Sick and Depraved

Well, just sick actually. Been struck down with some vicious lurgi which, being a man, has rendered me useless at all but the most basic of tasks (making tea, eating grapes and watching the completely bonkers opening episode of Lost season 2).

My dedication to cultural weakness continues and, should god see fit to grant me strength to resist this vile contagion, I'll knock together some old nonsense about Surface.

Rawk!

Spent last night watching Gunstar Heroes at a video game tournament after-party in the Marquee on Leicester Square. To declare my interest a couple of friends do play in the band, but they were rather good and capped off a weekend of utter self-destruction. And camp Thai cowboy action.

Norf Lahndan

Last saturday was a beautifully crisp autumn day, and I wandered up to Hampstead Heath - for the first time in eight years, shame. Scraggly undergrowth, wild woodland, great views - perfect for this time of year, like the more manicured parks are great for summer.

Baffled

Was a little confused to see this poster pinned up on the railings outside Russell Square



Confused ... and yet also interested.

"Just trying to fly under the radar boss. Do my time, and get out." "There's no flying under my radar."

Prison Break. the, erm, prison drama series, has already been running for a few weeks, but I've only just caught up with it. First impressions... well, basically positive, in a ludicrously contrived way. It's like 24, in the sense that there's a deadline, (the impending) execution of a convict on death row, and just as convuluted but whereas half the fun in that show is watching Sutherland/Bauer flounder around like a landed fish attempting to keep up with the twists forced on him by a crazed writing staff, here protagonist Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) - the death row inmate's brother - is as clued up as the show's makers, being the author of an intricate escape plan roughly analogous in its complexity to the boardgame Mousetrap (a key plot point is that he's had the layout of the entire prison tattooed onto his body). I suppose it bears comparison to the remake of Ocean's 11 where all the characters knew how the casino heist was to be executed and the viewer's entertainment came from enjoying the cast's chemistry and watching the plan come together. Fun here is limited to the second point, as the characters are, largely a competently acted bunch of prison cliches (the old-timer, the chicano, the black hustler) only the inevitable mob-boss-who-controls-everything is worth highlighting, and that's because he's played by Peter Stormare - who nonetheless is running on autopilot. Even Scofield is a cypher - this may be an attempt to make him enigmatic but he mainly comes across as bland as a bread sandwich.
Schlock, but entertaining schlock (hey, it's Fox, that's what they do). As with Lost (though on a much smaller scale) there's enough of a hook to the long term arc to keep the viewer interested, if only to find out how the inevitable escape will take place. However, I doubt people will be as patient with Brett Ratner in this respect as they will with J.J. Abrams.

Museums and Milkshake

Another blow struck in the name of culture, today visited Forgotten Empir: the world of Ancient Persia at the British Museum. I'm reading a bit of Greek history at the moment so it's interesting to see, first-hand, treasures from Herodotus' evil empire, especially as the show includes pieces from the museum of Tehran that have never been let out of Iran before (which is nice, given the current political furore).
Much better than the crowded and confusing Aztec exhibtion at the Royal Academy a couple of years ago, the displays are well-lit, given plenty of space and decent notes, which made it all the more disappointing that a whole room in the small exhibition space was devoted to the Cyrus Cylinder. Admittedly an important artefact, but it's in the Museum's permanent display (like the Rosetta Stone and *cough* the Elgin Marbles) so is scarcely as momentous a display piece as the Tehran collection. Leaving this aside, the aggrandisement of the cylinder (which includes a display of postage stamps and medals featuring its image) seemed rather vulgar and not to do the Iranian exhibits the justice they deserve.




No wonder I needed a serious dose of sugar from the Cookies and Cream cafe (lunch as seen above - the milkshake is Malteaser flavour fyi)

"We've got to stare into the face of the unknown and make damn sure we don't blink."

Threshold is one of the Great White network Hopes to take on ABC's Lost. In this case the brainchild of CBS (NBC are packing Surface, while Fox have Brett Ratner's Prison Break - opinions to come) it takes as its signature enigma alien first contact (not the most original of ideas, as well as 'classics' like The Invaders this concept, in a sense, fuelled the intermittently entertaining 4400 last year). There is the sinister stamp of Star Trek's Brannon Braga - but also, more encouragingly, David Goyer (Batmin Begins and the Blade trilogy). The cast ... largely meh, apart from Brent Spiner (oh come on, he's worth a laugh) and a cracking performance from Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent) as a gambling, booze and stripper addicted "expert in linguistics and applied mathematics". Anyway, the episode itself... well, it's rather good if admittedly a bit x-files redux - stretching a potential one-episode plotline from that show into an entire series arc. Also rife with plodding, laughable dialogue (see above) and a sickeningly 'contemporary' soundtrack, nonetheless it works on a visceral level and when not recycling sci-fi show standards the script can be surprisingly witty and the direction tense and fraught.
This is not a product on the same level as Abrams' Lost (not in terms of budget, nor script, nor acting) but it's compelling and at least as spookily unnerving as its desert island cousin. Whether it will make it to TV over here is another matter. if Sky are Fox and Ch 4 are ABC it looks as though Threshold may be doomed to Bravo or Sci-Fi. On the basis of this episode that would be unjust.

Japanese goodness

The war on ignorance continues. The main campaign at present is film, with ongoing attempts to fill in the gaps of my cinematic knowledge via the mighty Lovefilm. After a decent week that encompassed The Battle of Algiers, Rushmore, and ... erm the execrable Audition I finsihed things off with Ikiru,
One of the samurai-free Kurosawa films the theme of a terminally-ill man trying to do one act of good after a life of blank mediocrity is gentle, touching and surprisingly biting in places, especially in its indictment of bureaucracy and officialdom. The jerky structure is reminsicent of Rashomon (made two years previous) but whereas flashback and subjective recollection are key to that film, here such techniques muddy the water, and detract from what is ultimately a simple tale. Lovely seen in the snow at the end though.
Ratings on the Romero scale? Generously I'll give it a '5'. The main character does die, though admittedly he fails to rise as a brain-eating zombie. However, he does know of his fate throughout, so technically is one of the walking dead. Tenuous but I'm prepared to run with it.

The Shame

I'm not happy with pub quizes. Every time I get caught up in the flow and competition and hurl out pearls of indignity. Yesterday's effort was particularly ripe. As if spelling out Sk8er Boi and wrongly attributing soul classics to Guns 'n' Roses weren't enough, powerful indignity was wrought in the film round. Of course, this was far from simple shame, rather arising from an excess of knowledge and booze related over-confidence. The *best* I can do is quote from an email to a friend:

"Incidentally, is Wonder Woman's alter ego officially 'Diana Price' [sic] or is that just the TV series? Pub quiz tonight and I nearly created a *scene* as the answer I put down was 'Diana'. Was considering 'of Themiscara' but backed down at the last minute. Ultimately the shame from correctly identifying that Superman turns up in all Seinfeld episodes nearly destroyed me. I decided to quit while I was ahead."

Jolly good stuff. Consoling factors; we won (Justice! Beautiful, sweet, tender justice!) and it was all for charity. So all is, ultimately, fine. Incidentally, the Boston Celtics have won the most NBA championships and Taipei 101, Taipei, Taiwan is (currently) the world's tallest building.

"Zombies... they freak me out"

Land of the Dead turned out to be a satisfyingly gory zombie flick combining elements of Shaun of the Dead and Resident Evil (humour and lots of guns respectively) with a featherweight plotline that came as some relief given the potentially portentous title and stodgily worthy tone of Day of the Dead.

Crucially Romero has kept up with younger turks in the visuals department. The zombies are top notch, as are the numerous gruesome deaths (though nothing's quite up there with "choke on 'em!" from Day...). It also carries on the satiric commentary of his earlier movies with swipes at class divisions in America and, inevitably, post September 11 politics, though thankfully more in the form of punchlines than preaching.

Oh, and there's a great joke about Samoan car theft as well. What more do you want?

Tired internet trends that I love - number 1 of several

Talk like a pirate day is almost upon us (September 19th). I'm especially excited as wrongly thought this fell earlier in the year.

It's beautiful...

And I'm not just talking about England's victory in the Ashes last night.



Or for a slightly closer look...



It's me!

Christ, even I feel soiled...

Shellfish denied!

My flatmates are off to the Annual Oyster and Seafood Extravaganza at London Bridge. Sadly my ability to report on the top quality native oysters, stout and fresh sushi will be hampered by non-attendance. Bit of a pain but I hope to make up for it by watching England's demolition of the Aussie batting order this afternoon (ha!) or, failing that, next week's preview screening of Land of Dead.

It's like Tron ... or possibly Computer Warrior

Spent 2 hours that I'll never see again mapping my face onto a generic skate punk for the purposes of playing Tony Hawks Pro Skater Underground 2 Remix. And return on this investment of time? Predictably disappointing considering all the finickety details involved but quite cool ... well, just because I could do it. Typically my digital camera chose this moment to go on the fritz so loading an image of this uncanny resemblence onto the blog will have to wait.

The PSP: my new god

I'm a whore for shiny, shiny toys and the PSP is the latest of these to win my heart. After an unfulfilling relationship with my GBA (once the initial passionate throes of Advance Wars had passed) I was lukewarm towards hand-held consoles. The PSP has won me back, but this has little to do with the games. Admittedly I'm likely to lose several years of my life to Tony Hawks Underground 2 Remix (if only in typing out the sodding name) and Metal Gear Acid is nicely quirky but the real killer is the ability to port movies onto the device for viewing on the move. With the help of a $15 shareware program (PSPWare from Nullriver - Macs only of course) this was surprisingly painless and the compression rate is impressive (a 300MB avi file went down to 50Meg) as is picture quality. 20 quid UMD movies are rather excessive (though Lovefilm are now doing UMD rentals) but the ability to have a large chunk of my bittorrent goodies to watch on the move is powerful stuff indeed.

I'm sure I'll find reason to moan in time but as of the moment the PSP is the best thing ever. Fact.