Various Valentines

I was walking along the towpath of the Regents canal today when, passing by the bottom Lock, I saw a chap in a hoodie wearing a Guy Fawkes mask, like one of these:

It gave me quite a start, but I don't think it was meant to represent Guy Fawkes, but the anarchist in Alan Moore's story V for Vendetta.

It's been well over twenty years since I read the book and I remember it having a profound effect on me then: I joined Amnesty International after reading it. All the story chapters begin with the letter V, Valedictory, Venom, etc. thus the title of this blog. Strangely, given it's reputation, I always thought of it as a dark romance, as well as a political work. Althought the film was not a critical success, it did get the chapter on Valerie right.

Dormouse

And here's a picture of a dormouse

Orcs Must Die!

I've been playing this over the weekend, and what a jolly wheeze it is too...

New TV Series

There are a few new TV series in the states which look quite good and should be winging their way over to us shortly. The first is Grimm, a bit like Supernatural, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but a bit more serious:



The other is Person of Interest, which is a bit like The Equaliser, if you can remember that far back:

It's the end of the world...

... as we know it!



I mean 6 - 1 !!! 6 *!£$%-ing 1!!!!
After I stopped laughing, I realised how this might feel for all those Stretford people with their team being beaten by a Manchester team. And started laughing again. So I think I'll be watching that this evening.

The Price of Sci-Fi

I'd like to contrast two new science fiction tv series, Terra Nova and Pioneer One.

The first is a muti-million dollar epic from Fox with Steven Speilberg as one of the producers:



It follows the fortunes of a family sent back in time from a poisoned future to the Cretaceous period, the era just before the final extiction of the dinosaurs, about 85 million years ago, to start a new life.

It is, as you would expect, a lavish spectacular, with all the latest special effects, CGI dinosaurs, etc. It's main problem is that it's somewhat safe, even predictable.

To contrast, there's Pioneer One (Below is actually the entire first episode, not a trailer):



The is a low budget, web based tv sci-fi drama. An object from space crash lands in Canada containing a young man, speaking only Russian. It turns out that he's from Mars, a survivor of a small colony sent there by the Soviets in the 1970's.

I like it. Yes, you can tell it's low budget: there are no special effects and the actors are not "names", but it is rather charming and thought has gone into character and plot, rather than gimmicks. It's funded mostly through donations and I've got a mention in the credits for the season 1 DVD for mine!

R.E.D.

The latest movie I've watched is R.E.D., an action movie with Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Brian Cox and Mary-Louise Parker.



It's not a half-bad movie, elevated from the mundane by Mirren and Cox as former oppenents and covert lovers, obviously enjoying themselves and acting everyone else off the set. The other is Mary-Louise Parker who has a kind of geeky charm as Willis's love interest. Willis is a very one note actor, and a flat note at that, and I've never understood why he's a lead, but if you can stand that it's a good pizza movie.

"Try and look normal"

This should be out some time next year:

Angel-headed Hipsters

I'm watching Howl, a film about Allen Ginsberg's poem and the subsequent trial after it was published in 1956:



He was more than a little screwed up, but it is a good film and Ginsberg had a certain endearing geekiness to him, which I quite liked. Also James Franco is so like Ginsberg in looks, manner and voice it's difficult to say where one ends and the other begins, as in the final scene where it's actually Ginsberg singing, rather than Franco.

Monsters

I've been watching Monsters, which has just come out on DVD. It's a sort of alien invasion/road movie/love story.



Not bad, but I found it difficult to really empathise with the leads.