Another Blogger that I know of;

Mark In The Ghetto - another UCC student who’s taken up this blogging lark….

The Ten-Seconders..

A not too shabby (if a bit ‘done before’) comic strip that was in 2000ad not too long ago. For some reason its after appearing here on clickwheel. I’m not sure if the whole story is going to be reprinted there but theres some of the episodes available for download there. Worth a look. But don’t by any means think that that strip is an indication of the best 2000ad has to offer. Its not that good…

Virtual History: Edited by Niall Ferguson

The last few days I’ve been reading this book on ‘alternatives and counterfactuals’ (to use the phrase on the cover) in history. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term they apply to scenarios like ‘what if Hitler had won the war?’ or ‘what if JFK hadn’t gotten himself shot in the head?’ (both of which are actually in the book).

Unsurprisingly enough, given that these sort of questions tend to be asked by comic-book writers/ bad (and occasionally not-so-bad) science-fiction writers and so on these sort of questions have a poor historical pedigree. Yet as Ferguson himself argues quite well these sort of questions do have value. Somewhat limited value perhaps but still important in their own way. His reason that resonates with me to the greatest degree is the fact that if one accepts that there is no ‘guiding hand’ in history (whether that hand takes the form of god, marxist theory or whatever is really unimportant) then things come down to human decision. And while after the fact there is often the temptation to believe that ‘it had to happen that way’, whether its a case of ’sure she was an awful bitch, how could I ever have thought of marrying her’ or ‘I should have taken that job’ - there was always a point where you could have chosen otherwise.

And when the articles in that book stick closest to this they work best. As a result of this the authors try (but usually fail) to not go too far into the trap of ‘if x happened then y would have happened leading to z’. This is because this sort of thinking is actually exactly why this sort of experiments have been so dismissed by historians - Ferguson himself (and I’m still not sure if this was the idea) shows this in his afterword to the book ‘A Virtual History: 1646 - 1996′ where using the ideas contained in the book he imagines a continuing Stuart Monarchy continuing, holding onto Amereica and eventually in the 90’s being defeated by a resurgant Russian Tsarist Empire which had been reformed by Stalin (called Tsar Joseph in this timeline). At this point the book degenerates into gibberish science-fiction.

Yet for the most part the book makes a good show of how things ‘didn’t have to be this way’. The essays in the book are;
‘What if Charles the first had avoided the English Civil War?‘ - based around the idea that one of his generals could have beaten the rebels in Scotland early on in the crisis, but chickened out.
‘What if the American Colonies had not rebelled?’ - less unlikely than it sounds as the article shows by quotes from many of the famous names of the American Revolution writing lettters and making speeches where they loudly proclaim their loyalty.
‘What if Home Rule had been passed in 1912?’ - one of the weaker essays, probably because the author seems convinced that the North was doomed to become the warzone it became anyway regardless but still interesting. Also, they seem convinced that Ireland would have abandoned the Crown links regardless which seems a bit ‘deterministic’ too.
‘The Kaisers European Union’ - Imagine if Britain had either come to an alliance with the Germans (as was a serious consideration) or had simply stood aside and let the Germans take over France. One of the best articles of the lot - especially given that its a bit of a hobby-horse of Ferguson’s and so has some of the best thought-out arguments.
‘Hitlers England‘ and ‘Nazi Europe‘ are both a bit ‘meh’ - mainly becuse they lack the same kind of thought that was put into the ‘Kaisers European Union’ idea and unlike the previous four articles are somewhat lacking in documented evidence to suggest any kind of real apprasial. Though the idea that Hitler could have one the war is such an old one that its very hard to do any sort of article on it without it becoming somewhat of a self-parody.
‘Stalins War or Peace’ is also a bit dodgy, mainly because the author fails to really give a single idea relating to how the cold war could have been avoided. Instead they suggest a few ways that Stalin may have behaved differently. But the ideas are a bit too scattered.
‘Camelot Continued’ is … interesting. While the author clearly has a tremendous hatred for JFK they do a pretty good job showing how the ‘Kennedy Myth’ has been created to suggest that the future would have been better if he had lived, the author (nearly despite themselves) manages to show how Kennedy would probably made things worse, especially regarding Vietnam.
The final article ‘1989 Without Gorbachev’ plays with the formula a bit by showing had Gorbachev been more like other Soviet leaders we could still have the USSR today. While other historians suggest that things that are today considered ‘inevitable’ were not, this article shows how things that we think ‘must happen’ need not - no one, or at least no one serious, seriously believed the USSR could collapse as easily as it did.

Anyway, this book is well worth a look as a serious look at the ideas covered. It manages at the very least to show how the idea that it ‘had to be that way’ is the worst kind of history. And while yes, in an acedemic way the use of counterfactuals is of limited use - it is still important to ask these questions even if its just to give ourselves an idea of how nothing is predetermined.

The Simpsons Movie…

Long story short - don’t bother paying to see this. The film feels like 3 episodes shoved together (and three episodes from the new seasons which is worse) and even for the Simpsons the plot is ridiculous. Though, more importantly the film isn’t funny - some jokes, like the appearence of ‘little’ Bart are entertaining and such but they are not exactly ‘laughing in the isles’ material. Nothing in this film is. And when Monty Burns could have filled the spot of the lead villian as easily and you don’t well thats just stupid. 4 out of 10 becuase I’m feeling generous.

The Bourne Ultimatum

While I was talking to my cousin yesterday he mentioned wanting to go to this and lacking anything better to and having not gone to see a film since the rather painful ‘Pirates 3′ I decided I’d head to this. While I had seen the other two movies in this series I have to admit that the exact details of the plots were rather vague in my mind… Compounded by the problem of having slightly more vivid memories of the books. But I did remember the whole thing being entertaining so….

Is the film worth your money? Yeah, it is. While there is a bit of an element of catch-up straight off the bat (for example, the movie begins right after the end of the second film appearently which I only realised by reading the wikipedia article on the film) but these things are made fairly obvious and theres a short (and unobtrusive) summary of most of the charachters in-film so its all understandable.

To be honest, I can’t talk about the film too much without giving away the plot points so I’m more going to talk about a few ‘feelings’ I had regarding aspects of the film.

Theres a really strong feeling of paranoia pervading the film for starters. What actually gets the whole thing rolling is a journalist getting some information about aspects of Bourne’s training/past but what is noticable is that the ‘evil’ government guys know straight off the bat - because they have his phone tapped. But they also have nearly every charachters phones tapped - this is a bit of the modern era at work; the film suggests that we are all being watched even if we don’t know it. And that at any time the government could decide to watch us… These guys really represent the (unfortunately more-true-than-not) element of the ’security services’ who have no oversight and can and will do anything to ‘protect freedom’. Yet within the film that includes assassinations in broad daylight, abductions of people who are innocent (but still pose a ‘threat’) and so on.. While it isn’t subtle it is well done. But it is hard to escape that feeling of paranoia throughout the film - best shown I suppose by the following two quotes (Which are as close to what I remember them being in the film);
Bourne: ‘’stop thinking of what you read in the news, this is the real world”
and
Evil baddie; ”it’s not over until we win” (relating to him ordering (at the very least immoral, if not illegal acts).

The film is surprisingly realistic. There are a lot of elements - like the evading of the security cameras for example which work quite close to how it would in the real world I’d say, which makes the somewhat unrealistic elements more noticalbe. My major one was the idea that a CIA building would be that easy to break into while my cousin pointed to the fact that a car (can’t remember which one) that’s that modern would not be capable of being hotwired because the act of breaking into the car by smashing the window would enable the immobilisers in the car. But at the same time it’s not that bad.

Product placement in this film is also very obvious. While I suppose some of it is there because it makes financing the film easier and it’s not quite at a level of bieng ‘insulting’, it is still pretty obvious.

The major flaw I had with the film actually relates to the editing of the action scenes. For some reason the director of the film seems to believe that in order for an action scene to be effective it needs to have cuts every second/two seconds. This is really annoying because it actually makes the action scenes nearly unwatchable - I actually found myself having to close my eyes because the cuts were happening so fast I couldn’t keep up. What makes it worse is that the fight scenes especially are exciting enough without having to resort to such poor tricks.

Anyway, if your looking for something to keep you going until 30 days of night (the next film I’ll probably go see) its not the worst movie you can see in the cinema…

The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky…

I’ve always found ‘Jodo’s’ books to be fairly entertaining if often rather confusing and meandering but I’ve recently begun to seriously consider buying his films.. Now granted the clips I can find online haven’t really done much to make me decide either way but my major problem is finding a good site to buy them from online.. Anyone have any suggestions?

Heres a trailer for the Holy Mountain:

and a clip from the same movie:

Looking For Group: The Movie

While the webcomic is quite good this trailer for the proposed movie looks really funny… Always good to see cartoon violence!

I really really hate the google toolbar…

Same crap as from my last post on this. Anyone have a suggestion for what to do? I can’t keep having to find my bookmarks every time this stupid thing somehow installs itself…

Batman:The Animated Series - On Leather Wings

I just watched a DVD holding the first five episodes of this classic cartoon series.. I’d maintain after watching them that my personal favorite would have to be the ‘On leather wings’ episode.. If for no other reason than for that transformation scene - I mean how often do you see something that creepy on ‘kids’ tv?

This may be a sign that I have too much time on my hands but…

.. While I was watching PI tonight (the Darren Aronofsky film) it occurred to me that bald white guys of a certain type all look the same.. My proof?
Moby and comics writer Grant morrison

And fellow comic writer Brian Vaughan (also known for work on ‘Lost’) and actor Sean Gullette (from PI)

I’m guessing conspiracy….