English Literature and creative writing

When I was younger, I used to quite enjoy writing stories at school. It wasn't something that came up particularly often though and as time went on I found that English moved further and further away from being one of my favourite subjects. As I moved through secondary school and 'English' became 'English Literature', it felt like there was less of a creative focus and I can hardly think of any pieces of literature we covered that really grabbed me. Even if some of them were legitimate classics, I think the way we were taught to analyse them could probably destroy anyone's interest in them. Books would be picked apart in mind numbing detail, full of analysis like "the blue curtains represent the depressed mood of this character" when it hardly seemed likely to have crossed the writers mind in the first place. Most of the time I didn't really feel like I was writing what I thought of the literature, just parroting the teachers opinions.

What I would have liked to learn more about are things like the fundamentals of writing stories, character motivations etc. which I feel like I've only really picked up pieces of via some unlikely internet sources. It seems pretty funny that I've been most inspired recently by a fictional perverted old man and a 10 foot tall green rage monster... I didn't get the option of taking a subject like Media Studies or something similar when I was at school but I think that would be a subject I would have really appreciated. Hearing from a friend who now teaches and had the freedom to base work around aspects of Attack the Block for example - I would love to cover something like that and I'm sure it appeals to a lot of kids too. Though no matter what the subject, I'm sure the way a teacher approaches it is just as important.

So when I recently had to sort through a huge amount of my old school work (strangely those folders and folders full of Maths and Physics notes didn't seem so important anymore), I was surprised by how little English work I'd kept. I'm not even sure what this short story was - it doesn't have a name, just a heading of "Task 5C" and I think it's the earliest bit of creative writing I have, being from when I must have been about 13 or so. It's presented below as originally written, with all original spelling mistakes intact and teachers comments in red...

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"Thats another dead one." said the young assistant "Perhaps we're doing something wrong?"
"Maybe," said the older scientist. "But we've got more than enough of these stupid mice and rats to find the right formula. Once we've found it we can test in on something bigger like the dogs and cats. We will make millions from doing this my boy, I promise you!"

Good start

The members of A.L.F. crouded into the room. There was about thirty of them and they met once a week to discuss important issues. The leader Frank Adams called everyone around the table and counted how many where there.
"Has anyone seen Mark Mc. Nabb?" enquired Frank without much hope of an answer. Mc. Nabb was always late. He was the rebel in the group but a lot of people liked him which annoyed Frank greatly.
He snapped back to the present when he heard someone thumping loudly on the outside door. He went to open it. As he slowly opened it to see who it was he was greeted by a familiar voice.
"Let me in you fool! Its freezing out here!" It was Mc. Nabb. "You're late again Mc. Nabb!" shouted Frank "And don't call me a fool!"
"Ach, who cares if Im late and if you're not a fool you're an idiot."
Mc. Nabb walked casualy to his seat leaving Frank fuming mad at the door. He tried to calm down and walked slowly back to his seat.
"Okay." said Frank "Has anyone got anything important they want to say?"
One hand was cautiously raised. "Ah Graham! What have you got to say?"
A small man with glasses stood up and looked nevously around him before starting to speak.
"Well you know the laboratory we got shut down because it was testing on animals?"
"Hmm." remarked Frank
"Well its still being used but only at night."
"What!!" came Mc Nabbs voice from the other side of the room.
"This is terrible! We have to tell the police!" cried Frank "Ach, Ya wimp!" Shouted Mc Nabb "Don't go the police, we can trash the place ourselves."
"Don't be such an Idiot!!"
"Eh? What ye sayn?" Mc Nabbs Scottish accent showed through more when he got irritable.
"If you'd have thought at all you would have noticed that you are more likely to be arrested than the actual criminals!"
"Well we've gotta do somethin. We can't just leave em!"
"Okay then!! I'm going to the police!" Shouted Frank before storming out of the room, slamming the door behind him. The room was silent for a few seconds before Mc. Nabb spoke up.
"So who wants to come with me?"

A good idea, Matthew.

 Excellent use of conversation - in

 fact, there is too much of this

 in comparison to description.

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Looking back on that is in some ways slightly embarrassing (you have no idea how hard it is to not correct mistakes and tweak a few things) but at the same time feels like it was written by a completely different person. Someone who obviously had pretty strong feelings on animal testing. I still kind of like the detached attitude of the scientists in the opening - when I first picked this up again I thought it would make a good description of 'expendable' human subjects in some kind of lab test, I guess I hadn't got that dark yet.

It's also interesting that other than spelling, my biggest concerns are with cutting stuff out. Redundant sentences like "He went to open it" and extra words like "fuming mad", would be where I'd start culling. But I think school work tends to build up the importance of word count over being conservative with what you're trying to say. I read an article soon after I started writing again, which illustrated this idea very well - ruthlessly cutting down first drafts into the bare minimum of information required. This is something I'm still trying to apply to my own writing and it can be surprisingly difficult to let go of anything you've written sometimes. Of course there is a place for detailed descriptive prose but most of the time you are trying to create something that is easy for people to read and understand.

I did find some kind of plan for a whole story at the back of the exercise book this was written in. I'm not sure why it was cut short, whether the exercise was only to do so many pages or if I just ran out of steam. The group would go on to raid this lab and attempt to release the animals (though most were in too bad of a state to escape) and one of the activists (I assume Mc Nabb) ends up killing one of the scientists there. I didn't seem to have an idea for an ending or a larger point, so in a way I think it's better that it just became a short segment of a larger imagined story, with the last line hinting that people were obviously ready to follow Mc Nabb (not sure if I subconsciously nicked that last line from Van Damme in the Street Fighter movie).

I've always felt slightly apprehensive about writing fiction again and especially about sharing it with the world via the internet. But if I'm happy to share and critique the ramblings of my teenage self, how much worse could my current work be? Hopefully someday soon I'll feel like taking up the challenge of writing something other than criticism.

Doctor Who: Asylum of the Daleks (2012)

There's something that just feels right about Doctor Who returning in the autumn. Ever since the show was resurrected in 2005, it has usually begun a series run in March or April, with one off Christmas episodes bridging the gap over the winter. To me it's never really felt like a show I wanted to watch in the height of summer - it doesn't seem to suit being on while it's still light outside. So I was strangely anticipating it starting in September this year, knowing that I'd be able to sit down to watch it in at least vague twilight, preferably with a cup of tea and some humanoid shaped gelatin based sweets.

Still, I have always been happy to see new episodes of Doctor Who and going back to it's first rebooted season I thought it was all great at the time - though I've revised my opinion since then. One episode that still remains a high point of Chris Eccleston's tenure however was Dalek. After so many dodgy, clunky outings for the Doctor's most iconic foe, here was an episode that showed a single Dalek as a force to be reckoned with and more importantly showed the Doctor in fear of them. Though pretty much all of that goodwill was undone by the end of that series and now we find ourselves coming full circle again, with the Daleks just as much of a joke as they were beforehand.

So Asylum of the Daleks definitely takes a stab at rectifying some of this and I think it was pretty successful. Though it didn't have me hiding behind the sofa the Daleks were certainly threatening, with good reasoning for why they weren't always deadly. Notably it also showed the Doctor in fear of them again, which I think is important in selling them as a real danger. There were points where it created a brilliantly tense atmosphere, not unlike something from Alien and to be honest in one section I would rather that tension was kept up instead of diffusing it with comedy. Though I did like how that little joke was touched on again at the end.

The episode also worked well as a mini-reboot/retcon of the Daleks and I was happy to see the overly mythical status of the Doctor among the Daleks removed (though I'm still not sure about the final lines of the episode). It also introduced a rather disturbing new method of human enslavement, which was especially shocking for the time it was shown. I have to be honest, I wasn't expecting to see Zombie Daleks with eye stalks bursting out of their foreheads...

I hadn't caught all of the mini-episodes of Pond Life before watching this, so I was surprised by how it opened with Amy and Rory's relationship in tatters. On reflection I thought that this was quite a good opening though and after watching the remaining Pond Life episodes it made a lot of sense. I liked the idea that life goes on while the Doctor's away and that it's not always for the better. And that the Doctor's presence can then bring what's important into focus in a life or death situation when things could be left to slip away in mundane daily life.

I kind of wanted to touch on this after Anita Sarkeesian was heavily critical of Steven Moffat's 'disastrous' writing of female characters on Twitter. Perhaps Twitter is not the place for this kind of thing as it doesn't really allow you the ability to go into detail but the idea of Amy now being unable to have children sadly felt all too real to me. As I've learned over time, difficulty in having children is more common than you might think and can easily have an effect on a relationship. In this case having children wasn't really the critical issue anyway - as many people say the biggest problems in any relationship can come from a lack of communication. So in a way the Doctor forced them into a situation where they had to confront each other, rather than allow themselves to drift apart due to Amy's assumptions about Rory's feelings. To extrapolate from this scenario to some kind of awful series finale involving a miracle birth seemed to be overly reaching, though I will eat my words if it does come to pass.

I can't really finish this without mentioning Oswin played by Jenna-Louise Coleman, who at the time I couldn't quite remember whether she was to be a new companion. The knowledge that she will be makes it intriguing to wonder just how she will turn up again and whether she will remain as an intellectual match for the Doctor as she was in this episode. I wasn't sure whether this episode was suggesting that she was naturally a genius or if it was a by-product of her involvement with the Daleks but she seemed like she would hold her own either way and it will be nice to see a companion who isn't from present day Earth. I'm not sure if the Doctor will actively seek her out or whether it will be a case of cosmic convenience, which I think gives just the right amount of intrigue for now in a season supposedly focussing on one off episodes.

Ted (2012)

This review was also posted on ArtFist.org

I've struggled to finish reviews of any comedy films this year, so after seeing Ted I promised myself I would complete one for once. As a formerly huge fan of Family Guy this was a film I was both intrigued and apprehensive about - I wasn't totally sure what to expect from it but had a fair idea of what the humour would be like. I'd also not read a single review of it beforehand - not something I actively avoided so it seems a little weird that there has been relatively little coverage. I certainly enjoyed most of it at the time but some issues sprang to mind as I started to write about it.

Perhaps the best way to describe it as a whole is overindulgent. Despite a strong opening I really felt that it dragged for a while after that, spending too much time on the in depth situation of each character. Sadly I don't remember it being particularly funny either. It didn't really pick up for me until you see Ted in a suit, off to try and get his first job. There was also a section later on that seemed to exist purely to get a celebrity cameo in, which was neither funny to me or moving the plot forward in any meaningful way.

I find it funny that I can pick out large areas to cut when the film itself is just a shade longer than Brave, which felt like a very short, concise film to me. I personally wonder whether Seth MacFarlane had enough experience in telling a story of this length when most of his cartoons are self contained 30 minute episodes. While there have been a few Family Guy stories that span multiple episodes, Ted ends up feeling like everything and the kitchen sink was thrown at it to pad it out. But then that overindulgence has always been a hallmark of his cartoons too. I couldn't help but think back to Family Guy's ridiculously long chicken fight in one particular scene, which managed to go through the feeling that it was much longer than it probably should have been and still come out the other side being funny.

Like Family Guy I also felt that it had an over reliance on pop culture that was very specific to the US and didn't immediately amuse me if I didn't get the reference. Probably my main reason for moving away from watching Family Guy was the realisation that it was starting to rely too heavily on the 'random' cutaway gags and that these generally only made me laugh once out of surprise and didn't really work if you watched them again. You could say Ted took this even further with a random flashback among the character establishing sequences that I didn't find funny in the slightest.

And it makes me feel so old but I also feel like the overuse of the F-word in this was hardly ever funny. Restricted by what you could get away with on a TV network, Family Guy was always pushing against boundaries to see what they could get away with and even the occasional bleeped swear could seem shocking and humorous at the same time. Here it got old fast and I don't think it was just me, I can't recall hearing a single chuckle at an F-word just dropped into conversation but there was plenty of laughter in its more inventive parts. Perhaps I wasn't really there with the target audience since it had been out a while when I got to see it but to me the overuse definitely wore down the impact it could have had if it was used a little more sparingly.

I do feel like there's a good movie in there somewhere and I liked how it approached the idea that Ted could eventually become normal and forgotten about. But there were parts that seemed to hinder the story unfolding as if it was realistic by going so over the top and assuming that everyone is in on the joke. It all adds up to a mixed bag that leaves you feeling a bit unsatisfied. Perhaps I've often struggled to finish comedy reviews as I may have laughed along at the time but not really felt like the film went anywhere or had much to say. Here you question what had really changed about the characters situations by the end of the film but it's played as a happy ending, all problems solved, which just didn't convince me.

People will always say that humour is subjective but I think it can also seem temporary. Like Family Guys one off random gags with a short shelf life, you also had the problem here of seeing a lot of those in trailers. It can be difficult to remember specific funny parts later and even then if I was to try to list or explain jokes it would only lead to them not sounding funny at all. So while I can almost certainly recommend this to people who won't be offended by its humour, I would have just liked it to be a more focussed and consistent film on the whole.

The Increasing Irrelevance of High Street Retail

Arguments about pricing aside, it seems that the one remaining good feature that high street shops have is convenience. You can know all the cheapest websites in the world but when it comes to a Friday afternoon or a Saturday morning and you want something to play/watch for the weekend, then I'd wager most would absorb the extra few quid and walk into a shop to pick up what they want there and then. However it seems more and more often that I can't even achieve that on the high street...

Take the recent release of Darksiders 2, a sequel to a game that I'm still yet to play. With the hype surrounding its release I thought to myself that I'd finally look into trying the original. A search of every available game shop for a copy proved completely fruitless. I didn't even expect to find a new copy but thought I might get lucky in the pre-owned section but alas it wasn't to be. It just struck me as bizarre that I have become so complacent with this state of affairs that I'd pretty much taken a tour of the shops just to confirm my suspicions. Say what you will about high street DVD and book stores but they sure know that when you have an exciting new release, you make sure there are copies of previous and related works available for interested parties to get a few more easy sales.

However later that same day, I came up against a ridiculous inversion of this idea in HMV. I recently caught part of the second Iron Man and while it might not be the greatest film, I felt the urge to watch the whole thing again. Being the only recent Marvel film I didn't have on Blu-Ray there was also that OCD completionist aspect of wanting to fill a gap in my collection. Now while I might not expect to find every film ever made in HMV, I certainly expected them to always have something as well known and popular as Iron Man 2 in stock. But looking around I couldn't even find an empty section for it, which was true for the original Iron Man as well, with dividers jumping straight from Intolerable Cruelty to The Island.

This seemed a little bizarre so we asked the guy behind the counter when buying something else. Looking very apologetic he replied "yeah, they've recalled all of the Marvel films - apart from The Incredible Hulk and others that weren't in The Avengers. They're waiting for that to come out so they can sell them all together". I just chuckled and shook my head, so often it seems those on the front line are as much at odds with the management decisions as the public are. I'm guessing there may be more to it behind the scenes but it just seems so bizarre to negate the possibility of any sales right now to guarantee you won't run out of stock later.

Writing this up has reminded me that I still hadn't picked up either but even on a Friday I can use Amazon Prime to make sure I can get something for the weekend, making that trawl of the shops even more pointless with just a bit of forethought. Though while Iron Man 2 was easy to find it seems that Darksiders is much more illusive, out of stock in most of the places I would normally try. This suggests to me that there's a bigger issue with finding older games in general than just the High Street...

Google+ Vs. The World

Google+ is dead. In fact if you follow that link you might even find someone stating that fact right now on said dead social network. Over a year on and Google+ is still struggling to escape the stigma of being used by no one, despite a quick search of public posts showing how frequently people post. I've been a big fan of it since its inception, largely because of its well thought out privacy functions - which ironically in the end have led to me not making many private posts. While some people have legitimate concerns about it and Google's motivations/practices as a whole, it can still be frustrating to see so many fixated on the fact that no one uses it. I've often felt like writing something about just what draws me to it over other social networks so here goes...

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Google+ Vs. Facebook

Surprisingly I'm not really one of those people who hate everything Facebook stands for. But by God they don't half try to make sure that you are. From the numerous privacy scares to the simple fact that it still won't let you see posts in chronological order consistently, I've now ended up using Facebook in a very limited manner. When the timeline view was made available I was surprised to find that I actually really liked it and went about adding lots of information to my history pre-Facebook. But this also made me even more concious of the fact that I didn't want everyone to be able to see this and I ended up locking down my account as much as possible, while gradually culling my friends list to include family and trusted friends.

I know I could have been more selective by putting people into groups and lists, a kneejerk addition after Google+'s debut, but it still doesn't seem like they really fit on Facebook. It took so much effort to try and maintain them and there was also the question in my mind over whether Facebook would eventually do something stupid and I'd see all that separation fall down. And I'm happy with the more manageable list of friends I have now, where visiting Facebook I expect to see updates from family and friends in the main. I really don't have any desire to be bombarded with information from films, games, bands etc. that I 'like' on Facebook, it just makes the site feel like a mess.

It's funny really because Google+ now serves almost the same purpose for me as Facebook did in the beginning, where everyone seemed to add huge amounts of people who they didn't really know and things that interest them. I constantly feel like I'm doing the exact opposite of what Facebook really want its users to do, I'm not sure how successful their new feature of 'subscribing' to celebrities has been but it was certainly something that I gave up on fairly quickly. It seems funny that while Britney Spears' page has over 20 million likes, she has approximately 2 million subscribers to her Facebook profile but over 4 million with her in their circles on Google+. I feel that this also goes some way to proving that Google+ is not just full of nerds, with other popular celebrities including Snoop Dogg and Coldplay.

Facebook is also starting to look like the less favourable option for companies and brands, with their recent attempts at charging to guarantee that followers see status updates. I initially believed that this was only for advertising purposes but I have discovered that this affects pages that you have liked and actually want to see posts from in your News Feed. It might be a drop in the ocean to a big company's marketing budget but for small companies and people like myself setting up a page to dispense information to friends and family, it's particularly galling to know that they might not see everything that I post. Not to mention that setting up and using a Facebook page is around 10 times more awkward than the Google+ equivalent (differences in your search results between your page and yourself is a particularly weird one).

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Google+ Vs. Twitter

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Twitter. Some days it can be pretty quiet and easy to keep track of but on others it just gets a bit overwhelming. When I first started using it I'll admit I followed a huge number of people, including those I knew in real life, without really thinking about whether I was interested in what they had to say. This was before I owned a smartphone too, so it was unsurprising that when I'd periodically check in I would feel left behind and wondering if I'd missed anything important - usually I hadn't.

Of course fans of Twitter will perhaps say that I was clearly using it wrong and that you should only really follow those you are interested in. But by this point I have stripped down and built up my following list at least twice but still have days when I can feel overwhelmed by it. To me it seems like I reach a realistic ceiling at around 70-80 people and it boggles my mind when I see others in the hundreds. In contrast I have over 200 people in circles on Google+ and I don't believe that it is purely down to less traffic that I find it so much easier to keep up with.

Obviously Twitter has lists to group people together but they are hidden away and not very easy to use. Unofficial apps like TweetDeck may make this feature slightly more prominent but until recently I was in the position where I couldn't have them installed. When this feature is so poorly supported by its own creator, it seems unlikely that it will ever gain much traction. Again some people might suggest that the answer is to not follow those who create a lot of noise but I don't think it's always as simple as that. Often I'll find that people's posts tend to ebb and flow, where I'd much rather have the ability to hide posts or people for a short time than remove them completely.

Here Google+ is incredibly good at managing this with circles at the heart of the whole concept. If it does get busy it's so much easier to view groups circle by circle and prioritise what I am interested in. I now have no qualms in muting the odd post that holds no interest for me and have even set up an 'Incoming' circle to check on what followers I have picked up post every now and then. Google seem to have a good handle on improving this aspect, allowing you to tone down the posts you get from certain circles and now receive notifications when certain circles post, so that you don't lose posts from close friends and family in the milieu.

I do still find Twitter to be good for current events though, which is slightly weird as there is nothing stopping Google+ from being used in the exact same manner. Even I'm guilty of using Twitter more for quick, light hearted points and I'm unlikely to cross post the same thing on Google+. And when I sat down to watch the recent Olympic opening and closing ceremonies, taking part in the Twitter conversation while it was happening was pretty enjoyable.

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I guess this kind of shows that there is a difficulty in carving out a definitive identity for Google+, or at least change how it is currently perceived - if it's not for family updates and it's not for fun, jokes and current events then it must just be high-brow discussion amongst a bunch of nerds. There is perhaps some truth to that though, in the sense that Google+ seems best suited to ideas and interests, rather than people and news. Its excellent search features make it easy to find people posting about things you are interested in and it's not all typically geeky. Photography is one area that is particularly well supported but there are lots of other interests too and I've always managed to find enough to keep me interested.

I've perhaps been lucky in my early experiences of Google+, where right from the start I've had a mixture of people I know in real life and people I don't know personally, who were largely from an online gaming forum. That meant that I never really opened my stream to see tumble-weeds drift by, people questioning whether anybody is out there. For those who don't have a way to kickstart their circles it might seem quite intimidating to just go out there and start adding people. That is really the best way to go about it though and in my experience you shouldn't be scared to do so, with most of the userbase seeming very polite. You also aren't putting any pressure on them to 'friend' you back, which sometimes plays on my mind before adding people on Facebook.

Perhaps Google+'s best chance for success in the long run is to keep doing what it's doing and try not to annoy its existing userbase. There's surely going to be a slow trickle of people who reach their limit with Facebook and Twitter, who may give it a chance and find it's better than they think. And I certainly think there's room to use it in addition to the 'big two' in social networking, especialy if your reasons for using each of them are different.

Brave (2012)

This review was also posted on ArtFist.org

'Nice' can sometimes be a surprisingly divisive word. For some people it's the epitome of average, only a shade better than okay or 'meh'. For me I don't know if it's just my 'Englishness' but it can sometimes feel like relatively high praise. I think it's quite telling though that I keep wanting to use it to describe Brave.

Whatever I think of the finished product, it feels like the trailers for Brave had done their best to convince me that it would be terrible before I'd even seen it. They seemed to suggest something on the level of an average Dreamworks film, full of dumb jokes and body humour, not to mention the potential for terrible scottish stereotypes. It didn't seem at all like a typical Pixar film (maybe discounting the Cars films, as I haven't seen any of those). As it turns out though, these trailers at least kept most of the plot secret, with me only figuring out some of it beforehand due to seeing certain toy lines in the Disney store...

The overt 'Scottishness' from the trailers did look like it would be more along the lines of how Americans view Scotland but I didn't find it too bad in the end. While Scotland is never explicitly mentioned, it is clearly set there and not some mythical equivalent as a map in it names the Isle of Skye. Some of the phrases felt a little more English and there was a distinct lack of Scottish slang but for the most part it felt fairly natural. Even if it would probably be more Scottish to say "Wheesht!", it still felt quite rare to hear someone say "Shut your gob" for example, which gave it a nice homely sort of feeling.

There was one character with an exceptionally thick accent, which you aren't meant to understand but it amused me all the same. Especially when one line is finished with "ken?", which reminded me of my days as an Englishman in Scotland. It was always those with the hardest accents to follow who would finish their sentences with "ken?" ("do you know what I mean/understand?") and I'd just nod my head hopefully. I'm not sure if this accent can be placed to a specific location, I'd be interested to find out and to hear from any native Scotsmen what they thought of it as a whole.

While most of the story is not particularly surprising, I have to give it props for being a major film that focuses around a mother and daughters relationship. I was expecting it to be yet another 'tomboy wants to prove herself and goes off on adventures with the men' kind of thing so it was a pleasant surprise how it unfolds. Most of the other characters are fairly under-developed but making the mother/daughter relationship the focus meant that this didn't stand out. I would say overall it felt like quite a short film and I'm not sure if that is a negative issue or just means that it was to the point.

The ending did feel a little contrived to me though, like it was just playing for time to make it seem more emotional. I honestly thought there was going to be more to it but then it suddenly shifts to happy ending mode. It reminded me of a couple of other films with a sudden happy ending, Tangled and Wall-E, the latter being one I watched again recently. Tangled at least gave a plausible reason for how it turned things around but Wall-E feels like it switches from an impossible situation to make it momentarily seem more sad. It's perhaps a different topic to get into on whether Pixar/Disney films can have anything other than a happy ending though.

Overall I would say that it's worth watching and should keep you entertained, unless you have a very high brow sense of humour. I saw it in quite a mixed audience and apart from one or two jump scares that might set kids off, I think it will appeal to everyone. It's not one of Pixars best and I would also say that it isn't as good as Tangled or the best of Dreamworks in How to Train Your Dragon but still better than virtually anything else from that studio. I'm not sure how long it will stick with me or how well it would stand up to repeated viewings but I still think it's a nice film - just a shame that it's unlikely to reach the dizzying heights of appreciation I have for other Pixar films.

Legends of the Dark Knight

I was inspired by Liam Ellison's recent piece on Batman's cartoon history, to write something of my own on the subject, centering around one episode in particular. Legends of the Dark Knight was an episode from The New Batman Adventures, a series which was the successor to Batman: The Animated Series and also sadly one I didn't get to watch during its original run. I'm not actually sure whether it was shown in the UK but I would hazard a guess that it was shown on satellite cartoon channels, which I didn't have access to. This episode became a cult favourite among fans though and I first heard of it via someone mentioning a sequence in it mocking the Joel Schumacher Batman films (found at around 3:50 in the second youtube video). The basic premise of it is that three kids tell stories about what they think Batman is really like, an idea which was used again in Batman: Gotham Knight.

What stands out the most about the first story now is that it's pretty much a prototype episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold and it comes as no surprise that it was drawn by James Tucker who went on to produce that show. I'm a big fan of The Brave and the Bold, which I wasn't expecting when I first heard about it. While being lighter in tone than most recent takes on Batman, it has always felt like a love letter to fans of Batman through the ages. I perhaps wasn't in on the joke when I first watched the 60's TV version of Batman but there is clearly a lot of love for his campier incarnations too. And on top of that it was full of references that would make devout fans chuckle while remaining focused on simple standalone stories. It's the kind of show that makes me wish I had kids to watch it with to see the different levels we would appreciate it on.

It also includes a variety of DC characters, some of which are less well known than others and puts an interesting spin on almost all of them. In particular, the show's take on Aquaman as a pompous, lovable boaster has taken hold as the definitive version for me and I'm now thrown off whenever I see other versions that aren't quite as "Outrageous!". I also loved their version of Bat-Mite as the ultimate Batman fanboy, regularly using modern internet catchphrases and generally acting like a real life super fan. His involvement in the epic fourth wall breaking final episode takes quite a satirical look at the whole production process and sends the whole thing off on a perfect note. No wonder my wife bought me the figurine of him shown below... and I didn't even mention the infuriatingly catchy songs of the Music Meister, as voiced by Neil Patrick Harris.

The second story in Legends of the Dark Knight is also pretty relevant right now, as it is pretty much a word for word adaptation of parts of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, which is currently being adapted into a full length animated movie. It gives a great glimpse of what we can hopefully expect from the forthcoming adaptation, something I remain cautiously optimistic about. In the recent trailer Peter Weller doesn't seem quite as good a fit for the voice of an older Batman as Michael Ironside in this short and personally I would have loved to see Kevin Conroy take on this role, which would have been a fitting end to his career voicing Bats. I've already had to start dealing with the fact that Conroy is no longer the definitive voice of Batman though, as other animated films have started to bring in a new cast.

I could actually really do with watching the animated version of Batman: Year One again, the most recent adaptation of one of Miller's stories, as I find it difficult to remember whether I actually liked it or not. It was always going to have a pretty tough time winning me over as I think Year One is probably my favourite standalone comic book of all time and I already felt like there was an animated version I could play in my head. The story itself also influenced aspects of Batman Begins and on the whole it feels more grounded than some of Miller's more over the top creations. The art by David Mazzucchelli is also fantastic, I love how it captures just enough detail, while at the same paying homage to the style of the early comics Batman was born from. As an introduction to comics for almost anyone I find it hard to fault.

The closing story of this episode finds the storytellers themselves involved with Batman, mistaking the arsonist Firefly for him and stumbling into one of his schemes. While I was a little disappointed that there wasn't another homage to a different era, this does work well in tying the whole episode together. Apparently there were initially plans for an additional story focussed on the early '70s Batman comics but it was decided that the art style of Neal Adams was difficult to adapt for animation. In the final scene, while the kids still argue over who was right about Batman, I can't help but think that it cements the idea that almost all of the incarnations of Batman have something to offer. Even the kid who thought that Batman wasn't human, might find some evidence to back up his theory...

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

This review was also posted on ArtFist.org

It's difficult to know where to start when talking about this film. Like a lot of people, I've been looking forward to it just a little bit. I'm a big fan of Batman in almost any form, but I grew up on the Tim Burton films and Bruce Timm's Animated Series especially, only searching out famous stories from the comics later on. I can remember seeing Batman Begins for the first time and thinking that it was enough that it's ending could tie into the Burton films, but still being pleasantly surprised when The Dark Knight was announced. TDK immediately became one of my favourite films for numerous reasons, the beautiful full frame IMAX photography, the tense bank robbery that reminded me of Heat and Heath Ledgers unique take on the Joker among many - I didn't even care that Batman wasn't really the focus any more.

So I obviously had huge expectations of this film but I think I didn't have specific expectations of it, if that makes sense. I hoped it would be a good film but at the same time I trusted Christopher Nolan to do what he wanted and not just expect famous comic storylines in movie form. But if I was ready to trust Nolan, in some ways this feels like a film more designed to please fans. I certainly enjoyed it at the time, but it seems less of a complete package the more I think about it. Whereas The Dark Knight always felt like the furthest you could take a comic book character into the real world, this felt like it was embracing its comic book roots a little more. Things like its expository dialogue and characters hopping around the world felt like things that happen in comics a lot. Even though critics have levelled the same complaints at some of Nolan's other films, this was the first time that these issues particularly stood out to me.

I thought that it got off to a shaky start too, I don't think I've seen many reviews that didn't have some issues with the first act. There are a lot of new characters and multiple plot lines running at once, with a few taking a while to really go anywhere. There were a lot of things to hold in your head and I found myself uncertain of which characters were important. On reflection there isn't much of importance here and I have seen debates on whether parts of it could have been cut, as well as entirely different takes on how it could have opened.

Selina Kyle (as played by Anne Hathaway) is almost certainly the highlight of these early sections. She is receiving almost universal praised for her role, one thing I liked in particular was that her interactions with Bruce Wayne also provide a bit of humour in a largely dark film. I loved how she revealed her true self when she first meets him and deftly disarms him before making her escape. A lot of people seem to think that Bruce Wayne was faking his injuries at the start of the film but I'd like to think that he was actually surprised by her, which then intrigues him enough to want to track her down. You generally get the impression that she is capable of continuing to frustrate him, with the lines "My Wife?" and "Huh, so that's what that feels like" making me chuckle especially.

I think it was important that the rest of the villains in this weren't particularly sympathetic though. Almost everyone rooted for the Joker to some extent but Bane doesn't really have the same attractive personality and seems more likely to kill innocent people in his path. Some of the violence meted out actually made me feel like the film deserved more than a 12A rating, despite the fact that it never shows anything graphic. Though there isn't exactly much competition, I feel this was the best representation of Bane there has ever been. On occasions he seems like a strange mix, especially how his voice doesn't really feel like part of the scene but the calm delivery gives the impression of intelligence that he really needs. In the original comics, despite his strength increasing venom serum, it was always suggested that he only managed to defeat Batman by engineering situations that would break his spirit as well as his body. I certainly found myself on the edge of my seat wondering if he was going to do what he is most famous for in the comics.

What's perhaps hardest to argue against is that the film as a whole doesn't really say anything. Bane's aims and actions seem to have some common ground with this year's 'Occupy' protests (although likely written before they started), which initially seems like a negative commentary on them. But these ideas aren't really followed through and leave it feeling very half hearted. There seem to be a lot of points like this, where there is a spark of something interesting but it doesn't receive much focus. Then there is also the question of what is said by the ending but I'm not sure I can discuss that much without heading into spoiler territory...

*Fairly major spoilers from this point on*

Not everyone liked the ending and to some extent I can see their point, with the powerful message of Batman making the ultimate sacrifice being undone by him surviving - not to mention how much pain and anguish it would cause his friends. But despite all that, to me it felt like what Batman would have done and it specifically reminded me of the end of The Dark Knight Returns. In that story he may have faked his death to continue to train others in secret but giving up the role of Batman felt right for this series and felt like a much better way of introducing a possible new Batman than any attempt that has been made in the comics. I really appreciated what the whole trilogy has done with Bruce Wayne - even if it moves away from the established view of him, he seems more human on the whole. In Begins he initially struggles with the desire for revenge against those who wronged him, rather than immediately trying to fix the system. He wants the world to change so that he doesn't have to be Batman anymore and then even gives up the role after the loss of a loved one, questioning what he has left to fight for. I think it's totally fair that this film then allows his journey to come to an end.

People have said that the revelation of John Blake's real name being Robin made them roll their eyes but I just saw it as a little joke for the fans, especially since Nolan has stated he would never add the Robin we all know. It seemed obvious to me that Blake would take on the role of Batman or at the very least would be jumping straight into a 'Nightwing' like role. What I felt was important was that Blake's character had taken a different route to this point than Bruce Wayne, which indicated that he could be a different sort of Batman. Someone who would focus on the downtrodden and fight against abuses of power by those in control, rather than focusing on criminals amongst the poorest in society. This left me with the feeling that the film wasn't trying to be 'anti-99%' and to paraphrase The Dark Knight's final line, perhaps this new Batman could be the hero that Gotham and the world actually needs right now. I also felt that even though the film brings this trilogy to a definite close in a nice circular fashion, I would still be interested to see someone take it onward from this point.

So my final thought on what I took the film to say is that we will always need Batman - but Batman doesn't always need to be Bruce Wayne.

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) Vs. Spider-Man (2002)

Lets just say that my expectations of The Amazing Spider-Man (TASM from this point on) were pretty low. Before I even knew anything about it I was of the opinion that it was too soon for a reboot, so it was never going to be top of my must watch list. Thinking that I would not get around to seeing it at all, I've pretty much devoured every available review and opinion piece I could find on it. The majority of these did not do much to convince me that it was worth watching, with only a few positive opinions from people that I respected to hint otherwise. I didn't set out to compare it to the original Sam Raimi film but when I finally got to see it and then ended up watching Spider-Man later the same day it just felt pretty natural.

To begin with, I was most concerned about sitting through an entire origin story again but I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the first half of the film. The growing relationship between Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone is quite nicely handled and wasn't what I expected after hearing that it was "A Spider-Man for the Twilight generation". The first scene after getting his spider powers was also pretty funny and I thought that this scene amongst others showed a more realistic, street level view of New York than the original films (he says having only visited the place once).

In comparison though, what struck me about the original Spider-Man was how quickly it gets going. In the first scene you find out everything you need to know about Peter Parker and the supporting cast via the minimum amount of information. I think within 7 minutes he has received the crucial spider bite, allowing the film to be more about the joy of discovering his powers. The irony being that this feels like exactly what this new version should have done, deal with the transformation quickly and move on, just like The Incredible Hulk did after Hulk. Even if the first half of the film turned out to be the best part, it still seems strange to spend around an hour on the same stuff that was originally handled in about twenty minutes.

A lot of attention has been placed on who plays a better Peter Parker/Spiderman and it might not be the popular opinion but my money is still on Tobey Maguire. I still feel that he captured the nerdy Parker perfectly and Spider-Man allowed him to lose his inhibitions. He way not have been quipping every five seconds but I thought there was enough enthusiasm there to get across that he was really enjoying himself with this persona. Andrew Garfield's Parker is a pretty different take and I can respect that but he was nothing like either the comic or cartoon versions I know of. I felt that his Spider-Man veered over the line of cocky quips into just plain being a dick, I didn't get the sense that taking on this hero persona was bringing out the good sides of his personality.

Looking at both interpretations I wouldn't say that either of them are perfect, perhaps Maguire didn't have enough of Parkers characteristics, whereas Garfield just adds far too much stuff into the mix. It might have been different if Raimi had gone with the idea of webshooters (though I'm not someone who thinks the organic webs are ridiculous) but you never get the feeling that he was the kind of person who could engineer them. Garfield on the other hand starts off as a handsome guy who is a photographer, inventor, skateboarder and all around science whizz - no one with that many interests could be top of his game at all of them (and still get the girl without added spider confidence).

Though most will probably associate the Green Goblin as Spider-Man's most iconic enemy, growing up with the cartoon version I would probably vote for the Lizard instead. I remember a lot of storylines that revolved around Dr. Connors' struggle to overcome the beast and with Spider-Man usually being involved in his initial transformation, it forms a very strong link between the two characters that makes sense for an origin story. The crocodile like creature in a lab coat is also an incredibly iconic image. So it probably comes as no surprise then that I was very disappointed by his representation in this, which felt like a completely wasted opportunity.

Aside from the lizard design being as ugly as sin, in his human form Connors veers into total insanity for no real reason before finally overcoming it at the end just because the plot demands it. It makes me wonder if they were concerned about The Lizard ending up too similar to Raimi's version of the Green Goblin, in terms of how Norman Osbourne had no idea what he was doing every night. But I think it had every right to make this a more explicit Jekyll and Hyde type situation, as that's historically been his story - while I've always found the Green Goblin to be more intimidating when Norman Osbourne is fully aware of what's going on too. Again it seems kind of ironic that pretty much all of the films in the Raimi series took a pretty black and white villain and turned them into a more sympathetic character for this to then screw up an established character that had a very sympathetic story to begin with.

Looking back at Spider-Man it is in no way perfect. The Green Goblin suit is still terrible and a lot of the CGI is looking pretty ropey now - something that the practical effects of TASM will hopefully alleviate in the long run. But I think the original's strength has always been in the journey of its characters and it has a much stronger ending. The ease with which the new Parker does exactly the opposite of old Parker is disturbing and his final line caused involuntary eye rolling. The problem is not so much that Uncle Ben doesn't say the exact line "with great power comes great responsibility" but that Parker doesn't seem to have learnt this lesson - or anything else from the whole experience for that matter.

Magic Mike (2012) - A straight husband's view

This review was also posted on ArtFist.org

Though my wife probably doesn't believe me, I did actually mean to tell her about this film before she randomly saw an advert for it. I'd heard about it a while ago with critics’ early opinions being pretty positive, and combined with the fact that it was directed by Steven Soderbergh, it sounded interesting to me. So when my wife demanded to be taken to see it, I didn't feel like it would be too much of a hardship for me to go along. I'd recently made her sit through Prometheus, so I owed her a movie choice anyway and I didn't think it could be much worse than that...

That said, it was quite a strange experience to see the theatre slowly fill up with women, I can't think of another film I've seen with a similar audience ratio. I wasn't the only guy in there, but there were only a couple more and they looked a lot more miserable about the prospect than me. However, being on the back row right under a spotlight I guess I stood out. "Oh my God there's a man in here! I feel so sorry for you mate!" came a cry from someone finding their seat in front of me. All I could do was chuckle to myself and give a wave of thanks for the sympathy. I did wonder whether the crowd would get a bit rowdy as there was a loud shout of "Oh Yeah!" down to my left the first time Channing Tatum's ass appeared on screen, but for the most part it settled down.

It struck me that one of the characters you meet early on worked quite well as a way for men to get into the film. Adam/'The Kid' (Alex Pettyfer) is thrown into the world of these strippers quite unexpectedly and his initial reactions are probably similar to any men in the audience. There is a lot of comedy in these early scenes, as long as the whole situation doesn't just make you feel awkward. What I found the funniest section in the entire film might make some people just want to curl up into a ball and cover their eyes (the same effect that The Office and Alan Partridge often have on me).

The movie as a whole is more focused on the title role of 'Magic' Mike (Tatum) than Adam's story. In fact, I was quite surprised that there was very little attention paid to Adam "learning the ropes", which was pretty much handled in one scene - very different from something like The Full Monty, where the preparation for their first performance is the entire film. Mike is a mentor to him in a more general sense and also just a friend, with their relationship becoming strained as Adam is drawn into more destructive aspects of the stripper's lifestyles. It's that question of where you draw the line when trying to look out for someone and at the same time let them make their own decisions.

Mike's own story is a familiar one, both in terms of having a dream that he would give up stripping for and also issues that you hear people struggle with in the real world right now. He works non-stop to save up money and runs into problems trying to get any kind of loan from a bank. It quickly becomes obvious that his life is not perfect and you question whether he really fits in to the world of stripping. Tatum's performance is great, which I probably wouldn't have expected before seeing 21 Jump Street earlier in the year. I particularly liked how he struggles and stumbles over what he's trying to say in one scene, which came across as completely natural and believable when it could well have turned out disastrous. In fact the response to this bit of dialogue feels much more scripted and kind of takes you out of the moment, reminding you that you're just watching a film.

As for the actual stripping routines, they are generally not too explicit and didn't make me feel uncomfortable. A lot of the dances are pretty cheesy and even my wife admitted that most of them didn't do much for her, it was more the confidence that all of the dancers have that makes them attractive. I would say there is one routine that almost anyone could appreciate though, especially if you are a fan of groups like Diversity, which is set to Calypso by Excision & Datsik.

If I had any complaints it would be that the ending doesn't feel all that satisfying, I'm not sure whether that is down to it aiming to be realistic or to leave things open for a sequel. But because 'The Kid' doesn't really learn anything from the whole experience, you are left with the impression that he could just continue on his downward spiral. Overall I would say that men shouldn't be scared to go and see this film though. It tells an interesting, believable story, with a good mixture of humour and drama. You just might want to avoid peak times...