The Bond Villain

I mentioned it briefly in the old world. Now, as Quantum of Solace is about to hit the screens, five reasons why we should support the James Bond villain rather than James Bond himself.

1. They are more diverse. Not just upper class Englishmen. All sorts of strange foreigners. And we like diversity.

2. They give the opponent a chance. Could easily just shoot Bond in the head, instead always give him an opportunity. Bond just coldly eliminates.

3. They inspire loyalty from vast numbers of henchmen (and women). Must be doing something right.

4. Charisma and Style. Hard to define, particularly within my strict word limit. But possibly the clearest distinction of all, the chief villains have more of it than Bond.

5. They always end up losing. And we all root for the underdog.

In Praise of Brian

Not the messiah, obviously.

Question: Who links:

The best American novelist of the 19th century. Quotes here.

The best action series of the 20th century. Covered here.

The best fantasy movie of all time. Extolled here.

Answer:

Brian Clemens. Creator and main scriptwriter of The Professionals. Directly related to Mark Twain. Went on to write the first sequel to Highlander. Yes, I said sequel, everyone sometimes produces poo.

Why I Don't Watch Movies

It's not consciously a money-saving activity, it really isn't.

It's mainly about time and attention span. I rarely make the time to watch a two hour movie any week. If I have a few minutes for viewing, I'll watch music videos. If I have 25 minutes, I'll watch a comedy show. If I have 45 minutes, I'll watch an action or detective show. If I have more, I'll do something else.

And I simply believe that there is better dialogue, more humour, more satire, even better visual scenes in any random episode of Futurama (or MASH or Extras or countless others) than in any random comedy film that has been released in the last few years.

And I simply believe that there is better dialogue, more danger, more humour, even better visual scenes in any random episode of The Professionals (or House or countless others) than in any random thriller that has been released in the last few years.

And with the V+ series link we have banks of this stuff still on the virtual shelf.

Yet, somehow, whenever we discuss films at work, I've watched most of them.

He is risen from the dead

I'd never really thought of it this way before, but if Jesus rose from the dead then that makes him a zombie!

The Primordial Blog points us to the biblical references - there were apparently loads of these undead roaming around Palestine in biblical times.

And the PhillyChief offers advice for how to deal with zombies and evangelists and anything else that comes to eat your brains.

High Fidelity to Sweeney Todd

Weekend break from serious economics to popular culture. The flagship BBC "movie" programme Film 2008 was repeated this afternoon. Much of the show focused on this week's big release, a dark musical epic about Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

The film review is for other times or other blogs, today I just comment on something unusual about the promotional activity on the show. Quite rightly, the focus was on the director - whatever the source material, he imprints his own personal inimitable style upon the creation. And wherever he pushes his visions, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are often not far away, so they were interviewed too. Generally actors need to be paid well to say loyal to their directors, but you feel that those two would do almost anything for Tim Burton.

But what surprised me is that they only mentioned in passing the character playing Adolfo Pirelli. I just caught that it was someone called Sacha Baron-Cohen, then I realised that he is the guy responsible for Ali G and Borat. Given his fame and profile, I would have thought that his participation would be a big story. It was not, and I hope that the reason for that is a perfectly justified focus on the main creative talent rather than the local star.

Yet I wonder if the omission was deliberate. Perhaps Sacha did not want to get involved with the promotion, perhaps he only feels comfortable in public while "in character", though I am fairly sure his name remains in the picture. But it could be something else. You sometimes hear of actors being "uncredited" in roles, but usually that is where the finished movie is a disastrous mess and the actor wants nothing to do with the fiasco. But for films that are both critically acclaimed and also financially successful, you wonder why they disown the work in those circumstances.

The example that still puzzles me is that of Catherine Zeta Jones. High Fidelity is one of my favourite books, and she was typically stunning in the film adaptation. But she was completely uncredited in it. Why?

A Wish Called Fonda

What ties my recent posts with classic English silliness with great literature with liberal politics with recently viewed movies?

Fierce Creatures - about a killing at a zoo. A wonderful under-appreciated film, the essential follow-up to another ex-python masterpiece. Links to a classic book.

Splitting Heirs - this should have been another classic. Is the UK monarchy fundamentally different from the Indian caste system?

Free Willy - a great sentient beast spared from a life of captivity. A nob joke. And another classic book.

Pinocchio - compared to X-factor finalists like puppets strung along by the real talent.

A Knight's Tale - I did say this would start getting personal.

But all this proves is that the answer to nearly everything is in Monty Python.

This Blog is Not Yet Rated

Superb, my name was quoted in one of the official ScienceBlogs ... while flicking through Living the Scientific Life I was given the idea to evaluate this one.

Although it could be argued that there are some serious themes, I hope the tone here is fairly light and playful. More than that, I try to never use any vulgar language. Not because it offends me, but because I don't want to get blacklisted by anyone who is trying to prevent corruption of sensitive minds.

So why on earth does this site get a rating of NC-17? I'm not living in America, but I'm fairly sure that rating implies a level of depravity and lewdness that is even unsuitable for most high school students? The rating site gave this explanation:

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

• death (13x)
• dangerous (9x)
• sex (6x)
• hell (5x)
• crap (4x)
• dead (3x)
• murder (2x)
• bitch (1x)

What! So kids shouldn't learn about death? Aren't loose roof tiles dangerous? Could web site design vary by sex? Could killing a whale possibly be like murder? Is satire dead?

Americans should be very worried if their actual movie ratings are so senseless.

Finally, irony. Only the last word, used just once, could really be considered rude. And remarkably it is the very last word of my very first post. And why did I quote it. Not to shock, but merely to publicise my friend's site ... thanks a lot Deirdré :/

A Knight's Tale

I watched a film today. A film that got terrible reviews, a cheesy anachronistic corny Brit-flick. But I absolutely loved it.

Now I don't usually just post reviews here. But I think the amateur psycho-analysts of this world (including me) may wonder why this sort of film appeals to me.

Because I don't really like fantasies, other world stuff. Lord of the Rings was execrable. Even Star Wars was good but not great. And I don't really like real history stuff - educational but tedious. But when I recall my all-time favourites in fiction, they seem to involve the fantastical distortion of real history.

In film - Highlander. In television - Edmund Blackadder. In books - Dirk Gently.

On reflection, each features someone who is basically an alien, but in time not in space. On more reflection, that's surely just coincidence...

Sorry Brian!

We could discuss the news. But I'll stay personal today.

I used to have a pet snail called Brian. Well, he was not really a pet, but I did see him a few times sliding across my patio.

Maybe giving him that name was a mistake. But I can honestly say that I named him after the main character of the Magic Roundabout and not after the supposed prophet. I appreciate that some people may believe that Brian was a divine messenger whose every word should be obeyed. I used to think those people were gullible fools, but I realise now that only they know the true meaning of life.

Apology done. Now I'm off to get lashed.

Flight of the Phoenix

We watched a movie this weekend. To be more precise, one of the freeview TV channels finally showed the 2004 remake of the classic 1965 film. The plot is familiar, a group of survivors crash land in the desert and build a new plane out of the wreckage.

And while watching, I asked myself: could I do that?

Now I don't think that I would survive many days in searing heat and biting cold with minimal food or water. However, given time and tools and materials, I think I could build a working flying machine.

After all, it's not rocket science.

The Wholy Book

My drive home from the client often spans the 6:30 to 7 "comedy" slot on BBC Radio 4. For the last six weeks, concluding yesterday, they have been playing the adaptation of, in my opinion, the finest novel ever written.

But the adaptation did not really work for me. The hero sounded more like a Harry Enfield character than the mysterious East-European that I remembered from the book.

The book is inexplicable anyway. It is a murder mystery, a ghost story, an exercise in philosophy, an English textbook, a discussion of religion, an historical novel, a magical tour. It covers the history of the world from the primordial slime of 4 billion years ago through Coleridge and Bach to quantum physics.

But I hope the novel is just a tiny bit like this blog. It is about detection. It is about finding incredibly simple answers to incredibly complicated questions. It is about a thousand different subjects. But somehow they all tie together. Just like the methods used inside it, the book itself is holistic.

However, unlike Dirk Gently, this blog is not going to save all life on this planet. And if it were to, I would invoice a lot more than he did :)

Touching the Cloth

Joe Simpson was the climber who shattered his legs when he was dropped down a crevasse descending a peak in the Peruvian Andes. His story was the subject of the film Touching the Void. It was a miracle that he survived the fall, a miracle that he dragged himself out of the ravine, a miracle that he crawled all the way down the mountain, a miracle that he was able to walk again. But there he was on TV this weekend, describing how he had resumed climbing and even ascended the Eiger.

A man of the cloth is a term used for someone who is considered to be close to God, or at least someone who helps the rest of us to get closer to Him.

Mr Simpson was invited onto Desert Island Discs recently. I listened. The interviewer grilled him about those times when he was very close to fading out, when he genuinely thought he was about to die - did he ever think of God or a possible afterlife at those times? No, he replied. Never. Even faced with imminent death, the idea of such a crazy Thing did not even cross his mind.

In addition to your chosen records, the programme lets you take a little reading material onto the desert island. It assumes that everyone will take the Bible, and so many people wanted the complete works of Shakespeare that they started allowing that too. So two hefty books for free, and one more of your choice. Joe took the Shakespeare, but politely declined to take the Bible. Even as toilet paper.

The Pleasure of Hope

The title here is the opening sequence to a classic album by Pendragon. Another of the best albums ever recorded is the only release by a band that the genius Jim Steinman christened as Pandora's Box, so obviously hope was a main theme in there as well.

But though those are two of my all time favourites, neither of them are very well known, neither would appear on the top ten list for most people. However, when it comes to films, perhaps my taste is more universal. The Shawshank Redemption is a favourite for many others too.

But there is one little thing wrong with the movie. They bastardised the end. It is not just me who thinks that the main theme of the story was the title of this post, Stephen King himself sub-titled the original book with a similar sentiment. So the correct place to end the film would have been with Morgan Freeman on the bus. I hope that I will make it across the border. I hope that my friend is there. I hope.

Disinterested

The word is often misused, but this blog has broader ambitions than pointing out minor semantic errors.

Before my diversion into the future of customer relationship marketing, I almost did a typical diary post … I went to x show, it got x stars from me etc. But this blog is broader than that too.

I said that most of the reviews that you see elsewhere are only the the gushing sycophantic praise of professional critics who long to get quoted on billboards and invited for celebrity interviews.

If any magazine really gave honest reviews to the 50% of releases that are below average, then it would be highly unlikely to get the next exclusive interview with the famous cover star. That applies as much to the criticism of strikers' performance on Football Focus as to product reviews or film reviews in any glossy publication.

And the same thing goes for any articles that do not criticise those who advertise around there. Be careful whose opinions you trust.

Supermagic

We went to the theatre today. Not just the local theatre but a proper full-on Cameron Mackintosh West End production. I had not bought the tickets myself - I would not have chosen either this particular show or this particular date. But as it was a heartfelt family present I was happy to go.

So I did not have high expectations. But I confess, it was truly magical. That is not the gushing sycophantic praise of professional critics who long to get quoted on billboards and invited for celebrity interviews. I mean it was magical like a magic show. Things were appearing and disappearing and time-shifting and flying around as though they were CGI effects. Amazing. Songs and music were ok too.

Now the difficult bit - next I will relate a classic stage magic trick to modern individualised marketing.

There can only be one

One of those occasional random personal posts. Top five reasons why Highlander is the best film ever.

1. The story. Perhaps it is not just a great long fight, maybe it has a deep resonance with ancient Hindu and Buddhist philosophy, trying to escape from an endless cycle of rebirth to strive for nirvana.

2. The casting. Christopher Lambert carries this constant air of unworldly detachment, and you can never quite place his accent. But that is only what you'd expect for a five-hundred year old global wanderer.

3. The cinematography. Phenomenal. It never just fades normally from one scene to another. It fades, it flicks, it flashes, it astounds.

4. The action. No magic wands, no ugly guns, no fluffy lightsabres. These are heavy metal clashes, heads really roll.

5. The soundtrack. On top of everything else, one of my favourite bands ever did the music. You can't ask for more. Simply magic!