Archive for September, 2007
Enviormentalism is ‘bullshit’?
I’m doing a course on Enviornmental Politics (least I think that’s its title) and given that I came across this Penn & Teller episode I decided I’d have a look. As usual with ‘Bullshit!’ you do feel that they may be going a bit OTT but its still interesting watching….
Some great lines in this - ‘those that oppose Globablisation use the tools of it to organise’ and ‘we’re not sure exactly of the numbers of species that go extinct’ (and its great who says that line) being my two personal favourites.
Also, its weird to see people like Bjorn Lomborg who I have already come across in this course. It does point out that plenty of Lomborg’s figure’s are … questionable. Anyway, its worth a look.
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns animated
Surprisingly good adaptation of some of the scenes from the seminal Miller comic series..
Maybe I just have a dirty mind but…
Doesn’t this seem like the wrong thing to have in a playground?
Taking the piss out of ‘Brokeback Mountain’
Its a bit old but still, that was a terrible movie:
Broke Mac Mountain
And of course the classic ‘Brokeback to the Future’
Luther Arkwright: the big finish audio version
Just finished listening to this 3 disk set from Big Finish. I picked up their excellent (though somewhat unsuccessful I’d guess) series of 2000ad audio adaptions a year or two ago and have been quite interested in picking up this since. Seeing as I’m going to lack money for the rest of the year I decided I’d pick up a few bits and pieces like this before it became unavailable (as has happened to the Judge Dredd ones now according to their website).
Was it worth it? Yes with a ‘but’. The cd is nicely packaged and is well-produced with the sound effects being used sparingly. The casting is perfectly fine with a few minor exceptions - the main one actually being the placing of David Tennant (of Doctor Who fame) as Luther. Its not that there is anything wrong with his performance - its just that when you are playing a world-hopping superbeing with psychic powers and your best known for, well, playing a world-hopping superbeing with psychic powers the overlap (in my mind at least) between the two robbed the drama of its impact. I kept expecting to hear ‘exterminate!’ at any minute and the similarity between the two charachters meant that I was never able to get over that. Other than that my complaints were minor - mainly being that I didn’t ‘hear’ some charachters that way in my head. The inevitable problem with any transfer from page to audio/screen I guess.
As an adaption it works surpisingly well keeping the vast bulk of the comics plot (in fact the only thing that I remember being lost is the plot involving the American journalist which is hardly a major point) and oddly enough, though in line with my other complaints - I actually felt the kept too much of the original story. By this, I’m refering to the fact that in some cases they incorporated the dialogue as it was from the book. The same happens with the transferring of most of the storys scenes to the audio version. The end result of this I found was a sense of ’seen this before’ which in some ways I had. If you compare the ‘Luther Arkwright’ adaptation to say, any of the ‘Judge Dredd’ ones - where they created whole new plots with familiar charachters, the feeling is that they stuck too closely to the original material. Granted, this is a bit of ‘armchair directing’ on my part - unlike Judge Dredd where there is a vast number of plot types to choose from (as an example one features Dredd on trial, other is a comedy ‘this is your life’ style episode) Luther Arkwright has only had two major appearences in his own series. I suppose in the end what I can say about the disks is that they work more like a ‘transcription’ from one medium to another rather than an adaptation - somewhat like the Johnny Depp version of ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ - so much like the original that you wonder why you bothered watching (or in this case listening to) it.
Still though, if your a Luther Arkwright fan you will probably find a fair bit to enjoy in this and if your looking for something a bit different to listen to the comics on audio that Big Finish offer are not a bad place to start.
Keith Olbermann does ‘Dragnet’
Well not literally. This is a rather silly but still funny clip using the form of the old ‘Dragnet’ TV show to take the piss out of ‘the Larry Craig incident’.
Unemployment
Today, for the first time in 7 years I became unemployed. Granted In the last 7 years I have had a few days between jobs (in one case, being strictly honest 2 months) but today, for the first time ever, I finished a job with no real desire (or likelyhood) to move into another.
There is a slightly odd feel to this. For an awful long time going to work has been a part of my weekly routine. Having the money has been part of my routine, and that odd satisfaction that you get from the combination of the two has also been a part of my weekly routine. Yet, while I don’t want too be giving my age away too much, I probably got a first job a bit young. Not that I’m complaining mind you, its just that I’m now a bit young to feel like I’ve been working forever…
Anyways, it’s not like I’ll have that much free time coming up - final year in college looks to be busy. At the moment my count in college for essays numbers about 30,000 words. That’s not counting things like the reading that will involve or anything. Still though, overall I have to admit that its a good thing. My reading list has not shurnk at all and I have gotten a load of dvds and other books recently.
Anyway, I just felt that this ‘landmark’ in my life should be marked somehow … so, I’m having a beer. Might as well do go into unemployment in style…