Underworld
We re-watched Underworld and Underworld Evolution the other day; I really do like those movies. It was quite funny in that for a few minutes there I had to make the effort to remember that we were watching this, and not Blade. Kate Beckinsdale is quite good; Scott Speedman is quite adorable. Quite adorable.
The thing that struck me this time was the atemporal and aspatial nature of the duo. Yes, there is the date at the start of Evolution, where you find out about Williams and Marcus; there is the whole, rather confused thing about how long the war has been going on, how long Selene has been a vampire, and exactly when Alexander Corvinus lived… but it doesn’t give a date for the movie, and it’s both sufficiently old-fashioned – the mansion, for example, and the very noir feel – as well as sufficiently futuristic – the clothes, guns, lights – that atemporal is the only way to describe it.
The cityscape of the first movie is unrecognisable: it could be European or American. Add in the rural landscape of the second, which is essentially mythical Transylvania (or your basic Eastern European setting), and it quite confuses the setting utterly – certainly more European than American, which is entertaining in contrast to the predominance of Yank accents. I liked this aspect; I think it worked better than trying to ground it somewhere more concretely. It sets the story loose, lets it play fast and loose with geography and makes it more dramatic.
I was also reminded of quite how attractive the movies are to watch. Lovely shadows, stark corners, gloomy backgrounds… delightful.
More archaeology for me!
So my nerdy excitement levels are way high at the moment, because today I found – in Ballarat of all places! – a copy of a magazine I’ve never heard of: British Archaeology. I subscribe to the American one, which comes from the American Institute for Archaeology; this one is put out by the Council for Brisitsh Archaeology. Now, it was quite expensive, but it is beautifully printed and – although short – it seems to have only about 2 full page ads in the entire 66 or so pages! Compared to the American one, and even BBC History (which I also subscribe to), this is quite amazing. Anyway – I’m very pleased, and I’m looking forward to reading it. Most of it, of course, is British – which is fun – and a cursory glance seems to indicate that it will be like the American one in terms of being reasonably good history and good archae, and being populist at the same time.
Hurrah for me.
Rise of the Silver Surfer
… was really, really crap. I liked the premise of the Surfer himself, but they really didn’t develop that very well – and even if he’s just a herald, they could have made more of that aspect. I even quite liked the idea of exploring their tension-filled relationship with their fame, but that was done quite poorly too. And except for a few moments between Reed and what’s-her-face, Alba, and some angsty moments between the whingy Human Torch and his sister, there was pretty much no real interaction between the Fantastic Four themselves. Essentially, it was SFX driven, and the plot – not to mention the dialog – really suffered as a result.
Fun to watch though, as long as your credulity is taking a long, long holiday.
Tears at Christmas
yes, I know that a lot of people talk about fights etc at Christmas, and that roll-the-eyes stereotype of people hating their relatives at Christmas but having to spend time with them. I am fortunate in having a small and fairly close family – and living 3000km away from most of the extended family for my growing up may have helped this.
Anyway, the tears were because of my mother, today – and she was 800km away. Impressive, eh?
She gave me a set of my Dad’s military medals, in miniature. For those of you with no experience in this – anyone who gets a medal gets the full-size one, and a miniature. Not sure of the original reason for this. You can get extra miniature ones, too, it turns out. So my brother and I, no longer living at home, have got a full set of Dad’s medals (for service – nothing extraordinary – in Vietnam), all attached properly on a ribbon, with a pin at the back, so we can wear them if ever we want to on ANZAC Day etc. I’m never likely to do that, but my bro might.
Dad died June 2000. It’s a really special, unexpected present.
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).
Randomly Yours, Alex 