By Roy Mathur, on 2013-06-18, at 13:07:00--13:36:08 BST, for Roy's Rocket Radio, Listen
If you've been following my blog (RoyMathur.com), you'll notice how busy I've been.
Star Adventurer Magazine now has seven exciting short stories and it's totally free to read. StarAdventurer.com
The recent deaths of Iain M. Banks as well as a couple of recent family deaths has definitely spurred me on and by the time you are listen to this podcast I should be well into chapter 2 of a grand, as yet unnamed, space opera. Tempus fugit and all that.
Taking about death, Ray Manzarek of the Doors also died recently and, guess what? I've cracked out my teeny, tiny Korg MIDI keyboard.
It's plugged in and I am attempting to learn to play the keyboad properly.
Scott isn't with us this week as I didn't have time to organise anything.
Having guests takes a little preparation, but he'll be back on for sure sometime in the near future.
I'm still fighting with the DWP to get any kind of support whatsoever, but many people are in that position, so... nuff said.
Oh, I'm now a member of the NUJ and waiting for my press card application to come through, so I'm just this close to being an accredited member of the British press, rather than just some bloke who writes a bit.
I really would like to stick my press card in a fedora, but I'm pretty sure; A/ I'd get laughed at and B/ I'd lose the hat and the card along with it. Oh well.
So, on with the show, good few movies this week to get through, some new, some old that we may have missed talking about before.
Hey it's hard keeping two blogs, a podcast, writing and editing all going at the same time!
Also, we have a few sound-effects today courtesy of a couple VST synths and my nanokey Korg MIDI keyboard.
I was expecting more of the John McLane magic, but the Willis had to take a back seat to some strapping, young meathead and the whole thing descended into Rambo, which is entirely NOT the point of Diehard! Idiots. McLane is NOT Rambo, watch the movies! He is just a clever, albeit a tough, clever bloke who takes down the bad guys by being cleverer and more daring than them. He is not The Rock!
I've heard complaints that too many old action heroes are coming out of the woodwork and embarrasing themselves. Well, so what? People get older! Maybe as they get older they need to do their thing differently. Doesn't mean that they are over the hill. Conan-Doyle did it with Holmes. Christie did it with Poirot.
Isn't this movie just so reminiscent of Spielberg's Poltergeist and E.T.?
Still not an awful film, just not that scary or memorable. It's a Saturday morning movie. At least it would be at my house, but I'm weird.
I'm not a big player of the game, but I've played once or twice and read up on the plot, so I know the basics.
Acceptable military SF and I liked the mysterious "Master-Chief", though he could have been less heroic, but then I prefer anti-heroes.
One annoying thing, is that they used the SFU campus in Burnaby, BC for the main set of the military school. This is a place I know far too well and is overused in many SF productions, including, most famously, BSG.
This WWE movie about a bunch of thugs who kidnap the wrong guy. The really, really wrong guy. It's a bloody pulp flick with a great, but really obvious twist you can easily see coming.
My only real problems with movie is a fight scene at near the end that simply looked like a cranked up wrestling match (no suprise there as it IS a WWE movie) and a really stupidly long shower scene involving one of the female cast. Stupid, not because it was exploitative, hell I could understand that in this genre. No, stupid because it just went on for so long so that some of the plot could play itself out in another room. Duhhh.
Still, pretty good schlock!
Season 1. Kudos to the great Tatiana Maslany who plays a bunch of clones: Sarah Manning; a grifter, Elizabeth "Beth" Childs; a bent cop, Alison Hendrix; an uptight soccer mom, Cosima Niehaus; a geeky, gay biologist, and Helena; a psychopathic serial killer. Nature versus nurture explored to a fascinating degree.
Jordan Gavaris plays her camp, crooked, and very funny foster brother Felix Dawkins ("Dawkins", get it?).
The series finale ends in a surprisingly topical manner and if you think we've got copyright issues now, just wait and see where this could ultimately lead. Sorry no spoilers, you'll have to see it for yourselves.
This is old chestnuts now, but I finally saw the Channel 4 documentary about Richard III, apparently found in a car park.
Given that I consider Shakespeare's villainous version of Richard III just the bee's knees (I love schlocky, violent pulp after all), I found the programme absolutely fascinating.
If you haven't seen it and you are a history or mystery buff, go and see this online!
Season 4. Artie is back and no longer evil and we are now returning to a semblance of one-off episodes with less emphasis (I hope) on long, boring story arcs.
Honestly, there's a whole list of books that I just don't have the time to read.
In fact, by Monday, I'm going to have to something rather painful. I'm just going to have to return most of the books to the library, though I am hanging on to Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals which looks like a lot of fun.
Annoying that the Kid Eternity reboot actually looks like a younger Morrison in his music days. Wait a minute, this is 1991; maybe Morrison still had hair then. Same problem with Transmetropolitan and King Mob. They are all Morrison. I like his weird, science/magic/pyschedlic stories, but I'm fed up of him doing an M.Night Shyamalan and putting himself in his own work!
And don't get me started on King Mob! Situationalists regarded skinheads the avant garde of the working class? What is that pretentious nonsense all about anyway? Sounds like middle-class-art-school fluff to me. Yes, I know he (Grant Morrison) is probably not like that at all, but that's the impression I get from reading some of his stuff.
Also, I get the impression that he's already so famous that he can get away with writing a fairly lazy and highly un-funny standup comedian character and then get the artist to shoulder the burden of pizzazzing things up, which brings us to WE3...
What can I say? It's a good, touching, and fairly angry, but hopeful exploration of man's treatment of animals.
It's very, very light on words, but heavy on filmic action-packed graphics. So much so, that it has been optioned for film twice, though no news of further development. I suppose it helps that the book reads like a ready-made film storyboard.
Good stuff though, despite the minimum wordage. Even my mum wants to read it! Morrison redeemed.
Not much to say, part from a mini-rant about Classic FM and XFM pandering a stereotype.
I'm really sick to the back teeth of the plummy, crumpet eating, doily brigade that Classic FM appears to be solely catering to with their fake toff DJs. Come on! I listen to Classic FM and you wouldn't mistake me for Miss Marple.
XFM are also guilty of this from the other end of the spectrum, giving the impression that their DJs are all working class heroes. Give me a break! I bet my bottom dollar that there are quite a few Little Lord Fauntleroys as lurking in the XFM studios.
Spoke to a friend on the phone the other day. A 20 year + vet of the IT industry and the bloke does not know how to sync his iPhone!
Come on Apple ditch iTunes, you and I both know it stinks.
So it's out, I've seen previews online.
Not exactly ground-breaking. How much are they paying Mr Ives?
Absolutely zero games news because I'm too busy to play.
Writing is now taking up every single spare minute.
Not much to say here, but every time I leave the house, I do have a really good look at the Lego and PlayMobil mini-fig sets. I love that stuff!
Look out for review of Beautiful Creatures soon.