Anyone with a bizarre urge to follow my career might presumably like to know that I've recently signed a contract to provide 10,000 words of fiction for a new hard SF RPG on a fairly tight timescale, while working on a significant editing job for another RPG line (contract still awaited, strictly speaking, but I've started the work anyway). And I've got two other writing projects (or five, depending how you count them) in varying stages of completeness and contractedness, which may descend on me as more work at any time in the fairly near future.
All of which is good, I guess. But those who merely have to talk to me from time to time may recognise a tendency to distraction, pensiveness, and heaping curses on displacement activities.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Recent Reading: Game Night
by Jonny Nexus
Game Night came out a year or so ago, and I've just got around to reading it. (So, as the saying goes, sue ... someone.) I'll assume that most people reading this already own a copy, or can forgive mild spoilers. It turns out to be, I guess, a B-minus or thereabouts.
The central conceit is pretty well known by now; the book tells a roleplaying campaign plot in the form of a piece of actual fiction, while swapping back and forth between that and the players responsible for these events. The extra twist in this case is that the players in this case are literally gods of the game world - but, being plausible polytheistic gods, they're still as idiotic and egomaniacal as any other RPG players, and indeed behave just like, well, roleplayers.
(Both the "players and PCs in parallel stories" and the "gods as roleplayers" ideas have been used before, of course, but I think that this novel is the first thing to make both central to a plot simultaneously.)
To get the obvious out of the way first - yes, this book is indeed sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, at least to a gamer reader. As anyone who's seen his various columns and online zines will know, Jonny Nexus can perfectly nail that ranty, exasperated, more-affectionate-than-is-deserved tone one gets from gamers trading tales of disastrous sessions, bad decisions, and poor rules design. If anyone ever took Cyborg Commando seriously, they'll surely see why they're in a minority after seeing Jonny's both-barrels treatment of the game and how badly he and his group played it. There's a lot of that in this book, and I giggled quite a lot. Non-gamers will probably stare in numbed incomprehension, although there's a bit of universal human failure involved - but anyway, it's not meant for them.
But this is one joke and one conceit, and they can't really support a whole novel, even a fairly short one. Nor does the conceit really hold together; these gods aren't in any way godlike - they're just roleplayers with funny furniture in their games room. The Dead Gentlemen managed the dual-narrative joke a bit better, twice, but they didn't load themselves down with the gods thing, and they only had to keep things going for the duration of a film; similar comment might apply to DM of the Rings and the sadly truncated Chainmail Bikini. I was still giggling late in the book, but then, the raw slapstick value of a the determined meathead munchkin-minimaxer is frustratingly eternal.
The meathead in this case is "the Warrior", playing "Draag", a single-minded anti-paladin, and I guess that one of the reasons why I couldn't find Game Night as funny as some of its fans clearly do is that I long since managed to get away from the sort of group where a bunch of "good" characters and their players will put up with his sort of crap indefinitely. But the Warrior and his playing piece, being table-hogs, dominate the book as they dominate the session (despite honourable attempts at subversion by the Jester and his stereotyped thief character). The joke still works, but it's a joke about mercifully distant memories for me, and there are no other strong jokes to hand to vary the flavour. I just ended up empathising with the GM'ing AllFather; sure, he's an insufficiently experienced railroader, but at least he's trying to do something, and he's putting in the work for the usual negligible thanks from his players.
Which may be why I found the rather truncated ending of the novel distinctly depressing as well as anticlimactic. It's clearly meant to show the AllFather recovering his spirit and even achieving a kind of GM heroism - I had a bad feeling that the author might even be aiming for some kind of significance - and I'm actually all in favour of the principle that real heroism sometimes means that you have to just walk away, but this makes for a sad commentary on roleplaying. It also leaves a bunch of loose plot threads, because that's what the AllFather has to do. And what does it say for a universe that the pantheon eventually has to fall apart like a bad roleplaying group?
Game Night came out a year or so ago, and I've just got around to reading it. (So, as the saying goes, sue ... someone.) I'll assume that most people reading this already own a copy, or can forgive mild spoilers. It turns out to be, I guess, a B-minus or thereabouts.
The central conceit is pretty well known by now; the book tells a roleplaying campaign plot in the form of a piece of actual fiction, while swapping back and forth between that and the players responsible for these events. The extra twist in this case is that the players in this case are literally gods of the game world - but, being plausible polytheistic gods, they're still as idiotic and egomaniacal as any other RPG players, and indeed behave just like, well, roleplayers.
(Both the "players and PCs in parallel stories" and the "gods as roleplayers" ideas have been used before, of course, but I think that this novel is the first thing to make both central to a plot simultaneously.)
To get the obvious out of the way first - yes, this book is indeed sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, at least to a gamer reader. As anyone who's seen his various columns and online zines will know, Jonny Nexus can perfectly nail that ranty, exasperated, more-affectionate-than-is-deserved tone one gets from gamers trading tales of disastrous sessions, bad decisions, and poor rules design. If anyone ever took Cyborg Commando seriously, they'll surely see why they're in a minority after seeing Jonny's both-barrels treatment of the game and how badly he and his group played it. There's a lot of that in this book, and I giggled quite a lot. Non-gamers will probably stare in numbed incomprehension, although there's a bit of universal human failure involved - but anyway, it's not meant for them.
But this is one joke and one conceit, and they can't really support a whole novel, even a fairly short one. Nor does the conceit really hold together; these gods aren't in any way godlike - they're just roleplayers with funny furniture in their games room. The Dead Gentlemen managed the dual-narrative joke a bit better, twice, but they didn't load themselves down with the gods thing, and they only had to keep things going for the duration of a film; similar comment might apply to DM of the Rings and the sadly truncated Chainmail Bikini. I was still giggling late in the book, but then, the raw slapstick value of a the determined meathead munchkin-minimaxer is frustratingly eternal.
The meathead in this case is "the Warrior", playing "Draag", a single-minded anti-paladin, and I guess that one of the reasons why I couldn't find Game Night as funny as some of its fans clearly do is that I long since managed to get away from the sort of group where a bunch of "good" characters and their players will put up with his sort of crap indefinitely. But the Warrior and his playing piece, being table-hogs, dominate the book as they dominate the session (despite honourable attempts at subversion by the Jester and his stereotyped thief character). The joke still works, but it's a joke about mercifully distant memories for me, and there are no other strong jokes to hand to vary the flavour. I just ended up empathising with the GM'ing AllFather; sure, he's an insufficiently experienced railroader, but at least he's trying to do something, and he's putting in the work for the usual negligible thanks from his players.
Which may be why I found the rather truncated ending of the novel distinctly depressing as well as anticlimactic. It's clearly meant to show the AllFather recovering his spirit and even achieving a kind of GM heroism - I had a bad feeling that the author might even be aiming for some kind of significance - and I'm actually all in favour of the principle that real heroism sometimes means that you have to just walk away, but this makes for a sad commentary on roleplaying. It also leaves a bunch of loose plot threads, because that's what the AllFather has to do. And what does it say for a universe that the pantheon eventually has to fall apart like a bad roleplaying group?
Icons and Relics
The last day of the year, and back to London for some more exhibition-catching-up.
(And passing posters which reminded me that I'll almost certainly miss the V&A show about post-war design completely. Darn. But... Is that a topic I can overly regret missing?)
Anyway - morning was Darwin at the Natural History Museum. Yep, good stuff - starting with "one of the most important samples in the history of science" (not that I can tell the difference between two slightly dissimilar dead mockingbirds, but Darwin could, which is why he's probably the greatest naturalist in history - everything else ultimately came from that). There wasn't a lot here that any acceptably well-read person wouldn't already know, by the definition of "acceptably", but there was a lot to see nonetheless. The fully furnished study from Down House was a nice touch, though there wasn't a lot else to give a feel for the man's life, apart from a lot of letters. Just one warning; low light levels (no doubt for good reasons), and a lot of casing structural bars throwing shadows over the labels.
Byzantium at the Royal Academy was better presented from that point of view, despite having much stuff that requires at least as much gentle care. That's the big thing about this show; it's kind of necessary to visit, because it includes a variety of things that you'd otherwise have to travel several thousand miles across three or more continents (and a war zone or two) to see, sometimes in obscure museums, sometimes to ancient monasteries tucked away up biblical mountains. I gather much of this material may never travel again, and I think one room held about 10% of the world's supply of Byzantine micromosaics. Very once-in-a-lifetime.
So... Right. For a thousand years, there was a rich pocket civilisation in the eastern Mediterranean which drew on classical influences and in turn demonstrably influenced the Renaissance. But, honestly, it still feels as alien to me as medieval Japan or India - maybe more so. The exhibition does its best to show that not all icons are they same, that the classical influence was important, that some Byzantine art was secular; but in the end, there's only some much exquisitely carved ivory and lustrous gold leaf that a person surely needs.
Still, a good end to the year. (And the Royal Academy cafe does a mean cream scone, too.)
(And passing posters which reminded me that I'll almost certainly miss the V&A show about post-war design completely. Darn. But... Is that a topic I can overly regret missing?)
Anyway - morning was Darwin at the Natural History Museum. Yep, good stuff - starting with "one of the most important samples in the history of science" (not that I can tell the difference between two slightly dissimilar dead mockingbirds, but Darwin could, which is why he's probably the greatest naturalist in history - everything else ultimately came from that). There wasn't a lot here that any acceptably well-read person wouldn't already know, by the definition of "acceptably", but there was a lot to see nonetheless. The fully furnished study from Down House was a nice touch, though there wasn't a lot else to give a feel for the man's life, apart from a lot of letters. Just one warning; low light levels (no doubt for good reasons), and a lot of casing structural bars throwing shadows over the labels.
Byzantium at the Royal Academy was better presented from that point of view, despite having much stuff that requires at least as much gentle care. That's the big thing about this show; it's kind of necessary to visit, because it includes a variety of things that you'd otherwise have to travel several thousand miles across three or more continents (and a war zone or two) to see, sometimes in obscure museums, sometimes to ancient monasteries tucked away up biblical mountains. I gather much of this material may never travel again, and I think one room held about 10% of the world's supply of Byzantine micromosaics. Very once-in-a-lifetime.
So... Right. For a thousand years, there was a rich pocket civilisation in the eastern Mediterranean which drew on classical influences and in turn demonstrably influenced the Renaissance. But, honestly, it still feels as alien to me as medieval Japan or India - maybe more so. The exhibition does its best to show that not all icons are they same, that the classical influence was important, that some Byzantine art was secular; but in the end, there's only some much exquisitely carved ivory and lustrous gold leaf that a person surely needs.
Still, a good end to the year. (And the Royal Academy cafe does a mean cream scone, too.)
Monday, December 29, 2008
Yes, Well, Who Remembers Giant Robots?
Just for the record, this year's D[octo]r Who[?] Christmas Special was quite good. However, the sheer weight of refrigerator logic problems got to be a problem by the end. And lampshading the big one didn't actually help.
(Yes, "recent Dr Who episode suffers from logical coherence problems". Please try to act surprised.)
Sorry about all the geeky jargon there.
Anyway, if we're going to spend time and effort discussing the chances of supporting cast from previous episodes becoming the next Doctor - is it too late to start a claque for Dervla Kirwan?
(Yes, "recent Dr Who episode suffers from logical coherence problems". Please try to act surprised.)
Sorry about all the geeky jargon there.
Anyway, if we're going to spend time and effort discussing the chances of supporting cast from previous episodes becoming the next Doctor - is it too late to start a claque for Dervla Kirwan?
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Metropolitan Line
Angela picked up one of my wishlist items this Christmas, and bought me a copy of a nice two-disc DVD of Fritz Lang's Metropolis, enabling me to patch over another hole in my education. So the other night, we sat down to watch the movie.
To start with the obvious - yes, it definitely lives up to its rep for production design and general imagination. The Art Deco futurism on display is clearly one of the foundation stones of modern media SF; I honestly don't know how much, say, Blade Runner or Dark City (or, more distantly, 2001 or Ghost in the Shell) can be said to have been directly influenced by Lang, but he sure as heck got there first, and made it look good. And the excellent modern clean-up job on display on these disks, and the original orchestral score on the soundtrack, make it quite a pleasure to watch as well as an education.
The content was also interesting, in a way I expected less, mostly because I'd forgotten most of the many comments I must have seen in the past about the film's oddly old-fashioned, Gothic, sometimes downright theistic elements. The biblical references go beyond stuff about the "New Tower of Babel" (rightly invoked in that British Museum exhibition, now I come to think of it) and a slightly pantomime-ish vision of the industrial machine as the demon Moloch, to scenes in a Gothic cathedral, complete with references to the Seven Deadly Sins (in handy statue form). Perhaps more interestingly, Rotwang isn't an SF mad scientist so much as he's a good old-fashioned wizard, Faust with a dash of Prospero and a touch of Merlin, never far from a plainly depicted pentagram. It turns out (the DVD notes say) that Lang originally planned to have some explicit magic in the film, in overt opposition to the technology; arguably, his status as a founding father of the European SF tradition is a bit compromised or compromising. There's also a sense of puritan disapproval breaking through in the nightclub scenes, which look like a slightly misplaced rant at Weimar decadence more than anything else.
Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) is a fun character, though, but he wasn't the one who I found most interesting, funnily enough. Brigitte Helm worked hard in the dual role of drippy social activist and loopy robo-vamp, but the prize for actual acting probably has to go to Alfred Abel as the arch-capitalist ruler of the city - an oddly austere figure, who seems to be oppressing the proletariat out of a sense of propriety more than anything else.
The film's politics are certainly (notoriously, as it turns out) a bit drippy, with a simple-minded lets-all-be-friends ending that probably explains why H.G.Wells called the whole thing "the most stupid of films" - but I'd be prepared to write that off to its date and to commercial pressures. I don't think it's something that'd be fixed if the print hadn't been slashed so harshly by the early distributors; this DVD has slightly bemusing long intertitles explaining what happened at various points in the original script, seeking to restore various bits of actual characterisation and relative subtlety to the plot. Interestingly, it seems that a full version of the movie has been rediscovered in the past year; it'll be interesting to see how this changes things when the missing scenes are eventually cleaned up and the movie is restored to its original 153 minutes.
To start with the obvious - yes, it definitely lives up to its rep for production design and general imagination. The Art Deco futurism on display is clearly one of the foundation stones of modern media SF; I honestly don't know how much, say, Blade Runner or Dark City (or, more distantly, 2001 or Ghost in the Shell) can be said to have been directly influenced by Lang, but he sure as heck got there first, and made it look good. And the excellent modern clean-up job on display on these disks, and the original orchestral score on the soundtrack, make it quite a pleasure to watch as well as an education.The content was also interesting, in a way I expected less, mostly because I'd forgotten most of the many comments I must have seen in the past about the film's oddly old-fashioned, Gothic, sometimes downright theistic elements. The biblical references go beyond stuff about the "New Tower of Babel" (rightly invoked in that British Museum exhibition, now I come to think of it) and a slightly pantomime-ish vision of the industrial machine as the demon Moloch, to scenes in a Gothic cathedral, complete with references to the Seven Deadly Sins (in handy statue form). Perhaps more interestingly, Rotwang isn't an SF mad scientist so much as he's a good old-fashioned wizard, Faust with a dash of Prospero and a touch of Merlin, never far from a plainly depicted pentagram. It turns out (the DVD notes say) that Lang originally planned to have some explicit magic in the film, in overt opposition to the technology; arguably, his status as a founding father of the European SF tradition is a bit compromised or compromising. There's also a sense of puritan disapproval breaking through in the nightclub scenes, which look like a slightly misplaced rant at Weimar decadence more than anything else.
Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) is a fun character, though, but he wasn't the one who I found most interesting, funnily enough. Brigitte Helm worked hard in the dual role of drippy social activist and loopy robo-vamp, but the prize for actual acting probably has to go to Alfred Abel as the arch-capitalist ruler of the city - an oddly austere figure, who seems to be oppressing the proletariat out of a sense of propriety more than anything else.
The film's politics are certainly (notoriously, as it turns out) a bit drippy, with a simple-minded lets-all-be-friends ending that probably explains why H.G.Wells called the whole thing "the most stupid of films" - but I'd be prepared to write that off to its date and to commercial pressures. I don't think it's something that'd be fixed if the print hadn't been slashed so harshly by the early distributors; this DVD has slightly bemusing long intertitles explaining what happened at various points in the original script, seeking to restore various bits of actual characterisation and relative subtlety to the plot. Interestingly, it seems that a full version of the movie has been rediscovered in the past year; it'll be interesting to see how this changes things when the missing scenes are eventually cleaned up and the movie is restored to its original 153 minutes.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Yes, Mr Ganndhi, it turns out to be a very good idea indeed, thank you.
Taking the Christmas break as an opportunity to do a bit of cultural catching-up, we hit London yesterday for a couple of exhibitions.
Morning was Renaissance Faces: Van Eyck to Titian at the National Gallery. This was... Well, how often do you get to see the Arnolfini Wedding and Holbein's Ambassadors within a couple of rooms of each other, and still get distracted by other stuff? The thing that maybe jumped out most of all for us was Bellini's Doge Leonardo Loredan, but... Oh heck, I'm not qualified to pontificate on this art history stuff. It was a good show, okay?
Afternoon was Babylon: Myth and Reality at the British Museum. This was interesting, but a bit unsure what it was really about. It started with some archaeological bits and bobs - I think that they'd borrowed some Babylonian tilework from the Louvre - which was pertinent, but some of us have been spoiled by seeing the full (reconstructed, and technically partial, but still) Ishtar Gate at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. After that, though, the Myth bit tended to take over; Blake prints, Athanasius Kircher engravings, '50s film concept art, Victorian paintings of Bible scenes, videos about Rastafarianism, snippets of silent movies... British Museum-style things that would have grabbed me, like what seems to be the first-ever known map of the world, got a bit lost. Equally, the looping voice recordings associated with some display cases - some of them offering readings of some of these ancient texts in the original languages - were thoroughly drowned out in the noise of all the visiting families. (They might work better on a less busy day, but the place would have to be very quiet indeed to make it feasible to linger by each case while listening to several minutes of speech comfortably.) Still, there was a lot to provoke thought (not least the last video, basically a polite rant about the bright sparks who arrived in Iraq to find that Saddam Hussein had damaged the site by parking some grotty "reconstructions" on top of it, and responded by adding one of their own military bases to the mess), and some interesting modern artworks (mostly borrowing the imagery of all those wonderful Renaissance "Tower of Babel" paintings). So a Bronze Age city got intermittently lucky in its empire-building efforts, and picked some enemies whose propaganda-historical writings gained religion-driven staying power - and now it's part of our cultural vocabulary, albeit in shapes that have little relationship to the original. (All those Towers of Babel are basically the Colosseum, reiterated and stacked.) Weird and curious, if hard to convery without looking bitty.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
The Light Colour
Finally got around to watching, having picked up the DVD: The Colour of Magic.
This is one of those movies - often fantasy - which primarily exists as an adaptation of a popular book. People who haven't read the source can sit there trying to work out what's going on and what the point might be; people who have are the primary target market, and can sit there being impressed by the realisation of the book's imagery. Not having read any of the Harry Potter books, I know how it feels to be in the first category; having read all the Discworld books (I can even say "twice" for some of them, sort of, which is unusual for me - but that was for professional reasons), I could really rather enjoy this. Ankh-Morpork looked the part, if not quite big enough, and a lot of other details were dead on.
The script was a pretty fair adaptation and condensation of The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, only very occasionally feeling rushed, mostly dropping the right things, and getting one half-decent joke (all the Bel-Shamharoth references) out of the excisions. One small necessary addition was the explanation of why Rincewind should be David Jason's age, but that doesn't particularly explain why David Jason was cast as Rincewind in the first place. (To sell the thing outside the guaranteed target market, of course.) Rincewind should have been played by a younger Nigel Planer - but instead we got the current Nigel Planer not doing very much as the Arch-Astronomer of Krull. Hey ho.
And some of the casting was fine. We even got Jeremy Irons in a cameo as the Patrician, which is as good as it gets, at least in the absence of Alan Rickman (and yes, I know that the Patrician of Colour of Magic the book isn't Vetinari - let's apply a no-geekery rule, shall we?), and Tim Curry had and was enormous fun as Trymon. (Rule #7 of cult movie making; let Tim Curry enjoy himself, okay?) Karen David and and Liz May Brice got Liessa and Herrena right, and David Bradley managed Cohen the Barbarian dead on, at least in the talkie bits.
But that reminds me of the other notable problem; the action sequences were a bit feeble. Pratchett may be a comedy writer, but he's a comedy writer who can handle action immaculately (the climax of Moving Pictures is a masterpiece of choreography), and he's working within and around the traditions of pulp action fantasy. Cohen ought to be Conan with creaky joints, a deadly-subtle combat style, and a screeching battle-cry; the interior of the Wyrmberg ought to be up there with the Mines of Moria for gob-smacking awe and high fantasy violence, subverted only by Rincewind's terror. This treatment just didn't cut it in those moments; they were just sitcom punch-ups in funny costumes. (The Wyrmberg generally was squeezed in and thrown away.) And while the special effects generally weren't bad, they showed worrying signs of budgetary tightness; the giant troll looked okay, but rampaged against the skyline rather than smashing up the scenery, while the brief "characters on horseback" shots were pure 1960s back-projection.
But, you know, whatever. The fans will catch this, one way or another, and the non-fans who find themselves trapped will have David Jason to watch or some good incidental Pratchett gags to listen to, according to taste. It could have been more - it's perfectly possible to adapt literary comedy to good effect (see the better past Jeeves/Wooster TV projects, for a start), and a bigger budget for FX and fight arrangements would probably have made a big difference - but if we're going to have Discworld movies, getting some bits right is a start.
This is one of those movies - often fantasy - which primarily exists as an adaptation of a popular book. People who haven't read the source can sit there trying to work out what's going on and what the point might be; people who have are the primary target market, and can sit there being impressed by the realisation of the book's imagery. Not having read any of the Harry Potter books, I know how it feels to be in the first category; having read all the Discworld books (I can even say "twice" for some of them, sort of, which is unusual for me - but that was for professional reasons), I could really rather enjoy this. Ankh-Morpork looked the part, if not quite big enough, and a lot of other details were dead on.
The script was a pretty fair adaptation and condensation of The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, only very occasionally feeling rushed, mostly dropping the right things, and getting one half-decent joke (all the Bel-Shamharoth references) out of the excisions. One small necessary addition was the explanation of why Rincewind should be David Jason's age, but that doesn't particularly explain why David Jason was cast as Rincewind in the first place. (To sell the thing outside the guaranteed target market, of course.) Rincewind should have been played by a younger Nigel Planer - but instead we got the current Nigel Planer not doing very much as the Arch-Astronomer of Krull. Hey ho.
And some of the casting was fine. We even got Jeremy Irons in a cameo as the Patrician, which is as good as it gets, at least in the absence of Alan Rickman (and yes, I know that the Patrician of Colour of Magic the book isn't Vetinari - let's apply a no-geekery rule, shall we?), and Tim Curry had and was enormous fun as Trymon. (Rule #7 of cult movie making; let Tim Curry enjoy himself, okay?) Karen David and and Liz May Brice got Liessa and Herrena right, and David Bradley managed Cohen the Barbarian dead on, at least in the talkie bits.
But that reminds me of the other notable problem; the action sequences were a bit feeble. Pratchett may be a comedy writer, but he's a comedy writer who can handle action immaculately (the climax of Moving Pictures is a masterpiece of choreography), and he's working within and around the traditions of pulp action fantasy. Cohen ought to be Conan with creaky joints, a deadly-subtle combat style, and a screeching battle-cry; the interior of the Wyrmberg ought to be up there with the Mines of Moria for gob-smacking awe and high fantasy violence, subverted only by Rincewind's terror. This treatment just didn't cut it in those moments; they were just sitcom punch-ups in funny costumes. (The Wyrmberg generally was squeezed in and thrown away.) And while the special effects generally weren't bad, they showed worrying signs of budgetary tightness; the giant troll looked okay, but rampaged against the skyline rather than smashing up the scenery, while the brief "characters on horseback" shots were pure 1960s back-projection.
But, you know, whatever. The fans will catch this, one way or another, and the non-fans who find themselves trapped will have David Jason to watch or some good incidental Pratchett gags to listen to, according to taste. It could have been more - it's perfectly possible to adapt literary comedy to good effect (see the better past Jeeves/Wooster TV projects, for a start), and a bigger budget for FX and fight arrangements would probably have made a big difference - but if we're going to have Discworld movies, getting some bits right is a start.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things
At this point, I can actually announce for certain something which has been teetering on the brink for a little while; I am now officially the Line Editor for the Steve Jackson Games Transhuman Space product line.
I promise not to let the power go to my head.
I promise not to let the power go to my head.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Dunsany Dreams
Caught today (at the Cambridge Arts Cinema): Dean Spanley.
This presumably counts as some kind of freak, insofar as it's a 21st century fantasy movie (based on a work by a Famous Fantasy Author, even), with no special effects whatsoever. Apart, of course, from Peter O'Toole's acting, which admittedly makes the annual output of Industrial Light and Magic look feeble by comparison.
It's to the film's credit that it still comes across as a four-way ensemble piece, with Sam Neill carrying the actual fantastical element by playing absolutely straight. (Some actors might have succumbed to temptation when playing a man remembering being a dog and with O'Toole on the set, but this isn't Neill in The Piano mode.) And Jeremy Northam and Bryan Brown handle their jobs smoothly, Northam in particular playing off O'Toole just right. Credit also to Judy Parfitt for her supporting work, and to the town of Wisbech for impersonating halcyon-days Edwardian England.
It's a flimsy little number, but gem-like. Anyway, highly recommended.
This presumably counts as some kind of freak, insofar as it's a 21st century fantasy movie (based on a work by a Famous Fantasy Author, even), with no special effects whatsoever. Apart, of course, from Peter O'Toole's acting, which admittedly makes the annual output of Industrial Light and Magic look feeble by comparison.
It's to the film's credit that it still comes across as a four-way ensemble piece, with Sam Neill carrying the actual fantastical element by playing absolutely straight. (Some actors might have succumbed to temptation when playing a man remembering being a dog and with O'Toole on the set, but this isn't Neill in The Piano mode.) And Jeremy Northam and Bryan Brown handle their jobs smoothly, Northam in particular playing off O'Toole just right. Credit also to Judy Parfitt for her supporting work, and to the town of Wisbech for impersonating halcyon-days Edwardian England.
It's a flimsy little number, but gem-like. Anyway, highly recommended.
Monday, July 11, 2005
First Post
This Blog was originally just a placeholder to enable me to comment on other people's. (Nothing to see here. Move along.) However, I'm now succumbing to the inevitable, and will post to this blog as the whim takes me.
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