Reading by the Moon

Quiz Corner: Guess The Songs!

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:55:39 GMT

Found this in juicybetty's LJ:

1. Take the lyrics to a favorite song.

2. Go to Google Language Tools,
translate the lyrics into German,
then from German to French,
and finally from French back into English.
http://www.google.com/language_tools

3. Post the results

4. Invite friends to guess the song based on the interesting new lyrics.

Now, the problem is that my favourite songs are not particularly well known... Oh, let's have a go and see what happens:

1)
I can not,
And you will see destroyed
I can not be here
And you burn
Lie for the moment
And as bait
How it works a role
If I simple?
So why
Is it so difficult to achieve?

And I say
We also down
But it's now or never baby
We do not mind
If this is not eternal
See The Light
But it will not be eternal
Use the time
Cause it's now or never baby

Let's at sunrise leave
Let's live by the ocean
East me any
If we never come to the house
Steal the morning
So running
In love and
And institutions
I know because,
That can not be of long duration

And I say
We also down
But it's now or never baby
We do not mind
If this is not eternal
See The Light
But it will not be eternal
Use the time
Cause it's now or never baby

So why
Is it so difficult to achieve?
And I say ...

We also down
But it can not forever
We do not mind
Cause it's now or never baby

2)
Lost in a cradle of the song
Side of the road
Melt in a store
Slide in solitude
Not 'til I can read by the moon
Am I go everywhere
Not 'til I can read by the moon

I blow you a kiss
It should arrive tomorrow
As he flies on the other side of the world
From my room in my diffuse Motel
Somewhere in the Dust Bowl
He flies on the other side of the world

"I'm tired 'I said
"They are always looking tired," she said
"I admired" I said
"They are always looking tired," she said
Not 'til I can read by the moon
Am I go everywhere
Not 'til I can read by the moon

I blow you a kiss
It should arrive tomorrow
For tomorrow
As he flies on the other side of the world
From my room in my diffuse Motel
Somewhere in the Dust Bowl
Somewhere in the Dust Bowl
He flies on the other side of the world

The curtains are closed
But everyone knows,
You hear through walls in this place
Cigarette holes for every soul lost
In the spirit of this place
Give me strength
Give me wings
Give me strength
Give me wings

I blow you a kiss
It should arrive tomorrow
For tomorrow
As he flies on the other side of the world
From my room in my diffuse Motel
Somewhere in the Dust Bowl
Somewhere in the Dust Bowl
He flies on the other side of the world
The other side of the world
The other side of the world
The other side of the world

3)

It is very easy if you know how
For long without Biff! Bang! Pow!
And when I see that you are satisfied
I'll stop and a leg
Overpriced housing and unreal, surreal estate
The highest price, they took the most recent
Creation of new ditches and tension

They still have to tolerate
All those who hate you
I am not in love with you
But I do not recall that against you
They still have to tolerate
Some of these people who hate you
I am not in love with you
But I do not recall that against you

This is a tale of two cities / situations
Considers mutual
Far from the narrow prejudice
Avoiding conflicts of hypertension
Non-phobic word aerobics
It was my field
'Til someone stole my name

They still have to tolerate
All those who hate you
I am not in love with you
But I do not recall that against you
They still have to tolerate
Some of these people who hate you
I am not in love with you
But I do not recall that against you

Let's get together, side by side
Just with you, I take juxtaposes
I want alongside you

Let's get together, side by side
Just with you, I take juxtaposes
I want alongside you

Let's get together, side by side
Just with you, I take juxtaposes
I want alongside you

Let's get together, side by side
Just with you, I take juxtaposes
I want alongside you

They still have to tolerate
All those who hate you
I am not in love with you
But I do not recall that against you
They still have to tolerate
Some of these people who hate you
I am not in love with you
But I do not recall that against you

Let's get together

4)
She said,
There is something in the woods
and I can hear breathing
It is such a strange sensation, bookmark
He said there is nothing in the woods
It is your imagination
End of interview, bookmark

Something in his heart tells him to come clean
It was not, he claims to be
Something in his genes told him to
It was something for the weekend

But she said
There is something in the woods
I know because I've seen
I can not simply ignore favorite
Thus, he says now the baby is not stupid
For these soft in your head
This is not nothing in the hangar of wood (except maybe some wood)

Something in his heart tells him to come clean
It was not, he claims to be
Something in his jeans told him to
It was something for the weekend

I'll go all the way with you,
If you do the same thing for me
Go and see
If anything, as you say,
then you can contact me wrong path

He went on wood
It has proved difficult on the head
Geknebelt and tied up and left for dead
When he woke up, she was away with his car and all his money

5) Accredited to the discretion
I could go to school
She was an angel
I saw swim
I am in such chaos
I can not with this
You do me teases
Täuscht can not see me here

So let me there
I can breathe fresh air
Stay with you all night
Just let me love you
Only for a time or two
Be with you all night
Be with you all night
Until I fall asleep
Until I fall asleep
Until I fall asleep
Until I fall asleep

Just Let Me Be here
I'll tell anybody,
Do not wake up
Do not wake up

The blind leading the blind
That is why I can not find my way?
This could be heaven
I do not know where I am
I'm too afraid
To come here from the rear
My body is painful
He feels the way he leads me

So let me there
I can breathe fresh air
Stay with you all night
Just let me love you
Only for a time or two
Be with you all night
Be with you all night
Until I fall asleep
Until I fall asleep
Until I fall asleep
Until I fall asleep

Just Let Me Be here
I'll tell anybody,
Do not wake up
Do not wake up

Hmm, they ended up more similar to the originals than I expected... I invite your guesses!

IndyWatch: The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:10:20 GMT

Even though it's really only a few weeks since I saw the Indiana Jones movies for the first time, I can just about begin to imagine what it might have been like to hear they were making a new one after 19 years, and wondering if they were going to mess it up. I thought Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was such a great way of ending Indy's story that maybe it should have been left alone. But credit to all concerned -- they've done themselves proud.

The movie is set in 1957, and the plot concerns a crystal skull with psychic properties which will, if returned to a certain temple in South America and reunited with its twelve fellows, will grant its bearer Ultimate Power. Or so the legend goes. But does the plot really matter in an Indiana Jones film?

The action set-pieces are as good as ever (I found myself grinning in places, just as I did when watching Raiders of the Lost Ark), and wear their absurdity gleefully on their sleeves. Perhaps the silliest point is when Indy survives a nuclear blast by taking refuge in a handy lead-lined fridge -- but this inspires cheerful laughter, not derision.

I was also impressed by the number of good performances. The passing years haven't had any discernible impact on Harrison Ford's ability to play the action hero. Karen Allen returns as Marion Ravenwood, who gets to do more stuff this time, and hence to be the feisty character she never had much chance to be in Raiders. Cate Blanchett's Irina Spalko (leader of the Russians after the Ultimate Power promised by the skull) is a proper female villain you can boo. Shia LaBoeuf plays Mutt Williams, a young greaser who at first seems to have the same function as Willie Scott in The Temple of Doom -- namely, to be the sidekick who's hopelessly out of his depth (at moments of uncertainty, he combs back his hair, clutching the comb like a talisman); but, unlike Willie, Mutt proves useful by the end. And there's John Hurt as Indy's former colleague Harold Oxley, who's been driven mad by the skull.

Although I pretty much dismissed the plot as irrelevant a few paragraphs ago, I did actually like the way Crystal Skull made the Indiana Jones 'format' (for want of a better word) work in a 1950s setting. And, most of all, if this fourth movie is to be the last (and I really don't see how there could be another), it makes a fine end to the saga of Indiana Jones. It adds to the series rather than diminishing the previous three, which is as good an outcome as one could ask for.

June Reviews

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:15:09 GMT

Published reviews this month:

Abyss & Apex, issue 26
Diet Soap, issue 2
Light Reading by Aliya Whiteley

Book 38

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 21:21:27 GMT

Interzone, Issue 217: August 2008

There's a quality bunch of stories in this issue of Britain's longest-running science fiction magazine. I liked all six of them, but to pick out three in particular:

'Comus of Central Park'. by M.K. Hobson: a plan to take revenge on a horrid New York socialite goes wrong, leaving a faun moving through her social circle and, er, 'livening up' a few parties. Very funny indeed.

'The Two-Headed Girl' by Paul G. Tremblay: Veronica, as the title suggests, has two heads; what's more, the second one keeps changing into the heads of famous characters (real and fictional). The girl has been driven out of school by bullying, and is now feeling stifled. This story pulls off the neat balancing act of being both strange and moving, without compromising on either.

'Africa' by Karen Fishler: the two Guardians are faced with a request to visit the planet by the last members of Expelled humanity -- but the Guardians' very purpose is to prevent the Expelled from ever repopulating Earth. Though set in the far future, this is very much about the relationship between a father and son, and what happens when a woman comes between them.

Full review now publsihed in The Fix here.

Book 37

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:24:55 GMT

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (2006)

When his parents are killed in an accident, Jacob Jankowksi is forced to abandon his studies in veterinary science. He jumps aboard a passing train at random one night, and finds himself in a travelling circus. He becomes the company's vet, falls for a married woman, and discovers how harsh circus life can be. (The cover blurb ends, 'Where falling in love is the most dangerous act of all...' -- which got some gentle mocking from the members of my reading group.) Seventy years later, in the present day, an old Jacob reflects on those days to escape the drudgery of life in the nursing home -- and another circus comes to town.

Well, I quite enjoyed this: it goes through a range of tones -- it's a romp in some places, very serious in others -- yet is always engaging. I lost track of some of the (numerous) minor characters, but that was by no means a problem; and the ending, which made me chuckle, was just right.

Here's a strange thing, though: the Author's Note at the end reveals that many of the incidents in the novel are based on real events -- and I found them more interesting when Gruen wrote about them as anecdotes in her afterword than when I encountered the same incidents in the story. Why this should be, I'm not sure; perhaps I'll put it down to one of my quirks as a reader...

The Happening

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 20:57:36 GMT

M. Night Shyamalan tends to make movies by taking a particular genre -- ghost story, superhero, alien invasion, and so on -- and interpreting it through his own individual style, which is intense, relatively quiet, focusing tightly on a small number of characters. The Happening is Shyamalan's disaster movie and, whilst I didn't find it nearly as bad as some of the reviews suggest, I did think it was quite hit-and-miss -- mainly because the story he wanted to tell didn't translate fully into his style of movie-making.

In the north-eastern USA, there's something in the air: a neuro-toxin that turns off the in-built human self-preservation mechanism, effectively making people kill themselves -- and people aren't sure what's causing it. We see all this through the eyes of high-school science teacher Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) who, along with his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel), joins the mass exodus from Philadelphia, in the hope of staying ahead of what's happening...

What I think Shyamalan does particularly well is to depict a plausible reaction to an unknown and invisible threat. People milling around a lot and then seizing on a possible exit with an everyone-for-themselves mentality? I can buy that. And there's something particularly chilling about an invisible force that causes people to harm themselves rather than others; and Shyamalan captures that very effectively in some scenes, such as one near the beginning where a cop shoots himself, and then a succession of other people calmly pick up the fallen gun and take their own lives. This scene, like many other moments, is all the more effective for what it doesn't show.

But showing little doesn't always pay off in a genre that thrives on spectacle; and, try as he might, Shyamalan doesn't manage to make shots of trees blowing in the wind feel suitably frightening. Particularly in the film's later stages, it can feel that he's trying too hard to weave menace out of flimsy materials. For instance, there's a scene where Elliot is looking for Mrs Jones, the paranoid old woman in whose house he's stayed the night, and he sees a figure lying on her bed; opening the door, he finds that the figure is a doll. He walks carefully into the room, and the dramatic music gets louder and LOUDER... Does Mrs Jones's body come into view hanging from the ceiling, or something equally horrific? No -- she just appears behind Elliot, wagging her finger and giving him her paranoid version of a good telling-off. Hardly up there with the best of the set-pieces that Shyamalan is readily capable of producing.

Of the main performances, Wahlberg, while not great, was quite a lot better than I expected him to be. But I thought Deschanel didn't instil her character with much personality at all (whether that is more down to her or the script, I'm not sure). And the movie would frankly have been better off without some of its elements; most of the humour fell completely flat, for example.

Shyamalan strikes me as a film-maker whose movies work better in the moment, but don't necessarily bear much close scrutiny afterwards. Watching The Sixth Sense was one of the most exhilarating experiences I've ever had at the cinema -- I walked out of it in a daze, as I hadn't seen the twist coming at all. Yet I've never watched that film again all the way through; maybe I don't want to, in case it spoils the memory, like watching a magic trick when you know the secret. The other movies of Shyamalan's that I've seen didn't live up to the experience of watching that first one, but at least there's usually the atmosphere and the set-pieces to enjoy. In The Happening, there isn't always that, perhaps because it's the kind of story that needs a bigger canvas than Shyamalan is comfortable (or skilled) in working on. It's a film that's good in part -- but only in part.

Book 36

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 22:29:47 GMT

Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips (2007)

Jolly little piece of fluff that ends up as something quite different from what it begins as. The Greek gods are living in present-day London, but have dwindled in power and have to make ends meet: so, Artemis walks dogs for a living, Apollo is a TV psychic, Aphrodite has a premium-rate chat line, and so on. Thanks to one of Eros's arrows, Apollo falls in love/lust with frumpy cleaner Alice. She, however, is in love with Neil (the feeling is mutual, unbeknownst to either to them), and rejects the god's advances -- but Apollo is affronted, and seeks revenge as only a son of Zeus can...

At first, it seems as though Gods Behaving Badly is just going to be a romp; then, halfway through, something happens that gives the book a whole new dimension. It loses a certain amount (though by no means all) of its humour (the very beginning of the novel had me laughing out loud, but the rest wasn't as amusing), though the plot gets more interesting. I can't honestly say that the book does much more than pass the time -- but it's a good book for passing the time.

Book 35

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 21:32:16 GMT

Diet Soap, Issue 2 (2008)

The second issue of a fiction, non-fiction and poetry magazine that seeks to (quoting from its website) 'challenge or explode preconceptions' and 'defy genre distinctions'. Each issue has a theme, and this one's is 'sex and gender'. Personally, I didn't find it quite so provocative, but there's some good stuff in there. The best stories may actually be the shortest, 'Dream Date' by Chelsea Martin and 'Peach' by Ginnetta Correli, both three pages each and both dealing elliptically with women who are left behind in both love and life. In the former, a woman finds herself excised from a relationship without being sure just how it happened; in the latter, it's the protagonist's friends who have all the fun. Both these pieces have an oblique style that wonderfully balances and highlights the cold reality of their events. Speaking of cold reality, there's also 'Stitching Time' by Stephanie Burgis, a historical piece about farmers' wives in northern Michigan who are taken away to an asylum for 'treatment' if they struggle with the isolation. It's a very disturbing story, perhaps all the more so for the economy of its prose.

Full review now available on The Fix here.

Inappropriate holiday reading..?

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:33:54 GMT

I've asked this on a few book communities, and thought I would also ask it here, as I'm curious:

Have you ever taken a book on vacation, only to find it was completely unsuitable? I once packed up Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link, having heard acclaim for her work but not actually knowing much about it... and found that she writes the kind of stories you really need to concentrate on to get the most out of them. Good stuff, but not ideal holiday reading!

Anyone have any similar experiences?

Neil Gaiman interviews Terry Pratchett

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:13:17 GMT

Thought you might like to read this.

(Link found on stephanieburgis' LJ.)

Maybe I should form a band...

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:24:48 GMT

I saw this in song_of_copper 's LJ and could not resist having a go...

1 - Go to Wikipedia's "random article" link. The first random article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to Random quotations. The last four words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to flickr's "explore the last seven days". Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

And so, my band is named:

ACHRIABHACH

We present to you our first album:

IN AN IMPOSSIBLE UNIVERSE

The cover

Quite nice, I think.

(NB. It looks as though the Random Quotations page comes up with the same initial set every time you click on it, so I would click the 'More Random Quotations' button at the foot of the page to generate a uniquely random set.)

IndyWatch: The Last Crusade

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 12:23:59 GMT

Got a bit behind with these: I taped this when it was on TV, but only just got around to watching it. To recap, this is my third post in a series as I watch the Indiana Jones movies for the first time, before (eventually) going to see the newest one (the previous two instalments are here and here).

So, this time is Indy on the hunt for the Holy Grail -- or, more accurately, on the hunt for his father, who was in the process of deciphering the Grail's whereabouts, but has been kidnapped by the Nazis, who seek the Grail for their own nefarious purposes. Flouting the law of diminishing sequels, I found that I enjoyed The Last Crusade the most of the three. I wasn't grinning as much as when watching Raiders of the Lost Ark, but I could put that down to familiarity with the formula as much as any inherent qualities of the individual films. The third movie is still non-stop action, but has a much better plot (it feels more like a proper globe-trotting adventure than the other two), and the female lead does not scream and need rescuing all the time (shame they had to make her a baddie for that to be the case, though).

Best of all, however, is the presence of Sean Connery as Indy's father, and the friction generated between Henry Jones Jr and Sr. I would go so far as to suggest that The Last Crusade is the ideal Indiana Jones film: it's exciting, it's funny, it has its tongue in its cheek without laughing behind its hand (pardon the imagery)... It's an old-fashioned adventure yarn of the best kind, a perfect end to the series -- which, of course, it was for 19 years. Right now, I feel as though The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will have to be something very special for it to have been worth making. Log on to the next episode of IndyWatch to find out if it was...

Doctor Who: Midnight

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 22:42:23 GMT

Russell T Davies (OBE)'s self-penned episodes don't have the best reputation, but I thought this was pretty good. An interesting change of pace for the series, with a handful of people trapped in a spaceship with an enemy that isn't actually doing anything threatening, just repeating what everyone else says (though of course that's creepy in itself, and there is always the possibility it will turn nastier). A good examination of the unfotunate human tendency to latch on to anything remotely suspicious and turn on others; and particularly notable for the way in which the Doctor's usual techniques of asserting his authority don't work this time.

And, after watching Doctor Who Confidential looking behind the scenes of the programme, may I compliment the sound team and actors on their sterling work. It looked exceptionally difficult to me!

Book 34

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 18:05:33 GMT

Life Expectancy by Dean Koontz (2005)

My first Koontz novel, and I am not quite sure what to make of it. As he lies dying, Josef Tock's daughter-in-law is about to give birth. The old man predicts that terrible things will happen on five particular days in the child's life, and then dies -- at the very same moment that Jimmy Tock comes into the world. Since Josef correctly predicted other details, such as Jimmy's birth weight, the family takes seriously his prophecy of the five days -- and they are right to do so. As Jimmy's life progresses, misfortune does indeed befall him on those days, though not necessarily in ways that he expects; in particular, the murderous clown Konrad Beezo, who went on a killing spree in the hospital on the night of Jimmy's birth, casts an increasingly long shadow over his life.

The problem with Life Expectancy is that all the principal characters come across as whimsical, larger-than-life creations, rather than anything resembling real people. The main antagonists, Konrad Beezo and his son Punchinello, are unhinged individuals with concerns that would seem almost comedic (such as a grudge against aerialists), had the two of them not had a propensity for killing anyone without a second thought, seemingly for no particular reason. These characters would work fine -- the horror and thriller genres are, of course, full of such extraordinary and outlandish enemies -- if they were pitted against ordinary, down-to-earth folks. But they're not: Jimmy Tock is an awkward, shambling 'lummox', who's also erudite; indeed, his family of bakers and pastry chefs are all wordy, and they're all the kind of people who can eat anything without putting on weight. Oh, and Jimmy likes festooning his house with Christmas decorations in the six weeks after Thanksgiving... sometimes it feels as though Koontz is loading Jimmy with traits and characteristics whenever it suits his story. Lorrie, the girl who wanders into Jimmy's life at random, is also extraordinary: witty and beautiful, she is no less than Jimmy's ideal woman.

All well and good, but the effect is to push the characters out of reality (the background has similar problems, as Jimmy and Lorrie gain support from their community to a degree that frankly stretches credibility to its limits) -- which numbs the impact (on the reader) of the harsh events they live through. And Jimmy's observations on life often come across as cloying sentimentality, because it doesn't feel like a real person saying those things. Some of Koontz's writing is very good, good enough to make me think I should take a chance on another of his books; but it would have to be more grounded, because I struggled at times to take this one seriously.

Good news and bad news about the next series of Hustle

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:59:01 GMT

The good news: Adrian Lester will return as Mickey Stone. (It just wasn't the same without the dynamic between Mickey and Danny.)

The bad news: Marc Warren and Jaime Murray will not be returning as Danny Blue and Stacie Monroe. (So much for the old team reassembling. Harrumph. The thing is, those two characters filled the key slots of 'overconfident rookie' and 'experienced female con'. What could they be replaced by, except similar characters? An overconfident female rookie..?)

The other bad news: it won't be on our screens again till next year.

(Source: read on Telextext earlier today.)

The Apprentice

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:48:13 GMT

Congratulations to Lee on winning; he seems a generally decent, likeable and competent person. Actually, I'd have liked Claire to win, because just once, I'd like to see Alan Sugar choose someone who's more likely to answer back.

But what I really want to post about here is something that I saw for the first time in the You're Hired! programme afterwards: the spoof animated tributes by the Boleg Bros. I must spend some time exploring that site properly...

How to insult your dad

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:20:25 GMT

Heard on an advert today:

'Nintendo DS and Brain Training starter pack, for Father's Day.'

Not really the kind of message I would want to send...

Quiz Corner: US TV

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 19:54:49 GMT

Who is the odd one out, and why?

Charlotte Charles
Sarah Connor
Gregory House
Adam Monroe

WARNING: Comments contain the answer.

Book 33

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:14:56 GMT

The Fade by Chris Wooding (2007)

In the midst of battle, Orna, a member of the elite Cadre, is ambushed, and her husband killed, by the enemy Gurta. Put to work in the fortress of Farkaza, what keeps her going is the thought of escaping and finding her son Jai, who's fighting in the war (though Orna believes he never really wanted to). Falling in with a disparate group of prisoners, Orna hatches a daring plan to escape -- which succeeds. Her journey home takes her to the surface (most of this moon's inhabitants living underground) and the brink of death; before she must get to the bottom of a conspiracy -- because somebody betrayed the location of her party to the Gurta, and Orna is out for revenge...

This is the first book I've read by Chris Wooding, and I liked it -- but I didn't love it. Wooding is good with action and description, and his choice of street-smart first-person narration is interesting when contrasted with the outlandish nature of his setting. He creates a complex character in Orna, and poses thoughtful questions about right and wrong. But the author is less skilled at generating interest in his characters' political machinations, which is problematic because the plot hinges on them; his final showdown verges on the melodramatic; and The Fade just lacks the extra zing that would really make it stand out. It's a solid effort -- certainly better than a good many fantasies out there -- but it's not essential reading.

Book 32

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 20:30:36 GMT

Abyss & Apex, Issue 26: 2nd Quarter 2008

Since I'm now allowing electronic publications in my count, I'll include this science fiction and fantasy webzine. Five stories, the pick of which are 'Disarm', Vylar Kaftan's examination of fighting back against a 'benevolent dictatorship' of aliens; and Larry Hodges' 'Ghosts of Cretaceous Park', the comic tale of a nasty real estate developer getting his comeuppance thanks to a dinosaur's ghost. One is thoughtful, the other more light-hearted, but both reach their intended targets.

Also in this issue, but not quite as good (though still worth a look): 'One Wicker Day', Andew S. Fuller's story of a mysterious new funeral service (which is more distant from the reader than it really ought to be); 'Wolfling', Laura Anne Gilman's exploration of what it is to be born 'normal' in a world of people with special powers (whose main problem is that its theme is overfamiliar); and "Xenosomnambulism", Lawrence M. Schoen's tale of a student who holds the key to linking Earth with an alien world (a romp that's jolly enough but lacks that extra something to really make it shine).

EDIT: Full review now available here.

Iron Man

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 20:05:26 GMT

I never read Marvel comics as a kid, so my prior knowledge of Iron Man was limited to Saturday morning cartoons. The animated series was bright and gaudy and quite silly; but what I take particularly from the Iron Man movie is that superhero tales can sometimes benefit from being bright and gaudy.

Gazillionaire weapons magnate Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) is in Afghanistan, returning to his plane after demonstrating his company's new missile to the military, when he is abducted by terrorists who demand he build them such a missile. Instead, Stark builds himself a super-powered suit of armour and escapes. Returning to the US, he announces at a press conference that, having seen first-hand the destruction his weapons have caused, he is halting Stark Industries' manufacture of military technology. Stark then devotes his time to refining that suit of armour, and using it to beat the bad guys -- but there is an enemy closer to home than he realises...

The world that Stark inhabits is more technologically advanced than our own, or at least the US is; his world's Afghanistan is not, and therein lies a key problem with the movie: the shiny, hyper-real hardware of Iron Man does not sit well in what looks like the real world. The film's script may stress the fictional nature of its 'Ten Rings' terror group, but their methods are all too common to reality. The movie ties itself up in ethical knots as Tony Stark tries to demonstrate his moral superiority over the terrorists by acting as brutally as they do.

It's in the later sections, when Stark is being the superhero fighting the supervillain (the climactic fight reminded me of Spider-Man vs the Green Goblin, with a dash of Spider-Man vs Doc Ock), that the movie really shines, because it's then that Iron Man is in his natural environment, as it were. Distanced enough from reality, Iron Man becomes a fine piece of cinematic entertainment. Downey makes for a different, more relaxed kind of superhero; Jeff Bridges and Terrence Howard do well in their respective roles as Stark's ambitious deputy, Obadiah Stane, and his friend and military liaison James Rhodes. Gwyneth Paltrow does her best as the female lead -- Stark's PA, Pepper Potts -- but the role itself seems underwritten: Potts saves the day rather than needing to be rescued, which makes a welcome change from the norm; but it's as if the writers weren't sure what kind of personality they wanted her to have, and she ends up without much of one at all.

So, Iron Man isn't the best superhero movie I've ever seen, but neither is it the worst. It has its uncomfortable moments when it tries to grapple with reality and loses; but, once it lets itself be a superhero romp, the film is just fine.

May reviews

Sat, 31 May 2008 21:29:25 GMT

Three this month:

A double review of Conrad Williams' The Unblemished and Ramsey Campbell's The Grin of the Dark.

And two magazine reviews from The Fix:
Something Wicked, Issue 6
Postscripts, Issue 14

They're all positive write-ups, so do check everything out.

Jonathan Creek may return...

Sat, 31 May 2008 19:57:50 GMT

....for a new Christmas special.

If this goes ahead, it will be excellent news. Jonathan Creek is possibly David Renwick's finest work (and certainly Alan Davies's finest), and I miss it very much. So you bet I'll be tuning in to any new episode.

Doctor Who: Silence in the Library

Sat, 31 May 2008 19:36:18 GMT

Wasn't that a good episode? For all that the talk about Steven Moffat's episodes seems to focus on how scary they are, what really struck me is that he comes up with great ideas and great stories in general. Now I'm certain he's the best person to take over from RTD.

Idle speculation time:

I wonder if Professor River Song will turn out to be...

(a) the little girl;

(b) Rose Tyler;

(c) the Doctor's companion in a future series.

Writer's Block: Creepy Crawlies

Wed, 28 May 2008 19:52:42 GMT

If you had the chance to go crazy and completely overhaul your appearance, what would you do?

Or:

Recount a remarkable incident involving insects.

View other answers

I'm not generally a 'prompt of the day' kind of blogger, but this one brought back a memory:

I went orienteering in a wood a few years ago, and passed a patch of soil that was a slightly different colour and appeared to be moving. Then I looked closer... Ants. Loads of them.