Look out! He's got a knife!

Mother of Tears

It's good! Not great, but definitely good. Which is more than I expected from Dario Argento these days.

Completely random

While I try and think up something new that's as much fun as the Daily Goddamn, here's some completely random stuff I've found amusing lately.

Comics

I couldn't stop laughing.

Old Hollywood actors with knives

Cthulhu for President

The best Achwood ever

From Philippe For America

A zombie story that's actually worth it

I just read World War Z by Max Brooks, a much-ballyhooed story about the way the entire world copes with a zombie plague.

Much as I love zombies, they've become overexposed in recent times. Too many movies, comic books, stickers, cultural events... Zombies have become the new vampires. All we need now is for some dismal emo kids to decide they're sexy and start dressing as them for fetish. (If it's already happening, please don't tell me.)

You probably know all about this book: a guy travels the world getting first-hand oral accounts of the zombie war that's just finished. Brooks is a talented writer, and each of the many narrators has a distinct voice and character. George Romero probably wishes he had written something this good.

Though not without black humour, the book is in no way a send-up. Brooks is telling a serious story about the human condition. The zombies themselves are out of focus for much of the book; it's really about how people react to the crisis. The social comment and political satire is sharp throughout, and Brooks is particularly convincing when he describes the perfectly understandable bad decisions people keep making.

The real villains of the piece are not the zombies but the various governments and military leaders of the world, who react much as they do to current, more mundane crises with disastrous results. I found the guy who makes a fortune selling a fake cure to be particularly chilling, and very relevant to the state of today's pharmaceutical industry.

This is not a book that will please those who buy into free-market rhetoric, religious fundamentalism, or whiz-bang militarism. If you don't fall into those groups, I recommend World War Z whole-heartedly.

Unrelated: so what's with this "nerd thriller" thing that's been leaked onto the net - is it really Neil Gaiman's pseudonymous new book, or a hoax? My money's on hoax.

The rumours are true - I'm full of shit

You Are a Colon

You are very orderly and fact driven. You aren't concerned much with theories or dreams... only what's true or untrue. You are brilliant and incredibly learned. Anything you know is well researched. You like to make lists and sort through things step by step. You aren't subject to whim or emotions. Your friends see you as a constant source of knowledge and advice. (But they are a little sick of you being right all of the time!) You excel in: Leadership positions You get along best with: The Semi-Colon

That description couldn't possibly be further from the mark.

Looking for a word

What's a word for a simile that compares two things by how much they don't resemble each other?

The best example I can think of is by Douglas Adams in The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, describing a fleet of spaceships:

Huge as office blocks, silent as birds, they hung in the air in exactly the same way that bricks don't.

Anyone?

Friday music

Three songs.

1970 Mobil Oil ad directed by Mario Bava

It's pretty weird.

The Truth About Not Smoking Pot

A lot of propaganda exists about not smoking pot. I am here to confront you with the hazards of this terrible thing, based on personal experience. This will be the first of several installments.

1. Sleeping In
Not smoking pot leads inevitably to not suddenly falling asleep in the early evening, which in itself leads to waking up later. If taken far enough, not smoking pot could potentially lead to you being fired for being repeatedly late for work.

2. Taking life too seriously
Not smoking pot leads, without doubt, to finding less things funny, and therefore taking things like politics and work seriously. This leads to stress and, in some cases, may lead to death.

3. Vivid dreams
Not smoking pot makes dreams much more vivid, and when combined with new-found serious obsessions with work and politics, can lead to dreaming vividly about serious subjects. This can feed those obsessions, which will ramp up the stress levels even more and - worse - make you talk about these topics, leading to boredom.

4. Writing
Not smoking pot leads to an increase in energy for writing. Combined with points 1 and 2, this further leads to your writing becoming more serious and even less interesting than it was before. This intensifies the boredom and increases the stress tenfold.

5. Blog posting
Not smoking pot leads to updating your blog more often with asinine and unfunny entries, which spreads the boredom and stress outwards. In time, you may even infect others with your non-pot-smoking tendencies even over the internet, inevitably leading to the decay of society.

I don't know how much longer this experiment can last.

8 Diagrams

When I first heard this album, I was rather underwhelmed. It's slow, it's low-key, it's pretty sombre. I sort of expected this, given that Dirty is no longer with us, but this seemed a bit extreme.

Also, the lead-off single The Heart Gently Weeps struck me as being totally arse. Sampling and covering The Beatles rarely works, Paul's Boutique notwithstanding.

The only song that leapt out at me was Wolves, which is the only really danceable song on the whole album.

But the more I listen to it - and it does keep pulling me back - the more I find myself being drawn in. I'm almost enjoying it now. It's a million miles away from 36 Chambers, but most of the MCs are on top form (though there isn't enough Ghostface - and he seems pissed that he was left off the ODB tribute) and Rawkwon in particular shines despite his impassioned criticism of RZA's direction for the album.

This is probably the last gasp for the Wu. RZA is pulling into more and more experimental areas and some of the Clan aren't down with that. They're apparently making an album without him to "teach him a lesson".

In better, though odder, news I hear that the theme to Walk Hard: the Dewey Cox Story is a collaboration between Ghostface, Jackson Browne, Jewel, and Lyle Lovett. Bloody hell.

French film festival

Princess of the Sun
This animated film has nice design, so-so animation, good facial expressions, and a blah story. It made me sleepy.

Elevator to the Gallows
This 1958 crime thriller was absolutely brilliant. Jeanne Moreau was stunningly beautiful 50 years ago, and the score by Miles Davis was perfect. Every plot twist was a morbid delight.

Unsure if I'll see anymore, but am tempted.

Review: Torchwood pilot

Jesus. My arse shits better scripts onto toilet paper every morning. (It's where I get my blog posts from.)

This had all the deficiencies of the new Doctor Who (a badly structured story, gaping plot holes, blatant contrivances) and none of the positives (sparkling dialogue, interesting character moments).

Maybe it improves.

Hilarious

Tim Lucas on Steve Gerber

The writer of my favourite book eulogizes my favourite comic book writer.

His description of Howard the Duck is the best I've seen: "comic book existentialism -- that's exactly what HOWARD was, a populist form of Sartre mixed with Groucho Marx".

Read it here.

Sometimes the movies don't lie

Harry: Do you know what men think after we have sex? We think, “How long do I have to stay here and hold her before I can get up and leave? Is 30 seconds enough?”
Sally: That’s what you’re thinking?!
Harry: Yes. All men think that. How long do you like to be held after sex? All night, right? See, that’s your problem. Somewhere between 30 seconds and all night is your problem.
Sally: I don’t have a problem.
Harry: Yes, you do.
- When Harry Met Sally

It's a generalization, and sometimes the man and the woman switch places on this one, but there's a lot of truth here.

Steve Gerber died

Word cannot express how I feel. Steve is my favourite comic book writer. Now he's gone.

This guy is ground zero for bizarre and psychologically mature comic books in the mainstream. All the Alan Moores and Neil Gaimans and Grant Morrisons of the world built on his foundation; Moore's storytelling construction is better, but in terms of character and dialogue and - most importantly - imagination, for my money there's no one better.

An excellent tribute is here. (Thanks, Morgue!)

Go and read his blog.

The Howard the Duck newspaper strip has never been officially reprinted, so in tribute I'm putting a pdf of most of it online. It's a bit big to upload to here so I'm registering at a free hosting service just to do this. Get it here.

If you've never read anything by him, I would highly recommend Nevada as a place to start. (Obviously go to your local comic shop first, but if they can't get you Nevada then the link will do. I've never had a better experience reading a comic month by month, and it was over too soon.)

Doctor Who season 3

I haven't been well the past few days, so I've whiled away the time watching the 3rd season of the new Doctor Who. I had quite a few issues with the past 2 seasons (spotty stories, too many deus ex machina, some really dire episodes) but have kept watching because I enjoyed the character interactions and the acting.

Season 3 strikes me as a marked improvement in a lot of ways. I still have issues, particularly with the season finale, but this season contained some of the strongest Doctor Who I've ever seen and never sunk to the lows of season 1's Dalek or season 2's Fear Her. I still think that David Tennant is easily the best Doctor since Tom Baker, too.

Here's my take, episode by episode. I have no regard for spoilers, so if you haven't watched it I'll say: you should watch Blink, it's the best one. I'm going to give away the end of stories without warning, so read on at your own risk.

Xmas special: The Runaway Bride
I've not seen much of Catherine Tate, who I gather is a comedian, but I thought her & Tennant had good chemistry and this was a fun story. It was sort of let down by the rather tragic over-acting of the villain, and the re-use of the Santa robots shows a lack of imagination.

Smith and Jones
This story is merely OK, but does a good job of introducing new companion Martha Jones and features a wonderfully nasty villain played by Anne Reid.

The Shakespeare Code
Now this is more like it: witches and spells and Bill S. copping some of his own best lines from the Doctor. "Fifty seven academics just punched the air" indeed - Bill was clearly the Capt. Jack of his day.

Gridlock
The season's weakest episode is a silly allegory reminiscent of some dodgy stories from the Colin Baker & Sylvester McCoy eras. Features the underwhelming return of the Macara, if anyone remembers them (I don't). Taken literally it's an unworkable concept; taken as metaphor it's heavy-handed and plodding. Let's move on.

Daleks In Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks
This contains one of my favourite Dalek moments ever, the one-on-one conversation between Mr. Diagoras and Dalek Caan. Otherwise this is a very up & down two-parter with some nice bits and some really dreadful dialogue - particularly just about everything that the hybrid Dalek says..

The Lazarus Experiment
A not-bad story anchored by a great performance from Mark Gattis, who had previously written good episodes of seasons 1 & 2 and who is probably best known as a member of the League of Gentlemen.

42
A pretty good adrenaline pumper told basically in real-time, about trying to stop a spaceship from falling into the sun, this treads some of the same boards as the movie Sunshine but is less naff.

Human Nature/The Family of Blood
Long-time fan Paul Cornell finally gets to write a story, with good results: the Doctor becomes temporarily human to hide from some pretty nasty baddies. This is pleasingly dark, has great performances from the four villains, and even features Jessica Hynes (formerly Stephenson) as a love interest for the Doctor, confirming Tennant as the randiest incarnation yet. This story plays up the Doctor's moral ambiguity in ways that I liked. A highlight, but better is still to come.

Blink
One of the best Doctor Who stories ever, this sidelines the Doctor and Martha to tell the story of Sakky Sparrow (played by the ridiculously cute Carey Mulligan) and the Praying Angels. Scary stuff, cleverly told. If you only watch one episode of the new Doctor Who I'd recommend this one.

Utopia//The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords
This three-part finale features the return of the Master, very well played by John Simm. After some brilliantly bleak, dark and blackly funny stuff in the first two parts, it all gets a bit silly in the third part and finishes up with a "it never really happened" finale that annoys the living shit out of me - they might as well all wake up to find that it was a dream. The very end, where the Master "finally dies" yet again, didn't really convince me but was well played.

So there we go. Some mighty strong stuff, a bit of a damp squib ending, but still well worthwhile and I'm glad I stuck with it.