Nlogaxical

Been thinking a lot about the two hours of film I saw on Saturday evening that’s been consistently noted and accurately rated as ‘a film which is about two hours long’. The more I say about Sherlock Holmes and the Sodding Huge Robotic Spiders From Croydon , the less the effect on paper. So some brief thoughts;

- Turn the lights up a little bit? Either I’m getting old or things were way too dark (Not asking for Blackpool illuminations here, just a notch up, that’s all)
- Between Guy Ritchie and the editor, there was an evil plot at work to speed up and slow down the pace. The overall impression was that the film was playing off a 1980s Walkman with cheap batteries.
- Geography. My internal satnav hurt. Baker St, Pentonville, Westminster, all conveniently located to, er, Tower Bridge. We get that Tower Bridge (part-constructed, like a 19th century ROTJ Death Star) is the big ticket CGI item – but the constant reminders were a bit much. No, a lot much.

It wasn’t a bad film per se. Just needed some additional tweaking. Deserves a second chance in the form of a sequel – which looks possible considering how things ended.

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Without going into any deep detail, I found out this morning – quite accidentally – that someone with whom I’ve worked closely (while in a previous job) committed suicide just before Christmas. We may have only been com-padres in the professional sense..we didn’t go out drinking or socialise outside of a server facility or meeting room, but nonetheless I admired the guy an awful lot. He was an immense talent, and worked harder than anyone else I’ve known. He was respected by his peers and colleagues, and adored by everyone who met him. He was two years younger than me.

All I can really state beyond the obvious shock and sadness, is the utter waste and futility of his passing, and..anger. I wish he’d said something, anything, to his close friends and colleagues. The truth is, however, he’s dead, and there’s nothing anyone can do except remember.

The new year can only improve, can’t it? Let’s hope so. Have a happy 2010.

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This is my favorite part of the year. No-one really knows what day it is, what’s open or closed, whether 6pm will bring the evening news or Wallace & Gromit. In the midst of everything, people just go to ground and stay home staring at their rapidly shedding Christmas trees, their eyes unable to obtain focus through near-diabetic comas brought on by too many dips into the Celebrations tin.

It’s also a superb time to go walking. Enough room on the pavements to swing a dozen cats attached to an industrial bungee cord.

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Testing the new Wordpress 2 client for iPhone. So far so good, it’s not died on me yet! Photo integration seems ok as well. If this works I may celebrate somehow. Maybe another coffee?

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Holy shit. My senses have just been released from a 158 minute torture session in the annex of Guantanamo Bay know as ‘Cineworld Hammersmith’. All my own fault. Since seeing the first trailer of ‘2012′, I’ve been waiting impatiently, looking forward to watching whole meaty chunks of Los Angeles turn upside down and become a sort of artificial coral reef in the Pacific. ‘Yayy’, I thought. Big stuff falling into the sea, volcanoes, tidal waves higher than mountains. Brill, bring it on.

Tonight I finally managed a viewing. Christ on a bike, what the FLYING FUCK was that?

Imagine every single nightmare scenario / apocalyptic mega film from the past fifteen years of movie history as it’s passed through a Hollywood body shop. It emerges from the garage in the shape of a 30ft patchwork limo stitched together from the most cliched of all movie scenes. What was witnessed tonight was an abortion..a complete Californian cut’n’shut disaster movie. Let’s look at some of those highlights checkboxes, yeah?

- Divorced dad who becomes hero to his family. CHECK.
- Two adorable kids. CHECK and CHECK.
- Noble US president. CHECK.
- Young scientist. CHEEECKK.
- Nasty gub’mint man in suit getting in the way of decent human acts happening. CH-CH-CH-CHECK.
- Presidential ‘Dudes, we’re all dead, thanks for all the fun’ final speech to the world. CHECK.
- Last phonecalls to family members. CHEC..uh, can’t be bothered anymore.

It was all there. Human tragedy on an epic scale, swelling strings, ‘I love you baby’ moments, bad scientific theories I’ve not seen since reading Whizzer and Chips. I could go on, but I won’t because I’m boring myself right this second. But the film went on..and on…and on. This stretched turd of a limo took two and a half hours to crawl past our faces, every panel straining with embarrassment at its own overblown presence. I don’t mind admitting there were moments when I thought to myself, “Why can’t they ALL just DIE NOW? I want to GO HOME.” By the end it felt as though I’ve been assaulted on every inch of my skull by a flailing disaster movie robot which felt the job hadn’t been done until bits of frontal lobe dribbled out of my nostrils and my pupils wore little ‘Tilt’ signs like a disgruntled pinball machine. I don’t know how I remember to walk from my seat when it finally ground to a halt, but somehow I did – two hours too late for my own good.

And yet…and yet…John Cusack still emerges from this with a modicum of cool. If this bullshit film doesn’t kill him or his acting career, it’s obvious he is a true superhero as the man is obviously indestructible.

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Photos from Aveiro and Porto, last week.

Portugal 2009

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Up until this weekend, I could never understand how London treats its sea of history.  We as Londoners walk around it casually ignoring the fabulous buildings, geographical quirks and peculiarities of placenames.  Visiting Rome, however, and all became clear.  In comparison, we Londoners really don’t take our treasures for granted when you stumble across a city where nearly every building, every corner, every vista is -  literally – littered with the past.

Rome 2009

I’ve also not been to a mainland European city that makes London seem clean in comparison – until now.    For all its ancient charms, Rome’s citizens really don’t know how to care for their essential infrastructure.   I’ve not seen that much graffiti since first visiting Leeds in the mid 90s (and if you know where the old National Express coach station used to reside, you’d remember).   Having waited for a subway train, we were confronted with what turned out to be a prop from the intro sequence of The Equalizer.  If I had the theme tune playing on the mp3 player, the illusion would have been complete.  What a sorry mess.

That being said, the best experiences were to be gained from walking the back-roads.  Narrow cobbled streets, scooters parked in every available nook and cranny,  inappropriately-named bars, keep-off-the-grass’ signs warning that ‘transgressors will be persecuted’ (a bit harsh, no?) – I loved it all.   And I can’t wait to go back.

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I was one of the lucky 400 to have tickets for last night’s Goldacre – Drayson debate at the Royal Institution.  90 minutes of back and forth discussion about the state of British science journalism and how it’s both viewed by and acted upon by ‘end users’ of mass media, ie the rest of us.  While there was plenty of online conjecture via Twitter and blogs during the event (judging by the number of open laptops and lit phone displays around me), I think some of it had lost the point.  There should be no ‘winner and loser’ in the debate.   If the standard of science journalism drops to the point where none of us know which way is up or down, which items cause cancer or which are rumoured to enable eternal life – then we will all lose.

The debate dovetailed into a longer question, one which has bugged me for a long time – that being the state of all journalism today.   What defines ‘journalism’ anymore?  And if it can still be defined, against what standards can it judged? Yesterday there was an interesting moment where most of BBC News’ online headlines were effectively reports OF reports.  (confused?  try BBC ‘News’ )    For a while, the front page looked more like DigitalSpy than the front page of a world-leading news gathering organisation.   Rumour, conjecture, gossip.    So who can you believe anymore?

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Web 2.0 is all borked.   Twitter..down.  Facebook…down.   I can’t get on one of the two to moan about the other one.   Who pulled the plug?  Eh?  Come on..admit it.

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Rumours of Top Gear being cancelled, because Clarkson drove a new Aston amongst lovely scenery and said very little (other than a couple of short sentences relating to an ending) while an ambient classic played in the background.  Far too many Top Gear fans fearing something which isn’t likely barring the death of one of the Funboy Three doing themselves a major injury between now and autumn.  BBC Worldwide need TG, TG need you as a bunch of remote control monkeys, and you as an audience aren’t yet leaving the show in droves.

Folks need to understand the name of the tune playing through that final sequence.

Brian Eno – An Ending (Ascent). (Spotify link)

And they need to stop misinterpreting the meaning of Clarkson’s words.  He didn’t mean ‘ending of Top Gear’, he meant ‘ending of real motoring’.  Except that I don’t necessarily believe real motoring’s dead.   Not yet.  There’s still life left in the old dog yet.

On the other hand, if TG continue to dull the show down as they have (Andy Wilman reacting to budgetary constraints and a lack of the show’s former sense of imagination, I’m looking at you) – then I give it one more season before being replaced with Sunday Bollocks In The Attic.

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