X-Files - I wanted to believe!

I was lucky enough to see the X-Files movie last night...
X-Files is one of my favourite TV shows of all time and I used to edit the official magazine! - so obviously I’m a bit of a fan!
I’d heard negative reviews but thought I would like it. Hmm no...
It just lacks ‘oomph’. Every time you think it’s going to get going, it peeters out.
The actual X-file itself is one of the dullest ever – they should have gone for aliens or werewolves or something.
Billy Connelly is great.
And they say it is stand-alone etc, and it kinda is, but you do still need a degree in the show to remember just where mulder and Scully are at in their relationship – I couldn’t remember at all, and suddenly, well, you’ll see.
Towards the end of the movie, there are some really clunky moments – look out for the nuns, the gay snow hug and stay thru the credits to see perhaps the most cringe-worthy, pointless thing ever (altho it is slightly cute).
So all in all, sadly, I have to give it a 5 out of 10...

how random...

...to see your name crop up with names like this on a bunch of links...

Interviews/Profiles
AV Club: Jeff Smith
FPI Blog: Martin Eden
AV Club: Jules Feiffer
New York: Neil Gaiman
Library Beat: Russell Lissau
North Adams Transcript: Joe Staton


(this is on here: http://www.comicsreporter.com)

New interview with ME!

Check it out (scroll down) - thanks to Matthew Badham and all the chaps at Forbidden Planet International!
http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/?p=8566

Silly!

Hehe I'm reading this old 80s/90s DC Comic called SCU Metropolis - or something - basically a Gotham Central but with Superman/Metropolis. First up, funny to see Maggie Sawyer in it - as a middle-aged lesbian character - isn't she quite young these days? And so strange to see a lesbian in a mainstream DC comic from the 80s.
But funniest of all - Superman has his mullet hairstyle - longish - which of course means that Clark does too. Hello? Secret identity??? Silly!

Colour blind

I've been working on some SPANDEX art... Here's a piccy.
Now apparently I'm colour blind as I thought she was yellow! Apparently she's green...

The Prestige

The movie The Prestige totally slipped under my radar when it came out the other year - I casually accepted an offer to borrow the DVD off a workmate, not expecting much...
Wow.
What a movie. Best movie I have seen in ages! Did anyone else catch it? Basically, it's about two magicians who become rivals, and it's all about their attempts to out-do each other, and it's by Christopher Nolan, starring Christian (beat-em-up) Bale and Hugh Jackman.
Honestly, at the end, my jaw unhinged itself and fell to the floor, and I had to watch the movie again a couple of days later.
It's not perfect - Scarlett JOhansson tries her best to do an English accent but somehow she sounds terrible; and sometimes the narrative gets a bit too complex - at one point we're learning the story of a man who's learning a story of somone who's learning a story...
But even that can't ruin an amazing, amazing film, which I'm surprised didn't win Oscars (did it?). Beautifully acted (Rebecca Hall is lovely, and I hope she's in more stuff soon) and intricately put together - the chronology of the movie is all over the place, but somehow you don't get lost at all. The music is beautiful (and it's great to hear Radiohead tinkle in at the end), it's just a great spectacle.
I don't think I could watch it too many more times though - there's such hate and emotion behind the characters - it's quite intense.
But if you haven't seen it, check it out!

Those canoe people

I don't really understand why the Canoe Woman got more years than the Canoe Man. Surely he actually 'did the crime'.
I feel funny about it - they remind me of my parents!

More movies

It's truly shocking the amount of classic films I haven't seen. As you'll see, there really are some shockers... I'm kind of doing this as a record for myself, so I can maybe try and watch them... But I think some of them might have dated a bit too much...
But believe me, I'm as aghast at my missing movies as you will be...

1985
Best of a bad year (for me, film-wise):
Weird Science

Never seen!!!!!
Back to the Future (many of my friends disown me because of this)

Never seen:
Out of Africa
Prizzi's Honor
Red Sonja
St. Elmo's Fire
Teen Wolf

Not seen all the way through:
Cocoon
The Goonies (I am a failure as a human being, aren’t I)

Ah, cool:
The Breakfast Club
The Color Purple


1986
Best:
Jean de Florette/Manon des Sources

Never seen (jeez, what was I doing when I was 12???):
9½ Weeks
Blue Velvet
Crocodile Dundee
Highlander
Labyrinth
Little Shop of Horrors
The Mosquito Coast
The Mission
Mona Lisa
Platoon
Ruthless People
Shanghai Surprise
Short Circuit
The Transformers: The Movie

Never again:
Castaway
Maximum Overdrive


1987
Best: Hellraiser

Close contender: The Lost Boys

Never seen:
Dirty Dancing
Full Metal Jacket
Good Morning, Vietnam
Lethal Weapon
Princess Bride
RoboCop
Superman IV: The Quest For Peace
The Untouchables
Withnail and I
(I’m going to Hell aren’t I)


1988
Best: The Naked Gun (I’m a sucker for Leslie Nielsen)

Saw, enjoyed, but wouldn’t really want to watch again:
The Accused
A Fish Called Wanda (I don’t like Ketchup)
Twins
Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Never seen:
Beaches
Child's Play
Young Guns
Rain Man

Oh that was good:
Beetlejuice
Hellbound: Hellraiser II

Blimey:
The Fruit Machine – let’s just say it was a turning point for me...

Geek

I grew up on Marvel Comics, and as much as I try to read DCs or sometimes delve in, it's never the same. And you can forget Secret Invasion for when you see awesome upcoming covers like this. Valkyrie! Jocasta! Swoon...
Make Mine Marvel!
(Unless they're Skrulls)

How to make friends and influence people - the Alan Moore way

From an interview in DeathRay Magazine (in which you can tell the interviewer is stunned by some stuff he comes out with and tries to meekly talk him round, to no avail):
Alan Moore on DC Comics: "A crowd of morally leprous people"
On Marvel: "An equal level of scumminess to DC"
On Frank Miller: "300 is homophobic, vaguely racist and above all incredibly dumb"
and "Did you see Dark Knight 2? It was really sloppy and cynical - it looked like he'd done it over 3 weekends"
And I found this funny - re a work he did for a gay charity: "The organisation were, by and large, a bunch of ungrateful bastards"

Hehe

Great writer, but what a miserable old git...

More movies...

1977 
Best:Close Encounters of the Third Kind 
Close contenders:
The Spy Who Loved Me
Star Wars 
Hehe classic:
Airport
Rollercoaster  
Aw:
Pete's Dragon
Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown
The Rescuers 
No desire to ever see:
Fun with Dick and Jane
Saturday Night Fever 

1978
Best:
Invasion of the Body Snatchers 
Really close call…
Superman: The Movie 
Too scary to watch again:
Damien: Omen II
Jaws 2 
Classic!
Battlestar Galactica
Death on the Nile
Halloween 
Over-rated:
Grease (I only saw it for the first time last week) 
Must check out:
Midnight Express 

1979Best
Alien 
Classic:
The Amityville Horror
Beyond the Poseidon Adventure
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie
Moonraker
The Muppet Movie 
Zzzzz:
Star Trek: The Motion Picture 
Never seen all the way through:
Apocalypse Now
The Black Hole 
No desire to see:
HAIR  
A bit over-rated:
Mad Max
Monty Python's Life of Brian 
Never seen:
Quadrophenia
Rocky II 

1980 Best:
Superman II  
Classic!
9 to 5
Airplane
Empire Strikes Back
Flash Gordon
Fame
Inferno
Yuck…
The Blues Brothers  
Over-rated:
The Elephant Man 
A bit over-rated:
The Shining  
Semi-classic:
The Fog 
Should check out at some point:
Raging Bull 

1981
Best:
On Golden Pond 
Runner-up:
An American Werewolf in London 
Should probably see:
The Cannonball Run 
Never seen all the way thru:
Clash of the Titans
Raiders of the Lost Ark 
Would like to see:
Dragonslayer 
Never seen:
Excalibur
The Evil Dead
A bit over-rated:
Escape from New York 
Too scary to watch again:
Omen III: The Final Conflict
 
1982Best:
Poltergeist 
Very close runners-up:
Blade Runner
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial  
Classic:
Airplane II: The Sequel
Halloween III: Season of the Witch 
Would like to see:
The Beastmaster
Cat People 
Never seen:
Conan the Barbarian
The Dark Crystal
Gandhi
Grease 2
Rocky III
Swamp Thing
The Sword and the Sorcerer
Tootsie 
Never seen all the way through:
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan 

1983Best:
Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi 
Runner-up: Superman III  
Really bad:
Christine 
Fairly bad:
Octopussy
Never Say Never Again 
Never seen:
Flashdance
Scarface
Terms of Endearment
Videodrome
WarGames  

1984
Best:Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Very close runners up:
Ghostbusters
Gremlins
Supergirl
Sheena  
Never seen:
Beverly Hills Cop
Blood Simple
Children of the Corn
The Karate Kid
A Passage to India
This Is Spinal Tap 
Never seen all the way thru:
Dune
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock 
Classic!
Footloose
The Last Starfighter
Police Academy
Romancing the Stone
Splash

Batman

How come Dark Knight has grossed 150 million dollars at the box office - and the comic still can't get over 100k sales :-(

Films 1974-2008

Hehe this is going to be long-winded, but needs must!
Everyone’s doing this film ‘meme’ (I don’t even know what a meme is) so I thought I’d join in. Rol and Tony have done it.
You have to use lists of films on Wikipedia to choose your fave films for every year since you were born… So here goes!
If you read it, you may be shocked at some of the classics I haven’t seen. What can I say – I grew up in a sports-loving family…
Actually I might split it up…
Here’s a start…


1974

Best:
The Man with the Golden Gun

I really ought to watch:
Chinatown
Death Wish

I really want to watch:
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla
Way of the Dragon (U.S. release)

These were pretty good:
Dark Star
Murder on the Orient Express

Ha ha classics!
Earthquake
The Towering Inferno

Over-rated:
The Godfather Part II

Aaargh!!!
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre


1975
Best: Picnic at Hanging Rock

Must check out:
Dog Day Afternoon
The Stepford Wives

Too scary to watch again:
Jaws

Classic!
The Land That Time Forgot

Great stuff:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Have no desire to ever see!
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Shampoo
Tommy


1976
Best:
Carrie

Must watch…
Logan's Run
Assault on Precinct 13

Yuck!
King Kong (the remake)

Ashamed that I’ve never seen:
Rocky

Can never watch again:
The Omen (too f*cking scary)

Luna Bore-thers

Ultra was great, Girls was fantastic (apart from being dragged out too long), but The Sword... I'm not convinced by the Luna Bros new one...
Each issue seems like a chore to get through, the set-up is fairly dull, the characters aren't that intriguing... Can you end this please guys, and move onto something more interesting? Ta!

Watching the Watchmen

Have you seen it yet?
The Watchmen trailer?
Fuuuuck! It's so good! Everything about it is...wow. 10 out of 10. Cannot wait.
It's gonna be crap isn't it...

Lost again 3

Up to Ep 16 of Lost. Great stuff.
Interesting how the numbers don't really come into effect at all in the early episodes.
Couple of glaring things - Ethan - the first Other - was he supposed to come across so superhuman? A bit misleading.
And second - this show just cannot get England right. Every Charlie or Desmond flashback is abysmal in its details. (In fact, even when they actually film in England - such as in the recent Sun/Widmore scenes in season four, it still looks unreal!). Just watched a Charlie one where they've obviously picked clueless American actors who couldn't pretend to be English if their lives depended on it. And if you get the chance to watch 'Homecoming', check out the godawful 'Lucy' - who obviously can't cry on demand so they had to apply crying- mark make-up which makes her look like she's been beaten up. Plus every British person is like something out of Oasis.
Terribleeeeee...

Heath

I hear that the Oscar people are thinking of nominating Heath Ledger in the Best Actor category next year...
Oh c'mon now, bollocks...
Since when has a movie like Batman ever been considered in the Oscars.

Comics r gr8

I feel like a kid again... Just come back from a shopping trip in Croydon and bought tons of comics in a 25p-each sale!!! A Place in Space are having a back-issues clear-out. It's been ages since I came back home with so many. Almost 20 comics for 4 quid!
Some of Perez' recent Avengers run, some Byrne FFs, and nostalgically best of all the Assistant Editor's month issue of the Avengers (remember those?), an issue of the Defenders before it came New Defenders (one of my fave comics of all time), and Dcotor Strange 60 from 1983 - a comic which I read on the evening I burst my appendix and which I subsequently lost to the school bully.
Also, always nice to come home with the new Powers and Walking Dead, Astonishing X-Men should be interesting, and I'm really hooked on the Secret Invasion stuff - issue 4's art is beautiful.
And on another comic-related matter, I am now 100% happy with my SPANDEX line-up - I'd had a few concerns about some of the characters - so I've had a bit of a rearrangment and clear-out and I think I'm all good to go now.

Lost again 2

I'm quite enjoying having BT Vision. I don't really miss Sky at all - too many channels! One of the good things about BT Vison is that its ON Demand service has got the first three seasons of Lost on it, which I've mentioned before that I'm watching again - I wonder if I'll actually like season two the second time...
So far, so good - the first ep is so spectacular. And so far it hasn't been frustrating - nothing contradicted yet or not many forgotten unanswered questions.
A lot of Jack's dead father in ep 5 - was Jacob really around so far back? Shame they didn't explore him more between then and season five.
I'm hoping that when we find out what's going on with the remaining islanders in season five we get a lot more shit going down - like the Whispers, which have never been fully explored.
And please, please - can we get Rousseau's back story...

Hancock

I think it's been a great year for movies so far - and it's also been full of movies that have really split opinions - people seem to have either loved or loathed things like Cloverfield, The Happening and Hancock.
I caught Hancock last night - and was really pleasantly surprised! Maybe I went in with low expectations - but the special effects were cool - there's a great twist right in the middle of the movie, and the last half an hour or so actually brought a tear to my eye...
I guess people didn't like it because maybe the revelations halfway through were a little bit under-explained and confusing - but I'd rather have something new than the same old superhero stuff...

The Laptop saga

Well I now have a new laptop...
It cost me 150 quid to get the data off my old one (O Men and music, most importantly), and apparently the 'mother-board' went on this one, which would have cost me another 300 quid, so they advised me to get a new one. I was a bit against it, as my old laptop was fine, only 4 years old, but it did make sense. So I now have a snazzy new 'Advent' laptop.
Only problem is, I now have no Photoshop...
I originally got Photoshop via a friend - a free covermount disk, which I gave him back. So I've been browsing online for similar deals - plus I've got a crafty internet friend to try and get me a copy...
But if anyone has any other ideas (which don't involve spending 300 quid on buying it legally lol), please let me know. I can't do any O Men without it!

I-player

The BBC I-player thing is quite snazzy innit. One thing - it seems that you don't actually need a license to watch it, which is a bit of an insult to those of us who pay the wretched thing...

Silly Marvel

Does anyone know who the hell any of the characters are in New Warriors (apart from Jubilee and Night 'Thasher')? Do you think it might make any sense for Marvel to use that Previously page to, you know, maybe explain who the cast are? And is this maybe one of the reasons kids aren't finding comics accessible these days?

Lost again

I'm watching Lost again from the start. Man, it's still good. I thought it might have dated, but it hasn't - and that first episode, with the chaos on the beach is still jaw-dropping tv.
i'm sure it's going to irritate me at some points though - when I revisit abandoned old subplots and small story glitches. Here's one - the 'monster' we see before the pilot is attacked - no way is that a smoke monster!
It's weird to go back and see characters like Boone, Shannon - even little Walt.
All good stuff.

broken vow 2

and the Black Kids...
(altho it was only 6 quid off itunes - albums are getting cheaper!)

broken vow

I just bought the Watson Twins album
:-(

A vow

After a few months where bank funds have crept drastically into minus figures, I have made a vow this month...
I have so many books, CDs and DVDs lying around unread/unlistened/unwatched, that I have vowed to try not to buy any new things for a while, and just make do with what I've got.
Well I sort of failed on the first day of the month by buying Ilex Publishing's '500 Essential Graphic Novels' book...
And now I want the Black Kids and the Watson Twins albums...
And Cormac McCarthy's The Road...
Shit...

Missing out

Man, I'd love to read these Dark Tower comics - especially as Jae Lee is my favourite artist - but I just don't want someone else's images of the stories imprinted in my head.
And now we've got the new Stand comic, which again, sadly, I think I'll avoid. Although I don't think Mike Perkins is vary exciting choice of artist.
Mind you, I hear sales for Dark Tower slipped quite a lot, so hopefully they'll stop bloody doing them!!!

The Laptop Saga #1

Because i feel this is going to be a saga...
Went to PC World so they could look at my laptop and send it off to the workshop.
They said they couldn't send it off to the workshop from there so i had to phone the helpline number and organise it from home.
Got home and phoned helpline. They said they couldn't organise it over the phone so i had to go to the store.
Got to store and waited for an hour while they got on the phone to organise it. Apparently the people they needed to talk to had left so I have now got to go back again.
(Although I left my laptop with them so they could recover all my date - costing £100 :-(
Ah the good old 'PC World Tech Guys' - always here to help.

King!

After the snooze-fest of Lisey's Story, the slightly disappointing Cell and the fairly pointless Blaze, I'm happy to say I'm loving S. King's latest - Duma Key! Really, really into it - although it does stray a little bit into Dorian Grey/Death Note territory. Anyone else read it? Rol?
Although I must say, the guy still needs an editor. Too much!
It's no classic - we'll never get another Misery or Stand, I don't think - but it has restored my faith a bit.
And I must say - yes, we all know the guy had a nasty car crash, but does he have to work elements of it into every of his books now? Duma Key's Edgar's recovery therapy is obviously all real.
In the meantime, I'm still enjoying seeing the new King covers that are coming out - take a look - although I think the Tommyknockers one totally spoils the ending!
http://www.hodder.co.uk/author_details.asp?author=543

The Curse of the Laptop strikes again

It’s happened again…
Got home after a few days in Birmingham, turned my laptop on, get that black screen with white font message page thing – ‘you didn’t close down properly (yes I did!!!), press this to reboot’, which I tried to do but it didn’t work… So I quit my machine and now it won’t come back on. It makes lots of whirring sounds but it’s not booting up.
So I guess it’s a trip to PC World…
Actually, I’m really concerned – as I’ve got all my music on there and 5 months’ worth of work on O Men issue 2.7 – and that was a lot of work….
Hope they can salvage it all and fix it…
☹

FF

I still can’t believe people aren’t raving on about the new FF comic – the Millar/Hitch one. Everyone seems to have a ‘meh, it’s okay’ attitude. It rocks!!!! Amazing twist in the latest issue. Current fave comic!

Big Bro

I am a huge reality TV fan, and I used to be a massive Big Brother fan too. I only missed one episode in the first four years! However, recently, it’s lost a bit of its impact, and I barely even bothered with it last year (okay, well that’s not strictly true – I kind of had it on in the background a lot).
However, I have got to say, I’m utterly addicted this year!!! ‘Spitgate’ was jaw-dropping TV, and the way some of the housemates have evolved is amazing – Mario has gone from laughing stock to hero, jen from bland to bitch. Spitgate itself was shocking TV – I don’t personally think Dennis actually spat on Mohamed, but he deserved to be booted out purely because of his awful attitude. Still, I don’t quite agree he was one of the vilest contestants ever (quote from the producers) – surely that was Alex, who was booted out the week before.