Godzilla
So yesterday was the first real day of my holidays (weekends don’t count). I thought that a perfectly lovely way of starting my hols would be getting up late (check), pulling on the dressing gown (check; because Melbourne has decided to go back to winter for whatever daft reason), and watch Godzilla… hmm. Yes.
I saw the remake when it came out, in 1998 it turns out. I remember thinking it was hilarious. I put it down on my BigPond Movies list, and thought it would be great to share it with my love. Sigh. It was not to be, sadly. Because it really wasn’t as good as I remember. In fact, it was quite average. When I realised it was 130 min worth of average-ness – at the 50 min mark – I made a considered judgment and gave up on it. I could not do it.
And so is one of illusions destroyed. Heartbreaking.
Tickets…
to Swancon. I has them!
Cue the eye-rolls, the short laugh or muffled giggle, the slightly disbelieving frown on non-nerdy friends’ faces… but that’s ok. Because it’s going to be great. I really hope they get the academic stream up; Girlie Jones and Ben Payne are launching 2012, their print anthology that includes the like of Dirk Flinthart and Tansy Rayner Roberts, both of which make me very happy; numerous people I know will be there, and I’ll get to meet some of them for the first time… plus, it’s Perth! I’ve been there once, in 1996, for a conference, and didn’t see much but liked what I saw. And, my love is coming too! He’s going to go off gallivanting while I’m being all serious and nerdy (ha!), then we’ll have a few days over in the far reaches of the country together, since it’s school holidays at that time. Woohoo!
More than meets the eye
We didn’t go to see Transformers at the flicks. I really wanted to, but my love had heard varying reports. Personally, I trusted ‘s assessment, and agitated for going, but we somehow never got around to it. So we got it through BigPondMovies, and every half an hour or so he was then heard to exclaim “This is fantastic! Whoever didn’t like this had no sense of humour!” Duh. Imagine how much more awesome it would have been on the big screen! I’m sure there were aspects that I missed, due to not being an afficiando, but that’s ok – the plot didn’t rely on them, I did get the “more than meets the eye” reference, and I’m happy for uberfans to get some smug enjoyment that I missed – because I like doing it when I can, too.
Things I really liked:
The fight scenes. Woohoo!
The CGI transformations. Very nice.
The dry sense of humour.
Josh Duhamel!  =]
The incongruity of the plot. Yes, there are several bits it’s best not to think about, but when it’s done in such an entertaining way I’m generally disposed to forgiving leaps of logic. After all, we’re talking about giant alien robots…
Things I got annoyed at:
Sam, the main human; especially at the start, very painful.
The Autobots being made to seem a bit lame. Optimus Prime, in particular, sometimes came off as less than heroic.
The bits that were blatantly put in for teenage boys – like Mikaela doing the stretch to look under the hood. Pft.
For those people who thought the movie was crap: we’re talking about aliens, robot aliens, who by all accounts were the indigenous life forms on their planet. So… what is your problem with the rest of the movie?!
Oh, and for a final touch, we two really were destined to be together: turns out we both owned a toy Bumblebee as kids. How sweet!
Fly me to the moon
Space Cowboys was on last night. I love it! All four of the main actors are playing basically the characters they’ve been playing for the last 30 or 40 years, in some cases: it’s a beautiful tribute. I don’t think any of them have played astronauts before this, although I could be wrong about that, and I’ll bet they’ve all wanted to at some point, so it’s wish fulfillment on several levels.
It could easily have gone horribly wrong – turned into a pastiche that made fun of them, or turned boringly sentimental, or just seemed ridiculous. Instead, there’s a bit of sentiment – but it doesn’t get in the way of the story; they are poked fun at, which is only appropriate because they’re old codgers proposing something crazy – but they overcome it, and it’s made to seem feasible. The bits in space are hilarious: I can just imagine an exec ordering the props guys: “Buttons! and toggles! And more flashing lights, too! Doesn’t matter what they do, just add them!” I’m sure there are lots of those things on spacecraft in real life, just that I’m not convinced all of those shown in the movie correspond…
Anyway, I think the movie has the right amount of romance, understated heroism, lurking skullduggery, and funny lines to please a lot of people. I could have stood for a bit more action, but I realise that wasn’t the point of the movie. It really is very good!
Aussie Spec Fic Carnival
Ladies and gentlemen and others, here it is…
NaNoWriMo:
Andrew Macrae flunked out early, Stephen Dedman didn’t quite make it, but Martin Livings actually did it – and offered it for viewing.
Writing:
Ben Peek has posted a few episodes of Nowhere Near Savannah, this one being a favourite so far – reasons not to write science fiction.
Glenda Larke delivers her musings on staying true to your art, and being balanced; meanwhile mikandra has something of a writing crisis.
Cassiphone (aka Tansy Roberts) had a sneak peek of her latest novel, Power and Majesty, available for perusal (and made a rather wild claim to boot).
Gillian Pollack makes a very generous offer, should you be interested in experimenting for a travel scene in your next novel (no vegos allowed).
Tehani reflects on Andromeda Spaceways as it was in 2007.
Dirk Flinthart shares a his take on the story of the Ugly Duckling. Heart warming, but you can just imagine what’s coming at the end…
and another Stephen preens a little about the covers of some random books…
Publishing:
That old Punkrocker announces that Worker’s Paradise came back from the printers, and Karen Miller announces the publication of The Riven Kingdom (as well as keeping us up to date on the progress of her next); Girlie announces the impending arrival of Shiny 2.
Jennifer Fallon also gets into the shamelessly plugging friends act as well.
Seems obvious to me, but apparently “Kiss of the Lily” – which is wanting stories with romance – haven’t been getting what they want.
Margo discusses the new Datlow Del Rey antho, including herself; also comments on some reviews she’s received, as does Kaaron Warren on The Grinding House.
Reading:
That Ben Peek again has some interesting things to say about the Aussie military reading list.
James T Kirk School of Plot Development is elaborated by Gillian.
Matt discusses William Burroughs.
The token Kiwi has caused some stir with a variety of posts, on chronotopicality (also here) – sparking lots of comments, worth reading.
Last Short Story keeps doing their (OK, I admit, our) crazy thing, attempting to read the short specfic published in 2007.
Jonathan S reflects on re-viewing Star Wars (as well as thinking about feedback).
Also seen:
Chris Barnes gets all dressed up and fights some folks, progressing up the career ladder of Sword Fighting.
Cat Sparks posts some of her photos from World Con.
Girlie is rounding up support to help support ASiF! – a worthy cause if you like reviews, and there are even prizes! (She’s also had ideas about improving said website. Plus, Martin is offering to name characters after donaters.) Plus, some silly writing stunts.
Justine Larbalestier and partner Scott star in a podcast (there’s also a second half).
Paul continues his incredibly personal and humbling recount of his experience with cancer (that’s just one entry, of course).
Finally, there’s no show without Punch – or, in the case of the Aussie specifc scene, the Aurealis Awards, the list of which appeared a week or so ago now; it’s even scored itself a big fat sponsor. Numerous people blogged about, like those who got nominated (and while you’re there, check out Rob eating brains).
Star Trek Generations
I think Picard is my favourite. He’s just more… refined. Kirk makes Jon Mclean look like a choir boy. The thing that’s particularly funny about those lists (and there were quite a few that I didn’t get) is that a number of them are the same, word for word – yet on one list it’s bad and on the other, good.
So I’ve watched Star Trek Generations tonight. I don’t think I’d seen it before – although it’s possible that I saw it at my first O’Week party, back in the day (the cinema at uni was showing movies all night; I know I saw a Star Trek at maybe 1am – with the kir part of kirmish, as I recall – but don’t remember it at all; and no I wasn’t drunk, because the Melbourne Uni security team, in their wisdom, wouldn’t accept NT proof of age – only Victorian). What can I say? The effects are definitely better. I don’t like Riker much, Troi is a pain, and while Crusher is good she ain’t no Bones. Geordie (oooh, it jut occurred to me that that’s another UK slang reference, like Scotty… yes, I’m a bit slow) is ok, but no Scotty, and Data is a lesser version of Spock without the interesting reason for being all logical and cold. I think what I’m saying is that I want Picard with the original crew; that would be my ideal Star Trek!
Soren was a worthy adversary, with a very interesting reason for being a prat. It was fun seeing Kirk and Picard together (they’re in one other together, I believe?). Overall, quite a satisfying plot, I thought.
My final question, though: why is such a nice-looking planet as Viridian 3 uninhabited??
Spamalot
I went tonight. It was great, of course. I wasn’t in stitches – having shown Holy Grail to two classes in the last couple of days might have taken the edge off for me – but it was still very, very funny. The bits they’ve added in were magnificent.
Anyway, there was one part I thought I’d share with you. They blow the bunny up with the Holy Hand Grenade, and the scenery falls down to reveal the word BONES in ‘stone.’ There is much confusion, until one of the knights suggests the S might be a 5. So it might actually say B-one-5.
At this point, my stomach dropped.
Then the spotlight landed on B15.
Yup.
The Grail was “under my seat”; after they retrieved it, they decided that the brave peasant needed to be brought on stage, so they could properly say thank you. (They are so LOUD on stage!) So I got to shake their hands, had my name announced to the audience (I checked; there’s about 1700 seats at Her Majesty’s)… and then I won an Arthur for Best Peasant in Melbourne, which means I now have a little statuette of a foot… and a photo with half the cast! Yes, they brought a Polaroid out on to stage.
These sorts of things never happen to me.
I will blog properly about the show itself tomorrow, when I have calmed down a bit. For now… when Patsy retrieved the Grail and went back on stage, part of me was relieved that that might be all, and part of me was just a little disappointed – how dumb is that?? And then they got me on stage, and part of me was embarrassed and really didn’t know where to look (seriously; you can see maybe to the second row); but part of was dead impressed.
Yeh, ok, I’m going to try and sleep it off now. Although given it’s still a million degrees, sleeping might be hard.
Archaeology Magazine Nov-Dec
After some effort, I managed to re-subscribe to Archaeology, which makes me happy. So I thought I’d blog some thoughts on the latest issue…
I’m not sure I like the new format of the mag. The old way, there were one or two short pieces at the start – like “World Roundup” (always an interesting read); then it was straight into the longer, in-depth articles. Now, there are fully 20 pages of ads and shorter stuff before you get to the meaty bit. To drag the eating metaphor out – I like an entree as much as the next person, but I don’t like getting bored before the main course. I’d rather have the little bits at the end, to browse like a cheese platter. Yah; pushed that one to the limits, didn’t I?
Anyway… I was fascinated by Sanchita Balachandran’s reflection on whether to preserve an artifact of dubious provenance. I would have thought that preserving at all costs, so that at least something can be learnt, would be worthwhile. Apparently, though, this can be seen as encouraging looters and other nefarious types to continue their dastardly deeds (not meant to be read flippantly, btw). I’m still not sure I agree with this idea – what, let the Rosetta Stone fall apart because you’re not sure where it came from? – but I can readily see there are moral issues here.
I love stuff about Oxyrhynchus, and Tebtunis seems to be in the same league in terms of the amount of papyrus they’re finding. Marco Merola writes a fascinating account of the archaeological efforts being undertaken on the site, as well as what is being revealed by the information. It still gets me, every single time, just how much has not been uncovered yet, of places like Egypt that we seem to understand so well – let alone places where digging is barely begun. I love it! So yes – Tebtunis – awesome. Also on this track is Jarrett Lobell’s article on the discovery of an agora – an entire damned agora! – in the modern suburbs of Athens. Mad. I do hope the developers manage to incorporate parts of it into the new buildings.
Read a book on Genghis Khan – I think it was by John Man(n?) a while back; he and his have been a perennial favourite. Having taught the Chinese Revolution this year (not very well…), I was reminded again how diverse “China” is and has been. Jake Hooker’s article on the Liao Empire – which I’d never heard of – brought this home. They created some truly amazing stuff but… where are the uni courses, the museum exhibits, the kids’ cartoon shows? You could do some truly awesome stuff in copying their riding boots.
There’s a running joke in my family that I don’t much like stuff that’s younger than 1000 years old (I take affront at that; 500 years, maybe). So I’m still sometimes a bit dubious about reading stuff like Tom Koppel’s “Steamboats on the Yukon.” Of course, once I get reading, I’m fascinated – the reality is that I love basically all historical stuff, although I don’t know why. It helps, with this article, that in this instance the author had spent time with the team attempting to study and preserve said steamboats, so his account of scrambling over them is compelling.
In line with the family joke, I’ve sometimes received the vibe (not from my family) that history is pointless, because you know, it’s like already happened? It’s tempting then to point people to Heather Pringle’s “Medieval DNA, Modern Medicine.” I don’t, because I think history is important in itself, but there you go. Being a child of the Jurassic Park at the movies generation, extracting DNA from old bones (teeth, actually) seems a bit parse sometimes. This article is nice in showing just how damned hard that is, and what we oh-so-advanced modernites can learn.
Finally, I have to say that however much I love the magazine, it feels like there are more ads in there every time I turn around. And they’re all American, of course, so there’s barely any point in even looking at them. Oh well; it’s still a great read.
Stargate – the movie
We watched the original Stargate movie for the first time in a long time the other night. I must admit to a little fangirl flutter of the heart when the theme music started: I had either not realised, or forgotten, that the theme music is the same in the show as it was in the movie. Not surprising, of course. It did give me the giggles to realise just how much I loved SG-1 – we finished it ages ago, and I miss having more episodes to watch. More than I miss FarScape; perhaps not quite as much as West Wing.*
A couple of things I noticed, post-viewing of SG-1:
# Michael Shanks and James Spader – very cool, very similar, at least in playing Daniel. sigh.
# Richard Dean Anderson kicks Kurt Russell as Jack. Completely.
# I had never thought about the fact that they must store sets – in the hopes of re-using them at some stage. Either that or they worked really, really hard at being true to the movie for the show, and I just doubt it.
# There was a three year gap between movie and show. Is that a long time? It seems like a long time.
# The movie was a bit… well… boring. Especially compared with the show. Am I getting old and jaded?
# I cannot wait for the SG-1 movie to be made. There’s nothing on IMdB about it, but seriously… it has to happen.
*Of which we must retrieve seasons 2 and 3 from the in-laws. I love the first season, but there’s only so many times you can watch it with only season 7 as your other option. Oh, and season 5, but that gets a bit depressing.
Movies and books
So I went to see Elizabeth: The Golden Age the other day. I loved it, and will post more about it soon. For now, this has amused me:
Do I have a book about Walter Raleigh on my shelf?
Yes
Have I read said book yet?
No
Will I now always think of him as Clive Owen?
Hell yes!
Is this a problem?
Hell no!
Tee hee. I thought it was funny. It really is a bit like seeing the movie before reading the book.* I also have a bio of Elizabeth – the Alison Weir one, I think – which my darling bought for me on a whim once and who was subsequently devastated when I informed him that I was a bit over Elizabeth, because she had been done to death. I think I am also at the point where I can read that book, too.
*Which I have only successfully done once: I saw the BBC series of Pride and Prejudice before reading it, and it made reading it much easier, for me.
Randomly Yours, Alex 