Abhimanyu

All should read Mike and Linda Carey's The Steel Seraglio. Absolutely cracking read. Feminist (sort of), humanist (very), historical (kindof) fantasy. And yes, that's our Mike Carey. The most entertaining book I've read in a while and not exactly lacking in depth either.

Anyone with a Twitter account has already been thoroughly spoiled on that one. The outrage in response to that particular development has been (virtually) deafening, not to mention irritating. The sense of moral superiority is a bit much.

 

 

Obviously for me the stuff it did brilliantly - of which there was a lot - more than balanced out any of that. I'll be interested to see what you think of it, Abhi.

Me too! Going this weekend.

Thanks for the input, guys. Prevailing opinion seems to be that - other than the sexism accusation - a lot of people are overreacting as per usual. I suspected as much and am pretty sure I'll be in agreement with you lot once I watch it. I've been revisiting some of the original series to psych myself up for it. "The City on the Edge of Forever" is one solid bit of television!

All the usual suspects on my RSS feed/Twitter timeline are up in arms about how racist/sexist/imperialist/evil American-y blah fucking blah the new movie is. Any truth to any of that?

Common complaints: tacked on/ham-handed 9/11 subtext, pro-interventionist/militaristic rhetoric, sexism in the form of gratuitous bikini scenes, racism in the form of stereotypical alien species, white men cast as obviously non-white characters etc etc.

I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy the movie but I wanted to get you guys' opinions.

If that was your way of suggesting that I'm discounting your view, I fail to see how stating that I hold the opposing view somehow adds up to discounting yours. But if you were being earnest, OK then.

Jane Campion is a lot of things but 'lowest common denominator' is certainly not one of them.

 

That was poor even by local standards of "art" Television. Though I predicte people will ignore the evidence of their bleeding eyes, and pretend it is worth watching, based entirely on the name campion.

 

Sadly, I am one of those people. However, my eyes are picking up on evidence that supports the opposing view. I say this as someone who hasn't really liked anything Campion has done since The Piano even though I respect the fact that every film she makes is thoroughly distinctive.

This is 40 may as well be called This is Not Good.

 

Nowhere was it funny nor was there any sort of real conflict or consequence to anything any character was doing. Can't believe this is a movie at all.

Amen to that. Pointless and stupid.

I think we're closer than you think we are in evaluating its humor. I enjoyed it a little more than you did. By the end I was bored, though.

Probably not. I thought the movie was a big sucking void that pulls funny into it, never to be seen again. Can't wait for the new season of Arrested Development to erase from my memory all the various things Jason Bateman has done in the last few years.

Am psyched for The Evil Dead, Ade. Your semi-positive take only strengthens that. Is it out already in the UK?

Best typo I've ever made.

Has Mark put his clothes back on? I'm considering coming on the group hug.

Identity Thief was kinda funny.

I disagree very strongly.

There was ONE good joke in it. At the expense of Ayn Rand, naturally.

After an initial euphoric month of film watching I'm kind of down on Netflix because they just don't add enough content each month. Not in Norway anyway. I'm sticking with it because it is still cheap enough but I'm looking into HBO Nordic streaming as well, as soon as they get a PS3 app. It's possible my smart TV can already play this stuff but I have no idea how to use it.

 

I haven't watched cable more than once since November.

 

[edit]Turns out my TV isn't smart enough.

It's not just Norway. Same issue with US Netflix. Their streaming library gets mayyybe 5 good additions each month. And if you want releases from the last year, the DVD/Blu-Ray option is the only one. They rarely get the new stuff on streaming.

You're right, of course. I'm aniseptic, frasmotic, even compunctuous to have caused you such pericombobulation.

Blackadder'd. Boom!

I really wanted to like the new series of Community but it just isn't the same without Harmon. The new writers are clearly trying very very hard but it's not quite working.

The Big Bang Theory has been unwatchable for a few seasons now. It's just plain mean-spirited in a hundred different ways. When it's not wallowing in cheap sentimentality.

Anyone here watch Enlightened? The one HBO show that rarely seems to generate much discussion.

Yeah, I'm hearing a lot of consensus on Midnight Sun. Thanks, guys.

Any specific Wodehouse books I should be looking at? I didn't mean to give the impression I know nothing of Wodehouse. Have heard of Jeeves, Wooster, the Blandings stories et al (like any self-respecting middle-class Indian of my age) and even read a couple of them. I just felt like I needed to delve a little deeper and I've been jonesing for some funny reading material the last few weeks. Have overdosed on Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams lately and need to find my laughs elsewhere for a bit.

Any PG Wodehouse fans here? Anyone think him overrated?

I am embarrassed to admit that I've only read a few of his books. That too in scattershot manner when I was much younger. I've decided to try and correct this oversight. Can someone list highlights for me? If possible/relevant, in the order they should be read.

And while you guys are on the topic, can you recommend some Ramsey Campbell for me? Career highlights?

Much actual violence in it?.

A fair bit. I'd second the recommendation though I didn't like it near as much as In Bruges.

 

Goodbye Homeland, hello 24.

 

I can only wish that it was as much fun as 24 was, even at its worst. What is it with Showtime starting off strongly with interesting new shows and then having them jump the shark in the most spectacular way possible over the course of less than one season. This trend has been followed through with every single Showtime series I ever liked at first. With the sole exception of the tragically cut short Brotherhood.

Tigger, man, you know I love you and I am not often moved into entering pointless online arguments these days but you seriously are talking utter nonsense here.

So what are you saying? That because of the minority of people moved to violence by popular culture (and I really don't think anyone does violence solely cos they saw it onscreen somewhere), nothing should ever be made that depicts violence. What are you doing reading Hellblazer and watching Batman movies then? You're saying that everything from The Avengers to Shakespeare is irresponsible and shouldn't be shown to the public? So much great art is violent. What then? We should lock it all up in the basement of the British Museum so none of it ever sees the light of day again?

And are you seriously honestly saying that context doesn't matter? Do you not understand how patently absurd that is? Your entire (non-existent) argument is undermined by the fact of you choosing The Wire as your example anyway. If there was ever a piece of pop culture that demonstrates the futility of violence, it is The Wire.

What you're calling 'academic rot' on the part of Red or Atticus' posts is what's actually known as nuanced thinking.

Also, I know this won't make any difference to you but the relationship between pop culture and real world violence has been endlessly studied and no one's been able to prove a link yet. People who are violently inclined are going to go kick someone's head in regardless of what they're watching on TV. Violence did not enter this world concurrent with cinema and television.

Although Pa Kent saying that protecting his secret is more important than saving lifes is kind of weird.

This. Superman is who he is because of Ma and Pa Kent. He got his entire moral system from them. I thought that was the whole point of the Superman myth - alien origin and godlike powers joined with good ol' down home American Midwestern common sense. To show Pa Kent saying that Clark should have let a bus full of children die is to undermine the very basis of the character.

I liked the second half of the trailer but it looks like we're going to get a solid 90 minutes of existential angst and moping about before the Van Alden hits the fan.

Ah.

"More Bond filmy" isn't necessarily an improvement for me, I'm afraid.

Very much this. As much as I enjoyed (much of) the film, I was very put off by the implication at the end that we're done 'messing about' with the ambiguities and depth introduced into the series (for the first time IMO) with Casino Royale and ready to 'go back to work'. Back to the old school, gadgets/Moneypenny/Q/big explosions/superhero Bond that I've always found hollow and deeply uninteresting. With Casino Royale, I was actually interested in the Bond franchise for the first time. The Sean Connery portrayal aside, Bond has always felt to me like a bunch of iconography and mannerisms with nothing behind it. But with Craig, I felt as if we finally had something - a look at what it would mean to put a damaged sociopath in a tux and send him on his merry way to kill for Queen and Country.

The suggestion at the end of Skyfall seemed to be that we're done mucking around with silly things like characterization and ambiguity (cue someone scolding me for wanting characterization in Bond movies), returning to the old way of huge explosions and by-the-numbers no-stakes-because-the-world's-at-stake bullshit. And we had a bit of that in this film too, what with the terrible tacked-on Komodo dragon sequence and that whole utterly nonsensical bit of computer magickry by Q in the third act, none of which seemed to achieve a damn thing.

I do wish they would transcend the 1960s template of what to do with the female characters.

I mean, fair play to those who like their Bond movies more, well, Bond filmy. I can see why that might be. They just don't do a thing for me. Never did until I saw Casino Royale.

That said, I did enjoy Skyfall to a great degree, particularly due to Javier Bardem who has given us by far the best Bond villain EVAH. I loved that scene in the server farm so so much. Craig and Judi Dench were almost as impressive. The film was possibly the most beautifully shot Bond entry I've seen.

I really wish they would give it a proper send-off. Not just conclude with Milligan's story but do a small run of issues written by some of the great writers who have been on Hellblazer in the past. I would love to see a nice little series of shorts done by Carey, Gaiman, Ellis, Delano et al. At the very least, the series deserves to go out on a high and not just wrapping up Milligan's latest effort.

Robocop

Blade Runner

The Fly

Pulp Fiction

The Terminator

Self. Explanatory.

I get all the (valid) arguments for ending Hellblazer but, damn, this gutted me. I am feeling quite unexpectedly sad about this. Been hanging over me all day. I guess I'm a nostalgic sort of person. Been reading Hellblazer as long as I've been reading comics.

Slinker: Has it been reported anywhere that JC is going to be 'Yankified'? I'm sure he'll still be British in the PG title.

Congratulations!