Still, it was sad when Robin Gibb passed away recently. Thing with the Bee Gees is, you can't say they didn't know how to write songs. All kinds of songs. Even disco songs, for quite a while.

I can't pretend I was particularly moved by his passing. I didn't know the man. But I'm grateful to him and his brothers for this classic memory. I have no idea why it stuck, but I distinctly remember this exact performance.

It’s hardcore. “Some men are coming to kill us” Bond says. “We’re going to kill them first.”

People on the Internet are excited. I’ve seen the sentiment around that the old Bond films are back.

WHAT old Bond films? Roger Moore making crude jokes? Sean Connery playing Sean Connery in a film about Sean Connery kicking ass? Pierce Brosnan running around being handsome?

I’m sorry, I’ve never understood the Bond movies. So, really, I’m happy to accept them as one of these aspects of the modern cultural experience that just isn’t going to include me. This isn’t a “you like Bond, you must suck LOL” post. I’m an adult. People like stuff I don’t like. Crucially, I like stuff other people don’t like. I just… I just don’t get it. After all, isn’t unsolicited venting what blogs are all about?

I thought Casino Royale was astonishingly boring, not to mention vapid. Thing is… I really liked the trailer. Quantum of Solace looked great but I didn’t even bother going to watch it. The Bond films have taken on a much grittier veneer since they cast Daniel Craig as the lead, and it seems so cool. More sophisticated, darker plotlines and the potential for Cold War era-style intrigue and bad guys got me interested. Could this be it? Could this be the first time I actually start watching and liking Bond movies?

Then I see the movies. And it’s the same old drivel. Bond’s supposed burnt out cynicism is remarkably shallow. The love affair from Casino Royale that’s supposed to inform everything was rubbish. Two attractive adults who enjoyed a few shags suddenly just declared as the emotional context and motivation for a character for the next few motion pictures. It’s all about some weird kind of English proto-nationalism that fits American stereotypes of how English people view their country more than anything else, with amazing actors trudging through weak material.

I don’t know. What can I say? Bond movies leave me cold. It just makes no sense to me. A dude in a suit walking around shooting stuff and looking cool (something at which Daniel Craig is eminently qualified) screams awesomeness to me, despite the Union Jack being everywhere.* The “sex” is always incredibly cheesy. I’m always a little embarrassed by Bond movies. “Look! Pretty people are giving each other sexy eyes! Let’s WATCH.” I’ll be honest, sex on screen isn’t a big thing for me, but the weird Bond version of it is even more infuriating than usual. The sex he has is always so weird as well, so clean and reminiscent of a music video, more than anything else. Maybe that’s where the timeless aspect of the franchise’s appeal comes in. The sex must be a gift from heaven for the average thirteen year old, and if you see this film with your parents as an adult, when the sex scene you somehow forgot would be in there turns up on schedule, you can feel embarrassed, rediscovering that golden period of your youth when you constantly felt awkward as everyone in the room pretends they’re not there until Craig has stopped grunting his way through a fairly uninspired coupling. Can’t Bond NOT have sex, like, in one of these films?

*It’s a tired reference, but the Union Jack really does evoke a Pavlovian response within me. My concentration on any piece of film or television is rudely interrupted whenever it shows up.

To be fair, that’s part of the formula of course. Bond does have to have sex. And he has to say “Bond. James Bond.”* And he has to… well, do stuff that Bond does. This includes being smooth and tough at the same time. A murderer who drinks a martini. Actually, I’m confused. It seems in recent Bond films going back to License to Kill (and I confess, not being a big fan I am missing movies here and could well stand corrected) there’s been this idea that Bond is in some ways a monster but a monster on the right side, yes? Basically, he does horrible things but they need to be done. Is there commentary here on our society, on the price of freedom?

*The Bond, James Bond thing is cool. No argument there.

Well, I’m not sure, and to be frank if that’s an angle they’re pursuing, I don’t think they’re doing a particularly good job. “We’re going to kill them first.” Daniel Craig looks so cool when he says that, looking off to one side. Incidentally, try that some time, in real life. Just say something a little more slowly than usual and emphasize the more clipped sounds of your own particular accent. Everyone will be impressed. Daniel Craig does a great job with it. I just wish he was in some other movie. The Bond film will have trains/subway cars flying through walls and a trip to China because of the money being invested by Chinese people and a bad guy who will hopefully not be rubbish, but it will be… okay. Not once will there be a moment anywhere near as wonderful as five or six moments from the recent Avengers film, and I spent most of that film laughing. Bond films, to me, are more about how the fans process them. It’s like they fill in the gaps and assume there’s a better movie than there is. Maybe they work best as a bridge to your youth, or something. I didn’t like Bond films as a child and I don’t like them now. I could be missing out I suppose. Though I doubt it.

Such great trailers though. I would happily watch a full feature film of Michael Gambon as a spymaster who swears prodigiously.

He’s a special person. He’s an inspiring person. He made me think again about writing, about expressing myself. He helped me take another look at what being creative means. Pro tip: it means having fun using your imagination.

He had been in pain for a while but we all just shrugged it off. He was in pain but he didn’t have health insurance. So he didn’t see anyone about it. That’s the America we live in. When the pain finally became too much he saw a professional. Now there’s a cancer trying to eat him from the inside.

I’m numb. I’m angry, but I’m numb. I’m upset, but I’m numb. I want to cry from now until I’m out of tears but I’m numb. I believe he’s going to be ok. I know he’s going to be ok.

But it’s going to be a tough road, for him and for people who care about him. This is the price we are paying for a pathetically sub-par healthcare system, a system based on profit and not on people. I don’t care if you’re conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, you need to think about health care and what it means.

My friend wasn’t lazy. He wasn’t careless. He couldn’t get a job that would provide insurance, and he couldn’t afford to pay for medical care without insurance. Now he’s very sick. This isn’t right. It has to change.

I've been thinking for a while about how to get back to writing here regularly. I think I'll go with more mini-updates, like this one here. Also some tried and true topics.

The Rocky movies.

A bit of sport here and there.

Complaining.

Just, you know: complaining. Like, complaining in general. The funny thing is, I write for a living and I write more of my own stuff when I blog, so really, I should be blogging.

It's a weird thing, this thing I write for an audience of pretty much nobody. I get enjoyment from it, and venting about McG and other profane evils of this planet on which we live help get me through the day. I think it's time for my annual rewatching of the Rocky films and some commentary on Adrian's hat.

McG. DIRECTING.

Today there is one thing in particular that bums me out. Casting of leads in movies that are otherwise interesting being driven by marketing and synergy and greed, collectively known as “buzz” rather than casting these actors being driven by the idea that the film could do with someone who can act. I will probably never watch In Time, because let’s be honest, who cares? Amanda Seyfried? Justin Timberlake? Dear God. Timberlake had me fooled actually, but he’s pretty limited. Like, they’ll probably start putting him in movies with Sam Worthington soon to make the Australian actor look talented by comparison. Whoa. I mean, even Cillian Murphy surely being great can’t get me interested in that film.

I’d like to rephrase that: the director who made Gattaca and The Truman Show, not classics but totally worthwhile and really interesting sci-fi films both, made a film that essentially functions as an homage to Logan’s Run and I don’t want to watch it. That’s how utterly dispiriting it is to me that they chose cardboard “star” actors as the leads. Pretty grim.

And now... I never thought I’d live to see the words Robert Pattinson and David Cronenberg in the same sentence, but here we are. I had been completely unaware of this film until today. Now maybe, just maybe, they are going to get away with this by actually taking advantage of Pattinson’s inability to act in any kind of convincing manner to go for an off-beat vibe. You know, challenging the audience with a story that won’t simply conform to standard genre expectations and a lead actor who is really terrible? But still... Robert Pattinson?

Let’s get something straight here; I am under no illusion that I know as much about film-making as David Cronenberg. I’m speaking as a layman here. I can’t stand this, though. Pattinson? It’s a joke. The whole thing reeks of the movie looking for funding, Pattinson’s agent working the “he needs something edgy after the pedophilic vampire series” angle and getting him into the film cheap and mucking up some publicity. It has nothing to do with the film being good. Cronenberg can make it work, I assume, but what if he can’t? Ok, it won’t be a tragedy or anything, but I’d rather have a Cronenberg movie I liked than one I thought was ok except for the 85% of the running time that featured a borderline unwatchable actor.

What’s next, taking a really interesting take on a classic faery tale that apparently features a knock-out performance from a talented actress and put Kristen Stewart in it?

Nuts.

Neeson could just reprise his Rob Roy character throughout the film. It wouldn't make any difference.

Let's stop for a second and pretend we don't live in a world that sucks. These cretins who make decisions regarding "summer blockbusters" aren't stupid. They're lazy. Listen, trust me, I am no art house snob, at all. My favourite films are decidedly low brow in the main. I liked the last Die Hard film (though, again: it could have been a lot better). I have no problem with big, fun films. This is pushing it. The whole logic for pushing Battleship is that there is a market already there and so the marketing will have a head-start and the film will thus make tons and tons of money. Setting aside for a moment the rather questionable appeal of a "brand" based on a boardgame most people associate with a rainy weekend in the 1970s, let's assume these people are right. Let's assume that the Transformers movies had a huge head-start thanks to their brand.

It begs the question: Why didn't they make good movies, then? If the audience was there, wasn't it a golden opportunity to make good action films that would also make money? Might not the films have made MORE money if they didn't suck? Don't these people, as artists, have any kind of personal obligation to actually trying to entertain, rather than just fooling us to walk in the door and spend a couple of hours of our lives sitting in the dark. I know there are people who just need "something to do" on a Saturday evening but the vast majority of people would like that "something" to actually be entertaining.

I'm not talking about the bankers here, I'm talking about people like Michael Bay. Bad Boys was a bit of fun. Not Shakespeare, but nowhere near the horrifying depths of Transformers 3, where nothing much happens except that Michael Bay's avatar gets worried about Patrick Dempsey shagging his impossible-looking girlfriend while things nearby explode. I suppose he does elbow in weird and highly insensitive Arab-bashing scenarios, so there's that. He's political, I guess. In a racist sort of way.

What about John Turturro? Frances McDormand? I'd like to see you try and argue that John Malkovich has any kind of credibility now. I'm sorry, you can say "hey, it's a pay cheque" but let's get serious about this: they're selling their dignity for cash. I don't think we should be okay with that because they're actors.

Imagine, just for a moment, Transformers movies that don't suck. Live action films with Transformers that don't like weird creepy insects and aren't defined by that sound effect. Imagine Optimus Prime and Bumblebee with actual personalities and not just broad stereotypes that the film-makers are too lazy to flesh out beyond "you should respect this character because he is wise" and "feel bad now that this character got hurt because... just do!" Imagine storylines that weren't crap, that didn't suddenly follow that untalented fool Shiny Beef through college or through his rather intensely chauvinist sexual panic. Imagine a REAL science fiction story that was interesting and compelling.

Then imagine, a couple of years after the main story finished, a spin-off sequel. The Marvel films have been handling this fairly well, so far. It can be done.

I guess they don't make as much money though. Prometheus should be wonderful, will probably be my favourite film I see in the cinema this year (I hope). It won't make anywhere near the coin of some of the crap on offer though. Well, maybe Battleship will flop. We can only hope.

I'm playing a role-playing game tomorrow.

Not a role-playing video game. A role-playing game. Involving dice. Possibly involving miniatures, and perhaps even a wipe-away grid mat.

I'm pretty excited. It's been far too long. Truth be told, I don't have a lot of experience, but the last time I was in a role-playing group, it was a lot of fun. Beer, rock music and some very light-hearted encounters involving a demon called Alan.

That was D&D 4.0, though. We're going for something a little different this weekend.

 I am unclear as to whether there will be fire-breathing winged horses involved.
I've never played any tabletop wargame, and I probably never will. It's too expensive in terms of time and money. I love the overall setting for the Warhammer universes though. I am particularly partial to the 40k setting, but our GM is familiar with Warhammer role-playing and that's what we're going to do.

I'm looking forward to it. Warming up the percentile dice. Warhammer 1.0/2.0 seems to have a pretty nifty career system. I'm going to miss the video-game style action of D&D 4.0, but this should be a lot of fun.

Also, wizards.

A lot of my writing right now is

a) not happening

b) academic (i.e. not really appropriate for a blog)

c) aimed at publication

d) not happening; this is worth mentioning twice

It's time to kick-start it back a bit, and Wednesday afternoons MIGHT just be the time to do that, but in the meantime, if anyone still has this on their RSS feed, I apologize that it just comes up as "Blog" in Google Reader. I need to look into that.

Wait! That wasn't my announcement at all. I wrote another post for Forever Young Adult, and if you've wandered to this blog and don't know what that site is, you should check it out. It's good. I wrote a review of the recent film adaptation of Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games. So go there and read it, and then come back here.

Devin pens a rather wonderful to Chris Klein and his acting here. You should read it.