Nervecentre

Lazy, Inept, Incompetent & Opinionated

Far be it from me to be any of the above!

OK, maybe there are times in my life when I am lazy. Or aimless. For example, yesterday I was very lazy, but I had good reason. Everyone in my life offloaded their mental anxieties onto me. On Thursday, that is what happened. I am an emotional punchbag. I can take it (just about).

I used to be inept.

In some of the jobs I worked at, any respect or appreciation I initially had of (i) the company, (ii) the boss/management, or (iii) the colleagues (any, some, or all of the previous might apply - delete where applicable) may have been destroyed by their own incompetence and inability to inspire or encourage me to do my best for them. Any incompetence I demonstrated was not my fault. By default, it was their fault. By nature, I am not deliberately inept.

Incompetent?
Moi?

OK. Perhaps I am incompetent when it comes to something like basic car maintenance. Or car mechanics. I could never fix my car. But then, when would I be called on to fix a car? Or change a plug? Not often. Or ever. Perhaps if I got a puncture I could change a wheel. But I don't have a jack! Isn't that what the AA are for? Isn't that what the garage repair shop is for? So I don't have to worry about being incompetent...I would naturally be incompetent if you asked me to say, design and build a nuclear bomb from scratch. On my own.

Opinionated?

Yes. I do opinionated well. I do opinionated VERY well. Opinionated is actually a very good place to be. When you are right. And when you KNOW you are right. Opinionated is a bad place to be when you are in the wrong. And there are a LOT of people in the wrong!!

Which leads me on to this question;
Why can't Wired get decent film reviewers?

I don't mind that this guy thinks the film might not be very good. He is probably right. What I do mind is his attitude towards comic books.

Reading between the lines I detect a vein of cynicism regarding comic books.

I read Fantastic Four back in the 80's and it is a fond memory of my teenage years. I was not necessarily looking for profound, insightful, intellectual moments of enlightenment. What I got (mostly) was action, excitement, explosions, fights, powers and conflict.

But what I also got was relationships, peril, truth, diversity, honour, technology, danger, art and occasionally, flashes of brilliance.

I'm not saying that much of the comic book industry isn't pap. That truth is self evident. But, (and I've said it before), people lacking an understanding of comics should watch what they say.

Some Editors understand comics better than their writers. And as with anything else, a dismissal of a medium or art form, whether veiled or not, is the wrong line to take.

Cowboy Bebop

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie is a cult manga Japanese anime film of a TV series, (or something). I first heard of Cowboy Bebop a couple of years ago and mentally pencilled it down as one of those films I should make a point of seeing. And the praise from the reviewers over at Amazon make it sound like a must-see.

The Cowboy Bebop universe revolves around the bounty hunter crew of the spaceship Cowboy Bebop in the 2070's. It has been described as being like a cyberpunk noir Western in space. The film deals with the crew being sent to track down and apprehend a maniacal terrorist hell bent on killing the human population on the planet Mars with a mystery virus. Total Recall this isn't.

And guess what? I still haven't seen it!

Still, the Cowboy Bebop franchise is getting a whole new lease of life in the form of a computer game. Cowboy Bebop: The Game will probably be out soon and it adds to my increasing curiosity about the Cowboy Bebop phenomenon.

And those lucky Japanese fans get the choice of no less than three differently packaged versions of the game release, as these pictures show;

What next I wonder? A live action version must surely be under consideration.

I am currently watching...

Carnet De Voyage

I managed to find a little time to read this wonderful graphic novel whilst on holiday. It's called Carnet De Voyage and is by the writer/illustrator Craig Thompson.

Craig Thompson is the successful author of the graphic novels Goodbye, Chunky Rice and Blankets, both of which have received critical plaudits and which I've not read. So, because I have to approach new things from a different slant, I read Craig's holiday journal first. And it was one of several hoilday books I took away with me but the only one I read.

OK, so here's the review. Be grateful my insomnia returned as this would have arrived later than this.

Carnet De Voyage is basically a three month travelogue written and drawn by Craig Thompson as a depiction of his travels around Barcelona, the Alps, France and Morocco.

What's great about Thompson's work in this novel is his ability to convey some very human traits. For example, he doesn't just cover the good times, we also get to hear about the downside such as an injured foot and the feelings of heartache about a sick ex-girlfriend back home and the longing of meeting a new love somewhere else.

If you have the travel bug I'd recommend you read this book. If you don't have the travel bug, read it anyway as it is a fascinating insight into one man's journey. I've visited the Alps so could identify with much that was written. My interest in Barcelona was there before I read Craig's description, but I'm sure had I been ignorant of the place Craig would have whetted my appetite. Because of the terrorist situation in many Middle East holiday destinations, I would not countenance Morocco, and even with Thompson's vivid account, I am still not entirely convinced I would like it there. France on the other hand is a place I am very familiar with and Craig Thompson paints an evocative picture of the place.

This is a great piece of light reading and if you've never tried a graphic novel before then Carnet De Voyage might be a great place to start.

I give it a rating of

9/10.

Most Haunted Live

I watched the Most Haunted Live 3 hour special that was broadcast on the summer solstice on Tuesday night. I have to say that I don't think I've ever seen anything quite so entertaining in a live show for donkeys years. I'm sure a lot of the fans and casual viewers watched it with a mixture of being petrified and terrified.

I just laughed. I don't think I've seen anything so funny in all my life.

Fore those that don't know about Most Haunted, they take a film crew and a team of ghost hunters to well-known spots where ghostly presences are known to exist, or have been reported/sighted. Now, I'm a sceptic as much as the next person although I've experienced at least two apparitions in my life that I can't account for or explain. So, I have a very open mind on the subject.

Now, Most Haunted Live took the crew down a mine shaft and it was quite obvious that they were all terrified. One can never really know how much of what happens is genuinely real or just played up for the cameras. I wonder whether they craftily plan what will happen before the show in order to ratchet up the tension of the viewers.

The highlights of the show were when Derek's arm was grabbed by an invisible entity and he was yanked into the depths of the mine and Yvette and Cath were scared ****less by a horrible belching noise that many of the fans attribute to Cath. Of course, ex-Blue Peter presenter Yvette Fielding is the star of the show. She actually co-produces Most Haunted and can do no wrong in my book. The look on her face half the time is a picture and she looks so terrified and nervous. It's better than any horror film!

Apparently, people on the internet were watching four separate web cams in the mine and were seeing all sorts of strange things ranging from orbs to shadows and everything else in between!

Maybe one day the crew of Most Haunted will come clean about whether some of the stuff they have captured over the years was real or just faked, but for now, Most Haunted is cult viewing of the highest order and I would recommend it for anyone to watch. Even if you are very sceptical about psychic stuff, it's still hilarious to watch.

Fans: The Lifeblood of the Star Wars Phenomenon

Of course, the Star Wars franchise is very much interwoven into the fabric of our cultural heritage. That almost 30 year period - from 1977 to 2005 - will be looked back on as the Star Wars era. Perhaps an epochal time when the first trilogy imagineered a whole new lease of life into the blockbuster movie genre.

Even though the CGI technology to realise much of George Lucas' vision didn't arrive until 20 years after the original flight of fantasy, the whole cinematic sweep of the Star Wars arc charts a fascinating, transformative time for moviemaking.

But what Star Wars does is tell us much more about human nature. And it is the fans that really illustrate the human impact of the worldwide phenomenon. In fact, so dedicated were some fans, they were quite happy to queue wrongly outside a cinema seven months before Revenge of the Sith even opened. Whereas others blogged their wait. Others dedicated a whole website to the experience. Did these people not have jobs to go to? Still, some queued for charitable causes, which is no bad thing.

Should these people, like train spotters and plane spotters, just get a life? Perhaps. But as with any other popular cult, the fans are the real lifeblood of the Star Wars phenomenon. As with most fandom, there is only really a true hardcore that could be described as 'fanatical' in their interest. In fact, it could be argued that fans are the driving force behind such phenomena.

And even if it seems as though most of the world think the Star Wars fans are either completely bonkers or a bit 'touched', perhaps they have got them all wrong. What Lucas did was come up with a magic formula of moviemaking. A recipe for success. he did that very postmodern thing of mashing up various tried and tested genres to come up with something different and unique. Take a little bit of the Western, mix it with staple War movie scenes, add a touch of danger, a pinch of peril and set it a long time ago, somewhere light years away. On paper, it shouldn't work - but it does!

For my part, I lost interest around Return of the Jedi. Sorry, but it was just too much of the 'same old same old' for my liking. Having said that, I have very fond memories of battles and adventures with my fairly generous collection of Star Wars action figures that are gathering dust somewhere (and probably value). I don't mean to sound cynical, as I feel that the positive impact of the Star Wars franchise is partially hidden, and that much of the healthy, vibrant modern movie industry owes a great debt to Lucas.

What Star Wars did do, (along with Jaws), was reinvigorate the movie industry and put bums back on seats, at a time when moviemaking was in the doldrums and much of the audience had migrated to home television. (Since writing this, THIS article cropped up on the BBC news homepage. How uncanny!)

The spectacle of the original Star Wars: A New Hope blockbuster showed moviemakers and the viewing public just what films were capable of. And I believe it marked a huge cultural turning point.

The New Avengers

I've been completely blow away by the current Marvel series The New Avengers. (And by New Avengers I don't mean the New Avengers of the British TV classic of the 70's.)

It's written by comics phenomenon Brian Michael Bendis and drawn by Finch, perhaps the best artist working in comics today.

The Avengers have never held much appeal for me over the years, but this reworking of the franchise has me hooked. I don't remember being this excited and enthused by a comic book in a long time.

The characters featured are all high profile Marvel staples such as Captain America, Iron Man, Wolverine and Spiderman. But there are some nice lesser-known characters such as Luke Cage and Spiderwoman. Of all these, Spiderwoman is my favourite and I feel she is a superb character who has been neglected over the years. Now, she finally has an opportunity to shine.

New Avengers is a great title and, if you want an entry level book into the Avengers or comics in general, then New Avengers is a great starting point. Take that as a tip!

The best Avenger's story I ever read was Avengers Annual 10. The cover wasn't anything special but the inside was perhaps one of the greatest artistic and storytelling achievements in comics. I still have it somewhere, so imagine my surprise when I saw how much it is now worth! Quite a lot, but probably not as much as my Origin miniseries or my original Wolverine miniseries.

Kelsey Grammar to Play Beast in 'X-Men 3' (& Angel, Kitty Pryde & Juggernaut Will Feature Too)

Heavens to Murgatroyd!

Kelsey Grammar has been cast as Beast in X-Men 3. And we will also be treated to further character's in the form of Angel, Kitty Pryde and Juggernaut.

How cool is that little piece of news? After my initial reservations I am slowly coming round to the idea of Hank McCoy (Beast) as Frasier (sort of). Well, it's an unusual choice, granted, but I reckon Grammar can pull it off, even if he is a little long in the tooth for the part. However, what I am not so enthused about is Vinnie Jones being cast as Juggernaut. Hello? Juggernaut is a mountain of a man, I mean, he is like steroid central! How is that going to work?

I guess you just have to consider that the movie world of the X-Men is in a parallel universe to the comic book world of the X-Men. That way, you are less likely to be disappointed with changes to the baseline characters. Having said that, I get the sense with X-Men 3 that risks are being taken that could derail the franchise.Let's hope not. Need I mention the disastrous Batman & Robin?

I reckon Oliver Platt would have been my ideal choice for Beast...

Source: Sore Eyes

Suspiria [1976] DVD

Suspiria has been hailed as director Dario Argento's horror masterpiece. It is without doubt a unique and inspired piece of cinema.

I first came to the film through a late night showing followed by a revealing documentary of Argento. I'd not known about Argento before but having watched Suspiria I was hooked.

Let me say first that Suspiria is not for the fainthearted. There is a lot of gore and horror on display here, much of it within the first half hour of the film. But, if you are not bothered by that, then you are in for a treat, and as the packed information booklet in the Anchor Bay edition of the DVD says, I envy those who are about to watch Suspiria for the first time.

One of the criticisms levelled at Argento's work is his use of somewhat clunky scripting and wooden acting. He is also attacked for weak plot and underdeveloped characterisation. Now, in a lot of other cases, I think these criticisms would be valid, but not with Argento. In the same way that some critics missed the point with Ridley Scott's criminally critically masterpiece Hannibal, so do they miss the point with Suspiria. The wooden tag is particularly amusing as I think the effect enhances the films, they certainly up the 'schlock' factor. Argento has most of the European actors he uses speaking in their native language. He then dubs their voice onto the soundtrack later. I think this is just great, and makes the whole experience more fun. For some reason, it makes me laugh as it is almost bordering on pastiche.

If you look at some of the early films of John Waters, there is a wooden quality to the acting and rawness to the production values. But this grittiness don't detract from the film experience - they enhance it. After all, these are film-makers cutting their teeth at their art and finding their own style of production.

Suspiria tells the story of Susy Banyon, a young American who has come to Germany to enroll at a dance academy. What she doesn't yet know is that all is not right and the academy holds deep, dark and disturbing secrets that are revealed over the course of the film.

Argento uses a broad panoply of colours and textures in his imagery. In fact, the otherworldly feel created is akin to a dream that morphs gradually into a nightmare. It is as though the world of Suspiria exists in a parallel dimension to our own - akin to, but not the same as, our own reality. I can't remember having seen such visual imagination, artistry and cinematic inventiveness in a film since Sam Raimi's Crimewave or Terry Gilliam's Brazil. The bold primary colours of red, yellow and blue are a wonder to behold and Argento paints a rich visual tapestry.

With its almost fairytale style of storytelling, Suspiria has often been thought to have been inspired by the tale of Alice in Wonderland. In fact, Argento says the inspiration came from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. And this seems to make much more sense.

Right from the beginning, with the voice over of the storyteller, we are drawn into the story and it pulls us in. From the surreal taxi ride from the airport through the woods to the school, and Suzy's arrival at the school building in the rain. The building itself greatly unnerves me. I'm sure it is something Argento has done with the lightening style and his presentation that makes this building send shivers down my spine. You just know that here is something evil lurking inside.

The music score is a vital ingredient of Suspiria. It is haunting and chilling and performed by the group Goblin. The Anchor Bay DVD also features a video of a reworking of the Suspiria theme by a European death metal group called Daemon. In fact, the Suspiria theme is very simiar to the theme in John Carpenter's Halloween, a film that was apparently greatly inspired by Suspiria.

Suspiria is part one of Argento's Three Mother's trilogy. The sequel - Inferno - was released in 1980, but to this day, Argento has yet to commission the third and final film.

The picture quality is sublime having been taken directly from the original negative and I almost had to pinch myself that this was the same film as the one I watched on television several years ago.

I have the original Special Edition of Suspiria on two discs but there is also a limited edition three disc package available that features nine cards of stills to my packages five. It has the same collector's booklet that is 32 pages long and includes an essay on the film plus an interview with lead actress Jessica Harper with her opinions on the legacy of the film.

The second disc of my two disc edition features a lengthy documentary that covers the career of Argento. It is different to the documentary shown on British television and also older, but is no less revealing or interesting.

The first disc features the film, trailers, tv and radio spots, music video and a stills gallery. The US trailer for the film is absolutely hilarious and has to be seen to be believed...!

Finally, critics have complained that the film doesn't finish on a suitable climax. I disagree. The final twenty minutes are the perfect pay off for the increasing sense of tension and unease Argento builds throughout the film.

Without doubt, Suspiria is Dario Argento's horror suspense masterpiece. If cult horror is your thing, (and for some this film will be anathema), then you should put Suspiria at the top of your list if you've not seen it. It is an excellent example of horror moviemaking and cinema as art and for that, I give it;

10/10.

Suspiria: Dario Argento's Masterpiece of Gothic Horror
Suspiria: Slant Magazine Review
Senses of Cinema: Dario Argento
Kinoeye: Dario Argento Special Issue
Dario Argento
Suspiria
dark dreams - The Films of Dario Argento
A Fistful of Dario: The Dark Cinema of Dario Argento
Dario Argento - Master of Colors

House of M

Comic fans across the globe are in for a rare treat this summer...

Marvel are to unleash perhaps one of the biggest and most ambitious ever crossover storylines in their titles - House of M.

The action will centre around The Avengers and The X-Men. Those familiar with the franchises will know that just recently The Avengers have been through one of their toughest experiences, with the whole team decimated by the Scarlet Witch, who lost her marbles and unleashed her powers, killing three of her teammates and injuring others too - the whole sorry saga was recounted in the Disassembled storyline. The Scarlet Witch is the daughter of Magneto and as things currently stand, he has taken his daughter under his wing to try and help her plight.

In the meantime, The Avengers has relaunched under the title of The New Avengers and a new team has been reborn from the ashes of the old. The New Avengers has been consistently breaking sales records with its take on the popular superhero team, despite initial scepticism and strong resistance from disgruntled long-term fans.

It seems incredible, but House of M is making headlines for other reasons too.

The Royal Family of Spain are considering whether to take legal action when an early press release photo of Magneto in royal regalia looked like an exact match to a copyrighted similar picture of King Juan Carlos of Spain.

The controversy is not the first time the 'House of Ideas' has got into trouble with royalty. Only two years ago the now cancelled X-Statix title was forced to pull a storyline that featured the late Princess Diana brought back from the dead as a ressurected mutant. The 'House of W' really couldn't contemplate the idea of Princess Di being used in such a crass way and prevented the book from being published. Instead, Marvel made the character a deceased European pop singer. Perhaps this was a shame as X-Statix was the ultimate in postmodern comic books and was meant to be a very tongue-in-cheek look at the world of mass media, celebrity and superheroes.

The House of M, (as early indications show), promises to be that most wondrous of things - an epic, beautifully illustrated, superbly written piece of art and imagineering that will leave comic fans enraptured for years to come.

2005 will be remembered by comics fans as the year of the House of M.