X-Men Origins: Wolverine – Review

Prequels are a tricky thing – Even if you don’t have sixteen years worth of expectations bearing down on you. Just ask George Lucas. So it was that this geek entered the cinema with zero expectations and an open mind.

For non-comic nerds it is interesting to bear in mind that the beginnings of the character known as Wolverine have been told many times over, often contradicting previous efforts. Therefore asking one film to deliver a definitive version of how the most popular member of the X-men is a tall tale indeed.

That said, Hugh Jackman is Wolverine. Yes, fanboys will harangue and wail that he is too tall, but I defy anyone to think of any actor more suited to playing the character. Aside from an easy charm (which serves to make the character sympathetic), Jackman brings rage and, whisper it, vulnerability to the adamantium shod killing machine.

Liev Schrieber gives an equally solid performance as Victor Creed (who goes on to become Sabretooth), representing the more feral nature of the brothers-in-arms.

What starts out as a fairly straight-up, good vs. evil, revenge-a-thon quickly gains a few twists and turns and becomes more interesting as the film draws on. The set pieces are suitably fantastic and worthy of their comic book roots.

However, there are casualties. If any comic fans got excited when Deadpool was mentioned, they are going to be sorely disappointed. The character in this film has as much to do with Deadpool as the ending of Watchmen had anything to do with giant Space Squid (Woah, that was geeky). Equally, a brief cameo suffers from CG tweaking that just looks awful.

Gambit and a proto-Cyclops both put in appearances, but nothing to detract from the main star and his vendetta against Victor and the Weapon X programme.

Wolverine is a great pre-summer blockbuster, and whilst it isn’t as brooding or artfully directed as The Dark Knight it does entertain. As part of a sequence of films it was more satisfying than X-Men 3 and will no doubt appeal to audiences of mainstream action films.

St. Georges Day

"People who enjoy waving flags don't deserve to have one." Banksy

I think there is something fundamental about the English character where, if you have an IQ above room temperature, it's intensely difficult to be patriotic in the same way a lot of Americans are. Or the Scots, or the Irish. Certainly the Welsh. I'm not saying any of those nations are stupid, but there is something sneering and self-deprecating in the English character that can't be assuaged by a bit of fabric on a stick.

Then there is the simple fact that the St. Georges cross has been appropriated by the BNP for the darker side of patriotism. Just check out THIS classic slice of BNP nonsense.

Bat For Lashes – Gig Review

Bat For Lashes
Shepherd’s Bush Empire
London

I have a confession. I discovered Bat For Lashes by accident. My fellow Titan inmate, Russ, turned me onto School of Seven Bells (SVIIB), which I’ve bored you with HERE and HERE (and HERE).

When the Dame got tickets to see SVIIB, it was supporting Bat For Lashes, so I felt obliged to swot up on the sounds of one Natasha Khan, particularly the new album Two Suns. Her second album picked up a highly respectable 8.5 from Pitchfork Media HERE.

After scouring You Tube for videos like the rather wonderful ‘What’s A Girl To Do’ and ‘Daniel’ I was ready for Miss Khan’s unique brand of indie strangeness.

Live, Bat For Lashes really didn’t disappoint. For starters the sound was great, the band were particularly good and there was requisite indie/ hippy weirdness on stage, in the shape of two large Christmas tree fairies. The diaphanous crème jumpsuit (complete with collar ruff) also amped up the Kate Bushness of the proceedings.

It was a long set that included almost all of the material on the new album; as well as some choice cuts from the debut. The set was well paced and featured a particularly pleasing piano version of ‘Daniel’. Vocally, Natasha Khan was a real trooper, soldiering through a set that featured no instrumentals during which she could rest. Admittedly, the two encores felt a little forced but I got the impression this was to retire to the wings for a few seconds off stage.

All in all, the gig was great, played in an intimate venue, displaying real artistry and song writing talent in a time of depressing Saturday night karaoke clones brought to you by Simon Cowell et al.

School Of Seven Bells – Gig Review

Bat For Lashes
School Of Seven Bells (Support)
Shepherd's Bush Empire
London

Having been a complete convert to School of Seven Bells’ debut album Alpinisms, I was obviously keen to see them live. And so I set off across a rainy London town to Shepherd’s Bush Empire, only to discover that my ticket was a seated one, and way up in the gods too. With my anticipation only slightly diminished, and a little soggy, I took my seat and waited with baited breath.

The New York trio opened with the first track from their album, ‘Iamundernodisguise’, which is a strong, short track that was improved by more muscular percussion. This made the track (and the rest of the set) feel distinctly more rock than the ambient stylings of the album. The Dehaza sisters opted to sing the track in a lower key that also reinforced the idea this was a darker rock set that than the electronic-shoe gazer faire on the album.

In what proved to be a very short set, the low point was an overlong and lacklustre ‘White Elephant Coat’. In addition to this the band played the excellent 'Connjur', the poppy ‘My Cabal’ and finished with 'Sempiternal-Amaranth'. The last track was much reduced from the eleven-minute opus on the album, and swapped out the soporific bleep for satisfying industrial beats from the drum machine.

I feel the band really could have benefited from having a live drummer as the performance aspect was understandably restrained. Guitarist and gadget twiddler Benjamin Curtis made a good fist of rocking out but I found myself lusting after some visuals (probably because of the unusual seating arrangements). The sound was good, and the sisters really can sing live. I’d definitely pay money to see them again, if only because I was quite let down they didn’t play ‘Face To Face On High Places’ and ‘Half asleep’, which are both much stronger tracks than the aforementioned ‘White Elephant Coat’.

Review of Bat For Lashes coming soon.

Communications

Once upon a time there used to be red telephone boxes across this fair land. You could step inside, and after dispatching a ten or twenty pence, communicate with those (not so) nearest and dearest to you in privacy.

These telephone boxes were also well loved by tramps, who often took the opportunity to piss in them, giving them a game of chance feel as you struggled to find an unsoiled one. They were also particularly loved by vandals who took it upon themselves to beat the shit out of them, pane of glass by pane of glass. They looked liked this:

At some point in telecommunications history the red phone box was phased out, probably due to replacing all that glass. Public phones are by and large a bit of a joke these days. I can’t recall having to use one since 2004, and that was only because I was in the USA and my mobile (cell) phone didn’t work over there.



It seems that the British Nation, bereft of having a small red box to talk in, have altered their behaviour accordingly. Here is London’s new favourite venue for talking:














Notice how the colour and the amount of transparent material are almost in direct correlation with the old style phone box? Uncanny isn’t it. This new venue for communication also has the odd ability to take you places whilst you talk. In fact some denizens of London town don’t even bother to stop talking in order to disembark. More shocking yet is that some patrons of these ‘buses’ start a conversation before even getting on, and continue said conversation whilst trying to gain a seat on this ambulatory telecommunications platform.

Where the bus fails in its competition with the old school telephone box is that it offers about as much privacy as a pair of crotchless knickers and a see through raincoat.

Case in point is the number 47 bus, where upon I had the unusual pleasure of listening to a woman berate someone (presumably a young man) over the phone for ‘taking a knife out’ with him. If knife crime is an ugly topic in this country then the woman in question certainly didn’t mind, as she discussed this at a volume loud enough for most of the upper deck to hear. She also repeated herself enough times that even the hard of hearing would have had a tough time not getting the jist of her message. While this anthropological snapshot may well be fascinating to some, it only served to make this passenger highly uncomfortable.

However, this is hardly a regular occurrence, it’s far more likely you’ll encounter people who enjoy having Aggressive Repartee, Stridently inEscapeable. Or A.R.S.Es as I like to call them. What possesses people to call some one who owes them money, or has caused them a slight, and then discuss it in public absolutes evades me entirely.

Particularly baffling are those that turn their heads towards the window but fail to lower their voice, thinking this will in fact decrease their chances of being overheard. In fact all the glass does is reflect back whatever particularly banal debate is currently in motion. These types usually call people with no other motive than to make snide insinuations or blatant insults. I call this category Pointless Routinely Imbecilic Conversations of Keelhauling. Or P.R.I.C.Ks for short.

I’m pretty sure I don’t have a library fetish, but the prospect of having entirely silent public transport fills me with a sort of strange excitement I feel when subjected to other, much more erotic stimuli.

Now I’ve mentioned sex I feel it is only fair to mention violence. Yes, I admit, I could happily detonate any mouthbreather, whose sole evolutionary jump was to learn how to set their ring tone to the most offensive song they downloaded illegally, then have a thirty minute conversation punctuated by the word ‘innit’.

There I said it. I’d kill for silence.

Mass Effect – First Impressions

So I finally bit the bullet, got myself an Xbox 360 and bought myself a copy of Mass Effect. Fortunately I have a very understanding girlfriend who has patiently managed to deal with my near obsessive levels of game play.

For those of you not acquainted with Mass Effect, it is a science fiction game played on the Xbox console. You take control of one Commander Shepherd, who you can customise as you see fit (although you’ll always be called Shepherd).

Mass Effect starts with a fairly high learning curve, as there aren’t any tutorials as such, it just kind of throws you in at the deep end. This is fair enough when you are just bumbling around talking to people, but the combat can be daunting to start with. The game is based on a third person perspective, and as ever, I am a terrible shot.

The game looks amazing, and whilst it doesn’t have the gritty feel of Aliens the universe is well-designed and realised place. Special kudos to the ship design – which is very cool. It’s particularly pleasing to be given the keys to the Normandy, and the pootle off round the Universe.

The dialogue is particularly good, although sometimes it feels a little linear. On a few occasions I’ve just wanted to arrest or shoot people, but maybe that says more about me as a player than the game itself.

Last night I just completed my first proper mission, and a lot of fun it was too. The main cannon fodder are a race of synthetic creatures that have gained sentience. The Geth make for formidable opponents, and their legged ‘tanks’ caused me a few headaches.

In addition to the missions that further the main story arc are Assignments, or side adventures. These are quite fun to cut your teeth on during the early stages of the game.

A particularly fun aspect of the game is that you choose who to take on mission with you. Shepherd only ever takes two crewmates with him, but there is a cast of six possible characters to choose from. Each character has a unique background and talents.

Lastly, the game doesn’t have the best auto-save feature. It would be good to build this in after a lot of conversations. Needless to say I’m routinely saving after fire fights so I don’t have to do it over if I get killed at a later point. And you do killed – it's a dangerous Universe, and you need to stay alert and master the combat controls quickly.

Solaris (2002) Film Review

I’d been meaning to watch this film for ages, and yet it always seemed to slip out of my grasp. Either I’d missed it on TV, or just not been able to track down a copy of the DVD. Finally, on Sunday evening I watched it.


Solaris (2002), directed by Steven Soderburgh, is based on the science fiction novel by Stanislaw Lem, published in 1961. In the film Kelvin (played by George Clooney) is requested to venture in to space to talk a science team in to coming back. The crew are displaying psychological problems and Kelvin, a psychotherapist, is sent as a last resort before abandoning the space station all together.

However, it is not a simple case of psychosis being brought on by the vastness of space, but the planet Solaris itself - the crew find themselves brought face to face, quite literally, with phantoms of the past.

This film really does deserve to be seen on a large screen and looks amazing. The art direction cleverly plays out the scenes on Earth (mostly flashbacks) in warm oranges and deep browns, whilst the current day is played out against the pale blue light of the space station. It is this colour differential that underpins the film’s ambience – that nostalgia is usually dark but warm, whilst the present is stark and cold. Cliff Martinez provides a score as gently soporific as the visuals but keeps a line of tension through the electronics to avoid drowsing off altogether.

Some people will hate this film as, much like Donnie Darko, it raises as many questions as it answers. Furthermore, it has an ending some may find subtle to the point of the obtuse. The script is spare and often cryptic, but not maddeningly so. It is not space opera or a summer blockbuster, and most definitely falls in to the category of literate science fiction. However, Solaris is not a story about planets and space stations (these are merely the setting), rather it is a meditation on memory and also raises the question of playing god, creating life, and the possible consequences of what this new life is capable of. Furthermore, the very film plays with the concept of a non-theological afterlife, a place where memory coalesces and might live on. Whether you decide this is Heaven or some Tartarus created by the memories of the deceased is up to you.

George Clooney is on form, showing a warm, charming Kelvin during better times and quiet, more enclosed facet in the present. Natascha McElhone is wonderful as Rheya, the tragic wife that haunts Kelvin’s memories. Viola Davies acts as a steely counterpoint to Kelvin’s sentimental mores, whilst Jeremy Davies provides a suitably whacked out performance as a spacer on the edge.

Solaris is a treat for those who don’t mind investing some grey matter and can appreciate the subtle nuances of tone, feeling and colour – an intelligent and unnerving psychodrama.

G20 – A Very British Riot

I’m currently hooked up with a few ‘social networking’ things, and it was interesting to see the reports of the clashes coming out of London in real time from regular folk:

A friend on Facebook “thinks the bankers waving money at protesters can fuck off.”

Elsewhere on Facebook another friend “is astounded at how eager protesters are to start fights with police as soon as they see a camera on them. How small does your cock have to be?”

Meanwhile a colleague of mine on Twitter writes“West End eerily quiet but for occasional siren. Film crews set up - back from the front line. Passed by small cavalcade on Waterloo Bridge.

Said cavalcade apparently consisted of “police bikes, two cars of security guards heading south over Waterloo Bridge - no banners or D plates. And very polite!”

Later, about 13:00, she writes: “Watching the clashes on Threadneedle Street.”

And comics writer Warren Ellis declares “Liverpool St station now empty save for a few lost crusties.” As he tries to make his way home after a drunken night before.

These statuses, tweets and messages feel refreshingly interesting, being free from editorial bias as they are – regular people, giving thoughts and accounts from the front lines.

The price tag for this little jaunt is a cool £7.5 million according the BBC. And that’s in addition to the estimated £23, 000 each taxpayer has paid out to ‘help’ the banks.

Anyone not thinking ‘Hospitals’ right now can go to the back of the class. Shame on you.

Currently, reports are of some pushing and, (shock) shoving. In some particularly embattled parts of London town windows were damaged. Yes, dear reader, innocent windows were broken in this massive protest to demand tighter controls on rampant capitalism, pollution and poverty.

The protest did have one victim – a man in his forties collapsed, although he probably died of boredom and the police were more intent on giving him CPR than beating him down for being a tree-hugging socialist.

In some areas of the city the journalists and police outnumbered the protesters, so it’s hardly revolutionary. Sometimes I think British people are too reserved for their own good. Still, at least they’re doing more than I am as I sit around writing this…