The Summer that Started it all.

By john | July 2, 2009

You know, there is a popular theory in Ireland pertaining to the beginnings of the Celtic Tiger economy that is little known outside the Emerald Isle.  This theory essentially assigns the credit for the dramatic transformation in Irish economic fortunes in the 1990s not to the endeavours of the unfortunately named Dick Spring and his colleagues, but to Ireland’s first appearance at the World Cup Finals.

The World Cup in 1990 had everything as far as Irish fans were concerned.  We had an unlikely hero in Jack Charlton, the former World Cup winner with England who had led the Irish team to victory over his home country two years earlier in the European Championships.  We had the bad guy: Eamon Dunphy, self-appointed conscience of journalistic integrity and all-around bad sport.  Dunphy’s reputation with the Irish public nosedived after he had the audacity to throw a pen across the studio while declaring himself “ashamed” after the first round game with Egypt.

Dunphy has always insisted he was ashamed of the performance (which was truly shameful, in an insipid 0-0 draw against an awful team) and not of his country, but it didn’t matter.  Dunphy just didn’t get it.  We loved Charlton, and we loved that he hated Dunphy.  Charlton was leading our lads out against better teams and beating them, and when members of the Fourth Estate took umbrage with his style, he told them to stuff it.

It was fantastic.  The dodgy shell suits.  The bad dancing.  Old men crying.  The euphoria!  Irish broadcasting legend Bill O’Herlihy can never escape his own flirtation with innovative fashion statements.

Yes, the World Cup in 1990 had everything, and it showed Irish people that good things could happen. It opened Ireland to the world in a way we had somehow avoided whilst sending missionaries, builders and entertainers out into it for one hundred and fifty years.  It was a “Yes We Can” moment, stretched out over more than three weeks.  Really.

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Greed was good the first time.

By john | June 22, 2009

They’re making a sequel to Wall Street.

Wall Street, a genuine feather in Oliver Stone’s cap, a rare gem of a decent dramatic turn by Charlie Sheen, and an absolutely blistering iconic performance by Michael Douglas.

wallstreet460.jpg

Wall Street, a film so broadly accepted as an accurate encapsulation of its era that it is quoted, referenced, and plain stolen from on a regular basis. A movie which enjoyed critical success so strong that it overwhelmed the bile the critics of the day had for Darryl Hannah. I thought she was fine but some can never forgive Splash.

There are many reasons that a sequel to this film is an astonishingly poor idea, but I’ll stick to bullet points.

- Gekko emerges from prison to ‘warn’ everyone about Wall Street. It’s so timely!
- Gekko tries to mend his relationship with his estranged daughter. No, really.
- Shia LaBeouf is in it.

shia-labeouf300.jpg

Blank looks do not equal acting.

Oliver, you somehow got a pitch perfect performance out of Charlie Sheen in the first movie. Lightning doesn’t strike twice.

Why do people do this? I will never get it.

And Mr. Douglas, you were truly wonderful as Gordon Gekko in 1987. But in 2009, I only want to see you in movies where you exhibit wit and sensational hair.

michael-douglas-one-night-at-mccools-001.jpg

Come on Mike. Let me remember you on my own terms.

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Caving in to cuteness. I think.

By john | June 19, 2009

To blatantly steal a line from someone else, weekend confirmed.

CONFIRMED!!!

I’m celebrating by going to see a Disney movie this week.  Perhaps not exactly hardcore.  I have somehow avoided all knowledge of this movie and have no idea what it is for which I am letting myself in. Wait, “in” is still a preposition.  Well there goes that joke.

I have no idea what this movie is about.

I have no idea what this movie is about.

Then again, I’ve heard nothing but good things about Up.  Twitter just can’t stop twittering on about it, when it’s not busy bringing democracy to Iran.  The online petition has a successor.  Unless actual Iranians are tweeting.  In which case the online petition probably still has a successor.

Still though, it is exciting.  We live in the future.  If America with a capital A is right, and democracy is the future and the God-given right of every individual, or even just if the world is destined to forever be held within the sway of a classical Greek interpretation of appropriate relations between the individual and the state, it seems technology will be crucial.

Yup, technology.  Blogs, twitter, all that stuff.  When avenues of expression become so numerous that no state apparatus can control all of them, democracy becomes inevitable.  Or, at least, repression becomes considerably more difficult.  It doesn’t solve the issue of state control of education determining to a large extent the public’s appetite for reform and self-expression, but it doesn’t hurt.

Weekend confirmed.

Posted in Signs of life in the cultural wasteland | 2 Comments

Nerd up my education

By john | June 18, 2009

I recently returned to Texas from a trip in the Far East and have been trying to culturally readjust by playing as many video games as possible, reading horror stories and watching archetypal bad asses bad assing their asses off.

It’s great.

It’s also a chance to deepen my nerd credentials.  I’m not big on the idea of adopting a title as ‘nerd’ or ‘geek’ like some badge of honour; you only end up getting annoyed by enormous corporations run by people who abused you in secondary school with those titles anyway.  I do enjoy art, literature and to which ‘nerds’ are predisposed, however.  So I never say no to a chance to find more, even if I am a bit late to the party.

In the future, we all speak mongrel Mandarin-English and stand around posing. Constantly.

In the future, we all speak mongrel Mandarin-English and stand around posing. Constantly.

Enter Firefly.  I’ve never been a Joss Whedon guy.  I have no interest in Dollhouse, and I thought Buffy was rubbish.  Additionally, I’m not particularly comfortable with the minor cult of personality that sometimes gathers around these guys.  Some people are so completely misguided in their love of J.J. Abrams for example, that they will try and till you Mission Impossible III isn’t utterly awful.  However, the sheer awesomeness of Serenity, the rave reviews from everyone I know or have ever met who has seen the series, and the fact that a member of my family owns the boxed set make the idea of not watching it seem fairly silly.

So yay for me! I get to watch Firefly for the first time.  I’m ready to sit down with a cup of tea and get all cozy in a completely heterosexual manner with a certain Nathan Fillion.

The same Nathan Fillion has a major role in Halo: ODST by the way.  I love being a nerd.  Whatever that is.

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Witness my Fitness

By john | June 16, 2009

I thought of this video the other day. It is terrifying to think it is EIGHT years old now.

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Day Trip!!!

By john | May 18, 2009

Taipei Zoo cares about its English speaking patrons.

I think.

Posted in Truly Apocalyptic, World Traveller | 1 Comment

Every time I get out, they pull me back in.

By john | May 14, 2009

I’m back in. The vein is reopened. I know it’s wrong. I know I shouldn’t. I don’t have the time, and summer is almost here. But I did it anyway.

I reactivated my account for World of Warcraft.

Come on, if these guys are into it...

Come on, if these guys are into it...

The game scares people, but it really shouldn’t. For every lunatic or passive aggressive idiot that plays the game there are thousands who are very easygoing and eager to help people improve their playing experience. Of course, I have experience of the uglier side of the game. It’s always fascinated me that a short message via chat in a video game from someone I have never met and will never meet can still be irritating. Playing an online game can sometimes be a bit like being in a dynamic, active Internet forum. When you’re palling around with easygoing people it’s a nice experience, but sometimes a child, or childish adult, behaves inappropriately and considers it acceptable to freak out at someone who doesn’t do something the “correct” way (i.e. the way that person believes it should be done).

I enjoy the game for completely goofy reasons. I don’t particularly care if my character’s gear is low-spec, and I have little interest in grouping with anyone that is going to give me a hard time for not playing the game a very specific way. I like running my zombie priest around huge virtual cities and talking to computer generated characters, ignoring all the human controlled characters nearby. And there are A LOT of people playing this game.

That’s the beauty of it really. Do you realize how many podcasts specifically about World of Warcraft exist? The game has generated a whole community that gets together both inside and outside the game. It’s a bona fide massive hit with absolutely no sign of slowing down. Millions of people controlling elves, orcs, dwarves and humans in a video game. They are paying a monthly fee for the privilege to play that game.

The divide between “geeks” and the rest of society is gone, in case nobody had noticed. I wonder if those proud to identify as geeks can handle it? Wil Wheaton just the other day essentially posted a defence of his geek credentials after daring to appear in an ill-executed online video. Wheaton had to amend the post to clarify for some of his readers that his passionate defence did not represent an exclusive definition of “geek culture.” How many self-professed geeks can really handle it, though?

I have no idea where I would come into the argument for people who are concerned that “geek culture” is in danger of being exploited, as it’s highly likely I’m part of the problem. For now, though, I’m taking my zombie priest out for a spin.

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Two great reasons to spend your summer outdoors.

By john | May 13, 2009
Ok, ok. Rebooting the franchise WAS a good idea!

Ok, ok. Rebooting the franchise WAS a good idea!

Star Trek was intensely awesome. I had been pretty vocal about how little I thought of a Tiny Toons version of the Enterprise Crew, but JJ Abrams has proved me unequivocally WRONG. He’s a big fan of the blog, you know. He’s devastated at the toll my research trip has taken on my posts from the cultural apocalypse.

Incidentally, I’ve been meaning to write a page for this blog explaining what I mean by choosing the title of the cultural apocalypse. I’ve always put it off, because I don’t want to seem preachy. For now, though, I’ll define it simply: the cultural apocalypse represents, on a positive note, the erosion of concepts of ‘high art’ as the Internet and continued increases in education of the world’s general population brings notions of ‘popular culture’ and art together. There is a negative side to this, of course. The snobs looked down on popular culture because, well, popular culture produces a lot of inexplicably popular crap.

I give you Summer, 2009!!!!

Most. Pointless. Robot. Design. Ever.

Most. Pointless. Robot. Design. Ever.

What an absolute nightmare. Thank God for JJ Abrams, that’s all I’ll say. And it is all I’ll say; I still have no idea why people are still watching Lost, or why Fringe exists. Star Trek isn’t a fantastic film because Abrams reinvented anything. Abrams recognized what made the original films work and did his best to bring the cream to the surface. He did a great job. If only Terminator: Salvation showed anywhere near the same respect for its source material.

McG, director of said imminent monstrosity and whose real name is Joseph McGinty Nichol, has no talent whatsoever. Taking one of the coolest fictional universes in science fiction, making the robots bigger, and telling everyone who’ll listen that it will be just like The Dark Knight, is not a sign of creativity or even intelligence. Anyone could do that. Those of you who like things to go boom and crush without even the semblance of an attempt at some kind of interesting plot or well-crafted film, I beg you, go and watch Crank: High Voltage and leave my movies alone!

Which Megatron do you prefer? The haughty evil Decepticon leader, or the lazily conceived giant evil robot?

Which Megatron do you prefer? The haughty evil Decepticon leader, or the lazily conceived giant evil robot?

Then there’s Transformers 2. I’m still seeing a therapist to try and erase the memories of the uncomfortable things Michael Bay did to my childhood with the first iteration of his hideous mangling of a franchise with much potential. Now he’s back with more of his patented vehicle porn, John Turturro hasn’t grown a conscience, and we’re still being asked to treat a female character barely out of high school as a sex object.

Bumblebee is not a fucking Camaro.

Bumblebee is not a fucking Camaro.

PEOPLE ARE EXCITED ABOUT BOTH OF THESE MOVIES.

McGinty Nichol’s recent sophomoric comments about the relative merits of his and Michael Bay’s junk unwittingly highlight the biggest problem with these two hacks: ordinary people continue to reclaim high culture from the elite, but there remains such a thing as the lowest common denominator.

How does McG get offered these projects? My only answer is that he is probably fortunate enough to possess that talent so valued in the corporate world, namely the ability to convince people that he has talent and an industrious nature. Either that or Hollywood is run by overpaid morons. I’ll go for both. How else do you explain Gore Verbinski getting the green light to direct Bioshock?

It’s too much to deal with, really. I wish they’d just get McG, Michael Bay and Brett Ratner to collaborate on a project together so that human society would just implode already. The pain of waiting is what hurts the most.

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This blog is not dead!!!!!!!!

By john | May 6, 2009

1977-puff-the-cat-sleepingIt’s only sleeping.

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It’s lonely out in space. At least they don’t have movie trailers.

By john | April 20, 2009

Okay, so it’s been a while since I blogged, as things have gone a bit mental with work and stress. The killer with research is that the worst stress comes from panic over how much you are getting done. It’s very difficult to tell; you have no idea how much you will end up with, and have no idea how to compare that against how much you will actually need. Nobody tells you, because nobody knows.
Still, libraries and conversations with academics have become my daily routine at this point, interrupted now by a stuffy nose and a sore head. I’m sick, just in time for my trip to Japan tomorrow! What joy.

Anyway… I’m still happy enough with the decision to convert the blog into a temporary travel journal while I’m away, but today I want to return to one of my usual blog topics: an utterly biased and personal opinion of a movie trailer.

I'm in space? With Kevin Spacey? Dude.....

I'm in space? With Kevin Spacey? Dude.....

Ok. I love Sam Rockwell. I love movies about space, and computers, and people who look like Ben Gunn. These space-mariners always get a haircut fairly early in the film, but what are you going to do?  In short, I love this film already, presumably to the point that I will be far too forgiving of its flaws. Sunshine was disjointed beyond belief and I loved that. I have no problem with the film at all, in fact, and I’m delighted it’s coming out. My big problem is with the trailer.

Why do the studios do this? Do they really think giving away a major turning point in the film, which more or less gives away to the audience the central plot of the whole thing, is going to get more people to come and watch it? Ask Leonard Nimoy and Harve Bennett about the trailer for Star Trek III. Think about how fantastic it would have been to watch Terminator 2 for the first time not having had the major twist at the start completely spoiled.

I’m so sick of people being treated like morons. I suppose we keep giving them grounds for that opinion.

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