Today's Thoughts

So what have I been thinking about today? (apart from the fact that I have got nothing in the way of work done, save for reading through my introductory thesis chapter and thinking about the unknotting number of knots)

Firstly, I'm quite amazed by Radio 1's decision to censor "Fairytale of New York", the famous Christmas song by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl. I accept that there are a couple of lines with pretty insulting language in it - but surely, if it is insulting it was always insulting? Why, today, 2007, is it suddenly MORE insulting for a woman to call a man a "faggot" - or for a man to call a woman "an old slut on junk"? Twenty years have passed since the song was first released, and only now does Radio 1 think that it is offensive - but Radio 2 thinks that it doesn't need censoring! I really, really don't know what to make of this... Having had a look through some of the comments on the story I think this is the one that I liked the best:

"It is just an inspired song. The most intelligent and real of any Christmas pop song. Sad and romantic. Full of lost dreams and lost love. Without that line the Female voice is blameless unless you believe the man's words. With it you see that she too is to blame for the sad situation they are in."

Warren Ellis puts another thought out there on communicating ideas to people. There is such a great simplicity and elegance to it, I'm surprised that I've never seen mention of it anywhere else before. I know that at several points in the past noisms and I had talked about doing some kind of e-zine, but the "broadside" could well be used as a global one-sheet daily newspaper, something like that. Like Ellis says, the overheads are so low as to be almost non-existent. As simple but effective ideas go, it's a winner.

Empire has the new trailer for WALL-E, next year's joint best film (along with The Dark Knight), and it is just lovely. Everything that I have heard about WALL-E has made me want to go and see it, and this trailer is no exception. Funny, sweet, utterly beautiful animation and such a fantastic idea for a film - I hope that there is not a huge gap between the US and UK release dates as there seem to have been with so many Pixar films.

I finished reading A Short History of Nearly Everything on the bus this morning, and if you haven't read it I heartily recommend that you do. It just covers so much about science and the world, and the history of both - it's by no means a short book, but I'm amazed that Bill Bryson was able to get in as much as he did. It was exactly what I needed to read, as lately I've been thinking a lot about things like extinction and so on, and while it did make me sad for all of the creatures that we have destroyed I am now extremely hopeful for the continuation of life itself no matter how badly humans abuse the world around them.

Wow. That's quite maudlin. Umm.

On a positive note, I think I have found my next challenge, or rather a challenge of challenges: 101 things in 1001 days. The nature of the challenges I set myself are obviously undecided at the moment, as I only came across this today, but a sudden flash of inspiration gave me my start date - Tuesday April 22nd 2008 - 1001 days before my 30th birthday.

Any suggestions?

Talking Trailers

.
"When all else fails," my old (fictional) blogging mentor used to say, "Talk about some trailers that you have seen recently and why they make you a bit excited." Man I miss ol' Jimmy...

Firstly, I Am Legend, whose trailer debuted a few months ago, gave me mixed feelings when I first saw it. This is mainly due to the fact that I Am Legend is one of my favourite books, a book that I re-read at least once a year and have done since I was 17, a book that I always find something new in when I read it - and I just couldn't picture Will Smith as Robert Neville when the casting was announced. The trailer made me feel hopeful; New York looks incredible as this abandoned place, and despite my initial misgivings Will Smith gives across a great mix of despair and stoicism. However, something noticeably absent in the trailer are vampires - will they even be vampires? Will we have some weak enemies like in The Omega Man? We'll find out at Christmas...

WALL-E just blew me away in terms of its concept: the year is 2700, and WALL-E is the last clean-up robot left on a deserted earth, cleaning up after humanity's mistakes, all alone... Until one day when a female robot turns up from space and it's love at first sight. The trailer is a little lacking, although it does very well in terms of setting the tone of the movie. Apparently the first third of the movie or so is going to just be a silent film, simply observing WALL-E and his life, such as it is. I have high hopes for this film.



I've never read Beowulf, although I feel like I should have. I've never seen The Polar Express, but by all accounts I'm not missing much. I'm a big Neil Gaiman fan, and I have to say that that's what has swung the Beowulf film for me, the fact that he has written the screenplay (along with Roger Avary). Also, it looks pretty interesting from the trailer. Things aren't quite photorealistic, but then I don't think that is the intention with the whole performance capture thing at this stage, just to do things that would be incredibly difficult otherwise (i.e., show Ray Winstone at different points in his life from 18 to 70). Technology isn't the be-all and end-all, but it can make some wonderful looking things.

The final trailer is for... Well, no-one's really sure what this film is called. Is it called 01-18-08? Is it called Cloverfield? Well, it's probably called neither of these things, but it has a very interesting trailer... A giant monster, hand-held video cameras with impressive effects in to add to the realism, just regular people... With the way that it is being marketed I'm surprised that someone hasn't started calling this the new Blair Witch or something (although Blair Witch had a budget of $30,000 I think, whereas this has a reported budget of $30,000,000). The trailer definitely makes me want to see the film.



And let's face it, for a trailer that means "job done."