I’m not a field agent, I read books
Just like some trailers are way better than the eventual movies I have no desire to work through xx* years of X Men comic books, but I could look at this poster every day:
See what I did there? 45 years actually. Fuck that.
But THIS poster:
I may just get this poster tattooed.
Eric Tan… we need to have a conversation.
Future travel plans aside I wish I’d been in Toronto on Saturday for this:
Steven Shaviro’s presentation “’You Will Never Own a Jetpack’: Warren Ellis’ Science Fiction Comics”:
This paper looks at the science fiction comics of Warren Ellis: Transmetropolitan, Global Frequency, and the currently ongoing series Doktor Sleepless. These comics are about the social effects of new technologies. They bring us a wavering and uncertain vision of a highly technologized future, and ponder the possibilities of change in a world pervaded by a sense that the future itself has largely been played out.
I was lucky enough to meet and catch a talk by Steven Shaviro at Goldsmiths a while back. Parts of my brain still hurt.
Warren Ellis is partly responsible for the way I look at and more importantly use the Internet. I met Warren four years ago at what I think was London’s first flash mob. I also interviewed him a while back when Desolation Jones first came out. I’m not gonna mention the Japanese ass eels.
Meeting Warren (kinda indirectly) lead me to hanging out with John Rogers who still makes my fucking head spin (and for some reason known only to him continues to send too much traffic my way by mixing my name with Warren, David Brin, John Scalzi, Charles Stross and Cory Doctorow over in the sidebar on Kung Fu Monkey). He of course worked above and beyond the call on the doomed Global Frequency TV show (giving, I think, Michelle Forbes a push into BSG along the way).
Warren’s Global Frequency is still a touchstone for me and the way I work. This month I finally get to work on a project that has Miranda Zero as a kind of guardian angel.
Oh… Warren was the one who called me “nine kinds of wrong” and if you ever read the twisted stuff that Warren comes up with you’ll understand that that’s why it’s on my Moo card. Likewise it was John who outed me as a “tech hipster“. I think those lines in conjunction with Saying The Wrong Thing have landed me a lot of work.
I probably owe the bastards 10%
But seriously, with these guys still churning stuff out we don’t need no stinkin’ jet packs…
Friday morning I leave for Cannes.
Saturday is going to be fun.
Gotta find somewhere to crash on the Friday night. Should be seeing a few familiar faces out there…
… and young:
The new trailer for Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull popped up before Iron Man on Friday night and it’s the first preview in ages that had the audience cheering through it. There was some of this back before Phantom Menace but the demographic for that was always skewed away from the women folk, who just rolled their eyes at the nerds they were with.
Indy has a more unisex appeal.
In fact just today over lunch it was remarked to me that there’s quite a lot of expectation laid on Harrison’s shoulders from gals eager to see him don that fedora one last time…
For myself the excitement is growing after the initial ‘meh’ of the first trailer. There’s more than a glimmer of the old magic in trailer number two and I’m already tapping into a rich vein of fan excitement over this one.
Just watching the Twitter time line get all nostalgic over a screening of Raiders was a good gauge of the Indy love out there.
Fingers crossed…
Suffered through Doomsday yesterday. If ever a director showed a complete misunderstanding of the films that influenced him then it’s here for all to see. What really struck me though was the always awesome Sean Pertwee in yet another ten minute role. Someone please cast him as the next Dr Who and give the guy some regular work.
Or is that he already has a living and acting is just something he does on the side?
Director
Smashing to have you on board, Sean.
SP
Shut it. Gotta get this wrapped before lunch. Got a plastering job in Croyden to get to.
My mother tells this story that when I first went to school, I thought I was going to help the teachers. I didn’t realise I was going to get educated.
Moon Unit Zappa
Slowly building to something that spans numerous projects and oddly enough the colour black is offering a nice meat hook.
The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Ships that signaled an end to Japanese isolation in 1853 and now (thanks to a nod on Twitter by Ben) Black Sheep:
We gave the black sheep a chance to prove their theories, and we changed the way a number of things are done here…
Great article that. Go read it.
It is difficult to explain what makes any great work great, and particularly difficult with movies, and maybe more so with Citizen Kane than with over great movies, because it isn’t a work of special depth or a work of subtle beauty. It is a shallow work, a shallow masterpiece. Those who try to account for its stature as a film by claiming it to be profound are simply dodging the problem - or maybe they don’t recognise that there is one. Like most of the films of the of the sound ear that are called masterpieces, Citizen Kane has reached its audience gradually over the years rather than at the time of release.
Pauline Kael, Raising Kane, 1971.
Note: Spinvox initially transcribed Citizen Kane as Sits in the game. I fucking love that.
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