Jill Valentine's Day

"Did you notice... Barry. He sounded a little flaky."
"Now that you mention it... yeah."


"September 28th.
Daylight...
The monsters have
overtaken the city.
Somehow...
I'm still alive..."


"The end of Umbrella is just a question of time. But..."


"Get yourself together! Wake up! Jill Valentine!"

Monday Movie: Ong-Bak

When thugs make off with the head of Ong-Bak - the cherished Buddha statue of a simple rural village - naive local Ting (Tony Jaa) is dispatched to track it down. Following the trail to bustling Bangkok, Ting quickly gets mixed up in drugs, gangs and an illegal fight club. It's a good thing he's a consummate practitioner of Muay Thai...

Although the weak characterisation and plot are on a par with plenty of other martial arts films, director Prachya Pinkaew's Ong-Bak is beautifully shot, often surprisingly atmospheric, and Jaa's physical prowess is a sight to see in itself.

How I learned to stop worrying and love Matt Anderson.

So I thought that ITV's Primeval flailed a bit in its third season, struggling to recentre itself around the gaping absence of Douglas Henshell's solid performance as monomaniacal Nick Cutter. Cheeky Danny was a likeable replacement, but he didn't really seem to have a very good reason to be there. And then ITV tried to put the show out of its misery altogether. Perhaps, I pondered sadly, none too soon.

Fortunately, the world knew that civilisation without Primeval is no civilisation at all. A semi-international team of TV studios banded together to bring at least two more seasons to our screens. But was it all for nought? Watching the first episode of series four, I was disappointed to see that the team leader is now this Matt fellow (above, middle, played by Ciarán McMenamin) who seems a bit too much of a bland everyman. If he's the show's heart, I thought, it's barely started beating again.

And I thought that because, when it comes to television at least, I am a jaded, cynical, judgemental fool. Pretty quickly it becomes clear that Matt has a Secret with a capital S, something tied deeply into the show's mythology. His ordinariness is a carefully constructed façade over a passionate, conflicted, potentially dangerous core. Oh, and there's a doomed romance in there as well. Basically, Matt is my new favourite character, and his key scene in the season finale had me welling up.

Or it would have done if I was prepared to admit blubbing over what is always, at its heart, a dodgy-CGI-creature of the week show.

"You sure you're ready for this?"

"Only one way to find out."

Friday Space Rabbit Blogging

Bucky! Captain Bucky O'Hare.

This is pretty much my childhood in a nutshell.

So this is my country.

Fortunately, I get to just say that I'm English.

Monday Movie: District 13

In the not-too-distant future (well, actually, 2010) the French government walls off the most crime-ridden banlieues and withdraws all public services from those within - including law enforcement. But when the crime lord who rules over Banlieue 13 gets his hands on the worst possible loot, maverick cop Damien (stunt man and martial artist Cyril Raffaelli) is forced to team up with local vigilante Leïto (David Belle, founder of parkour) in a race against the clock to get into the district and prevent catastrophe.

Although Luc Besson has directed an extremely diverse array of films, from surreal love stories to science fiction epics, the films that he writes and produces tend to fit a certain mould. Okay, Taxi, The Transporter and Kiss of the Dragon may be rather different shades of action movie, but they're all cut-down thrill rides with slightly woolly plots and a surprisingly strong emotional core. District 13 definitely ticks all the boxes, but if you haven't been sold on the style before, perhaps the world's first freerunning action movie can tempt you into the fold.

As with many cinematographers who take the director's chair, Pierre Morel shoots a good looking film, depicting the urban decay of his setting, and the tattooed, shaven-headed machismo of his actors with perfect framing and loving attention to detail, while the adrenalin-pumping action sequences are finely edited into quick-fire roller coasters where it's nevertheless still easy to make out what's happening. And thanks to that little pinch of Besson magic, the cast is strong, and the characters memorable - whether you're cheering them on, or booing and hissing. My only complaints are that the sole female character is stuffed pretty deep into the refrigerator, and the two stonking great action scenes that introduce David and Cyril respectively easily outshine much of what follows.

Friday Making Of Blogging

I know I'm normally the one complaining that the marketing-led discussion of video games fixates on their graphics technology, but using cool new techniques like this to incorporate reacting to the duplicitous, ambiguous characters of a typical film noir into your gameplay is just the kind of new development I can get behind.

(Game Central got a nice preview of how this integrates into the game.)

Ruddy

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/ASU

With a little help from her friends on Earth, Opportunity returns this awesome colour panorama of the crater she's exploring. It's well worth clicking for the full resolution JPEG on the Photojournal page to see all the lovely little details.

Thursday Book

Coraline - Neil Gaiman

I've carefully avoided the film version of Gaiman's Stardust because I loved the book so much I don't want to risk changing my memories of it. Which is kind of the opposite from my relationship to Coraline. As a fan of Henry Selick, I saw the film version first, and was surprised to find the book comparing unfavourably, at least during the beginning and middle. In this version, Coraline isn't really much taken in by the "other" house and family that she finds through a bricked up door in her new home, and while most film adaptations leave things out, a lot of the coolest parts of Selick's vision are clearly his own, and not Gaiman's.

But then the book comes into its own in the final act, charting quite a different course of creepy scares and ghostly resolutions. And there's also the simple fact that this is here a culturally British story, despite its Americanisation for the silver screen (after Harry Potter, I thought Hollywood had gotten over that?) And yet, while this is an excellent read, I have to admit that, for me, the film took it to another level.

Martian Sandpit

Source with larger versions

Opportunity sends us this nice snapshot of the crater she's currently studying.

Friday Trailer Blogging

For Takeshi Kitano's Sonatine. Probably my favourite trailer of all time.

Contains violence, flashing lights and beautiful imagery.

Monday Movie: Metropolis

Inspired by the words of the mysterious and beautiful Maria, spoiled Freder Fredersen descends into the depths of his father's metropolis and sees for himself how terrible conditions are for the toiling workers that built it. Little does he know that his father plans to use a robot clone of Maria as an agent provocateur, inciting the under-classes into sowing the seeds of their own demise.

I have to admit that, as much as I pride myself on enjoying movies of all stripes, types and forms, I struggled to appreciate Metropolis in its previous best restoration, in which all of the sequences believed forever lost when Fritz Lang's original version was re-cut for American audiences are marked by mere place-holders. But the discovery of a complete (if badly damaged) copy in a small museum in Buenos Aires finally allows the film to be seen in a much more watchable form. Two short sequences are still missing (and after this miraculous find its too much to hope that they'll ever turn up), and the Buenos Aires footage is of a markedly lower quality than the rest of the film, but this only serves to underscore the fact that a lot of the most awesome parts of Metropolis were butchered.

Seeing it in its almost complete glory, I finally find myself able to get into the film and lend it the admiration I wasn't sure it deserved. It's not just the visionary depiction of a timeless city where gothic architecture survives in the shadows of massive art deco superstructures, but Gottfried Huppertz's incredible score (which is a pleasure to listen to in itself); Brigitte Helm's fantastic performance as both the humble, saintly Maria and her skittish, sexually-charged doppelgänger; the dense and simplistic cocktail of 1920s hopes and fears about everything from Communism to technological advancement; and, more than anything, the singular combination of pulp sensibilities, epic themes and masterful imagery that's as breathtaking now as it was over eighty years ago.

Thursday Book

We Danced All Night: A Social History of Britain Between the Wars - Martin Pugh

As a novice on the subject, I can't claim to hold any opinion on the success of what Pugh believes is an attempt to redress established modern misconceptions about this period. I will say that I was drawn to this particular book because, as the title implies, it takes a positive view of twenties and thirties Britain.

And it's also easy to be impressed by the effort Pugh takes to be as broad as possible - which means both covering often specialist subjects such as aviation and motoring, and ensuring that each topic is related to every relevant sector of society (and region of the country). There is, for example, a dedicated chapter on the changing role of women - but Pugh also touches on this subject in relation to every other, from sport to the decline of the aristocracy.

It does make things a little repetitive at times, but it also means that each chapter feels like a comprehensive overview of each facet of the inter-war period.

Up high, down low.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
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"I see you, little rover! Muahahahahaha!"

Credit: NASA / JPL
Larger version

"But-but where are you, MRO?!"

2010: Year of the List

Or list of the year, I forget which. Here we go again - another completely subjective list of the things I found and liked this year.

--Of the movies I saw:

Inception
Christopher Nolan made me very happy with this decidedly literal take on the psychological thriller.

The Sky Crawlers
Evocative, imaginative and unsettling animation from Mamoru Oshii.

I'm Here
Spike Jonze's thirty minute short is weird, bittersweet and extremely memorable. You can watch it online here.

--Of the books I read:

Winged Victory - V.M. Yeates
An unflinchingly honest portrayal of young men ruined physically and psychologically by wartime flying in the newly founded R.A.F.

Boneshaker - Cherie Priest
A wonderfully atmospheric story of poison gas, zombies and steampunk.

---Comics and manga:

20th Century Boys - Naoki Urasawa
If you haven't already seen me raving about this fantastic series, you can't have been paying attention. A sprawling, genre-defying epic told at a personal scale.

Biomega - Tsutomu Nihei
All your transhuman zombie bio/cyberpunk needs in one gothic, M.C. Escher-esque setting. With added talking grizzly bear.

The Umbrella Academy: Dallas - Gerard Way, Gabriel Bá et al.
The continuation of the most imaginative superhero comic you'll ever read, which still never loses its human touch.

---Of the TV shows I watched:

Baccano!
Essentially the animated, prohibition-era, supernatural, ultraviolent The Wire.

Downton Abbey
You mean a period drama can be about progress instead of pining nostalgically for eras when everyone knew their place? And the whole thing is gorgeous and brilliantly written? More please.

Avatar: The Legend of Aang
I finally saw the first season of the acclaimed cartoon this year. It's not perfect, but the setting and characters are wonderfully realised.

---Of the games I played:

Mass Effect 2
Delivering on the promise of modern, mainstream, big-budget games, Mass Effect 2 places you in a sci-fi epic overflowing with cinematic action and life-or-death decisions. Also: Tali.

Digital: A Love Story
Simple. Minimalist. Heartbreaking.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
You may not experience the same visceral emotional response that this game gave me, but even without it, this demonstrates an important other way in interactive storytelling - rather than letting the player decide what happens, this game tries to get in your head and tell you the story it thinks suits you best.

--Of the New Years I had:

I wish you a very happy one. May 2011 be a year where good things happen for you.

Five Thoughts on Tron Legacy

1. Bruce Boxleitner is old now, but no less awesome.
2. I didn't find the CG Jeff Bridges that creepy.
3. Michael Sheen steals every scene he's in.
4. I fell head-over-heels in love with Daft Punk's awesome soundtrack.
5. Also, to a lesser extent, with Olivia Wilde's Quorra.

Christmas Present

Already retrieved from behind the sofa countless times.

Christmas a la Cassini

Since it's Saturnalia, or thereabouts, let's take a look at some of the Cassini images I missed over the past few months:

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The familiar icon of a crescent moon is rendered alien in this view of Enceladus bisecting a slender crescent of Saturnian daylight.

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Another snap from the same flyby shows Enceladus' characteristic geysers.

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Cassini caught a good portrait here of one of Saturn's many smaller, potato-shaped moons: Helene.

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Saturn's second largest moon, Rhea, eclipses Titan in a grab for the limelight. Rhea is about a million kilometres away in this image, and Titan 2 million.

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Saturn has many cratered, icy moons, but Tethys here shows off one of its most remarkable features: Ithaca Chasma, a massive canyon dwarfed only by Valles Marineris on Mars.

Happy Christmas everyone - whatever planet, moon or ring-system you may call home.

(All images credit NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.)

Monday Movie: A Town Called Panic

Somewhere in the serene papier mache countryside, a toy cowboy and Indian live with a horse, forever getting up to mischief. When their latest hijinks see horse's house completely obliterated, the trio knuckle down to rebuild it, only for each set of walls they build to be stolen by unseen criminals.

Chasing after the thieves, Cowboy, Indian and Horse blunder to the centre of the Earth, the bottom of the sea and the bowels of a terrible, terrible war machine. Will they recover their home, clear the name of their impossibly macho neighbour and get horse to his piano lessons on time? Well, if anyone can do it... it's probably not these three idiots.

A Town Called Panic (a.k.a. Panique au Village) blends rock-bottom crude animation with an epic, child-sized imagination to create an infectious, anarchic and bizarrely charming film where pretty much anything can happen.

The Weather Forecast was Accurate

Again.

In the space of an hour this afternoon, everything was covered in snow.

At least now I have some sensible icy weather shoes.

Friday Lego Blogging

Everyone knows the cardboard box is the ultimate infiltration tool.

Still Life

Influencia from David Dutton on Vimeo.

It only took me forever...

Finally posted a slightly fixed up version of my last game on the other blog.

Friday Statue of Oscar Wilde Blogging

Photo credit: Bea
Some rights reserved

How you doin'?

Sarif Industries

Sarif Industries.

Just a small cog in a large hype machine, that's me.

Coughing Fit

Heroic effort made to avoid corpsing.

Friday Video Game Tragedy Blogging

The cryo-trays are under attack. Defend them.

Monday Movie: Speedy

"Speedy" (Harold Lloyd) has considerable trouble holding down a job, whether he's goofing off in an ice cream parlour or terrorizing passenger Babe Ruth by driving a taxi without looking where he's going. Fortunately, he has a devoted girlfriend with an amiable old father. This old-fashioned geezer also happens to be the man who drives the last horse-drawn trolley in New York - or at least, he does as long as he's able to maintain a service at least once every twenty-four hours. And some unscrupulous businessmen have a few ideas about that...

As Lloyd's last silent film, this saw his brand now carefully honed into exactly, well, you know, that kind of film that it was. Where the two other great "silent comedians" of the era were dedicated filmmakers with an interest in cinematic experimentation (in the case of Buster Keaton) or heartwarming storytelling (in the case of Charlie Chaplin), Harold Lloyd films were mostly just intended as vehicles for his comedic talent, happy to drop everything and run off in pursuit of any good gag. Speedy perhaps stands out in that it finds a structure where it all fits together quite nicely. Speedy's different jobs enable Lloyd to get involved in all manner of hijinks, a trip to Coney Island fair ground cements his chemistry with leading lady Ann Christy (in what was apparently both her big break and her last major picture), and the battle for the old trolley runs through a glorious slapstick street brawl before the inevitable madcap chase to the climax.

Tra la la la la

Just updated the blog to fit current trends.

UPDATE:

Okay, that's quite enough of that.

Stay awesome guys. Stay awesome.

Thursday Comic

Batman: Heart of Hush - Paul Dini, Dustin Nguyen, et al.

So here I've gone and read another Hush book, even after last time. You could be forgiven for thinking that I had some specific interest in the character of Hush, but I have to say there are a lot of other Batman villains I'd sooner read about. But then I encountered the artwork of Dustin Nguyen online and wanted to pick up a book he'd worked on. Coupled with Paul Dini (Batman: The Animated Series, Batman: Arkham Asylum) taking the writer's chair, this became an unexpected must-buy for me.

And I have to say that Dini's take on Hush is a lot smoother than Jeph Loeb's (not that I bear any grudge against Loeb, his name is on by far the thickest graphic novel on my stack) - there's a more focused cast, more exploration of Hush's motives and pathology, far more touching moments between Batman and Catwoman (and, so it seems, between Hush and a mobster's daughter). There are also a few quintessential Dini touches - Zatanna plays a supporting role, and Harley Quinn and Mr Freeze put in brief appearances.

On the strength of this, I was quite happy to pick up the first collected edition of Dini and Nguyen's Batman: Streets of Gotham. W-wait... that's about Hush too? Oh well.

"8 minutes. And then I blow up again?"

From Duncan Jones, the director of Moon.

Monday Movie: Exit Through the Gift Shop

Meet Thierry Guetta, a man who films every moment of his life. When he discovers that his cousin is the French graffiti artist Space Invader, it's his induction into the world of street art. Soon he's accompanying all manner of guerilla artists on their sojourns around the cities of the globe, as they fight signposts and billboards for control of our visual space. His access extends as far as Shephard Fairey (whose iconic image of Barack Obama is known worldwide) and even the impossibly elusive Banksy. When anyone asks him just why he's filming everything, he responds with the obvious answer: he's making a documentary on street art. Eventually though, Banksy realises that Thierry is just "a guy with a camera and mental problems".

Exit Through the Gift Shop is a really interesting film, in a lot more ways than you might expect. At first it covers a broad perspective on street art, arguing that this is a way to put meaningful images in the public eye while side-stepping or corrupting corporate advertising and the art-gallery establishment. And then, in Thierry, or "Mr Brainwash" as he starts to call himself, it goes on to show this very process going spectacularly awry, projecting someone into the public eye who has no talent or originality beyond his unwavering self-belief and an innate knack for generating hype.

But, hang on a moment, I can't fail to mention that there's also the nagging suspicion that Mr Brainwash may himself just be the latest Banksy piece, a bizarre self-parody, or a parody of people's perceptions of Banksy and his career - and in some way, despite what Banksy may say at the start of the film, this actually is a film about him. Isn't that just the kind of stunt he'd pull?

(I also have to mention that the UK DVD comes in a really cool cardboard box, with a kaleidoscopic pair of "unique 2D glasses". It does not, regrettably, come with subtitles.)

Thursday Comic

20th Century Boys, vols 5-9 - Naoki Urasawa

Yes, I'm still reading 20th Century Boys. Yes, I'm still loving it to bits. No, I still can't tell you what it's about.

Probably the best description of this series is that it's in the vein of expansive mystery TV shows like Lost - except that you never doubt that Urasawa has the whole thing planned out in meticulous detail, and he's also very adept at resolving minor mysteries when they've run out of steam or introducing entirely new branches of the plot.

The other thing he does well is audacity. Not just in the way he can convincingly introduce pretty much anything to the storyline, but also in the way he's quite happy to go straight from a scene of epic science fiction, say, to an everyday moment of personal drama - sliding effortlessly between what some might expect to be entirely disparate genres.

Recommended with all the commends I can rec.

Oh, by the way...

I took second place at IFComp.