I don’t Understand Women!!!

Ok the title is a red herring, let’s get that out of the way now. It’s more like there’re a few women I don’t get, both of whom have been writing things available on the internet.

The first of these is a lovely woman who wrote a piece for Yahoo Lifestyle entitled “I don’t regret tricking my boyfriend into having kids.”

This is one of the most offensive things I have ever read in my life…this woman is sick; very, very sick and so is the friend who helped her. Go and read it for all the details, but to summarize, she decided she wanted another child, having already had two (from a previous relationship) with her new partner, who had expressly told her that he didn’t want kids.

She and a friend went behind his back and had her Marina coil removed, meaning that they were then involved in a sexual relationship in which he was under the  impression that they were protected against pregnancy when they weren’t or to put it in her words “David and I were trying and he didn’t have a clue.”

The outrageous sickness of this woman is at it’s most potent, in the multiple examples of her attempts to justify her belief that his constant insistence that he didn’t want kids as meaning the opposite. She even attributes and car accident they were in to him being consumed by a desire to have a child. Yeah, given that that’s the only way that anyone ever gets into a car accident eh?

The thing that riled me so much about this was not so much the woman; crazy people are everywhere and a lot of them are concentrated on the Internet. But there were women in the comments section on Yahoo, in active support of her.

There were more than a few excuses made on her behalf that if she wanted another child with her new partner, it was up to her and no one else. These women need to pull their heads out of whatever misguided ridiculous thing-they-think-is-feminism and apply some fucking common sense.

At it’s most basic level, it is not fair to intentionally impose a financial and social burden on someone who has no knowledge that such a burden is being sought, let alone someone who expressly said they didn’t want it.

I have to wonder how these women would feel if the scenario was reversed, if it was David who wanted the kid and tampered with the contraception to knock up crazy lady (who in this scenario is sane) against her will. I guarantee you they’d be demanding his head on a plate.

To close this one out, she ends by saying everything is fine now; they have a son and he’s thrilled…err, given that this woman attributes car crashes to mean male broodiness and the word “no” to mean “yes please, manipulate me into impregnating you” I really have no confidence in her claim that he’s happy about the situation.

The second woman from the Internet that I’m having serious problems understanding is a mother who wrote a piece called “Just one little tattoo” in which she describes the horror of her 21 year old son getting a tattoo when she didn’t want him to and how it’s changed their relationship dramatically given that it’s a symbol of how he no longer cares about what she feels.

Lady, he’s 21, he can do what he wants; he can make decisions independent of you and regardless of what you feel about it.

What strikes me about this woman is how self-centered she is; she seems to think that his getting a tattoo is a direct attack on her viewpoint rather than something he wanted to do. She seems to constantly be twisting events to make herself into the victim.

This attention seeking drama queen needs to step back and take a look at what she’s got. Her particular comment that she was experiencing grief (semantically likening this minor change to her son’s arm to his death) is just offensive. I know more than one person whose outlived their child and for this woman to try and lay some sort of claim to the type of pain that those people went and continue to go through, because her son had some ink injected into his skin is so insulting.

I’ll leave it here to avoid giving this woman any more attention of any kind.

Doctor Who Thoughts...

So Doctor who’s back soon so I thought I’d throw some thoughts out about where I think it should and shouldn’t go.

So let’s start with some reflection going back first to the 2006 final episode of the second series of revived who; David Tennant’s first finale in the role of the Doctor… it was so bad. The central problem wasn’t even the over crowdedness in the villain department; as stupid as having two villains who (at their core) are the same villain could have been saved by some inventiveness. I mean it wasn’t, but it could have been.

The problem lay with the fact that Russell T Davies loved the character of Rose Tyler too much. Now I’m not saying his failure to actually kill her like he said he would is what drags this episode from bad to downright awful, but the fact that he drummed her up as the Doctor’s one true love when there was really nothing to make her such.

Other than a capacity for getting irrationally jealous of every other woman that the Doctor spoke to and a belief that he had got to 901 years old and hadn’t made any other friends in his lifetime, Rose didn't really have anything to make her different for any other companion. The only thing that made her different was that T Davies made her and considered her better. And rather than build anything into her story or character to make her better, he thought he’d just tell us that she was better.

I raise this only because a similar thing seems to be happening with River Song. Now I like Alex Kingstone’s performance, but Moffatt is kind of making her take over the show the same way that Rose took over the T Davies series. This is a big DON'T; This can’t become the River Song Show; the centrality of the Doctor cannot be overridden.

Surely there’s enough left in 11^th Doctor that we don’t need to rely on other characters for all the development.

Also the exit of Amy and Rory can't be like the exit of Rose. Please Moffatt. I know you’re not T Davies but just in case; no slow motion falling, no extended screaming for twenty minutes and absolutely no last minute teleporting parents (good fucking god that was a terrible ending). The death of the Fourth Doctor’s companion Adric was 100 times more effective than the “death” of Rose, so something along those lines would be awesome.

Other than that the writers of Doctor Who can go wild!

Batman Year One Review

To someone who hasn’t read the comics or graphic novels (such as myself) this movie comes across as Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Sin City and LA Confidential in a sandwich.

By way of a synopsis, the film opens with the return of Bruce Wayne, to his home city of Gotham, after twelve years in self-imposed exile. At round about the same time, Lt. James Gordon is transferred to Gotham P.D following troubles in his last stationing.  

The majority of the film’s exposition is dealt with through first person internal monologues from the perspectives of Wayne and Gordon. While Gordon’s monologues give far more insight into the character’s motivations and background, Wayne’s come across a bit one dimensional, the resounding message being “I don’t like crime” (which happens to be true of most people). The only significant thing we see about Wayne from the what he tells us, is the suggestion that Batman as a concept is less about imparting his own fear onto others and more about the damage present in his own psyche. There’s even the suggestion that he believes that his father is directing him to become Batman from beyond the grave.

For me, the most interesting thing in this film, was the focus; the primary enemy in this film being Police corruption, with the Mob taking the role of secondary villains. I can’t help but compare this to the Nolan trilogy, where this is more or less reversed.

The further difference shown are in the personalities and abilities of the characters. While Gordon remains incorruptible in terms of your typical bribes and heavy handedness criterion, he’s certainly not the faithful husband and father of the Nolan films. He also happens to be a badass, capable of beating guys twice his size into unconsciousness.  

Batman too is very different, not possessing nearly as much confidence as any of his live action counterparts. At one point he even has trouble taking down three simple crooks, seemingly through sheer inexperience, something I don’t see the Christian Bale version ever falling victim to.

If nothing else, this film is a great comparative piece, allowing us to see perhaps how many liberties Nolan took in his trilogy. Gordon’s partner (Detective Flass) for example; in Batman Begins, he’s a fat incompetent, who moonlights as a Mob enforcer, in this he’s a former Green Beret, who seemingly makes enough money through taking bribes and enforcing the private interests of more senior (and equally corrupt police officers).

Eliza Dushku is pretty awesome as Selena Kyle and her back-story of – spoiler warning  - being a prostitute and possibly having a lesbian relationship with her friend Holly is somehow more believable than the Anne Hatheway version in "Rises" and definitely the Michelle Pfeiffer version in "Returns."

There are a couple more differences that really shine through, but overall it follows roughly the same ground as the Batman Begins.

This might not be for everyone; some may question why it even needed to be made, in light of the live action films, but this film really gets to grips more with the characters. It also manages to bring the grit of Gotham to life at least as much as the Nolan films, which is saying something.

It’s good, but if you haven’t read the comics or novels, you’ll find yourself retreading bits of old ground and kind of wishing Morgan Freeman was there

Artemis Fowl: the Last Guardian Review

Well here we are at the end of the Artemis Fowl series. It goes out on a high, but certainly isn’t the best that Colfer’s produced.

The Artemis Fowl series started with an 11-year-old boy, who seemingly used nothing but pure logic and intellect to make decisions, with no concept of ethics or morality.

The core of the series has always been the personal development of Artemis himself, which started at the end of the first book.

The changes that have occurred to the central protagonist’s personality are fully manifested in this book, with Artemis’s intelligent conclusions coming second place to his more emotional concerns. He also experiences some loss of confidence in the face of being outfoxed.

One great contrast that Eoin Colfer throws in is between Artemis and his brother, who is, like Artemis in intellect, but has a twin, who he loves and could not survive without. We get the impression that Artemis could have saved himself a lot of repressed emotions, had he had something similar and not grown up alone and with little to no emotional input. To this effect, he grew into the near emotionless boy that kidnapped Holly Short in the first book.  

Right…now the bad bits.

Mulch Diggums is always welcome in any story, but the way he gets involved in this one is a bit contrived. He pops up out of nowhere and has an excuse for it that kind of undermines most of the character development he’s had in all the preceding novels.

The characters don't really develop much and some do take a couple of steps backwards for the sake of the plot's convenience. 

The intelligence gap between Artemis’s two brothers seems weird and a bit unbelievable. I still don’t get how Opal Koboi manages to escape, as the method does seem to rely on completely undermining the time travel rules established The Time Paradox, with an excuse that wouldn’t be out of place in an episode of Enterprise.

Moving on, at this point, the level to which Artemis is physically useless goes too far and the idea that he’s that intelligent, yet hasn't figured out a way to not be so dyspraxic loses almost all believability.

Overall, this isn’t bad, Artemis Fowl goes out on a high, but the ending is a bit clichéd. In my mind this book is at 7 on the quality list. It’s better than The Atlantis Complex, but the others clearly outstrip it.

Dark Knight Rises Review

Good, but not nearly as good as the other two. I found this film pretty awesome, but some major issues stuck out for me.

So this is a weird one to react to. The film was good; good story well put together, well acted, but there was something lacking.

After much time spent thinking in my procrastination cave, I’ve come to the conclusion that this film essentially lacked the underlining message of it’s predecessors. Now I’m not saying that the fist two Nolan films had the same message, but that they both had a message that manifested by the end of them. Batman Begins was about how Bruce Wayne had to learn that it wasn’t who he thought he was on the inside that mattered, but what he did about it that was his defining feature. The Dark Knight was about, seeing oneself become a villain or symbol thereof and by extension the dangers of power.

In this film, we get kind of half a message of not giving up in the face of a set back or initial failure, but that runs thin so quickly that by half way through the film, Batman has to be re-crippled so that he can seemingly learn the whole lesson all over again. This comes at the expense of the second act of the film, which, in itself, is the reason that this one drops below the other two on the quality scale. Too much time is spent retreading old steps and literally learning the lessons that have been learnt four seconds ago.

Another thing that really bugs me is Catwoman. Anne Hatheway does a sterling job in the role, but the problems come in the love interest element to the character. Namely that she’s more of a friend/begrudging enemy of Batman, up until the end where she suddenly decides she’s a love interest. Given the pretty significant reveal about the other main female of the film, it’s clear why she had to step up to the plate, but the rate that she goes from using Batman for safety and snogging him seemed a bit contrived, as though it’s been tagged on to the script very late on.

Christian Bale continues to deliver as both Batman and Bruce Wayne, bringing new elements to both. For example, he frequently dials back the Bat-voice while in costume, to be more recognisable to those who already know his secret identity, which, incidentally, seems to be almost everyone, and shows a far more damaged version of Wayne to the world.

YAWN….tired now, this is a good film, but the second act lets it down royally, but other than that, it does a fine job of completing the Nolan trilogy. Performances all round are good. Actions good and gadgets are AWESOME!

Underworld Awakening

So this film is shockingly clever….well in terms of plot, it isn’t, or narrative or characters. But the main thing that’s so clever about it is that it was marketed as the franchise of the previous two films shamelessly ripping off concepts from films like Resident Evil and Alien.

So I was expecting to watch this with an air of disappointment, as I witnessed the tarnishing of the two previous films (which I quite enjoyed) by endless clichés and bad guys who all end up turning into the same friggin’ monster.

To spoil it slightly, most of the trailers for this film are loaded with red herrings, which is a most welcome aspect of the promotion of any film. This means that the more important twists and turns actually come with some surprise attached to them.

But anyway; the Plot. After Vampires and Werewolves are exposed to the world, the human race begins a fear driven extermination of both species, under the direction of Dr. Jacob Lane. This doctor captures series protagonist Selene and cyro-freezes for twelve years, until she’s released, by a scary-looking little girl with the same accent as her.

Kidnapped by Evil Corporation or waking up from an awesome night out?

Now this is all pretty standard stuff – the years in cryo-freeze is how Aliens and Alien III begin, the concept of a small English girl milling about in a uber-corporation’s facility in America is straight out of Resident Evil. What shies this film away from rip-off territory is the actual progression it makes, with the central characters.

Selene for example, maintains her ability to walk in sunlight (gained in Underworld; Evolution), where the Resident Evil, writers had to contrive the character of Alice back into a normal human being in the latest in their vessels in order to get any drama out of her. However, it does seem that her captors were unaware of these extra abilities, so it does beg the question of why they just kept her frozen for twelve years rather than exterminating her with the rest of the Vampires.

Personally, I just imagine two guys in tact suits about to finish her off when one says to the other “wait a minute, isn’t she the central protagonist?”

That and another couple of logical flaws aside, the film is quite fun to watch. Kate Bekinsale manages to avoid the trap of making Selene into a man with breasts (as has been done with many heroines in film) by bringing some emotion to the character. The little girl is very creepy, as only a small quiet English child can be, but also brings a lot to he table in terms of vulnerability and…err…other little girl things.

Some of Selene’s allies are a bit contrived as far as motivation and with the exception of one character we don’t really see much of the humans or their reaction to the two other species, other than the first few minutes of the film.

In a closing note, the Underworld films get a lot of flak for Kate Bekinsale’s outfit, which, with my expertise in fashion I have identified as a skin-tight, rubber thing. Some people will write off this film, based purely on the way they’ve dressed the central character to appeal to one gender alone and while I fail to see the tactical advantage in a combat soldier wearing a modified wet-suit the whole time, I wouldn’t say it’s a valid reason to discredit the whole story of a film.

So where do those Guns go when you're not holding them?

Overall, not a bad film, which is a pretty good achievement for the fourth in a franchise.

Doctor Who Christmas Special Review.

It was ok…but that’s kind of a bad thing…

So after what I thought was a good but underwhelming series finale we had this. It was alright  - but there was something missing. Throughout everything he writes, Steven Moffat has always gone against the grain, constantly attacking common conventions in whatever genre he’s penning for, but always in a bantering, playful way.

But this episode has little of that  - it’s got the doctor somehow getting dressed into a space suit while falling through the atmosphere yeah, but that’s about all.

Great amounts of this episode were spent with me waiting for Doctor Who to show up. Not the Doctor himself but the feeling of Doctor Who (anybody who’s listened to the podcast for “Forest of the Dead” will know who I stole that turn of phrase from).

This episode, while being a good story could have been in any show  - and considering that it came from the same man who made “A Christmas Carole” (a self-aware take on the classic tale, which somehow managed to have moving love story and a brilliantly silly premise co-exist) it just seems disappointing that this take on the Narnia formula gets so tied up in the very Avatarish feel that gets thrown around.

Even at that, it’s too much about the family at the centre of the story  - last year worked because it was all about saving a large amount of people by resolving the issues of the characters. In essence there was always a goal  - this episode was just about the Doctor doing something nice for someone who’s been nice to him. All very well, but if I don’t happen to be able to empathize with those characters then there’s no real threat for the audience to get involved with.

That’s the problem with for me; I didn’t really find Madge Arwell particularly interesting. Its nothing to do with the way Claire Skinner plays, it’s just that there’s nothing new about the character.

Bill Bailey provides the comic relief for this episode and it’s without doubt the best bit. But it does fall a bit flat and the bit with the subordinate crying along with Madge really didn’t agree with me and fell a bit flat.

The whole episode in general seems a bit underdeveloped and everything seems far too simplistic and shallow. There’s only so much that can be done with trees after all. Oh and if they grew everything themselves where did they get that metal crown?

The twist of the forest wanting a “mother” ship is a much desired and lonely piece of Moffat writing.

This was an alright episode, but not something I’d expect from Steven Moffat.