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FlashForward October 1, 2009

Posted by http://nikdrou.wordpress.com in Popular Culture, Review, Television, Time Travel, science fiction.
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The latest in a fairly lengthy succession of serial sci-fi dramas imported from the US, ‘FlashForward’ is making its terrestrial debut this Monday at 9pm on Five.  Not that you’d know it if you happen to miss their extensive ad campaign, including the other US import of promotional banners during their other shows.  The central hook involves a mysterious global event which causes everyone on earth to fall unconscious, at the same time, for 2 minutes and 17 seconds.  During this time, everybody experiences a ‘flash-forward’; experiencing a glimpse of their lives in roughly six months time.  The main character is Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes), an FBI Agent and recovering alcoholic, who is summarily put in charge of an investigation into the phenomenon, to determine both its cause and the likelihood of a reprise.

Naturally, there will be comparisons to Lost, which are not at all unreasonable given the level of similarity.  The pilot even features an incongruous exotic animal, a large cast of characters and a similar sense of “I’m not going to have a clue until the final episode, am I?”.  The show is drowned in slick American melodrama, with ‘missing daughter’ subplots, over-earnest delivery and every emotional twist slammed home by flashback or exposition, as if aiming to prevent the audience from feeling anything approaching genuine sensation.  The fallout from the opening catastrophe, which reasonably would involve the death of millions, massive amounts of property damage, the collapse of major organisations and a profound impact on culture and the human psyche that would reverberate for generations, is more or less brushed to one side by the first commercial break.  Instead, we have Benford attempting to recreate his ‘flash-forward’, as it contains important clues to the investigation, while his wife angsts about the mysterious stranger in hers.

It remains to be seen how the series will ultimately approach the various concerns of time travel fiction, such as causality and predeterminism, but flaws are already becoming apparent.  Similar to Heroes and even the latest Star Trek movie, protagonists are motivated via revealed knowledge of the future.  Bedford discovers a clue by seeing the future where he has the clue, so where did the clue come from?  It’s a form of ontological paradox, not uncommon in time travel fiction (think Marty McFly inventing rock’n'roll) but unsatisfying when it forms the bedrock of a show.  It’s never that fun to have protagonists led by the nose or manifesting destiny.  There’s also no logical guarantee that all of these premonitions come true.  In fact, it’s more reasonable that they wouldn’t, as foreknowledge of an event will always affect the outcome, regardless of the fact that said foreknowledge is accounted for in the vision of the event that is being foreknowledged (ugh, why do I do this to myself?).  Couple that with the fact EVERYBODY has these same premonitions, chaos theory suggests that they’d be pretty unreliable, to say the least.  But hey, I have a tendency to over-think these things.

It’s a pity such theoretical masturbation isn’t backed up by engaging characters or social analysis.  The whole of humanity simultaneously switching off for two minutes would have compelling ramifications and knock-on effects that, even on their own, are worthy of dozens of stories.  The whole of humanity simultaneously receiving knowledge of the future would make popular culture do cartwheels.  ‘FlashForward’ is more interested in establishing its own labyrinthine mythology and stock characters than really exploring these themes.

World’s Greatest Dad September 16, 2009

Posted by http://nikdrou.wordpress.com in Comedy, Depression, Film, Popular Culture, Review.
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watch_worlds_greatest_dad

The latest comedy from Bobcat Goldthwait, a guy probably still most famous for his role as Zed in far too many Police Academy movies, as well as his similarly frazzled stand-up persona that was prone to spontaneity and mild arson on talk shows.  It stars Robin Williams as Lance Clayton, an aging teacher and single father with five unpublished novels and a litany of rejections under his belt.  His poetry class is about to be cancelled and his only son is entirely hateful.  A personal tragedy leaves him with an audience for his words, though the price may be too much to bear.

It’s a difficult story to divulge in a review without spoiling some of its impact.  This isn’t because of a labyrinthine plot or some Shyamalanian swerve at the end. It’s simply a movie that takes its time to play its cards but is all the more effective for it.  Unfortunately, it has caused the promotion of the film to be as lacking as my above synopsis (a fate also apparently shared with Goldthwait’s previous ‘Sleeping Dogs Lie’).  This is made all the more frustrating as, despite both Williams’ and Goldthwait’s pedigree for loud and abrasive characters, this movie is a victory of subtlety and sadness.  Not to say it isn’t funny, of course, but does not shy from presenting a tragedy with genuine emotion.  It’s probably the finest comedy you’re going to see all year, but I’m left in a bit of a logic puzzle to explain why without revealing too much.

The film succeeds in packing some damning comments about humanity in a manner that never seems cynical or contemptuous.   That’s no small feat when dealing with communal reaction to tragedy, as well as how motivated by ego and insecurity it can be.  Robin Williams is suitably reined in, giving added strength to a portrayal of someone locked in passive-aggression and small victories.  The star of the show though, is Daryl Sabara as Lance’s son Kyle.  It would be so easy to play this character as a two-dimensional villain of the piece, or simply the comic relief.  Kyle manages to be devoid of any redeeming features, yet fully rounded and uncomfortably familiar to anyone who’s ever felt even a drop of adolescence.

Its flaws are limited to one too many montages during the second act and an ending that seems a little abrupt given the legwork it does to get there.  Regardless, ‘World’s Greatest Dad’ is a triumph, weaving its way through difficult subject matter with a deft yet confident hand.

“We’ve Never Had it So Good!” – The best of this year’s comedy so far. June 21, 2009

Posted by http://nikdrou.wordpress.com in Animation, Comedy, Popular Culture, Review, Television.
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In what seems a perverse echo of last year’s landslide victory in the U.S, the recent local and European elections have seen a dramatic swish to the right, with the Conservative Party poised for a good length of incumbency. The recession is only just sharpening its cutlery while Kim Jong Il fondles his dashboard like a horny Clarkson. Don’t get me wrong, it’s lovely to be able to lie here and type this with naught but a sliver of nebulous social guilt impeding my good-time locus, but all in all things are looking a mite grim, aren’t they? Well, that may very well be true, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a bit of a titter now and then.

Eh? Can’t we? Eh?

So, seeing as though it’s the solstice, and I love you lot, here is a rundown of some of the finest comedy of the year so far, in no particular order:

The Old Guys

Unfairly overlooked sit-com about a pair of retirement-age heterosexual men (Clive Swift and Roger Lloyd-Pack) sharing a house together, getting up to antics and seeking to impress the lady across the street (Jane Asher). What rescued the concept from the Sunday schedule drizzle were the warm welcome hands of Bain and Armstrong, the writing duo behind Peep Show (and Hyperdrive, but I’ll let that one go) amongst other things, who gave the show a sense of space and spontaneity. There was a nice chemistry between the actors and, for too short a time, it was probably the most entertaining comedy on terrestrial telly. It was also the most successful of the slightly self-conscious ‘trad-coms’ that popped up in recent years, such as ‘Lab Rats’ and ‘The I.T Crowd’, as there seemed less of a deliberate agenda about the format.

If there was one major problem with ‘The Old Guys’, it’s that in order to adhere to some kind of unwritten sitcom guidebook they were working off, the gently amusing banter between the titular characters would be forced to culminate in some kind of generic farce/snapshot of embarrassment at the end of every episode. This would be more effective if the stories were tightly plotted, but it wasn’t really the nature of the show. It was just good, clean fun to watch with the family, despite the last episode in the series involving the sharing of a prostitute.

Delocated

I’ve mentioned this show in an earlier entry, but it certainly bears another mention if talking about this year’s comedy highlights. Jon Glaser plays ‘Jon’, a balaclava-wearing, pitched-down fool of a man, who makes himself and his family the subject of a reality show whilst still in the Witness Protection Program. It’s a simple-enough premise, which leads to many ‘Mr Show’-like convolutions along the way, including his would-be assassin (played by the great Eugene Mirman) getting a reality show of his own.

‘Delocated’ is yet another jewel in the crown of Adult Swim, a channel almost Pixarish in its ability to constantly bring out interesting comedy. This time, rather than surreal animation or non-sequiturs, it’s a fairly straight story of an idiot who doesn’t realise he’s an idiot.

There are signs near the middle of the season that perhaps ideas are beginning to flounder (Episode 4 features a ceramic hand that ‘Jon’ develops an unhealthy dependence on) and certain aspects even strain the credibility of even a world in which an assassin has his own reality show (such as ‘Jon’s poor girlfriend having the patience of a saint). It did, however, pull back with a terrific last couple of episodes that tapped ever deeper into the unique strain of lunacy on display.

That Mitchell & Webb Look, Series 3

After a relatively disappointing second series, the first couple of these new shows have been not so much a return to form, but the peak of their television sketch work to date. It’s still capable of being hit-and-miss (as one of their sketches makes light of) like all of the great sketch shows, but amongst the gags are some genuinely inventive mind-candy ideas that are just as tickling as any full-blown guffaw.

Xavier: Renegade Angel, Season 2

Xavier is a completely deluded, pseudo-shamanistic, multi-nippled vagrant, travelling across a bleak desert landscape before embroiling himself in the concerns of more cynical types, generally making a complete nuisance of himself in the process, before the logically anomalous twists the plot takes help drive the universe into total entropy by the end of every episode.

The second season of this massively divisive show finally appeared on screens this February, after over a year-long gap since its debut. Utilising rudimentary CG, grotesque psychedelia with a string of next-gen puns and wordplays, Xavier is not going to be to everyone’s tastes. Once you get past whatever issues you may have with the unnerving tone or lapses into repellant imagery, you’ll be faced with one of the most original, gag-packed shows in comedy history.

The Other Side

After last year’s relatively disappointing ‘The Peter Serafinowicz Show’ (and the Christmas special that generally created more new problems than it fixed), the creative team behind Look Around You are apparently busy working on a programme for Adult Swim based around Tarvu, a fictitious religion of theirs. Before that though, they found the time to write and record a one-off internet-only pilot, seemingly for the sheer hell of it.

‘The Other Side’ is a weekly topical magazine-show style shortwave broadcast from the afterlife, detailing the various events and news regarding the deceased, for the benefit of the living. Of course, this is used more as a device for Look Around You-style retro-istic alternative reality jokes, with Shakespeare writing stories about time-travelling pop bands and Peter Ustinov raising hell in a fast food joint. There is also an impeccable attention to detail on the production side of things, invoking the bland segues of local radio with the desolate fidelity of shortwave, with disembodied voices gently invading the frequency in the background. The finest bit of work they’ve done so far.

Newswipe

Charlie Brooker’s TV critique show ‘Screenwipe’ got a news-based spin-off this year, which surprisingly proved to be a more successful use of the format. Part of the flaws with ‘Screenwipe’, and to an extent Brooker’s shtick in general, lie chiefly in attributing too much pontification on popular shows at the expense of something more obscure and interesting (e.g. devoting a whole section to excoriating Britannia High when TV Burp achieve more with just one gag), occasional reliance on scatological humour and visualizing jokes better left to the imagination. ‘Newswipe’ at least improves upon the former, with screen time devoted to the ‘Credit Crunch’ or the legacy of Jade Goody providing more relevance and catharsis than the same amount spent on delineating Big Brother contestants. The result is a good show getting better, providing entertaining wit with a genuine satirical punch currently lacking elsewhere

Tim Key’s rubbish, though.

Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle

It had been a long time coming, but Stewart Lee’s return to television was comparatively remarkable in its lack of compromise. It was far from perfect, particularly in its attempts to punctuate routines via sketches, but it’s still the finest TV rendition of a stand-up experience in years. It’s also an excuse to further showcase the talents of Kevin Eldon and Paul Putner who, needless to say and regardless of their pedigree, really should be in more stuff.

Harry Hill’s TV Burp

It seems that it has only been relatively recently that ITV have realised this is perhaps the best show they have broadcast in over a decade, shining in a Deadly Desert of crap, and given him a decent slot on a Saturday night. Now on its 8th series, the show still hasn’t shown any signs of waning, if anything becoming more comfortable with its own identity. Rather than simply using clips as a springboard to sketches, recurring gags have become more sophisticated, with features getting dropped and returned when necessary (the only mainstay being the “FIGHT!” skit before the break which, while not generally that funny, has earned it’s place through familiarity).

TV Burp is the last remaining notion of Light Entertainment being home to the funniest people ever.

Hans Teeuwen

Technically this was recorded last year, but I only got round to seeing it a few months ago and I doubt that a lot of people reading this would have heard of him yet. Hans Teeuwen is one of the most impressive acts I’ve seen, capable of tapping into pure whimsy without a trace of cynicism or laziness. It was an absolute pleasure to see an entire audience, including myself, consumed by pure, giddy nonsense. The DVD of his English set should be available in August, though witnessing him live is far more effective.

Amusing Search Terms May 31, 2009

Posted by http://nikdrou.wordpress.com in Autobiographical, Comedy, Comic Books, Navel Gazing.
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Part of the joy of having a blog, aside from the ability to vom out words to an audience of nada, is the Stats page, which gives you the ability to monitor your own flailing social trajectory like Kirk’s dad aboard the Kelvin. Here’s a snatch of mine at the moment:

Blog Stats

Awesome.

Anyway, one of the features of this page deals with the various search terms that brought some visitors here. Unfortunately, with a title like ‘Vive Le Wank’, I can’t help but feel that a lot of them leave here disappointed and, metaphorically at least, empty-handed. Here are a few examples:

‘do superboy wank’

Presumably this is a ‘does The Thing have orange, rocky bollocks?’ type of comic book question, which I thoroughly failed to document the answer to. If it’s any consolation, I think that, yes, Superboy probably does have a bit of a wank in-between panels. Frankly, I’m not sure if there was any real speculation either way on this matter, but that didn’t stop this plucky blog surfer from chancing his hand.

Failing that, there may be some posh, elaborate masturbatory technique called a ‘superboy wank’ and they were just looking for instructions.

‘oldman wank’

Did Gary Oldman ever do a scene where he masturbated? It’s bound to have happened with a resume like his. Perhaps it’s in the deletes scenes of ‘Leon’, or that one where he plays a prisoner……Harry Potter, that’s it.

On second thought, they probably just wanted to see an old man having a wank.

‘tractor xxx’

This one just baffles me. Not so much the presumed clarification of tractor-based erotica, but more the fact that a quest for such material would somehow lead a person here. I’m fairly certain I haven’t mentioned tractors once. Now it’s all I can think about.

‘funny wank emotions’

Not a bad name for a band, or at least a painfully irreverent webzine devoted to ‘poking fun at the daily news from a sideways-turvy angle!’.

‘fanny futurama’

I’ve only just remembered that there was a character in the latest Futurama movie called ‘Fanny’ (Bender’s robotic love interest with a fan on her arse), so this is legit. Still, it was enough for me to do a double-take, so in it goes.

‘slow wank movies’

‘wetsuit wank’

‘opera glove wank’

And finally… ‘green poop’

Well, if this has taught me nothing else, it’s that a fairly significant portion of my readership is nothing but perverts with hopelessly niche requirements and short attention spans. Bless you.

Search terms

Have any other bloggers out there had amusing search terms?

Coraline Review May 20, 2009

Posted by http://nikdrou.wordpress.com in Animation, Comedy, Film, Popular Culture, Review, fantasy.
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Saw this yesterday in the absence of ‘Synecdoche, New York’ at my local cinema.

coraline_poster

Well, it looks great and the score is fantastic, but it all ends up feeling a bit one-note. The fantasy world that Coraline finds herself in is comparatively mundane, with only dancing rodents and a mother who cooks as the only real incentive to remain. It’s also painfully obvious from the offset that something sinister is afoot, so there’s less a feeling of creeping dread than just simply wondering what the twist will be.

There also wasn’t a whole lot you could read into the story, other than the fairly glib moral of ‘be careful what you wish for’. Coraline works under a dream logic mechanic, where trying to assess plot holes would be missing the point somewhat (If that doorway is the only passage to and fro, then how does Coraline find herself waking in her own bed the following morning? Do they carry her through the portal and tuck her in? Without waking her? That seems a bit elaborate.). You may as well ask how they see when they have buttons for eyes. This would be fine for me if the events could be rationalised as possibly part of Coraline’s delusion, a-la ‘Return to Oz’, but doing so isn’t very rewarding. There’s little in the way of subversion of ideas and the plotting can often become mechanical. Characters are introduced simply for the sake of providing a quirky set piece down the line, before the third act then descends into a kind of video game-style scavenger hunt.

Not that the movie ever becomes less than enjoyable. There is some solid characterization, funny bits, moving moments as well as the overall warmth you get from anything so singular of vision and honest in intent (particularly compared to the mean and cynical humour in the ‘Ice Age 3′ trailer I sat through). Coraline herself refreshingly manages to be snarky and contemptuous without becoming hateful or annoying (not an easy feat). It is a pity she is so ultimately naive, as it isn’t so much fun when you feel you’re a step ahead of her.

There’s no sense of the story being watered down for a broader audience, perhaps to its detriment. I would imagine a lot of children would have trouble with the overly dark tone without much in the way of confectionery payoff. What ultimately lets ‘Coraline’ down is the sense that the creators were more interested in providing goth-lite spectacle for disaffected adults than simply relaying a compelling, original story.

Batman is ‘Dead’. May 19, 2009

Posted by http://nikdrou.wordpress.com in Comic Books, Meta-Fiction, Popular Culture, Review, Time Travel, fantasy, science fiction, zombies.
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So, Batman’s dead.

Not really, of course. After all, he’s alive in all our hearts, as well as various underpants, action figures and lunchboxes across the land. Not to mention the fact that he’s currently slumming it in the Stone Age of the DC Universe, leaving superhero-related cave paintings as part of some Morrisonian prophecy-fulfilment.

One of the quirks of being ‘the guy what reads comics’ in your peer group is, whenever some incident involving superheroes somehow makes it to the headlines, you’re the go-to guy for details. So a couple of months ago, a friend asked me, with a note of concern “What’s all this about Batman being dead?”. I reassured the man that, don’t worry, the character that he probably hadn’t read a comic of in years was fine. My attempt to relay the events that led to Bruce Wayne’s prehistoric exile went more or less as follows (SPOILER ALERT!!):

“Well….see, there was this story called Batman: RIP, where Batman is up against this group called the Black Hand…….Black Glove, sorry… who are led by this guy called Doctor Hurt and they try to kill Batman, but luckily Batman has this emergency personality for when people try and attack him psychologically…………yeah………….yeah, they cause his mind to shut down by using this codeword. Anyway, there’s a bit where Doctor Hurt says that he’s actually Batman’s dad and he faked his own death! But yeah….that turned out not to be true. Anyway, Doctor Hurt tries to escape in a helicopter but Batman jumps after him and then it blows up…..no no, it’s good! Then Batman survives the explosion……..but gets caught by one of Darkseid’s minions. Hmm?……Darkseid…..he’s like this alien god who fell backwards through time, it doesn’t matter. Basically, Batman’s put in this machine so that Darkseid can make cloned Batman super soldiers – I think – but Batman escapes! He escapes and shoots Darkseid with a gun! See, the bullet contains this stuff which is poisonous to Darkseid – I forget what it’s called – but as he pulls the trigger, he gets hit by the Omega Sanction!!…………..that’s these purple angular beams of light that come out of Darkseids eyes and kill people, except they didn’t kill Batman, they just sent him back in time……no, I’m not sure why. But yeah, everyone thinks he’s dead, but he’s not. He’s actually in the Stone Age.”

Now, to you that might seem a mite convoluted. Don’t worry, you’re absolutely right. As enjoyable as Morrison’s ‘Final Crisis’ and his run on Batman were, there certainly was an element of clumsy planning on the part of DC Editorial. Choosing to overhype ‘RIP’ as ‘The Death of Batman’, when it was effectively no such thing, only to kill him off a week or two later in a separate book, probably wasn’t the ideal way to go about it. When asked why they didn’t instead hype up Final Crisis #6 as ‘The Death of Batman’, Dan Didio (DC EiC) responded by saying that, because Batman was revealed to be alive in the following issue, it wasn’t really worth it. One might extend that line of logic by suggesting it probably wasn’t worth killing Bruce in the first place if he was simply going to come back again, but ‘Battle for the Cowl’ and its tie-ins are currently selling alright, so what does one know about such things? Nothing, that’s what.

Anyhow, this was all a suitably convoluted way to talk a bit about the process of death and rebirth in modern comics, inspired in no small part by the recent (at least it was when I started typing this) issue of George Perez and Geoff Johns’ ‘Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds’, not to mention Geoff’s concurrent ‘Flash: Rebirth’ series as well as his setup issues to ‘Blackest Night’, a summer event story in which scores of dead characters will return in a zombie-like state. It’s reached the point where there are almost no outstanding characters left to revive

SPOILERS (as if it matters):

Hot off the heels of the heroic return of Barry Allen (Silver Age and therefore perpetually the most important Flash) after years of deadiness, ‘Legion of Three Worlds’ has seen, in fairly quick succession, the restoration of Bart Allen (formerly Flash, formerly Kid Flash, formerly Impulse, now back to Kid Flash) and Connor Kent (Superboy) after less than a couple of years with the angels. There’s a moment in the issue in which Bart’s regression to his most marketable incarnation is explained in a highly-contrived-but-still-just-about-credible-if-you-close-your-eyes-and-tell-yourself-over-and-over-that-it’s-just-a-comic-book-and-this-sort-of-thing-isn’t-that-important-really-so-long-as-you’re-enjoying-yourself fashion:

LO3W#4- 06cropped

Later on in the same issue, thanks to a Kryptonian regeneration chamber once used to bring Superman back following his death at the hands of Doomsday (continuity in action!), Connor Kent makes his triumphant, surprising return, seemingly now free from the nebulous waft of litigation surrounding his name:

LO3W#4 - 26-27

Now, you want my opinion? Course you do. Well, Perez’s artwork is as beautiful as ever and Geoff certainly knows how to write and pace a book. This is still rather pathetic, though. This is pathetic and even slightly embarrassing. The characters haven’t been gone for more than a couple of years and they’re already milking the fans’ errant love and embryonic nostalgia for all its worth. Are they that short of ideas? Not to say that there’s nothing to be said for bringing a character back from the dead, but I doubt this one was motivated by a burning need to tell more stories with the guy, or to compensate for an insufficient send-off. He was brought back because ‘Superboy’ is a valuable property and resurrection is second only to death when it comes to people investing in the funnybooks.

It cuts right to the heart of what is wrong with superhero comics, particularly in the modern age. Broadly speaking, when you produce a comic for either of the big companies, there are two main groups of fans that are to be appeased. There are those that have been collecting since their childhood or at least associate the characters from that time in their lives. They love the characters but are also all too aware of the storytelling limitations. Then there are those that perhaps got into comic books a little later, presumably after the renaissance of the 1980’s, in which books like ‘Swamp Thing’ ‘Watchmen’ and ‘Dark Knight Returns’ provided an increased emotional complexity to the existing templates. This readership is in the interest of seeing those templates subverted, either through more elaborate/sophisticated storytelling or simply – ohh, I don’t know – moving the narrative on a bit.

Long story short, it boils down to Things Changing vs Things Staying the Same. The current DC/Marvel staff more or less needs to cater to those two contingents at the same time. What we end up with is the euphemistic ‘Illusion of change’ (or ‘lying’ if you prefer) where the status quo is bent to and fro, often over the course of several years per fro. This gives the impression of being ‘daring’ or ‘controversial’, perhaps even getting in the papers, selling a few thousand more of the issue as a result. For example, Marvel released a story in which Spider-Man reveals his identity to the public on national TV (for fairly stupid and illogical reasons, but since when does that matter?). Cue much mainstream attention and plaudits for doing something ‘brave’ with the character. In just over a year’s time, Peter Parker will make a deal with the Marvel U equivalent of Satan (for even more stupid and illogical reasons) in order to undo the unmasking (and Aunt May’s subsequent assassination attempt as a result) in exchange for his marriage to Mary Jane.

Not that there is nothing to be said towards keeping things in state. A lot of these characters are based on fairly flimsy premises that don’t really sustain much deviation. The only real worth a lot of them have is as a source of warming nostalgia, a connection to their childhood that lives on. It becomes more of a problem when, especially in the case of Spider-Man, their lives are essentially a string of unresolved premises that require an increasingly elaborate dance to avoid any kind of resolution, stretching their storytelling credibility to breaking point in the process. When it has been proven to you time and time again that this story will not end and no outstanding plot threads will be sufficiently resolved, why keep reading? What worth does the story have besides the pissed-yourself warmth of four-colour nostalgia?

As it stands now, in the conflict between change and permanence, the permanence is prevailing as neither the properties nor the economy of the industry can apparently sustain any real shift. DC prides itself on its glut of continuity and pan-generational legacy of characters. Yet as it stands, no protégé has ever truly superseded their mentor. Barry Allen is back as The Flash. Hal Jordan wrestled his status as most prominent Green Lantern back away from the younger Kyle Rayner. Ryan Choi took a step back for The Return of Ray Palmer. Linda Danvers disappeared for the sake of Kara Zor-El. The new Blue Beetle has been cancelled; I’ll give it at least a year before poor Ted Kord is back. Marvel prides itself on being ‘the world outside your window’ with the existence of superheroes having no apparent effect on the trajectory of history. The result is a facile attempt at ‘realism’, with stories such as ‘Civil War’ and ‘Secret Invasion’ supplying weak political allegory in light of no broader context…..no chance of anything but the status quo.

Reading mainstream comics is a lot like playing chess with someone in check; cycling over the same two or three moves in the hope you get bored and leave before the game is over. There is always someone else to take your place.

Book Signings, Embarrassment and the Consolidation of Every Fictional Construct Into One Glorious Paean to Human Imagination. May 5, 2009

Posted by http://nikdrou.wordpress.com in Autobiographical, Comic Books, Meta-Fiction, Popular Culture, Review, Time Travel, fantasy, science fiction.
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I’ll finish the thing about dream endings another time.  I got stuck.

Last Saturday saw me make a more pronounced return to the field of comics, as the majority of the day was spent in a line circling the premises of GOSH! in London, awaiting a signature from Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill (the chaps behind the magnificent ‘League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’, the new installment of which, ‘Century: 1910’, they were there to promote ).  I’m generally not that bothered about meeting ‘heroes’, collecting autographs and such, as it generally leads to awkwardness and disappointment when they fail to live up to your expectations.  Then again, I suppose the benefit to this modern malaise we all apparently suffer is, at the very least, we don’t expect our heroes to not be cunts as much.  Either way, I make an exception with Moore as he’s basically the father of ‘modern’ comics and I’ve loved everything he’s ever done.  I should also stress what a thoroughly nice and entertaining chap he is when I’ve seen him at these things (this would be the second time) and this Saturday was no different in that regard.

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There’s us all lining up like a bunch of twats.  Anyway, long story short, during a non-event of an event of a meeting with the fellows I managed to embarrass myself about two or three times in quick succession.  Firstly, in an effort to quash the uncomfortable silence whilst they scribbled on approximately the 356th book of the day, I ventured the laughably inane query of “so………you started at about two, then?”.  It turned out that they more or less had, yes, though even the most cursory glance at any of the multi-formatted promotion for the event would have told me the same.  Next, I went to offer my hand, figuring I should at least be able to say I got a shake out of it.  Unfortunately, our boy Al had already moved onto the next fan, so there was a slightly protracted moment of awkwardness there.  It was tiny in isolation, but enough to give me that familiar jolt around my ribcage.  Oh, and shortly after that, I managed to again embarrass myself by attempting to communicate with the surprisingly stunning-looking woman to their right, whilst I waited for my friend to finish.  After catching her eye with a smile that I selectively assume to be charming but probably isn’t, my opening gambit became “sorry, what are you doing here?”.  I had meant for it to be politely inquisitive, but it most likely came across as rather accusatory, as though I intended to follow it up with “Yoooouuuuuu aren’t even a man with dubious fashion sense and poor personal hygiene!  Yoooouuhuuu don’t belong here, you fucking nark!  Go back to whatever late-night Channel 4-commissioned hidden camera snicker-thon you’re presumably a feature of and leave us to our cartoon misery!” but hadn’t.  She just said “I work here”, to which I went “oh right”, despite already knowing that.  I had actually wondered why she was specifically sitting there beside them like a chaperone/Blockbusters mascot, but by that time I was holding up the queue.  Before I left, as a means of at least becoming memorable, I said “bye then!” as though we had cultivated any notion of a conversation.

Actually, on the off-chance she’s reading this, I shall apologise for acting so awkward and uncharismatic.  I would also genuinely love to hear a detailed breakdown of your role in the Moore/O’Neil signing.  Perhaps over coffee, or any beverage of your choice, in one of the many fine cafés in Central London.  My treat.

prv2137_pg101 I read through the latest LOEG, minus the prose installment at the end, on the train home.  It’s hard to make an overall assessment on the story, as it is only book one of a planned trilogy.  To bring everyone quickly up to speed, it’s set in a universe where all elements of popular fiction co-exist.  The primary focus of the book lies with the various incarnations of a confederacy of unique individuals (all of which have their origins in existing media), recruited by British Intelligence in order to act in the interests of the Empire.  The two principle characters that have remained the chief focus are Mina Murray (the character from Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’) and Allan Quatermain (from H Rider Haggard’s ‘King Solomon’s Mines’) who see the League through various iterations.  ‘Century: 1910’, the latest installment, primarily deals with the League’s investigation into an occult sect attempting to bring an ethereal being, or Moonchild, into existence.  Meanwhile, the daughter of Captain Nemo (a former League member) arrives on the British mainland, only to become intertwined with events from Bertolt Brecht’s ‘The Threepenny Opera’, the protagonists of which serve a ‘musical’ accompaniment to the tale.

This book is perhaps met with more of a built-in disadvantage in terms of fan expectation, coming as it does after the multi-format and more epic in scope ‘The Black Dossier’, which unveiled thousands of years of League history.  It also has done away with the series’ more memorable and popular characters, such as Edward Hyde and Hawley Griffin, the Invisible Man.  This time around, the League contains lesser known and more reserved characters such as Thomas Carnacki and Anthony Raffles.  We have also gone back in time from the wraparound story in ‘Black Dossier’, meaning it will be harder for the average reader to play ‘spot the reference’ this time around (though do keep a lookout for Popeye).  The thread of occult conspiracy is also not as immediately engaging as a Martian invasion or a chase through an amalgam retro-future.

However, as lost as you may feel in this world of unfamiliar ideas, the level of thought and verisimilitude on display, at even the first read through, is enough to trust the material and remain both confident and intrigued by its direction.  A note of concern may lie in the fact that the final book of this new trilogy will be set in present day and is therefore vulnerable to Moore’s admitted comparative lack of knowledge and reverence towards more contemporary examples of popular culture.  It would be unfortunate to see this story culminate into little more than a variant of ‘modern life is rubbish’, but (and not without a dash of hope) Moore is far better than that.  So, it’s encouraging to note that one of the more compelling new additions to the pantheon – one Andrew Norton, the Prisoner of London – is a fairly modern creation, according to my wiki-based research, originating as he does from Iain Sinclair’s ‘Slow Chocolate Autopsy’.

There’s much to enjoy for long-time fans.  The various artifacts on display around the League’s headquarters hold the same quiet horror that they always did.  The consolidation of various disparate continuities is as deft and nuanced as ever.  The musical soliloquizing is not at all obnoxious as one might fear, though it perhaps raises new, previously unconsidered questions about this particular reality. (if characters originally from operas and musicals frequently burst into song, then there must be a fairly significant contingent of people in this world to do so.  Can they be heard, or is it all for the benefit of some intangible omniscient audience?  I wonder if anyone has asked them.  Maybe I’m over-thinking this…).  O’Neill’s artwork, whilst less dynamic than the tour-de-force of ‘The Black Dossier’, is suitably subdued to match the conspiratorial tone of the work and is as engaging as ever.  Turn-of-the-century England is visualized as perpetually bawdy and morally ambivalent as it presumably was, with plenty of detail and cameos still in the mix.

As mentioned, it remains to be seen where this story is going, plus there’s more setup than conclusion here, despite a pleasing crescendo.  Perhaps the slight altering of format (smaller than a traditional paperback, larger than a single issue) leads to a greater discrepancy of expectation on the part of the reader.  Regardless, it’s a lovely read, certainly above the conventional fare of mainstream comics.  Plus it’s only six-and-a-bit quid, so just buy it already.  Jeez…

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“The Other Night I Dreamt That I Woke From a Dream”: Part One April 24, 2009

Posted by http://nikdrou.wordpress.com in Comedy, Comic Books, Film, Meta-Fiction, Popular Culture, Television, fantasy, science fiction.
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animal-man-23-22

 

The other night I dreamt that I woke from a dream. I was surrounded by family members, all of whom seemed inordinately pleased. When I asked why they were all there, as well as why I was in a hospital, they cheerfully informed me I’d been in a coma for several years, so consequently an ill-defined portion of my life had been all in my head. I believe that the revelation had come hot on the heels of a more fantastical dream, where I attempted to evade a series of unpleasant reptilian creatures, one of whom had a disturbingly anthropomorphic face. This no doubt had contributed to the join-the-dots forehead-slap lucidity of my subsequent ‘awakening’, so my life becoming a lie made an awful kind of sense.

 

I spent the next unknown period of dreamtime adjusting to this news. Everything that had happened, the people I had met, perhaps even the university I went to, was just an invention. It certainly went a way to explain the lack of direction or consequence to my life. I’ve gone from a well-paid job in Whitehall to over a year of unemployment. My degree in Media Arts yielded little headway into the industry. The rate at which I accepted this explanation is now frightening to me. It was only when I tried Googling a friend of mine, only to find she didn’t exist, that I started to fight against this new status-quo. I simply couldn’t believe I had made someone like her up, I’m just not that creative. Sure enough, I finally woke up for real, but spent the remainder of my time in bed in a state of utter confusion. I didn’t know what time it was, what reality I was in, or whether or not I was asleep. I suppose I could have simply gotten out of bed, but I didn’t want to jeopardise my health with a truncated slumber.

 

Anyhow, this was all a roundabout way to lead me into the most recent special one-off episode of Red Dwarf, more specifically the choice of story that no doubt influenced my night of confusion. At the very least, it inspired a similar bout of emotions that accompanied my ethereal stay in the hospital. Confusion, betrayal and a vague sense of disappointment that after all that had happened, it ultimately came to this. For those that didn’t watch, the plot concerned the aging inhabitants of the mining ship Red Dwarf finally locating the means to travel back to Earth (or at least, a parallel Earth). As it transpires, the Earth they travel to is apparently the ‘real’ Earth, and Red Dwarf is nothing but a fictional sci-fi comedy series being repeated ad nauseum on ‘Dave’. Upon being brought up to speed of their own fictional nature (via no less than the blurb on the back of their own DVD box) the crew head on to locate their creator, who has an incongruously Blade Runner-esque death planned, in order to appeal for more life.

 

 

As a childhood fan of Red Dwarf, when details of the plot started to emerge that suggested this premise, I couldn’t help but wince. After the underwhelming final series, it seemed a rather ignoble return. Not to mention that it was wholly similar to the comparatively recent ‘The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse’, which also featured established characters discovering they were fictional, tracking down their creators and appealing for longevity. That was also met with mixed reviews and a divided opinion amongst the fanbase. Yet, as reticent as I was, I still remain fascinated as ever by that particular premise. Metafiction is a broad term, covering stories within stories, stories about stories or simply stories that exhibit some kind of awareness of storytelling convention. In amongst this spectrum are those that explicitly break the fourth wall, flippantly or otherwise, and feature characters aware of their own fiction, interacting with ‘reality’.

 

There was a time where that concept was not only inherently fascinating to me, but also somehow revelatory. Never mind the fact that Daffy Duck got there 50 or so years before me, or that the Gods frequently intervened in ancient Greek adventures. It still seemed a kind of postmodern trumping of a conventional template, allowing for a whole new wave of storytelling possibilities. All this led to was me writing a slightly pretentious mess of a short film, thereby fulfilling my main duty as a student of Media.

 

In spite of recognising what an intellectual folly it can be, I’m still to this day hopelessly intrigued by the central idea. Most likely, and to an extent similar to the previous entry about ‘time loops’, it’s a tidy metaphor for modern (or postmodern, if you prefer) anxieties involving social identity. In the various cultural reforms or ‘revolutions’ that occurred in the latter half of the 20th Century, there was many an age-old institution that had their legitimacy reappraised, critiqued or restructured. Not to suggest there hadn’t been previous ideological disputes involving marriage, church, the law or the monarchy. At the very least, heads began to turn to the point it profoundly affected the upbringing of the subsequent generation. Couple this with the stark shadow the Atomic Age left in its wake, and humanity effectively had to adjust to a world where not only every system is potentially fallacious, but every living thing in our surroundings, including ourselves, could be eradicated in the blink of an eye. If we discovered that our lives were not real, after a certain period of reasonable denial, we would probably accept, as I did, that it did indeed make an awful kind of sense. Of course, this is a slightly reductive assessment of modern life, and much of these anxieties are fairly typical to the human condition. It’s that niggle, that sense of a rug about to be pulled from underneath us, that contributes to the legitimacy of the premise.

 

So what is it about this idea that pisses us off so much?

 

It’s hardly surprising or uncalled for, especially nowadays, to greet such an upcoming plot synopsis with at least a wince, before quietly getting on with whatever it is we do. After all, it’s ultimately a variant on the ‘dream ending’, where the protagonist simply does a Pam Barnes and the status-quo is overhauled. It’s a shifting of narrative goalposts, where any ongoing plot concern is effectively severed, albeit succinctly, before promptly getting dispatched within a pocket of a now-redundant reality. It differs from the dream ending in that the ‘awakening’ is generally met with a kind of grieving process, alongside some metaphysical soul-searching. The waking from a dream is usually met with a brief moment of re-acclimatisation before unilaterally accepting the new state of affairs. There is also less of a requisite to provide a solid causality for earlier events, as ‘dream logic’ is inherently tenuous.

 

There is also the accusation of self-indulgence. If an author wishes to provide a believable ‘real world’ for the characters to escape to then, generally speaking, the more specific and detailed the world, the better. Unfortunately, this require more and more focus upon extraneous mundanity, as well as the minutia of the author’s own intentions regarding the story and characters, now rendered achingly explicit. It’s the sign of a writer who believes themselves to be inherently fascinating, transforming any story into one big studious navel gaze, squandering the dynamic and potential of the characters in the process. The writer may try and combat this by portraying themselves in a humble or derogatory light (as in ‘The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse’ in which they play themselves as bland non-entities against their more colourful conceptions) or write themselves out altogether (in the recent Red Dwarf special, remaining writer Doug Naylor envisions the ‘creator’ as a blinkered, egotistical hack, obsessed with Blade Runner and empty drama).

 

It simply isn’t nice to be reminded that our favourite fictional characters aren’t real. What would be the purpose of taking, say, Harold Bishop, long-term denizen of Australian soap opera ‘Neighbours’, and having him confront his own fictional nature? Well, he’d probably be a bit shocked, depressed even. You could maybe get a bit of mileage out of making light of various quirks of his existence. Yes Harold, it was a bit funny how you veered from a genial stick-in-the-mud to a lascivious sex pest and homicidal sociopath. Yes Harold, it was slightly odd how you formed such convoluted bonds with the people in your immediate vicinity. And yes Harold, it was a little weird how people would come in the house just as someone else was leaving and no one seemed to go to the loo. Not to mention his altercations with the Russian Mafia. Perhaps there could be a scene where he meets Ian Smith, the actor who portrays him, and they look at each-other rather dumbfounded. Perhaps he could meet the writers of ‘Neighbours’, yell at them for giving him a stroke, or giving his wife cancer, or making several of his family members die in a plane crash, or giving him prostate cancer. And then…….well……he could maybe find a house somewhere, settle down, put it all behind him, you know? Yeah, perhaps it wasn’t such a great idea after all. Perhaps bestowing such a grand metaphysical conceit on a comparatively diminutive character like Harold (or the population of Royston Vasey, for example) only serves to undermine the mechanics of their world, abandoning an environment fertile for their brand of adventures and thudding them into ours, where nothing ever gets to happen.

 

My favourite comic by quite a long way is Grant Morrison’s 26-issue run on ‘Animal Man’, a comic very much with fourth wall manipulation at its backbone. The story concerns Buddy Baker, a D-list superhero with generic animal-based powers, attempting to restart his career after time away from the fold. Amongst other subplots, the disparate nature of comic book continuity is explored, with Animal Man becoming more aware of the incongruity of his existence. This partially culminates in a peyote-inspired desert hallucination, whereupon he breaks the fourth wall in the most direct of fashion:

 

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‘Animal Man’ successfully avoids the pretention or indulgence associated with the concept, as the journey our hero takes is similar to that of the reader. There is no dramatic irony being mined, instead we are more or less left just as much in the dark as poor Buddy, with his gradual realisation reflecting our own understanding of the direction the story is taking. This means when Animal Man finally meets his destiny, it is less of a callous rug-pull and more a succinct, moving culmination of the themes that had been running throughout. It recognises the pitfalls without overcompensating, instead applying it to concerns such as violence in popular media, the trajectory of modern comics and the responsibility of a designer to their design. It also manages to achieve this without sacrificing action or characterisation.

 

Tune in next time for a bit about dream endings.

 

Why Slow Zombies are Objectively Better than Fast Zombies April 22, 2009

Posted by http://nikdrou.wordpress.com in Autobiographical, Film, Horror, Popular Culture, Review, Television, science fiction, zombies.
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It has come to my attention that it’s been far too long since I last put in a blog entry. I have a good reason, as I’ve spent the past two weeks recovering from Citalopram-related withdrawal symptoms whilst simultaneously unintentionally cultivating a couple of tiny-but-belligerent abscesses on my left tonsil (or the right one, from the nurse-eye view). Also, I feel like shit.

 

Not to say that I haven’t been busy in the intervening period. I’ve started reading Paul Auster’s ‘The New York Trilogy’ whilst working on a couplet of entries about Dream Endings, the first of which should be finished tomorrow. So, in the meantime, here’s a bit I wrote around five months ago for some reason, about how slow moving zombies have more going for them than the quickly ones, at least in terms of subtext.

 

Enjoy.

 

‘Here’s how I see it.

 

With fast zombies, there’s no real poignancy you can draw from the collapse of society.  You throw in an overwhelming, insurmountable (not to mention absurd) threat like that and what do you think is going to happen?  It doesn’t tell us an awful lot about ourselves, other than that we largely like to avoid dying and/or getting mauled.

 

With slow zombies, the collapse of society has more weight, as it’s primarily down to humanity being unable to get its shit together and sort the problem out.  The central point to those Romero movies (which, though trite nowadays, puts them above conventional zombie fare) seems to be that it’s not zombies, but humans that are the real threat.  Patrick in Dead Set may be a cunt, but he’s still not nearly as dangerous as any of the zombies.  This makes any subtext about people becoming homicidal and/or cunts in a situation like that fall rather flat.  In Day of the Dead, I’d much rather have to deal with Bub than Captain Rhodes.

 

The very first scene in Dawn of the Dead is a TV interview where everything’s going to shit.  Everybody’s bickering and no-one knows what’s going on.  The interviewee, who in fact provides the best course of action in dealing with the menace, is heckled and mocked by people off-camera.  It’s an unnerving scene and there’s not a single zombie in sight.  The end of civilisation, of which this is a snapshot, is being depicted as agonisingly slow, full of pettyness and squabbling on the way down.  This to me is far richer than the remake, where we’re practically wiped out in all but a couple of hours.

 

I’d also concur that it’s easier to suspend disbelief with slower zombies (although I would say that the infected in 28 Days Later are the most plausible of the bunch…..but then they aren’t really zombies, so nerr) as if the dead were to somehow reanimate, surely they’d barely be able to move, let alone go for a jog.  I also prefer the low moaning to the inhuman screeching of fast zombies as…well…where does the noise come from?  I know the whole thing is a leap into fantasy, but the less logical hurdles you need to jump, the better.

 

Oh, also I feel they have their cake and eat it with the scares, with otherwise mindless extroverted creatures somehow becoming stealth and popping into frame from nowhere.  Slow zombies are dumb, but ubiquitous and easy to overlook.  You’d probably survive, but only by having a weapon handy and being on your guard.  It’s just a more subtle and relatable threat.

 

That doesn’t mean ‘fast zombie’ films aren’t entertaining in their own right.  They just tend to be more visceral, intense stories about how survival comes at the expense of all else.  It’s really a whole other kind of story altogether, but not one that I think makes full use of the zombie premise.‘

 

It’s one of those bits that I wrote that I was initially quite passionate about (or at the very least passionate enough to write 500 or so words on a comedy forum about it), but have since wondered why anyone would give much of a shit. I suppose what bugged me is the notion that the ‘modern’ fast zombie is somehow a necessary upgrade from the ‘hokeyness’ of the original, when Romero’s ‘Dawn of the Dead’ explicitly takes their lumbering into account. You have whatshisname acting all cocky and getting bitten during an act of unnecessary bravado, with a biker gang appearing shortly afterwards to throw a few pies at the undead. The fact we now need a bunch of berserker zombies about the gaff in order to keep our fizzog on the gogglebox speaks only as a detriment to this generation. All the same, stuff like Snyder’s DOAD remake and Brooker’s ‘Dead Set’ certainly do have worth and imposing tardiness on their respective antagonists wouldn’t be in their favour at all. So there you go, it’s a pointless argument.

 

Thank you very much for your time.

 

“The universe has gone cockamamie and I’m sitting here eating carrot sticks!” April 15, 2009

Posted by http://nikdrou.wordpress.com in Film, Horror, Popular Culture, Review, Television, Time Travel, fantasy, science fiction.
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Just a quick one today to draw your attention to this short film I found. It’s something I half remembered from my childhood, but couldn’t ever place what it was until recently. ’12:01 PM’ is an adaptation of the short story by Richard A. Lupoff, which also apparently informed the movie ‘Groundhog Day’ (or at least, Lupoff was willing to contest in court to that effect). The film stars Kurtwood Smith (Robocop, That 70’s Show) as Myron Castleman, a chap in the unfortunate scenario of consciously reliving the same 59 minutes of time over and over again.

 

 

The film has much of the existential undertones present in ‘Groundhog Day’ but gives them a starring role, ratcheting up the tension in the process. I’m normally wary of any story that fabricates a horrific circumstance and revels in it, seemingly for the sake of cheap profundity. This is especially grating in science fiction and fantasy, particularly one this divorced from our reality. The secret to the appeal of ’12:01 PM’, as well as ‘Groundhog Day’, is that the reality on display is arguably as arbitrary as our own. This is, of course, coupled with the clear association it can share with the drudgery of our own daily routines, or perhaps our feeling of social irrelevance. The most powerful moment in the film for me is around the halfway mark, where Myron simply loses enthusiasm for his pursuit and stoically runs out the clock on a park bench.

 

Kurtwood gives a terrific heightened performance, invoking the earnest paranoia of an old Twilight Zone episode. The story doesn’t have the sweeping emotional gamut of ‘Groundhog Day’, but what it lacks in a broader template it makes up for in sheer anxiety. The 59 minute time period, as opposed to 24 hours, leaves little room for humourous soul-searching or whimsical exploitations. His ordeal is attributed to a defined temporal conceit known as a ‘time bounce’, giving it a sense of cold certainty as well as an olive branch of hope that drives the story.

 

It’s interesting to note the differences between this film and ‘Groundhog Day’, so it’s rather a shame that the minds behind this film took umbrage at it, seemingly purely due to a similar premise that has since become a bit of a sci-fi staple. This is particularly considering that a more compromised form of the story appeared in 1993 (a TV movie called ’12:01’, containing none of the themes present in either film) with the blessing of the author. ‘Groundhog Day’ succeeds in hiding some truly dark moments in an otherwise warm-hearted rom-com without sacrifice to either agenda. ’12:01 PM’ is little but a grim study of one man’s eternity, of having everything and nothing.