New blog
One of my friends has finally relented and decided to join the the international family of bloggers. He's a well-read and well-informed chap and I'm looking forward to reading his new blog, the Silvereel, which has begun with a list of Desert Island Books (an interesting and varied mix). He also warns that the list is likely to change at no notice.
That's the problem with making these sorts of lists - I had a bugger of a time trying to come up with my top ten graphic novels for the recommends section on the new FPI site and most folk who contributed had similar problems. And as you look at other folks' selection or entries on the site you realise your top ten needs to actually have about 40 books minimum... I have the same problem with prose novels and movies. I do have a top ten of movies, but it changes from time to time and other than the number 1 spot I can't actually place the others in any special order,but here we go anyway:
Seven Samurai
LA Confidential
Dark City
Grosse Point blank
Casablanca
Amelie
Citizen Kane
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Memento
and my all-time favourite, John Paul Rappenau's Cyrano de Bergerac.
Bubbling under are too many other films I'd like to be in the list too - ten just isn't enough! Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill Jnr would need to be in there, so would Miyazaki's Spirited Away, Heathers, Brazil, Disney's version of Alice in Wonderland, Delicatessen, Donnie Darko... Oh, you see what I mean about trying to narrow down the list?
I guess we can expand it by doing top ten genre lists (this post is becoming like High Fidelity now, isn't it?). I could do top comedy films in which case Blazing Saddles has to be at the top (I love Mel Brooks) as would Young Frankenstein. Animal House has to be in that list, along with Monty Python's Life of Brian and Holy Grail and short reel classics like Harold Lloyd, Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny and, of course, Laurel and Hardy.
But I see my girls are hinting heavily that its time to get the ball of wool out and entertain them so I'll cease from any further lists for the evening - anyone else want a go? General top ten or by genre.
Monday, July 18, 2005
Sunday, July 17, 2005
Starfleet bear
Remember a couple of months back (was it really that long ago already? Where did that time go?) when I was talking about visiting some friends to see their new baby and the incredibly cute Starfleet teddy bear I'd gotten him? Well, his dad just sent me a new pic of him with Cap'n Bear (who I still think has more acting ability than Shatner). And I thought his grinning visage with Cap'n Bear would go well with the picture of Dizzy in spreading some nice thought after continually grim new bulletins. How totally cute does the wee man look here?
Speaking of little Dizzy, Mel is off visiting family in Oslo, so I've been round taking care of Dizzy a lot. Shame I can't just bring her down to my flat for the weekend to stay with me and the girls - it would be like a pussycat sleepover party for the three of them. Except in practice it would probably freak out all three of them, so probably not the best idea! Since much of looking after her involves playing with the ball of wool, or what's left of it now, although its not clear which of us gets the most fun from that (its probably about even) and prodigious amounts of tummy tickling it's not a hard chore.
Managed to fit in a couple of movies as well - Gordon and I finally caught Batman Begins, which, of course, necessitated an adjournment to the Caley Sample Room afterwards for a discussion of it (and since we were there we had to have a few beers). On the whole not bad - draws heavily on Frank Miller's Batman Year One (not a bad thing) and there were elements of other Batman epics in there, like War Games and Contagion. Looked good too - very mean and moody with the before and after versions of Gotham working well, although the grim later version does, as many movies do, owe a huge visual debt to Blade Runner. Certainly a lot different from the Tim Burton movies, which I enjoyed, but were really Tim Burton movies, not Batman movies.
Before going round to look after Dizzy today I caught Descent, from the writer-director of the delightful werewolves versus army squaddies in the Highlands romp, Dog Soldiers. Didn't like it as much as Dog Soldiers, I have to say. Its a competent horror but not anything special like its predecessor. If you've watched a lot of horrors then you can largely guess what's going to happen, although it is nice to see a solid, workmanlike horror instead of the watered down rubbish or remakes of Eastern flicks we normally get these days (Cabin Fever last year was similar in that it broke no new ground, but was a nice return to solid horror and not Scream or I Know What Script You Rewrote For a Summer Flick). Pity the underground cannibalistic dwellers looked so much like LOTR orcs though - and it basically stole from old horrors like Death Line (in-bred cannibals living under the London underground), but passable.
Big news on the movie front was that the box office for the Edinburgh International Film Festival opened on Friday at 12pm. Unfortunately the phone line was constantly engaged and their much-vaunted new-look website they've been trumpeting was bloody useless - kept crashing, couldn't process payments or reserve tickets. Sure there would have been a lot of folk trying to get tickets as they opened at 12 but they should have been ready for that. I was desperate to get tickets for the UK premiere of Joss Whedon's Serenity (the Firefly spin off) and Dave McKean and Neil Gaiman's MirrorMask. I stopped at the box office on the way home from work and Serenity was already sold out, which really pissed me off since I had tried a number of times to book them online and on phone.
Good news is that I did get tickets for MirrorMask! I'm very pleased - been dying to see it and Neil announced on his journal that the EIFF were going to be screening it (I emailed them way back during Sundance and suggested it as a film they should pick if they could and they said they hoped to get it). I'm not sure if they've even set a release date for it in the US let alone here yet, so I'm especially pleased to get these tickets. I've been circling more films and will be taking advantage of the discount I get because of my movie pass to book a pile more (there's a French film with Gerard Depardiue and Daniel Auteil together which I'll have to see and Romero's Land of the Dead - what a mix).
Should be taking a week off to enjoy it (hard to believe by the time of the Film Fest I will have been at FPI for 6 months and its time to start thinking about taking holiday time). Website and phone problems aside its a great looking Film Fest (as always - and they always get some SF and horror in there unlike the Edinburgh Book Fest which features very little, despite the fact we have anumber of genre authors right here). Circled a pile of films I fancy, now have to check they don't clash with one another then swing by the box office to start booking some more. But tickets to MirrorMask in my pocket and I've just finished a proof of Anansi Boys - its looking like a good year for Gaiman fans!
Remember a couple of months back (was it really that long ago already? Where did that time go?) when I was talking about visiting some friends to see their new baby and the incredibly cute Starfleet teddy bear I'd gotten him? Well, his dad just sent me a new pic of him with Cap'n Bear (who I still think has more acting ability than Shatner). And I thought his grinning visage with Cap'n Bear would go well with the picture of Dizzy in spreading some nice thought after continually grim new bulletins. How totally cute does the wee man look here?
Speaking of little Dizzy, Mel is off visiting family in Oslo, so I've been round taking care of Dizzy a lot. Shame I can't just bring her down to my flat for the weekend to stay with me and the girls - it would be like a pussycat sleepover party for the three of them. Except in practice it would probably freak out all three of them, so probably not the best idea! Since much of looking after her involves playing with the ball of wool, or what's left of it now, although its not clear which of us gets the most fun from that (its probably about even) and prodigious amounts of tummy tickling it's not a hard chore.
Managed to fit in a couple of movies as well - Gordon and I finally caught Batman Begins, which, of course, necessitated an adjournment to the Caley Sample Room afterwards for a discussion of it (and since we were there we had to have a few beers). On the whole not bad - draws heavily on Frank Miller's Batman Year One (not a bad thing) and there were elements of other Batman epics in there, like War Games and Contagion. Looked good too - very mean and moody with the before and after versions of Gotham working well, although the grim later version does, as many movies do, owe a huge visual debt to Blade Runner. Certainly a lot different from the Tim Burton movies, which I enjoyed, but were really Tim Burton movies, not Batman movies.
Before going round to look after Dizzy today I caught Descent, from the writer-director of the delightful werewolves versus army squaddies in the Highlands romp, Dog Soldiers. Didn't like it as much as Dog Soldiers, I have to say. Its a competent horror but not anything special like its predecessor. If you've watched a lot of horrors then you can largely guess what's going to happen, although it is nice to see a solid, workmanlike horror instead of the watered down rubbish or remakes of Eastern flicks we normally get these days (Cabin Fever last year was similar in that it broke no new ground, but was a nice return to solid horror and not Scream or I Know What Script You Rewrote For a Summer Flick). Pity the underground cannibalistic dwellers looked so much like LOTR orcs though - and it basically stole from old horrors like Death Line (in-bred cannibals living under the London underground), but passable.
Big news on the movie front was that the box office for the Edinburgh International Film Festival opened on Friday at 12pm. Unfortunately the phone line was constantly engaged and their much-vaunted new-look website they've been trumpeting was bloody useless - kept crashing, couldn't process payments or reserve tickets. Sure there would have been a lot of folk trying to get tickets as they opened at 12 but they should have been ready for that. I was desperate to get tickets for the UK premiere of Joss Whedon's Serenity (the Firefly spin off) and Dave McKean and Neil Gaiman's MirrorMask. I stopped at the box office on the way home from work and Serenity was already sold out, which really pissed me off since I had tried a number of times to book them online and on phone.
Good news is that I did get tickets for MirrorMask! I'm very pleased - been dying to see it and Neil announced on his journal that the EIFF were going to be screening it (I emailed them way back during Sundance and suggested it as a film they should pick if they could and they said they hoped to get it). I'm not sure if they've even set a release date for it in the US let alone here yet, so I'm especially pleased to get these tickets. I've been circling more films and will be taking advantage of the discount I get because of my movie pass to book a pile more (there's a French film with Gerard Depardiue and Daniel Auteil together which I'll have to see and Romero's Land of the Dead - what a mix).
Should be taking a week off to enjoy it (hard to believe by the time of the Film Fest I will have been at FPI for 6 months and its time to start thinking about taking holiday time). Website and phone problems aside its a great looking Film Fest (as always - and they always get some SF and horror in there unlike the Edinburgh Book Fest which features very little, despite the fact we have anumber of genre authors right here). Circled a pile of films I fancy, now have to check they don't clash with one another then swing by the box office to start booking some more. But tickets to MirrorMask in my pocket and I've just finished a proof of Anansi Boys - its looking like a good year for Gaiman fans!
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Pretty Kitty
Actually, with all that's been going on recently - anarchist riots in Edinburgh over the G8 (oh that was fun - days of sirens, choppers and road closures) and the dreadful London attack I thought perhaps it would be good to post something nice. So, here's a shot I took in Melanie's garden of little Dizzy, younger sister to Zag. It's good Mel is letting her out again - she was upset again last week when the council erected speed bumps as part of a traffic calming move.
Guess where? Yes, almost exactly where the little guy was hit by a car outside her house... Naturally that brings up the 'what if?' effect; what if they had put it up a few weeks ago, but that's a game you can play forever to no real effect (and I'm sure there are lots of folk in London playing a worse version of that 'what if?' game in their heads right now, what if their wife or husband had walked that day instead of taking the tube).
Anyway, I think we need something light and lovely to clear the air, so here's my cute little Dizzy, snoozing in the garden on a summer afternoon by our feet.
Altogether now - aaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. And yes, her little white tummy is incredibly soft. She purrs like an outboard motor. Doesn't she look like she should be on one of those schmaltzy Hallmark cards?!?! Don't let the tiny body and cute look fool you though - she thinks nothing of chasing cats twice her size out of her garden! Maybe it was those Xena episodes she used to watch with me when she was a kitten.
Actually, with all that's been going on recently - anarchist riots in Edinburgh over the G8 (oh that was fun - days of sirens, choppers and road closures) and the dreadful London attack I thought perhaps it would be good to post something nice. So, here's a shot I took in Melanie's garden of little Dizzy, younger sister to Zag. It's good Mel is letting her out again - she was upset again last week when the council erected speed bumps as part of a traffic calming move.
Guess where? Yes, almost exactly where the little guy was hit by a car outside her house... Naturally that brings up the 'what if?' effect; what if they had put it up a few weeks ago, but that's a game you can play forever to no real effect (and I'm sure there are lots of folk in London playing a worse version of that 'what if?' game in their heads right now, what if their wife or husband had walked that day instead of taking the tube).
Anyway, I think we need something light and lovely to clear the air, so here's my cute little Dizzy, snoozing in the garden on a summer afternoon by our feet.
Altogether now - aaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. And yes, her little white tummy is incredibly soft. She purrs like an outboard motor. Doesn't she look like she should be on one of those schmaltzy Hallmark cards?!?! Don't let the tiny body and cute look fool you though - she thinks nothing of chasing cats twice her size out of her garden! Maybe it was those Xena episodes she used to watch with me when she was a kitten.
We are not afraid
Over the last few days I must have started a half dozen blogs about what happened. I thought about some poor soul just sitting on the bus, listening to their headphones, reading their paper or book, just like millions of us on the way to work suddenly having the world erupt around them. I thought about how just a few weeks ago I travelled through several of those stations with my friends from America, laughing and having fun and now they were a cross between a crime scene and a war zone. I thought about the horror of people who are still desperately trying to find out what happened to their loved ones who kissed them goodbye over breakfast and dashed off to work like any other day and now don't even know for sure what happened to them.
I thought about the amazing calm and resilience the ordinary folk of Britain showed in the face of this cowardly and murderous attack. I thought about the generations before us who endured even worse so we could be here today, free. I thought about those generations coming together in vast numbers on Sunday on what was to be a day of national thanksgiving for deliverance in the last world war but had now also become another symbol of British defiance in the face of evil. I thought about the bomb scares right here in Edinburgh and how the simple act of going to work was now also an act of defiance.
I thought about all of that, but the words never seemed quite adequate. I'm not normally stuck for words but sometimes events simply are too large to encompass with vowels and consonants. So I thought instead I'd direct you to this web site instead. Please be patient if it takes a while - the hits have been enormous and they've had to simplify the site to ease the load on the servers.
Over the last few days I must have started a half dozen blogs about what happened. I thought about some poor soul just sitting on the bus, listening to their headphones, reading their paper or book, just like millions of us on the way to work suddenly having the world erupt around them. I thought about how just a few weeks ago I travelled through several of those stations with my friends from America, laughing and having fun and now they were a cross between a crime scene and a war zone. I thought about the horror of people who are still desperately trying to find out what happened to their loved ones who kissed them goodbye over breakfast and dashed off to work like any other day and now don't even know for sure what happened to them.
I thought about the amazing calm and resilience the ordinary folk of Britain showed in the face of this cowardly and murderous attack. I thought about the generations before us who endured even worse so we could be here today, free. I thought about those generations coming together in vast numbers on Sunday on what was to be a day of national thanksgiving for deliverance in the last world war but had now also become another symbol of British defiance in the face of evil. I thought about the bomb scares right here in Edinburgh and how the simple act of going to work was now also an act of defiance.
I thought about all of that, but the words never seemed quite adequate. I'm not normally stuck for words but sometimes events simply are too large to encompass with vowels and consonants. So I thought instead I'd direct you to this web site instead. Please be patient if it takes a while - the hits have been enormous and they've had to simplify the site to ease the load on the servers.
Sunday, July 3, 2005
You gotta fight, for your right... A sunny, summer day in the ancient city of Edinburgh and a day when it just so happened that over 220, 000 people arrived in city - that's equivalent to about half the population of our compact but gorgeous city. A quarter of a million people marching ahead of the G8 summit and before the Live 8 concerts began their broadcasts. Kids, teens, students and parents mixing with silver-haired (and bearded sometimes!) eldsters and from Edinburgh, the rest of Scotland, the British Isles, Europe and even further afield.
Yes, there's a hellish amount of disruption in our city right now, with a lot more to come (who knows what will happen with the Anarchist march tomorrow) and many shops have boarded up their windows, streets are closed and polcie have been drafted in from across the land to bolster th Edinburgh plod (today we passed a couple of police cars with Greater Manchester Police Foce marked on them!). There's still the Live 8 gig in Murrayfield here to play on Wednesday and the actual arrival of the politicians who have been given a very real demonstration (in all senses of the word) of what their electorate expect of them.
Yes, it is also true (although hardly anyone mentioned it yesterday) that only so much cna be done by the West - if many African countries continue to be run by dictators or corrupt officials posing as democratic leaders who spend the money on new bullet-proof Mercedes instead of helping their folk then little will happen. But this was about raising awareness and politicians, regardless of their own feelings on this subject, all have an instinct for survival and that survival in office means paying at least some attention to what the people say. I think the people said a lot. It's bloody amazing.
an incredibly cute girl in purple giving it laldy as she danced to the ryhthm of the steel drummers in the summer sunshine
a large Make Poverty History sign was to be raised, with each letter covered in notes written by the people expressing their thoughts and hopes. Technical problems meant it took forever to raise them and as this false start shows, sometimes with unintended consequences!
veteran campaigner Bianca Jagger on the stage (right) and the big screen (left) addressing the teeming thousands in the Meadows in Edinburgh
Yes, there's a hellish amount of disruption in our city right now, with a lot more to come (who knows what will happen with the Anarchist march tomorrow) and many shops have boarded up their windows, streets are closed and polcie have been drafted in from across the land to bolster th Edinburgh plod (today we passed a couple of police cars with Greater Manchester Police Foce marked on them!). There's still the Live 8 gig in Murrayfield here to play on Wednesday and the actual arrival of the politicians who have been given a very real demonstration (in all senses of the word) of what their electorate expect of them.
Yes, it is also true (although hardly anyone mentioned it yesterday) that only so much cna be done by the West - if many African countries continue to be run by dictators or corrupt officials posing as democratic leaders who spend the money on new bullet-proof Mercedes instead of helping their folk then little will happen. But this was about raising awareness and politicians, regardless of their own feelings on this subject, all have an instinct for survival and that survival in office means paying at least some attention to what the people say. I think the people said a lot. It's bloody amazing.
an incredibly cute girl in purple giving it laldy as she danced to the ryhthm of the steel drummers in the summer sunshine
a large Make Poverty History sign was to be raised, with each letter covered in notes written by the people expressing their thoughts and hopes. Technical problems meant it took forever to raise them and as this false start shows, sometimes with unintended consequences!
veteran campaigner Bianca Jagger on the stage (right) and the big screen (left) addressing the teeming thousands in the Meadows in Edinburgh
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