Monday 17th
May 2007
Spiderman III
Meet the Robinsons
Today I went to see two
films. On a positive note, they're finally doing something about the
potholes on the access road at Centretainment. When I say potholes, I
mean potholes, the type with blokes with ropes and lights on their heads.
When you dropped a rock in, you didn't hear a splash.
Spiderman III
Spidey is back and
fighting Sandman, Young Goblin and Venom, all while trying to propose to
Mary Jane.
I wasn’t overly looking
forward to this. Reports said it was too long and tried to cram too much
in. I didn’t like the “Virtual Stuntman” effect in the other films, it was
too obviously a special effect and it drew me up short.
Also, the trailers lead
me to believe that that the MJ storyline was the main one and this side of
Spidey was what I hated about the comics. As teenage nerd-boy, I didn’t
care about his problems with his girlfriend. I didn’t want to read about
weird American teenage angst, I had enough weird English angst to cope with.
******** Here be
Spoilers ********
Apparently, the Raimi
brothers planned this as two films shot simultaneously (a lá Pirates) but
Avi Arad, the guy from Marvel, didn’t like this as an idea and said that
there was no suitable climax to end the film on. This means two film’s
worth of detail has to be crammed in. Sandman’s origins are glossed over
(what in God’s name was the thing in the sandpit?) and Harry Osborn’s death
is rushed to the point that frankly, you just don’t care.
But for me, this works.
It’s a comic for goodness sake, I don’t want every detail explained. The
Virtual Stuntman has improved to the point that most of the time it’s
indistinguishable from a human being and on the whole didn’t pull me up
short.
One thing I could have
done without was the reboot of the Spiderman Origin. For some reason they
felt the need to make Flint Marco the killer of his Uncle Ben. This is
pointless and detracts from the story and takes up valuable time.
Still, what the
Americans would call a date movie. All I need now is to find a date.
Meet the Robinsons
An orphan searching for
his mum invents a mind reading device, but forces from the future are
determined to help and hinder him.
There has been a lot of
coverage that this film is Disney’s break from Pixar and a return to
Disney’s Core Values. To me, this was a typical Disney film and for me
there’s the rub.
When I was a kid in the
sixties, we would watch the Wonderful World of Disney on Saturday Tea Time.
These were fifty minute dramas and were often quite dull. Every now and
then, there would be an animated featurette and we would tune in every week
in the hope that this week’s episode would be one of these, yet when it was,
we were somehow disappointed.
The film started with a
Disney short – Boat Builders – and this underlines the problem I have with
Disney.
The Boat Builders is
basically a Laurel and Hardy film but with Mickey, Donald and Goofy.
Animation means that they can do stunts and gags that Stan and Ollie
couldn’t, but the imagination shown in these gags is limited, and although I
was never their greatest fan Stan and Ollie did it so much better. Worst of
all, it’s safe. There’s nothing rebellious or iconoclastic about it. Even
as a kid in the sixties, these shorts looked dated and un-funny.
But these films are not
for me, they’re for young kids.
There were a number of
kids in the audience and judging by their reactions, it was a success. It
started a bit slow for them and they chatted through the first ten minutes,
asking their mum various pointless questions, but once the story got going,
they were drawn into it and the interrogations stopped. For me it was
innocuous enough, so in the end, generally thumbs up. As I left the cinema
I heard one of the kids talking to his mum.
“I enjoyed that,” he
said, but then added with some degree of uncertainty, “Didn’t I?”
Saturday 19th
May 2007
FA Cup Final
Manchester United v Chelsea
We went to the pub to
watch the first FA cup final in the New Wembley, and it was rubbish.
Wembley itself looks
great from the outside and from most of the interior angles too. There are,
however some angles that make it look like that the roof is still held up by
scaffolding. I’m going to have to find some sort of event to attend and see
for myself. I better start saving up.
We watch football in the
Red Lion, Charles Street. The tables there still hold the scars of a World
Cup match. I had bought some streamer sticks, described on the packet as
“All the fun you can have with a stick”, a statement that actually undersold
the product. Fortunatley, we’d cleared their release with the landlord and
he set one off with us. I say fortunately, because when we set them of they
filled the entire bar with a blizzard of paper strips. There were a variety
of exclamations from the crowd, from the impressed “Wow!” through the
ambiguous “Jesus” to the unambiguous “Get this Sh*t out of my beer”
Unfortunately, The Lion
has not being showing Sky only matches for the last few months and we have
had to go elsewhere. So, it was with feelings of homesickness that we
returned to the old place and just sad that the football didn’t live up to
our feelings of sentimentality.
I remember as a kid we
would all gather round at someone’s house, all the dads and sons. The
curtains would be closed and cans of Double Diamond opened and we would
watch little grey men run up and down the set.
I’ve been to Wembley
several times, but only once (twice, really) for an FA Cup Final. Wednesday
played Arsenal and after a 1-1 draw we returned to Wembley to get beaten
2-1. I’ll write about that some other time, but it wasn’t a classic.
This one wasn’t a
classic either. The whole thing was summed up by a little clip that the BBC
showed at half time. Chelsea passed the ball about amongst themselves in
their own half, unchallenged. In the end they passed back to the goalie and
started again.
Man. U’s goal. Did the
ball cross the line? Yes. Was it a foul? Yes. Do I care? No.
We were even denied the
excitement of a penalty shoot out by a last ditch goal, albeit well taken.
At the end of the day,
watching football wasn’t really the point. The point was spending an
afternoon in the pub with a few mates and having a few beers and, although I
say it myself, we made a very good job of that.
Thursday 17th
May 2007
Glass Mountain Writers Group
I’m genuinely impressed
by the standard of what these people are writing
This is only the second
time I’ve been there, so you’ll have to have to excuse me if I don’t
remember names. Highlights were
-
The song from the
folk opera (work in progress)
-
The shape poem about
the confusion between birds and bombers
-
The poem in praise
of Eagles
-
The piece about the
young woman moving on
Everything I write falls
into two categories, either getting information across or telling a story.
If I’ve managed to do this, then the piece is a success. What visits to
this group is teaching me is that the words I use matter and that in some
styles of writing, choice of words is all that matters. I find writing in
this way challenging and, as Mrs. McGinty might say, I love a challenge.
They were also looking
for riddles for some project or other, so I’ve written a couple and sent
them off. Click here to see them.
You can find their work
at here and the
pieces I’m writing here.
One last point, next
week we’re meeting on Wednesday, because we’ve got Ian McNaughton, the Bard
of Barnsley, coming along. They’re making a South Bank Show about him and
they’re going to film us for the piece on his work in the community. The
topic is Change.
Wednesday 16th
May 2007
Next
Nicholas has the ability
to see two minutes into the future and the FBI want to use this ability to
stop a nuclear bomb detonating. Nicky’s not quite so sure.
******** Here Be
Spoilers ********
There’s good performance
from Cage, just being Cage, slightly weird, but just on top of things. The
concept is well worked (apart from the end) and accompanied by some nice
visuals. The end is unpredictable but clichéd. There’s a separate credit
for the story and the screen story and you can see why.
I’ve read a lot of
Philip K Dick and although I liked him enough to read more, he wasn’t one of
my favourites. His work was always brimming with great ideas, but none of
them were fully realised. His books always started brilliantly but petered
out during the middle and the endings were often damp squibs.
Having said that, he
never sank as low as “Oh, it was all a dream”.
All this makes it seem
that it was a bad film, but it wasn’t. When Cage woke up, I fully expected
us to go through the business of stopping the terrorists, but they didn’t.
I looked at my watch and was stunned to find that I’d been in the cinema for
almost two hours. As you know, I think time flying by is one of the marks
of a good film, so this one couldn’t have been all bad.
Tuesday 15th
May 2007
Pig Derbies
I once saw an interview
on TV between two train drivers.
It was on the day of the
first serious derby match between the two teams for many years (we had faced
each other in the Zenith Data Systems Cup, but that’s not real football) and
they were both having to miss the match because they would be driving the
train to London. One was an Owl, the other a Blade. The interviewer asked
the Blade who he thought would win.
“I hate to say it,” he
said. “but I think the pigs are going to shade, 1-0 perhaps”
“Who are you calling a
pig?” said the Owl.
“You.”
“No, you’re a pig.”
“No, you’re a pig.”
“No, you’re a pig.”
They kept saying this
over and over again, getting more and more irate as time went. The
interviewer just stood there holding is microphone, looking vaguely
perplexed. This interview led to Soccer AM referring to the
Wednesday/United matches as “Pig Derbies”.
I remember the Zenith
Data Systems Cup game. I went with a friend from Wolverhampton. Both sets
of fans were shouting at the other at the same time. All forty thousand
people, Blades and Owls alike, were chanting “You’re the s**t of Sheffield”
to the tune of Cwm Rhonda. My friend from Wolves assumed that they were all
shouting at him.
I’m telling you this to
try and explain why I greeted SUFC’s relegation with at best indifference,
at worst, glee.
Tribalism is part of
watching football. If you’re standing at the side of a cold field with
30,000 other people, mob psychology is bound to play a part. As soon as
this comes into play, our-dads-bigger-than-your-dad is always going to lead
to friction between between two neighboring tribes.
This is one of the basic
things about tribalism. If a tribe doesn’t have the attitude that it should
defend itself at all costs, especially at the cost of other tribes, then it
dies out. It’s natural selection on a cultural scale.
Whatever happens, when
SU play SW, you are supporting one or the other. It’s not a big step from
loving the Owls to hating the Blades.
Anyway, SUFC and SWFC
are in the same division next season. Bring on the Pig Derby.
Monday 14th
May 2007
Fracture
Anthony Hopkins is found
innocent of murdering his wife, but DA Ryan Gosling is not going to let the
manipulative engineer get away with it.
This was one of those
films that I wish I’d seen with someone else. I knew what had happened to
the gun almost immediately and wanted to tell someone. It doesn’t sound the
same telling someone you worked it out immediately when you saw the film two
days ago. It’s a bit like using a quiz machine and saying “It’s B, I knew
it was B” ten seconds after someone has pressed A.
***** Here be spoilers
*****
This is basically an
episode of Columbo. Anthony Hopkins is the clever killer and Ryan Gosling
the slightly less disheveled detective, who keeps hassling his prey
The problem is, it is
the same story as an episode of Columbo. I’m sure the thing with the guns
is done in Columbo, it’s definitely done in Wycliffe but both make the point
that ballistic profiles are kept of all police weapons are kept on record.
In Wycliffe, it’s used to frame the cop and Columbo finds a bullet that was
fired by the cop from the defendants gun when the guns were exchanged
Ryan Gosling is not
quite as endearing as Peter Falk and I found myself hoping that Anthony
Hopkins would get away with it.
Still, it’s well made
film and well played and if you don’t watch Wycliffe and Columbo, then I’m
sure the plot has lots of twists and turns.
Sunday 13th
May 2007
SUFC v Wigan
Manchester United v West Ham
I’ve just watched Wigan
beat Sheffield United while flicking backwards and forwards between that and
the Man. U. match.
I've been saying for the
last few weeks that United were safe. I was saying it on Friday night.
I should have looked at my past history of football prediction, not to
mention my ability at weather forecasting.
Man. U. played a reduced
team for the first sixty minutes and when they did bring on all the big
names, you could tell they had an eye on next week's cup final (watch the
highlights on Match of the Day).
There are of course a
number of ironies.
-
For forty minutes
Sheff. U. weren't out of the Wigan half.
-
The winning goal was
scored by David Unsworth, an ex-blade.
-
The same Unsworth
missed a penalty for United against Blackburn. If he'd have scored
it, United would have stayed up.
-
West Ham's winning
goal was scored by Tevez, the player who should not have been fielded in
earlier matches and didn't cause West Ham to lose points.
It’s hard to know what I
felt about it
They’re a Sheffield club
and having a club in the Premiership keeps football in Sheffield on the
Also, I have many friends who are Blades and will be very hurt by this
result and I can’t help but feel some sympathy for them. But I’m a
Wednesdayite and Pig Rivalry runs deep. In the end I found myself
taking a schizophrenic approach and cheering and groaning randomly
regardless of which side made an excellent save or failed to score.
I was looking at some of
the SWFC forums (fori?) and they had little difficult deciding on the nature
of the result. To go by the postings, you’d think we’d just won the
European Cup
Sheff. U. have gone down
on goal difference.
Colin (for those of you
who don’t know, Neil Warnock is an anagram of Colin somebody or other)
played one man at the front and packed the defence for most of the season in
the hope of not losing by too many. Perhaps with a bigger and better strike
force, they might have scored the two goals they needed to remain in the
premiership. I saw bits of the Birmingham match last week and the Blades
were poor. If they had lost by a single goal instead of the three, and not
let in a hatfull against Chelsea and Liverpool, they would still be playing
these teams next year.
One last point.
Mike Pollitt, the Wigan keeper is tipped for a move to Sheffield 6. On
this performance, we don't want him.
Thursday 9th
May 2007
Glass Mountain Writers Group
Today I declared the
second of the two novels I’ve been writing finished. I’m not going to add
anything to it, just make technical changes (mainly SPAG) suggested by my
proof readers.
Now comes the job of
trying to sell them.
One of the first steps
on this journey is to meet other people who are writing and so I decided to
try and join a couple of writer’s groups. With minimal research on the web,
I found that the Glass Mountain group met on a Thursday at 2.00pm in the
Crystal Peaks Library. As it was already gone 1.00pm, I had a quick shower,
leapt in my car and went round.
Basically, each week,
the group leader gives out a topic and everybody goes away and writes
something on that topic. They then bring this piece along and read out and
the rest of the group critiques it. A number of things were particularly
noticeable.
-
The standard of the
work is very high.
-
The criticisms were
all constructive and supportive
-
No single person
dominates the group
I tried to contribute by
scribbling something out
Next week we’ve got a
visiting writer. I’ve scribbled down Richard Hearne, but that’s Mr. Pastry,
so unless they’re digging him up, I’ve got it wrong. The topic is basically
Up.
Wednesday
8th
May 2007
Wild Hogs
A group of
forty-something misfits embark on a road trip across America.
This film opened to
massive box office in the US and appalling reviews in the UK so it’s either
one of the best films ever made or one of the worst. The reality is
somewhere in between.
Some of the scenes fall
very flat and it’s simply a matter of timing. The double entendre scene
with the gay cop is well written but appallingly badly performed.
If I was looking for
some sort of insightful commentary on midlife crisis (and God knows I need
it), this film didn’t have it.
But if I was looking for
a pleasant way to spend an hour and a half with a cutsie no-brainer comedy,
then this was it.
Not as bad as I’d
feared, not as good as I’d hoped.
Tuesday 7th
May 2007
300
300 Spartans hold off
the invading Iranians and Iraqi in the battle of some place I can’t
pronounce.
The film is based on a
comic by Frank Millar and Lynn Varley. Like Sin City before it, each scene
mirrors a frame in the original comic. The images in the comic are
striking, so this makes for a visually beautiful film
Usually, I’ve got a
downer on films that have to use voiceovers to explain what’s going on. I
should be able to work it out from the action without having to be told. In
this case, I didn’t mind, it was like having the text boxes in the
individual frames of a comic.
One thing springs to
mind. I wonder what Alan Moore makes of films like 300 and Frank Miller
keeps some sort of control over the movie versions of his projects (he’s
listed as executive producer of this one) and has had hits which are not
only enjoyable films in their own right but stay true to the feel of the
comics and actually add something to the medium. Alan Moore hands his
projects over to the movie makers and chooses to have no input on the movies
at all (apart from moaning about them afterwards).
The film has attracted
much attention because of claims homoeroticism, fascism and islamophobia.
Homoerotic? No. My
guess is that a six pack and a beard don’t really do it for gay men and
straight women. I’ve got both (apart from the six pack) and I can’t say I’m
beating them off with a stick.
Fascistic? No. The
people of this time were genuine in their beliefs. If they seem extreme
now, they’re not intended for now
Islamophobic? No. It’s
a matter of historical fact that the Spartans fought the Persians. The fact
is that Persian society had different values to those of the Spartans. If
we are going to see more into this than is really there, then we should see
this as an allegory of our inability to understand Moslem culture and their
inability to understand ours.
Well made, well paced
and in places, dazzling.
Sunday 6th
May 2007
SWFC vs Norwich
Another season draws to
a close but this time with a win. Two good goals and a comedy goal for
Wednesday, one good goal and a jug ears shambles for Norwich. The comedy
goal was a classic goalkeeper-misses-back-pass and ball trickles over line.
Brian Laws said after the match that nobody likes to see that kind of goal.
Actually Brian, we do.
If we had beaten
Birmingham we would have had 74 points and would not have made the play-offs
(I’ve been saying this for some time, looking at previous years it’s taken
at least 75). If we had won once in January, we would still have had a
chance. Still, our chairman has got what he demanded, a mid-table finish.
Who will be in and out
during the close season?
I’m pretty sure we’ll
lose Brunt, MacLean and Simek and I’m also pretty sure Graham and Coughlin
will not be coming back from their loan periods elsewhere. Adamson is out
of contract and God help us if we keep him.
But who is coming in?
We need a couple of goalkeepers and more depth in the squad in defence, but
the team we have has the makings of a playoff team. The secret is going to
be not to meddle with the team too much, we’ve been successful when we’ve
had a stable team.
Friday 4th
May 2007
Sheffield University Beer Festival
The first thing I
noticed was how young the people were and how many of the beer lovers had
beards. The queues were huge at the bar, but there was a large variety of
beers and plenty of bar staff. There were no hand pumps and everything was
served under gravity.
No bears in this country
are brewed to be served under gravity, all are pumped out of the barrel in
some way. The beer nutters of course loved it. I told one of then my
theory and they told me this wasn’t true. Real ales are brewed to be served
straight from the barrel and don’t have any gas in them.
(Yes, I know it says no
bears are brewed, but I like the idea)
This is not true. Cask
Conditioned Ales are so called because the brewing process continues in the
barrel. This generates gas. The head is made of gas. Pubs in Sheffield
will leave a pint for the gases to settle before topping it up. It’s called
a head. Although southerners serve beer without a head, that doesn’t mean
the gas isn’t there.
Anyway, most beers
served at Beer Festivals are served under gravity and consequently taste
like diabetic cattle urine.
Beer festivals work on a
ticket system. You have to buy tickets and exchange them for beer. It’s to
stop bar staff having to deal with money, help with security and speed up
the beer delivery system. The premium beers (usually the stronger ones)
carry a surcharge, say a ticket and 5p. This festival also operated a
ticket system, but there were £1 and 20p tickets so different beers could be
charged at n*20p. Tickets could also be bought at the bars which meant if
you got to the front of the queue without a ticket, all was not lost.
When I was younger, I
worked behind the counter at a number of beer festivals. We always had
something on called Scruttock’s Zombie. A strong beer will have an OG of
around 1050 (the 50 at the end is divided by 10 to give the alcohol content,
so an OG of 1047 is 4.7% proof). Scruttock’s Zombie had a original gravity
of 1200 and cost a ticket plus £1. We were the only people who stocked it
and beer buffs would come back year after year for a half of Scruttock’s
Zombie. Of course, it was rubbish. An OG of 1200 would mean it had the
consistency of ferro-concrete. Scruttocks Zombie was all the dregs out of
the other barrels.
When I tried to explain
this to people they told me that I didn’t know what I was talking about.
That was a damned good half of Zombie.
Here’s my advice.
When you’re at a beer
festival, go for the ciders and perrries. They’re brewed to be served out
of a plastic casks, have a wide variety of tastes and textures and some of
them are strong enough to send you blind.
Thursday 3rd
May 2007
Mag 7
It’s a long time since
I’ve seen Mag 7.
I last saw them in
Woodseats years ago. At that time, their drummer
The first thing I
noticed was that they’ve all got old. There’s a graying of what little hair
is left and there’s a few pounds been added here and there. Having said
that they can still belt out the old songs and are as tight as a 32” belt.
The was there normal
drummer was sick and although they had found an excellent replacement
drummer, this meant changes from what would be their normal set. I’m told
their normal set includes things like Alex Harvey and is more entertaining.
The replacement drummer
was superb. If he was a last minute stand in, then he filled the gap
admirably, keeping time and providing fills, but it was his stage persona
that really caught the eye. If I was in a band and looking for a drummer, I
would go for this man. He was small and wiry with a shaved head. He seemed
vaguely disturbed by his drumsticks and genuinely terrified of his drums.
His performance was one of abject terror.
Mag 7 are still well
worth seeing, but try and catch them with their normal drummer, but someone
sign that drummer up.
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