 2008

Rather out of the blue, I ended up seeing Superhero Movie with a friend last night. And man, am I sorry. But I’ll get back to that. First, a plot synopsis.

Rick Riker is Peter Parker, only more (exaggeratedly) so and with more unmotivated and unfun slapstick accidents happening to him. He is in love with the girl next door, Jill (let’s just call her “MJ” — or maybe not), but unfortunately she’s dating a real shithead. Think this sounds like Spider-Man? Well then, congratulations on your not-so-impressing ability to read English, as I’ve pretty much said so a couple of times already. (Which is a bit impressive (yeah…), as this review is only a few sentences long so far.) The rest of the movie mostly follows the plot of the first Spider-Man movie, with the occasional FF or X-1 detour. These, however, are completely pointless digressions, as they’re only used as poor excuses for jokes related to either sex or excretal bodily functions.

Then again, so is the rest of the movie. Hardly more than fifteen seconds passes by without a joke, or at least an attempted joke. Which is rather the core of my problem with this movie. I mean, I got all the jokes but one (one refering to an American baseball player, in my defense), and I heard other people in the theater laughing — but I couldn’t even begin to understand how anyone would find any of these jokes as being worth more than perhaps an overbearing smile here and there.

Okay, so perhaps 40% of the audience were kids under 17 or something, and I’m generous enough not to blame these little half-people for finding this abomination amusing. But for me (and, I think, my buddy, even though he tried to put a brave face on things) this was a total waste of time and resources. For the last three quarters of the movie, I sat praying that it would end soon. I though the movie’d be somewhat more endurable after twenty minutes or so, when Leslie Nielsen’s character was shot and sent into a coma (”With great power comes lots of bitches,” for fuck’s sake!), but the buggers (and yes, at this point it kinda felt as if the hacks who made this trite piece of crap were fucking me up the arse) woke him up only twenty minutes after that again.

In short, do not, under any circumstances (excepting perhaps one of inebriation, an extremely mocking attitude and a handful of equally cynical friends) watch this movie. (It feels a bit superflous to say this, as my only two readers are too sensible to even consider watching stuff like this. So this warning is for any other accidental reader.) It sucked beyond all measure, and I won’t even give the fucking thing a rating, as I feel it would be unfair to The Octagon to compare it to Superhero Movie. In other words, Superhero Movies is so bad it doesn’t have a place within our current paradigm.

Also, if I were Stan Lee et al., I’d sue the beejesus out of whoever is responsible for this awful mess. I mean, there’s gotta be a limit to parody, right, especially when the would-be “parody” falls flat and unsuccessfully to the earth like a dead flamingo?

(Finally, take a look at that nice collection of tags, eh?)

Filed in Annoyance, Boredom, Coincidents, Death, Disappointment, Discomfort, Dumb luck, Grief, Help!, Misery, Movies, Oh noes!, Pain, Panic, Paranoia, Pessimism, Pettiness, Rant, Regret, Review, meh. · 7 Responses · Post comment

Angelic Revelation

April 12. 2008

One of the reasons why I haven’t been much active online lately, is that I spend most of my evenings watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer with one or more of my flatmates. We started about a year ago, when one of them asked me to show him a really fun Buffy episode. I chose “Hush”, and we watched the rest of the show from there on out, but then took a break until the week before Easter or so, when we started on season 1 again. (And might I say, I’d really forgotten how incredibly awesome season 2 is!)

Tonight, we watched “Hush” again, and continued on with “Doomed”, and I’m considering asking the guy I do most of the watching with if we could start watching Angel season 2 when we’ve finished Buffy season 4. However, about an hour ago it struck me that perhaps we ought to watch a selection of the best and most important (for later) episodes of season 1 as well, so I sat down with an episode list to take a look at what we could/should watch. And man, if I wasn’t surprised with how many potential watchables there in here. (Which in itself is kinda surprising, as I’ve watched Angel three times before, all the way through…)

Let’s take a look ar the ones I was considering:

“City of”
Obviously. It’s the beginning, it’s the premise setter, it has that excellent finishing scene where Angel kicks the guy out the window and he meets Lindsey for the first time.

“In the Dark”
It’s got Spike, and everybody loves Spike, don’t we? Also, it’s his last appearance as unambiguous villain.

“I Will Remember You”
It has Buffy, it has stuff that makes me cry like a little girl, and it a tragedy. One of the great ones of the ‘Verse.

“Eternity”
Surprisingly, the next one. I chose to ditch “Hero”, because I really don’t like the package plot of this thing. It has its moments, of course, but no. Also, it doesn’t exactly do wonders for my image to be crying for two consecutive episodes, you know. I also cut “Somnambulist”, even though I really like that episode. “Eternity”, though… a drug-induced Angelus, and a Wesley who has to step up to the plate.

“Five by Five” and “Sanctuary”
Faith! Torturing of Wes! Buffster! Angel displaying his (most metaphorical) cojones! Yet another revelation of why this is truly fantasy — as the Watchers’ Council once again demonstrate their incapacity to do anything right. What is there not to like?

“War Zone”
First meeting with Gunn. Also, it’s generally a good episode.

I’ve considered adding “Blind Date” and “To Shanshu in LA” to the list, too, as well as most of the others, but while they both introduce the Shanshu prophecy and expand a bit upon the whole “Why We Fight” issue (which, I’d like to remind everyone, really started to be touched upon in the Buffy season 3 episode “Gingerbread” — recommended for a re-watch if you don’t remember), I have to admit I’m a bit unsure of how interesting they’ll be for people (most likely to be reduced to “person”, though) who, while liking Whedon’s stuff in general (or at least one of them does; another one has fallen out of my good graces after making the tasteless remark that he thinks CSI is a better show than Buffy), might not be as passionate about it as I am and you are, my core readers (I love you both, by the way :P ).

Comments and suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Even ridiculously off-topic ones, nitpicking about my spelling, and whatnot.

Filed in Ambiguity, Angel, Buffy, Conflicting emotions, Failed attempts at subtility, Lists, Loki, Lotta, Love, My microcosmos, Old Heroes, Pleasant surprises, Query, Rant, Recommendations, Revelations, Strategy/Plans, Television stuff · 17 Responses · Post comment

The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers

April 10. 2008

Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks.
464 pages, paperback.
1984.

In 1811, a sect of Egyptian sorcerors set out to open the gates to the Ancient Egyptian realm of the dead in order to call back the old gods, vanquish Christianity, and resurrect magic. They failed, horribly, yet something happened that night.

1983: An American college teacher and literary scholar, who has specialised on the early 19th century, is asked by an eccentric billionaire to act as a guide to a group of time travellers. The billionaire, you see, both being a genious and having several of this specimen in his employment, has discovered that time is a river. A frozen river, where you have no choice but to float along with the current. However, some time, some where, some how, the ice has been breached. And with the right equipment, it is possible to travel between these gates, provided they are open. Which they’re only for a limited period at a time.

The college teacher accepts the ridiculous amounts of money he’s offered to go along with what it clearly the delusion of a madman, only to discover that the lunatic is telling the truth. However, he’s not able to savour the irony of this for very long, because obviously, something goes to Hell.

The word that immediately springs to mind when I want to describe The Anubis Gates, is “fun”. The characters are quirky, the plot threads and the story intertwined and serpentine, the age’s accurately portrayed, and the concept’s eccentric and well-executed enough for it to really stand out in the crowd. I mean, a novel with time travel, Egyptian sorcerors and gods, beggar kings and gangs, great British Romantic poets, melancholy, vengeance, insane plans, werewolves, and a London so filthy you could use Ankh-Morpork to clean it up with — how else to describe it, than fun?

Granted, the plot was a bit transparent, but that’s only (and I repeat: ONLY) because Powers obviously wants it to be. He drops a lot of hints to the reader along the way, so that you’ll be able to see what’s coming long before it hits the proverbial fan and gets the characters all messed up. This is done in such a way that rather than feel cheated and annoyed, I was left with a big stupid grin on my face for most of the time it took me to read this novel.

In the very least a strong 8.0/10.

Filed in Literature, Review, Speculative fiction · 12 Responses · Post comment

Inspiration strikes from the weirdest skies…

April 10. 2008

So, we’re doing syntax in the English linguistics course I’m taking, and in today’s lecture, we went through the various ways of determining whether or not a string of words is a phrase or not — a mildly put important part of the whole syntax bit. One of the examples the lecturer used was the sentence “He wouldn’t describe the accident to the police” and compared it with the sentence “He didn’t describe the journey to the mountains” — sentences that are comprised of the same sequence of word categories, but have different structures. Anyhoo, during his demonstration of the “move things around a bit and see what happens” method, he presented us with the non-grammatical English sentence “The accident to the police, he wouldn’t describe”. This non-sentence, while not making sense in regular English, does however make sense if you view it in light of the concept of poetic syntax. It also has a certain rhythmicality to it, and so, naturally, it inspired me to write this poem:

The accident to the police
He wouldn’t describe;
One a previous occasion
He had tried them to bribe.
He had parked on a spot
Where he wasn’t supposed,
And to that idea
They were wholly opposed.
When a bobby came up
To protest the event,
To slip him a fiver
He was very hell-bent.
The bobby was outraged;
He arrested our guy,
Or that is, he tried;
He was punched in the eye.
In light of all this
One should not be surprised,
If the demands of the law
Our hero defies.

Filed in Art, Boredom, Coincidents, Education, English, Language, My microcosmos, Poetry, Weird stuff, What I Learned Today · 13 Responses · Post comment

Angel: After the Fall, issues 3-5

April 10. 2008

I’ve been doing a lot of nothing lately. In fact, I’ve been doing so much nothing that I’ven’t even read the last three (or four, now, I guess) issues of After the Fall. Luckily, I was able to rectify this last night, and man, am I glad I did.

As frustrating as it is to read these short stories, it is worth it. Granted, I’m still not quite happy with the art, especially as it on occasions tend to work in combination with the general dialogue to create what I experience as a staccato narrative flow. This is particularly so with the action sequences. Case in point, the fight between Illyria and Angel, and Illyria and Dragon in issue 3 — although these fights weren’t technically where the main wheight of the focus was at at the time, it was still where the visual focus was, and so it influenced the rest of the reading process.

But apart from this tiny, little issue, my only beef with the comic is something for which it can’t be blamed, as it is inherent in the medium — namely the length, that there is so little of it.

Because this is awesome. It’s so awesome, I want more. (Okay, so saying anything of Whedon’s is so good you want more is technically a pleonasm, but I kinda like pleonasms.) In just a few short issues they’re able to span rather extreme topoi and thema (heh), but always, always there’s that dark, wistful tone playing in the background. That is, when it’s not occupying centre stage.

Even though I think I might prefer the TV show Buffy over Angel, I think I’ll take After the Fall over Season 8. To the extent that it makes sense to say stuff like this, all the time I don’t really have to choose — I can have both! :D

Filed in A Praise Chorus, Angel, Art, Awe, Comics, Procrastination · 13 Responses · Post comment

Is there anything more fun that an academic insult?

March 28. 2008

“I en klasse for seg er Christian Meier. I Res Publica amissa. Eine Studie zur Verfassung und Geschichte der späten römischen Republik, Wiesbaden 1966, finner han at bruk av valgforbund er sjeldnere enn factio-skolen (Taylor, Scullard og Ronald Syme) har hevdet. For øvrig er boka preget av total mangel på kildekritikk idet moralistiske utsagn fra seinrepublikken som beskriver eldre tider som sunne og nøysomme, tas på alvor. Han mener at den romerske revolusjonen er en krise uten alternativer. Det er vel helst hans eget tolkningsskjema som gjør at aktørene mangler fri vilje. Det er heldigvis ikke ofte man støter på en bok som framstår som en så ukritisk hyllest til grosse Männer, grosse Ideen, grosse Politik. Boka blir her omtalt bare fordi andre mener den er viktig, ikke fordi dens kvalitet berettiger omtale.”

— Bjørn Qviller, in a historiographic summary of the Roman Republic,
Romersk politisk kultur og sosiologisk historie, p. 33.

(And this is a book intended for 100- and 200-level students, mind you. :D )

Filed in Awe, History, Literature, Quote of the day, Roman stuff · 4 Responses · Post comment