The Fractal Hall Journal

And then the Funvee gets blown up.

The economy may be collapsing, climate change accelerating, and Cthulhu may be turning up soon to eat everyone’s heads, but none of that matters because, with a big old load of cockrock, the Journal lurches back into existence. I’ll skip the deadly sin of blogging-about-blogging; needless to say, I haven’t been around for a bit, but now I am. Probably weekly from now on.

A couple of things of note:

Council leaders have compiled a banned list of the 200 worst uses of jargon, proving once again that people have too much time on their hands, despite the best efforts of Twitter, Facebook, and people who play with their toys on the internet. While there’s a lot of management bollocks on there, I’m not sure we should start banning various terms because people are too fick to know what words mean. Councils in Scotland are going to have a bastard of a time instructing lawyers if they can’t use “Advocate”, for a start.

Also, by implication the following unlisted phrases must be perfectly acceptable for everyday use in Local Government: “Willy-wobbling”. “Turdfaced fuckwit”. “Felch”.

2009 film previews: Only one thing could top not only a new Trek film, but also the Transformers sequel. And that’s THIS:

SO RIGHTEOUS.

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A few things from the past month that I didn’t get to talk about, what with everything.

Batman RIP hits, with somewhat mixed reviews. I’m not quite sure what to make of it all, really. I had decided to wait for the trades on Batman, because I’ve found Morrison’s run to read a hell of a lot better in one chunk rather than on an erratic monthly schedule. Now, I’m not sure whether to bother or not. I’m sure I’ll pick it up eventually, but there’s plenty of other things I’m more enthusiastic about.

Part of the problem here is how much the storyline has been hyped. These days, COMIC HYPE more often than not makes me less inclined to pick something up, and even the fucking British press got in on the act with RIP. My overall impression is that RIP’s just a middle-act storyline to a larger Morrison plot that ended up getting the metaphorical fridge nuked out of it by the DC marketing department. I think I’ll wait to see if there’s ever a proper resolution to all of this before plonking my cash down. And I’m certainly not buying any of the pointless spin-offs.

One thing I did notice in a lot of the commentary was the idea that DC isn’t properly capitalising on the success of the movie. I’m not really sure if they can, to be honest. If superhero blockbusters had any effect on comics sales, I’m sure it would’ve happened by now, so I doubt taking Bruce Wayne out of the regular title for however long is going to make any difference.

That said, I’d love to see an ongoing Batman title out of regular continuity in the style of The Dark Knight. I know All-Star was kind of DC’s answer to the Ultimate U, but it didn’t quite work out that way (to Superman’s benefit, and Batman’s detriment). I say, balls to it. Outright steal Marvel’s initial attempt to capture Movie X-Men’s style in the Ultimate X-Men title, only do it for Batman. Hell, call it The Legend of the Dark Knight, with “the legend of” in little writing.

And you know the key to getting the tone right? Making sure Batman’s cowl is drawn with eyeholes rather than blank lenses. It would make the world of difference in terms of atmosphere, and it would be a fresh spin because as far as I know (and I’m happy to be corrected, as always) the mainstream Batman has never been drawn with, you know. Eyes.

(Odd coincidence: In the middle of drafting this, I looked at the new site statistics under the new domain provider, and one of the recent searches that led to the Journal was “why doesnt batman have any pupils?” Well-timed.)

Speaking of waiting for the trade, I picked up Geoff Johns’ Superman and the Legion of Superheroes hardback during the downtime. Now, you should understand that I have almost zero interest in the Legion, I’m ambivalent if not hostile to the 70s throwback storytelling we’ve been getting in comics for the past couple of years, and that I really dislike the concept of there being a Superboy before Superman.

Because I really fucking loved this story. Seriously, one of the best Superman stories I’ve read in ages. It just highlights what a good writer can do when he doesn’t mess around with Crises and crossovers and events and things that get your comic mentioned in the Daily pissing Mail. This six-issue run beats every single Brand! New! Changes! Everything! Forever! storyline I’ve ever read, because it just lets Superman be Superman. A damned shame Johns follows it up with a year’s worth of stunt storytelling, kicking off with Pa Kent kicking the bucket.

Oh, and there was one excrutiating thing that, while not really Johns or Gary Frank’s fault, I found to be completely unacceptable in this day and age. The first double-page spread of the Original Legion has dozens of characters, apparently from dozens of different planets in a galaxy teeming with different cultures. Yet every single one of them was white.

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Core Genre: Science Fiction. Because rockets, exploding planets, mad scientists. Eye laser beams. Et cetera.

The Bad: Because he’s so over-powered that no problem could be a challenzzzzzzzzzzzzz*huh?* oh sorry, I sent myself to sleep from reciting one of the same old criticisms that get pulled out of the cupboard time and again.

You don’t need me to tell you the problems with the character. We’ve heard them all before, over and over. There’s not enough Kryptonians, there’s too many Kryptonians, he’s a big wet boy scout, he’s a crypto-fascist. I could go on, all day. But I don’t have to, because:

The Good: All the character’s problems are utterly irrelevant. He’s the first superhero, the template. Want to talk about “superheroes” as an archetype? He is the archetype. If Superman is too idealistic, then superheroes as a genre are too idealistic. If he’s too far to the political left or the political right, then so is the genre. If he has too much power, then we’re criticising the very idea that our own imagination is too powerful. A need to put limits on limitlessness strikes me as nonsensical. Who on earth would want to encumber their own capacity to conceive?

To claim that Superman has neither resonance or relevance is to do the same for the concept of the ’superhero’. And this year’s box office receipts alone make a mockery of that.

None of this means that he hasn’t been handled badly in the past, mind. Give anyone a blank piece of paper and the opportunity to create whatever they want and most oftne people kind of freeze up. A lack of limits lends itself to a lack of focus. That’s why Grant Morrison suits the character; he’s the writer most likely to continue utilising wilder and more imaginative concepts. But it’s his weakness, too. How often has a Morrison story collapsed under its own weight? Let’s take a look at the breakdown:

A) Superpowers. The very minimum being super-strength and, of course, flight.
B) A cloak.

And honestly, that’s it. That’s all you need for a Superman story. Because a kid who’s sole prop is a coat with the top button done up is going to create a tale just as relevant, meaningful and important as anything written by Morrison, Schwartz, Weisinger, even Siegel and Shuster themselves.

And I think there may be an interesting consequence to this: while not every other superhero character can replace Superman in a typical Superman story, I suspect Superman can replace pretty much every other hero to a certain extent in theirs. For example, the Martian Manhunter can fit into any Superman story that’s based strictly around the cosmic end of his powers, but he couldn’t fit into Red Son. But Superman could fit into a J’onn J’onzz story easily, even one based on J’onn’s multiple secret identities. It would just involve modified Superman robots, and would probably be pretty cool. Even stories centred on a female protagonist that are predicated on gender can have their hero switched out by using Supergirl, because in terms of the mechanics of the thing, Kal-El and Kara are the same character. Even Arkham Asylum would work with Superman, although it would probably be about a page long and consist of “…and then he flew in and rounded them all up in about a minute, give or take.”

Joking aside, I’m serious about Arkham Asylum. Imagine a psychoanalytical take on Batman’s rogues, where the main character isn’t a clinically depressed rich boy but instead a brightly coloured spandex crusader with a messiah complex. More dissonance, more insight, more lunacy.

If anything, Superman as he’s commonly thought of, with the uniform and the S-shield and the mild-mannered alter-ego, isn’t so much the ‘original’ as a derivation of the original. Superman as defined by comic-book fans compared to the general public is different again. For the purpose of the exercise, let’s take current continuity Superman as a separate entity and take a look at how he works.

A) Superpowers (a combination of heat vision, vision powers, super-speed and strength, invulnerability, flight: perhaps even a certain resourcefulness)
B) Clark Kent, reporter, as an alter-ego
C) The uniform.

Factor B is specific to current-continuity Superman because the question of his identity- whether “Superman” or “Clark Kent” is the mask- has become fundamental to the character, regardless of what side of the fence the writer may come down on. I think some element of this needs to be present in the story, really. While archetype-Superman could easily have a series of stories that make no mention of Kent (seriously, remove any mention of the secret ID from almost any Golden Age Superman tale, and it probably won’t effect the Superman-ness of the story at all), I’m not even sure current-Superman could work without it, either through a humanising effect or as a reaction against it.

Where Superman is something of a one-note character is in the application of the above factors to the bad guys. He locates and interacts with his antagonists via his superpowers, almost exclusively. Clark Kent as a mechanism is important for the way he interacts with Superman, not with the villains. Sure, there’s the odd time where an investigation leads to a story, or Kent faces Luthor for whatever reason, but the presence of these elements isn’t essential for it to be a Superman tale.

And this is the heart of the character as we know him, and what makes him unique. A few days ago, as a preface to these posts, I posited that superhero stories are ultimately interactions between heroes and their villains. I still think this holds for every superhero- but only partially for Superman. Factor A controls his interaction with the villains. Factor B controls his interaction with himself. And Factor C primarily controls his interaction with us. Sure, the act of reading any superhero tale sets up an interaction with the audience, but with Superman that interaction is vital. The symbolism of the uniform is as important to the audience, if not more so, as it is to characters within the work. Here’s a couple of illustrations.

Firstly, I’m not going to do a post on Spider-man. Of all superheroes, his mechanics are the most obvious. In fact, Marvel have gone to great lengths recently to restore Quesada’s take on what’s vital to a Spider-man story to continuity (incidentally, while I don’t like the disappearing marriage at all, these posts should illustrate why I understand where he’s coming from). One element I do want to bring up, though, is Peter Parker’s own internal life; in essence, how he interacts with himself. What makes this different from Superman’s apparently identical interaction is that Peter Parker is in fact one of Spider-man’s villains. Not so Clark Kent.

Secondly, we can illustrate the three factors through Superman stories that don’t work. Let’s take the infamous Superman Returns (and once again, I stress that I do really like the film. I just don’t necessarily think that it’s a wholly compelling Superman story). Factor B: Clark Kent’s barely in the film, and when he is he tells us almost nothing about Superman. Factor C: The Superman uniform is a representative shorthand for the character himself. You see the S-shield and the cloak, and you’re reminded instantly of what the character represents (truth, justice- all that stuff). If the film played to that, there’d be no dissonance. Instead, we get Big Blue as an absent father who’s abandoned all his various responsibilities for selfish reasons, and there’s not a single audience member who won’t feel the wrongness of that, even at a subliminal level.

Finally, there’s a failure in Factor A: the major interaction with the primary villain being a shard of kryptonite in the back while weakened. Even poisoned and powerless, Superman would have pulped Luthor. Just think about it; the most effective scenes of the movie (the plane crash, the incidents in Metropolis, lifting LuthorLand) had Superman using his powers to interact with villains (because accidents and natural disasters are villains in this context).

Other factors: I’ve gone on long enough already, but obviously Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen are, with Robin, perhaps the most historically important supporting cast members of any superhero. And if we’re talking about nemeses, Luthor is the Big One. So much so, that I suspect he’s maybe the only supervillain who merits a delineation of his own, because the central argument can be reversed for him. Luthor’s story is very much about how he places Superman into context, and how he deals with him. Without Superman, Luthor doesn’t have a story. Villains like the Joker, or Doctor Octopus, could function perfectly well with any other hero as a nemesis. Heck, a villain doesn’t need to interact with a hero. An unobstructive story arc relating to Norman Osborne doesn’t ever need a superpowered antagonist to turn up. But without Superman, Luthor’s nothing.

In conclusion: Superman as a character has a multitude of interpretations, and a limitless potential. The engine that drives this is the unique way he interacts with his villains, with himself, and with his audience.

Click here for the Delineation Archive.

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Well that was a close one, readers. Turns out I didn’t have Ebola Gulf-A after all, but whatever I did have has burned out my blogging mojo, because I’ve started writing this post four times now, and haven’t managed to get further than the first hundred words. Let’s see how I do this time.

I mean, it’s not like there’s a shortage of things to talk about. Like Russell T. Davies’ new book (well, collection of emails), “The Writer’s Tale”. I’ve read the first couple of chapters of this particularly heavy tome, and so far it’s been fascinating. As well as having some candid information about the nuts and bolts of getting Doctor Who made, because it’s made up of the typed back-and-forth between him and Benjamin Cook it’s almost like going through someone else’s inbox. It’s particularly interesting how similar his writing here is to his demeanour in television and print interviews. If nothing else, the man is exceptionally enthusiastic about damn near everything. If you’re a Whovian of any stripe, you really need to read this.

I was going to do a bit on violence in comics, and in popular culture generally, but to be honest people’s reactions to the subject (sometimes valid, sometimes not) have convinced me to shelve it until I can think a bit more clearly about it.

I will say this, though: the phrase “torture porn” has been thrown around a bit in recent years. In some ways, depending on what exactly we’re talking about, I think it’s a misnomer. I mean, I know I’ve used the phrase as a criticism in the past, and to be honest in retrospect I think I was wrong. What it comes down to is that the creators of either the Hostel films or the Saw series didn’t write them to get people off. They just didn’t. Yet that’s what the “porn” tag suggests.

Horror fiction has a very specific function. I am absolutely certain we get attracted to darker types of fiction, be it Silence of the Lambs, Dexter, or even Lovecraft, not because we want to actually eat human flesh/slice people up/summon slimy tentacled nethergods to consume our very Reality, but because it’s a relatively safe way of facing our worst fears, and our own inevitable death. It’s no different to the way comedy makes us face our own pomposity, absurdity or prejudice, and for that reason it doesn’t really surprise me that comedic films and shows get criticised almost as much as slasher flicks do.

Let me put it this way: the Saw franchise is hugely profitable. They are relatively consistant in quality (regardless of what initial value anyone may place on that quality, and besides, compare Saw IV to, say, Halloween IV, and tell me the series doesn’t buck the usual nosedive trend of endless horror sequels), cheap to make, and every film so far has made over $100 million dollars world wide. Leaving the DVD sales to the side for a moment, that means at least 10 million people on the planet have seen at least one of the films. Does anyone honestly want to tell me that these 10 million people wanted to see it because they get off on the violence? Of course not. They went because they wanted to be scared, and that isn’t the function of pornography.

When it comes down to it, people like to be scared. And that kind of catharsis isn’t necessarily damaging.

Wow, this week’s Google hits are going to be interesting.

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Oh boy, today’s post has been a somewhat difficult one. It was late in the first place, and then disappeared into the digital void, even after saving. Oh, it can be such a difficult life, sometimes.

It was initially late because I’d planned to post perhaps the most hilarious* post in the Journal’s history. Unfortunately, for that I needed a screencap from Superman: The Movie, and some copy protection thing wouldn’t let me do that. On the DVD that I paid well-earned cash to own, for a film I have bought more than once. It’s absolutely true that DRM only punishes honest customers stupid enough to act legally, and also people who want to make fun of films on the internet.

What I’m saying is, Warner Bros. and WordPress (for losing this post first time round) are to blame for today’s entry being late, and you should all write to them to complain.

Ahem.

Anyway, onwards. Finally got round to reading the final All-Star Superman, and I think I’m going to need a little time to process it. I was a little, I don’t know, not disappointed with how it ended, more that I don’t think I quite get it yet. The more I think about it the more I like it, though, and it goes without saying that it’s still packed full of brilliance, and the series as a whole is one of the best Superman stories I’ve ever written [Edit 4/10/08: read, best Superman stories I've ever read. I'm not Grant Morrison, honest. Certainly after hearing about the story Mick hints at in the comments.] But the last panel did confuse me a bit. The “2″ is very clever and all, but it seems like it should be a gimmick ending to one of the earlier issues rather than a cap to the whole series. And it looks more like advertising for a second All-Star series more than a solid ending. And Quintum may be a funky addition, but he doesn’t seem significant enough a character to be the focal point of the ending, although I suppose he’s meant to be the manifestation of Morrison himself (although, in a couple of places, I got the vibe that Lex was meant to be the Scotsman’s avatar.)

Oh, bollocks to it, I don’t really want to moan about the comic because it was great. I suppose most of my reservations come from the fact that I don’t want it to be a 12 issue series at all. I want it to be ongoing, and I want to wallow in this fantastic world Morrison, Quitely and Grant have created for a hundreds of issues.

One thing (of many) that Morrison handled perfectly was the issue with Jonathan Kent’s death, probably my favourite one of the run. Only problem is, from what I can tell, there have been hints that Pa Kent is for the chop in the main titles, too. This is a very, very bad idea. Because bringing him back into the story, post-original Crisis, added an important and interesting element to Superman’s supporting cast. By removing him again, all we’re going to get is another excrutiating death scene that’s unlikely to have anywhere near the impact his death had in the movie, or in All-Star, partly because not every writer is as good as Grant Morrison, and partly because death is so incredibly underwhelming as a plot device in comics. It has none of the resonance it used to have. In fact, far from being affected by the drama of death, these days when someone buys it I don’t feel anything more than boredom, and disappointment that the writer can’t find a single thing new or interesting to write about instead. It’s just cheap and ineffective. And damaging to the character, too; Spider-Man’s diminished supporting cast, as always, being the biggest example of this.

Speaking of the web-slinger, not reading the main title (because, as I always maintain, I don’t have as big a stiffy for rehashing the Seventies that the rest of the aging comic reading (or writing) population obviously has) I don’t know whether Aunt May still knows his secret identity, or whether she’s gone back to being a dribbling moron. In retrospect, absolutely the best thing about JMS’ run was his reinvention of May Parker as a decent character, and it’s a damn shame to lose that.

Final point about All-Star: interesting how Morrison was very clear that Superman is the character, while Clark Kent is the disguise, while latter day takes have always been the other way round. Personally, like with Batman, I’ve always been more of the opinion that there are three character elements present. In Batman’s case, the scary vigilante mask, the playboy millionaire act, and then the real personality is a third person, the one who confides in Alfred and his adoptive sons, and who never wants anyone to go through the same loss he did. For Superman, you’ve got the mild mannered reporter, the optimistic inspiring hero, and the third personality is Kal-El, the more contemplative, perhaps more alien side, the last son (ho ho, these days) of Krypton. In fact, you could make a really creepy story out the idea that he really is a cold, unknowable, Sinestro-like alien, who has to integrate into human society for his own safety, and uses the two masks as a shell to achieve this. Doesn’t quite fit with the character, mind, although I wonder if that’s how Luthor sees him.

Speaking of which, I never got the dislike some people have for the lonely alien take we saw in Donner and Johns’ “Last Son”. I quite like the idea of having the inspirational human-like take in one title (Busiek’s at the time), but the more Kryptonian take in another. No reason we can’t have both.

[*^ it may not have been all that hilarious.]

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Some (non-Alien/Predator for once) tat I really, really need to own, spotted at io9: An incredibly detailed Iron Man toy.

Other news has Kenneth Branagh in talks to direct Thor. This is a great idea. His Frankenstein film came up as a conversation topic the other day, and although I remember it having a lukewarm reception, it really was a decent film, with a great cast, and probably one of the steam-punkiest films to ever have a wide release. If Branagh brings that kind of atmosphere and imagination to the Asgard scenes, the film’s going to be amazing. On one hand, I’d love to have a crazy Kirby-fest, but until someone gets Pixar to make Michael Chabon’s 60s set Fantastic Four film it’s not going to happen, so I’ll settle for Oddly Gothic.

The Green Lantern film appears to be ramping up. I don’t see why they don’t just adapt the recent Secret Origin storyline, because I really love that story. I mean, I’m one of the (apparently few) people who quite liked Emerald Dawn, but I don’t really want a screen adaptation of it, and I’m glad the crippling-his-mate-while-drink-driving thing’s been retconned (ret-retconned?) away. I’d be interested to see who they tap for the aliens. I bet Weta’d do an awesome job, but I’d be happy with the Henson Creature Shop too. No news on Sinestro, but he’s got to be in it. Presumably as Hal’s mentor in the first one, and the antagonist in GL II.

Johns has been playing down Sinestro’s alien-ness in Secret Origin so far, in that when he turned up in Rebirth a big deal was made of his, well, sinister demeanor and alien unknowability. Which was really cool, playing up the idea that not every alien species in the Corps was just humanity with a funny skin colour. It gave a sense of original Star Trek-type mystery, the vibe that it’s cold and scary out in space, something that doesn’t always come through in space comics. Of course, that spin doesn’t quite fit with the other Korugans we’ve seen, or Sinestro back when he was a Lantern. Perhaps the cold freakishness isn’t an alien thing, but a symptom of his time spent exiled, either on Qward or inside the Battery. Which is quite cool, too.

Quite looking forward to Neil Gaiman’s new book. It looks a bit more up my street than some of his other work. I think Gaiman’s a great writer, and when he’s good, he’s brilliant. I love Neverwhere, and the original Books of Magic, Anansi Boys was a lot of fun and I’m making my way through his Sandman stuff in the Absolute editions. But I never really got American Gods, I found Eternals a bit lacking and 1602 was let down by a weak ending after a great start. I always meant to go back and read Gods again because I’d probably get more out of it second time round, but I can’t find much enthusiasm for it, really. I think I’d be too busy trying to figure out where all the different gods came from, and while a little bit of that can be fun, the sheer amount of them in the book makes the whole thing too much like hard work.

But a story about a kid raised by ghosts in a graveyard? Kind of thing you wish you’d thought of yourself, really. I’m a little underwhelmed by the McKean cover, but it’s ok because they’re also offering an alternate one by artist Chris Riddell. Riddell’s a fantastic cartoonist, one I remember really clearly from my time as a bookseller. He really stood out amongst the children’s illustrators, his “Rabbit and Hedgehog” books in particular. Even if they may skew a little young for the Journal’s readership.

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I brought Citizen Kane up yesterday as one of those films that you can’t quite believe didn’t get a best picture/director Oscar. It’s got a funny old reputation, that film, and it’s not helped by the constant “bestest film ever” title it’s given on endless lists and articles, not just in places like Empire magazine (where you expect that kind of thing) but in the general media. That’s not to say it isn’t one of the greatest films of all time, because it is. Much like music recording technology and pre-CGI special effects, Orson Welles and his crew had to put an incredible amount of skill and effort into crafting the techniques to create shots and set-ups we take for granted in movies these days because technological advancement has made it so much easier for us. The sheer craft of what the crew had to pull off is mind-blowing. They were using what was essentially state-of-the-art special effects just to frame shots correctly. And it’s not just the technical prowess, but also the script and the acting. There’s nothing about the film that isn’t engaging and exceptional.

Problem is, that kind of weight it carries around can be discouraging to someone coming to the film for the first time. There’s an expectation that if the film-student crowd like it then it must be unpleasantly challenging and hard to watch. God knows it made me reluctant to watch it, and if me and a buddy at University hadn’t happened to catch it one lazy Saturday afternoon, we probably wouldn’t ever have seen it. Much like Raging Bull, in fact; another film rated so enthusiastically by The Critics to be off-putting. And the thing about both of them is that I was completely blown away when I finally got round to watching them, not because of the dazzling artistry but because, first and foremost, they were both excellent stories, completely engaging and never boring.

Tangentially, the film-maker today who (in my subjective opinion, as always) is probably Welles’ spiritual heir? Peter Jackson. Seriously.

The thing about Welles isn’t just that he was a great writer and actor (because he was), but that he put so much skill and craft into the job of directing. It was all about prep and craft at a technical level. As far as I’ve observed, today’s art-housey films are very minimal, viewing the techniques of film-making as secondary, as a way of distancing themselves from the nuts-and-bolts side of things, technical achievement (and technical achievement alone, sometimes) being the defining characteristic of the Summer Blockbuster.

Regardless of what you may think of Lord of the Rings (book or script), the sheer amount of effort, care and design that went into Jackson’s trilogy was awe-inspiring, which by itself would have been a thing. What made it truly great was the addition of a fantastic cast to an excellent script. That’s Welles, and that’s Citizen Kane, through and through.

And another thing, you know who doesn’t help matters? The Things Used To Be Better brigade, who want us all to realise how far the Cinematic Arts have fallen. Horse-shit. If anything brought down the amazing cinema of the 70s, it was the creators themselves, devolving their own work into a self-indulgent mess. It’s no-one’s fault but Scorcese’s that he’s been crap since Goodfellas, and Jesus Christ is that an over-rated film. The fact is, Scorcese has never made anything as good as The Wire. Do I wish there were more grown-up films like Gone, Baby, Gone out there? Sure. But it’s not the end of the world, because I’m perfectly fine with the rise in quality of everything else we’ve had in recent years.

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It’ll be damn sight greener when Caerffili County Borough Council gets round to sorting out kerbside recycling. The fornightly trip to the local “Recycling Centre” with a boot-full of plastic is starting to get a little old.

I notice a bit of buzz about a Best Picture Oscar push for The Dark Knight. Ain’t going to happen, folks, not for a flick about a man in rubber. Although you’d be daft to bet against a post-humous one for Heath Ledger, because there’s nothing anyone likes more than human tragedy.

Speaking of the Academy Awards and on the subject of the film I got today’s post title from, the Academy has made some completely crackers decisions over the years. I mean, I’m as Wales-centric a person as you’ll find in the Fair Country, but How Green Was My Valley beat The Maltese Falcon and Citizen Kane to the Best Picture/Director Oscars. Really, 1940s Hollywood? Really? Maybe one for Batman isn’t utterly outside the realms of possibility, and to be fair I can’t really think of a serious grown-up film about grown-up stuff that’s come out this year. But then, that’s probably just me being mesmerised by all the big screen pretty pretty explodey.

There’s always the Bond, though, and Bond’s been on my mind. Via Mick, I’ve been making my way through snell’s Bond reviews. Well worth your time, the review of The Spy Who Loved Me being particularly good in that it’s spot-on in identifying the film as over-rated, and explaining why.

You know what, I don’t think I’ve seen For Your Eyes Only. I must have, because ITV used to do a Saturday night Bond season at least once a year and I wouldn’t have kept missing the same one. But I don’t remember a single thing about it, apart from the theme, but that’s just from watching those “Best Bond Theme” chart programmes they do everytime there’s a new one in the cinema (in fact, aren’t we about due a new one that includes the Chris Cornell track?)

As for the original Bond novels, I’ve only read Casino Royale, although I intend to make my way through the rest of them at some point. And the more I hear about the original Moonraker, the worse the piece of shit film looks, and the more I wish the BBC could do a faithful period Bond drama, with someone like Ben Cross in the title role. Brother Paul and I have talked about James Bond: The Series a lot over the years. You’re telling me people wouldn’t watch a three-part Cold War thriller mini-series featuring ex-Nazis and a plan to annihilate London? They’d shovel that up even without James Bond in it. Damn you, copyright laws, damn you all to hell.

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Big excitement in Caerffili yesterday, and by excitement I mean human misery. First, there was an armed robbery in the centre of town, and then in an apparently separate incident someone torched an old factory right behind where I live. My initial thought was, obviously, terrorists.

I think we’re going to need a little context for the rest of today’s post.

Prior to Casino Royale, I hadn’t thought much of any Bond theme since GoldenEye, and Live and Let Die before that. Which leaves a lot of Bond themes that I don’t really like. Hell, a lot of Bond films that I don’t really like. But that’s ok.

Bond themes have a tendency either to be done in a style I don’t like (see Madonna, or Duran Duran) or to be derivative to the point of, er, pointlessness (like Moonraker). The reason I like GoldenEye, despite the fact that it’s almost a pastiche of “classic” themes is because at that period in the franchise’s history, what Bond needed was a touch of tradition, a return to the fun action-romp. It was what was required at the time, which made it good.

With Casino Royale, something completely new was needed instead, and we got that with both the film and its theme song. I fucking love the Chris Cornell theme, because after boring traditional themes and substandard dancey noodling, Bond needed to rock out with his cock out. Many, of course, hate You Know My Name. Which is a shame. But in this small corner of the globe, I feel like someone wrote a Bond song specifically for me.

Which brings us in a roundabout way to Jack White and Alicia Keys’ Another Way To Die, and I fucking love that too. I mean, a theme with a bluesier tone fits with the darker direction of the franchise, and it’s the one musical style that’s never really been used in a Bond film, to my recollection. It gets to have all the string-arrangement Bondey call-backs, and be something new at the same time. And the drums; fuck me, that is some great drum work. I am incredibly relieved Mark Ronson didn’t get his hands on it, because we really would’ve ended up with another insipid take-off of Bassey-era themes.

While I’m on the Bond subject, I also love the new film’s title. But I am already sick of people making comments to the effect that “it’s about quantum physics or something.” No it isn’t. It isn’t the producers’ (or Ian Fleming’s) fault you don’t know what words mean. It’s a completely appropriate title, considering the events of the previous film.

As I’ve just switched to Moan Mode, can I have a quick go at the latest Sherlock Holmes films that are apparently in production? We’ve got Guy Richie’s Action-Adventure version with Robert Downey, Jr and Jude Law, and the Judd Apatow spoof with Ali G and Will Ferrell.

Why on Earth hasn’t anyone wanted to make a faithful adaptation since Jeremy Brett snuffed it? The last BBC one had Holmes running a incident room and profiling villains. For fuck’s sake, that is not the point. Holmes isn’t Cracker, or a CSI officer, he’s not a swashbuckling hero and he’s been parodied so often, do we really need another comedic take? His whole appeal, his super-power, is deductive reasoning. I think so many of the modern takes try and put a layer of contemporary paint onto their adaptations simply because the writers just don’t have the talent to construct a clever mystery or the inclination to just use one of Arthur Conan Doyle’s. And don’t get me started on recent portrayals of Holmes’ drug use. That’s a whole big can of missing the point.

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Sweet Lord Cthulhu on a landspeeder, isn’t the American election over yet? I am so very, very sick of reading about that doddering old bastard and that loon he’s got running with him. Well, let’s face it, it’s that loon that most people seem to be writing about, and I’ve reached a saturation point where I no longer care. Am I not concerned with matters of global political significance? Of course I am. That’s why I just want them to hurry up and get on with whatever it is they need to get on with so we can all return our focus to impending economic catastrophe and building nuclear bunkers in our gardens. Because “Jabbing Russia With A Pokey Stick” had become a popular past-time of late and that has always turned out so well before.

I don’t know, it’s always easy to roll your eyes at how fucking bugnuts the world is, because you don’t have to look too far to find the crazy at any given point in history. But the whole creationism thing has really been eating at me recently. You kind of expect it of our fellows across the Atlantic (and I don’t mean to have a mean old jab or anything, but it does seem to come up a lot over there), but I get really itchy when it crops up in British newspapers as a thing. I mean, we all know it’s crazy? Don’t we? It’s just a stupid thing the media wants to make a drama of, right?

Then again, the politicians have recently started taking pot shots at women’s reproductive rights, and I thought that particular battle had been won a long time ago (ho, ho). It just doesn’t take much effort for matters to regress.

How depressing. Let’s have some links.

A three-year Southampton University study into the “out-of-body experience” phenomenon has kicked off. Because we are all cursed to never learn from the mistakes of Kiefer Sutherland in Flatliners.

Alien tat of the day: Almost five hundred quid’s worth of coffee table. If I could, I would buy all of the outrageously priced Alien and Predator junk I could get my hands on, and keep it all in one room tastefully decorated by Giger himself.

Irish novelist Eoin Colfer has been hired to write a sixth Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy novel. Now, this is an interesting story. Not surprising, because Douglas Adams’ books have always been incredibly popular, and who wants the gravy train to stop just because the author’s dead? I’m sure plenty of fanboys are screaming bloody murder.

But. I always felt the fifth Hitchhiker’s was awful, and a terrible way to end the series. And Adams always said he intended to do a sixth. I’m not what you’d call a dedicated fan of his, which makes it easier for me not to mind so much, I suppose. And I’ve never read any of Colfer’s work, but he really is phenomenally popular so he must have something going for him. I just really want a better ending than Mostly Harmless. Seriously, it was such a downer it really spoiled my enjoyment of the earlier books. So I’m certainly picking this one when it comes out.

And finally, a few bits of sad news from the music industry; the deaths of Pink Floyd’s Richard Wright and Motown’s Norman Whitfield. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been getting my prog on recently, and probably appreciating the Floyd more than I have in the past. And Whitfield, christ, just look at a list of songs he co-wrote. Those are some of the greatest records ever made. And he was right. War is good for absolutely nothing.

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