Month: May 2009

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reviews

A Whedon-less Buffy Film? Why Not?

In case you haven’t heard the rights-holders to the Buffy franchise are thinking of “rebooting” Buffy with a movie – without involving Joss Whedon. It wouldn’t star Sarah-Michelle Gellar and familiar characters like Willow, Giles and Xander would not be in the script.

And I think it might not be bad idea.

Heresy? Unthinkable? Me, a self-proclaimed fan of all thing Whedon suggesting that this travesty not only be allowed to continue but that it might actually be a good thing?

Well almost.

Heresy is Good

At the very least I think the unthinkable should be thought about and that contemplating heresy is good for the soul every now and then. One of my favourite Depeche Mode songs is “Somebody” which describes the kind of person the singer is looking for and includes the lines:

Someone who’ll help me see things
In a different light
All the things I detest
I will almost like

I think it’s a truly valuable thing to be able to sympathise with a radically opposing viewpoint. To understand how someone could get there even if you couldn’t yourself.

So that’s the first thing.

Getting Films Made is Hard

Film-making is probably hard. In fact I’m pretty sure it is. But from the little I know and have heard/read that’s nothing compared with actually getting them made in the first place. Most films never get made. Most professional screenwriters have sold scripts that’ll never see a screen. Most actors and directors – big names with a successful track record – have projects that they’ve never quite managed to get made. And of the tiny number that do get made, most are unsuccessful – critically and financially. Remember Sturgeon’s Law – 95% of everything is crap.

That’s the second thing. Try to keep these in mind when thinking about the possibility of a Buffy movie.

Not Giving The Fans What They Want

There have of course been rumours of a Buffy movie for years. And they’ve been just that – groundless rumours, based not on real facts but speculation and fan longing. I can understand this. I too felt a loss when Buffy ended. I can understand wanting there to be more.

But that’s the very reason I never wanted to see a Buffy movie (though of course I would have gone to see one if it had been made). Because I love movies and have done since long before I ever heard of the idea of Vampire Slayers. A Buffy movie would have been more of the TV show and TV shows are not movies – one is on-going stories, dealing with big themes but examining them on an everyday scale in sometimes minute detail. The other is epic and grand with sweeping huge brushstrokes.

Trying to make a movie that fulfils the longing of fans to see “more” of their show and yet works as a movie in its own right is nigh on impossible. Joss almost succeeded with Serenity – I mean creatively it does work in both those ways but it was only a moderate box office success and made money on DVD and largely due to the buy-everything-Whedon fan behaviour.

Joss famously[*] said once that he “needed to give the fans what they need and not what they want.” He was referring to the fact that he couldn’t let the desires of fans to see certain outcomes in the on-going Buffy story dictate where that story went. It was creative suicide and it was actually less satisfying to those same fans in the end.

At least that’s how I’ve always read this comment.

Well not giving them what they want at this stage means not just not giving them a particular romantic coupling or other given story outcome – but not giving them “more Buffy” in the form of a movie that’s trying to carry on its back the weight of a 7-series TV show.

So Buffy needs to be left alone. Left in peace to fade gracefully in our collective memory.

A Different Approach, A Point of View. Different is Good.

…or it needs to be rebooted. Re-imagined. By someone far enough away from all the things that have been done with the franchise already to see it with fresh eyes. Already there are hints in the article that they would go darker, more of a genuine horror experience.

So no Xander, Willow or Giles – they’re all too comfy. It might even not be Buffy but another Slayer. Betty. Bertha. Belinda. Or Martha. OK – probably not the last one.

Whether this will lead to anything good who knows? But it’s an interesting idea. It might spark something strange and wonderful. Or it might just be a curate’s egg.

What about Joss?

Joss doesn’t need Buffy. He’s got other ideas. Newer, fresher, dare I say, better ideas. If I ever doubted that Dr. Horrible confirmed it. Dollhouse started weak but got better and better.

Sure he still has Buffy stories left in him – but he’s got the perfect medium for that in the comic books. It’s an on-going episodic form, similar to the TV show.

Besides what he really needs is to be allowed to make great TV and Movies and I can’t help feeling that being associated largely with an ultra-loyal and sometimes not-so discriminating fanbase kind of gets in the way of that.

But What About the Fans?

What about the fans? Don’t they deserve something? Anyway isn’t it crazy to take something so beloved and take away the thing that made it beloved? On a pure business level surely you want, you need, to please the fans?

No.

The Firefly fans were the most rabid of an already fearsome fanbase. They were as dedicated to their cause as any evangelical cult member. They tried their best to spread the gospel  of Firefly-ness and Serenity. They went to see the movie multiple times, bought up extra tickets to give away, trying to convince everyone and anyone of its goodness. They did all this and yet they still couldn’t make the movie a hit.

The thing about Buffy is that it always managed to have a bigger cultural impact than was reflected by its core audience. References to Buffy, “the Scooby Gang” and “Buffy-esque” dialogue still crop up all over the place. There was an audience of casual viewers that had seen the odd episode and knew it was good. They were not fans but enjoyed it when it was on. They were also slightly put off by the really obsessive fanboys and girls.

Oh and there are millions of them.

All of which means that using the Buffy name, the “brand” to bring in the general populace could work even if you piss off the fans.

It could just work.

But it probably won’t – because even though this is not a groundless rumour, most movies don’t get made and of the ones that do, most aren’t any good. But I’m more stirred by the idea of someone else having a go at a reboot than more of the same. Leaving Joss free to do new things.

OK you can burn me at the stake now.

[*]For values of “famous” scaled to fit the relatively small world of Buffy online fandom. i.e. not very.

Categories
lesamy

Lesamy Week 36 – A Weekend of Sin versus Loose Skin

I’m going to try to be brief because I’ve got better things to be blogging about tonight and I’d really like to get to them. So…

It’s been another long weekend and a wild weekend, a weekend of “sin”[*] if you will. So another week of losing only a small token amount. I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand I feel a bit disappointed with myself. I feel like I’ve put back my reaching my target by a week etc. On the other, I feel like part of me wanted to slow down a bit.

Why? Well last week – week 35 – I lost 3.3 lbs, and I know from my daily weighing that up until thursday I was on track for even more this week. And that’s quite a lot, more than the 1-2lbs a week that is supposed to be for the best. And part of the reason I feel this is that I’ve started to notice some floppy flabby bits at my sides. They are, or will become, what is euphemistically called ‘loose skin’ – i.e. rolls of fat.

I’ve always had a bit of paranoia about loose skin since I realised it was a possibility shortly after I started. It’s not a foregone conclusion and even if I develop some it can eventually shrink back over time. I think on balance I’d probably rather be 12stone with a bit of loose skin than 16 without. But I’d rather not have it if I can help it.

And about the only things I can do to help it are exercise – which I’ve not been doing, walking yes, sit-ups no – drinking plenty of water possibly and slowing the rate to the mythical 1-2/lbs a week.

Which is possibly why the mixed feelings. Anyway, even if I do deliberately choose to slow down I think I ought to try to avoid the binge and fast method.

Weekly loss: 0.2kg (0.4lb)
Total loss: 39kg (86lb or 6st 2lb)
To target: 28.9kg (63.7lb or 4st 7lb)
Current weight: 105.1kg (231lb or 16st 7lb)


[*]about that title. It wasn’t really a weekend of sin. It wasn’t even really “sin”. I’ve always, quite deliberately, avoided using negative terms for eating too much. I prefer to talk of “freebies” and going over my “budget” of calories. Eating chocolate isn’t wrong any more than owning a nice car is wrong – but it may happen to be more than I can afford right now. Or I may prefer to spend my money on other things. Anyway I don’t really think eating too much is “sin”, but I couldn’t resist the title once I’d thought of it

Categories
lesamy

Lesamy Week 35 – At Last

So I finally hit 6 stone total loss. I feel like I’ve been on the verge of this for weeks so it’s good to finally get there. And in fact it’s been better than just that milestone, good as that is, I’ve also had a good week’s loss as you can see from below. I feel like I’m back on track.

I guess what did it was that I had – for the first time in ages – a week without freebies. I didn’t plan it that way really, I had tried to be stricter with the diet but I was also totally up for the pub friday lunchtime – but in the end I had too much work to go.

So what have we learnt? Weeks of slackness and too many freebies=little or no loss, a week of sticking to the diet = significant loss. So nothing we didn’t already know. It’s easy to get to this stage and think that things are slowing down because that’s the way it works – but if I go to the pub every week and have other freebies on top then of course I’m going to find it difficult to lose weight. It’s not rocket science.

Anyway here are some numbers:

Weekly loss: 1.5kg (3.3lb)
Total loss: 38.8kg (85.5lb or 6st 1lb)
To target: 29.1kg (64.1lb or 4st 8lb)
Current weight: 105.3kg (232lb or 16st 8lb)


Categories
lesamy

Lesamy 34 Errata

As the observant will have noticed, 3+3+5+5+8+12=36 not 34. So it’s actually 10 weeks and counting not 12. Still the point about things slowing down stands, but it’s not quite as bad as it seems.

While we’re at it I’ve been thinking about a couple of other points:

Exercise – the ‘received’ wisdom is that exercise doesn’t contribute much to the weight-loss. I think this is a case where a wrong perception has swung too far the other way. I was looking at my spreadsheet and discovered that since I started this exercise has accounted for about 29lbs, i.e. 2 of the nearly 6 stone I’ve lost. This comes with the usual caveats about the accuracy of calorie counts on pedometer etc, but still…

Targets – I’ve been thinking more about 14stone as a target. I’m 39lbs away from that and there’s about 20 weeks until the end of Sept – which would be (roughly) the year mark. So even if it’s not my final target, a target of 14stone would be something good to focus on because it should happen this year. At 2lb/week I might even get there around the time of my one year anniversary – though I’m nervous of making it a time-and-weight target as that might be too much pressure.

And we can just see what 14stone looks and feels like. Of course part of the reason I’ve gone for 12 is that that’s what I need to get to to have a “normal” rather than “overweight” BMI. But then that’s BMI for you…

Categories
lesamy

Lesamy Week 34 – No Change, Slow Change

So this ‘rebooted’ thing doesn’t seem to be working.  I had another ‘slack/wild/reckless/whatever’ weekend. After a pretty good week – meaning that overall I lost nothing and gained nothing this week. So I’m not going to do all the stats again – scroll down to Lesamy 33 if you want them.

And of course, as I’ve said before, the worst thing about that is that it just pushes back targets further and further. I seem to have been at nearly 6 stone total loss for weeks. I also made the mistake of calculating when I’d hit 12stone and it’s now looking like Feb ’10.

OK so I just (now) calculated how long each stone took to lose – 3 weeks each for the first 2, 5 weeks each for the next 2, 8 weeks for stone 5 and 12 weeks (so far!) for stone 6.

*sigh*

But the thing is it’s not really that the rate of loss has fallen per se, not when I stick to the diet. It’s that the number of slip-ups and over the top freebies and so on have increased. So if I’m going to keep this going and maintain 1-2lbs/week for the next 8-9 months then I really need to re-boot the reboot.

Mind you, I have wondered about my goal of 12 stone. Today I talked with a guy at work who’s been on a diet the last few weeks to lose a few extra pounds. He’s down to 12 stone he tells me. And he doesn’t really look overweight, slightest of slight potbellies perhaps. Thing is he’s probably 6 inches shorter than me and not a broad. So if that’s how 12 stone looks on his frame on me perhaps it’d be too skinny? I dunno I was 12 stone once and I thought I was overweight at the time.

Maybe I’ll see how I look/feel at 14stone. Which will still be some time off.


Categories
25 books reading

25 Books, Book 5 – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Book 5 - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Book 5 - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Imagine someone wrote two books. The first book was a crime thriller. One filled with twists and turns, long-held secrets uncovered, lots of characters with complicated interconnecting back stories, gruesome crimes and clever detective work leading the heroes (let’s say it’s a kind of buddy cop thing) to solve the case.

Now imagine the second book, which has the same pair of lead characters, is about financial intrigue. It’s also a thriller but it’s more cerebral, it’s about fraud and misdealing, it’s about politics and journalism and perception. It’s about manouvering information and people into the right postion to either commit, or solve, white-collar crime. It has elements of a spy novel, heist story or computer hacking cyber-punk.

Now take the two books and…  Oh I know you think you know what I’m going to say but no don’t intertwine them, simply jam them together. Chop the second book in half and stick the pieces either side of the first.

Now you’ve got something a bit like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It’s not a bad book. I definitely enjoyed it – but this structural oddity is responsible for all the things I didn’t really enjoy. Like the way it’s slow to get started. Or the fact that there’s long complicated sections of exposition very early on about the financial stuff. Or the fact that when you think you’ve just come to what must surely be the end of the crime thriller you’ve still got 100 pages to go and it switches back to the other story with corresponding drop in pace.

I think I preferred the central crime story because even though it’s not the kind of thing I usually read – too much gruesome detail – it was at least page-turningly gripping. Also it had some clever detective work. How the case is solved with the help of various old photographs and the conclusions drawn from them was genuinely fascinating and ingenious. The other story felt slow, unnecessarily complex and outstayed its welcome.

If this was a stand-alone book I’d probably avoid any more by the same author. However it’s part of a trilogy and clearly there’s an ongoing element to the two main characters relationship with stuff still to tell. I’ll be honest and say that I’m intrigued enough to want to follow that.

Because in the end the most interesting thing about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was the girl with the dragon tattoo.

7/10 – enjoyable in a what’s-going-to-happen way for the central 2/3rds of the book.

Categories
lesamy

Lesamy Week 33 – I Came Out

OK this wasn’t the week where people found out for the first time, as I’ve told people and people have noticed, but it was the week where I started being open about it. I decided that rather than carry on being coy I’d had the satisfaction of the unprompted mention of me losing weight and I’d now not deliberately go out of my way to avoid talking about being on a diet (like not really giving a good reason why I didn’t want to go to the pub when I was already going out that night). So I did and it lead to a few conversations and nice comments including:

  • the lady who said “I hope you don’t mind me saying but you’ve lost a heck of a lot of weight”
  • the guy who told me he’d noticed but wanted to wait until he was sure I wasn’t ill or something
  • the woman who used to work with us and came into the office having not seen me for 6 months and was amazed that a) I wasn’t doing some kind of program and b) wasn’t on the front of some slimming magazine
  • my co-worker who was not only impressed that I had lost weight but was (more) impressed that I was cooking properly

So that was all nice. However, typically perhaps, it’s also the week where I had an evening at the pub that was quite a large freebie in terms of calories. I’ve still ended up losing weight so I’m not that bothered but I should have held back a bit more, even for a freebie. I also got warned that I shouldn’t lose too much weight as some women aren’t into skinny men. I shall bear this in mind…

Anyway this week’s numbers are:

Weekly loss: 0.3kg (0.7lb)
Total loss: 37.3kg (82.2lb or 5st 12lb)
To target: 30.6kg (67.5lb or 4st 11lb)
Current weight: 106.8kg (235lb or 16st 11lb)

Still a little shy of having lost 6 stone – but I should get there by next week.


Categories
reviews

Romeo and Juliet, at The Globe

Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet

On Thursday I finally did something I’ve wanted to do since I moved down here – go see a play at The Globe in London. For those that don’t know it’s a re-construction of the 16th century theatre where Shakespeare actually wrote and acted.

I’m not sure that Romeo and Juliet would be my first choice of play to see but someone was organising a trip and I decided to join in. Besides it’s Shakespeare and I like Shakespeare.

I guess that there are two things to review here – the theatre ‘experience’ and the performance itself.

We went for the cheap tickets in the yard which was open to the elements but were lucky with the weather – I had prepared for rain so was pleasantly surprised we didn’t get any. I had braced myself for inclement weather and for standing for 3 hours, what I hadn’t prepared myself for was that for the first hour there was a plane going overhead every few minutes. It meant 10-15 seconds of struggling to hear the actors, who are not relying on their lungs and voices. I also was unfortunate to stand behind two of the tallest people there, so I was constantly shifting position as they did. The Globe website says that there’s no seat that doesn’t have a partially obscured view of at least part of the stage, but at least pillars don’t move. I think that, rather than comfort would make me want to pay for a seat next time.

The performance itself was excellent I thought. It was a very ‘straight’ version with the period costume and staging – which I’m told, despite the theatre, isn’t always the case. The leads were great, especially Adetomiwa Edun’s Romeo. Phillip Cumbus as Mercutio was good too, bringing out a side of that character I wasn’t aware of. I guess I’ve been influenced by the Baz Lurhmann film to think of Mercutio as quite a cool dude. Cumbus’ Mercutio was more comic, a bit of a windbag – but just a likeable and entertaining. Along with Fergal McElherron’s Peter he was responsible for bringing out the bawdy humour of the play. The later was also very good.

I had wondered whether the nature of the venue – both being outdoor and very close up – would lead to a problem with the audience being too noisy but that wasn’t the case. There were a few who ignored the no cameras rule and I heard at least one mobile phone on a very loud vibrate setting but generally the audience was more respectful that I’ve seen say in the cinema recently. There was a good-natured feeling of wanting to laugh that made the humour work better than it perhaps deserved at times, but when Juliet ‘died’ there was a hush in the place I hadn’t expected.

Overall it was a very enjoyable performance. It made me want to go see more Shakespeare – though perhaps indoors next time.

8/10 for the play.

6/10 for the ‘experience’

Categories
movie reviews

The Boat That Rocked

The Boat that Rocked
The Boat that Rocked

I saw this movie with M. on my birthday so I figure I owe you a review on it. However I’m not sure how much I have to say.

OK it’s a Richard Curtis movie that’s not a romantic comedy (well not really). It’s a (very) fictionalised version of pirate radio in the 60s. It takes place on a boat in the north sea which houses a radio station. There’s a colourful collection of characters – some obviously based on real life DJs – and a plot about the authorities trying to shut it down.

It’s good fun, it rattles along pretty well and there’s plenty to laugh at. It does suffer from some of Curtis’ particular ‘sins’ i.e. a tendency to over-sentimentality, plus an entirely unrealistic moment where the guy is completely inept but the girl goes for him anyway. It also has an ending that’s both illogical and too drawn out.

But… I dunno, it’s hard not to like. Thanks to all-round good performances the  characters are so amiable, and it’s all so breezy and light that you don’t really care about that stuff. At least I didn’t.

8/10 – a fun, even if completely unmemorable, way to spend a couple of hours.

Categories
25 books reading

25 Books, Book 4 – The Ascent of Rum Doodle

The Ascent of Rum Doodle
The Ascent of Rum Doodle

This book was given to me by my “Secret Santa” on a writing site I’m on. It’s taken me a while to get to reading it (as you can tell it being months since Christmas now). It got added to the list because it’s quite short and I felt I needed to catch-up on my target a bit. Anyhow…

The Ascent of Rum Doodle is the account of an expedition to climb the fictional Rum Doodle mountain which is slightly higher than Everest (40,000 1/2ft). It’s told by the leader of the expedition who is often blissfully unaware of what’s really going on around him.

It’s like a “Three Men and a Boat” for mountaineering. Or so believe since I haven’t read that book either.

The real test for a book like this is is it funny? It is but for me it was a bit of a one-joke idea – that the narrator has no idea just how incompetent his team really are. I read it more with a wry smile than I did actually laughing – though there was at least one laugh out loud moment toward the end.

6/10 It was a fun read but not “one of the funniest books” I’ve read. Sorry Bill.