And That Was 2008.

Dear readers,

Yes, all six of you. I was going to write a (probably) rambling discourse on what a strange year 2008 had been, but I felt that would be terribly self indulgent, so I didn’t.

Then I thought I would write up my ten highlights of 2008, which seemed like a better idea, as I love sharing stuff I find cool. So here it is:

Brad Neely makes mentalist animations; they make me laugh my socks off and are infinitely quotable:

WASHINGTON

SODOM AND GOMORRAH

Giles Peterson’s Worldwide Festival in Sete, France was the perfect get away and was attended by lovely people. The music was superb and a good time was had by all. I’m currently deciding whether to attend again in 2009!

Obviously, being a massive nerd I was all over Iron Man and Batman (The Dark Knight) like a rash. If you somehow managed to miss either of these immense pop culture events then, er, what the hell are you doing reading this blog? Go and watch them now dumbass!

Check out my Iron Man ramblings HERE.

No Country For Old Men whilst not being everyone’s cup of tea pretty much blew me away. This was a triumph of film making, with some stellar performances and decidedly ambiguous non-Hollywood ending.

Read my review for it HERE.

We even had an Anime film that made sense and was easy to follow. APPLESEED: Ex Machina was a slickly produced showcase of Japanese animation with great voice talent… and a script that didn’t feel like it had been lost in translation. Otaku rejoiced!

I reviewed this sexy slice of sci fi HERE.

I pitched a freakin’ comic script to Dave Gibbons. Yes, yes I did. I may not have won BICS Got Talent but I managed to get through with my dignity intact. You can read about this in more depth HERE.

EasterCon was really good fun, and even though I only went for the day I had a great time bumping into Joe Abercrombie and getting all fanboy and tongue tied in front of China Mieville. Although my reading habits have faltered a little over the last six months I hope to enter into the realms of fantasy and sci fi again in 2009.

For my gripping discourse on EasterCon click HERE.

Lee Bradley, who regularly contributes to TRANSFORMERS Comic, asked me for an autograph, as he is a big fan of Starscreams, the letters column. My first for someone who isn’t my mum or a friend. I actually blushed.

And finally! Soil and Pimp Sessions really rocked it for me. I saw them at the Roundhouse in Camden, with a free ticket courtesy of Mr. Gilles Peterson. These crazy Japanese cats destroyed it. For a taste of their mentalist death jazz check out the link HERE.

And that’s it from me. Thanks for reading, I’ll see you guys in 2009.

Recycle.
Stay in school.
Fight the power.

And er, Merry Christmas!

The Day The Earth Stood Still – Film Review

When a huge sphere arrives in New York from outer space humans around the world are struck with apocalyptic hysteria. What does the coming of the sphere mean? And who is the mysterious creature calling itself Klaatu that walks in the body of a man?

It sometimes seems as if the entire world revolves around the fate of New York. I for one am a bit fatigued with ‘Oh-look-it’s-New-York-getting-levelled-again’ but this is a minor gripe in an otherwise entertaining film. The pace is brisk from the start, and at no point are you left twiddling your thumbs during 103 minute running time. The film’s central idea of an alien creature coming to stop mutually assured destruction has been updated from the 1951 Cold War era, to a more environmental message.

Keanu, long a target of film critics everywhere has precisely the right amount of detached, Zen-like calm to play an alien arriving to observe humanity and the state of the planet. Often derided for his woodenness, he brings an intense yet menacing calm to the role of Klaatu.

Jennifer Connelly and Jaden Smith are on top form, and whilst it’s easy to want to strangle most child stars on sight you’d have to be hard-hearted indeed not to find the graveyard scene affecting.

Naturally, a blockbuster this big is going to have good effects, and TDTESS is no exception except for a couple of shots that perhaps don’t quite make the grade when shown on an IMAX screen.

The main criticism of the film is that the humans do just about everything they can to wilfully bait annihilation from a much more technologically advanced species. Although Klaatu has meaningful interactions with a few humans and develops a taste for Bach, it seems the damage we inflict on the planet and each other is not really worth the redemption they receive. Another minor irritation is John Cleese, playing it straight, is given woefully little screen time.

A competent, engaging and entertaining film, TDTESS just fails to make the required pay off in the denouement. However this is truly a spectacle when seen on an IMAX screen

DMZ: On The Ground - Comics Review

DMZ: On The Ground
Brian Wood
Riccardo Burchielli

The DMZ posits an America tearing itself in half. A new civil war has raged for five long years and Matty Roth finds himself attached to a Nobel Prize–winning war reporter. Their destination: Manhattan, or the DMZ as it has come to be known.


Book one of the DMZ quickly and ably delivers the protagonist and the setting of the series, and it is the setting that really drives many of the questions in the book. What would happen to a densely populated area in America if it happened to become the no-man’s land between two opposing forces?

People from all over the world are uniquely acquainted with New York, even if they have never been there, and so it is somewhat iconoclastic of Wood to bring the locale to its knees (as American film makers are so fond of doing). However, in doing so he not only gives his comic book a fantastic backdrop, but he manages to bring all the horrors of war much closer to home. By staging the DMZ in New York, Wood cleverly visits all of liberal America’s guilt about civilian casualties and friendly fire upon the very country that is carrying out these acts abroad. It’s interesting to note the most terrifying characters in DMZ are often the loyal American troops.

Our everyman is Matty Roth, whose daddy has pulled some strings to get the most coveted internship in news reporting. Matty soon encounters a steep learning curve, and discovers what it is really like to live in a city at war, and all the attendant madness that comes with it. Matty could easily have come off as unsympathetic, coming from an easy, comfortable life, but he quickly establishes himself as a survivor and shows some grit when things get tough.

Riccardo Burchielli’s art is beautiful throughout, and he creates a smouldering, graffiti-scrawled, bombed-out Manhattan. The art is clean and easy to follow and although the book has plenty of pace the panels never feel too busy or crammed in on each other.

A satisfying first book that leaves the reader keen to get to grips with the second book in the series. Wood hints at a larger back-story that can (and hopefully will be) expanded upon.

9/10

So Say We All

Recently I’ve gone back to the very beginning of Battlestar Galactica, something I’ve wanted to do for a while. My significant other (referred to as The Dame on this blog) recently landed a job at NBC Universal, and as such took an interest in one of the networks leading shows.

It’s also rather helpful she enjoys science fiction too.

I can’t enthuse heartily enough about this show, particularly the first season. The title alone is enough to send most women fleeing for cover, or see most men exiled to watching it late at night after the lady has gone to bed. However, Battlestar Galactica isn’t just a TV show about robots mercilessly killing their human masters, and it has come a long way from the space opera type campness of the 1970s.

For those of you who are unaware, Battlestar Galactica was originally made in 1978, and as such fitted seamlessly in with such other shows of the time as Knight Rider, The A-Team and, to a lesser extent, Airwolf. Hardly high culture, Battlestar Galactia was something to give sci fi junkies a weekly shot in the arm between waiting for instalments of Star Wars to arrive at the cinema. And, it was suitable for family viewing to boot. However, making sci fi ain’t cheap, and declining ratings soon saw BSG binned by the ABC channel after 17 episodes.

Fast forward to 2004 and BSG was being treated to a makeover. Hardly a ‘remake’, the word ‘re-imagining’ was being thrown around to express how the shows basic theme had been preserved, but how just about everything else had been jettisoned out of the airlock.

I often tell people BSG is like the West Wing in space, admittedly a West Wing where you just happen to know all the fighter pilots, and not everyone is what they seem. In fact, it would be ridiculous not to mention parallels with Blade Runner, the film, and the source material itself, (one Do Androids Dream OF Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick.) with some of the Cylon robots masquerading as humans. The paranoia of some episodes is particularly reminiscent of this classic sci fi novel.

Now back to the point, BSG need not be just for boys (Ladies take note), here are my arguments:

Many of the characters of the ensemble cast are female, and do a great deal more than just shriek when the bad guys turn up, or get themselves captured. Whilst BSG is a war drama, the women of the piece aren’t left out of the limelight, or storylines, and step up to the plate when things get hairy.

The show is as much about the relationships as it is about one race trying to exterminate another. Family ties, romances, betrayals and attractions drive the show just as much as any epic space battle.

It’s not all machines, guns and spaceships either. There is a strong theme of spirituality running through the show, sometimes from the most unlikely of sources.

Whilst the third season wanes somewhat in quality, it is well worth watching for the first two seasons, and by then you’ll be so hooked on the antics of Starbuck, Apollo, Adama and the Colonel Tigh you’ll want to know how it ends.

Welcome To The Auditorium

Now, you may well be thinking ‘Gosh, how hard can this comics malarkey be? I bet he just sits around the office reading X-Men’

Well, not quite. This week I have been somewhat distracted though. A rather beautiful puzzle game has caught my eye by the name of Auditorium.

The aim of the game is to direct the flow towards the bar icons. These icons will create music when the flow reaches them. The demo version of this game introduces three mechanics.

- Altering the direction of the flow with simple arrow icons.
- Directing the flow through hoops of colour to activate similarly colour coded bar icons.
- Creating vortices, and attracting the flow in different ways across the screen.

However, don’t take my word for it, go play, go puzzle, go be hypnotised by the simple beauty of this great game.


http://playauditorium.com/

Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down - An Interview with Michael Hogan

**WARNING - SEASON THREE SPOILERS**

Michael Hogan, the surly Saul Tigh from Battlestar Galactica answers a few questions during his guest of honour appearance at the MCM Expo, at the Excel center, in October. He talks about eye patches, the end of the CIC and being a frakking Cylon.

What’s it been like meeting the UK fans?

It’s been great. I’ve just done a Q&A. I’m not much of a one for microphones though. I’d rather stand there and talk. Also, when you’ve been asked questions for a while you wonder ‘did I just say that? Stop me if I’ve just told this story’

Have you been happy with the progression of the character through series four, especially now that Tigh has been revealed as a Cylon?

Definitely happy with the progression of the character throughout the series… until [becoming] the Cylon [Laughs].

Ron Moore and David Eick always pick up the phone, or called me back within five minutes when I’ve called with a concern throughout all of the five years. So I’ve learned over the time to go with their final [say], if they insist on something.

The issue I’m really talking about is when they send Tigh down to New Caprica. Well, Tigh wouldn’t leave that ship, and for very good reasons. But they insisted Tigh go down to New Caprica. Well, look at what they wrote for season three; as an actor, you couldn’t get a better meal than that.

So with the Cylon thing, I did think it was, initially, a cheap shot. Someone told me that there was this poll on the web and people voted on it, they voted on everyone who was ever on Battlestar Galactica, for one day or whatever, (they voted on) who was most likely to be a Cylon, and Saul Tigh was the second from the last. Now that’s pretty cheap. I mean; do you do that just because it would be a surprise? But no, they [Moore and Eick] had thought it out. And knowing after all those years, when they said they wanted me to be a Cylon, I said ‘OK, I’ll argue it, but I don’t have any facts to argue with. This was just a gut a thing.


Do You Miss The Eye Patch?
No. I might miss it when I remember that I don’t have it on. I hated wearing it. The mornings weren’t that bad, but the afternoons [shakes head]. You can imagine, you’re depth of field and you sense of balance goes. But that was another brilliant stroke from the writers.

On hiatus, because I go off and do other things, or just get my head completely out of [Battlestar] I’m thinking ‘OK, we’re going to shoot Battlestar again in a month, I’d better call Dave and Ron and see what should I be up to now’ because I do a lot of research. So I call Dave [Eick] and asked him what’s shaping for this season? And he says ‘well, gee now, let’s see, you’re on New Caprica, Tigh is going to be incarcerated, and he’s going to be tortured by the Cylons. And we’re thinking of maiming him. And I say ‘You’re maiming him! Well, if you’re going to decide to maim him, phone me right away, because I need time. I’ve got go in to a hospital, you know, I can’t just limp. If they do something specific the we owe it to the torture victims of the world to do it properly.’ So he says ‘we’re thinking of removing an eye, I think he loses an eye’ and I laughed, and said well OK, as soon as you decide give me a call’.

So, time went by, three weeks later I get the script. You know it opens with me, and Dean Stockwell in the prison cell. Tigh’s there, no eye. So I called David and said ‘Hey, you’ve taken an eye away!’

Ron wanted something that was permanent. He wanted something so that if I was tortured and maimed I wouldn’t get over it eventually.
He wanted something where you look at Tigh after all the number of years and you [think] ‘Oh, the occupation’, which was brilliant. Every once in a while you’re doing a scene when you can’t see the eye [patch] and then you can just see it and it’s like, ‘Whoa!’

So what turned out to be me going ‘What are you doing to me?’ was really ‘Thank you, what a gift.’

So season four ends on a complete cliff-hanger, where do we go from there?

Ah, you tricked me! [Laughs] I can’t say whether it’s a cliff-hanger but I can say it ends. You know over the years when we first started doing this, I myself told them I wasn’t a fan, my passion as an actor is doing different things. And this has been one, long five-year movie.

And I’ve asked Ron a few times over the shooting ‘you said at the beginning [of the show] there’s going to be a beginning, a middle and an end. And stick to that.’ And he said ‘Yeah, we definitely intend that it finishes. Even though the network is putting on great pressure because, you know, it’s a money-making thing; it’s a license to print money. And I think it’s pretty nervy of the network to let them pull the plug before the mandate is over, because we all have a year left on our options, but they pulled the plug. It’s over; the story of Battlestar is over.

But like I say, [in the audience Q&A] the movie The Plan is one of those things where you go ‘Wow, they’ve got this huge movie now. So that said, they’re not going to go beyond this [end point] they can go back to a lot of different places and just with a few days shooting start all over again, and shoot stories within that.

So as far as you know the next DVD movie is going to be the last one?

Yes, that’s as far as I know and they’ve torn the sets down.

And any other new DVDs?

There are no rumours of any new DVDs coming out. The rumours were gone when they tore the sets down. It was amazing to go and stand and watch that set come down, CIC especially. You didn’t realize how much a part of the fabric of your life this show was until you wander in to the studio, there’s no rumours man, there it is half way torn down. There are just the steel girders in half of the CIC there, and now you can walk in to the studio and it’s gone. So, they’re not going to go back and shoot a movie in the CIC. Tigh’s quarters are gone, Adama’s quarters are gone, all those great sets they’re gone.

Did you get to keep any souvenirs?

Some people, over the time took souvenirs but they had people from the network, an auctioneer there. These shows auction of [the props] and there’s a lot of money in it. So, I suppose if I had any stories about that I shouldn’t tell them!