X-Men III
We saw this on the opening night. I really liked it. J was quite dismissive.
I liked the changes in Jean Grey/Phoenix – I thought they worked, and they were explained appropriately. I thought it made for a great story, personally.
I liked the storyline as a whole; I thought it made sense, and it worked. Rogue made sense, Magneto made sense… there were some very clever twists and turns, which were indeed unexpected and clever and made the storyline very interesting indeed.
I don’t really see what J’s problem with it was. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he fell aseep for a while in the middle…
BBC History
I bought the March edition of this magazine a couple of weeks ago – see how far behind we are? – and it was good. At last I have an understanding of where William and Mary and Anne fit in, and where, and why! Hurrah. Also had quite an interesting look at Mary, and exactly how bloody she actually was in terms of prosecuting Protestants. Fairly, I think; but she wasn’t as bad as we still think, which seems to be mostly based on Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. Mmm, propaganda.
Disney films I should own
I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I think there are some classics that I really would like to own.
1. The Jungle Book
2. Aladdin (Look at this! So ticked off that I’m molting…)
3. Robin Hood (he’s so handsome… just like his reward poster)
4. Fern Gully (so, not Disney, but eh; Batty Coda rocks!)
I think that’s all.
Random music comments
1. Eskimo Joe’s “Black Fingernails, Red Wine” is awesome. It’s incredibly INXS-influenced.
2. Video Hits announced someone had announced their Madonna competition this morning, and I quote: “her and a friend will go to London…”
3. I think I might buy a best of Hoodoo Gurus, if I can find one.
4. I had to explain to some of my kids that the new Chili Peppers video clip was ripping off lots of other bands. Argh.
5. I bought a 3-CD best of the Beach Boys the other day. J was amazed that I knew the words to a large majority of the songs… how had I missed telling him that they were my favourite band for a significant part of my teen years?
6. TZU’s “In front of me” is brilliant, and I just saw the film clip – also brilliant! Very clever hand puppets.
7. I’m not a huge fan of Augie March – I think they’re an Aussie equivalent of whingy Englishman, like Coldplay – but I must say that “One Crowded Hour” is growing on me.
8. I am also thinking about buying the Gnarls Barkley album. Just… cos.
The Left Hand of Darkness
I have, of course, heard about this book by Ursula Le Guin – it’s up there as a seminal work, really, of early scifi especially. I think it counts as spec fic more than scifi per se, but that’s a bit beside the point. I bought it last weekend and read it over the week.
I have a friend who is a big scifi fan who read the Wizard of Earthsea series and was incredibly disappointed – actually, I think he only read the first one and didn’t bother with the others. I may have mentioned this before; to me, Le Guin and some of those other early writers are doing line sketches, whereas a lot of the stuff coming out these days is oil colours – whether they’re consciously thinking about it or not, I think they’re heavily movie-influenced, and writing for a grander and more detailed vision than the earlier writers. Now, I’m perfectly ready to be wrong about that, but it sounds good.
The Left Hand of Darkness is named for a poem of the planet Gethen, where it’s set – light is the left hand of darkness, darkness the right hand of light. Very yin and yang, which is what the whole thing is about, really: the natives of Gethen are ambisexual, that is they are neither man nor woman, or perhaps both, for most of the month, and then come into ‘kemmer’ for a few days – their sex is then decided by the others around them who are also coming into kemmer.
This way of looking at gender was really interesting, but I’ve got to say I wasn’t entirely sure what Le Guin was aiming to do. Her narrator for most of the book was male (from off-world), and he referred to all of the Gethenians as ‘he’. The only times they were described as female were almost derogatory or insulting, which I was really surprised and disappointed by. Now, maybe this is because they were a fairly non-aggressive race, so this was a male reaction to pacificism, but still, it was a bit uncomfortable to read.
Nonetheless, I actually did like the story. It was a poignant story, and she certainly doesn’t spare her characters. It hints at a much grander story – of the Ekumen, the not-governing body bringing 83 worlds together… the Hain, who seeded all of those world with humans… but the story itself, on Gethen, is also very personal and immediate. I think I liked it.
Greece: Secrets of the Past
I am glad I did not spend money to see this.
It was narrated by Nia V… whoever did My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It felt like it had lots of discontinuities in what they were talking about. And it was full of Greek hubris, despite the discussion near the end about how Athenian hubris led to their downfall:  5th century Athens being something like the greatest flowering of human something-or-other. And it wasn’t what I expected, either.
Half of the movie was about the explosion that destroyed Thera, on Santorini: the archaeology of it, the discovery of frescoes, the timing of the eruption itself… that bit was pretty cool. The second half was about Athens in 500BC – Perikles, the building of the Parthenon, drama… This bit was ok. I was very impressed by the CGI reconstruction of the Parthenon, and their imagining of the statue of Athene. And I really like the zooming over Santorini and Delos, showing the pillars and ruins.
Overall, I was quite disappointed. Sigh.
Video Hits #2
Hey – I missed my 400th post! How exciting!
So the third Michael Jackson in the top 15 wasn’t Thriller; it’s Remember the Time, which admittedly is a pretty cool song and a pretty intricate video clip.
later edit:
And the fact that number 6 is November Rain isn’t saying much for the age of the audience, either. Truly, Slash has/had an indecent amount of hair. And Axle really is an ugly man…Â
Aliens
We did the double last night – Alien and Aliens. Watching the first, I am actually not sure whether I have ever seen it, although Jonesy the cat was very familiar. So if I have, it was a long time ago. The second one really was fantastic.
Couple of interesting things: I already knew about the close identification between Ripley and the queen alien, having read about that somewhere – bitches in space, both wanting to protect their children, essentially. The other thing was, especially in the second but I think also in the first, was the frequent focus on hands. Hands creeping over a bed or a table top, trying to fnd something. This is interesting because the larval thing that comes out of the egg, and latches onto someone’s face, looks exactly like an elongated hand. I think this focus on hands is deliberate, therefore, to make people always unsure as to whether it is a human or an alien. And maybe also to stress more conenctions between alien and human?
Not sure whether I have seen Aliens 3… surely I have… I know I have seen Alien Resurrection, and I’ve posted about Alien v Predator. Hmm; might have to do the third and fourth (again), just for a sense of closure.
And truly, it freaked me out to see people smoking – inside a spaceship! Imagine what that would do to the filters!
New music
I have two new favourite songs: Ruby Blue, by Roisin Murphy – I’m seriously thinking about buying this album, if it is actually out yet – and Supermassive Black Hole, by Muse. I don’t think I will buy that album, but it’s a very very cool song.
And the father of a friend of mine has just discovered Wolfmother, which I think is very funny. She’s got a copy of the CD, but hasn’t listened to it yet; be interesting to see what she thinks, because I don’t think she’s quite such a fan of Led Zeppelin; I think she is more Split Enz (whom she will be seeing in a couple of weeks), and Moody Blues-type music.
Video Hits
Does the fact that there are two relatively old Michael Jackson clips in Video Hits’ Top 100 “as voted by you” – in the top 15, and who knows Thriller might still get there – show that the audience of the show is actually my age, rather than the teenyboppers I always assumed? And if it is, what does that say about the taste of those people??
Of course, it has also included Pink’s “Stupid Girl”…
Randomly Yours, Alex 