So, after an awful lot of deliberation and that fact that Natalie texted me again later on last night, I have discovered that 'tb' is not in fact a misspelling of 'to' or even a reference to tuberculosis. It does, in fact, mean 'text back'. I think.
So I texted her back and I was in Sunderland today looking for David's birthday present and just on my way to the Metro to go to Newcastle when she texts me again asking me what I'm doing. I tell her, she texts back saying she's in Newcastle going for a job interview. Great, I say. You fancy meeting? She says she's with a friend. I say fine, I don't want to get in the way of anything. She says no, I'd love to meet you. She thens tells me where she is and that she's going for something to eat. I text back asking her if she does want to meet up then. And I don't here anything back. I wander round Newcastle for about half an hour and she still hasn't texted back. So I go for the bus. Now, I go for a bus which doesn't take me home. It'll take me to Chester, where I can get a bus home, but it's a lot easier than walking all the way up Northumberland Street to the new bus station for the bus that would take me home. And because of where Natalie lives, she gets that bus home to. Exact same bus. And it's one of those frequent services that run every five minutes so it's a pretty big coincidence.
However. (There's always an however in my life.) However, I see her before her and her mate get to the bus stop. Doubtless she sees me as well. And she doesn't come to stand in the queue. She doesn't even wave hello or anything. Her mate does, but then her mate is a loud mouthed gobby loon. And when the bus comes and we get on it, she walks straight past me without even making eye contact. Then they both get off at Gateshead. I then spend the rest of the journey home and the majority of the afternoon thinking I should send her a text with the general gist of 'what the fuck was that?'. I don't however. And this eveing I get another text from her saying she's been feeling a bit down today because her gran has just died. I text back saying okay, and that I'm at work tomorrow so if she needs to talk that she knows where I am.
I hope I do see her tomorrow. Because until I speak to her, face to face, I just won't be able to shake the suspicion that there's something not right about the whole thing. I don't know. I know Terileigh wouldn't do anything nasty to me, like giving me someone else's number or something. But at the same time there's this queasy uneasiness about the whole thing that I can't shake.
I don't know. Maybe she just doesn't want her relationship with me to be so out in the open, especially not in such early days. Maybe I'm just being blindly optimistic here. Maybe she's shy. She doesn't seem the type, but I don't know, maybe she really does like me a lot and doesn't want to fuck it up. Ah, there's the return of the blind optimism, yeah? I'm trying to avoid the theories that it's all a big joke that's being played on me, or that she thought it was a good idea to give Terileigh my number on Saturday night and changed her mind. Jesus H Christ. All Hail Marky, for he is the Master of Paranoia. This is why I'm so depressed all the time you know, because I always look for the bad shit in everything.
Peace out.
Tuesday, 3 July 2007
Monday, 2 July 2007
The Vagaries Of The Txt
So, Natalie did text back, after a day in which she came into work a few times, never said anything and seemed to be laughing her head off every time she saw me. Now, you kow me, I am King of all that is paranoid. So I'm standing there, Natalie's in the shop but she's not talking to me. Instead, she's laughing with her friends. And Jesus H Christ, what does that make me think?
But she's texted back. Unfortunately for me, her text is pretty garbled. The one thing that is clear is that which I already knew; that she doesn't have any money on her phone. So what do I do now? That is the question, whether to bear the slings and arrows and text her back or wait and see if she comes in the shop on Wednesday.
You know, after a couple of million years of evolution you'd think that (A) we'd have the whole dating thing down to a fine art and (B) that we'd have invented a form of communication much more refined than text messaging.
But she's texted back. Unfortunately for me, her text is pretty garbled. The one thing that is clear is that which I already knew; that she doesn't have any money on her phone. So what do I do now? That is the question, whether to bear the slings and arrows and text her back or wait and see if she comes in the shop on Wednesday.
You know, after a couple of million years of evolution you'd think that (A) we'd have the whole dating thing down to a fine art and (B) that we'd have invented a form of communication much more refined than text messaging.
The Science Of Hyperbole
One day maybe I'll get around to even starting to think about just how bad Spider-Man 3 was. I've got the DVD on preorder already. Because despite it's overwhelming badness, there was a lot of good stuff in there. It was just crushed beneath the wight of all the crap. A lot like Star Trek: Nemesis.
But did I only think it was so bad because my expectations were so high? I mean, Spidey 2 is ne of the best movies ever made, never mind one of the best comic books movies. It's almost beat perfect. The only misstep it makes is that the train sequence (the most perfect action sequence of the last ten years, possibly of ever) isn't the finale. Superman Returns makes the same mistake, with the airplane rescue that is so pulse-poundingly brilliant pretty much everything afterward seems like an anti-climax.
So, in the three years since the last film, has my obsession with Spidey grown and grown until nothing could sate it? And if so, is it my fault? In order, possibly and certainly not. You see, I thought Spidey 2 was brilliant, I love Batman Begins more than is entirely healthy and both are movies I was desperate to see. But just because I love a certain comic or hero or Kirsten Dunst (and on a bizarre sidenote, isn't it funny how they get Dunst - a blonde - to play Mary Jane, a redhead, and the lovely Bryce Dallas Howard - a redhead - to play Gwen Stacy, a blonde?) doesn't mean that I'm going to be blind to any faults of the film.
I was perhaps more critical of Spidey 3 than I was of, say Ghost Rider or Hulk (both, in my opinion, massively underrated films) because my expectations were so high. Going in to watch Ghost Rider I didn't have much in the way of preconceptions. Sure, Mark Steven Johnsand on had directed Daredevil (which I adore and which made my sister's fiance loudly proclaim that he wanted to slit his own wrists) but one film does not make a resume. Whereas Spidey 3 had the previous two installments and the combined force of Sam Raimi's back catalogue. Everything from the genius of Evil Dead 2 to the 'Katie Holmes gets her norks out' film The Gift. I think it's fair to say that Raimi has never actually made a truly bad film. He probably doesn't know how to. Most of us have blood running in our viens, he probably has liquid celluloid. And added to that it had Tobey Maguire's back catalogue, and Kirsten Dunst's, and, well, probably not Topher Grace, I mean, I doubt anyone went into the auditorium expecting Eric Foreman to become Venom.
Ghost Rider had Johnson, Nicolas Cage (a brilliant actor, but one whose quality bounces from one end of the spectrum to the other - on one hand you have Leaving Las Vegas and Wild At Heart and on the other you have Captain Corelli's Mandolin and The Wicker Man), Eva Mendes (sure she's pretty, but can she act - the jury is still out) and Wes Bentley (who started out so promisingly in American Beauty and then stumbled down the career path marked "WTF?" with starring roles in, among others, Soul Survivors and the lackadaisal remake of The Four Feathers in which he sprouted a ludicrous moustache, and moustaches are never a good idea unless you're Sam Elliot). So I went into Ghost Rider expecting a mildly enjoyable B-movie starring a guy with a burning skull instead of a head. And you know what, that's why I got. It's never going to win any awards (indeed, SFX gave the DVD two stars out of five, which, if I recall correctly, is worse than what they gave Spidey 3). Whereas with Raimi's effort, I expected a world-changing, orgasmic cinema experience and nothing could reasonably be expected to live up to that.
I used to work with a guy who spent a fortune on pirate DVD's. He said he liked getting them and watching them before the hype. Without the hype, he ruminated, you can enjoy a film on its own merits without having the posters shoved down your face at every opprtunity, every magazine proclaiming it to be the best thing ever. And I agree with his philosophy. Some of my favourite films have been ones that have caught my eye that I'd never really even heard of before.
But can you avoid hype? In this media saturated day and age, no you can't. We get teaser trailers months before the film has even been finished, previews and making ofs on any one of the dozens of channels we get, every time we log on and go to Yahoo or any one of millions of websites we're bombarded with advertising. It's impossible to escape. Even the BBC, once the great bastion of anti-commercialism is whoring itself simply because it has to, in order to survive.
Hype. Like death and taxes, it's something we can't avoid. And damn it, I'm really looking forward to the new Harry Potter film. And the new Harry Potter book. And the Christmas special. And Stephen King's next book. And the next Doctor Who. And the next Indiana Jones. And the Star Wars TV series. Fuck, I'm even looking forward to the inveitable Spider-Man 4.
But did I only think it was so bad because my expectations were so high? I mean, Spidey 2 is ne of the best movies ever made, never mind one of the best comic books movies. It's almost beat perfect. The only misstep it makes is that the train sequence (the most perfect action sequence of the last ten years, possibly of ever) isn't the finale. Superman Returns makes the same mistake, with the airplane rescue that is so pulse-poundingly brilliant pretty much everything afterward seems like an anti-climax.
So, in the three years since the last film, has my obsession with Spidey grown and grown until nothing could sate it? And if so, is it my fault? In order, possibly and certainly not. You see, I thought Spidey 2 was brilliant, I love Batman Begins more than is entirely healthy and both are movies I was desperate to see. But just because I love a certain comic or hero or Kirsten Dunst (and on a bizarre sidenote, isn't it funny how they get Dunst - a blonde - to play Mary Jane, a redhead, and the lovely Bryce Dallas Howard - a redhead - to play Gwen Stacy, a blonde?) doesn't mean that I'm going to be blind to any faults of the film.
I was perhaps more critical of Spidey 3 than I was of, say Ghost Rider or Hulk (both, in my opinion, massively underrated films) because my expectations were so high. Going in to watch Ghost Rider I didn't have much in the way of preconceptions. Sure, Mark Steven Johnsand on had directed Daredevil (which I adore and which made my sister's fiance loudly proclaim that he wanted to slit his own wrists) but one film does not make a resume. Whereas Spidey 3 had the previous two installments and the combined force of Sam Raimi's back catalogue. Everything from the genius of Evil Dead 2 to the 'Katie Holmes gets her norks out' film The Gift. I think it's fair to say that Raimi has never actually made a truly bad film. He probably doesn't know how to. Most of us have blood running in our viens, he probably has liquid celluloid. And added to that it had Tobey Maguire's back catalogue, and Kirsten Dunst's, and, well, probably not Topher Grace, I mean, I doubt anyone went into the auditorium expecting Eric Foreman to become Venom.
Ghost Rider had Johnson, Nicolas Cage (a brilliant actor, but one whose quality bounces from one end of the spectrum to the other - on one hand you have Leaving Las Vegas and Wild At Heart and on the other you have Captain Corelli's Mandolin and The Wicker Man), Eva Mendes (sure she's pretty, but can she act - the jury is still out) and Wes Bentley (who started out so promisingly in American Beauty and then stumbled down the career path marked "WTF?" with starring roles in, among others, Soul Survivors and the lackadaisal remake of The Four Feathers in which he sprouted a ludicrous moustache, and moustaches are never a good idea unless you're Sam Elliot). So I went into Ghost Rider expecting a mildly enjoyable B-movie starring a guy with a burning skull instead of a head. And you know what, that's why I got. It's never going to win any awards (indeed, SFX gave the DVD two stars out of five, which, if I recall correctly, is worse than what they gave Spidey 3). Whereas with Raimi's effort, I expected a world-changing, orgasmic cinema experience and nothing could reasonably be expected to live up to that.
I used to work with a guy who spent a fortune on pirate DVD's. He said he liked getting them and watching them before the hype. Without the hype, he ruminated, you can enjoy a film on its own merits without having the posters shoved down your face at every opprtunity, every magazine proclaiming it to be the best thing ever. And I agree with his philosophy. Some of my favourite films have been ones that have caught my eye that I'd never really even heard of before.
But can you avoid hype? In this media saturated day and age, no you can't. We get teaser trailers months before the film has even been finished, previews and making ofs on any one of the dozens of channels we get, every time we log on and go to Yahoo or any one of millions of websites we're bombarded with advertising. It's impossible to escape. Even the BBC, once the great bastion of anti-commercialism is whoring itself simply because it has to, in order to survive.
Hype. Like death and taxes, it's something we can't avoid. And damn it, I'm really looking forward to the new Harry Potter film. And the new Harry Potter book. And the Christmas special. And Stephen King's next book. And the next Doctor Who. And the next Indiana Jones. And the Star Wars TV series. Fuck, I'm even looking forward to the inveitable Spider-Man 4.
Sunday, 1 July 2007
A Shrine To Futility
When you lie on my bed and you label me your friend
Don't you know how much that hurts?
You could pretend and I wouldn't know
I could be who you wanted in the dark.
"Girls Who Play Guitars", Maximo Park
Don't you know how much that hurts?
You could pretend and I wouldn't know
I could be who you wanted in the dark.
"Girls Who Play Guitars", Maximo Park
There's this girl.
(As a wise man - actually, it was me - once said, there's always a girl.)
So there's this girl right. She comes into the shop quite often. Always polite to me. Nice looking. Slightly older than my last doomed obsessive crush, which can only be a good thing given Stef's youth. The thing is, I don't really know her and therefore there's not been the time for this whole obsessive crush thing to start like it did with Stef. But maybe that's a good thing, because I ended up going to a very bad place because she rejected me. You know, I'm enough of an amateur shrink to know how fucked up my own head is. All my life I've been getting obsessed over girls and making a tit of myself when they don't turn out to have the same feelings. I mean, god, I spent over a year writing Snowglobe, a novel which, underneath all the death and pornogrpahy, was all about unrequited love and how it reallys kills you.
So I don't really know her. I just happened to comment to one of the girls I work with on Saturday night that I quite fancied her and the next thing I know, she's out on a fag break asking Natalie for her number. Jesus.
This was at about four in the afternoon. I spent till eleven when we shut thinking about what I could text her. Don't text her tonight, Teri said, because she's got no money on her phone (coming soon, my ruminations on how society survived before the mobile phone). So I waited until this afternoon to text her. She's probably still got no money on her phone. I just said, hi, do you fancy doing something sometime. Nothing overly aggressive or (hopefully) definitive. Just a polite asking of whether or not she's interested. That was at five this afternoon. It's now four hours later and she hasn't replied. But it's okay. I'm not going to go into an apopletic fit like I did that time I texted Stef and she never replied so ended up tramping through the woods out the back of Penshaw Monument in the pitch black night. No. She may not have any money on her phone still.
There's always the possibility that she doesn't like me, though. I'm terribly fond of that idea, because I suffer from a terrible case of self-loathing and if I make a move and she doesn't respond, it's out of my hands. There's nothing I can do. It's like the brief but intense relationship I had with Alison. She dictated that relationship. The only input I really had was the first time she called it all off, claiming I was too young for her and Andrea insisting I kept on texting her, which I did, which eventually rekindled the relationship for another couple of weeks.
I think it all stems back to that first relatiosnhip. There was me and this girl, Sarah. She asked me out (again, my reactive rather than active personality). We went out for about a month. In the end I called it off. Why? At the time I thought it was because I didn't love her, which is still kinda true. I only really knew her for the time we were going out, which wasn't enough time for me to fall in love with her, and I was kinda obsessed with someone else at the time. But had we continued going out, I may well have loved her. So it wasn't really that.
No.
I was scared. That's the plain and simple truth of it. Here I was, a seventeen year old with no real clue about real life - I'd just started my first job only to develop and ulcer and quit three days later - and self-esteem so low that it probably stole lollipops from babies. All through the time we were going out I was asking myself, "Why me? Why does she want to be with me of all people?". I simply couldn't comprehend that someone would want to spend time with me - and more importantly do the things with me that we did. I was the same with Alison (eight and a half years of being single will do that to you). She was forever complimenting me and wondered out loud if Stef was gay when I told her that Stef didn't fancy me.
So I ran away from Sarah. I was scared. Of what? Of a thousand things. But mainly, perhaps, that I might actually be happy.
Shit. This was supposed to be slightly less depressing than it's turning out to be.
Okay. Back to Natalie. Well, not Natalie specifically. More like girls in general. Because girls in general don't like me. Not in that way. They think I'm "funny" and "sweet" and, if I ever dare to suggest anything more, they "don't think of me in that way". Which is always nice to hear. It's like being called someone's brother. And the only way that comment could get any worse is if you substitute "sister" for "brother". The end of last year I was told by someone who I really liked that they liked me (but not in that way) but that they weren't ready for another relationship anyway, having just come out of a long term one only a few months previously. Which is fine. Only a couple of weeks later - on Christmas Eve no less - I found out that this other guy she knew who fancied her and who had been given exactly the same speech and I had received was now going out with her. It didn't last long, suffice to say. I think it was more the result of a drunken fumble and a "well, let's see how it goes" than anything else. So she's now single again and like an idiot I once more attempted to fix myself in her affections. For a while it seemed to work. We would go out (with her friends, admittedly, but it was to clubs and stuff) and I would get a little drunk and so would she and I would grope her slightly and she wouldn't complain. (Also coming soon, possibly, a discussion about why I grope people when everyone else just seems to get off with them.) But again, it wasn't to be. And maybe it's not a bad thing. Emma and David are always saying how I need to find someone with the same interests as me. I'm not so sure. Because, aside from music and a few films, what do Emma and David have in common? Not much. Certainly, most of what they tend to enjoy together now are things that are a compromise, things that one of them likes that the other has grown to like. When they first started seeing each other - nearly nine years ago - I doubt they had much in common. As Paula Abdul once sang, opposites attract. Certainly there are qualities in myself that I look for in other people, but an obsessive love of Doctor Who and Buffy The Vampire Slayer isn't one of them.
I think it's because my own fandom has tended to be a solitary pursuit in real life (online is another matter entirely) it has become something that I am very possessive about and, knowing my own obsessive inclinations, I don't expect other people to share my passion. Everything I look for in a partner - intelligence, humour, compassion - are things which anyone can have. And besides, given my unhealthy collection of pornography, I think I'd be hard pressed to find a girl who was as enthusiastic about looking at pictures of naked ladies as I am.
So, here I am, waiting for Natalie to text back. Will she, won't she? It's the same damn question I've been asking myself for the past twelve years. And it hasn't got any easier with time. If anything, it's getting worse. Because I am very painfully aware that I'm not getting any younger. My friends are getting married, having kids, getting mortgages. Being responsible. And here I am, still living with my mother obsessing over the same things I was when I was sixteen. Progress?
Sunday, 24 June 2007
Alice In Sunderland (with apologies to Bryan Talbot)
Just a short missive tonight, basically an introduction to me and what I intend to achieve with this blog. I would call it an action plan, but I had enough of that kind of bollocks at school (which, digression aplogies present at the beginning, is very telling about the sort of thing they made us do in school which they say will prepare us for the outisde world. Now, I cannot and have never been able to do long division. I used to have sleepless nights worrying about when I got a job and they found out I couldn't do long division. As it turns out, the only thing I use that I learned in school is... actually, there's nothing. I use my English in my writing and that's about it really. I suppose I could say I use maths in my job, but that is all simple addition and subtraction, which I had mastered long before I went to secondary school).
So, here I am.
My name is Mark and I am a writer. I've had a few short stories published here and there, mainly in small press fanzines. I've won a couple of short story competitions and one day I'd like to be a published novelist.
My novels are generally mainstream contemporary fiction with a little bit of magic realism (remind me on and later - when I'm sober and not knackered - I'll tell you why I hate that term so much) thrown into the mix. My magnum opus, if you can call it that, is a semi-autobiographical series called 'Songs From My Childhood' which follows a group of friends for a little over a decade, starting when they are 16. Well, I say semi-autobiographical, the earliest novels in the sequence are, but after that, they tend to follow their own paths. My current novel, Telling Tales, is about how we fictionalise our own lives to deal with them and features two independent threads, IDST and The Colour Of Deep Water, the lead characters of which are writing the companion story (so the lead in IDST is writing the story of The Colour Of Deep Water and vice versa). It sounds a lot more complicated and wanky than it actually is.
When not pretending to be a serious author, I work in a newsagents and attempt to have a life, which is a lot more complicated than it sounds.
This blog is intended to be a sounding board for my wacky notions and so forth, a place where I can rant about movies, books, comics and whatever else I feel like (see my first posting concerning Fantastic Four - Rise Of The Silver Surfer for what to expect from that) and also where I can wallow in self-pity regarding my own failures as a human being. Which is slightly more fun than it sounds, given my life has of late taken on the facade of a French farce.
Here, for those of you who might be interested, is a timeline of my life and career:
1981 - Born in Sunderland
1985 - Sees Return To Oz and Labyrinth, prediliction towards fantasy and Jennifer Connelly born.
1994 - Reads 1984. The world will never be the same again.
1995 - Becomes a Doctor Who fan despite the show having been off air for six years. Instant infatuation with Mary Tamm ensues. First serious attempts at short story writing lead to the writing of 'Destroyer Of Worlds' in which a dying man takes over the mantle of Death, 'Riverside Nightmares' the first adventure for Conrad Hart, 'Dormant Demons', the first adventure for Kojo Ratheen and also invents SF future history with a projected series of 30 novels.
1997 - While allegedly studying for his GCSE's, Mark writes a novel. Entitled Cold Heart, it later forms the centrepiece to his 'Songs From My Childhood' sequence. Despite not revising, Mark gains acceptance to 6th Form college and wins the Sid Chaplin award for his short story 'My Poem And The Story Of It'.
1998 - Mark's first relationship ends badly. During the relationship he is working on a film script entitled Other People which is all about being suffocated in a relationship. Irony is born. Mark wins the Sid Chaplin again, this time with his story 'Leaving Day' which is all about going to university. At this point in his life, Mark doesn't think that university is for him.
1999 - Mark writes second novel in the 'Songs' sequence, The Truth About Boys (although at this point it is called Bluebottle Wood) and the divorce of his parents prompts him to write a direct sequel to Cold Heart, The Church Of Hollow Love. Mark starts his Freshman year at Sunderland University and discovers the delights in overindulging on alcohol.
2002 - Mark - three novels wiser - leaves university and ends up in a dead end job in a video store.
2005 - Mark writes what will be the capstone to the 'Songs' sequence, Snowglobe, inspired very much by his first visit to London.
2006 - Mark gets a decent job.
2007 - A work in progress...
Peace out.
So, here I am.
My name is Mark and I am a writer. I've had a few short stories published here and there, mainly in small press fanzines. I've won a couple of short story competitions and one day I'd like to be a published novelist.
My novels are generally mainstream contemporary fiction with a little bit of magic realism (remind me on and later - when I'm sober and not knackered - I'll tell you why I hate that term so much) thrown into the mix. My magnum opus, if you can call it that, is a semi-autobiographical series called 'Songs From My Childhood' which follows a group of friends for a little over a decade, starting when they are 16. Well, I say semi-autobiographical, the earliest novels in the sequence are, but after that, they tend to follow their own paths. My current novel, Telling Tales, is about how we fictionalise our own lives to deal with them and features two independent threads, IDST and The Colour Of Deep Water, the lead characters of which are writing the companion story (so the lead in IDST is writing the story of The Colour Of Deep Water and vice versa). It sounds a lot more complicated and wanky than it actually is.
When not pretending to be a serious author, I work in a newsagents and attempt to have a life, which is a lot more complicated than it sounds.
This blog is intended to be a sounding board for my wacky notions and so forth, a place where I can rant about movies, books, comics and whatever else I feel like (see my first posting concerning Fantastic Four - Rise Of The Silver Surfer for what to expect from that) and also where I can wallow in self-pity regarding my own failures as a human being. Which is slightly more fun than it sounds, given my life has of late taken on the facade of a French farce.
Here, for those of you who might be interested, is a timeline of my life and career:
1981 - Born in Sunderland
1985 - Sees Return To Oz and Labyrinth, prediliction towards fantasy and Jennifer Connelly born.
1994 - Reads 1984. The world will never be the same again.
1995 - Becomes a Doctor Who fan despite the show having been off air for six years. Instant infatuation with Mary Tamm ensues. First serious attempts at short story writing lead to the writing of 'Destroyer Of Worlds' in which a dying man takes over the mantle of Death, 'Riverside Nightmares' the first adventure for Conrad Hart, 'Dormant Demons', the first adventure for Kojo Ratheen and also invents SF future history with a projected series of 30 novels.
1997 - While allegedly studying for his GCSE's, Mark writes a novel. Entitled Cold Heart, it later forms the centrepiece to his 'Songs From My Childhood' sequence. Despite not revising, Mark gains acceptance to 6th Form college and wins the Sid Chaplin award for his short story 'My Poem And The Story Of It'.
1998 - Mark's first relationship ends badly. During the relationship he is working on a film script entitled Other People which is all about being suffocated in a relationship. Irony is born. Mark wins the Sid Chaplin again, this time with his story 'Leaving Day' which is all about going to university. At this point in his life, Mark doesn't think that university is for him.
1999 - Mark writes second novel in the 'Songs' sequence, The Truth About Boys (although at this point it is called Bluebottle Wood) and the divorce of his parents prompts him to write a direct sequel to Cold Heart, The Church Of Hollow Love. Mark starts his Freshman year at Sunderland University and discovers the delights in overindulging on alcohol.
2002 - Mark - three novels wiser - leaves university and ends up in a dead end job in a video store.
2005 - Mark writes what will be the capstone to the 'Songs' sequence, Snowglobe, inspired very much by his first visit to London.
2006 - Mark gets a decent job.
2007 - A work in progress...
Peace out.
Thursday, 21 June 2007
The Rise And Fall Of Doctor Doom
I love comics, I really do. Money matters however mean that I generally don't get to read as many of them as I like because a weekly visit to Forbidden Planet is far too much of a strain on my already strained wallet. I generally stick to graphic novels because they are (A) Cheaper and (B) You get the whole story in one chunk without worry that your wages have ran out for another month so you can't get #232 and so you'll miss the conclusion to one story arc or another. Comics are kinda like soaps in a way. You miss a couple of issues and suddenly you're sitting there thinking "WHo is this guy?" and "Why's he doing that?".
But films are a different matter. I somewhat shamefully admit to owning pretty much every comic book movie ever made (except for Road To Perdition - that movie was so depressing it made me want to slit my wrists, and I generally like depressing movies) and some of them I own more than once. I have the original theatrical versions of Spiderman 2, Daredevil (now there's an underrated movie) and The Fantastic Four as well as the extended editions. I made my sister buy me the limited edition 3 disc Hulk special edition one Christmas, like I made my mam get the director's cut Hellboy from America. I even own Howard The Duck on DVD for God's sake. And I tend to get a little... intense about them.
Which is why Rise Of The Silver Surfer pissed me off to such a degree. The first film is no great shakes, I'll admit that from the off. But there's a lot of good stuff in it (mainly Michael Chiklis and the unfortunately named Chris Evans) which gives me cause to cut it a lot of slack. It's certainly better than the Roger Corman effort, which I mainly remember for the fact that Harmony off of Buffy and Angel plays the young Sue Storm and well, wouldn't she make a better Sue now than Jessica 'I swear I'm too hot!' Alba? But it's lacking a third act. Basically, imagine Superman 2 ending at the point where Supes and General (Kneel Before!) Zod have their big duff up in the city street, the bit where Supes gets chucked into a bus (a bizarrely similar thing occurs in Fantastic Four, but I'll chalk that one up to coincidence). So, in the film as finished, Supes then leads Zod and his cronies off to the Fortress Of Solitude where he defeats them. This is what Fantastic Four needs. But no. They defeat Cole of off Charmed there and then and that's it. The end. But we kind of let them off with that because it's a freshman movie and they're never perfect. Even the beauty that is Spider-Man has it's faults. At least they don't kill off Doom. If there's one thing which annoys me about superhero movies it's that they often needlessly kill off the villain. Look at Burton's Batman, a true piece of art, and, where it not for Nolan's Batman Begins, the definitive Dark Knight on screen. But they kill off the Joker. Which is just wrong on so many levels. It would be like Superman killing off Lex Luthor. (Now, minor digression here in that while I am slightly pissed at Sipder-Man 2 for killing off Doc Ock, I have no such qualms about the first film killing off the Green Goblin because, and my sister was incredulous when I told her this, his death happens almost exactly the same way in the comic - well, it did until they royally fucked continuity up with the Clone Saga.) So, we've seen in recent movies that they have become much less cavalier about killing people off. The Scarecrow survives Batman Begins, Magneto manages to get through all three X-Men movies with barely a scratch on him and so on.
So Dr Doom survives the first Fantastic Four film, unlike Ben Grimm's relationship with his fiance Debbie who can't cope with that fact that her husband to be has turned into a lump of orange rock. Her loss I say. The Thing is the best thing (oh God, was that an intentional pun?) in these movies. And, true to form, he's back in the sequel, attempting to twoc the Silver Surfer's board for his own nefarious ends. Never mind the fact that somehow the Surfer's energies transform him back into a human so that Julian McMahon doesn't have to wear make-up/his mask the entire time, never mind that somehow his murderous rampage in the first film has been forgotten and never mind the fact that somehow Jessica Alba's eyes are now blue (maybe she witnessed an exploding Rutan ship?). What does matter however is how abominably Doom is treated in this movie.
I'm not talking about the fact that he gets the crap kicked out of him again. No. I'm talking about the fact that Dr Doom is one of the greatest villains in the Marvel pantheon. There's a fantastic X-Men story starting in #145 of The Uncanny X-Men (and reprinted for us cheapskates in The Essential X-Men Volume 3 which sees Chris Claremont at the height of his powers following the Phoenix Saga (another beloved comic story fucked up by cinema)). Like Magneto, he's a hardy perennial and yet his inclusion in Rise Of The Silver Surfer smacks of contractual obligation, or desperate screenwriters looking to put a more concrete threat into the movie than the (literally and figuratively) nebulous menace of Galactus. His entire arc can be laid out as follows: Gets revived by Surfer, teams up with the military to steal Surfer's board, steals Surfers board, get crap kicked out of him. That's it. He doesn't even warrant an exit. He simply gets smacked down (into some conveniant water) and vanishes from the plot. But isn't this the guy who couldn't even be stopped by the power of a supernova in the first film? And now you're telling me that a bit of a duffing up (even by a multi-powered Johnny Storm) is enough to finish him off? Give me a break.
The problem with both F4 movies is the finale. They both clock in at something like an hour and a half (the extended edition adds on twenty minutes or so, but it's all character stuff, unlike the director's cut of Daredevil which added an entire subplot to the story) which just isn't enough time. Spider-Man tells a fairly simple story (Boy wants girl, boy becomes superhuman spider mutant, boy's best friend's father goes insane, boy kills him, boy gets girl but rejects her because it's not a safe life) and it takes two hours to do it. That extra half hour is vital in building up the plot (and notice I said plot there and not characters - despite what Hollywood's current thinking may be, if the plot sucks you can have the best characters in the world being played by the best actors but the movie will still suck). Rise Of The Silver Surfer attempts to do a globe-hopping world threatening adventure story with six lead roles. It falls down for the same reasons that X-Men - The Last Stand did. It rushes from one set piece to the next with little rhyme or reason, only concerned with giving people enough bangs for their buck.
It's not a complete disaster (it's certainly nowhere near the train wreck that was X - Men - The Last Stand). The plot does hold together. Kind of. But it's no surprise that the best part of the film is the beginning, where the threat of Galactus has not yet risen it's ugly head and our main concerns are whether or not Reed and Sue's wedding is going to go ahead. This sort of sequence could only appear in a F4 movie, the Four are unique among the Marvel heroes in that they are very much in the media spotlight. Were Spider-Man 4 to feature Peter and Mary-Jane's wedding, it would be very different from the media circus we see here. The Silver Surfer, despite his entire backstory being reduced to two lines of dialogue (and doesn't Norrin sound like a duff name when Alba says it?) fairs amazingly well, as a CG character, he's far more successful than Venom in Spidey 3. In fact, he's possibly the best realised effect of its kind since Gollum. I'm not sure how much work went into the creation of the Surfer, but he's good to start with and when he loses his board, he becomes even better. A tarnished vision. I don't think the character would ever be able to sustain his own movie (like I have doubts about the Young Magneto movie that keeps on cropping up in conversation). As a supporting lead, however, he's good. In fact, he may be a little too good, seeing as how he's the one who saves the day at the end. Where it not for Doom's questionable presence in the movie, the Four's entire purpose in the story would simply be to convince the Surfer that Earth was too good to be Galactus' mid morning snack.
Overall, I'd give it 3 out of 5. But I'll still buy the DVD when it comes out. I'm weak like that.
But films are a different matter. I somewhat shamefully admit to owning pretty much every comic book movie ever made (except for Road To Perdition - that movie was so depressing it made me want to slit my wrists, and I generally like depressing movies) and some of them I own more than once. I have the original theatrical versions of Spiderman 2, Daredevil (now there's an underrated movie) and The Fantastic Four as well as the extended editions. I made my sister buy me the limited edition 3 disc Hulk special edition one Christmas, like I made my mam get the director's cut Hellboy from America. I even own Howard The Duck on DVD for God's sake. And I tend to get a little... intense about them.
Which is why Rise Of The Silver Surfer pissed me off to such a degree. The first film is no great shakes, I'll admit that from the off. But there's a lot of good stuff in it (mainly Michael Chiklis and the unfortunately named Chris Evans) which gives me cause to cut it a lot of slack. It's certainly better than the Roger Corman effort, which I mainly remember for the fact that Harmony off of Buffy and Angel plays the young Sue Storm and well, wouldn't she make a better Sue now than Jessica 'I swear I'm too hot!' Alba? But it's lacking a third act. Basically, imagine Superman 2 ending at the point where Supes and General (Kneel Before!) Zod have their big duff up in the city street, the bit where Supes gets chucked into a bus (a bizarrely similar thing occurs in Fantastic Four, but I'll chalk that one up to coincidence). So, in the film as finished, Supes then leads Zod and his cronies off to the Fortress Of Solitude where he defeats them. This is what Fantastic Four needs. But no. They defeat Cole of off Charmed there and then and that's it. The end. But we kind of let them off with that because it's a freshman movie and they're never perfect. Even the beauty that is Spider-Man has it's faults. At least they don't kill off Doom. If there's one thing which annoys me about superhero movies it's that they often needlessly kill off the villain. Look at Burton's Batman, a true piece of art, and, where it not for Nolan's Batman Begins, the definitive Dark Knight on screen. But they kill off the Joker. Which is just wrong on so many levels. It would be like Superman killing off Lex Luthor. (Now, minor digression here in that while I am slightly pissed at Sipder-Man 2 for killing off Doc Ock, I have no such qualms about the first film killing off the Green Goblin because, and my sister was incredulous when I told her this, his death happens almost exactly the same way in the comic - well, it did until they royally fucked continuity up with the Clone Saga.) So, we've seen in recent movies that they have become much less cavalier about killing people off. The Scarecrow survives Batman Begins, Magneto manages to get through all three X-Men movies with barely a scratch on him and so on.
So Dr Doom survives the first Fantastic Four film, unlike Ben Grimm's relationship with his fiance Debbie who can't cope with that fact that her husband to be has turned into a lump of orange rock. Her loss I say. The Thing is the best thing (oh God, was that an intentional pun?) in these movies. And, true to form, he's back in the sequel, attempting to twoc the Silver Surfer's board for his own nefarious ends. Never mind the fact that somehow the Surfer's energies transform him back into a human so that Julian McMahon doesn't have to wear make-up/his mask the entire time, never mind that somehow his murderous rampage in the first film has been forgotten and never mind the fact that somehow Jessica Alba's eyes are now blue (maybe she witnessed an exploding Rutan ship?). What does matter however is how abominably Doom is treated in this movie.
I'm not talking about the fact that he gets the crap kicked out of him again. No. I'm talking about the fact that Dr Doom is one of the greatest villains in the Marvel pantheon. There's a fantastic X-Men story starting in #145 of The Uncanny X-Men (and reprinted for us cheapskates in The Essential X-Men Volume 3 which sees Chris Claremont at the height of his powers following the Phoenix Saga (another beloved comic story fucked up by cinema)). Like Magneto, he's a hardy perennial and yet his inclusion in Rise Of The Silver Surfer smacks of contractual obligation, or desperate screenwriters looking to put a more concrete threat into the movie than the (literally and figuratively) nebulous menace of Galactus. His entire arc can be laid out as follows: Gets revived by Surfer, teams up with the military to steal Surfer's board, steals Surfers board, get crap kicked out of him. That's it. He doesn't even warrant an exit. He simply gets smacked down (into some conveniant water) and vanishes from the plot. But isn't this the guy who couldn't even be stopped by the power of a supernova in the first film? And now you're telling me that a bit of a duffing up (even by a multi-powered Johnny Storm) is enough to finish him off? Give me a break.
The problem with both F4 movies is the finale. They both clock in at something like an hour and a half (the extended edition adds on twenty minutes or so, but it's all character stuff, unlike the director's cut of Daredevil which added an entire subplot to the story) which just isn't enough time. Spider-Man tells a fairly simple story (Boy wants girl, boy becomes superhuman spider mutant, boy's best friend's father goes insane, boy kills him, boy gets girl but rejects her because it's not a safe life) and it takes two hours to do it. That extra half hour is vital in building up the plot (and notice I said plot there and not characters - despite what Hollywood's current thinking may be, if the plot sucks you can have the best characters in the world being played by the best actors but the movie will still suck). Rise Of The Silver Surfer attempts to do a globe-hopping world threatening adventure story with six lead roles. It falls down for the same reasons that X-Men - The Last Stand did. It rushes from one set piece to the next with little rhyme or reason, only concerned with giving people enough bangs for their buck.
It's not a complete disaster (it's certainly nowhere near the train wreck that was X - Men - The Last Stand). The plot does hold together. Kind of. But it's no surprise that the best part of the film is the beginning, where the threat of Galactus has not yet risen it's ugly head and our main concerns are whether or not Reed and Sue's wedding is going to go ahead. This sort of sequence could only appear in a F4 movie, the Four are unique among the Marvel heroes in that they are very much in the media spotlight. Were Spider-Man 4 to feature Peter and Mary-Jane's wedding, it would be very different from the media circus we see here. The Silver Surfer, despite his entire backstory being reduced to two lines of dialogue (and doesn't Norrin sound like a duff name when Alba says it?) fairs amazingly well, as a CG character, he's far more successful than Venom in Spidey 3. In fact, he's possibly the best realised effect of its kind since Gollum. I'm not sure how much work went into the creation of the Surfer, but he's good to start with and when he loses his board, he becomes even better. A tarnished vision. I don't think the character would ever be able to sustain his own movie (like I have doubts about the Young Magneto movie that keeps on cropping up in conversation). As a supporting lead, however, he's good. In fact, he may be a little too good, seeing as how he's the one who saves the day at the end. Where it not for Doom's questionable presence in the movie, the Four's entire purpose in the story would simply be to convince the Surfer that Earth was too good to be Galactus' mid morning snack.
Overall, I'd give it 3 out of 5. But I'll still buy the DVD when it comes out. I'm weak like that.
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