Yeah, yeah, I know. Shooting fish in a barrel, exercise in pointlessness, why did I even watch this film when I knew how bad it was going to be?...but I thought it needed at least a mention.
'The Last Airbender' (not allowed the total title of the series, 'Avatar: the Last Airbender' because of a certain blue alien film that came out around the same time, which is, I will grudgingly admit, at least the better of the two films) was a movie that did not need to be made. At all. It's based on a wonderful animated TV series about a world in which the four nations utilise the four elements in 'bending', a martial arts/magic fighting style. The Avatar is the only person alive who can bend all four elements, and keeps the nations (and the elements) balanced, as well as being able to access the spirit world. When one Avatar dies, they are reincarnated as a member of a different nation. Aang, the hero of the series and film, is the Avatar who ran from his role and ended up frozen in ice for a century, but is discovered by a water bender named Katara and her brother Sokka, children of the Southern Water Tribe. Unfortunately, Zuko, the disgraced and scarred son of the Lord of the Fire Nation, Lord Ozai, can only regain his father's favour by capturing the Avatar, who is the only person who can stop Ozai's expansion and conquest of the four nations. Got it? It's a really, really good series, with surprising depth for what is ostensibly a kids' show, decent characters, great elemental action scenes and a fleshed-out spiritual and philosophical basis for the entire setting. If you haven't watched, go and do so right now.
Because this film is just a live-action remake of the first series, but with large chunks taken out and the good bits done again, worse, it brings precisely nothing new to fans, even annoying them with the changes made, and won't entice new fans because it completely fails to convey the wonder and beauty of the setting or the compelling dilemmas the characters face. The sad thing is, you can tell it was made with love, but that really doesn't translate to good film-making. M. Night Shyamalan can do good film-making. We've seen it, and now at least he's broken out of having to have a twist at the end. OK, apparently his more recent films were rubbish, but 'The Sixth Sense' and 'Unbreakable', while flawed, were still deeply enjoyable watching and will remain minor classics. So what happened? Well, some of this film's complete fail might be to do with the editing and the way the whole thing is fitted together. I mean, it jumps around like nobody's business, going from the antarctic wastes of the Southern Water Tribe to the Southern Air Temple in a matter of minutes, without even a travelling sequence in between. Then *poof*: they're in the Earth Kingdom. Then *bamf*: they're captured by Fire Nation. The pacing is awful too, as important bits of plot whiz by in a matter of seconds and a seriously annoying voiceover tells us things they couldn't be bothered to film. Sokka's girlfriend in the series, Yue, princess of the Northern Water Tribe, was the first chance we have to see a more serious, committed side to Sokka, as his infatuation becomes more like love. In the film, they have a gaze-a-thon across the throne room and then next thing we know, they're in a relationship! One which, emotionally, is the focus for one of the most tragic dilemmas in the series but in this is barely glanced over.
Well, I mean, there's some information in the voiceover, but this film is an example of what happens when someone gets confused about whether it's "show" or "tell" you're meant to do. The cinematography is, frankly, dreadful. I'm not a film student and even I know the extreme close-ups were a seriously bad idea. In the aforementioned courtship of Yue and Sokka, the only bit of development we get is where the film stops its frantic bouncing around long enough to give us a few minutes of bad dialogue between the two, which is of course intercut with preparations for war and unflatteringly shot. Due to getting Dev Patel to play Zuko (he tries hard, but unfortunately wasn't as complex as Zuko in the series), he's unrecognisable as the animated character. But y'know what the most recognisable quirk of Zuko's appearance is? That big old flame shaped scar that covers a good portion of his face and is the physical reminder of his disgrace and banishment by his father? Yeah, it's there, but only barely. It wasn't ever made a big deal of. Guess they didn't want to make a pretty guy less pretty. Plus Patel just looks really angrily at the camera without subtlety.
The one thing I would say is that I find the accusations of whitewashing a bit extreme. Yeah, OK, they did get white actors for Aang, Katara and Sokka, and went with a non Inuit set of actors for the Water Tribes, but Shyamalan has clearly designed a racial spread for the nations, with the Fire Nation as Indian and the Earth Nation as East Asian. In contrast to most Hollywood films, it has a surprisingly diverse cast. Still, that's only in comparison and not really addressing the wider issue that gives rise to the problem, and it did annoy me that they went for Nicola Peltz and Jason Rathbone for Katara and Sokka, but that's mainly because they sucked at playing characters I care about. Noah Ringer was actually pretty good as Aang, and though my fellow viewers were complaining a lot about the martial arts, he was the only person who looked at all convincing, given as he studied Taekwondo for quite a long time before auditioning for the part of Aang. Maybe it's my affection for Taekwondo showing through, but at least Ringer had the right sense of balance and rhythm for martial arts, whereas Peltz clearly had no clue whatsoever and just looked awkward, despite having supposedly had a martial arts boot camp for six months. Sadly, much as I like Dev Patel, he clearly wasn't particularly confident about the fire-bending fight scenes (probably quite difficult to do, to be fair) and the way they were filmed almost looked like it was designed to obscure the lack of competance. However, the fight scene at the end between Aang and Zuko was actually quite well done. And the Blue Spirit looked great - whoever did that stunt work was wonderful, but the big fight where they held off a whole load of Fire Nation was both creative and disappointing. It's a cool idea having them in a training room, but Aang basically seemed to be using his airbending to play with the dummies while the Blue Spirit single-handedly held off an entire freaking army. This was mostly because it was very confusingly shot, but it could have been good.
By the way, this film was made for kids, right? So...there's this bit near the end where an undeniably nasty Fire Nation guy has wrought havoc but the fight has turned against him and he's turned tail and run. Guess what the heroic (faceless) waterbender army does? Drowns him. Seriously. They trap him in a bubble of water until he stops moving. We even see him drop to the ground and just lie there. I'm all for a touch of darkness in kids' films, but we're just going to let that go? Just...killing people is OK if they're bad people? Especially if they're running away like cowardly custards? Wow. Great message, Shyamalan.
So...good points...good points...well, Uncle Iroh was pretty cool. I mean, he wasn't played by Mako, for obvious reasons, and they had him getting foot massages instead of drinking tea and playing chess, but he wasn't that out of character. They actually started introducing Zuko's strained relationship with his ambitious sister Azula much earlier than in the series. They got the same voice actor to do Appa and Momo, though Appa just looks weird. Why are his paws hanging down like long child-catching fingers? They actually bother to go to the Northern Air Temple (in the series, the technological modification of the Air Temple by a group of refugees was a really big personal dilemma Aang had to negotiate) but they only spend a couple of minutes there. They did bother to cover Aang's backstory and his awesome mentor, Monk Gyatso, but for some reason they change Gyatso's final stand (he was sitting cross-legged surrounded by the skeletons of his enemies in the series) so it wasn't as iconic, or as badass. Almost every good thing I have to say about this series has a caveat. The set and production design was incredible, but it's rarely used effectively, especially as the low light levels of most of the film makes it insanely difficult to see (apparently even worse in 3D). The martial styles connected with the bending styles were well thought out, but badly performed and the CGI seriously didn't back it up. I know it's difficult to animate water and fire, but that's no excuse for laziness in making it respond to the bender's martial arts moves.
Oh yes, and 'bender' is indeed inherently hilarious to British people. I always assumed that was the joke of Bender's name in 'Futurama' (apparently not, actually a pun on his job and a reference to a character from 'The Breakfast Club'). I kind of became immune to it due to watching the 'Avatar' series, but it is pretty funny to hear people say, "You're a bender!" It's falling out of use, but don't call people benders in Britain unless you want a thump.
Factoid, since there were no quotable lines: the guy who voices Zuko in the TV series (Dante Basco) is the guy who played Rufio (RUFI-O, RUFI-O!) in 'Hook'.
Thursday, 20 January 2011
Monday, 10 January 2011
'Van Helsing'
Ugh. I hate this film. And yet I keep going back to it. I actually own it now - that's right, I bought it voluntarily and then rewatched it all the way through. And it was just as bad second time round, though I could appreciate the silliness more when not blinded by incoherent rage.
Still, there are some very, very few good points. Not enough to salvage it, but you have to take your jollies where you can find them. It's such a pity, too, because I love 'The Mummy' and 'The Mummy Returns' ('Tomb of the Dragon Emperor' sucked but that was due to some particularly poor choices that could easily have been done differently). They're silly pulp fun with a modern appeal and a classic atmosphere, but are good-hearted and loveable in a way few Hollywood films are. Plus they show Sommers can do genre, as long as he isn't expected to take it seriously or respect it or anything. And, frankly, I could easily have liked a Universal Horror-style monster movie pitting everyone's favourite vampire hunter against the three big guys in Universal's canon. But 'Van Helsing' is really bad. Not funny bad - it's where parody goes to die.
This is mostly due to a string of baffling decisions that, as with 'Tomb of the Dragon Emperor', just make the whole thing not work but could easily have been set right. First, Van Helsing. I'm a massive fan of the original 'Dracula' novel and Van Helsing's character. He's not exactly nuanced but he's a gloriously bonkers doctor and expert on blood-borne diseases who happens to kill vampires on the side. It's very telling that his first name was the same as Bram Stoker's own - Abraham. I'm not exactly a purist when it comes to Van Helsing. He's been mercilessly recast for years into whatever a director or screenwriter demands of him, but Peter Cushing is the ultimate Van Helsing. He can pull off old world academia, wiry athleticism and because Cushing took his acting seriously no matter how bad the film he was in, he brings weight to the proceedings so that even in the silliest films like 'The 7 Golden Vampires', you suspend your disbelief the minute he enters a scene. Hugh Jackman is not a bad actor - I actually quite like him. I love him in 'The Prestige'. He, like Brendan Fraser, Harrison Ford and Cary Grant, can carry off pretty much anything with a wink and a roguish smile. He doesn't take himself too seriously as an actor, which really helps when playing pulp characters, and while he's been pigeonholed by X-Men and 'Australia' as a growling manly man, he can play delightfully against type, and does. However, Stephen Sommers takes no advantage of this whatsoever, giving us a cut-and-pasted growling badass hero with no emotional depth or skills beyond killing, barely any good lines and a complete lack of reference to the original character who still remains in the popular consciousness because of Cushing's incredible portrayal. He doesn't have the charm of Rick O'Connell to balance it out and too much of the 'rogue demon hunter' to pull off the light-hearted aspect. Plus there's this weird thing where they changed his first name (what's wrong with Abraham?) to Gabriel and imply, for some completely unknown reason, that the character is actually the angel Gabriel now working for the Vatican...or something. It's stupid and completely unnecessary.
Talking of stupid and unnecessary, what was Richard Roxburgh on during this film? I mean, he's an awesome actor and, well, damn, he actually managed to make that aging Anne Rice fan outfit look good, but his Dracula is a bizarre, mewling idiot who bears no resemblance to any serious Dracula on film. Lugosi had dignity, Lee had the whole forbidden pleasure thing and was almost animalistic, Oldman brought emotional depth and a sense of ancient madness. Roxburgh has wacky. I mean, the Count hasn't exactly been treated with respect for a lot of his career, but he needed to be a genuine threat to Van Helsing, since nothing else is. Besides, his evil plan is just...stupid. It involves wanting to make vampire babies. Why? Becuase Fuck You, that's why. The Brides are one-dimensional characters who alternate between screaming hysterically about their babies and turning into badly-CGd flying vampire monsters. As bad guys, the terrible foursome are hardly threatening.
Now, three of the great strengths of 'The Mummy' and 'The Mummy Returns' were the leads and the villain(s). But we've established that Van Helsing lacks the uniqueness and charm to hold this all together (though his actor doesn't) and Dracula is too ineffectual and plain old bonkers to make a decent villain (despite his actor being a lot better than this). So the female lead, the love interest, the lady of the hour? How does she hold up? The answer is, not well. Kate Beckinsale, who plays Anna Valerious, is another actor I rather like. Her 'Emma' is by far the best version. 'Underworld' sucks like a Twilight vampire but she's surprisingly likeable in it. However, she's not suited to playing an action girl, perhaps because she seems like she's trying too hard to be rough-spoken and dangerous. I would far rather see her play a clever, competant woman with a good head on her shoulders, perhaps a female hacker in a heist movie (notice how they're always male?) or an FBI agent who takes control of the situation with an uncompromising and straight-laced attitude. But in this she plays a werewolf-hunting gypsy princess in rural Transylvania, so it's action girl all the way. Compared to, say, Evelyn from 'The Mummy' (as played by Rachel Weisz, unfortunately Mario Bello just didn't cut it in the third film), who is a wonderful charicature of an academic but has a likeable personality, Anna is...um...well, she kicks ass...and her family has a dark past...OK, Anna basically has no personality. She seems to be some kind of leader of her village, but she does precious little leading because she's so busy having her own adventures. Her profession is presumably monster-hunting (a valid career choice in Transylvania, if horror films have taught me anything) and I would guess she can afford to live on her family's wealth, but what does she do for fun? Brood?
So the main trio are either underdeveloped or plain old bizarre. The plot is completely laughable. Dracula's big plan is to use Dr Frankenstein's research to conduct lightning through a living body into a massive machine and thus make his babies live, but no body can take it. So Frankenstein builds him a monster, but that pesky mob comes and storms the place, Dracula kills Frankenstein and the monster 'dies' in an explosion in a windmill (which actually makes sense since flour is highly combustible), putting Dracula back at square one. Meanwhile, Gabriel (shudder) Van Helsing is hunting Mr Hyde in Paris (this is somewhat explained in the prequel animated film 'The London Assignment', where Hyde was Jack the Ripper despite the fact that the book Hyde mostly stamped on people's heads or hit them with sticks to kill them and probably lacked the finesse to channel Jekyll's doctor abilities). Van Helsing is a monster hunter in the employ of the Vatican who can't remember who he is, and is dispatched, along with his comedy sidekick, to Transylvania. Meanwhile meanwhile, Anna and her brother Velkan are catching a werewolf and Velkan gets bitten because he's an idiot, meaning he'll become the Wolfman. There is horribly forced sexual tension between two great actors, fight scenes with the Brides, some exposition and then they find Frankenstein's monster in the windmill. Dracula's using Velkan to try and channel lightning to make the babies live or something, but he isn't up to it. So through various convoluted plot twists and ham-fisted action scenes, they end up with Van Helsing confronting Dracula as the Wolfman and Anna fighting one of the Brides with the help of the monster.
There's a big plot about how Gabriel is an archangel and killed Dracula centuries ago, causing him to make a pact with the Devil to become a vampire and that's all been leading up to this climactic battle. At what point was it not awesome enough to just have werewolf-Van Helsing and Dracula duking it out atop Frakenstein's ruined castle on a moonlit night in Transylvania? Hell, at what point did Van Helsing have to become an angel to be awesome enough for this film?! If we go by book canon rather than film canon, he freaking murderises Dracula when he is an old man. Why the hell does he need to be an angel? This is one of the major decisions that annoys me about 'Van Helsing': the film-makers seem to think they have to top everything they do with further levels of epic for the trailers. It's a Van Helsing movie! Where he fought Dracula as a young man! In Transylvania! With the help of magic gypsies and steampunk technology! Alongside Frankenstein's monster! While becoming the Wolfman! And Dracula's a giant bat monster! And Van Helsing is an angel with amnesia!
*headdesk* It sounds like something a ten year old would come up with. And frankly, if this was a comic that had spread all that across a big arc, it would actually be pretty cool. I would buy that. But it was all crammed into one film that is structured like they needed to shoehorn an action scene in every five minutes or the kids with ADD would get bored and start kicking the backs of the chairs and it all results in a big CGI-d monster mash that gets boring very, very quickly. And then there's the schmaltz at the end which even involves a character's smiling face looking down from the clouds. OK, in this case there was a point to that (SPOILER! Anna dies, but because Dracula is dead, her family, who have previously been denied Heaven because of a vow her ancestor made, can rest in peace) but it was so, so cliched that I almost couldn't believe they included it.
Like I said, there are some good points. It'd be difficult for there not to be really, in a film with this much talent. For a start, the film looks really good. The steel grey skies and gloomy weather give a real stylishly overcast look to the whole thing, and the use of a village set remarkably like the Universal village set is very effective. All very Gothic. The opening sequence is wonderful, as well: a black-and-white sequence reproducing the "It's aliiiiiive!" and windmill-finale scenes from the James Whale 'Frankenstein', with Samuel West, one of my favourite lesser-known British actors, as the good doctor and Schuler Hensley as the monster (yeah, I had no idea who he was, apparently some kind of Broadway actor and singer, but he's really good as the monster). Sometimes I just go and watch that bit on Youtube to remind myself what a cool film this could have been if it hadn't sucked so much. It has given me the awesome "Whhhyyyyyy?" soundbite, which is really affecting in context. You know the one thing that I can point to as ruining this glorious homage? Dracula. From the minute he starts going on about his weird plot to the moment when he drags himself along a sword to kill Frankenstein, he makes a brilliant scene bad. *sigh* And you know this isn't because I dislike Richard Roxburgh, but Frankenstein is tragic, and this Dracula is high camp.
Other good things: the ball scene is pretty cool, if rather borrowed from 'The Fearless Vampire Hunters'. David Wenham is the comedy sidekick, Carl, who provides Van Helsing's gadgets (which are very silly), and he's a delight, playing a comedy character with charm and evident enjoyment. Plus I love that the nerd monk (well, friar) is the only person who gets laid in this film, unless you count Dracula. Schuler Hensley is good as the monster (as mentiond before) and they do get kudos for not referring to the monster as 'Frankenstein' for most of the film, though eventually they fell into the trap of saying "We have to rescue Frankenstein!" I'd be impressed if they could given as he was in an exploding windmill in the first ten minutes. The technology is pretty fun, and the production design is lovely, especially in the laboratory, but none of this is really enough to salvage 'Van Helsing'. Sure, there are moments of fun, but they won't get you through the ten-minute chunks of boredom. I'll probably watch it again, but it's not something I'd recommend as a sure-fire enjoyable film.
Van Helsing: "You're a genius!"
Carl: "A genius with access to unstable chemicals!"
Still, there are some very, very few good points. Not enough to salvage it, but you have to take your jollies where you can find them. It's such a pity, too, because I love 'The Mummy' and 'The Mummy Returns' ('Tomb of the Dragon Emperor' sucked but that was due to some particularly poor choices that could easily have been done differently). They're silly pulp fun with a modern appeal and a classic atmosphere, but are good-hearted and loveable in a way few Hollywood films are. Plus they show Sommers can do genre, as long as he isn't expected to take it seriously or respect it or anything. And, frankly, I could easily have liked a Universal Horror-style monster movie pitting everyone's favourite vampire hunter against the three big guys in Universal's canon. But 'Van Helsing' is really bad. Not funny bad - it's where parody goes to die.
This is mostly due to a string of baffling decisions that, as with 'Tomb of the Dragon Emperor', just make the whole thing not work but could easily have been set right. First, Van Helsing. I'm a massive fan of the original 'Dracula' novel and Van Helsing's character. He's not exactly nuanced but he's a gloriously bonkers doctor and expert on blood-borne diseases who happens to kill vampires on the side. It's very telling that his first name was the same as Bram Stoker's own - Abraham. I'm not exactly a purist when it comes to Van Helsing. He's been mercilessly recast for years into whatever a director or screenwriter demands of him, but Peter Cushing is the ultimate Van Helsing. He can pull off old world academia, wiry athleticism and because Cushing took his acting seriously no matter how bad the film he was in, he brings weight to the proceedings so that even in the silliest films like 'The 7 Golden Vampires', you suspend your disbelief the minute he enters a scene. Hugh Jackman is not a bad actor - I actually quite like him. I love him in 'The Prestige'. He, like Brendan Fraser, Harrison Ford and Cary Grant, can carry off pretty much anything with a wink and a roguish smile. He doesn't take himself too seriously as an actor, which really helps when playing pulp characters, and while he's been pigeonholed by X-Men and 'Australia' as a growling manly man, he can play delightfully against type, and does. However, Stephen Sommers takes no advantage of this whatsoever, giving us a cut-and-pasted growling badass hero with no emotional depth or skills beyond killing, barely any good lines and a complete lack of reference to the original character who still remains in the popular consciousness because of Cushing's incredible portrayal. He doesn't have the charm of Rick O'Connell to balance it out and too much of the 'rogue demon hunter' to pull off the light-hearted aspect. Plus there's this weird thing where they changed his first name (what's wrong with Abraham?) to Gabriel and imply, for some completely unknown reason, that the character is actually the angel Gabriel now working for the Vatican...or something. It's stupid and completely unnecessary.
Talking of stupid and unnecessary, what was Richard Roxburgh on during this film? I mean, he's an awesome actor and, well, damn, he actually managed to make that aging Anne Rice fan outfit look good, but his Dracula is a bizarre, mewling idiot who bears no resemblance to any serious Dracula on film. Lugosi had dignity, Lee had the whole forbidden pleasure thing and was almost animalistic, Oldman brought emotional depth and a sense of ancient madness. Roxburgh has wacky. I mean, the Count hasn't exactly been treated with respect for a lot of his career, but he needed to be a genuine threat to Van Helsing, since nothing else is. Besides, his evil plan is just...stupid. It involves wanting to make vampire babies. Why? Becuase Fuck You, that's why. The Brides are one-dimensional characters who alternate between screaming hysterically about their babies and turning into badly-CGd flying vampire monsters. As bad guys, the terrible foursome are hardly threatening.
Now, three of the great strengths of 'The Mummy' and 'The Mummy Returns' were the leads and the villain(s). But we've established that Van Helsing lacks the uniqueness and charm to hold this all together (though his actor doesn't) and Dracula is too ineffectual and plain old bonkers to make a decent villain (despite his actor being a lot better than this). So the female lead, the love interest, the lady of the hour? How does she hold up? The answer is, not well. Kate Beckinsale, who plays Anna Valerious, is another actor I rather like. Her 'Emma' is by far the best version. 'Underworld' sucks like a Twilight vampire but she's surprisingly likeable in it. However, she's not suited to playing an action girl, perhaps because she seems like she's trying too hard to be rough-spoken and dangerous. I would far rather see her play a clever, competant woman with a good head on her shoulders, perhaps a female hacker in a heist movie (notice how they're always male?) or an FBI agent who takes control of the situation with an uncompromising and straight-laced attitude. But in this she plays a werewolf-hunting gypsy princess in rural Transylvania, so it's action girl all the way. Compared to, say, Evelyn from 'The Mummy' (as played by Rachel Weisz, unfortunately Mario Bello just didn't cut it in the third film), who is a wonderful charicature of an academic but has a likeable personality, Anna is...um...well, she kicks ass...and her family has a dark past...OK, Anna basically has no personality. She seems to be some kind of leader of her village, but she does precious little leading because she's so busy having her own adventures. Her profession is presumably monster-hunting (a valid career choice in Transylvania, if horror films have taught me anything) and I would guess she can afford to live on her family's wealth, but what does she do for fun? Brood?
So the main trio are either underdeveloped or plain old bizarre. The plot is completely laughable. Dracula's big plan is to use Dr Frankenstein's research to conduct lightning through a living body into a massive machine and thus make his babies live, but no body can take it. So Frankenstein builds him a monster, but that pesky mob comes and storms the place, Dracula kills Frankenstein and the monster 'dies' in an explosion in a windmill (which actually makes sense since flour is highly combustible), putting Dracula back at square one. Meanwhile, Gabriel (shudder) Van Helsing is hunting Mr Hyde in Paris (this is somewhat explained in the prequel animated film 'The London Assignment', where Hyde was Jack the Ripper despite the fact that the book Hyde mostly stamped on people's heads or hit them with sticks to kill them and probably lacked the finesse to channel Jekyll's doctor abilities). Van Helsing is a monster hunter in the employ of the Vatican who can't remember who he is, and is dispatched, along with his comedy sidekick, to Transylvania. Meanwhile meanwhile, Anna and her brother Velkan are catching a werewolf and Velkan gets bitten because he's an idiot, meaning he'll become the Wolfman. There is horribly forced sexual tension between two great actors, fight scenes with the Brides, some exposition and then they find Frankenstein's monster in the windmill. Dracula's using Velkan to try and channel lightning to make the babies live or something, but he isn't up to it. So through various convoluted plot twists and ham-fisted action scenes, they end up with Van Helsing confronting Dracula as the Wolfman and Anna fighting one of the Brides with the help of the monster.
There's a big plot about how Gabriel is an archangel and killed Dracula centuries ago, causing him to make a pact with the Devil to become a vampire and that's all been leading up to this climactic battle. At what point was it not awesome enough to just have werewolf-Van Helsing and Dracula duking it out atop Frakenstein's ruined castle on a moonlit night in Transylvania? Hell, at what point did Van Helsing have to become an angel to be awesome enough for this film?! If we go by book canon rather than film canon, he freaking murderises Dracula when he is an old man. Why the hell does he need to be an angel? This is one of the major decisions that annoys me about 'Van Helsing': the film-makers seem to think they have to top everything they do with further levels of epic for the trailers. It's a Van Helsing movie! Where he fought Dracula as a young man! In Transylvania! With the help of magic gypsies and steampunk technology! Alongside Frankenstein's monster! While becoming the Wolfman! And Dracula's a giant bat monster! And Van Helsing is an angel with amnesia!
*headdesk* It sounds like something a ten year old would come up with. And frankly, if this was a comic that had spread all that across a big arc, it would actually be pretty cool. I would buy that. But it was all crammed into one film that is structured like they needed to shoehorn an action scene in every five minutes or the kids with ADD would get bored and start kicking the backs of the chairs and it all results in a big CGI-d monster mash that gets boring very, very quickly. And then there's the schmaltz at the end which even involves a character's smiling face looking down from the clouds. OK, in this case there was a point to that (SPOILER! Anna dies, but because Dracula is dead, her family, who have previously been denied Heaven because of a vow her ancestor made, can rest in peace) but it was so, so cliched that I almost couldn't believe they included it.
Like I said, there are some good points. It'd be difficult for there not to be really, in a film with this much talent. For a start, the film looks really good. The steel grey skies and gloomy weather give a real stylishly overcast look to the whole thing, and the use of a village set remarkably like the Universal village set is very effective. All very Gothic. The opening sequence is wonderful, as well: a black-and-white sequence reproducing the "It's aliiiiiive!" and windmill-finale scenes from the James Whale 'Frankenstein', with Samuel West, one of my favourite lesser-known British actors, as the good doctor and Schuler Hensley as the monster (yeah, I had no idea who he was, apparently some kind of Broadway actor and singer, but he's really good as the monster). Sometimes I just go and watch that bit on Youtube to remind myself what a cool film this could have been if it hadn't sucked so much. It has given me the awesome "Whhhyyyyyy?" soundbite, which is really affecting in context. You know the one thing that I can point to as ruining this glorious homage? Dracula. From the minute he starts going on about his weird plot to the moment when he drags himself along a sword to kill Frankenstein, he makes a brilliant scene bad. *sigh* And you know this isn't because I dislike Richard Roxburgh, but Frankenstein is tragic, and this Dracula is high camp.
Other good things: the ball scene is pretty cool, if rather borrowed from 'The Fearless Vampire Hunters'. David Wenham is the comedy sidekick, Carl, who provides Van Helsing's gadgets (which are very silly), and he's a delight, playing a comedy character with charm and evident enjoyment. Plus I love that the nerd monk (well, friar) is the only person who gets laid in this film, unless you count Dracula. Schuler Hensley is good as the monster (as mentiond before) and they do get kudos for not referring to the monster as 'Frankenstein' for most of the film, though eventually they fell into the trap of saying "We have to rescue Frankenstein!" I'd be impressed if they could given as he was in an exploding windmill in the first ten minutes. The technology is pretty fun, and the production design is lovely, especially in the laboratory, but none of this is really enough to salvage 'Van Helsing'. Sure, there are moments of fun, but they won't get you through the ten-minute chunks of boredom. I'll probably watch it again, but it's not something I'd recommend as a sure-fire enjoyable film.
Van Helsing: "You're a genius!"
Carl: "A genius with access to unstable chemicals!"
Thursday, 23 December 2010
'Queen of the Damned'
There's a stack of stuff I should be reviewing right now, but one of them is 'The Mist', the review for which will include a massive spoiler, and I know at least one of people who read this blog hasn't seen it. So I will hold off on that until we watch it at one of our film evenings :)
In the meantime...heavy, almost primal drumbeats echo, evoking memories of many, many hours spent listening to the surprisingly good soundtrack for a very bad but very stylish vampire film, long before 'Twilight' even existed. It's time for some Anne Rice, baby.
Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles were a staple of my teenage years. I didn't read anywhere near all of the books (like, two), but I loved the films made of them in the nineties/early millenium. The novel 'Interview With the Vampire', illicitly picked up in the horror section during my first tentative forays into the genre, was for me the first experience I'd had of vampires being sexy, not monstrous (well, 'Dracula', but he's mostly monstrous in the original novel), and a whole world opened up. I also read 'The Vampire Lestat', but I never got as far as 'Queen of the Damned' in book form as I realised the author had got a little precious about the sociopathic and gloriously snarky creep from the first book and had decided to make him a lot more likeable.
Basically, there was no particular reason for me to like any of the characters any more, as I find the 'sympathetic vampire' one of the most boring tropes of modern horror fiction when not balanced by a touch of monstrosity (even if Rice was one of the first to do it). I can't help but see it as paving the way for insipid characters like Edward Cullen. So, I stopped reading the books. By the point that I read 'The Vampire Lestat', I'd already seen the 'Interview With the Vampire' and 'Queen of the Damned' films, so I had a very definite mental picture of what the characters looked like, which was sadly not helpful. I like 'The Vampire Lestat' a lot - it's a highly enjoyable if rather overly-romanticised novel. The film 'Interview With the Vampire' was pretty much everything I wanted from a film adaptation, even with the changes they wrought (because, well, I'd always rather have Antonio Banderas as Armand than a teenager if I've got the choice, even if it's less close to the books). Anne Rice wrote the screenplay, so it's pretty close to the book.
Still, 'Queen of the Damned', with its stylish, silly goth-ness and genre soundtrack, was a film I watched over and over again, pretty much uncritically.Where 'Interview With the Vampire' follows Louis, a recently-turned vampire, 'Queen of the Damned' takes up the story of Louis' sire/maker/whatever, Lestat, who mostly functions as an antagonist in the first book and film, as well as an example of a vampire who just loves being a vampire. Where the first film (which is, frankly, quite a lot better), is a period piece full of floppy shirts and big dresses, with surprisingly good performances from Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and a very young Kirsten Dunst, 'Queen of the Damned' throws the previous continuity out of the window. Cruise's blonde, charming, unbalanced Lestat was a dead ringer for the book Lestat. Stewart Townsend's Lestat is a smug, self-satisfied goth kid who thinks he's God's gift to emo girls and rock music. Jesse Reeves (Marguerite Moreau) is an occult investigator with a past that's apparently a lot more complex in the books but is hardly delved into here except to assist with plot expediency. Most of the action takes place in [swinging] London for pretty much no reason, except that all ancient occult societies come from England, duh...despite the fact that Lestat is French, Marius is apparently a French Roman (he's a Roman in the books, but played by French actor Vincent Perez), and Marguerite Moreau is American (and her character is at least part American, though also seems slightly French given 'young Jesse's' accent).
So Lestat is woken from his centuries-long slumber by rock music (as in the book) and becomes a rock star who is openly a vampire. The first half of the plot is really quite like 'The Vampire Lestat', but as I've said before, I can't speak for 'Queen of the Damned' as I haven't read it. The world treats him with a kind of bemused admiration and he acts like a pretty princess who gets all the groupies he wants. Meanwhile, a member of the Talamascan occult group, Jesse, is delving into Lestat's history with the help of her mentor David (woo, Paul McGann!) who is a bit obsessed with Marius, Lestat's sire (I don't blame him). Through Lestat's journal, we flashback to his making/Embrace/hot man lovin' and how he was favoured by Akasha who, with her husband Enkil, is the originator of vampires. Akasha and Enkil turned to stone long ago: Marius had been keeping them in the basement for centuries but when Lestat drunk Akasha's blood (in an awesome bit with a lovely crunch of marble-flesh) he abandoned Lestat, taking Akasha and Enkil with him. In the present day, Marius turns up again because a) Lestat is annoying a lot of vampires by being so open and b) Akasha, the most powerful vampire in existence, ripped out Enkil's throat and is up and about, btw.
Lestat and Jesse have a slightly weird relationship as she tries to get close to him and he wonders why she bothers, but then Akasha decides Lestat is about right to be her new king and grabs him when he's being attacked by the other vampires during a concert in Death Valley (if they want discretion, why would they attack him in such a public, filmed place? Bad vampires, no Masquerade for you). The other ancient vampires (Armand, Marius, Pandora, Maharet, Mael and Khayman) unite against Akasha. She commands Lestat to drink Jesse dry, but the Ancients all attack Akasha together and drink her blood. Maharet drinks the 'last drop' and turns to stone, Lestat turns Jesse into a vampire to save her life and they walk off into undeath together (blah). On the plus side, Marius does actually come and see David *fangirl*.
So basically, ignoring Jesse's role in the book version, the film is about Lestat being pulled between a hot all-powerful vampire chick and a boring human girl. And of course, this being written by a human girl, he chooses her. The film is tightly-made to a large extent - if you're invested in the love story or the overarching narrative, you'll probably enjoy it as it goes along at a fair clop. But the Death Valley fight feels like it should be the climax of the film - as a result, the ensuing bit where Lestat and Akasha bathe in rose petals, have kinky blood-play sex and kill people is (ironically) an anti-climax. The final fight with the Ancients is really cool, especially for fans of the novels (although I've only read the first two, I know the backstories of most of the characters) and has some lovely cameos (Lena Olin is Maharet, 'Farscape' veterans Claudia Black and Matthew Newton are Pandora and Armand, who does look much more like the book character in this version), but it feels tacked on, like they wanted to include the big narrative of 'The Vampire Chronicles', but had difficulty integrating it with the teen wish-fulfillment vampire lover plot.
Though admittedly, this is suprisingly self-conscious: Lestat is meant to be a bit of an arrogant prick, and when he wants to show Jesse that he's a monster, he rips a woman's throat out. And...well, Jesse's still keen, so you can't fault her on that one. Also, Jesse is the one who stalks Lestat, not the other way around, so she mostly just comes across as a groupie. I personally assume that Lestat will get bored of her at some point after the film has ended.
The whole Talamascan thing is weird, too. I mean, I'm all for ancient monster-hunting societies but there's no reason for them to exist beyond referencing the books and meaning Jesse and David aren't just crazy loners. The script is also cringingly terrible. Any film where what passes for sexy seduction talk between the two leads is "Boo back" is a bad, bad idea. I don't like Stuart Townsend as a rule and in this he either gives the most wonderful parody of a film vampire or a laughably bad performance. I think you have to buy into him being attractive before you can find Lestat at all engaging and he's only been attractive as Dorian Gray (and was therefore the only good bit about 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' film). The dark-haired sallow emo kid thing does not do it for me. Luckily, there is also Vincent Perez in a performance that includes a playful, almost whimsical side, but fails to convince as he struggles with dramatic vampire lines that are a) not in his first language and b) bad. He is extremely attractive and charming, though. A wonderfully cultured vampire, and his ye olde outfit from the flashbacks is delectable.
'Queen of the Damned' is silly and gothy and yet highly enjoyable. I suspect I've got rather a skewed view due to enjoying this film so much as a teenager, but it's genuinely not that bad. Just really, really trashy, and proud of it. It's laughable and loveable and if you can cope with the badness, at least it's got more of an edge than 'Twilight'.
Edit much after the fact to add: I realised upon re-reading this that I totally ignored Aaliyah, who played Akasha, a singer, actress and model who was tragically killed in a plane crash not long after this film was made. I'm afraid I don't know much of her music, though I am assured by my more R&B-savvy better half that her songs were good. I have seen 'Romeo Must Die', in which she plays Trish, the Juliet stand-in (her debut role and the film credited with bringing Jet Li to the attention of the American film industry). She was actually a good actress, and in 'Queen of the Damned', Akasha is really cool. I'd personally define her performance as 'lissome': she moves and dances with snakelike grace but manages to bring weight, power and (amazingly) credibility to the character. Because she never winks at the camera, even when she was given laughably clueless lines, Aaliyah managed to convince as an ancient vampire with a completely alien mindset. RIP.
Lestat: "Well, that makes you a very clever librarian..."
In the meantime...heavy, almost primal drumbeats echo, evoking memories of many, many hours spent listening to the surprisingly good soundtrack for a very bad but very stylish vampire film, long before 'Twilight' even existed. It's time for some Anne Rice, baby.
Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles were a staple of my teenage years. I didn't read anywhere near all of the books (like, two), but I loved the films made of them in the nineties/early millenium. The novel 'Interview With the Vampire', illicitly picked up in the horror section during my first tentative forays into the genre, was for me the first experience I'd had of vampires being sexy, not monstrous (well, 'Dracula', but he's mostly monstrous in the original novel), and a whole world opened up. I also read 'The Vampire Lestat', but I never got as far as 'Queen of the Damned' in book form as I realised the author had got a little precious about the sociopathic and gloriously snarky creep from the first book and had decided to make him a lot more likeable.
Basically, there was no particular reason for me to like any of the characters any more, as I find the 'sympathetic vampire' one of the most boring tropes of modern horror fiction when not balanced by a touch of monstrosity (even if Rice was one of the first to do it). I can't help but see it as paving the way for insipid characters like Edward Cullen. So, I stopped reading the books. By the point that I read 'The Vampire Lestat', I'd already seen the 'Interview With the Vampire' and 'Queen of the Damned' films, so I had a very definite mental picture of what the characters looked like, which was sadly not helpful. I like 'The Vampire Lestat' a lot - it's a highly enjoyable if rather overly-romanticised novel. The film 'Interview With the Vampire' was pretty much everything I wanted from a film adaptation, even with the changes they wrought (because, well, I'd always rather have Antonio Banderas as Armand than a teenager if I've got the choice, even if it's less close to the books). Anne Rice wrote the screenplay, so it's pretty close to the book.
Still, 'Queen of the Damned', with its stylish, silly goth-ness and genre soundtrack, was a film I watched over and over again, pretty much uncritically.Where 'Interview With the Vampire' follows Louis, a recently-turned vampire, 'Queen of the Damned' takes up the story of Louis' sire/maker/whatever, Lestat, who mostly functions as an antagonist in the first book and film, as well as an example of a vampire who just loves being a vampire. Where the first film (which is, frankly, quite a lot better), is a period piece full of floppy shirts and big dresses, with surprisingly good performances from Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and a very young Kirsten Dunst, 'Queen of the Damned' throws the previous continuity out of the window. Cruise's blonde, charming, unbalanced Lestat was a dead ringer for the book Lestat. Stewart Townsend's Lestat is a smug, self-satisfied goth kid who thinks he's God's gift to emo girls and rock music. Jesse Reeves (Marguerite Moreau) is an occult investigator with a past that's apparently a lot more complex in the books but is hardly delved into here except to assist with plot expediency. Most of the action takes place in [swinging] London for pretty much no reason, except that all ancient occult societies come from England, duh...despite the fact that Lestat is French, Marius is apparently a French Roman (he's a Roman in the books, but played by French actor Vincent Perez), and Marguerite Moreau is American (and her character is at least part American, though also seems slightly French given 'young Jesse's' accent).
So Lestat is woken from his centuries-long slumber by rock music (as in the book) and becomes a rock star who is openly a vampire. The first half of the plot is really quite like 'The Vampire Lestat', but as I've said before, I can't speak for 'Queen of the Damned' as I haven't read it. The world treats him with a kind of bemused admiration and he acts like a pretty princess who gets all the groupies he wants. Meanwhile, a member of the Talamascan occult group, Jesse, is delving into Lestat's history with the help of her mentor David (woo, Paul McGann!) who is a bit obsessed with Marius, Lestat's sire (I don't blame him). Through Lestat's journal, we flashback to his making/Embrace/hot man lovin' and how he was favoured by Akasha who, with her husband Enkil, is the originator of vampires. Akasha and Enkil turned to stone long ago: Marius had been keeping them in the basement for centuries but when Lestat drunk Akasha's blood (in an awesome bit with a lovely crunch of marble-flesh) he abandoned Lestat, taking Akasha and Enkil with him. In the present day, Marius turns up again because a) Lestat is annoying a lot of vampires by being so open and b) Akasha, the most powerful vampire in existence, ripped out Enkil's throat and is up and about, btw.
Lestat and Jesse have a slightly weird relationship as she tries to get close to him and he wonders why she bothers, but then Akasha decides Lestat is about right to be her new king and grabs him when he's being attacked by the other vampires during a concert in Death Valley (if they want discretion, why would they attack him in such a public, filmed place? Bad vampires, no Masquerade for you). The other ancient vampires (Armand, Marius, Pandora, Maharet, Mael and Khayman) unite against Akasha. She commands Lestat to drink Jesse dry, but the Ancients all attack Akasha together and drink her blood. Maharet drinks the 'last drop' and turns to stone, Lestat turns Jesse into a vampire to save her life and they walk off into undeath together (blah). On the plus side, Marius does actually come and see David *fangirl*.
So basically, ignoring Jesse's role in the book version, the film is about Lestat being pulled between a hot all-powerful vampire chick and a boring human girl. And of course, this being written by a human girl, he chooses her. The film is tightly-made to a large extent - if you're invested in the love story or the overarching narrative, you'll probably enjoy it as it goes along at a fair clop. But the Death Valley fight feels like it should be the climax of the film - as a result, the ensuing bit where Lestat and Akasha bathe in rose petals, have kinky blood-play sex and kill people is (ironically) an anti-climax. The final fight with the Ancients is really cool, especially for fans of the novels (although I've only read the first two, I know the backstories of most of the characters) and has some lovely cameos (Lena Olin is Maharet, 'Farscape' veterans Claudia Black and Matthew Newton are Pandora and Armand, who does look much more like the book character in this version), but it feels tacked on, like they wanted to include the big narrative of 'The Vampire Chronicles', but had difficulty integrating it with the teen wish-fulfillment vampire lover plot.
Though admittedly, this is suprisingly self-conscious: Lestat is meant to be a bit of an arrogant prick, and when he wants to show Jesse that he's a monster, he rips a woman's throat out. And...well, Jesse's still keen, so you can't fault her on that one. Also, Jesse is the one who stalks Lestat, not the other way around, so she mostly just comes across as a groupie. I personally assume that Lestat will get bored of her at some point after the film has ended.
The whole Talamascan thing is weird, too. I mean, I'm all for ancient monster-hunting societies but there's no reason for them to exist beyond referencing the books and meaning Jesse and David aren't just crazy loners. The script is also cringingly terrible. Any film where what passes for sexy seduction talk between the two leads is "Boo back" is a bad, bad idea. I don't like Stuart Townsend as a rule and in this he either gives the most wonderful parody of a film vampire or a laughably bad performance. I think you have to buy into him being attractive before you can find Lestat at all engaging and he's only been attractive as Dorian Gray (and was therefore the only good bit about 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' film). The dark-haired sallow emo kid thing does not do it for me. Luckily, there is also Vincent Perez in a performance that includes a playful, almost whimsical side, but fails to convince as he struggles with dramatic vampire lines that are a) not in his first language and b) bad. He is extremely attractive and charming, though. A wonderfully cultured vampire, and his ye olde outfit from the flashbacks is delectable.
'Queen of the Damned' is silly and gothy and yet highly enjoyable. I suspect I've got rather a skewed view due to enjoying this film so much as a teenager, but it's genuinely not that bad. Just really, really trashy, and proud of it. It's laughable and loveable and if you can cope with the badness, at least it's got more of an edge than 'Twilight'.
Edit much after the fact to add: I realised upon re-reading this that I totally ignored Aaliyah, who played Akasha, a singer, actress and model who was tragically killed in a plane crash not long after this film was made. I'm afraid I don't know much of her music, though I am assured by my more R&B-savvy better half that her songs were good. I have seen 'Romeo Must Die', in which she plays Trish, the Juliet stand-in (her debut role and the film credited with bringing Jet Li to the attention of the American film industry). She was actually a good actress, and in 'Queen of the Damned', Akasha is really cool. I'd personally define her performance as 'lissome': she moves and dances with snakelike grace but manages to bring weight, power and (amazingly) credibility to the character. Because she never winks at the camera, even when she was given laughably clueless lines, Aaliyah managed to convince as an ancient vampire with a completely alien mindset. RIP.
Lestat: "Well, that makes you a very clever librarian..."
Thursday, 25 November 2010
Violence solves nothing but it sure makes the headlines
You know what's sad? That people in a modern civilised society feel they have to fall back on violence as the only way they'll be listened to. Because the ideas that David Cameron puts forward about 'asking the public' about where they want the budget cuts and 'measuring happiness' are just gimicks, and not even convincing ones. David Cameron doesn't care about the British people or the vulnerable members of society or the potential that's being wasted by making further and higher education fees prohibitively expensive except for the rich - but I think he does genuinely care about Britain and its economic prosperity. The budget cuts are tough and highly unfair, but you can't fault him for cutting spending. Unfortunately, he's hamstringing the average person as he goes.
And to anticipate one of the tiredest and most depressingly selfish arguments I've heard about this whole matter, it does affect everyone. OK, so some people went straight into work and never got the chance for university, but what if they had wanted the chance? What if they wanted more than anything to be a doctor or an environmental scientist? Hell, what if they wanted to be a plumber and needed a vocational qualification? What if they wanted to be a teacher? For that matter, what if the next great film-maker or an inspiring politician who could one day be PM doesn't follow their dream because they can't afford it? Just because you never had the opportunity (and are just fine without a degree), it doesn't mean your kids shouldn't have the opportunity. You're going to be the one telling them they can't study law because you can't afford it. You're going to be the one who has to put everything you earn into paying for their degree because with all the funding cuts, surely universities are going to only provide the minimum amount of bursaries they have to. If your children are grown and got through university already, how will they feel about their children coming out of university with truly crippling amounts of debt? Launching into the start of their adult life owing tens of thousands of pounds already with no guarantee that they'll get a job any time soon. This affects everyone. Except the people who are implementing it, because they can easily afford the new fees.
In this article in the Guardian the education secretary says that he will respond to arguments but not violence. Because, frankly, violent protests do not achieve anything beyond vilifying those who commit the violence. An awful, awful lot of people who would otherwise have shown sympathy for the student protests now say "Yes, but I can't condone or associate myself with a cause that involved violence towards the police." Hell, I truly care about the top-up fees issue (or, rather, the wider spending cuts issues) but I have a good friend who's a special in the Met (and would have been a full police officer now if the recruitment hadn't been cut) and if he was injured, my sympathy with the cause would be really difficult to maintain. But to anybody who justifies it by saying that to make an omelette, you have to break a few eggs - well, I suspect that's rather the PM's attitude too. And stop having a go at Nick Clegg - he's certifiably a slimy bastard who's ruined his political career now, but he probably did have pretty good reasons for betraying his voters.
My problem with the above quote from Michael Gove is that it's a lie. People tried arguments and no-one listened because as long as violence isn't involved it's OK to ignore protestors. The coverage is limited to one or maybe two articles per newspaper and it just reads a variation of "Students protest - nothing interesting happens". When peaceful protest is ignored, people who are both ideological and frustrated will take matters into their own hands, and they will get an awful lot more coverage in the newspapers. That photo of a hooded, anonymous student spraying 'Revolution' on a wall is now iconic. It's not right, and it's counter-productive, but it's also the way things go. Ignoring public dissent about measures that directly influence their finances and even their livelihoods has far-reaching consequences.
And to anticipate one of the tiredest and most depressingly selfish arguments I've heard about this whole matter, it does affect everyone. OK, so some people went straight into work and never got the chance for university, but what if they had wanted the chance? What if they wanted more than anything to be a doctor or an environmental scientist? Hell, what if they wanted to be a plumber and needed a vocational qualification? What if they wanted to be a teacher? For that matter, what if the next great film-maker or an inspiring politician who could one day be PM doesn't follow their dream because they can't afford it? Just because you never had the opportunity (and are just fine without a degree), it doesn't mean your kids shouldn't have the opportunity. You're going to be the one telling them they can't study law because you can't afford it. You're going to be the one who has to put everything you earn into paying for their degree because with all the funding cuts, surely universities are going to only provide the minimum amount of bursaries they have to. If your children are grown and got through university already, how will they feel about their children coming out of university with truly crippling amounts of debt? Launching into the start of their adult life owing tens of thousands of pounds already with no guarantee that they'll get a job any time soon. This affects everyone. Except the people who are implementing it, because they can easily afford the new fees.
In this article in the Guardian the education secretary says that he will respond to arguments but not violence. Because, frankly, violent protests do not achieve anything beyond vilifying those who commit the violence. An awful, awful lot of people who would otherwise have shown sympathy for the student protests now say "Yes, but I can't condone or associate myself with a cause that involved violence towards the police." Hell, I truly care about the top-up fees issue (or, rather, the wider spending cuts issues) but I have a good friend who's a special in the Met (and would have been a full police officer now if the recruitment hadn't been cut) and if he was injured, my sympathy with the cause would be really difficult to maintain. But to anybody who justifies it by saying that to make an omelette, you have to break a few eggs - well, I suspect that's rather the PM's attitude too. And stop having a go at Nick Clegg - he's certifiably a slimy bastard who's ruined his political career now, but he probably did have pretty good reasons for betraying his voters.
My problem with the above quote from Michael Gove is that it's a lie. People tried arguments and no-one listened because as long as violence isn't involved it's OK to ignore protestors. The coverage is limited to one or maybe two articles per newspaper and it just reads a variation of "Students protest - nothing interesting happens". When peaceful protest is ignored, people who are both ideological and frustrated will take matters into their own hands, and they will get an awful lot more coverage in the newspapers. That photo of a hooded, anonymous student spraying 'Revolution' on a wall is now iconic. It's not right, and it's counter-productive, but it's also the way things go. Ignoring public dissent about measures that directly influence their finances and even their livelihoods has far-reaching consequences.
Wednesday, 3 November 2010
Sometimes the reverse is true, too...
So after yesterday's fluffy and bubbly post about how amazing NaNo is, I read Nicola Morgan's post on how some people might feel pressured into it. I guess I never even thought about it like that. For me, I never feel like I should do NaNo. For me, it is fun, pure and simple. It's the one month of the year where I feel I have a legitimate excuse to just sit down and write. I'll make myself write rather than playing computer games or wasting time on the Internet because 'it's just for one month' and after that I can go back to wasting time. I'll feel like a bit of me is missing if I don't write every single day. Basically, November is how I should be living my life if I ever want to be a published author. So I suppose for me it's a month of pretending I'm a real writer.
But seriously, it's geniunely not for everyone and, frankly, I don't produce my best work in November. I don't use any of the projects that are close to my heart for NaNo because I know I'll have to make some compromises of planning and thinking to get the daily word count. OK, the last two NaNos I've done have been things I don't think I would have ever produced without NaNo, but certainly the first one is distinctly pedestrian and the second one is an absolute mess. I never get a free bound copy of my book from the NaNo offer because it's never fully drafted by the time the offer expires, so it would be a waste to me.
I love NaNo and try and make sure everyone knows about it, but it's not useful to everyone and could in fact set some people back. I suspect I'm always going to do it, though, because it's a month to just go for it, not thinking, not doubting, not looking back. It's refreshing and revitalising and (eventually) exhausting, like an impulsive and ill-advised sprint down a beach that leaves you panting and painful, but was totally worth it. But not everyone sees the point in running down a beach, or even understands your motivation in doing so. And very few people want to sprint all the time!
An update
It's three days in and I'm already behind. Food and water are getting scarce and I think I heard something rustling in the bushes last night...
I've only done about 1200 words of my primary NaNo but about 3000 words of a secondary one which is designed to stop me from putting more adult content in my primary (which is a Young Adult novel) by giving me somewhere else to work out those violent, sexy, foul-mouthed and cynical itches I can't put in my primary. It currently looks like my primary is the winner right now, but I'm trying to work on both so I don't get bored. Not sure how I'll work it out in the end, since I had started my secondary before November, so it's technically cheating, but I'm hoping that added together the words I write in November on the two pieces will make 50,000. Must...resist...temptation to just write the violent, sexy piece and actually write the other one, because if I don't, the characters that need to be in it will never exist.
One of the best aspects of the NaNoWriMo site is the large archive of pep-talks dating from 2007 to the current year. These pep-talks are also sent out via e-mail to participants who've signed up on the website, but it's good to have past years archived. They're definitely worth looking at, as event organisers Chris Baty and Lindsey Grant write regular pep-talks for every week of the process and one before and after November itself, and they also get established authors to write pep-talks, which are often wonderful if you're a fan of the author. You'll find Philip Pullman, Neil Gaiman, Gail Carson Levine, Robin McKinley, Jonathan Stroud, Piers Anthony, Meg Cabot, Kelley Armstrong, and many, many more. Also, Kristin Cashore, whose blog (and writing!) I am a big fan of, wrote a pep talk one year and still blogs about NaNo, and Nicola Morgan is also supportive of it on her blog. The one thing to be wary of is that while Chris Baty's pep-talks are organised and dated by year and date (so you can tell at what point in the month you are meant to read them), the others are organised alphabetically and it's impossible to tell what time of the month they refer to, which can occasionally be an issue. So I made myself a handy chart of 2008/2009 (I wasn't doing it in 2007) so I could remember when to read the pep-talks. Of course, most of them are just general advice, but it's a bit unnerving to open one up and read "Congratulations! You've finished your novel, isn't it a great feeling?" when you're only a week in. They are definitely worth a read, though, and a really great motivator.
The Forums are lovely and a great place to go if you feel lonely or angsty or frustrated. There are word wars, inspirational prompts, dares and challenges, and plot-solvers aplenty. It's a great community and a fun place to be. For those who've formally signed up and are keeping their wordcount up to date (I'm infamously bad for forgetting to do so), there are cool charts and stats for your progress, as well as guilt-tripping things saying you're behind schedule and what your current cumulative goal is. There's almost daily news on the site throughout November, videos, the personal experience of spotlit NaNo writers, a massive cumulative wordcount of all NaNos put together and a 'Procrastination Station' where you can find challenges, dares and suggestions of things to do when you're bored. Overall, the support provided by the Office of Letters and Light is phenomenal and a big part of why NaNo is so brilliant and successful.
On the downside today, if the university puts up its fees for the second year of my part-time MA in accordance with the government report, I will probably not be able to afford to do my second year. But that's fine, though, because I'm being self-indulgent by doing further education in a non-vocational subject, right? I mean, I should probably get a real job and become a useful member of society instead of splitting my time between a part-time job, a part-time degree and working towards what I hope will someday come to fruition as a writing career. After all, survival is what matters, not self-fulfilment or being all you can be. The intellectual disciplines are dead because they are not useful, and do not serve the great Capitalists in the sky, unless I'm rich enough to cough up almost treble the previous fees or poor enough and doing a pre-decided subject area that means I can get support.
Ugh, sorry, I sound like an overexcited Socialist (not that I have anything against Socialists in general), but it really gets me down. We're ending up in a world that is putting the divides back up so the only people who can access purely intellectual disciplines are the rich, and the poor must become the workers once more. I'm glad I've got my BA at least, but I really feel sorry for those who are coming to the end of their schooling and have to start making decisions about university. What the hell legacy are we leaving? Without the arts and humanities, you end up with a functioning society that works like clockwork, but that's not enough for a civilisation.
On the other hand, today brought good news of the developments of medical technology: read this report on a retinal implant to help a blind man and see if it doesn't warm your cockles just a little.
I've only done about 1200 words of my primary NaNo but about 3000 words of a secondary one which is designed to stop me from putting more adult content in my primary (which is a Young Adult novel) by giving me somewhere else to work out those violent, sexy, foul-mouthed and cynical itches I can't put in my primary. It currently looks like my primary is the winner right now, but I'm trying to work on both so I don't get bored. Not sure how I'll work it out in the end, since I had started my secondary before November, so it's technically cheating, but I'm hoping that added together the words I write in November on the two pieces will make 50,000. Must...resist...temptation to just write the violent, sexy piece and actually write the other one, because if I don't, the characters that need to be in it will never exist.
One of the best aspects of the NaNoWriMo site is the large archive of pep-talks dating from 2007 to the current year. These pep-talks are also sent out via e-mail to participants who've signed up on the website, but it's good to have past years archived. They're definitely worth looking at, as event organisers Chris Baty and Lindsey Grant write regular pep-talks for every week of the process and one before and after November itself, and they also get established authors to write pep-talks, which are often wonderful if you're a fan of the author. You'll find Philip Pullman, Neil Gaiman, Gail Carson Levine, Robin McKinley, Jonathan Stroud, Piers Anthony, Meg Cabot, Kelley Armstrong, and many, many more. Also, Kristin Cashore, whose blog (and writing!) I am a big fan of, wrote a pep talk one year and still blogs about NaNo, and Nicola Morgan is also supportive of it on her blog. The one thing to be wary of is that while Chris Baty's pep-talks are organised and dated by year and date (so you can tell at what point in the month you are meant to read them), the others are organised alphabetically and it's impossible to tell what time of the month they refer to, which can occasionally be an issue. So I made myself a handy chart of 2008/2009 (I wasn't doing it in 2007) so I could remember when to read the pep-talks. Of course, most of them are just general advice, but it's a bit unnerving to open one up and read "Congratulations! You've finished your novel, isn't it a great feeling?" when you're only a week in. They are definitely worth a read, though, and a really great motivator.
The Forums are lovely and a great place to go if you feel lonely or angsty or frustrated. There are word wars, inspirational prompts, dares and challenges, and plot-solvers aplenty. It's a great community and a fun place to be. For those who've formally signed up and are keeping their wordcount up to date (I'm infamously bad for forgetting to do so), there are cool charts and stats for your progress, as well as guilt-tripping things saying you're behind schedule and what your current cumulative goal is. There's almost daily news on the site throughout November, videos, the personal experience of spotlit NaNo writers, a massive cumulative wordcount of all NaNos put together and a 'Procrastination Station' where you can find challenges, dares and suggestions of things to do when you're bored. Overall, the support provided by the Office of Letters and Light is phenomenal and a big part of why NaNo is so brilliant and successful.
On the downside today, if the university puts up its fees for the second year of my part-time MA in accordance with the government report, I will probably not be able to afford to do my second year. But that's fine, though, because I'm being self-indulgent by doing further education in a non-vocational subject, right? I mean, I should probably get a real job and become a useful member of society instead of splitting my time between a part-time job, a part-time degree and working towards what I hope will someday come to fruition as a writing career. After all, survival is what matters, not self-fulfilment or being all you can be. The intellectual disciplines are dead because they are not useful, and do not serve the great Capitalists in the sky, unless I'm rich enough to cough up almost treble the previous fees or poor enough and doing a pre-decided subject area that means I can get support.
Ugh, sorry, I sound like an overexcited Socialist (not that I have anything against Socialists in general), but it really gets me down. We're ending up in a world that is putting the divides back up so the only people who can access purely intellectual disciplines are the rich, and the poor must become the workers once more. I'm glad I've got my BA at least, but I really feel sorry for those who are coming to the end of their schooling and have to start making decisions about university. What the hell legacy are we leaving? Without the arts and humanities, you end up with a functioning society that works like clockwork, but that's not enough for a civilisation.
On the other hand, today brought good news of the developments of medical technology: read this report on a retinal implant to help a blind man and see if it doesn't warm your cockles just a little.
Monday, 1 November 2010
It begins
Oh God, it's the 1st of November. That means NaNoWriMo 2010 has officially begun.
I have a load of reading for tomorrow's seminar and I'm working extra today to make up for the hours I have to spend at my seminar. I have an idea but haven't started work yet. I have another thing weighing on me for stuff I have to do that is way overdue.
*sigh* sounds like the month's begun. But you know what? That's totally OK, because one of my friends got some awesomely awesome promising project news on Saturday about her artwork and I am suddenly insanely happy for her, and hopeful for the rest of us who are still working towards that first step. She deserves every success this brings her, and so much more in the future :D
So ups and downs, and starting the month at a nice even keel. Unlike last year, I didn't start my novel early (I made compensated for it in the word count), and unlike the year before that, I do have an idea before I start writing. In fact, I basically have the whole thing plotted out roughly, which is good (and unusual). I'm psyched about the idea but I won't die inside if it doesn't come to anything or turns out awful.
BPAL of today: Fearful Pleasure :)
"I try to leave out the parts people skip" - one of my favourite quotes about writing, from Elmore Leonard.
I have a load of reading for tomorrow's seminar and I'm working extra today to make up for the hours I have to spend at my seminar. I have an idea but haven't started work yet. I have another thing weighing on me for stuff I have to do that is way overdue.
*sigh* sounds like the month's begun. But you know what? That's totally OK, because one of my friends got some awesomely awesome promising project news on Saturday about her artwork and I am suddenly insanely happy for her, and hopeful for the rest of us who are still working towards that first step. She deserves every success this brings her, and so much more in the future :D
So ups and downs, and starting the month at a nice even keel. Unlike last year, I didn't start my novel early (I made compensated for it in the word count), and unlike the year before that, I do have an idea before I start writing. In fact, I basically have the whole thing plotted out roughly, which is good (and unusual). I'm psyched about the idea but I won't die inside if it doesn't come to anything or turns out awful.
BPAL of today: Fearful Pleasure :)
"I try to leave out the parts people skip" - one of my favourite quotes about writing, from Elmore Leonard.
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